August 1804: Death of Joseph Case, leaving his wife Lydia with his ten children, some of whom were old enough to take care of themselves. The youngest, James, was ten at the time, They continued living in Ohio as far as I know, and James married Hannah Wiard in Harpersfield. The next time I hear of James, he is working on the Pawnee Indian Reservation in Nebraska Territory. He went there with one of the Presbyterian missionaries who was going to visit the Otoes, a part of the Council Bluffs Indian Agency responsibility.
James and his two sons are shown as working with the Pawnees, Aaron as a blacksmith, Solomon (age 15) as an interpreter, and James as a farmer, from 1835 until 1847. These jobs were not continuous, and they worked with the Otoes, too, further north for awhile. I hope to get into more detail of their life on the Res, but due to research limitations, I'm afraid that's it for the Res.
James and Solomon traveled on to Utah in 1847 in separate Mormon parties and Aaron stayed behind. You can read about James trip to the Rocky Mountains in a humorous piece at frontiertales.com, Issue #8, May 2010.
This concludes for now the 'traveling to the West" posts, but the end of the story is yet to come as more and more people keep traveling to the West to settle down and make homes for their families as James and his father and grandfather did. The pioneers were a tough and hardy people to cut through the forest, fight off the Indians, and build their cabins all in the name of cheap land and freedom for freedom's sake.
These sound like characters out of Lonesome Dove
ReplyDeleteI often read in fiction of characters who have lost one or both parents at an early age and must make their own way in the world. It seems like a convention of storytelling, but it was probably a lot more common than we imagine...Charles, is right. LONESOME DOVE.
ReplyDeleteThey would be proud to have been thought of as characters from Lonesome Dove.
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