NEBRASKA AND MIDWEST GENEALOGICAL RECORD; VOLUME 9; PARTS 3 & 4; JUL. - OCT., 1931 ARTICLE: MIGRATION OF A NEW ENGLAND FAMILY PAGES 24 - 26 As transcribed by the submitters from the original publication. Submitted to the USGenWeb Nebraska Archives, February, 1998, by Ted and Carole Miller (susieque@pacbell.net). USGenWeb Project NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial researchers, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for presentation in any form by any other organization or individual. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed USGenWeb Project archivist. *************** (page 24, cont.) MIGRATION OF A NEW ENGLAND FAMILY Contributed by Miss Ida L. Robbins, 1941 B St., Lincoln, Nebraska This little account of the journey of a Connecticut family from a home they had made in the Wyoming Valley, N. Y., to Athens, Ohio, was told by Eliza (Beach) Wells and written down by her daughter Rhoda (Wells) Conard on January 27, 1896. Mrs. Wells was ninety-two years old at that time: "My father, Benjamin, and his twin brother, Isaac, were the sons of Eben and Eunice Beach and were born February 28, 1778. They were the eldest of the family except one daughter, Mary Ann. Isaac died in 1800. My mother was Anah Hawley, daughter of Joseph Hawley and a distant relative of General Hawley of Connecticut, now a congressman from that state. "They were married and settled down close by Grandpa Eben Beach near Stratford, Connecticut, where they lived until after the birth of myself and brother Isaac. While there we were baptised in the Presbyterian Church. We moved from there to Cheshire where we lived perhaps two years and where my sister Minerva was born, Sept. 24, 1807. Sometime near the last of 1807 we moved to Granville, N. Y. Father purchased a farm there and his brother-in-law, Walleston Hawley, did the farming while Father attended to the blacksmith shop. I remember they built quite a large frame house on this farm. Here, sister Mary Ann was born July 20, 1809. We were surrounded by the Frank family for neighbors - Colonel Nathaniel, Dr. Augustus, and John Frank who had married Aunt Huldah, father's third sister. Uncle John Frank was one of the most amiable of men and they were all quite influential. Shipman, youngest son of Colonel Nathaniel Frank, married father's youngest sister, Selina. Reuben Beach, father's youngest brother, lived just across the Granville River and our farms joined. "While we lived here we had sickness in our family more or less all the time. It was thought to be on account of the water, so my parents concluded to sell and go to the "Holland Purchase" which is now called Wyoming, N. Y., where two of father's sisters, Eunice and Catherine, lived. They had --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENEALOGICAL RECORD 25 married Obijah and Daniel Bradley. Again we bought a small farm and settled down. On this farm was a beautiful eminence on which the Wyoming Academy now stands. Here we were when the British and Indians burned Buffalo and father volunteered to go in defense of the country. In the fall of 1814 Uncle Josiah Coe* came this way from his visit in Connecticut and persuaded father to sell out and go with him to Ohio. Our home here was in a beautiful valley and it was sacrificing much to leave it. Uncle Coe soon finished his visit with the Bradleys and he and Francis Beardsley (a young man who was going to Ohio with him) went on to Olean, N. Y., to make preparations for going down the river when we should come. "They cut down trees and made a raft of logs. After we started there came heavy storms and the rain swelled the streams we had to cross and we were nearly swept away and at the same time the flood carried away the log raft Uncle Coe had built so he bought a flat bottomed boat called a "broad horn." They built a roof over part of it and a small clay platform in one corner of the front end for a fire. On this boat we started down the river. It leaked some and had to be bailed out but we will pass over the haps and mishaps of our journey until we fastened our boat on the near side, a few yards up the Hock Hocking River. Uncle Coe and Mr. Beardsley took a beeline for home. While Uncle was gone there came a heavy storm of rain which brought down logs and trash and our boat was nearly swept away. Father had to stand with a long pole and head off the logs which would have swamped our boat. In three or four days Uncle was back with two horses, provisions, and his three boys, John, Beach, and James. The boys with the help of my father and my brother Isaac took the boat up to Athens. Uncle rode one horse and took Mary Ann in front and Minerva on behind him, while mother rode the other horse with me on be ------- * The Josiah Coe, so often mentioned in the letter, was born in 1769 Stratford, Conn., and died in 1843 at Athens, Ohio. He was the son of Capt. James and Huldah (Wilcox) Coe. He married Mary Ann, daughter of Eben and Eunice (Beach) Beach in 1799. They came to Ohio in 1805. He built the first grist mill in Athens Co. He built another mill later at Nelsonville, which was not torn down until about 1922. The farm on which the latter mill was built is still owned by his descendants. He owned a boat and took his flour to New Orleans. On his last trip so staunch was his little vessel that the exporter bought it as well as its cargo; and the boat, after it was reconditioned, carried the cargo on to England. Josiah Coe walked home from New Orleans, La., to Athens Ohio and so long did the trip take that his family mourned him as dead until he walked into the house one evening just at sunset. The Ohio Children's Home stands on the old homestead now, and his land joined that of Ebenezer Foster whose home has been so vividly described in "Grandmother Brown's Hundred Years." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 THE NEBRASKA AND MIDWEST hind her. Some of the way we traveled on a road and sometimes across through the woods. We were- very weary when we finally came to the top of a hill where just at its foot we could see Uncle's grist mill. Beyond the mill the bottom land extended near a mile where at the foot of another steep hill stood the house. Rest was very acceptable. Here we met Aunt Mary Ann and her other children, Mary who was a little older than I, Eunice, Lois, Harriet and Harry (twins), Julia, Selina, and Charles, and right glad we were to see all of them. Hoping that my bit of history will interest you I will close, Yours truly, ELIZA B. WELLS."