WILLIAM
B. CARMAN (1791-1874)
&
ELIZABETH JAQUITH (1791-1841)
WILLIAM
B. CARMAN, one of the original trustees of incorporation of the Town
of Palmyra, came to Missouri a short time earlier with his pregnant
wife, Elizabeth, and half a dozen or more of their nine children.
William
was born on September 28, 1791, in New York, but was himself an
early settler of Harrison County, Kentucky.
About
1816, the younger William Carman was married to twenty-five year old
Elizabeth Jaquess, widow of Isaac Jaquess and daughter of John
Johnston, who was said to have been an Indian fighter in Kentucky.
She had a son, Isaac Newton, and Elizabeth and William Carman
were to have nine children, all born in Kentucky, before they moved
in early spring of 1828 into northeast Missouri.
Their tenth and last child, James H. B. Carman, was born just
six months after their arrival in Missouri, so Elizabeth must have
been “with child” during their journey from Kentucky.
William
B. Carman was one of the first trustees of Palmyra in 1830, when the
town was incorporated.
Even
before then, Palmyra boasted of location of the United States Land
Office for the entire district of northeast Missouri.
On March 30, 1829 (MoLDO, 2:48:5), Carman bought seventy-six
acres in the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 29,
Township 57 North Range 4 West.
This land is on the site of the rivertown of Hannibal; it is
speculative whether the Carmans ever lived there.
On September 11, 1830 (MoLDO, 2:63:18, 19), however, Carman
made two additional purchases of government land, totaling 160
acres. One eighty acre
tract was the east half of the northwest quarter of Section 29,
T57NR6W, near the village of West Eli in southern Marion County; the
other was the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 20,
T58NR6W, which was on Licking Creek, a few miles west of Palmyra. Again,
on October 28, 1830 (MoLDO, 2:65:21), he doubled the size of his
farm on Licking Branch by buying another eighty acres in the west
half of the northwest quarter of adjoining Section 29, T58NR6W.
By then, Carman’s holdings comprised nearly a full section
of land—albeit mostly in scattered parcels.
Elizabeth
and William had eight daughters and two sons.
Paulina
Carman, born in 1817, was married on January 24, 1839 (Marion MR A:
Date), to twenty-four year old Tennessee-born John Pearce.
They lived with their children in Macon County (Macon Census
1850:150 [#462]:36-42)
America
Carman, also born in 1817 and maybe a twin sister of Paulina,
evidently was married twice. First
to a man named Jones by whom she had a son, Robert, and then, about
1847, to William Dearing, who was born in 1811 in Virginia.
In 1850 (Marion Census 1850:360[#1493]:34-360, the Dearings
live next door to his sixty-two year old widowed mother, Mary, and
her youngest son, Allen J. Dearing, and in America’s household is
fifteen year old Robert Jones, who was born in Missouri.
Anna
Eliza Carman never married.
Harriet
Carman married Jonathan Eckhardt.
Nancy
Carman was married on March 8, 1838 (Marion MR A:131), to twenty
year old Kentucky born Morris Gibbons.
They lived in Marion County with their five children (Marion
Census 1850:337 [#1163]:2-10).
By
1840, William and Elizabeth Carman’s Fabius Township house (Narion
Census 1840:67:15) still included two sons and four girls.
Laura Jane Carman died in infancy, however.
Tragedy
struck the family on February 16, 1841.
(Palmyra Whig 2/20/1841), when William Carman’s wife,
Elizabeth Carman, died and was buried in the Carman Cemetery near
Palmyra. The newspaper
called her “Nancy” and gave her age as “about forty,” but
her tombstone identifies her as Elizabeth “Jaquith” and birth
and death dates, October 17, 1791-February 16, 1841, showed she was
going on fifty years of age.
More
than three years later, on April 18, 1844 (Ralls MR A:154), Carman
was married again to a thirty-eight year old widow, Sarah (Calvin)
Neill.
Republican
3/3/1843), when he “died of winter fever…”
Three of William Carman’s children were married in 1846
and, in 1849, the last of his children was married.
On
January 29, 1846, (Marion MR A:282), William B. Carman Jr. was
married to Amanda M. Poole, whose mother was present and gave her
consent to the marriage of her seventeen year old daughter.
Amanda’s father, Anthony Poole, died within the year, and
young Carman was a witness to his will (Marion Wills B:443-447
&456 [1847]). The
Pooles were from Virginia, and Amanda was born in 1828 in Kentucky.
A few years later (Marion Census 1850:264[#86]:32-35), the
Carmans lived with their first two children, Theodore and Frances,
within a short distance of both surviving parents.
On
February 10, 1846, (Marion MR A:291), Mary J. Carman was married to
twenty-three year old Benjamin Melson, a native of Maryland.
They lived in Shelby County (Shelby Census
1850:232[#363]:26-42), where his seventy year old mother Milly
Melson, was a member of their household, along with their three year
old son John.
On
February 10, 1846 (Marion MM[lost]); see Marion History 7120, Emily
Ann Carman was married to John Maston, who was born on January 8,
1822, in Scott County, Kentucky.
Maston was a ‘49er, since he does not appear with his wife
and year-old baby girl, Laura, in the 1850 Census.
Instead, Emily and the infant were living with her
brother-in-law and sister, Morris and Nancy Gibbons (Marion Census
1850:337[#1163]:2-10), in Warren Township; by then, the Gibbons’
had five children. Emily
Ann died on January 9, 1869, and Masten was married again on April
3, 1872, to Elizabeth (Coons) Willian, widow of Jacob Willian, who
died in May 1868.
James
H. B. Carman, youngest son of William and Elizabeth (Jaquith)
Carman, was married on April 3, 1849 (Ralls MR B:np), to twenty-year
old Mary Ann Shulse. She
was born on May 28, 1828, in Ralls County, one of the older of
Alexander and Eleanor (Whitledge) Shulse’s nine daughters.
William
Carman died on April 17, 1874, at eighty-two years of age.
He was buried in his family cemetery at Palmyra, where his
first wife had been interred more than forty years before.
His surviving widow, Sarah Carman, died on December 27, 1877,
“in her 71st year of age.” |