Person:John Black (4)

!Sources: 1. "Our Black Family in America" 929.273 B561 bc XV 2, 4 2. CRA (St. George Temple)

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 1HTZ-SR

!Sources: 1. "Our Black Family in America" 929.273 B561 bc XV 2, 4 2. CRA (St. George Temple)

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 1HTZ-SR

Family rec of Wiliam Morley Black

Death dates from grandchildren of these people. is 15 Oct 1839 Nov 13, 1848 is the death date given by Floyd H. Black. Supposedly this was taken from his tombstone.

JOHN BLACK & MARY CLINE

Taken from the book 'Our Black Family in America' by Chester Black and Sarah Black

The census of 1840 taken in Lawrence County, Illinois, lists William (John's father) as age seventy and his place of birth as North Carolina.

The Black family was well established in Vermillion, Richland County, Ohio, until 1837, when the elder son of the family (John) lost his farm and decided to move to Illinois where land was to be had for the taking. Judging from the land deal, the rest of the family followed very soon. The sister, Rhoda, with her husband and family were already in St. Francisville, Lawrence County, by the time John reached there, and soon the whole family had taken farms and were settled close to what is now Bridgport, Lawrence county, Illinois. They were staunch Baptists, and when a church was erected the names of the Black family were all engraved on a plaque outside the door. So many of the family lived there the settlement was called Blacksburg; the name, however, was later changed to Bridgport.

In Ohio William Black owned and operated on his own land the first grist mill on the Black Fork of the Vermillion River.

In the 1850 census we find William Black and his wife Sarah Stevens Black had left Illinois and returned to Vermillion, Ohio, but by that time the county had been divided and Vermillion was now in Ashland County. By 1850 Sarah was dead, but William was living there with one of the younger sons. He gave his age as 80 in 1850. By 1860 he too was gone.

John Black married Mary Cline daughter of Jonas Cline (Klynn) and Catherine Rose Tryntje Roosa.

During the War of 1812, John and his brother William drove a team and wagon to take supplies to the men on the fighting lines.

William Morley Black had this to say about his father, John:

My father was an independent farmer owning 40 acres of rich farmland situated in the heart of a forest. He was methodical in all of his labor, inclined to be mechanical and gave close attention to his farm, which gave ample support for himself and his family. He also owned and operated a lathe and turned legs for tables and bedsteads and wooden bowls, and he was known for the excellence of his ax helves. He was anxious for all of his children to get all the education they could. Educational facilities were meager and primitive...it was two and one-half miles from our house to the little country schoolhouse. During the winter, as a rule, we had three months of school in which we were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling. I recall only two winters when I attended school. I had but one book, Webster's American Dispenser. During the two winters I learned it off by heart, then passed the book to the younger children.

When I was eleven years old, our neighbor, a man whom we all respected, got into trouble and my father went his bond in the sum of $500.00. That was a lot of money in those days and when the time for the trial came, the neighbor could not be found. It took our farm to pay the bond. Illinois, a new State, was widely advertised as a place where good homes were to be obtained more cheaply. Father and three of our neighbors moved into Lawrence County, Southern Illinois, and purchased homes near where Bridgport now stands. That late fall father's parents and his brothers came from Ohio and bought land near ours. It was a wide, level country, beautiful with groves of trees, with stretches of prairie, with cold springs, and streams of clear water abounding with fish. The drawback was an occasional swamp giving rise to malarial fever, and here after two years of hard labor building a new home, our first great sorrow came to us in the death of our dearly beloved father (John). His was among the first graves in the old cemetery near Bridgport.

• note: In letters from John Ewdin Black, he refers to Mary as 'Polly'

(Could the Mr. Potts have been the family of his sister Rhoda's husband, John Potts?)

CENSUS: 1830 Vermilion, Richland, Ohio John is listed with: 2 under 5 years - males (William and Benjamin) 1 under 10 and over 5 - male (Martin Luther) 1 under 40 and over 30 - male (Himself) 1 under 10 and over 5 - female (Sarah Ann) 1 under 30 and over 20 - female (Wife Mary)

William his father is also listed

1. ↑ Journal Record
   http://www.rootsweb.com/~illawren/pioneers.html.

   Taken from an internet page "Lawrence County Pioneer Brevities" contributed by Jim from an account prepared around 1960 by Floyd H. Black, born 1888 near Bridgeport.

2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Find A Grave.

   Also family records of William Morley Black

3. ↑ United States. 1830 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication M19)
   1830; Census Place: Vermillion, Richland, Ohio; Series: M19; Roll: 139; Page: 139; Family History Library Film: 0337950.
4. ↑ Black, Chester Allen, and Sarah Hancock Black. Our Black family in America: some of the descendants of William Black and Sarah Stevens. He, born in North Carolina in 1770, lived most of his life in Vermillion, Richland County, Ohio, and died there soon after 1850. (Salt Lake City, Utah: [s.n.], c1960)
   pg. 2.