Ancestor Birthday - August 8 - Sarah Chastain 1797-1875

Sarah Chastain was my 3rd gt-grandmother. She was born 220 years ago today. I have many of the "facts" about her life on my website. http://www.joanneskelton.com/p16.htm#i388

But in thinking about her life, sometimes I have questions. I know that she moved more than once. She was born in Virginia, was married in Kentucky, then she and her husband, John Bond, moved to Indiana, then Illinois, then Iowa and finally to Oregon Territory. After John died, she probably moved to Washington Territory where she died. I wonder if all of those moves were her choice, or did she just have to follow the men in her life.

Sarah was 18 years old when she married John in 1815. I expect she was glad that John was a member of the same church she was, the East Fork Baptist Church in Henry County, Kentucky. It was just a little over 9 months later when their first child, a son, was born. When they moved to Indiana in 1822 they had 4 sons, age 6 and younger. I wonder if Sarah wished for a daughter. If she did, she got her wish because on Christmas Eve, 1823, their first daughter was born. Eventually Sarah and John had 4 sons and 4 daughters.

I wonder if it seemed that time was moving quickly when their next to oldest son married a Bond first cousin while they were living in Illinois. After they moved to Iowa all of the other children married and soon Sarah was grandmother to a number of grandchildren. In 1847 her youngest son with his wife and 2 children traveled to the Oregon Territory where he was to work with the Baptist Church there as a missionary recruit. Would she have been proud or maybe fearful, or more likely both. It would have been a sad event when they learned that in 1849 he had been accidentally killed. Probably Sarah was glad that her daughter-in-law had family there to help her. John's father died about 1851 and John was named in the will. I have always wondered if that helped his decision to follow his two daughters and their families who had gone to Oregon Territory as settlers in 1852. Whatever the reason, Sarah and John and the rest of their children and grandchildren followed in their covered wagons in 1853.

Sarah had now moved from a state bordering the Atlantic to a Territory bordering the Pacific. It was soon after they arrived that they settled on a donation land claim. Their youngest daughter and her husband settled on an adjoining claim a few months later. The children spread out over the Territory, so I wonder if she got to visit with them much as the farthest were over 100 miles away.

It appears they were living in the Oregon Terrritory when Oregon became a state in 1859. John died about 1866 and it is probable that Sarah went with some of her daughters' families when they moved to Washington and that is where she died about 1875.