Rhoda Ann Vredenburg Rowley: Following In Her Mother's Footsteps (52 Ancestors #14)

Rhoda Ann Vredenburg was born March 4, 1818 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Her father was Reverend Hackaliah Vredenburg, her mother Sarah Kniffen. She was the second daughter born to the couple, and one of nine children. Rhoda's father was a circuit rider for the Methodist ministry and was often gone for long stretches of time. Her childhood in the wilderness of Indiana was one of hardship, scarcity and lack.

In September 1840 Rhoda married Reverend Rossiter Clark Rowley. Rossiter was a fresh young Methodist circuit rider from Ohio who had, sometime after 1838, been assigned to preach in Putnam County, Indiana.

The newly married couple made their home in Greencastle, Indiana "for a season", which based on the birth of their first two children was at least 5 years. It is recorded that Reverend Rowley was called to missionary work in Illinois, and their youngest child was born in Peoria in 1857.

I can only imagine the life Rhoda must have had up to this point. Growing up in the desolate wilderness of a brand new State, being cold and hungry for much of her young life. She was a devout Christian which must have been the appeal to marry a man just like her "dear old dad". She learned at the heels of her mother how to be a preacher's wife, so I imagine the role came naturally to her when she began her own married life. The big city of Peoria, Illinois must have, at first, seemed strange and frightening.

Rhoda and Rossiter had five children in all, but research to date has only uncovered three named children. The assumption is that two children died in childbirth or early infancy.

By 1853 Rev. and Mrs. Rowley had acquired 20 acres of land a mile outside of Peoria and had built a "neat little cottage".  There is an account of the virgin land being plowed by a team of oxen and a considerable orchard being planted. Rhoda must have been very happy at this seemingly idyllic life after so much hardship in her youth.

Sometime around 1860 Rhoda's husband transferred his membership to the Presbyterian Church and was performing missionary work once again. The family is found in Galesburg, Illinois until the 1870's.

In 1876 the family uproots again. This time to Adams County Iowa. Rev. Rowley was in charge of organizing the Presbyterian churches in Brooks and Nodaway, Iowa.

Nothing is written of Rhoda's life, save for her obituary, so I must tell her story through the documentation of her husband. In Rhoda's later years she was an invalid. Often during her years of suffering physicians despaired, as did her friends. It is recorded that Rhoda bore her suffering with Christian fortitude and uncomplainingly.

Rhoda died in her home on December 10, 1890. She was 72 years old. Her last days were spent pain free and she died as if falling asleep. Her last words were "come Jesus, come".


footnote: all of the accounts recorded her were the collected writings of my grandmother during her genealogical research work - all credit goes to Elizabeth Twining Potwin Thomas. 

Sarah Kniffen Vredenburgh: Circuit Preacher's Wife (52 Ancestors #5)

Week five opens with yet another mysterious female ancestor. This week I point the spotlight on Sarah Kniffen Vredenburg(h), my fourth great grandmother. The name Kniffen is one of those that can, and has, been recorded in several different ways. Sarah's parents are UNK, making it just that much harder to verify her surname. My grandmother, the Genealogy Queen, had in her notes a question as to whether it was Kniffin or Kniffen. I have recently discovered that it might also be Sniffen or Sniffin. 

Yup.

Another good challenge designed to drive me, and others searching for Sarah crazy.

Let's see what we know, and leave the door wide open for new discoveries.

 Sarah Kniffen was born in Westchester Co, New York in July 1792, according to her monument marker on Find A Grave. Nothing is known of her childhood.

Sarah married Hackaliah Vredenburg(h), a Methodist minister, sometime before 1812, when the first of their children was born.  Some accounts claim they had eight children, other claim nine. I have been able to prove six and speculate on a seventh.

Sarah Kniffen Vredenburg's America

In 1817 the young family moved to Terra Haute, in the new State of  Indiana, but it was not to be a settled life. Sarah's husband was an itinerant preacher, a circuit rider, with an assigned territory of 300+ miles. Some of the memoirs written on Rev. Vredenburg tell of winters where there was no shelter for the family, no food to eat, "the pittance received from the people being barely sufficient to furnish them with clothing". This must have been a terribly hard life. Oft spoken of as "privations, dangers and toils of the itinerancy" I can nary imagine what this sort of life was like. Yet, Sarah lived it. I would imagine quietly and without complaint. Traveling from town to town, raising her children virtually alone while her husband was gone for days or weeks at a time, "organizing new societies and circuits, carrying the Gospel messages to the scattering settlements, and enduring all the exposures and privations of pioneer life." For further reading this book contains stories of life in early Indiana.

It is unclear as to when the Vredenburg's actually moved to Illinois, but by 1860 Sarah and her husband had settled in Vermillion County to live the retired life. It is said the Rev. Vredenburg enjoyed the time he had spent in Vermillion County while on his circuits. Several of Sarah's adult children are found in Vermillion Co, Illinois as early as 1845.

In 1869 Sarah lost her husband to what can be described as a heart attack.

In August 1870 a widowed Sarah had moved clear across the State of Illinois to reside with her daughter and son-in-law in McDonough, Illinois.

In September 1870 Sarah died. She was 78 years old.

She is buried with her husband in Vermillion County.

Sarah was just one of the uncounted thousands of strong, silent, resilient pioneer women whose stores go untold, but without whom the American frontier would not have been tamed. A Founding Mother who sadly will remain in the shadows of her husband and his accomplishments.

Thank you Sarah Kniffen Vredenburg. For your strength to plow through, despite the harshest of conditions.