THE WINSLOW FAMILY HISTORY
(by FRED E. WINSLOW, 8/1953)
Our earliest ancestor we have been able to find was Timothy Winslow, (See Update) living in Perquimans County, North Carolina, where Thomas Winslow, his son, was born in 1680, on a plantation. On a neighboring plantation was living Timothy Clare, whose daughter Elizabeth was born in 1686. Thomas Winslow and Elizabeth Clare were married, with the Friends’ custom, by Little River Monthly Meeting, in 1704. Little River Meeting was established soon after George Fox and William Edmondson made their visit to this community in 1677. It was the first Meeting to be set up in what later became North Carolina Yearly Meeting, and, as they never built a meeting house, they met for worship in the homes of the members, most often in the home of James White.
Most of the early records for this history were gathered from the Records of the Friends Meetings which have been gathered and published in William Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy. The original Records are in the archives of Guilford College.
To the marriage of Thomas Winslow and Elizabeth Clare Winslow were born nine children. Our line comes from their son John, born in 1717, married Mary Pearson in 1740. They had seven children. Their eldest, Josiah, born in 1741, married Elizabeth Lamb, daughter of William Lamb. To this home were born seven children, three of whom migrated to Indiana in 1812.
Josiah lived in Perquimans County and died perhaps between 1784 and 1787, leaving Elizabeth with six minor children (the first died in infancy.) Elizabeth married Thomas Nicholson in 1788. He had a large family of children by his former wife, and soon the minor children of Josiah found homes with Josiah's relatives in Randolph County, where they had moved. This was about 150 miles west of their old home, and the children took their membership to Back Creek Meeting, where Herbert Hoover's ancestors were members. James Winslow, son of Josiah and Elizabeth, married Mary Armour, daughter of William Armour, in 1800.
About this time the Friends began to move over into West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. James Winslow made a trip over this route and visited White Water (Wayne County, Ind.), and Blue River (Washington County, Ind.), in early 1808. This must have been very interesting, for the same Fall James' brother, John Woolman Winslow, made the same trip, mostly on horseback. After their return, we find James still farming, and.in 1810 John Woolman was operating his general store in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Their possessions were disposed of and they started on their migration to southern Indiana in the Summer of 1812. The trip took about three months, and in early Fall they came by way of Cumberland Gap, through Lexington, Ky., and on to the Ferry on the Ohio at Charlestown Landing, about 15 miles above Louisville. From Charlestown they followed the road northwest to a location about three miles east of where Salem now stands, where they pulled their wagons into the clearing on a bluff above a spring, where Samuel Lindley lived. Here the families lived in their wagons, and in a pole grain-crib, while James and John Woolman Winslow took their guns and axes and located their farms. They settled near the head of Delaney's Creek, where the cross-roads now is, and began their homes of logs, into which they moved before Christmas, 1812.
John Woolman Winslow married Phoebe Lacy, daughter of Peter and Susanah Lacy, in 1811.
James, John W., and their maiden sister Serah made their homes here the rest of their lives. There were no churches in the big woods, but they brought their memberships to the Lick Green Meeting, which was organized about the time they settled. It is located about three miles southeast of where Paoli now stands, on the south side of Route 150. In 1815 the Blue River Monthly Meeting, the first church in Washington County, was set up, and they became active members and so-called Charter Members of it.
The loneliness of the big woods, hundreds of miles from their old friends and relatives, was one of the real hardships of the new country. It is said that Mary (Armour) Winslow would get out of the wagon on a trip across and sit by the trail until Uncle James would go back and get her and bring her back to the wagons. She was usually crying during the trip. Among the old papers is a letter from great-grandmother Susanah Lacy to grandmother Phoebe Winslow telling of her loneliness for her daughter. They (Grandfather and Grandmother with their baby Josiah) took a trip the next Fall, 1819, Grandmother visiting her mother while Grandfather went on to attend their Ohio Yearly Meeting, at Mt. Pleasant, O., about 30 miles West of Wheeling. On their return trip home they had reached the country east of where Columbus, Ind., now stands, when it became dark. They had seen no houses for hours and they made their bed beside a log and tied their horses to saplings. Late at night they were awakened by the restlessness of the horses. Listening, they heard the cry of a panther coming closer down the trail they had come. Unhitching their horses, they rode swiftly down the trail in the dark toward home, which they reached about an hour by the sun the next evening.
This work of love is dedicated to these rugged pioneers, who were always ready to meet any emergency that arose in their homes, and who helped their neighbors when in need in their isolated neighborhood; and who did their duty to God and neighbors as they saw it, td the best of their ability. They passed on the torch they had carried, that we might enjoy the benefits to make us better men and women for our times.
Much of the later data for this work was handed me, and there are many names and dates concerning people whom I never saw or heard of before. In such a case there are no doubts, that mistakes crept in, and there are major omissions; but I have tried to write only the facts, and hope that the readers will correct their copies, and give me the corrections, so my personal copy may be corrected accordingly.
I want to acknowledge the help of the many who have been generous in helping and giving encouragement; especially to my sister, Aletha Winslow Stalker; to my brother, Brady V. Winslow; to Uncle John Winslow; to Letha Winslow Rockwell, who kindly collected and sent in the records of much of Uncle Samuel Winslow Family, who lived in and near Belle Plains, Iowa; and to the many others who kindly lent aid. Some of the records could not be located and are, therefore, almost blank. Perhaps someone else will be inspired to take up the thread of records and fill in the gaps where this record is incomplete.
FRED E. WINSLOW.
Salem, Indiana,
August, 1953.
