War and Peace
For 2023, I’m writing responses to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompts provided by Amy Johnson Crow on her ”Generations Café” website and Facebook page.
I didn’t have to think very long to choose a topic for this week. Like many people who have traced their family history very far, I have found lots of ancestors who served in the military. But today I want to write about several ancestors whose wartime experience enhanced the quality of their subsequent peacetime existence. They all received land grants in payment for their military service.
Jacob Workman
My 5th great-grandfather) Jacob Workman (1740-1821) was one of four Workman brothers who received Revolutionary War bounty land grants in Allegany County, Maryland – specifically, in Wills Town, where the city of Cumberland would emerge. He married Elizabeth Wyckoff and they had multiple children before they moved on from Allegany County.
Here’s a list of the land grants received by the Workman family in this area.
My 4th great-grandfather Abraham Workman (1779-1832) was the first child born to Jacob and Elizabeth. He was born in Allegany County and married Hannah Burgess (1781-1817) there in 1800. I haven’t been able to find out anything definitive about Hannah; many researchers have connected her to Jabez Burgess, who is a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. I haven’t seen any proof of this connection.
In 1815, Abraham and Hannah moved to Kentucky, along with many other family members. By that time, they had five children, including my 3rd great-grandfather James Workman (1806-1884) – not to be confused with my 4th great-uncle James Workman (1812-1878), my 5th great-uncle James Workman (1797-1850), my 2nd cousin 5x removed James Workman (1780-1864), my 1st cousin 4x removed James R. Workman (1830-1882), or my 2nd cousin 5x removed James Workman (1821-1904). Hannah died shortly after the birth of their fifth child, Michael Workman, in 1816, and Abraham soon remarried. With his second wife, Sarah Sullivan, he had four more children, all born in Kentucky.
Joseph Cody (Mary Parmenter)
My 5th great-grandparents Joseph and Mary Parmenter Cody benefited from a Revolutionary War land grant as well – or, at least Mary benefited from it. Joseph had served in the Revolution from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, but he died in 1787, leaving Mary to her own devices. Her children ranged from age 3 to 27, and she may have felt she was in a fine pickle. As the story is told, Mary moved with some of her children to Marcellus, NY, in 1794, to land she received as compensation for Joseph’s military service.
After a trip of almost 300 miles on horseback in the spring of 1794, Mary and a couple of her older children scouted out land in the newly formed town before claiming 640 acres. She then went back to Massachusetts, retrieved the rest of her children, and returned to settle on her land in Marcellus.
Not too long after she arrived in Marcellus, Mary married Jared Smith, who was also a new arrival in the town and whose land abutted Mary’s property. Jared entered into the tavern and inn-keeping business in Marcellus, working directly with Mary’s sons Joseph and Elijah Cody. Mary and Jared and several of Mary’s children worked in these enterprises and were important figures in the everyday lives of the residents of Marcellus.
Spencer Arnold
The picture for this ancestor is a little less clear than for the previous stories. This family ended up in central Ohio – Licking County, to be precise – on land they received for military service in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, or both.
So far as I can tell, the first of my ancestors to set foot in Licking County was my 4th great-grandfather Zebediah Pease (1767-1842). Zebediah had been born in Dukes County but was living in Maine (along with some other family members) by the time he married Sarah Meservey in 1790. Zebediah and Sarah had 12 children in Maine before Sarah died in 1810 or 1814. He married a second time, in 1816, to Annis Burns before moving to Ohio; the 1820 census shows him living in the village of Granville in Licking County, which had been founded by settlers from Granville, Massachusetts, in 1805.
The census shows three family members living with him – one female over age 45 (Annis) and two sons under the age of 15 (he had four sons who would have fit these criteria at the time – George, Hanson, , and William – and I don’t know which sons moved with him). Zebediah did not serve in the Revolution, but members of his family did. This part of Ohio included some Revolutionary War land grants (see the map above), so it is possible that he acquired a land grant either directly or by purchasing it from a veteran.
My 3rd great-grandfather Spencer Arnold (1794-1831) married Martha Pease (daughter of Zebediah and Sara) in Maine in 1817, and they moved to Licking County before 1830 with their four oldest children, including my 2nd great-grandfather Miles Arnold (1821-1899), who was their third child. They had one more child, a daughter born in Ohio in 1830.
Spencer Arnold is identified as a founder of Fredonia in Licking County; he is one of three surveyors who laid out the town in 1829. Unfortunately, Spencer died unexpectedly in 1831; Martha remarried two years later, to Nathaniel Toothaker, in Fredonia. Nathaniel was also born in Maine but had come to Ohio earlier, before 1820. Nathaniel’s first wife died in 1829, leaving him with five children under the age of 12; it is not surprising that he quickly married Martha after Spencer died. They went on to have one child of their own, Spencer Toothaker, who was born in 1834. This all made for a very large household of 11 children.
Miles Arnold
Spencer had served in a Maine militia unit during the War of 1812 and was thus eligible for a veterans bounty land grant. He didn’t live long enough to take advantage of the grant, but it is likely the reason why his second son, Miles, moved to Illinois in the 1870s. Here’s Miles’s story – it takes advantage of two land grants, as you’ll see.
Miles married Vandia Orilla Brown (Rilla) in Ohio in 1845, and they began their lives routinely enough. They encountered some tragedy, to be sure – three of their first four children died in infancy. But they went on to have a bunch more children – including my great-grandfather Warner Lismond Arnold (1856-1938) before the outbreak of the Civil War. When war broke out, Miles enlisted in the 76th Ohio Infantry, and served across the South before being seriously wounded at the 1864 Battle of Atlanta. He was shot three times and left for dead on the battlefield, only to be found alive the following day as the armies went out to collect their dead. He was patched up and sent home to recuperate.
After the war was over, Miles and Rilla began to travel. They went to Illinois and then came back to Ohio before relocating to Kansas – taking advantage of a Civil War land benefit in that state. Although this was not a direct land bounty as we’ve seen for veterans of the American Revolution and War of 1812, this provision said that a veteran who claimed land under the Homestead Act could gain full title to it on an accelerated schedule – just two years rather than the normal five years. Miles and his family did this and moved back to Illinois by 1875. Hancock County, where they finally settled down, was in the middle of the area of land set aside for War of 1812 bounty land grants – which Miles may have exercised in place of his father Spencer.
I am certain about the first two stories – about the Workman and Cody land grants. I am very iffy about the Licking County, Ohio, story. However, it sets the stage for the last story. I’m very sure about the Kansas Civil War bounty land grant for Miles, and less sure about the War of 1812 bounty land grant in Illinois. But these land grants explain a lot about my family’s movement over the years, and I think they fit this topic quite well.
It’s interesting you mentioned the Workman family, Anne. I was thinking about them, too, especially when Karen wrote “not to be confused with….” 😂. These weekly escapades are great fun to read, Karen. Thank you!
Great maps. Love them. That's quite a Workman family you have there! Interesting and they add such a rich history of their own to our country.