This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: ROBERTS, CAVANAUGH, DEVENISH, FAUCETT, HANCOCK, HOOKER, HOTTEL, LAUDEMAN, RENNE,
REYNOLDS, RHODES, SHRUM
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/3h.2ADE/2071
Message Board Post:
SEARCH: RICHARD ROBERTS (1819-1888), HARRISON COUNTY, INDIANA
LOCALE: INDIANA (FLOYD, HARRISON & WASHINGTON COUNTIES)
SURNAMES: ROBERTS, CAVANAUGH, DEVENISH, FAUCETT, HANCOCK, HOOKER, HOTTEL, LAUDEMAN, RENNE,
REYNOLDS, RHODES, SHRUM
Perhaps you might be able to help me find Richard Roberts’ parents who (according to the
Harrison County, Indiana 1880 U.S. Census) were born in Pennsylvania. Richard, my 2nd
great-grandfather, was born in Indiana, 19 March 1819, and died 11 October 1888. He is
buried with his wife Mary Jane Hancock at Hancock Chapel Cemetery, Hancock Chapel,
Harrison County, Indiana. He married Mary Jane Hancock d/o Mathew and Elizabeth Hooker
Mills Hancock on 11 March 1847 in Harrison County. Mary Jane’s brother Major William
Hancock attested to the ages of the bride and groom. William also mentioned in a letter to
a cousin (Osburn Lamar Wilson) in the Mexican War that the groom (Richard Roberts) was
from Floyd County, Indiana. Mary Jane, Richard and their children lived down on the farm
in Blue River Township, Harrison County, Indiana among all the Hancocks.
Richard and Mary Jane’s children:
1. James H. Roberts, born about 1846, appears only on the 1850 Census. So, Mary Jane and
Richard’s first-born son must have died after 1850 and before 1860.
2. William Cravens Roberts was born 10 February 1848 who was last heard from in a postcard
from Maysville, Colorado where he was with a party of 4 prospecting in Greenes Gulch
(death date 24 October 1881). William's widow, Cora Alice Faucett of Orange County,
Indiana, later married Elvet Beverly Rhodes of West Baden, Orange County, Indiana.
3. Sarah Ann “Sallie” Roberts (1852-1942) attended the National Normal School in Lebanon,
Warren County, Ohio and later married widower Richard Devenish, proprietor of the Blue
River Valley Farm.
4. Lydia Evaline “Evie” Roberts (1859-1897?) also attended the National Normal School
(both sisters became school teachers).
5. Samuel Addison Roberts (1860-1934), also a “Normal” attendee and an 1882 graduate of
the University of Louisville [Kentucky] Medical School.
In a letter to Evie from Boulder Colorado (21 January 1883), Addison closes his letter
with a reference to the infernal din that Willie (brother William C. died 24 October 1881;
so who is this Willie?) is making by grinding coffee in a baking powder tin with the
handled end of a hammer.
Samuel Addison did return to Indiana’s changing seasons, married local girl Lillie Mae
Hottel (d/o Anett Horner and Levi Pitman Hottel), became the father of three daughters,
Ruth Virginia, Lillian Annette, and Polly Jean Roberts, and settled in Salem, Washington
County, Indiana.
Samuel and Lillie Mae’s oldest daughter Ruth Virginia Roberts married Thomas Michael
Cavanaugh (whose great-grandparents are another brick wall). Ruth and Tom had a daughter,
Helen Beatrice Cavanaugh, who married FBI special agent Carl Theodore “Ted” Renne of
Clearwater County, Minnesota. Helen and Ted had three daughters - my sisters and myself.
Curiously, the 1850 Harrison County, Blue River Twp. census lists a John Roberts, b.
Pennsylvania with wife Jemima (nee Haynes/Haines) and children Lydia A. and Samuel, and
Jemima’s sister Lucy Haynes (who later married next-door neighbor John Hancock). In
addition, there is a Mary Emile Roberts born 31 January 1816 in Pennsylvania who married a
Simeon Garriott in Floyd County, Indiana on 8 June 1847. They moved to Washington County,
Mary’s parents were John Roberts and Lydda Cravens, both born in Pennsylvania.
So, I wonder if anyone could shed light on Richard’s antecedents or have I just made up a
family for my Richard Roberts with John and Lydda Cravens Roberts as the parents and Mary
E. and John as his older siblings whose children coincidentally share the same names...
Thanking you in advance,
Sally Renne Murphy