Notes for Loyal Firman SYMMONDS

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James R (JIM) Carr and Ben (Webmaster)

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Below are the names and families of my line, and others Please e-mail me any additional data or corrections you may have on them James R Carr
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Some genealogical information is available from the files of The Kerr Family Association of North America

Notes for Loyal Firman SYMMONDS

SYMMONDS FAMILY RECORD

Being in the seventieth year of my age, I thought to write a short sketch
of the Symmonds family which would perhaps be of interest to some who may
come after me. My grandfather John Henry Symmonds came from England prior
to the Revolutionary war, and on the breaking out of hostilities between
England and America in 1775, he volunteered in the Colonial army for six
months, and at the expiration of his term he enlisted in the regular army,
where he continued till the close of the war, being in the service seven
years, six months and fourteen days. After peace was made he was married to
Barbara Castleman and settled in Pennsylvania. After living there a while
he moved to Kentucky, but did not stay there long till he moved to what was
then called the Norwest Territory, now the State of Ohio, and settled near
where the town of Marietta now stands, where he lived and raised his
family. I don't know the number of his children nor the order in which they
were born, but there was three sons, John, the father of the writer, and
Solomon and Joseph. These sons all reached the age of manhood and all
served in the second war with Great Britain. My grandfather on my mother's
side was what was called a Pennsylvania Dutchman, named Peter Hoffman. He
was married in an early day in the State of Virginia to Anna Lyon, and when
my mother and twin sister were infants they crossed over the mountains on
pack horses and settled in what is now Butler County, Ohio, near where the
city of Hamilton now stands. It was there that my father and mother were
married and lived till they had a large family of children. In the year
1828 when the writer was the baby of the family they moved to Marion
County, Indiana, and settled near where the village of Bridgeport now
stands.
The country was all covered with heavy timber and being far from market
raising and but little to sell it was often very discouraging. There are
but few people now who know the drawbacks and disadvantages of living in
such a country. At that time we had to haul all our surplus produce to the
Ohio river, a distance of eighty miles to the nearest point where we
exchanged it for groceries and dry goods and a little money with which to
pay taxes. I have seen good wheat sell in our market for twenty-five cents
per bushel, while we would have to pay five to six dollars a barrel for
salt. A short time before moving from Ohio my oldest sister Mary was
married to John A. Weasel, and they moved with us and settled on land
adjoining our home, so we still all lived near each other. Not long after
moving to Indiana my oldest brother Peter was married to Susan Thompson and
built a house and shop on the farm, he being a blacksmith by trade. He did
not live there more than two years till he was taken with fever and died,
leaving a widow and one child, Franklin Symmonds, whose whereabouts I don't
know, but who is now an old man if living. After the marriage of my oldest
brother there was still left at home a large family of three girls and seven
boys. The girls were all grown and soon married off, Barbara to John
Matthews, Anna to John Poland, and Sarah to Llewellen Boles. This left my
mother with only a great family of boys and no help only such as the boys
could render, and some of them became quite handy about housework.
My mother had a daughter and two sons born after settling, in Indiana:
Delilah, Jacob and Benjamin. Jacob died in infancy and Benjamin was killed
by lightning in the twentieth year of his age. Sister Sarah did not live
long after her only child was born. Her son Wilson Boles is now somewhere
in Colorado if living,. Sisters Mary and Barbara both raised large families
and died at a good old age. Sister Anna also lived to old age. She only
raised two children, Margaret Fisher and one son, William Poland.
I will now return to the seven brothers who were born in the following
order: Isaac, John, James, Samuel, Squire L, William and the writer, who is
the seventh son, without any girls between, which according to the Dutch
tradition makes me the doctor, by which name I have been called since my
earliest recollection. We grew to manhood, used to hard work, were all
large men, weighing on an average about 175 pounds, and in such sport as
running, jumping and wrestling there could always be found a champion among
the Symmonds boys.
Our parents were members of the Primitive Baptist Church and maintained a
very strict discipline in the family. There was no profanity or roudyism
[sic] allowed, for which I have always felt thankful, for when there are so
many boys together they are apt to study out a good deal of mischief.
We did all our clearing of logs ourselves, rolled our logs ourselves, and I
used to think it was a pretty big log that my father and his seven sons
could not take up on handspikes and carry. About the year 1843 or 1844 my
brother-in-laws, John Weasel, John Poland, and my brother Isaac came west
and settled in Adams County, Illinois, near Marcelling. This was some 300
miles from where we lived, and there being no railroads across the country
the traveling all had to be done by private conveyance. Our friends wrote
back glowing, accounts of the productiveness of the country, which give us
all the "West fever," so the family, came out, one family, at a time.
John Matthews and brothers John, James and Samuel, so that a majority of
the family, were in the west. After so many, of the brothers and sisters
had come west my parents became dissatisfied and wanted to follow their
children and get their family all in reach of them again, so in the spring
of 1853 my father sold his farm and in the following October we all moved to
this country. My father bought a small farm with what was then considered a
good house, where we often met in friendly visits, but when a family becomes
divided into several independent families it is a hard matter to keep them
together. Brothers John, James and Samuel moved to Missouri and Brother
William back to Indiana, so we were worse scattered than ever. About the
year 1861 my mother got a fall, disabling one of her hips, from which hurt
she never recovered so as to be able to walk. She lived about five years
after being hurt and died on the 9th day of June 1866, being about 78 years
old. Some time after the death of my mother my youngest sister Delilah was
married to Elder B. R. Warren, and they continued to live with father. She
became the mother of a daughter and a son. The son died in infancy and the
daughter is now Mrs. John Leppla. In the month of August 1875 Delilah was
thrown out of a buggy and badly hurt, from which hurt she never recovered,
but died on the 26th of October following. My father continued to live in
his own house till his death, which occurred on the '27th day of May, 1872,
in the eighty-ninth year of his age. I have now written of the death of all
my brothers and sisters and parents, leaving the seven brothers still
living. Brother Squire died on the 4th of November, 1895, from kidney and
heart trouble, and Brother John died on the 5th of February following, from
a complication of diseases. Brother Samuel died on the 15th of July, 1902,
from cancer, and Brother James on the 25th of August, 1902, and Brother
William on the 30th of April, 1903, so that of all this numerous family they
are all gone but myself and Brother Isaac.
I will now give just a short sketch of my own life and close this
narrative. As I said, my parents settled in the wilds of Indiana when I was
but a small child. The days of my childhood and boyhood was spent like
other backwoods boys. There were but few schools in the country and what
there was were of a very inferior grade. In looking back to that time now I
cannot say now that the little schooling that I got ever done me any good,
as we were so situated that I could not attend school but a few days at a
time. My mother, who was one of the best of women and whose memory I shall
ever cherish, taught me to read. She also taught me many good moral lessons
which I have tried to keep through life. And so I grew to manhood with but
little knowledge of the ways of the world. I was a fair reader and could
write a legible hand, but did not know the first rules of arithmetic. This
was something that I had to do afterwards in order to be able to do
business.
In the month of August 1848, 1 went away from home and hired to work on a
brickyard for $13.50 a month. I worked seventeen and a half days when I was
taken down with fever and had a long spell of sickness. After getting the
fever broke I mended very rapidly for about three weeks, when I was caught
out in a rain and took the chills, which stayed with me off and on for six
months. By this time my system was so run down that it was eleven months
from the time I was first taken sick before I was able to do a day's work.
In the month of October 1849, Brother Samuel moved West and I came with
him. He came in a two-horse wagon with his wife and two children, and I
rode on horseback. We were on the road fourteen days. Our trip was without
incident worth naming, only at one time we ran out of bread and had a good
deal of trouble to get something to eat. We had fallen in company with
several families of movers from Virginia and they were all in the same
condition for something to eat as ourselves. At length we heard of a "horse
mill" about three miles off the road and one man took a horse out of one of
their teams and he and I started to mill. When we got there the miller told
us he had no flour, but that a man had just left there with a large sack
full, so we followed and overtook the man and prevailed in getting him to
divide with us. I think I got about fifteen pounds of flour, but the other
man went deeper into his sack, he having a larger company to provide for. I
spent seven months in Adams and Hancock counties at that time working in the
timber making rails. I also helped my brother-in-laws Matthews and Wetzel
move their stock from Adams to Hancock County. In the spring I began to
make preparations to farm when I received a letter from home stating that my
Brother William was down with typhoid fever and they wished me to come home
and take charge of the farm. So on the 25th of April 1850 I started on
horseback to make the trip of 300 miles to Indianapolis. This was a long
lonesome trip. The country was new and what settlers there was were around
the edges of the timber, while the roads were just traces across the
prairies from ore point of timber to another and but few of the streams were
bridged. On the morning of the fourth day I passed through Springfield,
then but a small town. It commenced raining about the time I got into town,
but I rode on to the village of Rochester, eight miles east of Springfield,
when I stopped at a hotel thinking I would wait for better weather. This
was Sunday, and the place seemed to be a gathering place for all the roughs
in the neighborhood. Some were drinking, some were gambling and swearing
and some were so drunk that they hardly knew what they were doing. I stayed
there till about three o'clock in the afternoon and still it rained. By
this time I was getting very tired of the company, so I told the landlord to
get my horse and I would travel on. He insisted that I should stay as it
was not a fit day to travel, but I was anxious to get away as I did not
think I could find a worse place. Directly I got clear of the town and I
commenced trying to find a place to stop, but everyone seemed to have some
excuse for not keeping me. So I rode on through the rain for nine miles,
when I rode up to a little cabin and asked the man if he could keep me. He
said he guessed not as they were not fixed to entertain people. His wife, a
large fleshy woman, stood looking over his shoulder. She said, "Let him
stay; don't you see that he is as wet as he can be." The man said that if I
could put up with their fare he would try to keep me. I told him I could
put up with anything if I could get shelter. So I went in while the boys
took charge of my horse. He soon had a roaring fire and I took off my heavy
overcoat, which was pretty water soaked, and I soon felt comfortable. I
look back yet with feelings of gratitude to those people for their kindness
to me in my time of need. After leaving this place I traveled on till I
came to the west branch of the Okaw river, which was bank full. There was a
company of men who were on their way to California. They had succeeded in
getting across by using their wagon bed for a boat and swimming their
horses. One of the men told me that there was some place up the stream
where a footman could cross, as he had seen a man go up on one side and
come down on another. So I went up the stream a short distance and found
where two trees had fallen together with their tops in the stream, so I
took off my saddle and carried it across. I then took my horse back to the
ford and left him with the men while I went up and came down on the other
side. The men then started my horse in to swim to me. He swam in twice to
the middle of the stream and turned around and went back to the same side.
I called to the men to take him higher up the stream where it was not so
wide. They did so and when I called him he jumped into the river and swam
to me. I went on from there without any incident worth naming, reaching
home about eight o'clock the ninth day, very tired.
I found my Brother William almost well and was glad to be at home again. I
find I am making this story too long, and I will hasten it to a close. I
stayed at home that summer and the next and on the 28th of September, 1851,
I was married to Miss Charlotte Tyner, daughter of Captain Harris Tyner, one
of the pioneers of Indiana. We lived happily together for over two years,
when we moved to Hancock County, Illinois. We had not been in the West but
a short time when my wife and I were both taken down with fever and she only
lived twelve days till she died. This was the severest trial I ever had to
bear. I was left in a strange country with no home that I could call my own
with two little children, the youngest but little over three months old. I
went to my father's and commenced living a very lonesome life. My little
children were about all the company I could enjoy. I had plenty of friends
who were willing to do all they could for me, but no one could fill the
vacant place of wife and mother. So on the 9th day of January, 1855, I was
married to Nancy Tyner, a sister to my first wife, and she and I have come
down the hill of life together and are now nearing the end of the journey.
We have had our seasons of prosperity and adversity, of sunlight and shadow,
and in looking back over life I don't know that we have anything more to be
sorry for than usually falls to the lot of mortals. We have raised three
sons and three daughters to be men and women grown. Four of them are
married and have homes of their own, and two of them are still with us.
The foregoing was written expressly for my children. Written partly from
tradition and partly from memory, and I believe is correct.
LOYAL F. SYMMONDS.
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