Fletcher-Kinnick Connections

Pioneer Sketches
The Fletcher-Kinnick Connection

Compiled by William L. (Bill) Smith


This page includes sketches I have compiled from my family history research for my own use. I am posting them on the Internet in the interest of sharing this information with interested parties. If you appear to be directly related, based on the information in the the sketches, or have comments to share with me about these sketches, I would be happy to hear from you. I do not do research for others, nor am I particularly interested in speculative relationships or unrelated surname discussions. There are many other worthy sites for these activities. I hope you enjoy reading some of these interesting stories.

The Fletcher-Kinnick Connection:
Bureau Co, Illinois, and Washington Co, Iowa,
1850s to the Present


Introductory Comments
The Connections
The Fletcher Family
The Kinnick Family
John T. and Catherine Fletcher and their Family
Joseph and Rachel (Mercer) Kinnick and their Family
Jacob and Fannie (Fletcher) Kinnick and their Heirs
Ora L. Fletcher and Family


Introductory Comments


This site is based on Progress Report No. 2, the second edition (written 25 Oct 1996) of The Kinnick Project.

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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The Connections


In 1850, Townsend (and Susan) Fletcher "made a farm" on Section 36, by Hickory Grove, in the southeast corner of Manlius Township, Bureau County, Illinois. Manlius Township lies just to the north of Concord Township. During 1853, after the death of her husband, Susan Kinnick and her children moved onto the 160 acres in Concord Township purchased in 1851 by her late husband, Walter W. (d. 28 Feb 1853). It was two miles south and one mile west of the Fletcher farm.
Four connections developed between these two families over the ensuing years:
1) In March, 1859, John T. Fletcher (son of Townsend and Susan Fletcher) married Catherine Kinnick (daughter of Susan (Schwyhart) and the late Walter W. Kinnick). They moved to Washington County, Iowa, in 1884.
2) On 29 Feb 1860, Joseph Kinnick, brother of Catherine, married Rachel Mercer, a granddaughter of Townsend and Susan Fletcher (by their daughter, Mary, who married William Mercer).
3) On 28 Apr 1872, Fannie Fletcher, sister of John T., became the second wife of Jacob Kinnick, brother of Catherine and Joseph.
4) When John T. and Catherine (Kinnick) Fletcher moved their family to Iowa in 1884, their ten year old son, Ora L. Fletcher, remained in Illinois with Jacob and Fannie (Fletcher) Kinnick (his aunt and uncle, from both sides of the family...they never had any children of their own). The probate records of both Jacob in 1923 and Ora L. in 1937 were rich sources of genealogical information on both families!

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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The Fletcher Family


Townsend and Susan (Ready) Fletcher were both natives of Virginia. They married there, about 1818. It is believed their first six children were born there: James H. (b. 1820), Elizabeth, Mary, William A. (b. 10 Aug 1829), Fanny (b. 1832), and John Thomas (b. 14 Mar 1833). In about 1835, they moved from Virginia to Belmont Co, Ohio. It appears that their last four children were born in Ohio: Hannah Jane (b. 1837), Daniel (b. 1841), Amanda (b. 1839), and Samuel (b. 1842). In the spring of 1844, they boarded a boat and traveled down the Ohio River, to the Mississippi River, which they went up river to Muscatine, IA. There they crossed over to move to Bureau County, IL, settling near Princeton. The Walter W. Kinnick family was also aboard this boat.
In 1850, Townsend Fletcher, according to a local history, "made a farm" on Section 36, Manlius Township of Bureau County, by Hickory Grove. It appears he was among the first ten settlers of this township.
Townsend Fletcher died 6 Feb 1866. Mrs. Susannah Ready Fletcher died at the home of her daughter, Fannie (Mrs. Jacob) Kinnick, in Concord Township, Bureau County, Illinois, 6 Nov 1887, aged 87 years, 7 months, 20 days. Grandma Fletcher, as she was familiarly called, saw her family grow to include, at the time of her death, 54 grandchildren, 34 great-grand children, and two great-great-grandchildren. Both Townsend and Susannah are buried at Forest Hill Cemetery, Wyanet, Bureau County, Illinois.

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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The Kinnick Family


Walter W. and Susan Kinnick lived on a farm in Dover Township, four miles north of Princeton, Bureau Co, IL, when they first arrived from Ohio, in the summer of 1844. They lost their youngest child, William (b. 2 Feb 1844, OH), in their second year in Illinois (Oct 1845). Their first child born in Illinois, Jacob, their youngest son, was born on this farm on 4 Jan 1846. (Catherine was born in Ohio, in 1842. The family was listed on the 1840 Ohio census in Wheeling Township, Belmont County).
Walter and Susan's oldest son, John S. (b. 14 Sep 1834 in OH), died, at age 16, on 5 Jun 1851. Cause of death is unknown. Their youngest daughter, Fanny Susan, was born to Walter and Susan, at the Dover Township farm, about 1852.
On 2 Oct 1851, Walter purchased, for $185, one-hundred sixty acres of land in Concord Township, Bureau County, from John & Hannah Dodge, who had received their title to the land by Patent from the United States of America. This land laid about eleven mile west and two miles south of their Dover Township farm. Walter was not able to move his family to this land before he died seventeen months later.
Walter W. Kinnick died at the farm in Dover township 28 Feb 1853, at the age of 43. Cause of death is unknown. He is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Wyanet, IL, beside his first son, John S. When their father died, Joseph was age 14, Walter Watson, 13, Catherine, 11, Jacob, 7, Maggie, 3, and Fanny Susan, one year. The children received their educations in Princeton schools.
The two older daughters married during the two years following their father's death. Mary E., age 18, in about 1853, married George W. Harrison. George (Fletcher family tradition has his name as Joe) and Mary Harrison had two daughters, Evaline (b. 21 Dec 1854, m. Frank Hornby, d. 2 Jan 1934) and Mary A. (b. 9 Nov 1856, d. 12 Apr 1880, age 23+). We know little more about either Mary E. or George W. except that they had both died by the end of 1869 (They probably died between late 1856, when Mary A. was born, and the 1860 census, when the children were living with their grandmother, Susan, and the rest of her family). Sarah Ann Kinnick, age 18, married Thomas Richmond 11 Feb 1854. They farmed and raised their family in Concord Township (to be featured in a later Progress Report).
Susan, widow of Walter, did not remarry until 20 Mar 1859, at age 50, to Ephraim Yarrington, age 57. Her daughter, Catherine had married John T. Fletcher on 18 Mar 1859 (see more on them, below, of course). The other children, at this time, were, respectively, Joseph, 20, Walter, 19, Jacob 13, Maggie, 9, and Fanny Susan, 7. Joseph married Rachel Mercer on 26 Feb 1860. They are listed in the household with Susan and Ephraim in the 1860 census of Dover Township.
Walter Watson, age 20 at the time, enlisted 14 Apr 1861 at Tiskilwa in Co. I, 12th Illinois Infantry, part of the Union service. When he came home on furlough, he married Mary Estelle Simmons, of Tiskilwa, on 6 Feb 1862. Walter re-enlisted 10 Aug 1862 in Co. D, Seventh Regiment, Kansas Volunteers, Cavalry. He took his bride with him to Corinth, MS, where she acted as nurse for troops in camp there. He was discharged 2 Dec 1864 from St. Louis, MO. (Walter Watsona nd Mary Estelle Kinnick are my 2nd great-grandparents, of course, and will be the subject of a future Progress Report.)
On 18 Aug 1861, Joseph enlisted in Company D, Seventh Regiment, Kansas Volunteers, Cavalry. He served until being mustered out at St. Louis, MO, 10 Mar 1865.
When Walter married Mary and went to fight in the Civil War, in 1862, this left at home with their mother (and her husband, Ephraim) only Jacob, now age 16, Maggie, 11, Fanny Susan, 10, and, presumably, the two granddaughters, Evaline Harrison, age 8, and Mary Harrison, age 6.
Jacob James Kinnick enlisted Oct 1864, age 18, in Co. H, One Hundred and Forty sixth Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, as a private. During his (months) at the front, he saw arduous service, according to a local history account. He was honorably discharged 8 Jul 1865, age 19, and returned to Bureau County where he farmed for many years. Jacob married Hattie VanDram on 25 Nov 1867. They were divorced in early 1872, no children. On 28 Apr 1872 he married Fannie Fletcher, a sister of John T. Fletcher (Jacob's sister Catharine's husband) (see more on Jacob and Fannie, below).
Ephraim Yarrington died 24 February 1870, age 68. Susan was age 61, with Maggie, age 20, Fanny Susan, age 19, Evaline Harrison, age 16, and Mary Harrison, age 14, still at home. However, Maggie married Jacob Weise/Wise about a year and a half later, in September 1871. Fanny Susan married William Eugene (Gene) Lyon, in Buda, on 30 Dec 1879. Evaline married Frank Hornby 22 Jan 1876. Mary died 12 Apr 1880.
In the 1880 census, Susan Kinnick, age 71, lived with Jacob and Fannie Kinnick, along with Fannie's mother, Susan Fetcher, age 82, and a 16 year old niece of Jacob, Lovina Weeden, going to school.
Susan died 27 Sep 1884, 75y, 4m, 25d. She is buried beside her husband, Walter, at Forest Hill Cemetery, Wyanet, Bureau Co, Illinois. She was survived by three sons (Joseph, Walter, and Jacob) and four daughters (Sarah Ann, Catherine, Maggie and Fanny) and numerous grandchildren.

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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John T. and Catherine Fletcher and their family

 

(See additional information on this family)


Catherine Kinnick first appeared in vital records at age 8 (b. 20 Apr 1842, Ohio) on the 1850 census for the town of Dover, Bureau County, Illinois, as the sixth child and third daughter in the family of Walter and Susan Kinnick (Catherine was the last of the six children born in Ohio. The family was listed on the 1840 Ohio census in Wheeling Township, Belmont County). She married John Thomas Fletcher in March of 1859 in Bureau County. John T. Fletcher (b. 14 Mar 1833, Virginia) was the son of Townsend and Susan (Ready) Fletcher. John and Catherine first met on the boat trip when their families were moving from Ohio to Illinois in 1844 (he was 11, she was 2). The boat traveled down the Ohio River, to the Mississippi River, which they went up river to Muscatine, IA. There they crossed over to move to Bureau Co, IL.
The 1860 census for Concord Township, Bureau County, listed John T. Fletcher, age 25, and wife, Cath, age 23. Catherine and John T. Fletcher were the parents of three daughters and two sons born during the 1860s: Fannie E., born 21 Jul 1860, Susie E., born 29 May 1862, John Townsend, born 28 Nov 1863, James W. born 9 Feb 1866, and Edna E., born 6 Nov 1869. Their next four children were born during the 1870s, all sons: Royal W. (b. 3 Oct 1872), Ora Laton (b. 20 Oct 1874), Samuel Clinton (b. 19 Jan 1877), and Frank William (b. 9 Dec 1878).
In the 1877 list of Voters & Taxpayers of Bureau County, IL, John T. Fletcher is listed in Sec. 10, P.O. Buda, farmer, Rep., U. Brethern, born Virginia, 1833. An 1867 map of Concord Township shows J. Fletcher in Section 10, just north of Edick's Pond, in the same section as Thomas Richmond, and just south of the Kinnick place, about nine miles north and one mile east of Buda.
The family was struck by tragedy on 25 Feb 1879, when their oldest child, Susie E., died of diphtheria, a few days short of her seventeenth birthday.
Nellie E. (b. 19 Dec 1880) and Clark Eugene (b. 6 May 1883) were born in Illinois before the family moved to Iowa in 1884. It appears from available records that the entire family moved, except one son, Ora L., who stayed in Illinois, living with his uncle and aunt, Jacob and Fannie (Fletcher) Kinnick. (Note: They were his uncle and aunt from "both directions, both families") The youngest Fletcher child, Grace A., was born 14 Dec 1887, near Crawfordsville, Washington County, Iowa. The Fletcher farm, 112 acres, was located two miles northeast of the town of Crawfordsville.
Three months after the youngest child was born, the first married. On 28 Feb 1888, Fannie E. married John E. Williams in Washington County, Iowa. John Townsend, known as Jack, followed later in the year, on 3 Oct 1888, when he married Carrie May Whyte in Crawfordsville, Washington County. On 18 Jun 1891, Royal W. married Alice Griffith. Edna E. married Frank Hull, in the town of Washington, Washington County, on 25 Jan 1893.
The 1910 census noted that John and Catherine Fletcher had been married 51 years, had 12 children, with 11 living. Nellie, age 29, and Grace, age 22, were living at home. Grace was listed as a school teacher.
John T. Fletcher died 22 Jan 1920, at age 86. Catherine died 30 Mar 1927, three weeks short of age 85. Both are buried in the New Cemetery, Crawfordsville, Washington County, Iowa.

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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Joseph and Rachel (Mercer) Kinnick and their Family

 

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Walter W. Kinnick died at the farm in Dover township 28 Feb 1853, at the age of 43. When his father died, Joseph (b. 9 Mar 1839, Belmont Co., OH) was just a few days short of 14 years old.
Joseph married Rachel Mercer on 29 Feb 1860, in Bureau County, Illinois. They are listed in the household of his mother, Susan, and her second husband, Ephraim Yarrington, in the 1860 census of Dover Township. Rachel (b. 15 Mar 1839, Harrison County, Ohio) was the daughter of William and Mary (Fletcher) Mercer. Her mother, Mary, was a sister of John T. Fletcher who married Catherine Kinnick, the sister of Joseph.
On 18 Aug 1861, Joseph enlisted in Company D, Seventh Regiment, Kansas Volunteers, Cavalry. He served until being mustered out at St. Louis, MO, 10 Mar 1865.
Joseph and Rachel had five children born in Illinois, three daughters and two sons: Amanda Elenora (b. 23 Nov 1860), Margaret Susana (Maggie) (b. 5 Jan 1863), William Walter (b. 15 Mar 1866), John Leach Cook (b. 22 Mar 1868), and Mary Eppenetes (Mate) (b. 23 May 1870). Later, they moved to Iowa where their last three children were born: Joseph (b. 1 May 1874, Madison Co), Jessie H. (B. 5 Apr 1875, Madison Co), and George Butler (2 Aug 1878, Adair Co). They then moved to Montana (their life and family in Montana will be the subject of another future Progress Report).

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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Jacob and Fannie (Fletcher) Kinnick and their Heirs


Jacob was the first child born to Walter and Susan Kinnick in Illinois, their youngest son. He was born on the Kinnick farm in Bureau County on 4 Jan 1846.
Walter W. Kinnick died at the farm in Dover township 28 Feb 1853, at the age of 43. When his father died, Jacob had just turned 7 years old.
It was six years before Susan remarried (20 Mar 1859, at age 50, to Ephraim Yarrington). The children, at home at that time, were, respectively, Joseph, 20, Walter, 19, Jacob 13, Maggie, 9, Fanny Susan, 7, Evaline Harrison, age 8, and Mary Harrison, age 6. Joseph married in 1859 and Walter in 1862.
Jacob James Kinnick enlisted Oct 1864, age 18, in Co. H, One Hundred and Forty sixth Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, as a private. He was honorably discharged 8 Jul 1865, age 19, and returned to Bureau County where he farmed for many years.
Jacob married Hattie VanDram on 25 Nov 1867. They were divorced in early 1872, no children. On 28 Apr 1872 he married Fannie Fletcher, a sister of John T. Fletcher (Jacob's sister Catherine's husband).
In the 1880 census, Susan Kinnick, his mother, age 71, lived with Jacob and Fannie Kinnick, along with Fannie's mother, Susan Fletcher, age 82, and a 16 year old niece of Jacob, Lovina Weeden. Susan Kinnick died in 1884. Susan Ready Fletcher died 6 Nov 1887, aged 87. Jacob and Fannie had no children. In 1884, ten year old Ora L. Fletcher, son of John and Catherine Fletcher, moved to the farm with Jacob and Fannie when his parents and their family moved to Iowa (see below).
Fannie died in 1920. Jacob died in 1923. The probate record of his will listed all his living heirs at the time of his death. He willed his farm to his nephew, Ora, and his family. Ora had lived and worked on Jacob's farm since the age of 10, of course.

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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Ora L. Fletcher and Family


Ora L. Fletcher was born 20 Oct 1874, the seventh child and fourth son of John T. and Catherine (Kinnick) Fletcher, in Bureau County, Illinois. At age ten, when his parents and the rest of his family moved to Iowa, he remained in Illinois with his aunt and uncle (from both sides of the family), Jacob and Fannie (Fletcher) Kinnick, on their farm north of Shefield, Illinois.
Ora L. Fletcher married Rose Ella Hall on 19 Dec 1900. They had three children, Fannie Ann (b. 27 Apr 1902, d. 19 Jun 1902), Earl R. (b. 3 May 1906), and Inez Nellie (b. 28 Jan 1910). They all continued to live on the farm with Jacob and Fannie. The 1910 census had Jacob and Fannie Kinnick, Ora, Rose, Earl and Inez Fletcher all together on the farm in Gold Township, Bureau County, Illinois.
Ora and Rose retired in 1921 and moved to the town of Wyanet. He died from a heart attack on 29 Jul 1937 at the age of 62.

Comments and Questions Welcomed.

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This page created 1 Feb 1998. Last updated 17 Sep 2001, by William L. (Bill) Smith.