Notable Women Ancestors - Pioneer Women
Pioneer & Emigrant Womencovered wagons

BAKER, Ann Eliza Leavitt
In addition to raising her own large family, Ann travelled throughout the Canadian prairie to deliver hundreds of babies (more than 600 without losing a mother or baby) and care for the sick. She walked, rode horseback, or went by wagon, and on many occasions, rode miles on a boat. She was the President of the local Relief Society for 26 years.

BARNES, Mary Ann Johnson
Mary, the mother of Nellie (Barnes) Walton (see below), came to America through the financial support of her son-in-law and lived in Battle Creek, Michigan until the age of 95.

BLOCK, Diana Lucina Spicer
This incredible women whose story is told in her own words, was 104 years old when she died in 1972. Born in Nevada in 1868, she also lived in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and California. A true pioneer woman, she relates her experiences with cowboys, Indians, early railroading, and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, as well as her family stories in this amazing autobiography.

BRADSHAW, Elizabeth Simpson Haigh
After emigrating to America from Bolton, Lancashire, England, Elizabeth and her five children joined the Latter Day Saints on an even tougher migration - the perilous trek to Utah on the infamous "handcart train".

BULLS, Grace Maria Bransford
Raised in Texas, Grace and her husband, Jim Bulls headed for Oklahoma where they homesteaded. Interesting details of pioneer life from Grace's own autobiography.

CABANISS, Nancy Melvina Melborn
Nancy was a pioneer of Arapahoe, Oklahoma who, besides raising her family and keeping her home, was the constant business companion of her husband in raising and training mules for farmers and livery stables.

CLINE, Sarah Elizabeth Willis
Sarah traveled three times by covered wagon from Illinois to Missouri, and sat on President Lincoln's lap.

COBB, Mittie Olivia Stephens
A pioneer of Arapahoe, Oklahoma, Mittie was at the store she and her husband built to receive the first weekly delivery of mail from horse-back postal rider. As a member of the Methodist Church, she served as superintendent and at different times taught all the grades in the Sunday School.

CORBETT, Camilla Dorothy Jacobsen
Camilla was a Danish convert to the LDS Church who left Denmark and travelled west, eventually joining a handcart company. Before embracing the Gospel, her life was one of luxury. She never saw a loaf of bread baked until she landed in Philadelphia. Her father's best friend was the butler to the King of Denmark and one of Camilla's earliest memories was tasting meat of the King's horses. At Philadelphia they went through her luggage and found that Camilla had too much to bring across the plains. She was allowed one change of underwear and an extra dress and the rest of her clothing was thrown into the ocean.

DEWEY, Beulah Annis
Beulah was born in Massachusetts and moved with her parents to Vermont after the Revolution. After her marriage to Rev. Timothy Dewey, she resided in Madison county, NY. Surviving letters written by both Rev. Dewey and Beulah are included here.

DUNIWAY, Abigail Scott & JOHNSON, Esther Roelofson
Esther came across the Oregon Trail and helped found Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Oregon. Her niece, Abigail, worked with Susan B. Anthony on women's suffrage and was the first woman to cast her vote in the state of Oregon.

EVANS, Julia Anne Phippen Eldredge
A pioneer woman, Julia traveled across country from Iowa to Idaho, raised eight children and lost two husbands. She lived for an incredible 103 years and saw a century's worth of changes and innovations.

FRENCH, Rebecca Hobbs Croswell
Rebecca was a poor girl reared in the rough streets of industrial Leeds in England. Through perseverance, she rose above squalor and poverty to become the quiet matriarch of a strong Canadian pioneering family. Great historical descriptions here as well, such as the weekly rations issued to the passengers who crossed the Atlantic on the ship Rebecca emigrated on.

GEERDTS, Bertha Starke
As a teenager, Bertha Starke left her parents and siblings in Germany and took the long journey across the Atlantic, then half way across the country, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She began to settle down, but her family was always in her mind, and she wrote them often.

GOODMAN, Catherine Gouger
Catherine was captured as a child by Shawnee Indians and remained in captivity with them for 5 years until French-Canadians bargained for her release. She remained with them for 2 yeas while she worked off the ransom paid to the Indians. Later she was recognized as the first white woman of Ohio to leave issue.

HAMRICK, Elizabeth Wisdom Rhodes
Elizabeth was a pioneer woman who brought her family to California at the height of the Gold Rush.

HEATLEY, Ellen O'Hanlon (Hanlon)
Ellen was born in a castle in County Kerry, Ireland, but immigrated to Canada with her family when she was about seven. Later they removed to Chicago when her fine sewing was in great demand, and after her marriage made the trek by covered wagon with her husband to Colorado.

HEDGES, Naomi Ruth Danbrook
Ruth lived through the trials of homesteading, drought, prairie fires, and the untimely deaths of a child and her husband. Living to be 100, she lived through two world wars, a great depression, saw the invention of the automobile, television, and computers; she traveled by covered wagon and saw men land on the moon.

HILL, Isyphene Annas
Isyphene, the daughter of Quaker parents, was brought up to understand all kinds of spinning, weaving and patchwork and at the early age of eighteen, considering herself an adept in those arts, consented to marry John Hill, a soldier of the Revolution who belonged to General Washington's Guard.

JOST, Anna Margarethe ("Maggie") Marie Thomsen Christensen Stubbe de Crevecoeur,
Maggie was born in Denmark in 1840 and married George Christensen in 1858 in Hamburg Germany. From there the couple sailed to Australia just in time for the Gold Rush of the 1850's. After that died down, they came to California. George died and Anna married a fellow named Stubbe by whom she had 2 children. After he was killed, she married for the third time to Hans Fredrick Briand de Crevecoeur. Together, Hans and Maggie ran a boarding house in San Francisco. When Hans was murdered, Maggie married yet again to Christopher Francis Jost. Fascinating biography filled with details of emigrating, gold rush, earthquakes, and more.

LANE, Polly Pierce Hart
Escaping out the back window of her home from an attack by Indians, 12-year old Polly fled downstream in a canoe and was rescued by the Hart family. She went on to become the wife of General Joseph Lane, a hero of the Mexican-American war.

LATTA, Jane Knox
Jane was born during the Revolutionary War and lived until 1864, outliving her husband, children, stepchildren, sons-in-law, and many of her grandchildren. She did not go to school but managed to gain an education anyway. It was her insistance that got all three of her daughters educated at the Moravian-run Salem Academy. Her husband, James built the historic Latta Plantation, now an historical site in North Carolina.

LEAMING, Martha (Mattie) Caroline Rogers
This autobiography by Mattie wonderfully describes her pioneer family's move from Kentucky to Missouri and Texas in the mid 1800's. Details include slavery, the Civil War and a Texas 'norther.'

JOHNSTON, Elizabeth
The author of this web page came across Elizabeth while researching her own family and offers her own thoughts and insight on pioneering life.

MACK, Joanna Quaid
Joanna was five years old when she immigrated from Ireland with her family in 1836. This is a fascinating account which details farm life in Wisconsin, work on the railroad, the Great Fire that nearly destroyed the city of Chicago in 1871, and a personal acquaintance with a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois named Abraham Lincoln.

McAFEE, Jane McMichael
In the spring of 1739, Jane, her husband James, and their three young sons (she later had more children) sailed from Belfast, Ireland, to the American colonies, settling in Octorara Creek in Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania. In the early 1750s, the family moved to Augusta Co., Virginia, settling along Catawba Creek. Then in 1778-1779 Jane, without her husband, moved with her sons to central Kentucky, becoming among the first to cross the Cumberlands.

McCORMICK, Nancy McAdam
Known as a pioneer buisness woman of Canandaigua, NY, she also ran an ice business and a small boat livery and served as toll collector for all vehicles which used the pier and all boats that landed there.

MEEDS, Annis Amelia
Having lost her husband to a "quick consumption" while she was pregnant with her last baby, Annis raised 9 children in a dugout on the Nebraska plains.

MERCER'S MAIDS - WASHINGTON Pioneer Brides of 1864
The "Mercer's Maids" were among the earliest settlers of Washington Territory; the REAL brides on which the TV series "Here Comes the Brides" was based. Annie May ADAMS, Antoinette BAKER, Josephine BAKER, Sarah Elizabeth CHENEY, Arelia "Lillie" COFFIN, Sara Jane GALLAGHER, Ann M. MURPHY, Mary Elizabeth ORDWAY, Josephine (Josie) PEARSON, Georgianna "Georgie" PEARSON, Catherine Clement STEVENS, Catherine STICKNEY.

MILLER, Georgie Emma Opal Henderson
From rural Kansas to urban California, Georgie's story is an extraordinarily detailed account of an ordinary farming woman, representing the thousands of hard-working, pioneering women who came before us.

MILLER, Lydia Leaming
Autobiography of Lydia's pioneer trek from Dallas County, Iowa to Oregon in 1866. Fascinating detail, including travel by wagon train, Indian attacks and buffalo gnats.

MOORE, Allie Annis
Delightful autobiography of Allie as given to her daughter, Maxine. Beginning with her move from Kansas to Oklahoma by covered wagon when she was 4 years old, Allie details the life of of an early 20th century woman in the "horse and buggy" days.

PRATT, Eunice Morse
Leaving the comforts of Eaton, NY after the death of her husband, Eunice hitched a team of horses to a covered wagon and removed to Palmyra, Missouri. An interesting letter to her brother is here.

ROPER, Emeline Tyler
This first-person narrative of Emeline (1833-1919) is a fascinating account of an ordinary woman. She reminisces about her childhood, including being "farmed out" to work for her uncle's family, traveling through the Erie Canal by boat and homesteading in Wisconsin. She touches on events that affected her life, from the Civil War to World War I.

RUDOLPH, Irene Decker Powell
Irene's story, an autobiography, is rich in details about Montana ranch life in the 1930's.

SAUL, Mary Elizabeth Powell
This is an autobiography, a first-hand account of pioneer life in Gregory County, South Dakota.

STANDERFER Women
A growing biographical section of the Standerfer, Etc. Research web site, containing several biographies, obituaries and photos of pioneer women with this surname and its variations.

STONE, Elizabeth Hickok Robbins
Born in Connecticut in 1801 and in later life known as "Auntie Stone", this adventuresome woman pioneered in Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota and finally Colorado. She was the first white woman in Camp Collins and the only woman there for nearly a year. The bording house she and her husband ran here would become an historic structure of Ft. Collins.

TOWELL, Emily Fletcher
Emily kept a detailed diary of her westward journey in a covered wagon caravan in 1881. Fascinating reading!

TUTTLE, Mary Jane Cantrell
Mary Jane was a Kansas pioneer and there are many fascinating details including her letter to the editor of a local paper. In it she describes the aftermath of Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas.

WALTON, Eleanor Emma "Nellie" Barnes
Nellie was born in England and married William Walton who, unable to support his family, emigrated to America. Nellie and their children soon followed in 1907 at Detroit via Canadian Pacific from Quebec.

WHEELER, Elizabeth Case Milam
This in-depth biography covers Elizabeth's life from her childhood to her first marriage to William Milam in Indiana, their removal to Nauvoo and Salt Lake City as Mormons, and her second marriage to William Wheeler.

WOODBURY, Martha Alice Parker
An emigrant from England, Alice came to America with her family when she was 10 and joined the migrating Mormons to Utah. They were part of the second Mormon "handcart train", pushing and pulling, and walking their way some 1300 miles before reaching their final destination.

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