MEET THE EDGERTONS
My Hall family ancestors had an interesting connection with the Edgerton family. You will find the story below tells about this. As I’ve mentioned before, my maternal grandmother, Ella Hall Llewellyn, descended from the Hall family via her father, Isaac Hall. Some years back while I was researching our family I ran across this account and noticed the last name of ‘Edgerton’. I happened to work with Daniel Eugene ‘Dan’ Edgerton at the Highlands County Property Appraiser’s office. Dan was our M.I.S. director 1989-1997. When I mentioned it to him he was interested and told me his ancestors were members of the Society of Friends. Dan came from Iowa. So it was quite a surprise for us to discover that two members of his ancestral family, brothers, James and Richard, married the daughters of Joseph Hall (1750-1825), sisters Mary (b. 1783) and Anne (1795-1876) who were in my ancestral line. And here in the late twentieth century in Sebring, Florida Dan Edgerton and Ed Sager, their descendants, worked together!!!
We jokingly referred to each other as ‘cousin’. Dan went to glory December 30, 2022. He was born in Polk City, Iowa in 1938. He was very active with the Gideons for twenty five years and was thrilled to give copies of God’s Word, the Bible, to so many people here at home and overseas. I am so thankful that God providentially brought us together for the seven years he was in our office. I attended his and Jo’s 60th wedding anniversary celebration in 2019, where he sang and played his guitar to his sweetheart in front of everyone. What a special blessing to meet the Edgertons. Enjoy the story I found in a book published in 1970, written by J. Howard Binns. (pages 14-15) It explains how the Hall family came to Southeastern Ohio. Sorry it ends abruptly.
Richard and James Edgerton married sisters, Mary and Anna Hall. They were the daughters of Joseph and Christiana Peele Hall who had moved with their family from Edgecombe County, North Carolina to Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1802. They settled in the neighborhood of Harrisville, Ohio, in Short Creek Monthly Meeting.
Perhaps the experiences of Joseph and Christiana Peele Hall were typical of those of other North Carolina Quakers moving into eastern Ohio at that time. Of this we may be sure, their life in a new settlement was not an easy one and only men and women with rugged constitutions, strong characters and determined wills, such as our ancestors possessed, could have withstood the rigors of such a life. This is our heritage.
The following account written by Anna Walton, relates the adventures of the Joseph Hall family during and after their moving from North Carolina to Harrison County, Ohio. It was told to her by her grandmother Anna Hall Edgerton (Conrow).
Records show that the Hall family came from Edgecombe County, N.C.. but Meeting records give their membership at Contentnea Mtg.,. Wayne County, N. C.
"As a little girl of seven Anna Hall moved with her family from North Carolina to Ohio. Her parents, Joseph and Christiana Peele Hall, were comfortably settled on a farm in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, and friends there plead with them not to underlake the hazards and discomforts of the long journey. Their consciences, however, were uneasy with the use of slave la- bor. They wished their children to grow up in a country free from its effects, and when the Northwest Territory was opened on such terms as made settlements practicable for small landowners they resolved to remove thither. Joseph Hall and one of his older sons went out to Ohio on horseback in the spring of 1802. purchased a considerable acreage near
Harrisville, what is now Ohio, raised a log cabin and barn, and returned to North Carolina for the rest of the family.
The wife and mother, Christiana, who was a semi- invalid, made the trip of some 600 miles in a two- wheeled cart, lying on a feather bed slung hammock- wise from the four posts. They had two other carts of their own and had besides engaged a neighbor to ac- company them, bringing most of their household goods and supplies. Unfortunately, he had been paid in ad- vance, so that when, in the last stage of the journey, they encountered a teamster homeward bound, the neighbor unloaded their possessions in the woods six miles from the new home and left them to shift for themselves. This was the more difficult as they were among the first settlers in that part of Ohio, and were obliged to cut down trees and make a road for a part of the way.
In due time they arrived safely, and wintered in the log shelters previously erected for themselves and their livestock. The two buildings had been located near two convenient springs of fresh water. The choice of the home spring was a fortunate one though entirely acci- dental. One morning when the weather was beginning to feel warmer, Anna, my grandmother, was walking around the barnyard among some loose cornstalks. Feeling something move under her foot, she looked down and saw a rattlesnake still torpid from the winter cold. When the men investigated, they found a cave in the rocks above the barn spring which contained 60 rattlers. Had the home been built where the barn was located, it seems likely that someone in the family would have been bitten before the danger would have been discovered. As it was. seven year old Anna never forgot the time when she stepped on a live rattler and escaped unharmed..
In the year 1810, when she still lacked two months of being fifteen years old she was married to my grandfather, James Edgerton. She had been her father's house- keeper since she was eleven years old when her delicate mother had passed away. James Edgerton was at this time twenty-two. a minister in the Society of Friends, and a man of such settled character and reputation that Joseph Hall was entirely satisfied with the engagement, especially as he himself was in poor health and felt concerned to see that this youngest of his daughters should be suitably provided for. His approval as well as his affection is evidenced by his making a trip to Wheeling with her to purchase the wedding dress. After she had selected a simple white cotton material which. he purchased, he himself chose a peach-bloom silk of which he bought enough to make both dress and bonnet to match. Anna, although so young, had already reached her mature height. She was straight and tall with auburn hair and must have been a striking figure in her beautiful costume with short sleeves and long gloves up to her elbows, and bridal slippers on her feet..
The meeting house at Short Creek was made of logs and was heated by a charcoal brazier which rested on a central stone. As the wedding was on the 10th of the Fourth Month (April), artificial heat was still required and Grandmother used to tell with quiet humor about the sermon that was preached over her on her wedding day. At that time a Welsh Friend, Mary Wichel, was traveling through Ohio on a religious visit. Hearing of the intended marriage of so young a girl, she expressed her disapproval and being present at the ceremony, preached about the "proud and haughty daughter of Zion." When she was questioned afterward as to what she had meant she replied, "It was because of the way the bride switched her dress around the charcoal brazier." In telling us the story, Grandmother used to add that Mary Wichel herself had been married in her 90th year and that it always seemed to Grandmother "just as bad to marry in one's second childhood as in one's first." After the wedding feast, Anna Hall Edgerton rode Pillion behind her husband to her new home in Somerton, passing by forest paths through what is Barnesville, (Ohio).
At one time Grandfather Edgerton was bitten by a copperhead snake. As she ran to some of the neighbors for help, his wife must have remembered the time years before when she had stepped on a poisonous snake and got away unharmed. Acting on the advice of older and more experienced women, she put the warm flesh of a newly killed chicken on the wound. Her husband recovered but was ever afterward conscious of discomfort at the same time of year as that when he had been bitten..
Eight children were born to Grandfather and Grandmother, five daughters and three sons. Grandfather had built a two-story brick house with a central hall but had not yet nailed down the floor of the living room when he was seized with a mortal illness. A terrible epidemic passed over that part of Ohio with fatal consequences in many home. Grandfather and his two oldest sons. died, as did also an adopted boy whom they had taken to raise.."" ***Written by Anna Walton.
Here we have a portrayal of animated, young, auburn haired Anna Hall Edgerton, married at the age of fifteen, widowed at 33, with eight children, some of them quite small, two of whom died within 10 days of the death of their father. The six remaining ones grew to maturity under Anna's careful guidance and became the progenitors of prominent families in the Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends. Ten years after the death of James Edgerton Anna married Darling Conrow.
Charles Cope Zilpha Doudna, wife of John Edgerton, B-5, was daughter of John Doudna; and Charity Doudna, w of Joseph Edgerton, B-6, was a granddaughter of the same John Doudna.
The story of John Doudna's unusual life has been narrated in various family histories and on ac- count of his many descendants being involved in this genealogy perhaps it may not be out of order to relate here, very briefly, his early history.
When a small boy he was kidnaped by sailors and kept at sea to grow up a sailor.. Explanations of how he was kidnaped vary, but all seem to agree that his home had been in England, that he was too young to know anything about his family except that his father's name was Henry Doudna and his mother's name was Eliza- beth. He lived the life of a sailor which, of course, was a rough one, until he was a young man.
A shipwreck at sea resulted in John Doudna and two companions being marooned on a small island for some time until eventual rescue by a passing ship which land- ed them on the North Carolina shore.. Here he found a home and employment, eventually became a Quaker and married Sarah Knowis (or Knowles) a girl of fifteen who was the daughter of the man who first gave him employment. In their North Carolina home they reared a family of fourteen children. In 1805 he and his family moved to Belmont County, Ohio, where he died three years later. The descendants of John Doudna, the kid- naped boy, are now so numerous it would be impossible to closely estimate their great number.
Joseph Edgerton (B-6) was a minister of great prominence in the Society of Friends. His travels in religious service took him to many parts of this country and Eng- land in a day when travel was difficult and involved excessive exposure to all kinds of weather. With extreme diligence he followed what he felt were the demands of his conscience in carrying out his religious duties. A journal of Joseph Edgerton, compiled from his original manuscripts by his daughter, Eunice Thomasson, was
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