The WADEs in 1820

I have already written at length on my search to find the father of my 3g-grandfather Joseph WADE. In my post “The Hunt for Joseph WADE” I went back in census records as far as 1840. In this post I will skip backwards past 1830 and focus on the 1820 census. (As of yet I have been unable to locate them in 1830; I think they may have been among the early settlers in Indiana and been missed by the census.)

Josiah WADE, likely my 4g-grandfather, before settling in Jay County, Indiana, was one of the early settlers of Ohio. He signed with Nathaniel MASSIE’s party in 1790, and became one of the original pioneers of what would later become Adams County (Evans 52). Information about this venture is readily available in various places on the internet. I will explore the subject in more depth in another post at a future date. I mention it mainly to establish some basic background on the WADEs that will be featured in this post.

John WADE

We are looking specifically at two pages of the census of Fayette County, Ohio: pages 27 and 28, which cover most of the area known as Jackson. The last page, 29, of the area contains no WADE households. On page 27 we find three WADE households, which are clustered together on three consecutive lines. First is the household of John WADE, who is as yet unidentified in my WADE tree. The makeup of his household is:

1 M 0-10

1 M 16-26 = John

1 F 0-10

1 F 16-26 = probably John’s wife

Josiah WADE had a brother named John, but this John is far too young to be him. As you can see, this John is between the ages of 16 and 26, whereas Josiah’s brother would be about 40, if he were alive. One online tree reports that John died at the age of 18 and was buried with his parents (Stuart). Perhaps the John in this census is a son or a nephew of Josiah.

Edmund WADE

Moving on to the next household, we find an Edmund WADE. This Edmund probably is Josiah’s brother. He did have a brother Edmond, and the age bracket is right. According to the Pottenger Family Tree on Rootsweb, which appears to be fairly well researched, Josiah’s brother Edmond was born in 1767, which would make him about 53 at the time of this census. “Edmond raised his half-brother Jackson by his father’s second wife, Mary Campbell,” notes the Pottenger Family Tree, and further gives Jackson’s birth date as 1815, so we can tentatively identify him in this household (Pottenger). It is only tentative as we do not have a date of death for either of Jackson’s parents, which might give us an approximate date of his moving in with Edmond. We also do not have dates for Edmond’s wife Lucinda, nor do we have names or dates for any of their children, so I identify little farther within his household, which in this record is comprised of:

1 M 0-10 = Jackson (1815)?

2 M 16-26

1 M 26-45

1 M 45+ = Edmund (1767)

1 F 10-16

1 F 26-45 = Lucinda?

Joseph WADE

The third WADE on page 27 is a Joseph WADE, who could quite possibly be my 3g-grandfather. He and his wife are both the right ages, and they have a daughter of the right age bracket to possibly be the Susan who is suspected to be a sister of my 2g-grandfather Allen C. WADE. There is also an unexpected son:

1 M 0-10

1 M 16-26 = Joseph (1797)

1 F 0-10 = Susan (1820)

1 F 16-26 = Mary (1796)

I have never heard of another son in this family, but given the parents’ ages—23 and 24—it is certainly possible that they had an earlier child. Their marriage date is unknown, so there may even have been other unknown children.

The proximity of this Joseph WADE to the other WADEs on this census (I must judge solely by the census record, having been so far unable to find any land records) suggests the possibility that he is the son not of Josiah WADE but of his brother Edmond. Either way, though, he is still the grandson of their father, William Zethonia WADE, and I can continue my research upon that assumption.

Of course, there is always the possibility that this is not my Joseph WADE at all but rather one of his cousins.

Josiah WADE

Having completed our investigation into the WADE households on page 27, we now move on to page 28. There are two WADE households on this page, separated by only one line. Between Josiah WADE and a second Joseph WADE is a James McCOY. Although that surname does not appear anywhere in the WADE genealogies I have accessed, I wonder if he may have been an in-law of some sort.

Josiah WADE’s household is made up of him, a woman between the ages of 26 and 45 who may have been his wife, five younger females, and four younger males. Two of the males can be identified easily, but the other two leave a few possibilities. For now I will leave that section devoid of names:

2 M 0-10 = Jefferson (1812), William Harrison (1818)

2 M 16-26

1 M 45+ = Josiah (1765)

4 F 0-10

1 F 10-16

1 F 26-45 = Josiah’s wife?

As for those two mystery males, one of them may be that Robert WADE who appeared in the 1840 census of Jay County, Indiana. Under that assumption, given his age range here and his age range of 30-39 in 1840, we can calculate his birth date to be between 1801 and 1804.

The other mystery male may in fact be my 3g-grandfather Joseph. Perhaps he was not yet married to Mary, as no female of her age appears in the household. Or perhaps she was older than my information has led me to believe and she is the female between 26 and 45, not Josiah’s wife. In that case, one of those females between 0 and 10 may be Susan. Of course there is always the possibility that Susan was not one of their children.

Joseph WADE (Sr.)

I have identified this Joseph WADE as “Sr.” in the heading, though he is not identified as such in the document, merely to differentiate him from the other Joseph WADE (or Joseph WADEs). The title is not meant to imply any parental relationship with another Joseph.

He was almost certainly the brother of Josiah WADE, and all the members of his household can be easily identified with the aid of a certain posting on GenForum:

2 M 0-10 = Edmund (1814), James B. (1814)

2 M 10-16 = John (1808), William (1810)

1 M 45+ = Joseph (1776)

2 F 0-10 = Lydia (1812), Elizabeth Jane (1819)

2 F 10-16 = Marella (1804), Mary (1806)

1 F 16-26 = Abbie (1802)

1 F 26-45 = Mary (1782)

Edmund and James B.’s birth dates as given on the posting, 4 June 1814 and 4 Oct 1814, do not make logical sense, but I am not going to investigate that discrepancy at this time (Moore). Instead, I will assume that it is merely a slight typographical error, but that they would still both fall into this age bracket.

Sources:

Evans, Nelson Wiley, and Emmons B. Stivers. “Massie’s Settlement at Manchester.” A History of Adams County, Ohio: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Including Character Sketches of the Prominent Persons Identified with the First Century of the Country’s Growth. West Union, Ohio: E B. Stivers, 1900. 51-53. Google Books. 24 Jan 2008. Web. Accessed 28 Sept 2013. Original from Harvard University.

Moore, Dennis. “Re: Zephaniah Wade/Adams Cty, OH Connection.” Wade Family Genealogy Forum. GenForum, Presented by Genealogy.com, 19 May 2002. Web. Accessed 29 Sept 2013.

Pottenger, Thomas. “Pottenger Family Tree Inc. Amon,Trochelman, Copas and More.” RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project. Ancestry, 7 Aug 2013. Web. Accessed 28 Sept 2013.

Stuart, Gary Lee. “Information about John Wade.” The Gary L. Stuart of Ariel WA Home Page. Ancestry, 2009. Web. Accessed 28 Sept 2013.