Volume 10 , Issue 48

Moses & Elizabeth (Gorrell) Louthan's Children

This information is courtesy of Tom Fetters in Illinois ad a continuances of the "Louthan Family History" - Chapter 12.

Moses and Elizabeth had 11 children between 1782 and 1805. Moses and his wife lived in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Their children migrated west to Ohio where they had their own families in later years. While the families are known, little history of the individuals has been found for most.

Moses is reported to have come from Frederick County, Virginia to Westmoreland County, PA which lay East of Pittsburgh, before traveling on to Beaver County. Local histories of Beaver County report that Moses Louthan was an elder of the Black Hawk Church in 1797, a year after the Indians had been forced out of the area.

Each of the eight children of Moses and Elizabeth Louthan are listed below:

1* John Louthan (1774-1816) -- Moses' first child was John Louthan, who was born in 1774. He married Mary Hamilton twenty years later in 1794. The census of 1800 shows a John Louthan living next to Moses in Beaver County and this is surely his first born son. John died in 1816 in Columbiana County, OH and a will is known there for a John Loudon who died in 1816.

Moses Louthan (1805-) -- John and Mary had two children, although only one is firmly rooted. The first, Moses Louthan born in 1805 was raised in Columbiana county, Ohio. This Moses married Catherine Hayes on September 28, 1826. Moses was a postmaster at Clarkson in Middleton Township of Columbiana county. Late, the couple moved West to Ripley county, Indiana. And still later, they moved still further West to Simpson, Cloud county, Kansas. Moses and Catherine had ten children. The death notice for Moses in Kansas mentions that when his father, John Louthan, died in 1816, Moses went to live with his grandfather, Joseph Hamilton.

The Hayes siblings were Edmund Hayes who married Sarah Whitacre in Frederick county, MD just across the river from Loudon County, VA, and his two sisters married Louthan brothers in Columbiana County, OH. Harriet Hayes married Hiram Louthan and Catherine Hayes married Moses Louthan.

Hiram Louthan (c1805-) -- The second child of John and Mary is clearly Hiram Louthan who is also listed as born in 1805. Although said to have moved west from Louden Valley in Virginia, he settled in Columbiana County, Ohio and married the sister of Catherine Hayes, Harriet Matilda Hayes, on February 27, 1834 at Guilford, Ohio. The couple had four children and the first three were born there before Hiram and Harriet moved west to Washington County, Ohio. Hiram appears in the 1840 census at Hanover, Columbiana County, Ohio. He died in 1845 not long after the birth of his daughter, margaret.

Harriet then married William Ormiston, a Scotsman, on March 3, 1847 at Barlow, Washington County. Harriet and William Ormiston had 8 children who are known. They lived in Kansas and in Linn County, Missouri. Harriet died in 1884 in Linn County, Missouri. William later moved to New Sharon, Iowa and died there in 1903.

Oliver Perry Louthan (1834-1897) -- Hiram's oldest child, Oliver Perry Louthan, was married in Washington County, OH in 1857 to Elizabeth Vernon. She died in 1871, and he married Mary Thurston Metcalf in 1871. They moved west to Grundy County, Missouri.

John Cope Louthan (1836-1918) -- Oliver's brother, John Cope Louthan, is well known. Born in 1836, he married Anna Jane Haddow in 1863. Not much later, he entered the War Between the States and often told his children of carrying the flag in battle until it was shot to ribbons. H was struck in the foot by shrapnel which was not removed. he carried the metal fragments for the rest of his life.

John returned home and the couple's first child, Edwin Alonzo Louthan, arrived in 1866. John and Anna had seven children, although only three of them reached maturity. Anna died in 1881 and John married again in 1883 to Mary Ann Elizabeth Hale who was 25. They had ten children between 1885 and 1901.

John and Mary Ann moved west to Nashville, Kansas where the first seven children arrived. John then set out for Indian Territory on horseback to find new land. He contested a claim and won it. This property was three miles south and four and a half miles east of Chester, OK in what was Woods County, Oklahoma Territory.

During the spring and summer of 1894, John planted crops and tended them and in the fall returned to Nashville for his family. By this time Eddie, (Edwin Alonzo) and Bertie (Robert Hiram), the two oldest of John's children, had married and started their own families.

John and the family loaded a granary and a chicken house on two wagons and loaded the rest of the household goods along with Sammie (Samuel Oscar), the last of the surviving children of Anna, and the youngest six children ranging from 7 to eight months and headed back to Oklahoma. John drove the wagon with the granary and Mary drove a six horse team hitched to the wagon with the chicken house perched on the rear. The trails were rough and both wagons upset several times along the way. Everyone had to struggle to right them and reload the gear in the middle of the prairie with no one to help.

They arrived at the farm on Christmas Day, 1894 with $27 and a herd of horses. They set up the granary and lived in it surrounded by a grove of trees for three years. Bud, who was Christened Roy, was born there. Later the men went up into some canyons and cut cedar logs to build a cabin which was erected on the north side of the farm. Rosa and Lillie were both born in the cabin with the aid of neighbor ladies who helped with births and sicknesses. Often quinine powder, the only medicine readily available was wrapped in an onion skin to allow it to be swallowed. Indians often passed through the farm and young Jessie, seven when they reached the farm site, would hid under the bed when they stopped to talk and trade.

There was a lot of wild game nearby. Jessie and Pearl helped to refill the shells for their father. Sammie helped his father at the farm until about 1908 when he married. By this time, Charles and John had grown to be young men who took over the chores.

John Cope Louthan had a long beard as long as the family could remember. But it once burned off when John was fighting a prairie fire and his beard caught fire.

The children got two or three months of school a year at the Lakeside School District #59 and this was the system through the fifth grade.

Mary died in 1909 of typhoid along with her youngest child who was eight. John died nine years later and both are buried at Hope Cemetery southeast of Chester, Oklahoma.

James Fife Louthan (1838-1915) -- James F. Louthan was born in Columbiana County, Ohio in 1838 to Hiram and Harriet Louthan. he married Martha Jane Ellis in 1860 and they moved west to Medicine Lodge, Kansas after the war.

2* James Louthan (1179-1825) -- The history of Beaver county, Pennsylvania tells us that James Louthan, the second son of Moses and Betsey Louthan, was born in South Beaver Township, and later settled on a farm adjoining the homestead of his father. Subsequently, he sold the property and moved to Wayne County, Ohio where he bought a farm of 100 acres on Apple Creek. He had cleared much of the property when he died at the age of forty three years from pneumonia. He had married Anna Bradshaw and had a large family.

As her husband died when their children were all small, she deserves the most credit for their responsible bringing up. They were Moses, Sarah who married Hugh Sebring and moved to Clay County, Indiana; Eliza who remained at Darlington; Susan who married Samuel McConnell; and James.

Anna sold the farm and returned to Beaver County with her children and settled on a farm near South Beaver Township. She later moved to Darlington, Pennsylvania where she died at eighty-three.

Moses Louthan (1810-1890) -- The oldest child, Moses Louthan, was born in 1810. He married Electra Thomas and they had eight children. Moses lived to be 82 and he died at New Waterford, Ohio. Electra died in 1901 at 87.

Moses' fifth child, J T Louthan, was born in Columbiana County, Ohio on May 3, 1843. He enlisted in Company F of the 87th Ohio Infantry in the spring of 1862. He was captured at the siege of Harpers Ferry, and, when paroled, returned to Ohio. He re-enlisted in August of 1863 in Company B of the 12th Ohio Cavalry. He fought at Saltsville, Virginia; Strawberry Plains in Tennessee and at Bridgeport in Alabama. He was released at Nashville, TN and was discharged at Columbus, Ohio. He then worked as a blacksmith and left in 1867 for Baxter Springs in Kansas where he resumed his trade. He married Margaret Myer of Illinois in 1869 and they moved to Barton county, Missouri in 1875 where they bought a farm at Arcadia in nearby Crawford County. He worked the 160 acres for a number of years and had a blacksmith shop on the farm. After Margaret died in 1880, he married again a few years later in 1896 to Charlotte Parker, a native of England who had been a trained nurse in London.

James Louthan, Jr. (1817-1900) -- James Louthan, Jr. was born in Wayne county, OH on April 8, 1817 near Wooster, but returned with his mother and siblings to South Beavers Township of Beaver County, Pennsylvania when his father died. James Jr. was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade and he worked at this for the next forty years. He married Nancy Strain in 1838 and they had ten children. He had a 72 acre farm and, when his wife, Nancy, died in 1878, he sold the farm and went to live with his children in Indiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania and with his sisters in nearby Darlington, Pennsylvania. In 1896, he moved to Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania to live with his daughter, Mrs. Craig. He was a Whig, a Free Soiler, and a Republican. He was a covenanter and trustee in the Reformed Presbyterians Church.

His oldest child, Mary Ann, married John Craig of Beaver Falls.

Susan married James Hartzell and moved to Missouri.

Rebecca married Bradford Rayl and remained in Beaver Falls, while her sister, Elizabeth, married Fernando Cox and they moved west to Marshall County in Indiana.

James' sixth child, Bradford M. Louthan, born in 1850, founded the Louthan Manufacturing Company, a well known manufacturer of potter's supplies in Columbiana County together with his son, William B. Louthan who was born in 1881. Organized in 1901 in East Liverpool, it was originally locate down Franklin Street. The company produced pins and stilts which are used by potters. Later they produced elemite porcelain which could withstand heating and cooling cycles with out cracking. They used this is to manufacture cores for electric heating; gas mantel rings and burner tips; porcelain heater plates for electric ranges; and radiants for gas heaters.

Alice, Bradford's sister, married Thomas Bradshaw and remained in Beaver County near her siblings: Dr. James Louthan; Nancy Patterson and John Reed Louthan.

John Reed Louthan was born on April 19, 1858. After working at a planning mill and some six years as a huckster, he moved to Lawrence County, Pennsylvania where he bought a farm and continued the huckstering business. He married Elizabeth Rhodes in September of 1880 and they had four children. John bought the family farm in 1896 and returned to Beaver County to remodel the house, add to the barn and make it his home. He had a herd of six dairy cows and put in two gas and oil wells that yielded over a barrel a day. John and Elizabeth were members of the United Presbyterian Church where he was both a trustee and superintendent of the Sabbath School.

3* Elizabeth Louthan (1783- ) -- Elizabeth Louthan, born in 1783, was the third of Moses children. Whe married John Thomas and remains unknown after that date.

4* William G. Louthan (1786- ) -- William G. Louthan was born in 1786 and was the fourth of Moses children. He married Mary Meek in 1817 and they had one boy named Moses Louthan (1817-1890). They moved west to Wayne County, OH and young Moses later moved west to Adams County, IN. He married Mary Nicholas in 1838 and when she died in 1878, he married Sarah Kanabal in 1879 while still in Adams County.

5* George Louthan (1791- ) -- George Louthan, the fifth child of Moses, was born in 1791 and married Margaretta. He was a member of the 138th Regiment of the Pennsylvania Militia in 1814. They had one son, George Washington Louthan (1830-190) who married Ellen Hammond. They lived in Wayne County and Allen county, Indiana.

6* Moses Louthan (1792- ) Moses own son named Moses, his sixth child, was born in 1792 and is mostly unknown to us.

7* Henry Louthan (1799-1871) -- Henry Louthan, born in 1799, was Moses seventh child. he settled in Richland County, OH about 1820. He later married Mary Jane White on June 12, 1828 in Columbiana County and they had four children: Moses; William; Mary Jane and George W. Louthan who was born on November 20, 1843. Henry and another settler moved west to Hardin County where they were the first white settlers. He opportunity to acquired public lands was not to be lightly passed up and the family soon followed west tot he new frontier.

George W. Louthan (1843-1924) -- Henry's son, George, enlisted at 17 at Kenton, OH in Hardin County in the 82nd Ohio Regiment when the War Between the States broke out. He served until the end of the war and fought at Lookout Mountain in the Battle Above the Clouds, at Murfreesboro; at Franklin, TN and at Nashville. When he returned, he acquired the farm from his father, married Margaret Ann Smith and raised a family of eight children. But the South was not easily forgotten. In 1888, George sold the old farm and everything he possessed except for a covered wagon and a team of mules. The family then started on the road south to Tennessee. They were on the road for over thirty days camping by the roadside at night. They arrived in Tennessee and put down new roots. George died in 1924 at 8.

8* Samuel M. Louthan (1801-1886) -- Samuel M. Louthan is the best known of the ten children and the eighth to be born. He was born in Beaver county, Pennsylvania on September 20, 1801 of Scotch descent. Brought up on the farm, he learned carpentering and at 24 married Annie Grossgross (or Gropcroft) on October 18, 1825. He later married Eleanor McConnell and still later Mary Ann Fullerton after being widowed twice. Sam left Pennsylvania for Ohio in 1849 with Mary and six children and settled in Hardin County. Two years later, he purchased a farm in Blanchard Township of that county and cleared the woods with the help of his sons. Four of Sam's sons went to the Union Army in the Civil War: James in the 17th Indiana Mounted infantry; Joseph in Company G. of the 83rd Ohio Independent Sharpshooters and later as a member of Sherman's Headquarters Guards; and finally Moses in the regular army.

Luther C. Louthan -- Luther C. Louthan was the seventh of nine children from this third marriage. He was a bookkeeper and teacher at Dunkirk, Ohio in Hardin County.

9* Hannah Louthan (1803- )

10* Mary Louthan (1805- )

11* Martha Louthan (1807- )

Moses last three children were girls named Hannah, Mary and Martha. Little is known of their lives and they may have died as children.

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