BIOGRAPHY INDEX
WILLIAM D. BALDWIN DAVID CHRISTY JOHN N. DEMSEY IRA J. GRAHAM JOSEPH HIDYELIJAH MILLS
HOME
Fayette County OHGenWeb
Part of the USGenWeb Project
ELIJAH MILLS
HOME
David Dawson Christy
David Dawson Christy was born on 22 Feb 1824 in Fayette Co., Ohio. He was blessed in 1848 in 1st marriage to Rhoda Gallimore. He died on 17 Mar 1906 in Sioux Rapids, Iowa.
HISTORY OF THE FAMILY OF DAVID DAWSON CHRISTY
The earliest
records of the so-called Scotch-Irish immigrants, actually lowland
Scots who had
originally been tenant farmersin Northern Ireland from about 1610 to
the early
1700s. Robert Christy of Chester County, Pennsylvania was among those
settlers
who came to Pennsylvania around 1720. It is fairly certain
that
Robert's son
Samuel Christy, born in 1721, is the same Samuel Christy who was the
father of Ebenezer Christy by his second wife Sarah Campbell.
Robert
Christy, one of Samuel's sons from his first marriage, listed his
birthplace as
Pennsylvania, as did his brother John and their half-brother Samuel
(Jr.); Ebenezer
was born in 1783 in Virginia so it is likely that the family moved
sometime between 1780
and 1783 to Berkeley County, now in West Virginia. The family
remained in
the area even after the elder Samuel and his wife died in 1804, on a
place west of Martinsburg
on Tuscarora Creek.
Robert and many of
the other Christys never left virginia.
However in 1818 Ebenezer Christy married Rachel Dawson and soon
afterward moved to
Fayette County in west central Ohio, not far from the newly
commissioned
National Road that ran from Baltimore, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois
on roughly the
same route as present-day U.S. 40. These frontier lands had
only
recently been vacated by unknown Native Americans who, upon seeing the
influx of settlers,
thought it prudent to move on. Ebenezer's brothers Samuel and
Marshall, and half-brother John moved to Ohio at around the same
time. Samuel H.
Christy, Ebenezer and Rachel's firstborn, was born in September 1819;
Ebenezer and John were
the first schoolteachers in Green and Perry townships that winter.
Ebenezer
taught for those first years in the "subscription school", so-called
because the teacher's salary was raised by contributions from
the pupils' families. It is said that Ebenezer was a good
teacher
-- when he was sober!
It apparently was not altogether uncommon for the
schoolmasters to discreetly slip outside for a nip now and then and to
return smiling to the
classroom. The schoolhouses were crude log buildings with rough-hewn
wood floors
and
benches. The windows were placed wherever there
were gaps between the logs too big to chink, covered over with greased
paper to keep out the elements but
which let in enough light for the students to do their work.
Another
Ebenezer Christy, one of the Indiana Christy relatives, discovered many
years later a mathematics book that Ebenezer had handwritten in 1833
for his use in
instructing the children; he attributed its authorship to his
own father
Samuel Henry, though he would have been only 14 in that year.
The
earliest federal census of Ohio in 1820 lists John and Ebenezer in the
same part of Fayette County along with other families that had migrated
from Berkeley County. The Creamers and Carrs both married
into the
Christy family; the Gallimores who had come from North Carolina were
also nearby, and some
of the members of that family accompanied Ebenezer's son David to Clay
County,
Iowa a few decades later. They lived in Jasper Township near
a
village which at the time was called Southe Plymouth but now is listed
on maps as
Milledgeville.
John and his wife Mary (Dawson) Christy had seven children: Robert,
Andrew, David Dawson (born in Ohio in 1824 and a double cousin to our
David
Dawson Christy), Mary Ann, Rachel Ann, Sarah Ann and John
Marshall.
Many of their names were the same as some of Ebenezer and Rachel
(Dawson) Christy's
children:
Samuel Henry St. George Christy, b. 11 Sep 1819, d. 24 Mar 1904
John Marshall Christy, b. 04 Nov 1821, d. 17 Apr 1904
David Dawson Christy, b. 22 Feb 1824, d. 17 Mar 1906
Sarah Ann Christy, b. 25 Jan 1826 (married Mallow Carr)
Elizabeth Marshall Christy, b. 16 Feb 1828
Rachel Dawson Christy, b. 23 Nov 1830 (married David Jaxon Creamer)
Ebenezer William Christy, b. 05 Jul 1833
Robert Milton Christy, b. 03 Sep 1836
John M. and David were later to move to Indiana where John married Amanda Tudor; later, other family members joined them (their mother Rachel was widowed in1837 and in the 1860s moved to a cabin built on Tudor land in Tipton County,Indiana). Ebenezer was shown in the 1830 census but was of course absent from the 1840 record; Rachel was listed as a head of household alongside Samuel and Marshall"Crysty" in 1840. In the 1850 census Rachel's children and variousother relatives are listed; in her household were in-laws Jane and Matsey aswell as Ebenezer W., John M. and Robert M. David and Rhoda (Gallimore) Christy are there with daughter Mary, living near elder brother Samuel H. and Lydia (Gallimore) Christy and his family. All told, the Christys remained in thispart of Ohio for 30 to 40 years. An "M. Christie", possibly Marshall, is listed among Fayette County veterans of the war of 1812 (though it is not certain he lived in Ohio at the time of the war) and both David and John are countedamong the members of the Jasper Township militia in 1847 and 1848.By 1860, John andDavid had moved
on to Clinton County, Indiana. David's wife Rhoda had
died in 1857 along with her infant son Isaac, and David lived with his
daughters Mary and Martha in the same household as John, Amanda, Jesse
and
Rachel. The
Thomas Pucket family lived in the same township and in 1862 David
married Thomas' daughter Martha Jane. David's family, the Puckets and
the
Gallimores all moved to western Iowa shortly thereafter and were again
on the edge
of the
frontier where there were few people and even fewer homes between their
Clay County settlement and Fort Dodge, the nearest outpost of
civilization. In December 1864 David wrote the following
letter to his mother, by that time living in Indiana:
Dear Mother:
I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines to let you know where I am and how I am getting along. We are all well and at present I truly hope these lines will reach and find you well and doing well. Mother I have bought a farm of 240 acres, with it a cabin and 20 acres in cultivation. I have four cows and six calves and two horses. I have about one hundred bushels of wheat and about the same in corn. Things are very high here. Flour is five dollars per hundred. Corn one dollar per bushel. Potatoes one dollar a bushel. Butter from twenty five to thirty cents per pound. Pork went off at eight dollars per hundredgross. Mother I would like to see you and spend a few pleasant days with you but weare separated so far apart that I fear we will never see each other any more, but if we should not, let us try to live so as to meet in another and happier world than this where parting shall be no more.
Mother I must tell you that I have a big girl or rather Martha Jane my wife had it. Its name is Lydia Alice and it was born 25 Nov. 1864. Well I must close with these remarks by requesting you write soon. Mother tell Rachel Creamer that I want her to write to me. I would write some to her but I have nothing of
importance to write so farewell. In 1870 there is no mention of Lydia but Benjamin and Rhoda E. are listed, and the other children were born in succeeding years -- Laban, Ira, David and John. Daughters Mary and Martha had married and were in Clay County in 1870 but later removed to Yates Center, Kansas with their husbands. (Other relatives of the Christy family also lived there: Jim and Elmeda (Christy) RIcketts.)
David owned land in Clay and Buena Vista counties, and both Benjamin and Rhoda married into the Hollingsworth family of Sioux Rapids. Ira married Emma Gallimore -- the Gallimore family had traveled from Fayette County to Clinton County, Indiana and to Clay County along with the Christys. As David got on in years, parcels of the land were sold off -- one of which was still in the possession of the
Torkelson family as late as 1970, in Buena Vista County.
David's children went far and wide -- Benjamin after several moves ended up in eastern Colorado, Rhoda likewise. David E. relocated to Potter County (SD) and later to Milton Junction, Wisconsin; Ira to a farm near St. Paul, MN and John was a barber for many years in Owatonna. Martha died in 1903 and David visited his sons during his latter years. My grandfather Loren's only recollection of him was from a visit David made to Benjamin's farm in Clark County, SD -- he didn't say much, only walked around outside, shook his head (not sure if in approval or disdain) and then traveled on. David passed on while staying at son David E.'s home in Lebanon, Potter County, SD; he and Martha rest in the Lone Tree Cemetery just south of Sioux Rapids, Iowa.
Submitted to the Ohio part of the USGenWeb Archives by Terry Erwin