You can see the first post of this series here: Eleanor Jane McGlothlen Kirkpatrick Newhouse “Grandma Newhouse” was kind of a badass

To see all of her stories click this tag: Eleanor McGlothlen Kirkpatrick

Eleanor’s parents

Eleanor’s parents were Charles McGlothlen and Jane M. Davis. Eleanor seems to have come by her adventurous spirit naturally. Even before she was born, the family was seeking new frontiers.

Charles and Jane were charter members of the New Bethel Baptist Church established January 15, 1814 in Lyonsville, Indiana. Charles helped build the log structure to house the congregation. When Charles and Jane left for Missouri in 1819, they deeded their land back to the church.

They came back to Indiana two years later around 1821. I couldn’t find any records of why they went to Missouri, why they deeded their land to the church, or why they came back to Indiana.

However, the Wikipedia page for Missouri says that it became a state in 1821, around when Charles and Jane moved there, and people “poured into Missouri Territory during 1804-21. The rapid population growth was facilitated by treaties that extinguished Indian land titles, with settlers attracted by the abundance of high quality inexpensive land, and the easy access provided by the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.”

So perhaps the lure of lower cost land and new opportunity called to them.

Eleanor’s early life

Whatever brought them to Missouri,  the biographical sketch of their son Thomas Davis McGlothlen tells us that they came back to Indiana around 1823. Eleanor was born on October 13, 1828 in Richland City, Indiana.

The “Grandma Newhouse” story says that Eleanor talked of being a little girl in Indiana and Iowa. The US Census shows her family still in Indiana in 1830. And the Iowa State Census shows them in Wapello, IA in 1847, so the timing is probably mid-1830s to mid-1840s.

She married Thomas Kirkpatrick in Kirkville, IA on December 28, 1848, when she was twenty years old. That will be the topic of my next post.

Sources for these stories

Any source not specifically mentioned in the post is listed here:

• “Grandma Newhouse: Our Family Legend” by C. Louise Wallberg Truxaw
• U.S. Census Records
• Ancestry.com
• “Ancestry of the Winney Siblings” compiled by Michael A. Winney in October 2007, using family records, stories, and genealogical records.
• “Thomas D. McGlothlen – Biographical Sketch” as part of the Portrait and Biographical Album, Wapello County, Iowa Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1887
• Missouri Wikipedia page