Hey, your Champions are my Champions!
I find your Joseph Champion 1788-1850 m. Elizabeth Adams, "to Pa." on page 27
of the book, "The Champion Family 350 Years in America" by Ruth Crawley
Champion, published in1984 by Gateway Press. This book deals with the
descendants of "THOMAS CHAMPION, Ashford, England, Sandwich County, did sail
12th of March for the plantation called New England on the sailing ship
HERCULES bound for the land known as America, 1634." Are you familiar with
this book? If not, it is on film and can be obtained through an LDS family
history library (which is where I first found mine.)
Our Champions started out on Long Island, NY/NJ and then moved on to New
Jersey. Your branch went from Tuckahoe NJ to PA, while my ancestors went in
1846 from Tuckahoe NJ to Sangamon County, IL. We are different from all
those Saybrook CT Champions and those Champions who went to VA; if there's a
connection, we haven't found it yet.
Okay, your Joseph Champion is listed as the oldest child of Thomas Champion
and Elizabeth Hunter. There's a footnote about Joseph & Elizabeth Adams
Champion going to PA, but I didn't look it up. Joseph & Eliz's children are
named as Jane, Andrew Hunter, Robert Cameron, Mark Adams, William James,
William Walters, Harriet, Adam. A note on page 27 says, "The Champion
family engaged in the Charcoal Iron industry near Tuckahoe."
They show up again on page 91, where more information is given about each of
their children and their spouses.
Also this note: "Joseph Champion, a stove moulder, was encouraged to move
to PA at the time he was preparing to 'go West' to join his three brothers,
who had settled near Cincinnati, Ohio. Walker & Vicars of Phila. owned a
furnace at Tuckahoe and the company induced a number of its employees to move
to Pine Creek, Lycoming Co., Pa. Good wages, 200 acres of land, etc., were
promised.
"The Joseph Champion family made teh trip from New Jersey to their new home
by driving one of the Walker & Vicar six mule teams plus a coaling wagon.
Traveling through Reading and Williamsport, Pa., they stopped at Reading to
stay 3 months with Elizabeth's brother, Samuel Adams, because three of the
younest children had become ill. The youngest child died in Reading.
"Joseph remained at the Walker furnace for years, but the company failed
after the Panic of 1837-40. Joseph moved his family to McKinney's Forge,
Loyalsock Twp., Lycoming County, in 1840. The forge closed many years later
and the Champion brothers became blacksmiths.
"About 1845, the family moved to Danville, Pa., and worked in the Grove Bros.
Rail Mill, where the first railroad rails in America were made."
There is more about some of this family on page 95, but I can't remember
which line you follow at that point. This has William Walters Champion, s/o
Joseph & Elizabeth Adams Champion, doesn't know wife's name, names children
as George Becht Champion & Elizabeth Budd Champion.
Now I'll have to go back and see where my branch leaves yours.
Happy Saturday!
Jan T