Jared Ingersoll was an American lawyer and signer of the U.S. Constitution.
Ingersoll is my cousin through the McArdle line. Officially he’s listed as my 4th cousin 7x removed, which makes him very distant… but still in my tree. I usually don’t take my tree out this far at any point, but Ancestry has stories and thrulines that are constantly looking now for stories in the past that can be added to your tree, and Ingersoll came up in mine with a notice through email. The story Ancestry made for me is below. It was interesting for sure! I also learned about Benjamin Franklin being in Paris, where he met Ingersoll. I’m sure I must have heard that sometime in elementary school – but it isn’t in my memory.
My next step would be to look at that portion of the tree is doing and see what my direct ancestor on his line was doing at the same time. My 10th great grandmother was listed in as Alice Bevys. Alice Bevys tied to Ingersoll according to the ‘See relationship’ tag. Doing a search of the tree, neither show up, so finding the relationship in my tree isn’t as easy as it would seem.
In the stories I also noticed my great grandfather Elmer’s middle name was Ellsworth, which to me was a little ironic since my grandfather his son drown at Ellsworth park. I also noticed this morning that my 4th great grandmother Susan Cozard was listed as a farmer. That is so unusual it really needs to be explored more.
Jared Ingersoll’s information is:
American lawyer and statesman Jared Ingersoll was born 24 October 1749 in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of a prominent British official. He graduated from Yale College in 1766, then studied law in Philadelphia and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1773. He later spent more than 18 months in Paris, where he met Benjamin Franklin.
When the American colonies declared their independence, Ingersoll returned home and became a Patriot, despite his family’s Loyalist views. He started a law practice and became a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1780-1781. He later served as a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and was a signer of the U.S. Constitution.
From 1791 to 1800 and from 1811 to 1816, Ingersoll served as attorney general of Pennsylvania. He was also a U.S. Attorney for Pennsylvania. Ingersoll is known for arguing two of the first cases to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court, “Chisholm v. Georgia” and “Hylton v. United States.” In 1812, he was DeWitt Clinton’s running mate as a Federalist in the presidential election, but they were defeated by James Madison and Elbridge Gerry.
Ingersoll died in Philadelphia on 31 October 1822.
Today was a great day to run down and play in the river. We have lots of land on the river, so we chose a spot with a sandbank. There were minnows swimming in the water, old mussel shells under the water, and fishing lines hanging from the bridge. I walked both directions down the river. Walking in the river, I could see the bottom everywhere I walked. There was some trash, but also lots of really cool rocks and shells. For those that haven’t gotten in the river water, it can be a little cold. The water in little shallow pools that are cut off warms up in the sun. Out in the river where the water is flowing, the water is just the right temperature to cool down in the hot sun in my opinion .
Salt Fork River from Sandbank South of the Bridge
While down at the river we ran into a few groups that were treating the our field area like public property. I remember years ago my father meeting people that were playing in our lake and asking who gave them permission. They all would claim to have permission from the owners, not even realizing it was the owner they were talking to.
My father and his first cousin, Don, made a really nice family get together area around the pond we all still have. There was a drive around a field, and originally a house that was rented out. The house quickly was destroyed, but the pond was somewhere we all got together at for a lot of my childhood. It included a sandy beach, picnic tables, and a bridge across the pond. I remember celebrating my brother’s birthday there with my grandparents and lots of other family and friends. The part that stuck in my mind was playing string tricks with the cord on the new camera my grandma had given me and losing it off the bridge. A family friend, Butch, dived several times to the bottom trying to get the camera, finally giving up. The camera is still somewhere in the bottom of that pond.
My father after too many instances of running into trespassers at the pond, decided to destroy the drive back to the pond, tear out the bridge, and let the pond get taken by trees. Now no one uses the pond – not even our family… My parents explained to us many times that it was a question of liability, and what happens if someone gets hurt on our property. Then there was the mass destruction that large groups of people using an area will cause. Trash and more!
Growing up we also used to go canoeing and play in the river. Playing on the sandbank was fun. So taking the kids to the river was high on my list of things to do. The path we took down to the river wasn’t one we had made, it was one someone using our property to put canoes in to the river had cut through the weeds and trees. While walking down it, we saw everything from discarded aluminum cans to the sprayer for a garden hose. The kids built sand pyramids at the bottom of the path and want to go back to check on them…. I couldn’t tell them that they wouldn’t even last one day with the traffic that cuts through our property.
While there a car was parked at the top of the trail, pulled over on our property. It didn’t move, the people weren’t around. I assume they were canoeing down the river. It had a hangtag from the local high school in the front window. They obviously felt comfortable enough to leave their car parked on our property for hours with no one around it. What’s funny is my family has always been welcoming I think. So people asking if it’s ok, not leaving trash, would be all it would take to not be trespassing.
Our other area Bailey’s Bottom has so much trash being dumped at the entry, we have given up keeping up the road. When we want to go back to the field we walk back, which means we rarely go, since it’s a good distance back. It was another place growing up the family would have parties, swinging out into the river on tire swings, having bon fires, paying on the sand banks! It was where I learned to drive a truck on the road beside the field.
Road to Bailey’s BottomKickapoo Park Property (at the end of our lane)
Looking at headstones recently I came across a headstone for Ethel Richter Dodge. I had assumed originally I was looking through my files for Ethel Richter (not my Aunt Ethel but another Ethel Richter), who had married into the Dodge family. We unfortunately lost my Aunt Ethel last year, so asking her wasn’t possible. I did find out she was named for a family friend and distant relative Ethel Oakwood as I was working on searching for the family link.
In the past as I’ve looked through the cemetery – and even looking through my own notes, I’m always surprised at the number of names that are reused. My grandmother Theresa Moretto was even named after her sister that passed away a few years before she was born. Her sister was said to have been named after an aunt that great grandmother didn’t want to forget. Reusing names was a way to honor the family member. My grandmother’s sister had come to the US with my great grandparents when they immigrated from Italy and passed away shortly after arriving in the US.
There is also a grave for a Janie Richter that was a sister to my grandfather. The story goes that she was kicked in the head by a horse and passed away very young. That name was also reused. An unusual name was Cleta. My aunt Cleta Fern Richter passed away at barely a year old from pneumonia, but also in the family as a Cleta Henning – My grandmother’s niece.
I had already thought about naming any daughter after one of my aunts. We ended up with all boys and I left it to my husband to choose the names. For each name we discussed the good and bad qualities for each friend, family, and sometimes others that we knew with the same name. None of the boys did end up named after anyone we knew, but we definitely discussed everyone we knew with each name before settling on a name. I always hope my kids are happy with the name they ended with.
I remember growing up trying to change my name a few times. I even successfully changed it once for a few weeks. I always liked my middle name more than my first name, and in kindergarten had come up with the idea to write a note saying my parents had changed my name to my middle name. – As an important note to remember it was in a kindergarteners handwriting, but I did get my mother to sign it. I should also mention a cousin’s husband was the principal, another cousin’s wife was the 1st grade teaching assistant and the janitor was a cousin too.
All that being said, they took my note and changed everything. My mother didn’t find out what happened until parent teacher conferences. – She did make them change everything back. Of course this was the same teacher that kept confusing my best friend and I (the fact that we randomly kept swapping name tags didn’t help), and had ended up accidently sending me for my friends kindergarten immunizations, while she got to skip ( I had already had mine, so I ended up with twice the dose and she got none)…. I often wondered if that was why that teacher quit the next year?
Names can be important, in researching your family, multiple family members with the same names makes following my family line takes some effort and knowing family stories as much as possible.
Having friends over for a holiday, we went down and played in the creek – and wandered through the woods. It quickly brought back memories of all the times we would go into the woods and play in the creek near the house – and even better the times we would play in the river.
The creek by our house isn’t a spot we went down to often, but across the road under my mother’s house is the deep spot that we would head to play when we got a chance. I remember seeing tadpoles and more in the spot there, and the day that we found someone’s textbooks from the high school that had been dumped in the woods by the stream. Walking across the logs and the rocks in the stream was a great way to stay cool and something to do.
Any more I hear a lot of complaints about nothing to do around here, but all the things we did as kids are still here. The streams to play in, the river to canoe and fish, 4 wheelers to ride, sleds to play on, river to splash in, biking, and so much more! The electronics the kids currently play with can be played with anywhere – so it’s hard to imagine that’s a drawback. There aren’t as many clubs and fancy restaurants to go out to, but as families with young kids (or even families in general) we are totally fine with what is available in the area.
In our area when we really want to visit a large museum or go out to an event, we have our choice of Chicago, Indianapolis or St. Louis within a few hours drive. Champaign Urbana also gets several big names at the assembly hall and the University of Illinois has everything from sports to academics that are available. It’s not the night life of New York City, but personally I don’t need that. I love the family get togethers where everyone sits and talks about the past, shares great food, and the kids run around throughout the group playing. Walking through the woods, playing in the rivers and streams, and watching the wildlife – though I can live without the snakes, spiders, and ticks.
As kids playing in the white water in the river, playing on a sand bank, canoeing down the river, even playing in the old ruins of Conkeytown foundations and treehouses were things that could keep us occupied all day. Other days were spent walking beans and working in the fields trying to help our parents, playing in grain bins, and even riding our bikes up and down the road. Our family had both ponds (great for skating and swimming) and a pool that we used to keep cool during the time we weren’t working. After harvest, my dad would convert the fields into tracks for us to race around as well as making a golf course out of our yard.
It seemed family was always dropping in! I remember playing crochet in the yard being one of my dad’s favorites. He would pull grass up in a line all the way to the wicket to make it easier to hit in. We also were taught how to play Euchre which was a popular evening card game. It seems New Year’s Eve was always Monopoly night though. – I also loved to read, and always had a book (Nancy Drew being my favorite!). It seems we never ran out of things to do. All the things that we did are still around, so it’s hard to imagine how there isn’t anything to do now? I’m starting to think it’s just something to say.
I still keep finding bricks as we walk around. They seem to be everywhere – with the latest showing up in the field where we have been riding 4 -wheelers around. Following the example of my parents, we have turned the field next to the house into a race track during the season that the field isn’t planted. While riding around the brick showed up! I’ve been digging up bricks all over our yard, reclaiming them from the previous house that was on the site. The brick out in the field is part of the house that was buried here. Really there were a few buildings buried as well as a few wells.
I’m not sure about these bricks but I remember the story that the house I grew up in was made from bricks and blocks that were created in the woods near the house. Bricks are made from something like clay that is molded and then dried – and finally fired (in a kiln). The bricks I’m finding were buried here as each building was torn down.
Currently, I’m reclaiming the bricks and using them for projects on our new home. My first project was a walkway from the driveway up to the side of the house. As I see bricks buried around the yard (and nearby), I dig down and pull them out, making them into a pile. I’m loving recycling and it ties us to the past!
Mary Ford – my 2nd great grandmother was first generation in the US. Her father Frederick Ford (Voth) and possibly her mother Julia Smith immigrated from Germany – though some of the records list Julia Smith as coming from Iowa?
Mary was then married three times to William Calvin Eldridge, Sheldon Cannon and Samuel Reese. She had two children William Lincoln Eldridge and Sarah Reese.
Mary Ford was born on March 24, 1835, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Julia and Frederik. She was married three times and had one son and one daughter. She died on February 20, 1923, in Oakwood, Illinois, at the age of 87, and was buried in Catlin, Illinois. William Calvin Eldridge and William Lincoln Eldridge ended up living across from each other on the farm where we currently live. – According to my aunt with twin houses! Mary’s husband William was a Mormon from Nashville TN according to family stories.
Mary Ford’s daughter through her third husband Samuel Reese was Sarah Reese. Sarah married a Fithian and then a Kinsey. After marrying a Kinsey they relocated to California. My grandmother remembered her aunt Sarah and when Sarah passed away, my grandmother received a small inheritance.
The inheritance was used to replace my Aunt Linda’s bedroom with a bathroom – and add indoor plumbing to the house my grandmother and grandfather Richter had ended up in. Sarah Elizabeth Reese Kinsey passed away in 1948 (my aunt was 6) and is buried in Glen Abbey Memorial Park in San Diego, California.
One of my ancestors, Abraham Lincoln Richter (1864-1944), had one of the first cars in the area. Abraham Richter was on the school board for Lake Shore school and owned land on the west side of Oakwood near where we live now. Houses at that time were few and far between, and trips in to town were fairly rare events that got documented in the paper in many cases.
My grandmother Mildred Eldridge, married to Abraham Richter’s son Wesley Richter had only just started to learn to drive when she passed away in her fifties. While learning to drive, she was taking a trip to Champaign for shopping with my aunts and father and was involved in an accident. That was really the last time she drove. She was later diagnosed with cancer, but she hadn’t ventured out to drive again after the accident before her illness. – The accident was along route 150 near the location that route 49 turns north.
My Dad
While a teenager my dad’s first accident was wrecking a motorcycle on our road. It was pretty amazing he survived at the time. Without my grandmother still living, my father had to go stay with my Aunt Dorothy after being released to have care. Near the end when he would have brain scans, the doctors would mention the scar tissue from the accident. The year I was born he flipped a corvette totaling it. He loved to race and it had been modified for racing. My mother was pregnant with me and my father was with two of my cousins at the time. While at the hospital the nurses and doctor, came out assuming that my dad was running around with two young girls (not knowing they were nieces) and mentioned that they didn’t think they could keep the story from the paper. He also lost the front end of his car just a few yards from where we are living now.
The Roads
The country roads tend to lend themselves to driving fast. Speed limits of 55 mph, houses miles apart, and very little traffic. Though Vermilion county itself was actually the first county in the nation to pass a bond to build a set of roads for farm to market. The movement began in 1913 to raise money for the roads – two million dollar bond issue. The road near us was labeled route 10 but became the current route 150.
The Now
Growing up my parents always made sure we had motor vehicles of all types. We learned to drive really early, practiced often, and could drive just about anything and anywhere. To start we had go-carts, including one my dad had modified for me that used a drill for a motor that ran with an extension cord. He would unplug it at any point if he felt that I was in danger – which on a farm took a lot. My dad moved on to two seat dune buggy’s in fiberglass, our own race tracks each year, snow mobiles, old cars, trucks, and whatever else he could find to let us try. By the time I was 16 I already was regularly driving a ram charger that was for me to drive. I remember the night of my 16th birthday right after going to get my license, I drove into town to babysit.
So part of moving home involved getting a well and septic. We don’t want to skimp on them. For our well we ended up with a 42 foot deep bored well that was filling at .7 gpm and ended up costing us just over $12,000 with the well pump and everything – though we haven’t gotten the water test back yet, so it may need a softener or reverse osmosis system….
The next thing was the septic. We ended with an aerobic system. It’s basically a water treatment plant in the ground. It has a motor built in that keeps everything moving and a chamber with chlorine. There is electricity running to it and it will need serviced each year. It was approximately $5500 with the power hooked to it.
Now we are facing the settling… So that I have been handling with a shovel to fill in the gaps. Ultimately I hope to get some fake rock looking covers also to hide the tops of the tank.
While putting everything in we have been finding all sorts of old metal parts to the farm. We’ve found old bike handle barns, parts to tractors, fences, and more! Sometime in the future I think a metal detector will be fun!
I was lucky and got people here pretty quickly. For the well I had to call several people, using the local map on the Illinois Water Survey Site that shows all the wells and who the well driller was. We ended with a different provider for the well versus the well pump, but they are both now in. The septic took a while also to find someone that wasn’t too busy, but we ended with the father of a friend from grade school. (He is a licensed installer)… The only real issue was getting the supplier for the aerobic tank to install the motor and the correct lids. We finally have them now though! So all is ready.
We are still keeping costs as low as we can, but of course unexpected costs showed up. Things that the builder didn’t mention – I wish I could say they were small – and a couple smaller things that we really wanted added. The home arrived without wastewater plumbing, so we added that, we have an aeration tank for the septic, so that will have a yearly maintenance fee (but it’s a lot cleaner for the environment if maintained), we added lights under the house (a really nice extra), and are adding an outlet in the attic space (also a great addition)… Running the gas lines wasn’t included either, and that was more than we thought… I think we are on track with the rest.
The house is behind schedule and seems to have received the wrong siding – I’m not sure how that happened, but looking through it seems fairly well built. There are a few places cabinet trim pulled away, one cracked tile, and cracks in the drywall, besides some jammed doors and space open above doors – but none are major things. I expect they will have everything fixed quickly now that they are working on site. The house even has a floor already laid in the attic, so we can start storing things there without having to take time to lay a floor first.
Our new home was to be ready for the fourth of July, but plans went off somewhere and we ended up four to six weeks behind. After everyone was invited to our house, it was easier to move the party to the pond behind my mothers. To get ready, canopies, a grill, cooler, and some chairs were all set out. I can’t say it was quite the same as the parties we had as kids, but it definitely was a family gathering with lots of family and friends!
Dad always enjoyed fourth of July, so the canon was shot off in his memory as well as a cake decorated to look like a hamburger. With the dementia and strokes that dad had faced at the end, he had reached the point by my parents 50th anniversary that dad couldn’t eat solid foods – even liquids had to be thickened to keep him from choking. His favorite thing had been hamburgers and Pepsi. We hadn’t yet been told his diet had been swapped at the time, so for his anniversary we brought in a hamburger and Pepsi for dad. I think it was his last hamburger and Pepsi (that was thickened liquid). It was also a day shared with a large gathering of family.
Rob and I are still learning how to load and light the canon, so it took three tries for it to go off. (This time Rob did all the work with the help of friends!) The canon has really been around, shot off everywhere from my cousin’s house, our house, and even The Little Nugget in Danville! After the canon was stolen last year, at one point we thought it would never happen that we would get a chance to shoot it off again.
I can honestly say that building has been eventful so far and I do fill a little alone, as the one with the past history of having lived in the country before. This isn’t helped though by the fact that I moved off to college at 18 and have lived in a populated area ever since…. Things to deal with that I have to get used to are sun, dirt, mice, bugs, and the whole different ways of doing things. We are still plodding on though.
Plan:
Our plans are pretty simple: to build on the farm that my family has been at since I entered second grade. My parents bought part of the farm from a distant cousin and the part we are building on was purchased from another cousin years later. The land is the land that my ancestors lived on and more recently my grandmother Mildred Eldridge Richter’s brother Ernest Eldridge had his house on and then his son James Eldridge. My father buried the house for my great Uncle Ernest in the 80s. – I have to admit I don’t remember ever being in the house, but I’m sure I was at one point or another while we live just down the road. Currently I’ve been picking up blocks and bricks from the dirt and adding them to a pile with a plan to reuse them in some way.
In the woods behind where we are building is a pig barn. To make it more fun for my youngest, I’ve been calling it a secret hideaway, and it is very secret. Years ago that area had pigs and horses – and I’m sure lots of other livestock running around, so it’s no surprise that there is still an old barn hidden in the woods. Currently we have found a fold up chair sitting in it, and it looks like at some point someone has run some lighting out to the barn. It doesn’t look immensely secure, but as a kids playhouse/hideaway out in the country it does look fun! It makes me a little excited to imagine all the possibilities to explore with our youngest and his friends once we get moved in!
Loan:
Getting a construction loan worked out was a little complicated, but we do have it set up. Our plan is still to sell our house in Kentucky and pay off the construction loan, so we are juggling budgets. The loan is worked out though, but to save money we haven’t surveyed anything. So as long as we can work out selling our current home before the construction loan reaches a year, we are find. The tough part doing it this way is that we are so reliant on everything timing out well, and so far it’s really stressful! Having a son that has autism makes for a little more need for structure and makes change a little tougher. We have been preparing him for the time that we will retire to Illinois for his whole live, so he isn’t having too hard a time with it – but moving and leaving his friends is tough anyway. So we are trying to stick as closely as possible to the timeline to make life less stressful.
Trailer:
On the spot where we plan to build, a cousin previously had a trailer. It was last occupied in the 80s or early 90s and is now just a home for what got left behind – and a lot of mice, ants and other wildlife. The wheels that were previously under it have no way of being used anymore and my father had the county drop a huge pile of dirt in from the of trailer also so that no one could get in from of the frame even if it was possible. All the copper, lines, furnace and anything useful had been removed from the trailer, so my mothers preference was to just light it on fire and then move the frame that was left. Some friends were willing to come and cut the frame pieces off to have them recycled, and the frame would be all that was left – with a plan to cut it up later also… It ended up with only the frame pushed up into the woods by the spot that a shed is being stored until the house is delivered.
Shed:
To store some of our items, we did get a shed delivered. Other than the house down payment, house insurance and the amount for the loan , it was one of the first purchases. The shed has two lofts, a metal roof and windows the open besides a door that locks. It was probably an extravagance, but so far it seems worth it.
Driveway:
We have also had a friend excavate some area for driveway and had some large rock hauled in for a driveway base. It isn’t great to drive on, but at least we have something. Soon we need to have a smaller crushed rock added on top of the large rock.
Foundation :
Our modular includes the foundation – 4 blocks high, so the company was to do the foundation. Getting the date and time for when though was tough! We ended up with the foundation contractor coming a week after the house had been promised to arrive. Kind of discouraging when you are trying to stick to a timeline for a special needs child. They did finally show up with any a few snafus. The person from the home sales place had originally told us that they would arrive about 3 hours later than when they actually showed up and that they would call when they got close – instead they arrived before we got there and were parked on an old well. They did get the foundation footers poured – with the cement truck almost driving into the old septic tank! They showed up later to do the foundation walls after I had already headed back to our house in Kentucky.
The foundation has a drain in the corner, a vapor barrier, insulation, vents, and pea gravel covering. We ended up with it two blocks under ground on one end and one block deep at the other end. The also spread dirt out… They will use the dirt to backfill the foundation later. – Which they did just show up this week to put insulation board in and boards across the top of the foundation walls. They have backfilled, but we haven’t seen what it looks like yet, since we weren’t there at the time.
The Well:
In our area a bored well seemed the way to go. There were previous wells, but they weren’t of high quality, or we couldn’t find them. Water is pretty important. I’m not completely sure how my husband is going to do with the well, but first we had to get a well. Drilled wells were a lot cheaper, but had a lot less chance of being productive. Ultimately I decided to break down and spend the money for a bored well. We found that many of the well known well drillers in the area wouldn’t return phone calls. I was able to find the local well map and called a few of the recent well drillers and went will a company that had done some recent wells and seemed to be really responsive to questions.
At first while drilling it seemed we were hitting a dry well, but after giving it some time to sit we found that it was filling with water. It appears to be filling at .7 gpm – fast enough! our next step on the well will be to get the pump and storage tanks hooked up.
Septic:
For septic, we were going to use the old system. We had located an old 750 gallon tank, but ugh, it turned out to have pipes that were busted when the foundation went in, so now we are going to have to price a tank and plan a leach field… Next Step. We are looking at a chamber system for the leach field.
Electric:
For the electric, we’ve been lucky to have an electrical engineer in the family – so I’m really hoping that the house arrives in time to get help hooking power up to the house. Right now our fingers are crossed!
Plumbing:
The modular company though wasn’t able to tell us anything about the plumbing for the house until the last minute when they let us know that the plumbing needs completed under the house. It would have been great to know ahead of time to plan, but at least we found out before we moved in!
Gas/Propane
Finally for the gas/propane, we have arranged for a company to come hook that up. They are just waiting for the house to arrive. Finally something simple!
I remember growing up trying to change my name a few times. I even successfully changed it once for a few weeks. I always liked my middle name more than my first name, and in kindergarten had come up with the idea to write a note saying my parents had changed my name to my middle name. – As an important note to remember it was in a kindergarteners handwriting, but I did get my mother to sign it. I should also mention a cousin’s husband was the principal, another cousin’s wife was the 1st grade teaching assistant and the janitor was a cousin too. 
