James Sherrill - Childhood Heritage

 Who was James Sherrill? Who were his people? Where did he come from?

 James Sherrill's heritage was one of Farmers, Pioneers, and Soldiers fighting for their freedom and independence. James' grandfather, Joshua Sherrill, fought the British at the famous Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Joshua Sherrill is DAR Patriot Ancestor, A103423. James' great-grandfather, William Sherrill, DAR Patriot Ancestor, A103445, was a Captain in the Battle of Kings Mountain. Joshua Sherrill, William Sherrill, and many others of the name Sherrill, lived in the Catawba area of North Carolina, which was settled by Adam Sherrill and his sons in 1747. At that time there were buffalo, wolves, bears, turtles, deer, elk, quail, rabbits, squirrel and many other creatures inhabiting North Carolina. It was still like a frontier when James was born there in 1830.

James Sherrill's father, Hugh Sherrill, moved his family to Cherokee County, Alabama between 1833 and 1835. By the time James Sherrill was five years old, his family was established on their plantation on the banks of the Coosa River. If the Catawba in North Carolina was still like frontier, the Coosa area in Cherokee County was truly wild country. James fished the Coosa River and hunted the woods for game as he grew older. While his older sisters were learning to spin and weave, James was following his father and older brothers around the plantation, or on hunting or fishing expeditions. It seemed a charmed life, but at the root it was sustained by slavery. Evidently, Hugh Sherrill suffered a revulsion of feeling about that peculiar institution which had been familiar to him all his life.  When Hugh left the South, and his plantation, behind, he patently rejected slavery.

James Sherrill's father Hugh broke with generations of tradition and culture when he moved his family from Alabama to Iowa in 1846, going to live north of the Mason-Dixon line for the first time in his lifetime, and a first in his family. The Missouri Compromise, which passed the US Congress in 1820, established slavery as legal south of the Mason-Dixon line, and prohibited slavery north of the line. By moving to Iowa, Hugh Sherrill made a deliberate choice that went against generations of his ancestors. It was as good as a public declaration against slavery. Hugh gave up the plantation life that he had known in North Carolina, and had continued in Alabama.

Hugh Sherrill's move north of the Mason-Dixon Line was to have repercussions far beyond giving up the plantation. Hugh's older children had married southerners, and they stayed in the south when Hugh moved his family to Iowa. Hugh's younger sons married northern women. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the Sherrill family was divided by geography, by whether their income was derived from plantations, and by family ties, according to who they married. The men went and fought in the war, and it was literally brother against brother for Hugh's sons. All except James, who left the United States of America in 1852, taking the Oregon Trail over 2,000 miles to the Willamette Valley in Oregon Territory.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/68278734/hugh-sherrill: accessed 22 December 2022), memorial page for Hugh Sherrill (17 Sep 1792–28 Feb 1849), Find a Grave Memorial ID 68278734, citing Pine Hill Cemetery, Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, USA; Maintained by Texasnmyheart (contributor 46847602).

But that was years in the future. For now, we find Hugh Sherrill on page 20 of the Wapello County Iowa State Census in 1847. James Sherrill lived at home with his parents, age seventeen, and worked on his father's farm. James' older sister Margaret kept a journal of those years. When Hugh Sherrill died in 1849, at age 57, James went to live with Margaret and her husband, and worked on their farm. Margaret makes a point about her brother James in her journal. She describes him breaking up the sod with a sod plow - pulled by six teams of oxen -- which would be twelve oxen pulling the plow. James must have been a large, muscular young man.

Coming Tomorrow: The Wagon Train Crosses Iowa and arrives at the Missouri River

James Sherrill 1830 - 1913 - his Life and Times

 James Sherrill lived an amazing life:

-- 1830, born to a famous southern pioneer family;

-- 1840, raised on the frontier in Alabama;

-- 1850, grew to manhood on the frontier in Iowa;

-- 1852, married Mary Ann Evans, honeymoon on the Oregon Trail;

-- 1853, claimed 320 acres of land on the frontier in the Willamette Valley;

-- James Sherrill was a pioneer, a farmer, an inventor

-- 1870 Census, still farming his 320 acres near the Willamette River.

-- 1873, invented and patented a new and improved cultivator,

The Albany register. (Albany Or.) February 09 1877
Sherrill's Cultivator and Seeder

-- 1872, moved from his farm in Linn County, Oregon, to Harrisburg, and set up manufacturing for his Cultivator, meeting a popular demand for his invention

-- 1885, moved to Washington where he made another farm out of the wilderness in Chelatchie, Clark County, Washington. The 1885 Territorial census shows James Sherrill, age 54, with his wife, Mary A. Sherrill, age 51, and their two youngest children:  George Sherrill, age 21 and Ella Sherrill, age 12.

--  1887, Clark, Washington. The Census shows James Sherrill, age 56, still in Washington Territory; with him, his wife, Mary Sherrill, age 53, and their youngest child, Ella Sherrill, age 14.

-- 1896, James and his wife Mary Ann (Evans) Sherrill eventually retired to a home in The Dalles, Wasco County, Oregon, where she died in 1896, at age 63.

--  1900, in Harrisburg, Oregon, James Sherrill, widower, age 67, is living with his son Hugh Sherrill, his daughter-in-law America Sherrill, his three grandsons, and a granddaughter.

-- 1910, James, age 77 was living in Island, Union County, Oregon, with Mary E Childers, his widowed sister-in-law. Mary grew ill and her daughter came to take care of her. She died in 1912.

-- 1912-1913, James Sherrill, age 79, returned to Clark County, Washington, where he lived with his daughter Annie, age 58, and her husband Constant Barchus, age 66. Their youngest son Harry Barchus, age 20, and youngest daughter, Floy, age 17, were still at home to make things lively for grandpa James. James was blind by then, and was known affectionately in the neighborhood (which was filled with his grandchildren), as the 'the blind grandfather'.

-- 1913, James Sherrill died 30 Oct 1913, age 82.

Exciting details for each era of his life to follow, beginning tomorrow.

James Sherrill is my great-great-grandfather, as shown in the pedigree snippet below:

Pedigree snippet from Wikitree

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Last night, our pioneer family was singing Christmas Carols...

and they are singing again tonight. Indeed, that is all I can say about them this evening, and give you a link to the song they loved to repeat, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", as sung by the Southern Raised Gospel and Blue Grass Band.

James Sherrill got hold of the popular story "A Christmas  Carol" by Charles Dickens, published about ten years earlier, and they were listening to him read a section every night. They came to the part about Scrooge chasing off the caroler who was singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", and they all agreed they must stop and sing it before finishing the story. We now sing the same Christmas song, when it is about two hundred years old.

"We need some music! James? Will you sing?"

 "I've been practicing in the barn, Mary Ann. I figured the cows wouldn't mind if I hit a wrong note."

"Do you think Edward and my father would come over tonight and sing with us?"

"Yes, sweet wife, I have already asked them. They said yes, and Edward is bringing his banjo."

"I'm so glad he brought it with him. He has played it for about ten years -- since he was about sixteen years old. We had a neighbor back in Iowa who played, and agreed to show him how."

"Here they are now." Mary Jane was jumping up and down with excitement. She hugged her grandfather first, and then her uncle. "What will you play first, Uncle Ed?"

"It is nearly Christmas, Mary Jane. What do you think we should play?"

"Away in the Manger, please."

And so they began, with the simple tune every child learned as soon as they could talk. 

"Away in a manger no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head,The stars in the sky looked down where he lay, The little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay.""The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes, 

I love You, Lord Jesus, Look down from the sky, And stay by my side Until morning is nigh.

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask You to stay, Close by me forever, And love me I pray,

Bless all the dear children, In Your tender care, And fit us for heaven, To live with You there."

 

NOTE: Away in the Manger was first published in 1895, but it is known to have been sung much earlier than that. Martin Luthur (died 1546) is credited with the tune, and it is unknown if he wrote the lyrics.

It was the dead of winter.

 The geese were long gone to southern lakes. Water here was nearly frozen over in the morning. The days were brief, and the sun made only rare appearances in a steely sky. Getting across the Great Plains and the mountains was the first test, and now they were in the middle of the second test: how to get through day after day of enforced solitude with only each other for company. Mary Ann made the sewing machine her father bought for her to keep humming as long as she had daylight to sew. She rose early to make apple pie, using the dried apple slices she had put up in the fall. She carefully measured out the precious cinnamon and sugar, to make it last through the winter.

Winter was a time to make and create. Mary Ann showed Mary Jane how to braid a rug out of scraps of material. Once it was finished, Mary Jane put it next to her bed, smiling with the satisfaction of having made something herself. James was busy in the evening also, mending the harnesses for the horses, oiling the reins and making safe their way of travel.

They all looked forward to the reading after dinner, when James would  open the big book of Pilgrim's Progress, and the closed in walls of the tiny cabin would melt away in the entrancing story of temptation, and help from God, and overcoming victory. They could all identify with Pilgrim, getting a victory over temptation, and then falling right into the devil's trap, through pride in winning. They knew the way of the Pilgrim, where one could be going along in an ordinary way on an ordinary day, and gradually find one's self in a pit of depression or self-pity. 

In a few months they would be able to work outdoors, in the garden, or visit neighbors and have a quilting bee. For now, it was a time of reflection, of making sure the inner person would be prepared as the outer person, furnished with fitting clothes and covered with humility and grace for adornments. They fed their spirits on God's Word, and they grew strong in the Lord. When troubles came, as troubles surely do, they would be ready Meanwhile, they were their own best entertainment. They sang hymns and folk songs, they made inventive little presents out of wood, or corn husks, or scraps left over from a dress. Mary Ann made a doll coat for Mary Jane's tiny doll, and Mary Jane spent hours taking it off and putting it back on her dolly. 

Coat for 8 " dolly, made by Hilda Nayha
Images by Leo Dauenhauer.

Last Day of the Class on Family Tree Maker.

 Family Tree Maker 2019 v. 24.1 is the program that runs my family tree on my home computer. There are some advanced features I need to learn today, the last day of the class. So far, I've learned things that I didn't think were possible -- because the new version has features that weren't available on earlier versions.

Friday was my birthday, and the class was my present - in advance - from Goldibear. It is surprising to me to discover I can still learn complicated new things at 77 years old. Monday this Pandababy blog will resume daily postings on genealogy and on our family tree.

Pandababy Blog in 2023 will, I hope, be able to present interesting stories out of the 5,000 people in my tree. Some examples are the Quakers who fled to the wilderness that was New Jersey in the 1600s, to have freedom of religion; the Germans who came to America in 1750, and joined the battle for Independence in 1776; The Finnish ancestors who came in 1912, when Finland was under the boot heel of its neighbor Russia: these are just a few of the stories I want to tell in the coming year.

The old saying that history repeats itself is embodied in my family tree. My grandparents left Finland because they wanted the freedom to speak, read and write in their native tongue, Finnish. Russia was doing in Finland then what it is doing in Ukraine now - making people teach school in Russian, giving preference to Russians for government jobs, drafting the young men into the Russian army -- all the same and much more. My family tree is a living example of the indomitable human spirit that cries out in all of us for the dignity of freedom of expression, of religion, of autonomy.

From the Magna Carta Surety Barons of 1215, to the signers of the Declaration of Independence of 1776, my ancestors have embraced the causes embodied in the Constitution of the United States.