Submitted to the Ohio part of the USGenWeb Archives by
Terry Erwin
MakeTrees2@aol.com

    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, IA.
HISTORY OF THE FAMILY OF DAVID DAWSON CHRISTY

The earliest records of the Christy family point toward possible origins in
the so-called Scotch-Irish immigrants, actually lowland Scots who had originally
been tenant farmers in 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 (see map, facing page).

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 in
1837 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 various
other relatives are listed; in her household were in-laws Jane and Matsey as
well 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 this
part 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 counted
among the members of the Jasper Township militia in 1847 and 1848.By 1860, John and
David 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 hundred
gross.

Mother I would like to see you and spend a few pleasant days with you but we
are 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.

                                   D. D. Christy

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, IA.