Crider - McDowell Family Tree

One source told me many years ago, that Hugh’s father (George) gave each of his children (including Hugh) a 100 acre farm when they married (Hugh was 24 yrs. old, around 1857).  His farm was 1¼ miles Northeast of Ashland, IN. and adjoined his brother Noah’s and his sister Catherine (Odem’s), from the 1860 census.  Also, Hugh and Ann had a 2 year old son George.  This child (George) was not mentioned by Audus (Runyan, McClellen's son) when I interviewed him about his “aunts & uncles” in the early 1970's.  George died in infancy.  McClellan had a similar situation (losing children in infancy).  

Like his grandfather Noah leaving New Jersey, and his father George leaving Ohio, Hugh “picked up stakes” and left Henry County, Indiana.   Some of his other siblings left also.  Again we don’t know, Why, When, or How Hugh left Henry County, the area where he was born raised and started a family.  The following points are speculations:  

-      Henry County had been experiencing settlement for a half century now, and the availability of good farm ground was diminishing.

-  Hugh wanted to keep utilizing the lumbering business that he grew up learning, and perhaps the Henry County forests were nearly exhausted into farms and the farming industry.

-      In 1840, the Treaty of Wabash opened up a new area (similar to the New Purchase deal 20 years earlier) that included Madison County.  The northwestern corner of it had been set aside as Indian Reserve Land.  This land was a pristine, forest wilderness area.

-         We presume there was NOT any family (quarrels), neighborly (disputes), or governmental (settlement issues) as a reason for Hugh to be leaving Henry County.

-         The records in the Federal census in 1870 list Hugh’s family living in Henry County, Indiana.·         The 1880 census list Hugh living in Boone Twp., Madison County as a 47 year old farmer.  His wife Ann was 42 and a son McClellan was 17, and 4 other children.   Ann Rebecca’s parents were born in Virginia.

-         A Madison County “history” account in the Anderson Library mentioned Hugh acquiring land there in 1873.

Therefore, we may assume that Hugh and family left Henry County around 1873, to find better land and conditions for his lumbering and farming business.   How he left was probably by wagons driven by himself and his sons (including my great-grandfather McClellen).  But we don’t know if he used oxen, mules or horses.  The 40 mile relocation was probably on primitive gravel roads and dirt paths.

Hugh’s farm, in section 16 of Boone Twp., Madison Co., IN (southeast of Rigdon…just east of my father & mothers place Thurman & Joan Runyan), consisted of 160 acres.  Hugh and Ann had 7 children:

Source:  "A mini-biography of Hugh Runyan" from Runyan Family Tree on Ancestry.com