Nathan B. Darrow 1828-1891

Nathan Darrow was born in 1828 in Farmington, Trumbull County Ohio and passed away on May 1 1891 in Rialto, San Bernardino County California. Nathan Darrow enlisted in the Union Army at Sandusky, Ohio, 27 Apr 1864, and was captured by the Confederates on 11 Jun 1864. He was discharged 20 Aug 1864. He was born 1828 in Bristol (Farmington), Trumbull, Ohio, to J. Jedediah Darrow and Laura Wade.

According to an affidavit in Nathan's military pension file and family tradition, he married Elizabeth "Betsy" Shepler, daughter of William Shepler and Susanna "Susan" Forney, on 22 Apr 1852, at Trumbull Co., Ohio. They had at least six children. They were:

1) Willie J. Darrow, b. abt 1854, d. 28 Feb 1862 in Kinsman, Trumbull Co., OH (He is buried in the Trumbull Co., OH Cemetery - Find a Grave Memorial #74353177

2) Lily Darrow, b. abt 1856

3) Clyde Herbert Darrow, b. 22 Mar 1858, Kinsman, Trumbull Co., OH; d. abt 1930., Highland, San Bernardino Co., CA (buried in Hermosa Cemetery, Colton, San Bernardino, CA)

4) Nellie Darrow, b. abt 1853, Ohio

5) Frank S. Darrow, b. 1872, PA; d. 1906 (buried at German Reformed Cemetery, Southington. Trumbull Co., OH - Find a Grave Memorial l# 64928942)

6) John Darrow, b. abt 1880, prob. in Morris Co., Kansas

Nathan and Betsy moved their family from Ohio to Erie Co., PA in 1865. In 1879, they moved to Council Grove, Morris Co., Kansas. In 1887, they came to Riverside, and later to Rialto, San Bernardino Co., CA. He considered himself a "painter by trade, farmer by occupation."

Nathan died in Rialto, San Bernardino Co., CA on 1 May 1891, and was buried Hermosa Cemetery, block 1, lot 73, space A (next to his son, Clyde Darrow, who died about 1930).

The above is based on family information, Nathan Darrow's military pension file (WC 424211, National Archives; the 1870 census for Lee Boeuf Township (Mill Village P.O.), Erie, Pennsylvania; the 1880 census for District 139, Valley, Morris Co., Kansas; and for his wife, the 1900 census for Trumbull Co., Ohio.

Thanks to Virginia Sholin/Smallwood for compiling this information

Orange Grove Target Practice

From guest blogger Virginia Sholin Smallwood, our cousin on the Page side of things......

Here is another photo [see below] from the Darrow clan that shows Clyde Herbert Darrow and his son, Fred, having a little target practice in Clyde's orange grove in San Bernardino County. By the way, this picture is uncropped so you can see the orange grove, but you might want to also crop a copy for a closer view.

Oranges were very important in the history of California. After the Transcontinental Railroad was built, along with other railroad lines through the west, the big railroad companies were looking for ways to increase ridership and thereby create some profits. This was towards the end of the 19th century. The companies advertised heavily in the east and midwest about sunny California, where land could be purchased cheaply, and crops, such as oranges, could be grown and easily marketed.

In those days, oranges were a rare treat. In fact, I remember from my own childhood, that it was fun to find an orange or tangerine in one's Christmas stocking. Okay, I don't date back to the end of the 19th century, but this attitude was still hanging on in the early 1950s. Anyway, before the 20th century, there were many people in the U.S. who had never even tasted an orange. The railroads not only took people to California to farm, but provided a way to market their produce to the rest of the country, especially after the advent of refrigerated boxcars. What would have taken months to distribute to the east now took days, and people all over the country learned the pleasure of eating oranges.

So our own Clyde Darrow took the plunge and bought land one mile east of Bloomington in San Bernardino County on which he grew oranges, peaches and apricots. He had moved to Rialto in the same county in 1887, and before 1903, was working his farm near Bloomington. The 1910 census shows that Clyde Darrow was an orange farmer there.

Best regards,
Virginia

George Miller 1794-1856

George Miller was born November 25, 1794 in Stanardsville Virginia to parents John Miller and Margaret Pfeiffer and and was raised in Virginia and Kentucky. He was trained as a carpenter and worked in Ohio, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Virginia. Early on in his adult life Miller assisted in building a number of buildings on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Sometime before 1827 Miller was married to his first wife, our grand mother, Mary Catherine Fry. By 1834 they had purchased a 300 acre farm in McDonough County, Illinois.

George and Catherine had five children. Sarah Miller [1821-N/A], John Fry Miller [1824-1877], Mary Catherine Miller [1825-N/A], Joshua Lewis Miller [1827-1868] and Harrison Tip Miller [1837-1931].

In 1839, Miller learned of Latter Day Saint refugees arriving in Illinois from Missouri. He allowed some of these exiles to temporarily reside on his farm. Miller eventually converted to Mormonism and was baptized by John Taylor on August 12, 1839 beginning a period of his life when he would become a prominent LDS church leader eventually becoming the ordained bishop.

Shortly after his conversion, Miller moved to Lee County, Iowa. By September 1840 he had become a high priest in the Latter Day Saint church. He assisted many Latter Day Saints in settling Nauvoo, Illinois, and he moved there himself in November 1840. In late 1840 and early 1841, Miller served as a church missionary in Lee County, Iowa and Hancock County, Illinois.

On January 19, 1841, Joseph Smith, Jr. received a revelation that stated that Miller should be made the second bishop of the church and a member of the committee charged with organizing the construction of the Nauvoo House. Miller was Initiated into Masonry sometime in 1819 and in 1841 became the Worshipful Master of the Nauvoo Masonic lodge. It is widely believed that it was Grandpa Miller, Joseph Smith and Brigham Youngs involvement in Masonry that is the source for many of the ritualistic aspects of modern day mormonism.

Miller organized the Black River Company in the fall of 1841, and purchased the mills in the pineries on Black River to float lumber down the Mississippi for the temple in Nauvoo. He arrived at the falls of Black River for the first time on 31 December 1842, returning occasionally to Nauvoo. Miller returned to Nauvoo at the end of April 1844, shortly afterwards the mills fell out of the hands of the church, and local Mormons dispersed throughout Wisconsin

In 1843, Miller served a mission to Mississippi and Alabama with Peter Haws. He became a member of the Council of Fifty on 11 March 1844, and later that year was sent to Kentucky to campaign for the election of Joseph Smith to the office of President of the United States.

Upon hearing about the death of Joseph Smith, Miller returned to Nauvoo. A succession crisis ensued whereby a variety of men vied for the leadership of the Latter Day Saints. The majority of Latter Day Saints accepted the leadership of Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve, and Miller provided luke warm support for this decision. Because he was one of two bishops in the church, Miller was appointed by Young to be a legal trustee in trust for the church on 9 August 1844, Miller was sustained as the president of Nauvoo high priests quorum and the "Second Bishop of the Church" on 7 October 1844.

In 1845, Miller submitted to Young a proposal to construct a building for the high priests quorum in Nauvoo. Young, who by then had plans to lead the Latter Day Saints away from Nauvoo, rejected Miller's plan outright. This signalled the start of cool relations between Miller and Young which eventually led to Miller's abandonment of the organization led by Young. Although Miller left Nauvoo under Young's instructions in 1846 and came as far as Winter Quarters, Nebraska, Miller informed Young in January 1847 that he would not follow him to the Salt Lake Valley, as Young had planned.

Rather, Miller accepted the leadership claims of Apostle Lyman Wight and emigrated with Wight and his followers to the Republic of Texas. There in the rolling hills country of Texas they created the community that Joseph Smith envisioned, naming it Zodiac Texas. Brigham Young disfellowshipped Miller from the church on 3 December 1848, but he was never formally excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

By 1849, Miller had become convinced that Lyman Wight and his "Wightite" church were apostate. He became convinced that James J. Strang was the true successor to Joseph Smith, and in 1849 he left to join Strang's followers Wisconsin.

Miller arrived in Voree, Wisconsin on 4 September 1850, and shortly thereafter moved with Strang and his followers to Beaver Island, Michigan. In Beaver Island he was an active member of Strang's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There, Miller was appointed "general in chief" in Strang's literal kingdom of God. When Strang was assassinated in 1856, Miller left Beaver Island for Wisconsin with the other departing "Strangites". Miller died in the second half of 1856 in Marengo, Illinois. He was en route to California at the time.

Miller's first wife, Mary Fry, was sealed to him in the Nauvoo Temple on 13 January 1846. Miller practiced plural marriage, and he was sealed to Elizabeth Bouton and Sophia Wallace on 25 January 1846.

There is debate as to whether Miller should today be accepted as a former presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The office of presiding bishop was not established as such in the church until the tenure of Edward Hunter. Nevertheless, Edward Partridge, the first bishop of the Latter Day Saint movement, is usually regarded as the first presiding bishop of the LDS Church.

On the same day that Miller was sustained as the "Second Bishop" of the church, Newel K. Whitney [who was the second ordained bishop in church history] was sustained as the "First Bishop" of the church. Therefore, Whitney is usually recognized by the LDS Church as the de facto presiding bishop until his death in 1850, with Miller as a subordinate or assistant to Whitney until his break with the LDS Church in 1848.

Please feel free to take a look at our public Family Tree on Ancestry.Com

Clyde Herbert Darrow 1858-1930

Clyde Herbert Darrow was born March 22nd 1858 in Kinsman Ohio, the son of Nathan Darrow and Elizabeth Shepler. Clyde married Cora Belle Way in 1883 in Kansas City Missouri. Clyde and Cora had two children, Fred Herbert and Maude May.

In 1887 he arrived Rialto California with his brother in law, Ezra Graft, and it's said that they painted the first buildings and residences in the town. Clyde eventually traded two homes they owned in the area and took out a mortgage to buy fifteen acres of land one mile east of Bloomington California where he planted peaches, apricots and oranges.

In 1903 Clyde was sworn into the Salvation Army where he served as Treasurer as well as other positions for several years.

Clydes father Nathan was an Uncle to the famous Lawyer Clarence Seward Darrow. Nathan and Clarence' father Amirrus had adjoining farms in Trumbull County Ohio.

Circa 1920 Clyde started the move that brought the Darrows to their homestead in Southern New Mexico. In an area known at the time as "The Haig Place", he started growing a wide variety of grapes including Muskat, Tokay and Black Morocco. The family also relied on trapping during the winter months.

Later Clyde, his son Fred Herbert Darrow and Freds daughter Leona "Bobbie" Darrow/Doby [Leona was married to Fred Doby of the Deming area Doby clan] all had land adjoining each other south of Deming New Mexico in an area that came to be known as "Waterloo" where they raised cotton.

Clyde became ill and returned to the Redlands California area two months before he passed away January 23rd 1930 in Highlands/San Bernadino California and is buried in Hermosa Cemetery, Colton California. Before Clydes father Nathan died he planted a pepper tree to shade the spot he himself wanted to be buried so he could be in the shade. Grandpa Clyde was buried right beside his father in the shade of that tree.

Should I Really Be Surprised?

All of us get interested in our families genealogy for different reasons. That in itself is really interesting to me. I'll admit that for me it was that inner skeptic that wanted to....disprove the many myths that I believe every family has. Whether it's "we are related to President Washington" or "we are British royalty" I still believe that for most families these stories that get passed on through generations are just that. Stories.

So my journey sets out to prove that we are not related to famous defense lawyer Clarence Darrow or that we have no connection to the founding fathers of the Mormon faith. Boy, just how wrong could I be.

How gratifying it has been to see where my families roots in anti slavery and anti racism came from, on both sides of the family, as well as having a proud, yet controversial at times, history as an LDS pioneering family.

Please subscribe to our email list or our RSS feed as I share with you the stories and photos about what has proven to be a humbling experience to say the least.

The journey starts here.....