In the inception of his work the writer knew nothing of Simon the older son of Charles of Guadaloupe, other than the incorrect entry in some of the family bibles: " Simon never returned to America." Another erroneous tradition in the Rhode Island family was that from Simon sprang the Canadian branches of the De Wolfs.
It has been as gratifying as surprising to become acquainted through correspondence with a great number of Simon's widely scattered descendants. This was first accomplished through the Rev. Erastus De Wolf of Boerne, Texas. The writer knew that his father, Rev. Erastus De Wolf, Sr., had visited James De Wolf in Bristol, and was well remembered there. Simon's descendants have been as enterprising in felling primeval forests and subduing the wilderness, becoming founders of new communities in the west as were the sons of Mark Anthony in ploughing the seas. Simon De Wolf was sent home from Guadaloupe West Indies to his Grandfather Charles at Middletown, Conn. At the time he could have been but a little boy, for he was born 1718 and his grandfather died in 1731 when Simon was but thirteen. His younger uncles, with whom he grew up, were about his own age. The records, carefully searched for the writer by the genealogist, Frank Farnsworth Starr Esq., of that place, show that Simon, grandson of Charles (of Middletown) was living at Middletown in 1733 and also 1740-1741. He must be carefully distinguished from his uncle Simon who appears as a resident of Reading Parish in the town of Fairfield. Into his grandfather's family Simon seems to have first introduced the French modification of the name leading to such various spellings that some descendants lost the knowledge of their relationship to their first ancestors. It may be as well here as anywhere to deal with this question and to offer such apology as may be due for adopting in the tables a uniform spelling. It was impossible to learn in many cases, and would have been perplexing in all, to follow the varieties of spelling among members of the family sometimes related so closely as father and son or first cousins. With very few exceptions (in which the variation was designedly preserved) the spelling most common in the family has been adopted—" De Wolf,"—but not with any purpose of arbitrating in the fierce family dispute as to which is correct. Without going back to the European transitionsde Wolf—possibly Der Wolf de Loup, etc., which has been so ably treated in the preface, it is sufficient to begin with the first American ancestor. The Salisburys state that the sig-nature of Balthasar to legal papers bearing the date of 1678 sent to Mrs. Salisbury by the late Charles J. Hoadley, the state librarian of Connecticut, is written "Baltasar de wolf" and that of his son, "Edward de wolfe." In the decree of the courts 1656, to which we shall have occasion to refer later, it is given "Baltazar de Woolfe." There was probably no material change until Charles De Wolf went to the French island of Guadaloupe. His son Simon returned to Connecticut and brought with him the French pronunciation of the name, "D'olf," the French language of course having no "w." It is singular, however, that although both sons returned to America, both espousing the cause against the English, and although the time had not arrived, as in the days of Jefferson when French customs and manners were sedulously imitated—this Frenchified form of the name became immediately popular in the grandfather's family, and soon efforts appear to express the sound in orthography. A complete collection of early autographs would doubtless show the steps of the transition. The writer sought to obtain such without success. The signature of Abda son of Charles' youngest son Joseph, hence of the same generation as Simon, found upon a paper dated 1782 among the records at Albany, is "Abda Dewolph," according to Mr. John M. Dolph his descendant, showing, as the latter argues, that the name DeWolf was still intended to be preserved. The following extracts from letters to the author from Mr. John M. Dolph of Port Jervis, N. Y., brother of the United States Senator Dolph of Oregon, sheds still further light upon the change:
"Members of nearly all the families of the sons of Charles of Middletown took the name 'Dolph' with various spellings. Matthew's children born in Bolton were some of them residents in Glastonbury—and these spelled the name D'Olph for more than one hundred years. There are Dolphs still living at Deep River, Conn., descended from that Charles Dolph who was killed in 18l5 while leading in the capture of the British privateer Rover and whose widow was pensioned by Congress in 1816. The Pennsylvania Dolphs of whom Mrs. Salisbury speaks, were the descendants of Moses Dolph, who was a Revolutionary soldier, and who after the Revolution went to Mountain Meadows, Wayne Co., Pa. In 1795, he was the largest tax-payer in that part of the state. Between 1795 and 18oo he sold his property in Wayne Co. to the father of the historian Goodrich and moved to the site of the present city of Scranton. My grandfather Joseph Dolph, then living at St. Ann, went down there and made the first survey of that part of the valley. I have a letter from Edward Dolph of Scranton in which he says he remembers his grandfather Moses Dolph very well, and that he can remember his saying that the name was originally 'De Wolf' and that some of the family retained the name 'De Wolf.'
Moses seems to have been married three times, first to a McCarty of Salisbury, so his grandson stated. "Goodrich says that Moses Dolph married the daughter of Jacob Stanton at Mountain Meadow in 1780 and of whom Moses bought his home at that place." "One of the oldest members of grand- father's family has told me that Joseph who was born 1767 and was over twenty years old when his father made the change (i.e. 'De Wolf' to 'Dolph') never was reconciled to it. The tradition in the family seems to be, and I find it in all branches, that they considered 'De Wolf' the French name of which 'Dolph' was an English equivalent." How curiously this explanation was the reverse of the facts, the change to "Dolph" being a French influence in a name that had been "De Wolf," or earlier "de Wolf," used in Connecticut for at least eighty years before the corruption to "Dewolph" and "Dolph." The same writer in his essay read at the Dolph Reunion, Kinsman, Trumbull Co., Ohio, accounting for the spread of the abbreviated form by the close companionship of Simon and his family with other children of his grandfather, says:
"One of Edward's sons served in the same regiment as Abda. Moses Dolph, another cousin, ancestor of the Pennsylvania Dolphs, served in another Albany company. John Dolph, another cousin, was in a New York regiment of the line. Abda was associating all the time with his own cousins, who wrote the name 'Dolph,' nevertheless he continued to use his own name up to 1782, only changing the 'f' to 'ph,' making the name 'De Wolph,' as he signed it in 1782. It is probable that the change was finally made when he went to Washington County, about 1790, for Ruth was married in 1791 as Ruth Dolph." That Simon's own family continued this altered form of the name is ascertained from quite independent sources. Simon's great Granddaughter, still living at the age of ninety, says: "When I was young my name was Eliza Dolph, some wrote 'Deaolph,' my father did so. He examined, and said the true name was De Wolf." The writer remembers hearing his own father, James De Wolf Perry, say that when the Rev. Erastus De Wolf came to Bristol, he spelled his name Dolph" until convinced by the former's Grandfather, Hon. James De Wolf, of the true spelling. None of the Rhode Island family have ever thus changed the name, but undoubtedly have, from their ancestor Mark Anthony, the second son of Charles of Guadaloupe, through the same French influence, inherited the practice still very usual among them of spelling the name with an apostrophe, "D'Wolf." It is probable from these facts that this latter custom began with their father when living in Guadaloupe: hence this spelling has been adopted in using his name in the title of this book. Hoping that this lengthy orthographical dissertation may be of some aid to future genealogists, and serve as an explanation for the variations of spelling in this present work, let us return to the personal history of these very genuine DeWolfs, even though they "juggled with so honorable a name," as my correspondent, Mr. O. J. De Wolf, complains.
Simon De Wolf had three sons. A diligent search of original records, while revealing the married names of his daughters, discovers no mention of his sons, Amasa and Mark Anthony, beyond the record of their birth. But we learned from Mr. Jonathan Farr, of Black Rock, Pa., that he had heard his grandfather in his old age, sing a song composed by the latter's uncle, Mark Anthony. Mr. Farr's older sister says that Mark Anthony, son of Simon, was quite a composer of music and poetry. The family believe that he never married. Of Amasa, Simon's second son, nothing is known. Perhaps "he died in childhood." Of Charles, Simon's oldest son, whose numerous descendants are traced in the following pages, his venerable granddaughter writes:
"I think his family were all born in Brooklyn, Conn. Grandfather was a hatter by trade. I do not think they were very rich, but industrious and honest, and had a reasonable share of sense." Later he moved to Mehoopany, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1814. Here his younger children were brought up, attending the district schools, and were bright scholars, as Mrs. Stone had learned from her elders. In Wyoming and the neighboring counties the family chiefly made their home, where many of the descendants are still farmers. Amasa, the oldest, and Clement, the youngest of his sons, married at Mehoopany. Elisha, the fourth son, married at Braintrim, Luzerne County, where the third son, Giles Meigs, also lived. From these prolific seed beds of the family its representatives have scattered all over the West to the Pacific coast. They are especially numerous in Ohio, Iowa and Illinois. Of these hardy pioneer settlers of Western lands, the venerable Mrs. Stone thus quaintly writes:
"My life has been mostly on the frontiers. The De Wolfs, as far as I am acquainted with them, are honest, industrious self-reliant people. If one place does not suit them, they try another. They like to paddle their own canoe. We of the new States and Territories have the same Father to rule over us. We have many privations to endure; still there are many pleasures in a new country while we are improving our homes. A contented mind is a continual feast." Many a reader will recognize family traits in these quaint but expressive words.
By these migrations the counties of Northwestern Pennsylvania were, however, by no means drained of their hardy stock. Among these thrifty farmers remaining there, descendants of Charles' oldest son are most numerous. Like his father, Amasa was a hatter as well as farmer. He used to tell his grandson, Mr. Jonathan Farr, in whose family he was living when he died, of himself and father making ten hats which they sent to France, and received for them one hundred dollars. So there seems a time when America set the fashion for hats in Paris! Amasa also was, like so many of his family, a school teacher and a teacher of music, and "almost to the last day of his life sang a song of his uncle Mark Anthony De Wolf's composing." Only one son survives him, Mr. Lafayette Erastus De Wolf, the Postmaster of Nimble, Penn- sylvania, but there are many of his descendants on farms in and about Wyoming County; the Farrs, Eastons, Taylors, besides the families of Mark Anthony, Amasa, Charles, and Lafayette De Wolf.
The descendants of Simon De Wolf have not, however, been confined to agriculture. They have made their mark in all the learned professions and in business pursuits. Of the children of Amasa (Charles' oldest son), Mark Anthony had a son, Dr. James De Wolf, assistant Surgeon in the U. S. Army, who bravely fell by the side of General Custer in the battle of Big Horn. The family of Charles' second son. Wyllis, was the branch brought into most intimate relations with the "Rhode Island De Wolfs." Wyllis ran a saw mill in Pennsylvania which was carried away by a freshet. Like others of his family he contended with the rough conditions of early settlements. His son James used to relate that his father, learning at dinner one day that a savage wolf was dangerously near his little daughter, seized his gun; but on being told his dog "Watch" was with her, replied that she was safe, and coolly resumed his meal.
"The details of the battle between the large dog and the wolf used to be of never failing interest to me in young days," writes his grandson, William Fletcher De Wolf, of Chicago. After the death of Wyllis, his widow and children resided for a while in Bristol, R.I., at the home of Hon. John De Wolf, who aided the boys in making a start in life. His gifts to the family continuing after they had settled in Fall River, Mass., are still remembered and gratefully written of by the younger generation. Wyllis' son Erastus became an Episcopal clergyman, marrying a daughter of William Pearse of Bristol.
The Pearse family was one of the oldest and best known of the town, having been prominent in St. Michael's Church for several generations. Mr. De Wolf spent the earlier years of his ministry in Rhode Island. He died bravely as a Chaplain in the Civil War. Wounded on the battlefield, he continued ministering to those more severely wounded than himself until he was carried exhausted from the field, soon after to die from the effects of his wounds. The Rev. Erastus De Wolf's oldest son, William Wyllis, was admitted to the Bar September, 1859, began practice as one of the firm of De Wolf & Pinckney, Dixon, Illinois, and in 1860 was elected judge of Lee County. Having served in the office two terms, Judge De Wolf sacrificed his lucrative profession, and offered himself for the sacred ministry. He entered Nashotah Theological Seminary, graduating there in 1872, then becoming assistant to the Rev. Dr. Locke at Grace Church, Chicago, and Chaplain of St. Luke's hospital. Called to St. John's Church Decatur, Illinois, he was ordained in that church by Bishop Whitehouse on St. Mark's Day, 1872, and began a successful astorate beloved of all from which he was called to the Presence of the great High Priest, July 20th, 1875. In his short life he had "purchased to himself a good degree in two of the learned professions. The second and only surviving son of the Rev. Erastus and Hannah Pearse DeWolf, Rev. Erastus De Wolf, Jr., was until recently working in a mission field in Indian Territory. Of his faithfulness there his Bishop wrote the author in terms of high praise. He has recently accepted a call to St. Helena's Church, Boerne, Texas, where he lives with his widowed daughter.
The ministry of the Episcopal Church includes a third grandson of William Wyllis De Wolf, son of his daughter Harriet Rev. Hobart Cooke of the Diocese of Albany, having been transferred to that diocese from Connecticut in 1882, and now the Rector of All Saints' Church, Hudson, N.Y. There are a number of other grandchildren of Wyllis de Wolf (son of Charles) successful in various walks of life; his second son Wyllis' son, Mr. Joseph Brown De Wolf of Alliance, Ohio, the sons of his youngest son James, Mr. William Fletcher De Wolf already mentioned and his younger brother Herbert, a jeweller in New Bedford, Mass. His daughter Sarah is survived by her dauohter Mrs. Fullerton, who, when Mrs. Coy, was an active parishioner of the writer's in his frst charge, St. Gabriel's Church, Providence. Giles Meigs De Wolf, the second son of Charles and grandson of Simon, lived at Braintrim, Luzerne Co., Pa., until he moved to Cavendish, Vt., where some years earlier he had married Miss Anna Spalding. In less than five years, however, he returned to Braintrim where he later removed to the adjoining Bradford Co., and became a prosperous farmer. That he was a man of more than ordinary ability is shown in that he taught his son higher branches of mathematics than were taught in the public schools (Magazine of Western History, Vol. XIII, No. 2; Article, "Calvin de Wolf.") Two of his children survive him, the oldest, Mrs. Eliza Stone, at a great age, and his youngest child, Clement, of Springdale, Ark. Calvin, the oldest of his sons to live beyond infancy, was born in Braintrim, Pa., in 1815. Having spent his early days in that and neighboring portions of Pennsylvania, trained, as we have seen by his father in mathematics, and by a friend of his father in Latin, Calvin De Wolf started at the age of twenty-one, in 1836, to win an education by his industry at Grand River Institute, in Ashtabula Co., Ohio. Soon afterwards, finding his way into Illinois, he maintained himself by school teaching, first at Hadley then in Chicago. While teaching and engaging in various other occupations, he began the study of law and was admitted to the Bar in 1843. In 1854, he was elected Justice of the Peace, at that time in the history of Chicago, a highly important and responsible position, which he held until 1879. He held preliminary examinations on many cases of great importance. In 1858, he was indicted for aiding in the escape of a fugitive slave, but the case after appeal to the United States Court was dismissed in 1861 by the advice of Hon. E. L. Larned, U.S. District Attorney. From his earliest boyhood he had abhorred slavery, and in 1839 was one of the founders of the Anti-slavery Society of Illinois of which he became secretary and also one of the editors of the anti-slavery organ, the' Western Citizen, in 1842. After retiring from office in 1879, he continued to practice law in partnership with his son Wallace Leroy De Wolf, who is to-day a successful lawyer in Chicago. Judge De Wolf died honored and respected at the age of eighty-four, Nov. 28, 1899.
Singularly enough—a Rhode Island cousin of Judge De Wolf, William Frederick De Wolf, came to Illinois only a few years earlier, 1836, and moved to Chicago six years later than the judge in 1845. Two young men in a population of four thousand—they lived to be old men in a popoulation of two million. They saw it grow from its infancy, fled from its flames, and beheld it rise Phoenix-like from its ashes. They both took energetic part in its life and progress. During the Civil War, William Frederick De Wolf sent forth his oldest son William to die in his country's service. After a career of distinguished bravery, "bearing honorable scars gained in the conflict at Belmont," and "scarcely refreshed from the toils and sufferings of Fort Donelson," the reward for his services was a place in the army of the Potomac.
As lieutenant of Gibson's Flying Artillery, U.S. 3d Regiment, he received wounds the day preceding the battle of Williamsburg, from which he died four weeks later in the twentyfirst year of his age. "How gallantly he bore himself upon that fatal field," says an obituarv notice now before the writer, "his sorrowful comrades will tell. Dismounted by a shot which, tearing one limb at the same time stretched his horse lifeless, he lost no time in seizing another steed which rushed riderless past him, and plunging again into the fight, continued, though badly wounded a second time, to encourage his men and main- tained his position until his battery was withdrawn from the field. This was the closing act of one who has been in no ordinary degree beloved and honored among us for his frank, loyal, affectionate temper, noble gallantry of sentiment, his pure and spotless life. His example, alas, is also his legacy."
When Mr. William Frederick De Wolf cast his last vote for President Benjamin Harrison, the young Republicans of Chicago bore him in a chair on their shoulders to the polls. In 1896, he died at the age of eighty-five. Active in religious life as well as civil, he was one of the founders of St. James Episcopal Church, the mother parish of Chicago.
To return to the line of Simon, while the oldest son of Giles Meigs De Wolf was identifying himself with the up-building of the metropolis of the West, in the neighboring state of Iowa, the next brother, James, was taking no less prominent part in the founding of the town of Vail, Iowa. Born during the time his parents resided in Cavendish, Vt., but spending his boyhood in Pennsylvania, in early manhood after supporting him- self for two years as his brother had done at Grand River Institute, he pushed West, first into Illinois, then into Iowa, being the first permanent settler in Vail. A member of the State Legislature of Illinois, and holding throughout life other positions of trust, he practiced many years as a beloved and skilled physician, a lover of men and nature, but above all, a lover of the God of both, being a Presbyterian Elder and successively the founder and chief supporter of three churches. He and his brother Calvin met as much to their surprise as to their pleasure, as Commissioners to the General Assembly in New York, 1889. It was while engaged in religious work that Dr. De Wolf met with the accident of being thrown from his carriage, which in 1891, caused his death, at the age of seventy-three. "He was not a rugged man, but careful of health, temperate and regular in habits, he was always on duty. Wherever he has lived he has enjoyed the confidence of his fellows in a peculiar degree," reads the obituary notice of his death. His daughter, still making her home with her widowed mother, and his son, Mr. John Horton De Wolf, in business in Chicago, have been among the most zealous to aid in gathering facts in regard to this line of the De Wolf family. Giles Meigs'next son, Charles, has been survived by many descendants, De Wolfs and Fessendens, in Minnesota and Nebraska. Giles Meigs' son Luther had no children; his son Clement married Miss Beecher and lives at Springdale, Ark. Of his daughters besides Mrs. Stone of whom mention has been made, who has no children, his daughter Fanny married David Brink and has many descendants living in Nebraska. Betsey married John Barnes who has left among other descendants a son, Rev. George Wyllis Barnes, an especially zealous and faithful Baptist Minister, and Mary Ellen married Dr. George Northrup, whose son, C. D. Northrup is a prosperous stock raiser at Elkland, Pa., on his "Willow Brook Farm." Elisha De Wolf, the next in order of the sons of Charles (son of Simon), "had a liberal education, was a school teacher for many years and held a number of public offices," writes his grandson Mr. Loren G. De Wolf. One son of Elisha, Giles Newell, is still living at the age of eighty-five, residing with his son just mentioned, he like his father was a school teacher as well as a harness maker. Elisha's oldest son Lyman, was a lawyer of Chicago, while there are grandchildren of Elisha by his daughter, the late Mrs. Elizabeth De Wolf Keeler.
The next two children of Charles De Wolf and Elizabeth Walbridge, Betsey and Charles, died unmarried. Mrs. Stone remembers her Uncle Charles, well. A fall in infancy had injured his brain, yet he had a vivid memory of past events and in old age was a lovable character, fond of his young relatives. His mother entering the gallery of the church which she attended, stepped aside to let a stranger pass, and fell from the gallery with her babe in her arms. It was only by a long and persistent search that the family of Clement, youngest son of Charles, was discovered. Even Mrs. Stone, the oldest surviving descendant of Simon, could only write that her Uncle Clement had died about the same time that her youngest brother was born and named after him; that after marrying Nancy Kasson at Mehoopany, Pa., her Uncle Clement moved to Johnstown, O., as a teacher. At length by that casting of nets in all waters known to the genealogist, a grandson of Clement was discovered in Mr. Clark De Wolf of the editorial staff of the Columbus (O.) Evening Press, who in turn put the writer in communication with the editor of The Leader, Pomeroy, O., and through the patience and industry of these two the writer is enabled not only to add a complete table of the descendants of Clement, but concludes this chapter with the biographical sketches of one of the most picturesque and interesting groups of the family. The sketch of Clement at least deserves to be given in Mr. Smith's own pithy language, though space requires the rest of his notes to be somewhat abbreviated.
"The date of the birth of Clement De Wolf cannot now be exactly ascertained. There is good reason, however, to believe that he was born in 1783. He died at Racine, Meigs, Co., Ohio, from typhoid fever, Sept. 21, 1828. His remains were interred in the village burial ground, but as no enduring monument was ever erected above his precious dust, the oldest inhabitants of the place cannot, at this late day, point out the precise spot. They know it was beneath the spreading branches of a stately sycamore, which has since been removed.
Clement De Wolf first saw the light of day in Pennsylvania. Here he grew to manhood. Here he was educated, and here it was that he met and married Nancy Kasson, one of the noblest women that ever lived. Shortly after their marriage the young couple started west, their objective point being Johnstown, Licking Co., Ohio. Here, in the forest village and in the nearby settlements, the subject of our sketch put to good use the then liberal education he had received in the east.
After a few years devoted to teaching in and around Johnstown, Clement De Wolf and his family made their way through the almost unbroken wilderness to Meigs County, taking up their abode in a log cabin on Shade River in Orange Township. Here he was again speedily employed at teaching, his greatest and best service being performed at Chester, then the county seat, only three or four miles away.
It was at the county seat that he gained local fame, not only as a teacher of the common and higher branches of learning, but as an expert accountant within the various offices of the courthouse. He was never elected to any of these offices, but he was called upon to straighten out many an intricate mathematical tangle. Not only did he gain distinction here as a well-informed man and scholar, but his reputation as a stump speaker and orator extended into the adjoining counties. Some of his speeches were reported for the public press and are said to have been fine examples of argumentative and rhetorical skill. He was a ready and fluent speaker and bore the reputation of having been one of the best of his dav.
From Chester he removed to Racine, a little village on the Ohio River only ten miles away. He taught here for a time, and sustained the enviable record he had made at the places mentioned above. Just when he moved to Racine and how long he taught there, are not known; but he kept steadily at the work till death cut him down in the very prime of life, leaving a heart-broken widow and seven dependent children to engage in what proved to be for each a very arduous strugole of life.
It is said that Clement's thirst for knowledge made him the creature of many embarrassing circumstances. Books were very scarce in those days, newspapers more so, well-read men rare. On one occasion Clement was sent by the good wife of the house in a great hurry to borrow a set of quilting frames. It was in the evening time, and Clement was admonished to make haste, as Mrs. De Wolf was verv anxious to get her quilt in that evening so as to be in readiness to begin work early in the morning. Clement promised, went straightway to the house of his well-informed neighbor, with whom he was soon engaged in discussing the current topics of the day. The good wife waited in impatience. Time wore on, midnight came, then two o'clock in the morning, and still no Clement. Finally Mrs. De Wolf, thinking that sickness or accident might have befallen her husband, donned bonnet and shawl and made her way through the woods to the neighbor's habitation.
Opening the door she found her husband engaged in a spirited conversation, his mission forgotten and the advanced hour of the night having never entered his mind. This example serves to illustrate a multitude of similar ones with which he was embarrassed at various times in his life.
As a thinker and a scholar, he was one of the most advanced of his day. He was a good citizen, an honorable upright man. He transmitted to his children the sterling qualities of his manhood, and by them his virtues have been well perpetuated to the present day.
His was a noble strain. May its luster remain undimmed through all the ages yet to come!
Mrs. Nancy Kasson De Wolf, who had at the age of nineteen become the wife of Clement DeWolf, after the death of her husband, consented to become housekeeper for Moses Clark a most estimable gentleman who had but recently lost his wife by death, near Johnstown, in Licking County.
A little wagon, into which were loaded the mother, the three youngest children—Calvin, Samuel and Betsey, and a few necessary belongings, was soon on its way over the hundred miles through an almost unbroken forest, the wagon being drawn by a poor three-year-old colt, driven by the second son, Daniel.
Mrs. De Wolf and her three children found at Moses Clark's a most comfortable home. Mr. Clark was one of Nature's noblemen. He owned a large and highly productive farm and was in every way a good provider. Mrs. De Wolf remained with Mr. Clark till his death, for nineteen years having enjoyed his kindly hospitality. Then, with her daughter Betsey, she returned to Meigs County, and became mistress of a home of her own at Syracuse on the Ohio river. Here, within a stone's throw of her two sons, Captains Sam and Dan, she lived in the enjoyment of peace and plenty till she sank into the dreamless sleep of death, April 6, 1870.
'Aunt Nancy' was one of the grandly good pioneer mothers. She was a woman of strong mind, warmly sympathetic heart, the soul of industry, and did her full part in paving the way for a higher civilization. As woman, wife and mother she never fell short of her full measure of duty. She died without guile, and her good works do follow her."
Was there a strain of Corsair blood in the remote ancestry of the De Wolfs, or descent from some famous old Viking of the North that asserted itself in successive generations? This family, far in the interior, far from the tempestuous seas that their Eastern cousins loved to plough and conquer, sought adventures upon the quieter but no less treacherous waters of the Ohio river, and found their experience hardly less thrilling. Articles of the Pomeroy Leader are before the writer; one entitled " Rough and Tumble of River Life, and the other "A Venerable River Captain," sketching respectively the lives of "Captain Dan" and "Captain Sam," as the brothers were familiarly known; the second and youngest sons of Clement De Wolf. Captain Dan made his debut as a steamboat man upon the Condor No. 3. Next he became at once captain and pilot of the Crescent. This steamer was captured by Grant to tow a gunboat up the Cumberland to Fort Donelson. On his arrival at the fort he was made pilot of the Ohio, dispatched on some secret and important mission to Cincinnati. On his release and return to the command of the Crescent, he was ordered up the Cumberland with Union forces. After employment on several steamers, he and his brother Sam entered the company which purchased the Raven, as ill-fated as the "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore."
Sam De Wolf, in the meantime, after a short experience in running a sawmill in 1846, on Old Tom Creek, in Lebanon Township, with his brother Calvin, had spent five or six years in learning the river in "flat-boating;" then he became a pilot, and entered the "ill-starred Ohio River Transportation Company." He now was placed in command of the Raven, his nephew Dor at the wheel. "The last trip of the Raven was commenced with ominous forebodings. After picking up her tow she proceeded to Antiquity for coal, partially filled with water, came near sinking, and was only saved by cutting holes through the deck." At the mouth of the Big Kanawha, a big coal lamp exploded, and the vessel narrowly escaped burning. Four miles above Plymouth the boat encountered a terrific wind storm and came near sinking. A little above Cincinnati, April 15, 1870, about midnight Captain Sam was informed the boilers were leaking, and while examining them the boilers exploded. He was blown into the fuel-boat, almost buried beneath the debris, his right arm broken, and was badly burned. Pilot Dan De Wolf and engineer Martin were soon at work to liberate the captain. As the captain came to his senses and realized the situation, he said: "Do not mind me, take care of yourself." He was saved just in time as the Raven sank; but the mate, John Calvin De Wolf, son of Captain Dan, familiarly known as "Tap," was never more heard of.
The Sam Roberts another of the company's boats blew up at Guyon, on Aug. 7, 1874, when Captain Dan who commanded her was badly hurt about the back, three of her crew were killed and seven wounded. Still another of the company's boats, the Petrel, Captain Sam in command and Dan De Wolf at the wheel "will long be remembered for its having filled with water and turning over. The boat floated along, drifting as far as Ceredo and continued to roll from side to side, the crew clambering about for the highest part to keep from drowning until they were taken ashore in a skiff. As a climax to all their disasters came the collapse of the company, through the rascality of its smooth- tongued "promoter" and comfortable fortunes which the brothers, starting as poor boys, had by hard toil laid by, were swept away in a day. Captain Dan still retained possession of a comfortable brick residence at the lower end of Syracuse, Ohio; but this home, costing probably ten or twelve thousand dollars, took fire one day and burned to the ground, and not one cent of insurance! This left the old Captain homeless; but his brother Sam surrendered to him his own snug quarters nearby and moved to Racine. In this home, supplied by his brother's generosity, the old Captain passed away at the age of eighty, "an honest, upright citizen," says the notice of his death, an obliging neighbor, a fast friend, a man of solid and irreproachable character."
Captain Dan had many thrilling and dangerous experiences due to fog, storm, darkness and wind; but he went through it all without a visible sign of emotion or excitement. His brother Sam says he was the coolest, the most deliberate and the best flat-boat pilot he ever saw. Of Captain Sam, The Pomery Leader says: "His has been an honorable upright life. He has pronounced ideas of right and wrong, and what he undertakes he does with his whole soul and will. He has always been liberal to the poor and has gladdened thousands of hearts by word and deed. As a citizen, a neighbor and a friend, he is of the best, and the world has been made happier and better by his having lived in it."
That these sterling qualities were family traits appear from a notice of the death of the Captain's sister Lvdia, Mrs. Smith, who lived to be nearly eighty years of age. Possessed of a strong physical organism, tireless energy, dauntless courage and indomitable will, she was well equipped by nature to endure the toils, privations and hardships of pioneer life. The mere announcement that a neighbor languished on a bed of pain was to her a signal call. Through blinding storm, withering heat, piercing cold, through the howling wind-storm of night, when falling limbs from swaying forest trees made courageous men hesitate and grow faint at heart, this fearless mother, guided by only the flickering and uncertain rays of a lantern, found her way at all hours of the night to the sick and suffering of many a humble cabin. She thought not of herself: she lived for others. It was her ambition to carry comfort and scatter sunshine wherever she went."
Upon the death of Clement De Wolf the care of the family devolved upon the eldest son, John, then a lad of fifteen. Of him Mr. Smith writes:
"With stout heart and willing hands this faithful son assumed his new-found responsibility. Opportunities were few and wages low, but this noble boy—father at once and son, labored hard wherever employment could be had, all his meagre earnings going to the support of his widowed mother and the family. His self-sacrificing efforts were continued until the mother was persuaded to become housekeeper for Moses Clark, of Licking County, Ohio, whose wife had taken sick and died.
John remained industriously at work in Meigs County, saved his wages, and was soon able to buy a small farm in Lebanon Township. Shortly afterwards he married Harriet Smith, of Athens County, and went to housekeeping. Later he sold his little Meigs County farm, and bought another near Coolville, in Athens County, on which he quietly ended his days.
When his brothers, Sam and Dan, bought their first steamboat, the Hunter, Sam did not forget his brother John's devoted efforts for their mother and her family; so John was made watchman, a lucrative position which he filled most perfectly on one or the other of the De Wolf steamboats as long as he wanted it.
Of John De Wolf it may truly, be said that never did he do a dishonorable deed. His word was his bond., His great big sympathetic heart was as tender as a child's. As a boy, as a man, he was a credit to himself, an unsullied honor to his illustrious line. Forever sweet will be the memory of Uncle John!
Calvin, the third son, who on the 29th of Nov., 1848, was married to Eliza Jane Seeley by Henry Lawrence, Justice of the Peace, had several children, five of whom are living, the eldest of whom, Clark, has already been mentioned as the first of his family discovered by the writer.
Like most men of his time, Calvin had a limited education. But being possessed of a bright mind, he read law and was elected four terms as Justice of the Peace of Lebanon Township. Though never admitted to the bar he was a noted pettifogger, and usually put to rout the best attorneys that were ever pitted against him. Lack of opportunity alone prevented him from winning marked distinction in the legal profession. He was five times elected Assessor of his township, and was, in many ways, one of the foremost men of his county.
He was a good neighbor, a true friend, and indulgent father. He died Feb. 26, 1884.
Of the daughters, Betsey, the twin sister of Captain Sam, is the only child still living, unmarried, enjoying "fair health and the exercise of all her faculties a good Woman—at the age of seventy-seven." Polly who became Mrs. George Webster, had several children, two of whom are now living, Don D. of Portland O., and Mrs. Louise Mooney of Middleport, O.
Of Mrs. Smith the mother of our correspondent, some account has been already given.
So ends the record of the elder branch of the family of Charles De Wolf of Guadaloupe, the descendants of his son Simon.
If few attained the great wealth that distinguished some of their Rhode Island cousins, their history bears witness to the same industry and determination that has been characteristic of most of the race,—qualities which added to native ability and favorable circumstances in a wider field have conspired to make them leaders of men.