THE HAMILTON FAMILY.
The Hamilton family of Decatur County, or, more correctly speaking, the Kingston or old Sand Creek Hamiltons, (for there are several other families of that name, but not of the same relation, in this county), is, perhaps, the most numerous in its connections and relations, and has been as prominently identified with the county's material and general progress as any other family whose name figures in its history. For more than sixty years past, this family, in the person of some one or more of its members, has been connected with all movements toward the moral, social, educational, religious and physical improvement of the county. No good work has ever called upon its members for aid and gone away empty. Their settlement here was begun in March, 1822, and, by the fall of 1823, all were settled in the neighborhood soon afterward known as the Sand Creek Presbyterian Church, now Kingston. The family at that time consisted of a widowed mother, four sons, two of them married, seven daughters, two of them married, and two sons-in-law - Elijah Mitchell and John Thomson, all of whom had given up the comforts of home and church in an older community (the old Concord Church Region, in Bourbon County, Ky.), for the purpose and with the hope of bettering their own and their posterity's condition in this unbroken wild.
On both the fathers' and the mothers' side, the Hamiltons are of Scotch-Irish descent and of the Presbyterian faith, and, tradition says, were driven from Scotland over to Ireland at the time of the Catholic persecution of Protestantism in Scotland. ...
... On the maternal side, the family name was Eward. James Eward and his wife, Elizabeth, with two daughters, Nancy and Jane, emigrated from Ireland not far from the same time as the Hamiltons, and, stopping in Pennsylvania for a few years, finally passed on South to the region of Augusta, Va. Here were born to them other children — Mary, John, Sarah and Ellen. They again emigrated, about the year 1780, to Kentucky. While on this wilderness journey, the father died, while the resolute widowed mother, with six small children left to her charge, continued her way to the "dark and bloody ground," and, after living a short time at Lexington, finally settled on Taylor's Creek, Bourbon County. Here it was that these two Scotch-Irish families, after a generation's wanderings in a new world, united, in some measure, their destinies by the marriage of Robert Hamilton and Mary Eward, which event occurred June 19, 1794. It is with them and their descendants that this sketch has particularly to do, as the Miss Mary Eward of 1794 is the widowed mother, who, with her four sons, seven daughters and two sons-in-law, settled here in Decatur County in 1822 and 1823. ...
... Mary Eward (wife of Robert Hamilton) was born in Virginia in 1774, and died at the residence of her son, R. M. Hamilton, four miles northeast of Greensburg, March 15,1848, having lived a widowed life nearly thirty-one years. She was buried at the Kingston Cemetery. She was, perhaps, the best known of all the pioneer women of Decatur County, and wherever known was esteemed as one of the noblest women of her times. From the memoir [of son Thomas Hamilton] above referred to we again quote:
"Mother was a small woman, deliberate in her gait and movements, never hurried, but straightforward, and made all her movements count. She would accomplish as much or more in a given time than many others whose motions were much brisker. Her hair was light; eyes, gray. I thought her good-looking, but I do not know that she had the reputation of being handsome. She had connected herself with the Baptist Church before her marriage, but then united with the Presbyterians. She ever retained a kindly good feeling toward the Baptists and was remarkably free from sectarianism. She was fond of reading, especially religious books, and could repeat almost any passage in the Bible. She was much given to prayer and meditation, cultivated, in a large measure, the heart and the affections, and evidently with her the 'Kingdom of God and His righteousness' was first. In rearing her children, her chief concern was their religious interest, yet she was diligent in business and trained her children to be so."
The eleven children (the fruits of the union of Robert Hamilton and Mary Eward), all of whom inherited very largely the characteristics of both the father and the mother, lived to the estate of manhood and womanhood - the one dying youngest being thirty-two and the oldest nearly eighty-six. Four are yet living, the youngest of them being in her sixty-fifth year. The following is a record of their births, marriages and the deaths of the departed:
- James E. Hamilton was born March 30, 1795; married to Jane McCoy November 5, 1818; died January 13, 1881.
- Fidelia Hamilton was born September 18, 1796; married to Elijah Mitchell April 18, 1816; died in Iowa, July 17, 1860.
- Thomas Hamilton was born August 25, 1798 ; married to Juliann Donnell February 23, 1820; died June 16, 1880.
- Cyrus Hamilton was born July 14, 1800; married to Mary McCoy February 22, 1822 ; died August 19, 1879.
- Spicy G. Hamilton was born October 12, 1802; married to John Thomson November 22, 1821 ; died December 22, 1838. - - Eliza E. Hamilton was born November 11, 1804; died December 26, 1880.
- Ellen E. Hamilton was born September 12, 1806; married to Barton S. McCoy April 14, 1831 ; died September 26, 1832, leaving a young child - Diorus - who died three days thereafter.
- Sarah Hamilton was born April 14,1809; married to Thomas Donnell February 14, 1835; he died June 5, 1871.
- Robert M. Hamilton was born November 17, 1811; married to Mary Morgan September 26, 1834; now living in Washington Township.
- Mary J. Hamilton, born November 15, 1814; married to Jackson G. Lowe May 9, 1838; he died May 30, 1879.
- Minerva Hamilton was born January 2, 1817; married to Peter J. Bartholomew September 15, 1836; he died in 1841; she was again married, to John C. Donnell, March 3, 1845.
After the death of the father, Robert Hamilton, in 1817, the management of the old Kentucky farm and the charge of the family mainly devolved upon James E., he being the eldest, which was continued until his marriage, at which time it was assumed by Thomas and Cyrus, by whom it was continued until after the marriage of the latter. March, 1822, James E. and his brother Cyrus, with their wives (who were sisters) and the two children of the former (Philander and Robert A.), left the home of their birth and emigrated to this county, and, on the 11th day of that month, unloaded their goods by the side of a large poplar log in the then unbroken forest near the roadside (as at present) and directly in front of the late residence of James E. Against this poplar log they put up a bark shelter and there these six persons found such protection as it could afford from the weather until the men had cut the logs and put up a rude log cabin - the first one built between Greensburg and Seth Lowe's, near Kingston. Their next work was another cabin for Cyrus, which was soon done, with the aid of neighbors, who would then travel any distance almost to assist each other. For some time after this the work of the two brothers ran together, and, by giving mutual aid, they were soon able to open clearings that were an honor to their industry. The year after the arrival of James E. and Cyrus in Decatur County, their mother and family came to the county, Thomas, the second son, coming on in advance and preparing a house for them in the summer of that year - 1823. ...
