Thomas Mason Morris (1782 – 1833)

A badly damaged page of a family Bible appears to give his name as “Thomas Mason Morris” but there is no indication in other records that he had a middle name.

According to the Bible  he  was born on 29 January 1782 and “was a native of Charles County, Maryland” according to a newspaper announcement of his death,1  The notice of his death on 23 February 1833 further states that he “had been a resident of Loudoun (County) for the last 26 years.”  This suggests that he arrived in Loudoun County, Virginia about 1807 when he was 25 years of age.

Speculation about his origins in Charles County, Maryland is in the linked file.

The earliest record of him in Loudoun County, Virginia  is his witness to a bill of sale on 1 August 1809.2   Two years later on 1 April 1811 he witnessed a deed.3  The 1810 census, like all enumerations before 1850, listed only the heads of households and, since Thomas Morris was not yet among them, it is unknown where and with whom he was living.  It was probably somewhere in the general vicinity of Purcellville, as his future wife’s father lived on land adjoining the “main road” somewhere just east of that village.4

Married by early 1812 to Mary Willett

The Morris Family Bible records the marriage of Thomas Morris to Mary Willett (1786-1823) on 3 March, the year blurred but presumably 1811 or 1812.  Mary, whose birthdate is recorded in the Bible as 2 April 1786, was the daughter of Richard Willett and Keziah Wynn, who had lived in Loudoun County continuously from 1786 through late 1811 or early 1812.5  However, Richard Willett was in Culpeper County when he wrote his will on 29 October 1812, naming among his many children a Mary Morris.6  The Willetts had previously lived in adjacent Frederick County, Maryland where the christening of “Marie” Willett, daughter of Richard and Keziah, was recorded on 2 December 1786.7

Mary Willet bore seven children before dying, evidently in childbirth, on 3 April 1823.  Only three of the children, all daughters, survived to reach adulthood.   Those daughters were legatees in Mary’s stead of the estate of her older brother Aquilla Willett, who had died intestate and without issue of his own in 1823.  When part of his estate was distributed among his siblings in 1827, $500 was split by two legatees listed as “Richard Tavener and Thomas Morris guardian.”8  The final settlement of his estate was recorded late in 1836 after Thomas Morris’s death. Each legatee was due $389.82 and the balance of $139.82 due to Mary’s children was paid in June 1835 to “John Hessee(sic), guardian of your children”.9

Settles in Purcellville

Thomas Morris does not appear as a taxable in Loudoun County through 1812, the last tax list checked, but within a few years of marrying Mary Willett he settled a few miles west of Leesburg.  He witnessed a mortgage deed by Merritt Tarleton of Leesburg in early 1819.10 and it was presumably him who had letters waiting to be claimed at the Leesburg post office in 1818 and 1819.11

He was renting property at this time.  When William Beans, who lived near Purcellville, made his will on 19 August 1817, he devised to his daughter Rebecca the sum of £100 and “the use of the lot of one acre and the house etc. now occupied by Thomas Morris.”12  Three years later Thomas Morris purchased an acre nearby from Noah Hatcher, a son-in-law of William Beans.  On 25 March 1820 he spent $100 to buy one acre of a large tract owned by Noah Hatcher located on the main road in the as yet unnamed village of Purcellville, about nine or so miles west of Leesburg and about five miles east of the border with Frederick County (now Jefferson County, West Virginia).13

He set up a tailor shop on the property and lived there until his death in 1833.  An account current for the estate of George Walters filed in 1816 had included a payment of 16½ cents to “Thomas Morris cutting coat of bound boy.”14  Another estate account filed in 1835 listed among the debits of Samuel Purcell a $4 bill from “Thomas Morris for making Hester Purcell’s coat.”15 When his property was later sold (see below) it was described as including a separate tailor’s shop.

The 1820 census found him heading a household of three females under the age of ten,  he and his wife both aged 26-45.1617

Purcellville

In 1822 a post office was established at the store of Valentine Purcell less than a half mile from the Morris property, recognizing that a village was growing around the store.  The main road, part of the Turnpike system since 1785, was the main route from Alexandria to Winchester. Stacey Taylor, Morris’s next-door neighbor had opened the area’s second ordinary on the road in 1804.  After the road was improved and opened as a Turnpike in 1835 the village grew.  Initially called Sewertown by some residents, it adopted the far more appealing name of Purcellville in 1853 and was incorporated in its present form in 1908.

Second Marriage to Nancy Hesser

When his first wife died, evidently in childbirth, Thomas Morris was left with a five small children — a newborn, a one-year old, and three daughters under the age of nine.  No wonder that he married again just six months later, this time to a woman nearing thirty named Nancy Hesser, who was raising a young daughter of her own.  Their marriage record is missing from Loudoun marriage bonds, but was recorded in the family Bible on 28 September 1823.  Nancy was the daughter of Andrew Hesser and his wife Hannah Warner.  On 11 February 1828 a lawsuit by the heirs of Andrew Hesser listed Nancy Morris, wife of Thomas Morris, among his children.18   Although Andrew Hesser had died in 1805 when Nancy was quite young, the division of his land was delayed until the death of his widow Hannah.  On 14 April 1829 Nancy and Thomas Morris sold their interest in the real estate of her father Andrew Hesser to her brother John Hesser.19

Nancy Hesser seems to have had a distinct independent streak. The county sheriff wrote in 1828 that he notified all the heirs of Andrew Hesser about the lawsuit “except Nancy Morris who refused to hear it.”  She also made purchases at estate sales in her own name, uncommon for married women at that time.  And she had an illegitimate daughter named Castara, who was four years old when she married Thomas Morris.  Nancy recorded Castara’s birth as 1 March 1819 in the Morris family Bible.

By the time of 1830 census,  only four of Thomas Morris’s ten children had survived.  Four of them, all under the age of 8, died in a three week period in the summer of 1827.  Cholera was a common killer of children and some adults at the time, but the Alexandria and Washington DC newspapers of 1827 do not mention any unusual disease epidemics.

Thomas Morris was enumerated in 1830 heading a household of one male under 5, three females aged 10-15, one female aged 15-20, one female 20-30 and one female 30-40.  The female in the 20-30 column was probably Nancy’s unmarried sister Sarah Hesser, who married following year with Thomas Morris attesting that she was over 21.20  The other females were Thomas Morris’s three daughters by his first marriage and Nancy’s illegitimate daughter Castara Hesser.

Thomas Morris dies in mid-1833

Thomas Morris died intestate on 23 March 1833.  A charmingly punctuated newspaper notice of his death, provided by an unknown source and probably published in the Leesburg newspaper, wrote of his sudden demise just days after the death of his son James Heaton Morris:

Died at his residence in this county, on Saturday morning, the 23rd inst. after a short illness, Mr. THOMAS MORRIS, in the 52nd year of his age.  He was a native of Charles County Maryland, but had been a resident of Loudoun for the last 26 years. But a few days previous to his demise, his son, JAMES HEATON, a very interesting and promising child, in the 5th year of his age, was was consigned to the tomb — this was a severe and painful bereavement to a fond and doting parent who had now lost eight childen to the reckless hand of death!  Alas!  he is now no more; his immortal sprit has fled, we trust, to a better world “where sorrows cease and troubles never come”. In trust, it may be said of Mr. Morris that he lived and died an honest man.  “the noblest work of God:”  As a husband, and father, he was affectionate and tender; as a neighbor, he was without a fault, and universally beloved; as a friend he was ardent, inflexible and confiding. — The writer of this humble tribute to his memory confidently believes , [and thinks all who knew him and shared his friendship will concur in the opinion.] that he possessed a heart as free, as generous, and as kind, as ever warmed the breast of any man. He has left a wife and four children to bewail their great and irreparable loss, and many warm and sincere friends who deeply lament his death, and who will long cherish the recollection of his many very excellent qualities.21

Possibly unknown to Thomas at the time, Nancy was pregnant with his thirteenth child Sarah, who was born six months later in September.  That event may have contributed to a delay in administering the estate, as Nancy did not record the inventory and appraisal of his personal estate for more than a year.  On 11 April 1834, the estate was valued at just $347.87, the inventory listing  a cow, a horse, a few pigs, a list of typical household goods and farming implements, as well as two lots of books.22  In January 1835 Nancy recorded a sale of the personal estate taking up five pages of items, many of which were not listed in the earlier inventory, that sold for a total of $306.95.23. Among the added items were a “shot gun”, a collection of Byron’s works, and a few tailoring tools and the Bible.

In the meantime, on 12 August 1833, John Hesser was appointed guardian of “Lucinda Morris, Sophronia Morris, and Kesiah Morris, orphans of Thomas Morris” who had not yet received their full inheritance from their uncle Aquilla WIllett’s estate.24. He would remain their guardian after their stepmother moved to Ohio and until they married. (Incidentally, this suggests that Thomas Morris had no relatives in the area who might have performed this duty.)

The widow Nancy Morris moves to Ohio

On 19 September 1836 Nancy Morris gave permission for the marriage of her 17-year old daughter Castara Hesser to Henry Timms.25  Less than a year later Henry and Castara Timms moved to Muskingum County, Ohio, along with Nancy Morris and her two young Morris children, aged just five and three.  The family Bible contains the entry: “Nancy Morris left Loudoun the 27 of maarch(sic) 1837 [land?] in ohio. the 19[?} of aprila(sic)“

Lawsuit over Thomas Morris’s land

In February 1838 the three daughters of Thomas Morris’s first marriage, two of whom had married, brought suit against Nancy Morris and her two children to force the sale of the Morris house and lot .26  When Isaiah Beans, who had married Sophronia Morris, testified on 24 February 1838 that Nancy Morris and her two Morris children were no longer living in Virginia a summons was issued to “Nancy Morris, John Thomas William Morris, and Sarah Ann H. Morris” without response.  Nancy’s brother John Hesser had himself appointed guardian ad litem of her two infant Morris children for the purpose of joining the suit, and Nancy’s lack of response was interpreted by the court as acquiescence.  The case was heard in July of 1838 and the court ordered that the house and lot to be sold and the proceeds distributed in six equal shares to Nancy and the five living children of Thomas Morris.  The property was purchased at auction on 25 August 1838 for $305 by a neighbor named Mahlon K. Taylor. After expenses each of the six legatees received $48.42.  Lucinda and her husband George W. Shacklett, who married after the case concluded, were the last to be paid.

The newspaper notice of the public auction described the property as

…one Acre of Land, with a comfortable Log Dwelling, a Stable, and Tailor’s Shop thereupon, adjoining the lands of Stacy Taylor’s heirs and others on the North side of the Turnpike Road, within half a mile of Purcel’s Store.27

The “Turnpike Road” was the main road through the county, then called the Leesburg and Snicker’s Gap Turnpike.  It is now roughly State Route 7, and when it was finished it probably increased the value of the Morris property significantly.   Purcellville, for which Route 7 is the main street, had grown up around Valentine Purcell’s general store.

The commissioner appointed to sell the property was also asked by the court to make inquiries about the status of Nancy Morris in Ohio, since she was due one-sixth of the sale proceeds.  He reported to the court in a month later in August 1838 that “in obedience to said decree I have made inquiry as to the age, constitution and health of Nancy Morris, widow of Thomas Morris dec’d, and have learned that she is about forty five years of age, of strong constitution and good health.”   Oddly, he was apparently unaware that Nancy Morris had remarried five months earlier.  She had wed a 60-ish widower with nine children named John Clymer in Muskingum County, Ohio on 29 March 1838 a few months before the lawsuit was heard.

Notably, all three Morris daughters were literate, signing their own names to documents in the case.

Lawsuit over Aquilla Willet inheritance

In 1843 Jonathan Tavener and his wife Keziah (“formerly Morris”) sued John Hesser, along with George W. Shacklett and his wife Lucinda (“formerly Morris”) of Fauquier County, and Isaiah Beans and his wife Sophronia (“alias Sophia formerly Morris”), claiming that Hesser, Keziah’s former guardian, had refused to settle his guardian account and owed Keziah the balance of her share of the inheritance from Aquilla Willett’s estate.28   Among the papers in the case file is an 1842 guardian accounting by John Hesser spanning the period 1833 to 1842.  The majority of his expenses were due to 14 days “attending to business at Charles Town”, evidently referring to settlement of the Aquilla Willett estate. (Charles Town was located in what is now Jefferson County,West Virginia about 12 miles northwest of Thomas Morris’ home.)  Disbursements from the account showed that he had paid out $112 to George W. Shacklett but only $50 each to Isaiah Beans and Jonathan Tavenner, the husbands of the three Morris daughters.  The court ordered a commissioner to settle the account, but the resolution and final disbursements are not included in the case file.

Nancy Morris and her second husband John Clymer

In the meantime, Nancy and her new husband John Clymer had moved to Olive Township in Morgan County, Ohio (it became Noble County in 1851.)   John Clymer was enumerated in Olive Township in the 1840 census with an “extra” boy and girl in his household who were surely the Morris children.29  A guardianship bond in Morgan County, Ohio dated 11 May 1844 shows that John Clymer was guardian of “Thomas William and Sarah Ann Morris, children of Thomas Morris, decd.”30   In 1850 John Clymer (age 77) and Nancy (age 55) were enumerated in Olive Township living next door to his son Albert Clymer just three households from Nancy’s son Thomas Morris and not far from Sarah Morris, who was by then married and in her own household.  The Olive Cemetery contains a stone for John Clymer (c1777-1852) giving only his death date of 29 February 1852 and the inscription “husband of Nancy”.

Nancy survived her husband and declined administration of his estate in favor of William Clymer and William McKee.31  Nancy Hesser Morris Clymer apparently died in 1854 or 1855.   The initial estate accounting of the John Clymer estate shows that the widow was paid her annual allowance of $75 in May 1854.32  The next estate account contains the item: “paid William Thurla note executor to Nancy Clymer.”33  There is no further record of Nancy, nor is there a probate record for her.

Thomas Morris’s Thirteen Children

Thomas Morris had two wives and two sets of children – Of his thirteen children, eight died in infancy or early childhood.  Mary Willett was the mother of seven children,  three of whom lived to adulthood.  Birth dates are as recorded in the Morris Family Bible.

  1. Richard Thompson Morris (27 December 1812 – infancy?). The birth of this child is recorded in the Bible as “Rd Thompson Morris” and perhaps was named in part after Mary Willett’s father.  No death date is recorded in the Bible, but he must have died in childhood, as there were no young males in Thomas Morris’s 1820 census household.
  2. Lucinda Morris (14 December 1814 – 1901)  She was 18 when her father died and remained in Virginia when her stepmother moved to Ohio.  She waited years longer to marry than her sisters, and she was the only member of the family to appear among the applicants and members of the Leesburg Methodist Church from 1834 through 1838 when she was “removed”.34. Lucinda remained single until 5 September 1839 when she married George Washington Shacklett (1807-1861) in adjacent Frederick County, Virginia.  A few months after the marriage the couple were enumerated in the 1840 census of Fauquier County.  In the 1843 chancery suit one document referred to her as “Lucy”, which was apparently the nickname name she preferred, as their joint gravestone, which reads “Geo. W. Shacklett 1809-1861, Lucy Shacklett his wife 1814-1901”, is in the Cool Spring Methodist Cemetery in Delaplane, Fauquier County, Virginia.  She was enumerated as age 33. 45. 55. and 64 in the 1850-1880 censuses of Fauquier County.  Those census records suggest at least four children born in the 1840s:  Edward P. Shacklett (c1840), Thomas L. Shacklett (c1842) called Sewell in 1860, Mary Elizabeth Shacklett (c1845), and Turner Washington Shacklett (c1848).  The 1880 and 1900 censuses of Fauquier County show Lucy living with her daughter Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Barbee and her husband Henry Barbee, her birth given in 1900 as December 1814. The 1900 census also records that she had born 5 children, two of whom were then living.
  3. Sophronia Morris (22 March 1816 – 16 September 1885)  Although her name is consistently rendered as Sophronia, the 1843 lawsuit refers to her in one place as Sophronia “alias Sophia”.  She married a neighbor named Isaiah Beans (1810-1886) in Loudoun County by bond dated 15 September 1836, with the permission of her guardian John Hesser.  They remained in Loudoun County, appearing there in the 1850-1880 censuses, which list a total of ten children:  Aaron Thomas Beans (born c1838), Mary Jane Beans (c1839), Oscar Beans (c1841), Elwood Henry Beans (c1843), William Flavius Beans (c1844), Theodore A. Beans (c1846), Elizabeth A. Beans (c1848), Mary Beans (1849), Albert Beans (1850), and John Edgar Beans (c1855).  She is buried in the Arnold Grove Methodist Cemetery in Hillsboro, Loudoun County where her gravestone gives her dates of birth and death.
  4. John Francis Morris (3 February 1817 –  infancy). He must have died in infancy, as there were no young males in Thomas Morris’s 1820 census household.
  5. Keziah A. Morris (27 August 1819 – after 1880)  When Keziah reached the age of 14, old enough to choose her own guardian, she chose John Hesser.  A few years later on 25 September 1837, at the age of 17, she married a neighbor’s son named Jonathan Tavenner (1807-1873) in adjacent Frederick County, Maryland.  She probably married across the county and state line in Maryland to avoid obtaining the consent of her guardian, which would have been required of anyone under 21 in Virginia.  After the 1843 suit, Jonathan and Keziah Tavenner moved to Morgan County, Ohio, settling in Meigsville about 20 miles west of John and Nancy Clymer.  They are in the 1850-1870 censuses there with children named James W. Tavenner (born c1843), Eliza E. Tavenner (c1844), Robert E. Tavenner (c1846), Francis A. Tavenner (c1849), b (c1852), Henrietta V. Tavenner (c1856), Olive Tavenner (c1859), and Emma Tavenner (c1864).   Jonathan Tavenner died in 1873 and is buried in the Wells Cemetery in Morgan County, but there is no stone for Nancy.  She was enumerated in Meigsville in 1880 with her daughter Emma and her daughter Henrietta and her husband George Henry in the household.
  6. Caroline Morris (15 April 1822 – 26 August 1827)
  7. Thompson Morris (3 April 1823 – 19 August 1827) His birth is recorded in the Bible as “Thomson” Morris.  He was the “Thomas T. Morris” whose death was recorded in the Bible just four years later.  (The only male in Thomas Morris’s 1830 census household was James Heaton Morris, listed in the under 5 column.)

Mary Willett died the same day she gave birth to this last child.  Thomas Morris remarried  Nancy Hesser barely six months later.  He had five more children by Nancy Hesser, only two of whom lived to adulthood.:

  1. Andrew M. Morris (26 December 1824 – 14 August 1827)
  2. John D. Francis Morris (11 October 1826 – 7 September 1827)
  3. James Heaton Morris (13 August 1828 – 17 March 1833)   He died just six days before his father, perhaps the result of the cholera epidemic that swept through the Washington area that spring.   He was apparently named after James Heaton, a medical doctor who lived in the same Purcellville neighborhood as Thomas Morris.  Curiously, though, Dr. James Heaton had died four years earlier in 1824 and his young son James Heaton Jr. had died in 1826.  To add to the mystery, Dr. James Heaton had a son named John Thomas William Heaton (1810-1862).  Thomas Morris gave that unusual set of given names to his next son.
  4. John Thomas William Morris (26 May 1831 – 30 May 1907)  See separate paper.
  5. Sarah Ann Hannah Morris (15 September 1833 – 1 January 1860)  She was born shortly after her father died.  The family Bible gives her name as Sarah Ann Hannah Morris, but she was consistently referred to in the Loudoun County court records as Sarah Ann Morris.  She married William O. Thorla (1829-1904), a son of Benjamin Thorla, on 23 September 1849 in Morgan County, Ohio.35  They are enumerated in the 1850 census of Olive Township in Morgan County a few households away from his father.   Her age is given as 17 and her birthplace as Ohio (sic).  Sarah Ann died in January 1860 according to the 1860 mortality census, which gives her age as 26 and birthplace as Virginia.  Her gravestone in the Olive Cemetery gives her date of death as 1 January 1860 and her age as 26 years, 3 months, and 17 days.36   Her husband remarried on 13 September 1862 to Margaret Hutchins.   The family was in Linn County, Missouri for the 1870 census with six children of Sarah’s and five younger children by the second wife.   By the 1880 Linn County census all six of Sarah’s children were out of the household.  Sarah’s children generally adopted the “Thurlow” spelling.  Jackie Marshall, who is descended from Sarah, has more detail on these children:  ((Jackie Marshall of Amherst, New Hampshire and I corresponded several years ago.))
      1. Argumento Thurlow (20 June 1850 – 20 June 1948)  He was living with his father in 1870 but by 1880 had moved to Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, where he appears in the 1880 through 1930 censuses.   By 1880 he had acquired a wife named Elizabeth, age 28, and he was listed as a salesman.  In 1900 his wife was Mary L., the census indicating they married about 1887. That marriage is recorded in York County, Maine (!) on 20 August 1888 to Mary Louise Stackpole.  The 1900 household included a daughter from the first marriage, Lenora Thurlow (born Dec 1880), and two children of the second marriage named William Stackpole Thurlow (12 Feb 1891) and Elvira Thurlow (12 April 1900).37   He’s in the 1910 through 1930 census of Portland listed as a salesman for a furniture store with his wife Mary L. and the two younger children in the household through 1920, and his sister “Fronia” Wilson in the 1930 household. Argumento Thurlow is buried in the Greenword Cemetery.   His wife Mary (9 September 1868 – 7 June 1938) is buried there, as is the daughter Lenora Thurlow (5 December 1880 – 24 August 1903).
      2. Sophronia Thurlow (13 December 1852 – 18 April 1934)  She married Daniel Wilson, and died in Portland Oregon.
      3. Mason Thurlow (11 March 1855 – 23 June 1938)  He’s in the 1900 through 1930 censuses of Okanogan County, Washington.
      4. Wilhemina “Minnie” Thurlow (22 September 1857 – 13 December 1932)
      5. William W. Thurlow (c1858 – after 1870)   He is in the 1870 census of Linn County, Missouri.  He is thought to have died while serving on a whaling ship in the Arctic.
      6. Anna Thurlow (6 December 1859 – 17 February 1960)  She did not marry, but ended up in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon with her two older brothers.

 

  1. Bible in the possession of Nathan Morris of Durango, Colorado as of June 2025.  Inserted into it is a newspaper clipping announcing his death. [↩]
  2. Loudoun County Superior Court Deed Book A, 1809-1845, p10. [↩]
  3. Loudoun County Deed Book 2-O, p31 [↩]
  4. A deed (Book 2T, p355) for adjacent land in 1816 described it as “on the road leading from Thompson’s (now Manning’s) Mill to Waterford”  probably referring to a mill on Goose Creek south of the village of Waterford.  Another deed for adjacent land (Book 2R, p354) calls it “the main road”, perhaps meaning present US 7. [↩]
  5. Richard Willett was taxed in the 3rd Battalion, later 3rd Division, part of the old Shelburne Parish from 1787 through 1812. [↩]
  6. The will is found among the documents in Culpeper County Chancery Case #17, Indexed as 1845-001 and online at https://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/full_case_detail.asp?CFN=047-1845-001#img. [↩]
  7. Courtesy of research of George Ralph WIllett III. [↩]
  8. Jefferson County, West Virginia Will Book 5, p360. [↩]
  9. Jefferson County, West Virginia Will Book 9  pp326-332 and particularly pp328-9. [↩]
  10. Loudoun County Deed Book 2Y, page 2. [↩]
  11. Genius of Liberty newspaper (Leesburg, Virginia) issues of 20 and 27 October 1818 and issue of 12 January 1819.  Issues of 1820 and after are not available to be searched. [↩]
  12. Loudoun County Will Book M, p235. [↩]
  13. Loudoun County Deed Book 3Q, p151. [↩]
  14. Loudoun County Will Book U, p382 [↩]
  15. Loudoun County Will Book R, p55. [↩]
  16. 1820 Loudoun County census, page 43:  Thos. Morris 000010-30010. Although the ancestry.com index mistakenly labels that page as residents of the town of MIddleburg, that is an error. The township was Middleburg, the town was the as yet unincorporated village of Purcelville. [↩]
  17. Incidentally, no other Thomas Morris was enumerated in Loudoun or in any of the adjacent counties.  Another Thomas Morris had married a Catherine Fouch on 27 October 1815 in Loudoun County, but he was not enumerated there in subsequent censuses.  This person may have been the same Thomas Morris who enlisted in the War of 1812, giving his birthplace as Loudoun County about 1792 and his occupation as shoemaker. What became of him is unknown. [↩]
  18. Loudoun County Chancery Court Case File, Case #M6884. [↩]
  19. Loudoun County Deed Book 3S, page 345. [↩]
  20. Mary Alice Wertz, Marriages of Loudoun County, Virginia, 1757-1853, page 114. [↩]
  21. Clipping enclosed in Thomas Morris Family Bible. Newspaper not identified, but probably Genius of Liberty of Leesburg. [↩]
  22. Loudoun County Will Book V, p348. [↩]
  23. Loudoun County Will Book W, pp8. [↩]
  24. Bond included among the papers in Loudoun County Chancery Case 1845-023, originally case number M2144. [↩]
  25. Aurelia M. Jewell, Loudoun County, Virginia Marriage Bonds, 1762-1850, page 71.  Note that illegitimate children bore the surname of the mother regardless of parental wishes.  At that time only an act of the state legislature could bestow on them the name of the father. [↩]
  26. Loudoun County Chancery Case No. M1497. Indexed as 1839-041. [↩]
  27. Newspaper notice in the Genius of Liberty of Leesburg published on 28 July 1838 and included in the case file. [↩]
  28. Loudoun County Chancery Case No. M2144. Indexed as 1843-023. [↩]
  29. 1840 Morgan County census, p152:  John Clymer 011200001-0100201.  Clymer’s own five children were the older ones, the youngest boy and girl were surely Thomas and Sarah Morris. [↩]
  30. Gateway to the West (Clearfield Publishing Company, 1989), Ruth Bowers and Anita Short, Vol. II, p254.  This is a bound version of a periodical published from 1967 to 1978.   The portion of interest is an abstract of guardian bonds in Morgan County, Ohio. [↩]
  31. Noble County Settlements Book 1, page 471. [↩]
  32. Ibid., page 473. [↩]
  33. Noble County Settlements Book 2, page 304. [↩]
  34. Mrs. Walter Towner Jewell, ed., Records of the Methodist Society at Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia(1957), p39, 40, 58, 75 and Mrs. Walter Towner Jewell, ed., Record Book of the Leesburg Methodist Sabbath School Society, Vol. 2,(Leesburg, Loudoun County, 1957 ), p124, 129. [↩]
  35. Morgan County Marriage Book B, p383. [↩]
  36. Note that this would yield a birth date of 14 September 1833, one day different from the Bible entry. [↩]
  37. The Oregon Birth Index contains an entry for the son William Stackpole Thurlow, which gives his mother’s full maiden name. [↩]