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Phelps Family in America
Twelve Unrelated Phelps Ancestors
There were at least 12 different Phelps who immigranted to the American colonies from England in the 1600s. Many of these have a descendant who completed a yDNA tests which has proven that none of them are related to each other. The two most well-known immigrants are William and George Phelps who arrived in 1630 and 1634. It was long assumed they were related but this has been proven wrong.
There are two records for a Richard Phelps in Dorchester, Colony of Massachusetts, but no further information has been found. James Phelps was born abt. 1740 and died abt. 1786 in Milton, Caswell Co., North Carolina. A record for a James Phelps was found in All Hallows Parish, Anne Arundel, Maryland 1776 census. YDNA testing has proven that James Phelps had a common ancestor with Thomas Phelps of Albemarle, Virgnia and Thomas Felps of Maryland.
Other Phelps immigrant lines have been found in Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, and Georgia. DNA testing has shown none of these are related. Some Phelps came to the colonies as indentured servants or, in a few cases, as convicts. To connect with others researching the Phelps lines, join the Facebook group Phelps Genealogy in America.
Descendents of George Phelps
After George Phelps arrived in the Americas, their descendents gradually began to move west. One branch that departed Westfield, Massachusetts was Ronald Aaron Noble Phelps (1819-1881), He took his wife Sarah Jerusha Adams, sisters Seraphina Princess Mary and Sybelana Pillary, two nieces Dency and Clarissa, and one nephew, Moses. His nieces and nephews were the children of Clarissa's brother, Riley Root, who had preceded them to Galesburg earlier in 1836, his wife Lavinia Butler having died in 1834. In 1836 at age 27 Noble led his family who joined a party of religious reformers guided by Rev. George Washington Gale's who bought land in Illinois.
He and his family were part of a nationwide series of religious revivals called the Second Great Awakening, which lasted from the 1790s to the 1830s. This awakening established revivalism as a fixture of American religion and became intertwined with the westward expansion of the new nation.
Gale Purchases Land in the West
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| Rev. George Washgton Gale |
The Erie Canal, opened in 1825, had become a pathway for many to migrate west. "In 1834 Rev. Gale of Oneida county, New York, matured a plan for planting a colony in the West which should be a center of moral and intellectual influence. Later he issued a circular setting forth his plan and soliciting subscribers."(1) A subscribers' committee led by Rev. Gale purchased 17 acres in Knox County in 1835.
"The subscribers sold their farms in New York, packed their household goods, hitched their work horses to the farm wagons, and got ready for the toilsome journey to Illinois. Some made a round of farewell visits to relatives they never expected to see again, going miles out of their way to spend a night with parents who shook their heads at so wild an adventure, as age ever does at youth."(3)
The first settlers, including Riley Root, arrived in 1836. His sister and brother-in-law, Clarissa and Noble Phelps, were among the second group of settlers.
The Troubled Canal Boat Trip West
According to the History of Knox College,(3) "The historic canal boat trip of the spring and summer of 1836 was made up of a series of vicissitudes and disasters seldom paralleled in the history of pioneer emigration.
"John C. Smith, of Oneida County, New York, one of the subscribers to Mr. Gale's enterprise, was the owner of a number of boats on the Erie canal. It occurred to him that such a boat could be utilized in making the trip by water to their far distant future home in Illinois.
"Accordingly he consulted with others of the subscribers, with the result that a company was formed to buy a canal boat on shares, fit it up for passenger service and embark in it for a trip of a thousand miles or more over an untried water-way, untried, at least, in so far as that kind of a venture was concerned. A strong team was bought which could be used on the tow-path, and all preparations being completed they loaded their goods, stowed them away in the men's cabin and embarked."
Packet boat on the Erie Canal circa 1840 towed by horses. A packet boat on the Erie Canal, towed by horses. Packet boats were a luxurious mode of travel when compared to stage coaches. They flourished from 1825 to 1850 and carried hundreds of thousands of travelers and emigrants to the West.
"The company numbered thirty-seven, and was made up of men, women and children, ranging in age from a babe of three weeks to men and women of forty or fifty years. Mr. Smith was the captain of the boat and backer of the party; his wife at first did the cooking and the housekeeping, but these duties proving to be too heavy in so large a family, the cooking was afterward shared with two others, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Mills."
Cooking three times a clay for thirty-seven people proved too much for Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. [Clarissa Root] Phelps, in spite of six children clinging to her skirts, took charge, and for a time all went smoothly. It was rather close quarters for seventeen lively youngsters, and to give the elders some respite, "Aunt Kitty," as one of the spinsters was affectionately known, organized a sort of school along what would now be known as kindergarten lines, with regular lessons, and the future students of the Prairie College that was to be were thus kept quiet for some hours daily.
As may well be imagined in such a company, religious worship was more important than education, and prayer meetings were held daily. Each Saturday night the boat was tied up, and on Sunday they attended the nearest public service, or if there was none available, they organized their own in a convenient schoolhouse, and invited the neighborhood to join them.
At Buffalo passengers, goods and live stock were transferred to one of the lake steamboats bound for Cleveland; the canal boat was hitched behind. Off Ashtabula a violent storm struck them, so severe the steamboat captain thought his vessel endangered and cut the canal boat adrift. He landed the passengers at Cleveland, dumped their goods on the dock where they lay in the rain and were seriously damaged, while the party anxiously awaited news of their ark.
Packet Boat on the Erie Canal
When the canal boat arrived, the damaged dunnage was loaded into it, the horses again put to work on the tow-path, and the party started to cross Ohio by way of the Ohio and Erie Canal, a winding and tortuous journey. They ascended the valley of the Cuyahoga, fringed with tulip, walnut and sassafras trees, with a lock every half mile, to Akron, the modern rubber tire city, whose name is Greek, meaning Elevation, now a sort of industrial acropolis. The canal passed through the center of the town by means of twelve locks. Beyond Akron it traversed a lake, with a bridge for the tow horses. Newportage marked the place where the fur traders carried their canoes from the Cuyahoga to the Tuscarawas.
The architecture was now becoming German, big hipped-roof barns with dormer windows, reminiscent of Bavaria, though these travellers [sic] probably did not know that. But they must have noted the picturesque village of Zoar with its pretty houses roofed with red tiles, the Moravian settlement of the Württemberg Separatists, its Canal Hotel and long wooden bridge spanning both canal and river. They may have caught sight of Swabian shepherds carrying crooks, wearing leather bandoliers ornamented with brass figures, flat-brimmed hats and long gray cloaks.
Southern Ohio was wrought up over the slavery question, and there was much speculation as to the intentions of the boatload of abolitionist Yankees. A deputation of ministers called and warned them they would be mobbed, no idle threat. At Cincinnati the women and children were sent ashore as a precaution, while the men remained on the boat, but no demonstration was made.
Isaac Mills decided to leave rather than face the even worse discomforts and dangers beyond. His announcement caused the utmost consternation. He was the only member of the party with any money left. The others had sunk all they possessed in the venture. The unduly prolonged trip had exhausted their resources. Without him they could not go on, but would be left stranded, their journey half completed. Mills finally yielded to their urgings and remained with the party and defrayed its expenses, a decision that cost him his life.
Cincinnati in 1841 with the Miami and Erie Canal in the foreground
The long stay in Cincinnati was for the purpose of rigging up some sort of propeller on the stern of the vessel so as to drive it upstream on the Mississippi, worked by a horse in a treadmill on board, and some such contrivance was made, not very efficient, as the sequel proved. Meanwhile the company visited the city, then a town of some 20,000, and saw its sights, which must have included the market, where rows and rows of four-horse Ohio wagons were backed to the curb, permitted to sell every sort of provender but fresh meat.
Travel by Canal
The [Louisville and Portland] canal around the rapids [two miles long with eight-foot vertical drops] at Louisville, Kentucky had just been completed, so they were able to get by where formerly travellers by steamboat had been transferred to another vessel.
Three lock chambers allowed boats to bypass the falls on the Ohio River in 1840
The canal around the rapids at Louisville had just been completed, so they were able to get by where formerly travellers by steamboat had been transferred to another vessel. Between Louisville and the Mississippi lay the bottom lands of Egyptian Illinois with their dreary water-logged deadly towns, Shawneetown, Ft. Massac, Golconda, lawless, disorderly, and inhospitable, hardly safe for such unworldly pilgrims to stop at. In caves along the river lurked bands of pirates who robbed and murdered defenseless travellers by water.
Also see Settlement of Galesburg, Illinois and The Best Farm in Knox County, Illinois
"Relatives or neighbors banded together to make up a train. The parties must needs be small so as not to overtax the indoor accommodations they hoped to find for at least part of the way, but it was desirable to have enough horses in a train to pull wagons out of mudholes. These "slues" or sloughs were one of the hazards of the prairies, horses and even wagons sometimes disappearing altogether. During the years 1836 and 1837 seven companies averaging twenty to forty persons each, men, women and children, set out from New York and Vermont. The journey was hard, but not especially dangerous, except to health. Two children were buried by the wayside, one woman died, and three men succumbed to the malaria that lurked in the low lands along the western rivers.
Traveling By Road
"As long as their routes lay among the comparatively settled districts of the East, they stopped at taverns. As these became fewer, they looked for settlers' cabins, where the women and children at least could sleep under a roof, and the use of a cook stove be secured to prepare the evening meal. It was also necessary to be on the watch for opportunities to buy food and forage for their horses. Some had cows tied to the tailboard, or drove a small herd ahead of their wagons. Each family looked after its own supplies. There was no common larder. Game was plentiful, and in each wagon was a long rifle. At the stops, the children picked wild fruit and berries. It was for them a perpetual holiday, and most of them, as well as the men and women, walked the entire distance."
On the Mississippi
"In the Mississippi there was constant delay. Even experienced river pilots are often fooled by this treacherous stream. The propeller refused to work. Parts of it continually dropped off into the river, and Noble Phelps acquired such experience in diving that when Captain Smith lost his watch over the side, he went in and recovered that also. At St. Louis they refused an offer of $1000 for their boat; it would have been wiser to have accepted. Slowly they worked north while the sick lay in their bunks and longed for land."(5)
"None of these pious pilgrims would travel on Sunday, no matter what their necessities. They were taking their uncompromising creed to the rowdy and riotous West, and their every act along the way was mute witness of their disapproval of the morals of the less scrupulous whose trains passed their encampments, desecrating the Lord's day. They boasted in their diaries that they always overtook these Sabbath-breakers before the week was out, proving that God was on their side."
"An incident reveals the uncompromising, not to say intolerant, attitude of the Yankee emigrants. Sunday morning a steamboat arrived having on board southern delegates to an ecclesiastical convention. Seeing the canal boat alongside, several went aboard and invited the company to attend the meetings. Up spoke Sophronia Phelps:
"Didn't we see you arrive this morning?"
The puzzled dominie admitted it.
"We do not attend meetings conducted by men who travel on Sunday," was the spirited reply. Thus was visible the thin edge of the wedge that was to split Galesburg in its first great controversy, for what Sophronia meant was that these ministers not only travelled [sic] on Sunday, but were from slave-owning states where the church connived at sin.
"As the ill-fated bark moved away from the Cincinnati landing and down the Ohio, things grew worse. The river was low, the air foul with miasma, the sun scorching, and the mosquitoes ferocious. They knew as little about malaria and fever and ague as they did about navigating a river full of snags and sandbanks. Often in the middle of the day when the heat became unbearable they tied up to the shore, and the party took refuge in the shade of the trees along the bank. Every one was more or less sick.(6)
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| Log City, Illinois in 1837 as remembered by Mrs. John G. West. The arrow points to number 5, the home of Aaron Noble and Clarissa Root Phelps and her brother, Riley Root. |
"Log City was the name first given to the settlement and by 1837 its population was estimated at two hundred and thirty."(4)
Knox College was founded by the same social reformers in 1837 who opposed slavery and were committed to help all individuals uncover their potential, to learn, grow and contribute to the greater good of the community.
Related story: Settlement of Galesburg, Illinois, Including Noble Phelps and Family
(1) They Broke the Prairie: Being some Account of the Settlement of the Upper Mississippi Valley by Religious and Educational Pioneers, Told in Terms of One City, Galesburg, and of One College, Knox. Published 1937 C. Scribner's Sons. 451 pp
(2) Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 1908. vol. 1, 1902-1908 The origin of the system of land grants for education, by Joseph Schafer. Madison, Wisconsin, 1908.
(3) Webster, Martha Farnham History of Knox College 1837-1912. Galesburg, Ill, Wagoner Printing Company 1912 p. 32
(4) Historical Discourse: A Commemorative of the Settlement of Galesburg. Delivered in the First Church of Galesburg. June 22, 1866. By Rev. Flavel Bascom, a Former Pastor of the Church. And by Rev. Frederic T. Perkins, Present Pastor of the Church. Galesburg, Ill. Free Press Book and Job Printing House. 1866, p 25.
(5) History of Knox County, p. 836.
(6) Pooley, William Vipond The Settlement of Illinois from 1830 to 1850 University of Wisconsin. 1908. p. 122