52 Ancestors 2020 – 14 – Water – Susan Augusta (Bond) Bridgefarmer

Why did I choose Susan for the theme water? Well, she did marry a man whose name included a bridge.

Susan, my great-grandaunt, was the daughter of Solomon and Huldah (Hayes) Bond and was probably born in Marion County, Iowa, since her parents and older siblings were enumerated there in the 1850 census. She was born 2 Apr 1852, so would have celebrated her first birthday before the family left on 12 Apr 1853 to travel to the Oregon Territory “out west.” I can wonder if she took her first steps before or after they left on the wagon train. Her mother must have watched Susan carefully as the wagons had to cross many rivers on their 5 month journey.

A little after a year after they arrived in the Oregon Territory her parents settled a land claim in Linn County. Presently (April 2020) this land has a subdivision at the edge of Halsey, Oregon. Since Halsey was not established until the Oregon and California Railroad was built through that area in 1871, the 1860 census lists the location as Pine Precinct and the 1870 census calls it Peoria Precinct. However it was the same place. Susan was 8 years old on the 1860 census and was marked as having attended school within the past year. By 1870 she was 18 and still had been attending school. Since Susan was the oldest child still living at home in 1870 I suspect that she was a good help to her mother with the six younger children, the youngest only a year old.

It would have been a big change on 6 Oct 1872 when 20 year old Susan married 40 year old Alanson Bridgefarmer. They were married by C. C. Sperry, a Baptist minister. Susan's grandfather Bond and her Uncle George were also Baptist ministers. However her new husband was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church so in her new role as a wife, I expect she then became a Methodist. She also moved about 6 miles north to the farm of her husband which was about a mile southeast of Tangent.

Ten months after her marriage, Susan's first child was born, Imogene Huldah Bridgefarmer. Two more children were born before the 1880 census: David Solomon and Anna May. Also in their household was 23 year old Melissa Garland, a daughter of Alanson's deceased sister. Hopefully Melissa could help Susan with the household duties and care of the children.

Susan and Alanson had two more children before her death on 2 Dec 1886: Ella Florence and William Austin. Susan was buried at the Halsey Pioneer Cemetery, Linn County, Oregon, where her parents were also buried when they died near the turn of the century. It seems sad when a child dies before their parents.

In her obituary published in an Albany, Oregon, newspaper on 10 Dec 1886 it concluded with these words: “A most estimable woman, a loving wife and mother, her loss is a great one to her family and as well to the community generally.”

Early Oregon Cousins – James Monroe Bond

Again I am posting a copy from the article previously published in 2011 in Trees From the Grove, the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society periodical. James Monroe Bond was a 1^st cousin of James Howard Bond, my gt-grandfather, so was my 1^st cousin 3 times removed.

Cousin James Monroe Bond was the third son of William and Hannah (Hayes) Bond, born 17 November 1847 in Marion County, Iowa. His oldest brother, Daniel born in 1842, had died sometime before the 1850 census was taken, so Seth age 5 and James age 3 were the two children in the household with their parents in Marion County, Iowa on 10 September 1850. It was the next month when another son, Ebenezer, joined the family.

William’s family, including their three young boys, left Iowa in 1853 with a number of other relatives and traveled the long route over the Oregon Trail heading to the Oregon Territory. James was almost 5 ½ when they left in April. I wonder if James was old enough to realize that his mother was expecting another child. But he certainly would have been aware when on August 24^th the train traveled to Lees encampment in the Blue Mountains and a baby sister, named Emma Augusta, was born. The train “layed by” the next day and continued their travel on the 26^th. By September 14^th they had arrived at Summit Prairie on the slopes of Mt. Hood and it was there that James’ mother Hannah died. A number of years later his cousin Harvey related that Emma was cared for by her Hayes grandparents and the three boys were cared for by William’s brother Solomon and his wife Huldah, who was Hannah’s younger sister.

James’ father William did settle on a Donation Land Claim of 110 acres in Linn County in September 1855. On the 1860 census taken in June, William Bond was listed as a farmer in Linn County, post office Harrisburgh, with three sons: Seth 15, James 13 and Ebenezer 10. Emma was listed on the census with her grandmother Hayes.

Just two years later, 1862, brought a big change to the family when in September William married Talitha (Belknap) Starr, a widow with eight children. It appears that William’s family moved to the Alpine area in Benton County where Talitha and her first husband had their Donation Land Claim. It’s probable that Emma also moved there. But sadly, sometime within the next year, at age 9, Emma died from scarlet fever and was buried in the Simpson Chapel Cemetery, also known as the Alpine Cemetery. William and Talitha had one child together, a daughter, Irene Grace, born in August 1864. But then less than a year later, Talitha again became a widow when William died in May 1865 and he was also buried in Simpson Chapel Cemetery.

Now James was not quite 18 and had lost both parents. After his brother Seth had his 21^st birthday in October of 1866, Seth was appointed by the Benton County Court as guardian of his two younger brother, James and Ebenezer, who were still minors. They each had a one-fourth interest in the land in Linn County left by their father.

But the next month, just before his 19^th birthday, on 11 November 1866, at Simpson Chapel, James married Sarah Starr, the 15 year old daughter of Talitha. Nine months later, 27 August 1867, James and Sarah’s first child, Emma Augusta (named after James’ deceased sister) was born.

It was probably the next year, in 1868 that James and Sarah moved to California. By the 1870 census James and Sarah, with two children, were living in San Joaquin Township, Stanislaus County, California, Crows Landing post office. James was a farmer and his brother Seth, a school teacher, was living next door. Bureau of Land Management records show that James M. Bond purchased 160 acres of government land in Stanislaus County in 1873. A biography published in 1905 stated that they moved farther south, near Lemoore, California, in 1877.

By the 1880 census, James and Sarah and their six children, Emma, William, Ernest, Elmer, Frank and Walter, were living in Lemoore Township, Tulare County, California, along with his brother Ebenezer and his wife, Ebenezer’s brother-in-law and a servant. This area became Kings County in 1893. Both James and Ebenezer were farmers. Seth was also in Tulare County at Visalia, teaching school. The Great Register for Tulare County in 1890 showed James Monroe Bond, age 43, born in Iowa, had registered to vote in Lemoore Precinct on 12 September. Ebenezer registered 17 October.

According to his obituary, James “felt that he was called to minister to the sick.” He studied nursing and then about 1890 he entered the California Eclectic Medical College in San Francisco and graduated in 1893. He practiced a year there and then moved to Hanford, Kings County, California, where he was listed on the 1900 census as a physician and surgeon. Seven of his ten children were living at home: Elmer 26 (also a physician and surgeon) Frank 23, Walter 21, Edith 17, Jessie 15, Charles 11, and Harry 8. Enumerated next to them was James’s oldest son, William 30, a farmer, with his wife and three children.

James ran a sanitarium in Hanford until 1906 (the year of the San Francisco earthquake) when the family moved to Arizona and he opened a sanitarium in the Phoenix area. They were listed there on the 1910 census with James as physician at the Arizona Sanitarium, which was a Seventh Day Adventist institution. Sarah and their married daughter Edith Dillon 28 were nurses and Edith’s husband was listed as a minister for the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Three of the younger of the now eleven children were also in the household: Jessie 25, Harry 19 and Mildred Grace 11. The biography stated about James, “both the doctor and his wife are enthusiastic Seventh Day Adventists and have reared their family in the same belief.”

About 1911 James moved back to California and worked as chaplain and associate physician at the Healdsburg Medical Home in Sonoma County. His youngest son, Harry Cecil, died in 1912 and was buried at Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg. His daughter, Edith (Bond) Dillon died in Arizona in 1913 and was also buried at Oak Mound. When James died 22 March 1914 in Healdsburg, he was buried at Oak Mound Cemetery and all three did not have markers.

Sarah was listed as a widow, occupation practical nurse, living with her daughter Emma Wheeler and doctor son-in-law in Fresno, California, on the 1920 census. Sarah’s obituary stated that she had married her brother-in-law Ebenezer after he became a widower, then she again became a widow when he died. She died 23 May 1936.

Early Oregon Cousins - James Madison Bond

I included this James, the son of George and Elizabeth (Stillwell) Bond, in 2011 when I wrote an article for the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society periodical, Trees From the Grove,  about his uncle James Bond and his cousin James Monroe Bond, as they were the 3 James Bonds who were included in my database. This is a copy of what I wrote then.

Cousin James Madison Bond was born 23 October 1849 in Marion County, Iowa. He was the 6^th child of his parents George Washington and Elizabeth (Stillwell) Bond and was shown with his parents and 4 surviving older siblings on the 1850 census in Marion County. It is probable that James was named for the former president of the United States since his father was named George Washington Bond and some of James' brothers were William Harrison and Benjamin Franklin.

James was about 3 ½ years old when the family left Iowa in April of 1853 and traveled over the Oregon Trail to Oregon Territory. According to his father's journal the family got to the “Willamit valy” on 21 September 1853. In less than a month his parents had settled a Donation Land Claim in Lane County on 16 October 1853, so it was probably there that James could celebrate his 4^th birthday. The land claim was located on the north side of the Willamette River, across from Skinner's Butte. On the 1860 census the George Bond family was enumerated in Spencer Precinct, Lane County, Oregon. By then there were 8 children in the family. By the 1870 census, the precinct was named Springfield, although they were most probably in the same location. James' oldest brother, William Harrison, had moved to Powell's Valley Precinct in the Portland area and was teaching school and his next brother, Benjamin Franklin, had been committed to the insane asylum in East Portland. Two younger children had been born so there were still 8 children in the family.

The year 1880 would have been sad for their family since James' father died in January from heart trouble and his two youngest siblings died from typhoid fever, Charles in March at age 16 and Mary in May at age 19. James' two older sisters had already married, so in the 1880 census, James at age 30 was living with his three younger brothers and his widowed mother.

According to his obituary James moved to Linn County in 1884. He probably lived close to his uncle Solomon Bond in the Halsey area. It was 18 January 1887 when James married Mary Jane Windom, a niece of Mrs. Solomon Bond. Just over six months later, 27 June 1887, Mary died at their home near Halsey. It was the next year, 14 March 1888, when James was married for the second time. His wife was Rhoda Keeney, the daughter of Elias Keeney, an early settler in the Brownsville area of Linn County.

By the 1900 census James is shown as a 50 year old farmer in the Halsey Precinct, Linn County, Oregon, with his wife Rhoda, age 37, their two daughters: Zelma age 11 and Elfa age 9, and two of James' younger brothers: Joseph and George. It is uncertain why their son Ruel was not enumerated with the family, but he was included with his two sisters in the 1905 census. James' brothers were not living with the family then. Early in 1910, James' eldest daughter, Zelma married Claude Davis. So the 1910 census shows James, Rhoda, Elfa, Ruel and brother George still living in Halsey Precinct, on the Halsey and Brownsville Road.

During the next decade Elfa married Jay W. Moore and Ruel went into the service in World War I. Apparently James and Rhoda moved to Corvallis since in May of 1918, the Corvallis Weekly Gazette-Times printed a letter sent from France by Ruel and stated that his parents were “living here on North 12^th street.” Ruel was killed in the battle of Chateau Theirry, France 18 July 1918. He is listed on the Tablets of the Missing at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France. But his parents were not officially notified of his death until they received a telegram on the 20^th of September. Up till then they were hoping he had been taken prisoner. James and Rhoda moved to Albany, Linn County, Oregon and are listed there on the 1920 census. By the 1930 census, James and Rhoda are shown as living in the city of Newport in Lincoln County on the Oregon coast.

James and Rhoda were living back in Albany at 822 Walnut when James died of “chronic valvular heart disease” 9 April 1935. Rhoda died 8 September 1954 in Linn County and both are buried at Riverside Cemetery, Albany, Oregon.

Early Oregon Cousins - John Tong

John Tong was the son of James J. and Ann (Bond) Tong and the grandson of John and Sarah (Chastain) Bond, so was a 1st cousin of John Howard Bond, my great-grandfather which makes John Tong my 1st cousin 3 times removed.

John was the only son in the family, having 3 sisters: Sarah, Rachel and Rebecca. He was born 5 Feb 1846, probably in Marion County, Iowa, since they were there in 1850. Some researchers show the Tongs coming to Oregon on the Nelson Davis wagon train in 1853 with many of Ann's family. However, I believe the Tongs came a year earlier in 1852 because: on his Donation Land Claim application James stated they had arrived in Oregon Sep 1852 and settled their claim 30 Sep 1852; the family is not on the 1853 Umatilla listing; and in his 1853 journal George Bond (Ann's brother) wrote on 22 Sep "to Fosters a Cros a deep creek to James Tongs." So the Tongs were already settled when the Nelson Davis train arrived.

The 1850 census showed the James Tong family next door to the Solomon Bond family, both in Marion County Iowa. John was listed as John N, age 5. By 1860 the family had settled in Clackamas County Oregon in Rock Creek Precinct and John was age 14. The name Tong is sometimes difficult to research because the handwritten capital T is misread as an L, so it is indexed incorrectly. But in the BLM General Land Office records of the James and Ann Tong Donation Land Claim, their name is misread as Toug so required a little more work to find. His claim appears to be near what is now (2017) the unincorporated community of Clackamas.

It was near the end of 1868, 10 Dec, when John married Nancy Ann Heater in Marion County Oregon. But they were living in Marshfield precinct Clackamas County in 1870 next to his sister Sarah who was married to George Wise. It must have been soon that John settled his homestead because he received the patent 11 Nov 1875. His father James received a patent for a homestead the same day and his land joined John's on the north, 160 acres each. It seems likely that James had sold his Donation Land Claim and filed for the homestead to be next to his son. They are on the same page in the 1880 census for Clackamas County, still in Marshfield precinct. John's sister, Rachel Emma who was married to Jacob Scott, was also living there.

By the 1880 census John and Nancy had 4 children: Stephen, Nettie, Earl and Mary. They had 3 more children in the next 10 years: Fletcher, Marion and Rachel. The 1900 census shows the family living in Damascus precinct of Clackamas County, but this is probably the same location as before. It was between the 1880 and 1900 census when John's mother died in 1884, then John's father was committed to the Hawthorne Asylum in July of 1887. James died there in that October.

Sometime after 1900 John's family moved to Portland, Multnomah County Oregon, where his wife Nancy died 31 Jan 1909 and was buried in Multnomah Park Cemetery. John had 4 of his children still living at home in the 1910 census and his daughter Mary and her husband Edwin Plasket were living with him in 1920. John died 6 May 1922 in the Oregon City Hospital and was buried next to Nancy. His obituary states that John was survived by all 7 of his children.

  

Ancestor Birthday - March 15 - Huldah Hayes 1827-1903

Since I had two ancestors who were born on March 15th, I did the oldest one first yesterday and am writing today about the second one.

Huldah Hayes was one of my 2nd great-grandmothers. She has a quite a lot of information about her life on my genealogy website on her person page.

http://www.joanneskelton.com/p15.htm#i371

There also is an article about events in her life in the one year 1876 on the site.

http://www.joanneskelton.com/e179.htm

From these we learn that she was born 15 Mar 1827 in Geauga County Ohio to Seth and Lydia (Jewett) Hayes. The family moved to Jefferson County, Iowa, before 1840 and it was there she married Solomon Bond on 6 Jan 1842. The family is listed in Marion County Iowa on the 1850 census and it was in 1853 when they traveled over the Oregon Trail to settle in Oregon Territory. They received a Donation Land Claim next to where Halsey Oregon is now.

She and Solomon had 11 children and at least 40 grandchildren. Here is a photo of her with some of her grandchildren, probably about 1901.

When Huldah died 26 Jun 1903, her obituary stated about her:"She was a woman of excellent character, a good citizen in every respect."