The Great-Granddaughter of an Illinois Farmer

I was up at 6am this morning and in the garden by 7am.  My in-laws have a 100 acre farm just a mile down the road and vegetable farming has been a constant part of their lives for generations. 

Not Mine!  I grew up in the suburbs and didn't know diddly-squat about farming. And then I moved here 15 years ago and recaptured some of my agricultural ancestry.  I took to it like a duck to water. I love growing and canning my own food.Thanks to my mother-in-law!

I was thinking of my great-grandmother today as I was planting corn.  Gertrude "Gertie" Sarah Nisbet Whittaker grew up on a farm in Earlville, Illinois and lived her entire life there. First with her family and then she married a young man on a farm a mile or so away.  Her Dad, Jefferson "Jeff" Nisbet had settled there from Oneida County, NY after a stint being an express mail rider in the Midwest.  The winters in New York were brutal and as it was a big dairy cow area, many a morning he was up at 4am dealing with the cows. I think he settled in Illinois to escape the brutal winters. He didn't escape the cows, however. He did what he knew to earn a living and they grew lots of corn to feed those damn cows!

Great Grandpa's Whittaker's family was totally without agriculture to my knowledge. Frank Whittaker was born on the Illinois farm that had originally been settled by his Dad, Robert Whittaker, and two sisters (Sarah and Amelia) and their husbands. The sisters came West first, from Saugus, Massachusetts. Robert followed a few years later with his Scottish immigrant wife, Eliza Hart.

 Born in Lancashire, England, my paternal Great Great Great Grandfather. James T. Whittaker was a weaver.  Lancashire's economy was strongly engaged in the milling of wool and cotton.  He emigrated in 1826 to escape the economic disaster known at the Cotton Riots.  With two small children and a baby on the way, James emigrated to the Boston area for employment after the riots had closed many of the mills in his home area.  He spent the rest of his life working in the mills in the Boston area.

But it appears that he wanted something better for his younger children.  His older children followed him in to the mills, but the youngest son and two sisters did not.  James Whittaker provided the financial stake for the daughters to move WEST and buy farms.  This is a pattern that is very common in the mid 19th century.  Land ownership was highly desired for the Northern European immigrants to America.

A son and daughters of a textile mill worker - what did they know about farming?  Probably nothing. I certainly have much in common with them in this regard.  But they made it work and a portion of the farm is still in the family as of 2019. Remarkable.

Walkersville WV History Walk

First day of summer vacation for this Middle School Social Studies Teacher!

I can’t think of a better way than to take a local history walk.

This journey started with a letter to Sam Mick, a resident of Ireland, West Virginia where I live. It was provided to me by Sam’s daughter Sandy and her husband Buzz King. The letter contains handed down accounts commonly heard by folks who grew up in southern Lewis County WV. I am not one of those people - but as a History teacher I have taken a keen interest in the family histories of the residents here.

So today, our journey will attempt to take us back to the 1840s when Walkersville was founded and we will journey from the covered bridge to the tiny village itself.  Settlement in this area began as early as 1787. It was nothing but wilderness way back then as you can imagine. Life was all about survival back then. To create a home in the wilderness is beyond my experiences yet holds fascination. How hard those people had to work every day! And I thought dealing with 7th and 8th graders was challenging ...