Jesse Lowther (the fourth son of Col. William) was born on July 21, 1773, six weeks after the arrival of the family in Harrison county. He is said to have been the first white male child born on Harrison county soil.
Near the year 1790, when he was but a boy, he was married to Miss Mary Ragan, a rosy-cheeked Dutch girl, who was born on December 25, 1770, and settled where West Milford now stands. Mrs. Lowther was the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier, and the sister of Mrs. Alexander Ireland, senior. In 1797, they removed from West Milford to the Ohio river, and established a home on Neal's island, four miles below Parkersburg, but they returned to their old home at West Milford, after a few years, where he died in October, 1854. After his death, his wife, Mary, came to this county, and spent the closing years of her life with her daughter, Mrs. William Hall, at Pullman. Here she fell asleep, in April, 1857, and in the Pullman churchyard she lies at rest. Her husband sleeps in the family burying-ground near West Milford.
The writer now has a cane which was once the property of Jesse Lowther, and one which he presented to his brother, William. Upon this piece of antiquity is a silver plate which bears the initials of his name "J.L."
The children of this family were eleven in number:
- William, the eldest (born in 1791), married his cousin, Mary or Polly Lowther, and settled at Oxford.
- Mary Ann was the wife of William Hall, an early settler of the Oxford vicinity.
- Sallie married William Norris, and resided on the South fork for a brief time in pioneer days, then removed to Gilmer county.
- Margaret married William L. Mitchell, and died at West Milford. She was the mother of Virginia, the late wife of William I. Lowther, of Pullman ; of Margaret, wife of Lewis Maxwell, junior, formerly of this county, but now of Gilmer ; of Mrs. Mary Hickman of the West ; of William, Cyrus, Madison B., Robert, and Lafayette Mitchell, all of whom have passed on, except Robert and William.
- Jesse, junior, who was a physician, went West, finally to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he died.
- Uriah died in youth.
- Dr. Robert married Mrs. Ellen Stringer Huffman, and located at Weston, and from there migrated to Mississippi, where he died after a nine days' illness of fever. His wife soon followed him to the grave from a broken heart, and the half-brother brought the two little sons, aged four and six years, back to their grandfather, Jesse, near the year 1839. Daniel was educated at Lexington and West Point, and after finishing his college work, came to Harrisville, where he opened a law office, and where he died a few months later, in 1856. William, who was also a lawyer, went to Texas, where he met his death at the hands of a man that he had decided a case against. Huffman, who was a colonel in the Confederate army, and who lost a leg in the cause, died at Clarksburg, unmarried.
- Sudna married Armstrong Maxwell and lived and died at West Milford. The members of this family were: Marianne, who married Jesse Lowther (but we can't say what number", Mrs. Millie M. (John) Racey, Mrs. Anna L. (Wm.) Stephens, Mrs. Sudna A. Mitchell, of Gilmer county ; Marcellus Maxwell, of Nelsonville, Ohio ; and Irwin and William, who have passed on ; and Miss Julia Maxwell, of West Milford.
- Elizabeth Lowther married Conrad Kester and died in Lewis county, where many of her descendants live.
- Drusilla became Mrs. Bradbury Morgan, of Zanesville, Ohio ; and
- Millie was Mrs. Daniel Wyer, of Woodsfield, Ohio.
- Elias Lowther, who was born on Neal's island, in 1801, during the residence of the family there, was married to Miss Selina McWhorter, daughter of Thomas McWhorter, and spent his last hours at Palestine, in Wirt county, though he resided at various other points in the States. He was the father of the following named children: McDuffy and Calhoun (wtins), Thomas W., Cammillius, Elias H., John M., who was killed at Elizabeth during the Civil war ; Columbia V. (Mrs. John Edwards), Mary M. (Mrs. P. W. Morgan, of Jackson county), all of whom have crossed the tide ; and Jesse and Granville S., of Braxton county ; Henry M., of Kentucky ; W.H.H., of Parkersburg ; Mrs. Celina J. (Amos) Lowther, Wirt county, are the surviving members, and they are all well advanced in years. Mrs. J.E. Burns, of Auburn, belongs to this family, she being the daughter of Jesse, and granddaughter of Elias. ...
