Family Nibbles

Margaret Thompson Jarvis (5G) died on March 1, 1853. She was age 90. She led a pioneering life.

Margaret was born Maryland in 1762, in what would become Harford County. Her parents were John Thompson and Margaret Gilbert Thompson.

She lived through the Revolutionary War years. After the war, she married William Jarvis in 1780. Like many, they struggled financially in the years after the war.

William and Margaret made the decision to leave Maryland. They moved west to the newly formed state of Kentucky. Margaret crossed the Appalachians and traveled down the Ohio River with her husband and two young children. She may have been pregnant during the journey.

In Kentucky, they built a home from a wilderness plot of land and raised a family of nine children. It’s hard to imagine today.

After William Jarvis died in 1823, Margaret stayed on their farm on Fork Lick Creek in Kentucky. In the 1830 census, she was living with daughter Sarah Jarvis Hazlewood’s family on their nearby farm. John Hazlewood may have farmed the Jarvis farm in addition to his own farm.

Margaret had made her home in Kentucky for over 50 years, from 1793 until 1845. In 1845, she moved to Indiana into the household of her daughter Malinda.

John Hazlewood died shortly after 1850, a few years after Margaret had moved to Indiana. Sarah Jarvis Hazlewood moved to Illinois to live with one of her daughters, where she died in 1861.

In 1846, Margaret’s daughter Elizabeth Jarvis Conyers conveyed a deed for William and Margaret Jarvis’ Pendleton County farm to Henry Dance for $10. The deed was executed in Versailles, Ripley County, Indiana, and later recorded in Pendleton County, Kentucky. I didn’t find any similar deed from the other heirs, so perhaps Elizabeth was acting on behalf of all the children.

As mentioned, Margaret moved to Indiana into the household of her daughter Malinda Jarvis Robinson. Malinda and Armit Robinson were living near Armit’s sister Mary Robinson Benham near Benham’s Store in Johnson Township, Ripley County.

The Benhams had come to Ripley County from Kentucky. There was a small village with a church, cemetery, and a store run by James Benham. There were many Benham family farms nearby. The little settlement was called Benham’s Store. Today it’s Benham.

In the 1850 census, Margaret Thompson Jarvis was living in Armit and Malinda Robinson’s household. Margaret was age 88.

Margaret Thompson Jarvis (5G) died on March 1, 1853. She was age 90.

Buried at Benham, Indiana

Margaret Thompson Jarvis is buried at the Benham Methodist Church cemetery.

Ed. Note: Take a moment to reflect on all the Jarvises we’ve met before Margaret. Hers is the first burial and headstone I’ve found of all those grandparents.

This cemetery apparently originally belonged to the Middle Fork of Indian Kentuck Baptist Church, which appears to have disbanded between 1863 and 1878.

Churches of Indian-Kentuck Region

The church was originally a Baptist congregation. The Benham Methodist Episcopal Church acquired the land in the late 1800s. The present-day church building was built in 1899.

Here are some other Jarvises buried here. There are lots of Benhams and a few Robinsons too.

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Sources

• Image of funeral family – Old School Cool – https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/fwyx2v/my_great_great_grandfathers_funeral_late_1800s_my/
• Image of woman and cabin – Lincoln Boyhood Site – National Park Service – https://www.nps.gov/libo/planyourvisit/living-historical-farm.htm
• Deed – William and Elizabeth Jarvis Conyers to Henry Dance – Jarvis farm, Pendleton County, Kentucky – 1846 – Pendleton County Recorder of Deeds – Falmouth, Kentucky
• 1850 Census – Armit and Malinda Robinson – Margaret Jarvis – Ripley County, Indiana – Ancestry.com – https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8054/images/4192474_00074?pId=2288468
• Map composite – Benhams Store – An Atlas of Ripley County Indiana – Ripley County 1883 – D. J. Lake and Col, 1883 – Historic Map Works – http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/7712/Ripley+County+1883/
• Image of flatboat – Engraving by Alfred Waud – The Historic New Orleans Collection
• Quotations – interview with George Buchanan – The People’s History of Ripley County – Violet Toph – Ripley County Historical Society – Versailles, Indiana – https://www.rchslib.org/peoples_history.html
• Photos of Benham cemetery – Mark Jarvis – January 2015
• Quotation about Benham cemetery – Churches of Indian-Kentuck Region – Robert W. Scott – 1999 – https://ruthh.tripod.com/chscott1.html