Family biography by:Patricia Balis Donated to the Jessamine Co Archives Ephraim Sadowski was My Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Ephraim Sadwoski born October 2, 1779 and died August 20, 1854 in Jessamine Co., KY. Ephraim and his first wife Ann Evans (my great-great-great-great grandmother had eleven children, their third child Jacob Ephraim Sandusky was my great-great-great grandfather. Ephraim and his first wife Anna, settled on land given to him by his father on the south side of Sinking Creek. He was the next in line of descent and Ephraim inherited a part of his father's land in Jessamine County, Kentucky, and it is still owned by his descendants. He was a farmer and stock raiser. He apparently was an atheist, as an interview by Rev. Shane in the Draper papers begin with the sentence, "Ephraim Sodowsky was a great infidel." Another interview with one of the early settlers mentions the road which ran past Ephraim's Sodowsky's farm and is identified as "the infidel man." When Ephraim died his estate was valued at $50,000. Ann died in 1843 and Ephraim remarried a Hester Collins in 1845 and they had two children. Ephraim's sisters and brothers were Jacob and Susan. his 1/2 sisters and brothers were Margaret, Sarah, Susan, Sarah, Rebecca and James. Check out the website http://www.jesshistorical.org/NorthWest/pages/SANDUSKY_JPG.htm to see the home site of Ephraim Sandusky [Unable to display image]E. Sandusky House - This house in use as a Bed and Breakfast today. This was the home site of Ephraim Sandusky, son of the famous old explorer Jacob Sodowski. Such memories of the old Kentucky home were stirred up when John Sloan found the old records that were kept in an Sandusky bible. As it turned out, the Bible, handed down in his family for several generations, goes back to Jonathan Sandusky's time between 1819 and 1877. His father, Ephraim, built the house where the Sanduskys still live after he married Ann Evans in 1802. Ephraim was 23 years old and Ann Evans was 18 years old at the time. In the new house, built on 150 acres of land which he received from his father, Jacob, who died in 1832, Ephraim, who was co-executor of his father's will, and Ann Sandusky raised eleven children. The Bible, however, kept track only of Jonathan, one of the eleven children, and, for the first time in the history of this family, we have a record of his wives and children. John Sloan was excited when he found the Bible and is glad to share his find with us. Jonathan Sandusky was born April 6, 1819, and the name of his siblings were William Voss, Malinda, Jacob, Eliza, Rebecca, Susan, John, Magaretta, Henry Clay, and Ephraim. On May 3, 1840, Jonathan married Sarah(aka Sally) Ann Collins in Jessamine County, and they brought three boys into the world: 1. John A. D. Sandusky, June 16, 1842, 2. Lewis E. Sandusky, March 15, 1843, and 3. William M. Sandusky, Sept. 1, 1847. Jacob Sadowski was my Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Jacob, started westward when young in search of fame and fortune, and in Ohio established a trading post near the site of the present City of Sandusky, which was named for him. Jacob first came to Kentucky about 1774 in a party of eleven men under the leadership of Isaac Hite. They came down the Ohio River and up the Kentucky River by canoe to the area of Harrodsburg. The journal of Daniel Boone records his presence in Harrodsburg when he passed through to establish his settlement. On July 10, 1774 Indians fired upon a party of men at Fontainebleau a large spring 3 miles below Harrodsburg killing Jared Cows. Jacob Sandusky esacped through the woods of the Casey County region to the Cumberland River and then traveled by canoe down the River to the MIssissippi and then further down to New Orleans. There he arranged travel on a ship back to Baltimore and returned to Virginia. Later he would take up his activities in Kentucky again. Sandusky, started westward when young in search of fame and fortune, and in Ohio established a trading post near the site of the present City of Sandusky, which was named for him. In 1774, he and his brother James went to Kentucky with a surveying party commanded by a man named Douglas, and as chain bearers and markers assisted in making some of the first surveys in Kentucky. During the progress of the Revolutionary War both of the Sandusky brothers returned to the Old Dominion and assisted the colonists in their struggle for independence, taking part in many engagements, and being present at the surrender of Cornwallis, in Yorktown, in 1781. Returning to Kentucky, Jacob Sandusky received a grant of 1000 acres of land in what is now Jessamine County, the patent being signed by Gov. Patrick Henry, the land being located seven miles from Nicholasville, and equally distant from Versailles and Lexington. Jacob and his brother, James, very early became interested in "the Dark and Bloody Ground' as Indians called Kentucky. Jacob was twenty-three years old and James twenty five when, inspired by the tales of the few long hunters who dared to enter the unknown country before them, they joined the first surveying party sent by the Governor of Virginia into Kentucky to survey land for the veterans of the French and Indian War. Under the command of Captain Thomas Bullitt and in company with Jame's Harrod, Abraham Hite and other famous frontiersmen, they started down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh in periogues, or large canoes. Some of the notes kept by Jacob Sandusky reported that on July 8, 1773, Capt. Thomas Bullitt reached the Falls on the Ohio River and pitched his camp above the mouth of Bear Grass Creek and spent the night on a shoal above Corn Island. He surveyed land under warrants grated to Bullitt's Lick in what is now Bullitt County. In August he layed out the town of Louisville on part of the plat of the present city. In May of 1774 Capt. James Harrod, Abram Hite, Jacob Sandusky, James Sandusky and 37 other men descended the Ohio River and encamped at the mouth of Deercreek, where Cincinnat now is. Jacob reported that as he and his company came down the Ohio, they were much alarmed by the signs of Indians at the crossing place near the mouth of Sycamore, a short distance aboe the Three Islands. Then they went down to the mouth of the Kentucky River, and up that stream to what is now Mercer County, where in June 0f 1774 laid out Harrodstown (afterward called Oldtwon and now Harrodsburg), and erected a number of cabins. These cabins were occupied by the men of the two companies (Harrod's and Hite's) until July 10, 1774, when the Indians fired upon a party of 5 of them at Fontainebleau or Fountain Blue, a large spring 3 miles below Harrodstown (where corn had already been planted). They instantly killed Jared Cowan, while he was engaged in drying some papers in the sun. Jacob Sandusky and two others, not knowing but that the others had also been killed, through the woods to the Cumberland River and thence by canoe to the Ohio, and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The remaining man of the 5 fled to Harrodstown and gave the alarm. They buried Jared Cown, secured his papers and returned via the Cumberland Gap to Virginia or Pennsylvania. Jacob Sandusky went from New Orleans to Baltimore by sea. In 1776 Jacob and James Sandusky built Sandusky's Station, on Pleasant run, in what is now Washinton County, KY On January 2, 1777, Joseph Blackford and Jacob Sodowsky were two of thirty men in a company raised by Col. James Harrod to retrieve 500 pounds of gun powder procured by Maj. George Rogers Clark and John Gabriel Jones for the relief of the settlers in Kentucky. During the progress of the Revolutionary War both of the Sandusky brothers returned to the Old Dominion and assisted the colonists in their struggle for independence, taking part in many engagements, and being present at the surrender of Cornwallis, in Yorktown, in 1781. There is a record showing that Jacob was involved in the bloody battle of the Lowe Blue Licks, on August 18, 1782, when the Wyandotts. Shawnees and Canadians cut down nearly the whole arm of 182 Kentuckians. Col. Benjamin Logan's "List of Appraisements of Horses, Guns & Lost at the Battle" mentions Jacob with a lost mare, saddle, bridle and saddle bags to the value of twenty-five pounds, for which he was later reimburse by the Western Commissioners of Virginia. About 1782 both Jacob and James moved to Jessamine County, KY. Jacob brought his family over to Kentucky in 1784, but evidently only part of it. as he was listed as an inhabitant of Hampshire County, Virginian in the first census of 1790. His Virginia household then contained four white persons Returning to Kentucky , Jacob Sandusky received a grant of 1000 acres of land in what is now Jessamine County, the patent being signed by Gov. Patrick Henry, the land being located seven miles from Nicholasville, and equally distant from Versailles and Lexington. A note on page 396 of Collins History of Kentucky says that Sinking Creek in Jessamine County, rises near the Fayette line, about one mile north of old Providence Church or Station, on the Kentucky Central Railroad, runs west, about 2 1/4 miles north of Keen, passing through the farms of Nat. Lafon., Nat. Blackford, and Jacob G. Sandusky, and unites in Woodford with a smaller sinking creek from the north, forming Clear Creek. Jacob's signature appears on a petition of the inhabitants of the District of Kentucky of 1789 requesting the Assembly to assign Lexington and Bardstown as places of meeting of the Supreme Court. During the years of 1791 -9, Jacob superintended the making of salt at Big Bone Lick. Jacob died in 1832 at the age of 82. James dies in 1831 at the age of 83. They were great American pioneers. It was their courage, their, determination, their pioneering genius that greatly heled to win vast Western stretches of land for the United States. Lewis Collins called Jacob "a a great and methodical adventurer". According to Col. Nathanile Hart, he was "a man distinguised for his integrity and verectiy." Many instances are cited of his remarkable memory and his abilities as a pioneer. He evidently was a well educated man, as were also many others among the Kentucky pioneers. His grandsons said "he kept notes on the settlement of Kentucky and had great quantities of them . . . he knew the history of the first settling of the country, and always condemned, in many particulars, all the published histories, as he knew them to be incorrcet." Unfortunately, all his notes were lost by the printer who was to publish them. "A most respectable family" said Theodore Roosevelt of the Sadowskis. This tribute from the author of the Winning of the West is highly justified. Sadowskis, indeed, deserve the grateful memory of their countrymen." Jacob's first wife Jemima Voss (my great-great-great-great-great grandmother was taken prisoner as a child during the French & Indian War troubles by the Indians in June 1756 when Ephriam Vauses's (Jemima's father and my 6th great grandfather) place was over run and his wife and two daughters were captured and lived in captivity for seven years, till she reached the age of fourteen or fifteen, when Captain Bouquet went through Ohio in 1763 and 1764, he freed over two hundered persons who were held in captivity and Jemima was returned to her father's home. The family tradition says that after she was kidnapped, her crying so annoyed one of the Indians that he struck her on the head with a tomahawk. The chief intervened and saved her life, Jemima being scalped had an open wound into a sinus. She kept the wound stuffed with cotton, which moved with every breathe, but the head wound never completely healed, and she wore a bandage over it for the rest of her live. Jacob and her had three children: Ephraim Sadowski (my great-great-great-great grandfather), Jacob Sadwoski and Susan Sadowski (who died at the age 2). His married his second wife, Elizabeth Evans, circa 1784 and they had five children, Rebecca Sadowski, Sarah (Sallie) Sadowski, Margarat (Peggy) Sadowski, Susan Sadowski and James Sadowski. Patricia Balis 9615 Rosewood Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44105 pb2229@aol.com