Notes for: John Payne MARSH
John Payne Marsh
Letter from Pension Files for Benjamin Marsh written by John Payne Marsh October 1886
Marsh History Genealogy.
A family record may be of little interest to the general reader of the Press as a family history appear in a recent issue, with an invitation to present it I will give a brief record of my fathers family.
William Marsh was born at Andover, Massachusetts, March 26, 1776, and his wife Mary Hines in May 1783, at the same place they married in 1798 and settled in Herkimer County, New York, then nearly unbroken wilderness, where six of their children were born. From where they emigrated to Washington County the same state, eight miles from Fort Ann, in an unimproved 25 acres, here wolves, bears, and panthers were no unusual sight to hunters and settlers. Here six more children were born. The births of those children were as follows: Ann, Nov. 3,99; Ruth, Nov 30, 1801; Diana, Feb28, 1804; William, Feb 9, 1806; Benjamin, April 24, 1808; Matilda, March 9, 1810; (died in infancy); Patience, April 29, 1811; George Washington, Sept 30, 1813; Mary Ann, Jan 11, 1817; Lurana, April 0, 1819; Sylvia, Sept 26, 1821; John Payne, Jan 31, 1824; and Nathan, August 13, 1826. In the year 1829 or 1830, In November, the family again stuck their tents, and migrated to St. Lawrence county, New York and settled again in a dense wilderness, near Gouvernor, where after suffering untold hardships, father, mother and youngest son, Nathan, started again in 1841 for the west, settling in Bucyrus, Crawford County, Ohio where in March 1843 father died, Mother returned to New York where she died in 1863. Ten of the children are now living Ruth in or near Bucyrus, Crawford, Ohio, Diana (Brown) in Jefferson County, New York, William in North East, Erie County Pennsylvania, Benjamin, Swan near Des Moines, Iowa; George Washington, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin; Mary Ann (Robinson) , Hickory Corners, Michigan; Lurana, Knoxville, Tennessee; Sylvia, Mannsville, New York (Watertown); John Payne, Pulaski, Ohio; and Nathan at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Their ages are 85; 82; 80; 79; 73; 69; 67; 65; 62; 60, and the sum of their ages is 721 1/10 years. All have earned their living by the sweat of their face. One remarkable feature is, that every one of their sons capable of doing military duty, was in the service for the preservation of their county, except two sons of sisters whose husbands are Democrats and sympathized with their democratic brethren in the South. (signed) John Payne Marsh