Person:William Black (2)

William was only 12 years old at the time of the War of 1812. He and his brother John drove a team and wagon to take supplies to the men on the fighting lines. He owned land with his father and brothers in Ohio, and with them he sold out and moved to Illinois, where his elder brother John then lived. He was a prominent man and raised his family in Bridgport.

He was employed for a time in the mill his father-in-law owned near Jeromesville, Ohio. He met his wife there.

Contributed by Jim: [excerpts from an account prepared around 1960 by Floyd H. Black, son of John Edwin Black] William Black Jr. married Mary Lake, Daughter of Constant Lake and Ann Straughn Lake, the latter born near Penn's Neck, New Jersey (near Princeton) September 8, 1798. Her father owned a mill near Jeromesville, Ohio, and William Black was employed for a time in the mill, thus meeting his future wife. Later, William, Like his father, owned and worked a farm in Ashland County. So far as I can learn the facts the following members of the Black family moved from Ashland County, Ohio, to Lawrence County, Illinois, in 1838 travelling in covered wagons and arriving in the month of May. They were William Black, Sr., and his wife, Sarah Stevens Black, John and Polly Black (my grandparents), Samuel, Jonathan and Daniel together with their wives and several children. In addition to those, three other children of William and Sarah remained in Ohio, their names being Mary, Rhoda and James. The records of the Palestine Association of Baptist Churches in Illinois show that in 1839, William and Mary Black, Jonathan and Mary Black, Samuel and Harriet Black, Daniel and Eliizabeth Black became charter members of the newly organized Shiloh Church, which is still an active and flourishing organization.

At a date I cannot ascertain, but probably in 1940 my great grandfather William his wife Sarah and two of their sons returned to Ashland County, Ohio, after having become dissatisfied with conditions in Lawrence County. William Black died in Ohio at the age of 92. William and Mary Black bought land in section 19, township 3, range 12 west, a farm which, subsequently enlarged to about 310 acres, remained in the family until 1898. The first house was built of logs and served the family until 1866, when a solid frame house was built. House, barns, granary and all outbuildings and fences have now disappeared and the site of the old homestead grown up in bushes and brambles, with only two ancient pine trees, the larger riven by lightning, left to mark the site. A fine spring which long supplied water for the numerous livestock of the farm still flows, though surrounded by reeds and briars, creating a small marsh in the area which was for sixty years the busy barnyard. It was here that the children and some of the grandchildren of William and Mary Balck lived for a considerable part of their lives.

1.   The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ancestral File (R) (2). (Copyright (c) 1987, June 1998, data as of 5 January 1998).
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Find A Grave.
3. ↑ United States. 1850 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432).
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)
   3.