Individual Details

By Jon Egge

Abraham, the youngest grandson

Abraham, the youngest male line grandson in the family almost made it to the 1850 Census, dying on October 29, 1845 in Pike Co., OH where he and four or five of his siblings had settled from their migration from Allegany Co., MD, where he was probably born. The last son of Thomas Chenoweth and Mary Prickett, Abraham, the first in the family so named, was probably named for his uncle, Abraham Prickett, who lived on adjoining property to Thomas, where the family had made their first home on Back Creek in Frederick Co., VA. Thomas and Mary appear to have moved down the Potomac to the Old Towne area, in what became Allegany Co., MD before Abraham was born. He married Rebecca Kerr in Mason Co., KY where his mother and sibling families had migrated during their move to Ohio after the death of Thomas. Abraham built a boarded log house on his property about 3/4 of a mile from present day Piketon. A cemetery remains today in the orchard on property where both he and Rebecca were buried, though only the location of Rebecca's grave remains marked. This home had served as a place of early church services when the area was in its early development. Abraham wrote his will in May of 1845, five months before his death, at the age of 75, a widower and father of 14 children all of whom married and evenly divided among sons and daughters. At that time twelve of these children were still living and nine of these lived in the Scioto Valley area. Sons, John and Jacob, had moved to Darke Co., OH on the border with Indiana. Son, Noah, was living in Logan Co., IL. Nancy Johnston, the widow of his son William had taken her children to Warren Co., IN. Abraham's son, Joel documented the genealogy of this family some 30 years later from the plains of Iowa. In all 20 families of this young line of Abraham's are to be found living in the 1850 Census, living in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.

Today we have descendants from six of the seven sons and two of the 7 daughters. Martha, the oldest, married William Hackney and had two daughters who had died in infancy before Martha herself died a young wife. Ann married James Moore but had no children. Sarah, single at her father's death, married Joseph Moore late in life and is said to have had a son who must have died young. Susannah married late in life too, just before her father's death, to John Russell Turner, and had no children. The lines of the other three daughters: Mary, Hannah and Rebecca all need development. Mary married James R. Hibben and I have heard from three of her descendants. Hannah married Thomas Blackstone and three of her children are found in the 1880 Census in Iowa and Kansas. We presently lack information on the Blackstone daughters. (Note: in October 2006, after I had written this article, Thomas Charles Blackstone, a descendant, contacted me and extended for me the lines of one of the sons, Abraham Blackstone, to present day.) Rebecca married William Reed and two families of her sons are found still in Ohio in the 1880 Census.

Of the sons, Gideon, the youngest son, married Maria Millar, but never had children. John and Jacob founded strong families in Darke Co., OH with 18 children between them. Jacob had married Sally Foster, the niece of two of Jacob's aunts, Cassandra and Rachel Foster, who had married his uncles Thomas, Jr and Elijah. Two sons of Thomas, Jr also moved to this Darke Co. area. Jacob's son, Abraham J. Chenoweth, would marry Susan Harris in Randolph Co., IN. They moved to Iowa and then Kansas where Abraham, using a typewriter, would correspond with Chenoweths around the country, taking up the mantle of this pursuit of family genealogy that his uncle, Joel, had begun. John married Mary Barger. Their son, Abraham John Chenoweth, married Celia Harris in 1848, a sister of Susan and remained in Randolph Co., IN where they had married. This was the same area where so many Chenoweths in the Maryland line of Cora Hiatt settled in the 1840s. Noah had married Elizabeth Ann Wiley in Pike Co., in 1833 and moved to Logan Co., IL just before 1840. Joel married three times, moving to Logan Co., IL in the late 1840s where his brother, Noah, lived, and then on to Iowa where his wife Harriett McNatton died in 1853 in Louise Co. Left with eight children, Joel traveled back to Pike Co. to marry Mary Vinson Chenoweth, the widow of his cousin, Reason Shriver Chenoweth. He brought Mary and her younger children to Iowa where they are found living in the 1860 Census. Mary died there a year later and Joel then married his third wife, Mrs Naomi Fowler. William had died at the age of 40 in Louisville, KY while returning from a marketing trip to New Orleans. His widow, Nancy Johnston moved her family to Warren Co., IN after his death. Abraham, Jr stayed in Pike Co. marrying in 1835. He and his wife, Irene Jemima Blackstone, had thirteen children, six of whom married. He outlived all his brothers and is buried in Evergreen Union cemetery, Waverly, OH with Jemima.

Birth	25 Jan 1770	present day, Allegany, Maryland, British America
Marriage	26 May 1790	Mason, Kentucky, United States - Rebecca Kerr
Death	29 Oct 1845	Pike, Ohio, United States

Spouse

Rebecca Kerr (1773 - 1831)

Father	Thomas Chenoweth (1720 - 1778)
Mother	Mary Prickett (1723 - 1790)