Sarah Jane Farmer married David Ellis of Hampshire County, Virginia. He was from a Welsh Quaker family, originally from Wales, that settled in the Pennsylvania colony in an area near Philadelphia known as the "Welsh Tract." David had been married before; his first wife Nancy Hedrick died after bringing a total of six children into the world. Perhaps David needed help with the children. At any rate, he married Sarah on October 2, 1828. She was 23; he was 46.
Together, Sarah and David produced nine known children to
the family grouping: Susan Frances Ellis; Samuel George Ellis; Alice Catherine
Ellis; Ellis Ebenezer Ellis; Townsend Thomas Ellis; Hiram Lee Ellis; Sarah
Caroline Ellis; and Henry Clay Ellis. The older children were born
in Hampshire County, but some of the younger children -- including my
3rd great-grandmother Sarah
Caroline -- were born in Allegany County,
Maryland. The family moved from the Maryland mountains to Iowa in the later
1840's. It's clear that David had little hesitation about uprooting his family -- first a short move from Virginia over the border to a neighboring county in Maryland, later a long move to Iowa -- for what might offer better opportunities for himself and his children.
How Sarah felt about having to leave behind family and friends is unclear, but she apparently had a bit of spunk and a taste for adventure. She is a woman who fascinates me because of her story.
After David's death at age 70 in Mahaska County,
Iowa, Sarah
Jane Farmer Ellis was
named guardian of the minor children, but was also left a widow at age 47. Within a couple of years, this widow
decided to hitch up the oxen to her wagon, gather up her unmarried and
married children, their spouses and children, and join a wagon train traveling
along the Oregon Trail to Oregon and Washington. The wagon train leader was an
Iowa neighbor, John Knox Kennedy, and thus the wagon train is referred to as
the Kennedy Wagon Train. A recent book has been published on the journey and it
can be ordered at www.kennedytrain.com. Unlike most wagon trains, the Kennedy train achieved a certain notariety because it took justice into its own hands and executed men who were alleged to have committed a murder (that occurred before the Kennedy wagon train arrived at the gravesite). After a posse from the Kennedy group rode ahead and caught up to the men, the wagon train's leader convened a court, there was a summary trial, and the men were executed. At the time, the process for dealing with such crimes along the Oregon Trail would ordinarily have been to take the alleged criminals into custody and transport them to the nearest cavalry outpost.
