Volume 10 , Issue 47

Henry & Nancy Louthan's Children

Of the known children of Henry Louthan, all are apparently from his second wife, Nancy. The oldest of these is Moses Louthan. Stories exist to support his birth by either Mary in Scotland, or by Nancy in Virginia depending on the family group of descendants. Moses' marriage is also a matter of contention.

Did Moses remain in Virginia until 1798 and marry Elizabeth Gorrell there, or did he leave Virginia during the Revolution and marry her later in 1778 in Pennsylvania where her family was prominent?

There is little doubt that after 1798, Moses Louthan became one of the leading pioneers of Beaver County, northwest of Pittsburgh. here he helped to found the Salem Presbyterian Church in Darlington, five miles east of the Ohio state line. This church is not the Reform Presbyterian Church.

Moses also held public office, acquired a large real estate holding, and was an outstanding leader according to several county histories of the late nineteenth century. Moses' children are discussed in Chapter 12 (of the book that this information was copied). Moses was born in 1749 and died in Beaver County in 1829 at 80.

John Louthan (Louthain) was born about 1750. He left the family farm and traveled south along the Shenandoah River and then crossed over into the land of the "Western Waters," those lands drained by the Ohio and eventually the Mississippi. John settled near the New River, a tributary of the Kanawah River that flows north to the Ohio River. Here he purchased 45 acres on the Macks Run in August of 1783 and then added 380 adjoining in 1790 on the south side of the New River in what is now Pulaski County, VA. John married a girl named Elizabeth and the couple sold the Macks Creek property in September of 1791 and then in 1794 bought 117 and 300 acres in two parcels at the headwaters of Falling Spring and still another 400 acres on "Neck Creek of Back Creek," another branch of the New River. Their neighbors were John and Margaret Shell, and John and Kiziah Cecil. The children of these families were to intermarry over the following years.

In 1797, John and Elizabeth sold the 300 acres parcel, and two years later, sold 100 acres of the 400 acre parcel to their son, John. The couple's remaining 417 acres were sold on May 5, 1812 and they departed for Ohio.

The records of this branch of the family are difficult to obtain as the spellings in this rural area very phonetically. The family is recorded as Lowthain, Louthain, Lowder, Lowther, and Louder as well as with the "L" replaced with the similar script "S" to give Sowder and the Souder.

John Louther served with Captain Edwards Company of Militia and appears in the List of Men who served which id dated march 24, 1781.

John's will, written in 1813, was apparently prepared shortly before his death in Ohio. Most likely the family had traveled down the New Nd Kanawha Rivers to the Ohio and down that river to Cincinnati. The government had established a land office there and on August 19, 1812, John Louthain purchased 158.62 acres of public lands in Section 4, Township 2, Range 10 of Miami county taking the Southeast quarter. The land sold for $317.24 and John paid $173.31 down. Just eight months later, after completing a cabin and stocking his new farm, John Louthain died.

Thomas Cecil had married Milly Louthain and John Louthain, Jr. had married Betsey Cecil in 1815 and 1795 respectively. James Shell had married Tabitha Louthain in 1810; Polly Shell married George Louthain in 1808 and Christian Shell married Grissy Louthain in 1815.

Margaret Shell, the mother of these Shell children, had been widowed. She left for Miami County, Ohio in 1816 with her children: Christian; James; Elizabeth and her husband Jacob Mann; and Mary and her husband George Louthain. She and the children sold their interest in a 107 acres site in Montgomery County, Virginia which had been called "Reeling Spring" just before the move.

Henry Louthan (Jr) was born in 1764 and had the same red hair of his father. he enlisted in the Continental Army at 18 and witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Seven years later, he married a Scotch lass, Mary Henderson, on May 27, 1788.

An indenture prepared on September 14, 1791 is known which leased 150 acres in Frederick County to Henry Louthan and mentions his wife, Mary, and his son, John. Leased by Robert Wormsley Carter, Esq. of Sabine Hall in the County of Richmond, the property was tob e had for a yearly rental of four pounds and ten shillings in Spanish milled dollars or other gold or silver equivalent. The note was approved the next year and witnessed by William Kerfoot, among others. Henry and Mary had nine children

Henry died in 1811 and the widowed Mary Louthan lived with her daughter in Waynesville, Ohio in 1843. She had a stroke on May 1 and by the end of the month was reported to be helpless. A letter explains the death in detail.

Elizabeth Louthan married William G. Kerfoot (who witnessed Henry's note) and they had three children. -- info submitted to NW Okie by Thomas Fetters, of Illinois, on Nov 22 2008.
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