Olive MAYNARD

Other Events:

• _UID: 38CEA7220A274EDEAD89140EE19070399E9F
• Census: 1850, Lancaster, Keokuk Co., Iowa
• Residence: 1850, Lancaster, Keokuk Co., Iowa

Notes:

Census:
Listed as Ilive A. Stephens, age 60, female, born in MA.

Olive married on 17 Mar 1814 in Franklin Co., OH. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:

[Excerpt from the Life History of Stephen Maynard Stevens]
In the early winter of 1836, my parents moved from New York into Pennsylvania on the Cowaniska, a branch of the Tioga river, Here they engaged in the lumber business, rented a saw mill of the old sash saw, water power derived from the Cowaniska river, stocked the mill with logs, sawed them and rafted the lumber via of the Cowaniska, Tioga and Susquehanna rivers to Baltimore, making their last run of lumber in the Spring of 1839, which was the start to emigrate West. The family, together with their household effects being loaded upon the rafts of lumber, a small house being built upon one of the rafts for their reception. The family went down the Susquehanna on the raft as far as to Marietta, there the women and children stopped while the men took their lumber on to Baltimore and sold it.

When the men returned to Marietta, then the trip West really commenced. Boarding a canal boat, we proceeded up the Susquehanna as far as Hollidaysburgh from there by rail to Pittsburgh. Down the Ohio by Steamboat, up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri, up the Missouri to Brunswick. Here we landed and bid a final adieu to the Steamboat. We found here a beautiful country, but Missouri was a Slave State and the folks would not settle in Slave territory after they saw the effects of Slavery on the white race; so we went to a saw mill on the banks of the Missouri river, sawed lumber suitable and built a keel-boat, got aboard of our own craft and started again in search of the promised land, going down the Missouri river to a place called Withington's landing, near Capogray. Here another landing was made, the family nearly all down with Ague.

My father took Steamboat passage to Keokuk, Iowa. Then on foot and alone in the late fall of the year he started Northwest, continued his Journey until his progress was arrested by the boundary line between the Whites and Indians, made selection of a place about one?half mile Northwest of what was since made the village of Talleyrand, known in after years as the Doty place. My father selected his claim and employed Conrad Temple to help him to build a log cabin. He went to work and soon had a cabin 16 x 16 feet and about ten feet high, the walls raised and the proverbial clapboard roof on it. Then my father con?tracted with Temple to complete the house which would be to put in one door and a cat and clay chimney, a puncheon floor and chink the crack with pieces of wood and then daub them over with clay mud for mortar. Closing this contract with Temple, the work to be pushed to completion, my father returned for his family.

On reaching his family, again he found most of them shaking with the Ague. My father immediately bought a good yoke of Oxen and a rude sled. I say rude sled. I wish it was in my power to give an adequate idea of that piece of mechanism, but words would fail me, so I must content with what I have already said. Loading what goods the oxen could haul on that sled, less the weight of the family, for that was to be their pulman palace for the rest of our journey, he then hired a man with a wagon and team of four horses to take the rest of immediate household goods about, Another load of miscellaneous articles were shipped by steamboat to Keokuk, Iowa, to be hauled out to our home later. With the outfit just described, we, started about the first of December with about Six inches of snow on the ground on the home stretch of some?thing over two hundred miles.

I will not pain anyone with a recital of the details of that long, cold, dreary journey, nor of the intense suffering of the sick ones. Suffice it to say that at about 4 o'clock p.m., December 26th, 1839, that journey ended with all the family still living. But what a sight greeted our eyes. Instead of finding a house fin?ished, ready for occupation, we found it just as father left it, just the walls and roof, the spaces between the logs without chinking, all open furnishing, even less protection from storm and wind than would be a pile of brush.

I then witnessed what people can do when driven by the law of self-preservation. It seemed to me that my father and brothers just flew. The things in the wagon were just piled out in the snow, the tools unpacked, some went to sawing out a door, some went to the timber nearby and commenced getting fuel and starting a huge fire. Others were cutting nooks in a bunch of hazlebrush in which the house and oxen could be screened to some extent from the piercing northwest wind. Throwing the bush cut down for a bed for the animals to lie down upon, as soon as the doorway was sawen out, the work of shoveling the snow out of the house was commenced. This was no small job, for the snow had drifted in the louse to the depth of about four feet. But this excess of snow was utilized outside to bank up out side of the walls to the height of about four or five feet, which formed quite a protection from the wind when we went to bed.





The puncheons, before mentioned, were dug out from under the snow and laid down in the house, forming a place on which the beds could be spread, but did not furnish any extra floor space, in fact, all had to crowd close together to find room for all to lie down. I spoke of puncheons. This might be a mystic word to a younger people of today, but was a familiar word to all settlers in a new country. Down to about 1850 they were no longer used, as saw mills were sufficiently numerous to supply the immediate necessities of the people. Well, a puncheon is simply a board or plank anywhere from 1-1/2 to 3 or 4 inches in thickness, split out of a log and one side hewn with a broad ax. They were usually from ten to sixteen inches wide and seldom more than eight or ten feet long, owing to the difficulty of splitting them thin enough, any wider or longer than that.

That first night was photographed on my mind to remain until memory itself shall perish. The stars shining with brightness known only to more northern latitude and clear frosty atmosphere crowded so close in bed that. it was difficult to turn over or change position, some of the men folks up all the time chopping wood and keeping fires, gangs of wolves within fifty yards of the house (if it could be properly called a house), howling and yelping, were surroundings so strange and novel as to keep open even the eyes of a tired child.
[END]

Other Events:

• _UID: F60C67FDC1FD4EF38724CF8C62F24BCED89D
• Military: Abt 1777, Worcester Co., MA; Massachusetts land forces (enlisted 3 times)

Notes:

Stephen Maynard was a Revolutionary War soldier.

Died:
Death date listed as 24 Aug 1822 by Wlater M. Maynard in mytrees.com.

Stephen married Elizabeth WRIGHT in 1786 in Massachusetts. Elizabeth (daughter of Samuel WRIGHT and Philena BILL) was born on 4 May 1766 in Massachusetts; died on 12 Feb 1813 in Franklin Co., OH. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• _UID: AD7ADB3A749340788C2FF49D34CFE4639135

Other Events:

• _UID: 574A31937BBC4EB8BE43E81CF7330F8A6A25
• Military: Abt 1727; British Navy. He was impressed at age 14

Notes:

Elnathan Maynard was born in the county of Cork Ireland, date not known. When about fourteen years old he was impressed into the British Navy. When his term expired he was discharged and being in a colonial port, remained in the Colonies. He married Bile Button in Mass. date not known but supposed to be about 1740 to 1743, died in Mass. near the close of the eighteenth century.

Birth:
Birthplace is listed as Groton, New London Co., CT by Walter M. Maynard in mytrees.com.

Died:
Death also listed as 6 Dec 1777 by some sources.

Elnathan married Abial BUTTON about 1740. Abial (daughter of Matthias BUTTON and Hannah WILLIAMS) was born on 22 Mar 1719 in Plainfield, Windham Co., Connecticut; died in 1804. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• AFN: 16DQ-S28
• Name: Bile BIAH
• _UID: D3894022985A467796B05595791040A309F8

Other Events:

• _UID: 5FD0EE1C785347D79C3FE326331BD7BAE544
• Military: Between 1 May 1775 and 10 Dec 1775; 2nd Connecticut Infantry as 1st Lieutenant
• Military: Between 1 Jan 1776 and 31 Dec 1776; 22nd Continental Infantry as Captain

Notes:

Served as a seaman under Capt. John Paul Jones in the Revolutionary War.

Samuel married Philena BILL. Philena (daughter of Thomas BILL and Abigail) was born in 1738 in Groton, New London, Connecticut; was christened on 6 Aug 1738 in Montville, New London, Connecticut; died in 1819. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• AFN: 1524-427
• _UID: 2981797A11A74E66BD25D6213901E34A4915

Other Events:

• _UID: 4660288944F54157848E1FF4DE286704BEB7

Notes:

Died:
death also reported as 1739 by Casimir Stevens.

Zachariah married Mary GEER on 23 Sep 1697 in Groton, New London, Connecticut. Mary (daughter of George GEER and Sarah ALLYN) was born on 26 Mar 1671 in Groton, New London, Connecticut; died on 1 Sep 1739 in Groton, New London, Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• AFN: 36SS-B1
• _UID: ADC9549099A442C0AD892EBD389688B0C059

Notes:

Birth:
Birth also reported as 1672 by Casimir Stevens.

Died:
Death also reported as "bef Jun 1723 in Ledyard, New London Co, CT" by Ancestral File.

Other Events:

• AFN: 1SNS-2G9
• _UID: 91D0820314064D52B08FF402F90D053D1C16

Notes:

Birth:
Also listed as 22 Nov 1689 in Plainfield, Windham, CT by one source.

Matthias married Hannah WILLIAMS on 1 Oct 1716 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut. Hannah (daughter of Charles WILLIAMS and Hannah GEER) was born on 3 Feb 1692 in Preston, New London Co, Connecticut; died in 1772 in Preston, New London Co, Connecticut; was buried in 1772 in Preston, New London Co, Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• AFN: BKMN-9R
• _UID: 6ECC4E1877164D2487E4B17BBC828C686713

Other Events:

• AFN: G776-V0
• _UID: 0FC1E23ED6BE47CD90EC6710E5B6A4A97343

Thomas married Abigail. Abigail was born about 1732 in Groton, New London, Connecticut; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• AFN: 1524-3W7
• _UID: 56F48593711E4179BA00763936E34F138FAD