52 Ancestors: #11 Henry Sefton of County Antrim

Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, 2011.
Photo taken by my brother.

Four years ago, my brother spent a whole semester in Ireland.  He even celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Dublin!  I am still jealous.

At the time, I didn't know about my Irish 5th great grandfather, Henry Sefton.  If I had known, I would have asked my brother to do some research for me.  He was probably too busy anyway ... climbing hills and bodhran-drumming and step-dancing and eating at pubs (and maybe studying).

Although I didn't get to travel to Ireland, I was lucky enough to inherit some notes about the Sefton family that were handwritten by Henry Sefton's 2nd great grandaughter, Nettie Ryan Hamilton.

According to Nettie, Henry Sefton was born in Ireland on November 10, 1767.  His father, John Sefton, a Protestant, had fled England due to religious persecution and afterwards became an officer in the Army of Ireland.  Henry married Elizabeth Boyes in 1799 in County Antrim, now part of Northern Ireland.  In 1803, Henry, along with his wife and two children and his brother William, left Ireland to come to America, settling in Butler County, Ohio.  Over the next decade, the Sefton clan grew to include eight more children, including my 4th great grandfather William O. Sefton.

In the early 1830s, a cholera epidemic swept across the midwest.  Henry's young daughter, Charlotte French, and her husband Jeremiah died in June 1834, leaving their infant son an orphan.  Then, on July 27, 1834, Henry Sefton fell victim to the dreaded disease.  He was buried at New Haven Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

52 Ancestors: #43 Mary Ann Hill, Born on the Atlantic Ocean

Mary Ann Hill was born aboard a ship on passage from Ireland to America on June 6, 1790.  This is confirmed by 1880 census reports from four of her children.  Her birth at sea is also mentioned in a biographical sketch of her son, James Whitlow Trees. (The sketch is from the History of Rush County, Part II.)

Like many Irish immigrants of that period, Mary Ann's parents, John Hill and Elizabeth Jane Whitlow, came from Ulster.  John Hill was a weaver in trade.

After the Hills arrived in America, they located somewhere in Pennsylvania.  I don't know exactly when they left that state, but Mary Ann spent most of her early years in Bracken County, Kentucky.

In 1811, Mary Ann married another first-generation American, John Adam Trees, in Clermont County, Ohio.  After spending well over 10 years in Clermont County, Adam and Mary Ann decided to move to Indiana.  For 10 days, they traveled over almost impassable roads, crossing the White and Miami Rivers. Their youngest child, John Kell Trees, was barely two months old at the time. The family arrived in Richland Township, Rush County, Indiana on March 27, 1823. The Trees raised ten children, who all lived to adulthood.

Mary Ann Trees died on July 23, 1863 in Shelby County, Indiana, less than a year after the death of her husband.  She was 73 years old.  Her father, John Hill, outlived her by a few years.

52 Ancestors: #30 William O. Sefton, "Ohio Billy"

Edward Bebb Sefton, son of William O. Sefton, and his family.  They are standing in front of the farmhouse William built.

My 4th great-grandfather, William Sefton, was born in Butler County, Ohio on February 22,1806. His parents, Henry Sefton and Elizabeth Boyes, were immigrants from County Antrim, Ireland.  At the age of 25, William married Catherine Shuck on October 20, 1831. Seven years after they were married, the couple decided to begin farming in Decatur County, Indiana.  In order to prevent confusion, William added the middle initial "O" to his name, since there was already another William Sefton living in the same township.  The initial stood for his native state of Ohio.

William, Catherine, and their five children settled in a log cabin which  had been built on land owned by his father, Henry Sefton.  My great-great-great grandfather, Edward Sefton, was the first to be born in that cabin.  Over the years, as William grew in wealth, the log cabin was expanded into large farmhouse to accommodate his growing family.  He owned about a thousand acres of land, the end result of many years of toil and effort.

William O. Sefton was a Democrat in his political views, and though he was popular with his party, he never aspired to office.  He once served as a trustee, at a time when it took three men to transact all the business for the township of Clinton, where he lived.

"He was cautious and conservative in his business operations, and seldom made mistakes in his investments. Personally he was a man of fine character, social in his disposition, of undoubted integrity, and honored in all his dealings. He had a high standard of morality, never having used any bad language, and lived up to the commandments to the best of his knowledge, although he never united with any church." (from A Geographical and Biographical Record of Decatur County, Indiana by the Lewis Publishing Company, 1900, p. 374)

William O. Sefton died of an " attack of pneumonia" on October 29, 1862, when he was 62.