My Genealogy Hound

LAWRENCE, WOODFORD, retired farmer; Sec. 9; P. O. Payson; was born in Fauquier county, Va., Jan. 8, 1800; is the son of Rodham and Elizabeth Lawrence of the same county. He went with his parents to Kentucky in 1810; lived there on a farm till 1823, then returned to his native county; spent three years, chiefly in teaching. December 17, 1826, he married Mary Mewmaw, born in Virginia, Jan. 29, 1803. Five days after their marriage they started with one horse to carry them and their effects upon his back to Crawford county, Ind., where they arrived January 21, having consumed a month in the journey, and the weather being very cold were obliged to walk much of the way. Mr. Lawrence spent the time farming and teaching till the spring of 1831, when they removed to Adams county, landing at Bluff Mills, in Payson township in May. The first day’s work he did in Illinois was to help James Seehorn, Eli Seehorn, and Robert Hudson, plant corn, on June 1. Their wives dropped the corn and they covered it with hoes. Mr. Lawrence taught the first school in Payson township; began in June, 1831, in a log stable, with cracks between logs for windows, and lime bark peeled and laid rough side up for floor. It stood nearly three miles southwest of where Payson now is. October 9, of that year, they removed to his present farm. His wife died Oct. 8, 1838, leaving him with eight children, the oldest five days less than eleven years, and the youngest but a few hours old. He remained single till his youngest child lacked but two months of twenty-one years of age, and all the children were married but two. He then married Rachel J. W. Lawrence, Aug. 4, 1859. His children are Mrs. Maria L. Holman, Mrs. Susan Ellington, Mrs. Alpha J. Mack, Bluford, Alfred, Rodham, Chester S. and Woodford M. He now has forty-three living grandchildren, and fourteen great grandchildren. He was a captain of a Militia Company a number of years. Both members of the Christian church. Owns 203 acres of land, worth $10,100.