52 Ancestors In 52 Weeks: Large Family

Does the family on the move really put down roots? Does the family know the meaning of being settled? Does the family understand the security of being home? The Daniel Boultinghouse (1775-1823) family would be witnesses to this story as they migrated from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Illinois.

What spurred Daniel to keep moving westward? For what was he searching? Daniel would marry three times with wives Susannah Graves and Rhoda Howell. The name of one wife is unknown. With Susannah, they parented five children. Rhoda gave him two children while the unknown Mrs. Boutlinghouse gave birth to six. Rhoda was the last wife so she took many children under her maternal wings.

Members of large families on the Illinois plains each had jobs and responsibilities: cooking, laundry, planting, harvesting, whatever was needed to be clothed, fed, and sheltered. How did the family turn whatever they had into a homestead…would this be the final place for them along the Little Fox River? How did they call it home?

As some of the children reached adulthood, they married and lived nearby. A couple of Daniel’s sons joined him in the militia to ward off Indian attacks. Family stories tell of one son being massacred and scalped. Daniel was the captain of a militia that fought in the War of 1812.

Daniel died at the young age of 48, leaving Rhoda and the remaining children. Daniel had kept an account of the debts he owed. After his death, Rhoda went to the courthouse to present this account and to pay off the debts. Among the debts were ones he owed two of his sons. He left no will. How did she survive her days on the plains? No records exist. I wonder if one of her children took her in so she would not be by herself.

Rhoda and Daniel are my third great grandparents, and their son Amos Howell Boultinghouse is my second great grandfather. After Daniel’s death, several of his other sons left Illinois to move into Arkansas and Texas. They, too, would parent large families. Did these people finally settle in their lifelong homes? How did these large families take care and love one another?