Lucky – is an adjective

1: meaning to have good fortune

2: happening by chance : FORTUITOUS

3: producing or resulting in good by chance

4: seeming to bring good luck (rabbit’s foot, heads up penny)

An interesting topic for week ten of 2023. I have had quite a bit of luck with my Genealogy journey, thru the years, starting with the dusty old box of photo’s that my Grandmother made me help her with when I was 13 years old. It truly was the event which marked the beginning of this journey. Thirty four years would pass by before I saw them again but the sight of my adolescent handwriting on the back of Grandma’s photos sucked me back thru a time machine to a hazy Michigan summer day at the picnic table with my grandparents as she flashcard style presented them to my Grandpa for identification. It was obvious to me that she had been trying to get Grandpa Everett to cooperate with her to get this job done and he really was not very interested. I have written several times about this event.

Stroke of Luck

Another stroke of luck was finding the Nine Mile Indiana Church in the early years of my search. Grandma Lillian and Grandpa Everett’s Bible showed that Everett’s Paternal Grandfather was James W Smith and his Maternal Grandfather was John H. Crites. I found a James Smith buried at the Nine Mile Cemetery in Nine Mile Indiana. His stone was in pieces but there he was. “Was this him?” I thought at first. The Bible distinctly stated James W. Smith.

There were many trips between Chicago, where I lived, and Michigan, where most of my family lived, that I would steal away a bit of time to visit Nine Mile, Indiana. At the time there was a lot to learn but I knew my Grandfather and his family came for this area. It was through James W Smith’s Civil War Pension file I could confirm that this “James Smith” was his father and I would find James W Smith’s gravestone a few miles away in Uniontown Cemetery in Wells County, Indiana.

In early December 2003, my husband and I visited Nine Mile United Methodist Church for their 150^th Anniversary Celebration. I learned about it on one of my frequent visits in those early days. We arrived a few minutes late and the service had already begun. We slipped in the back pew, hoping to go unnoticed. Within minutes I had the overwhelming sense that I belonged here. Tears flowed down my face for no apparent reason throughout most of the service. I just knew my family had been here. I could feel them all around me. After the service finished, we joined the congregation downstairs in the basement where they served coffee and cake. I explained that I was fairly certain that I was a descendant of one of their early church members. I told them that I was a descendant of James Smith who is buried in the old section of the church cemetery. The church members became excited that we were there visiting them on this special day. One church member felt fairly confident that in there historical records, they had information about my ancestor, James Smith.

This church member went in the backroom and returned with a box. This time the box was full dusty old historical church papers. We eagerly started to sort thru the paper eventually finding a small booklet which was written for the 100^th Anniversary in 1953. According to this document, James Smith was one of sixteen founding member of the United Brethren Evangelical Church in Nine Mile, Indiana in 1853.

“THE HISTORY OF THE NINE MILE Evangelical U. B. CHURCH”

“This church was organized at the home of John Miller by Rev. Casey with 16 charter members. Daniel and Lucy Ann Buskirk, sold one acre of ground for $ 10.00 to the trustees of the United Brethren Church, who were Gabriel Miller, Benjamin C. Davis, James Smith, Thomas Overly and Charles Miller, on January 3, 1853. For a period of five years, the meetings were held at the home of the John and Hannah Miller and at the homes of other church members, but in 1859, they erected a log church on the present grounds in section 7, Pleasant Township.”

Rev. P. Landen was then the pastor and dedicated the church. The membership continued to increase but the little log church was still their place of worship until 1868. In that year a frame building was erected. The new place of worship was called “Liberty Chapel”. For a few years the church had been served through the Ossian circuit, but in 1869 it was changed to the Zanesville circuit.

In 1879 the 27th annual session of the Auglaize Conference, of which this church was a member, was held at the Liberty Chapel Church. In 1891 Liberty was again placed in the Ossian Circuit which included Ossian, Bethel, Zanesville, Prairie Grove and Liberty Chapel It remained with Ossian until 1906 when it was changed back to the Zanesville circuit along with Bethel.”

The most interesting paragraph to me was the first paragraph. James Smith and Susanna Overly, Benjamin C. Davis and his first wife, Letishia Robinson, Thomas Overly and Emeline Asher, and John Miller and Hannah Smith all came to the Nine Mile Indiana area together between 1843 and 1847 from Darke County, Ohio. Susanna and Thomas were brother and sister. I believe that Hannah and James are siblings also or at the very least cousins. Benjamin C Davis’s wife, Letishia, died in 1851 and Benjamin married Margaret Smith, the oldest daughter of James Smith and Susanna Overly in 1852. Charles Miller, son of John and Hannah is recorded in the 1850 Federal Census as living between the James Smith Family and the Thomas Overly Family. James Smith was a farmer and Charles Miller a farm laborer. John and Hannah Miller are ten houses or so away. Benjamin Davis is found in Pleasant Township the same township as the church. The other families are in Lafayette Township which is across the road from the church.

The information that I stumbled on by going to a church’s 150^th celebration was a huge stroke of luck!

These Smith’s have been elusive to say the very least. I still can not be certain who the parents of James and Hannah are. I have also found a Kiziah Smith who married Daniel Overly. Daniel is a brother to Susanna and Thomas. James and Susanna had a daughter in a 1842 who they named Kiziah who died when she was 19 years old.

I keep working on these mysteries…and someday I will have another stroke of luck and we will get to the bottom of them.

Happy Hunting,

Jan

#52Ancestors