Blessing Women

Blessing Sisters Story Part 3
by

Blessing Sisters Story Part 3

This is a multi-post series about the Blessing Sisters. Anna Eliza Blessing Winney is my 3rd great grandmother. You can see all of the posts in the series here: Blessing Sister Stories

The Wisconsin Lead Mines, 1831

In that same letter Abraham wrote to is brother John in 1835 he said, “a man may be poor today and tomorrow be rich if he can be lucky.” Abraham had no idea what the life of a miner was like, or if he would be one of the lucky, but of all the opportunities for working men in the western territories, mining felt like the quickest possible way to bring his children back home with him.

In the fall of 1831, after saying goodbye to his son and three daughters who lodged at various homes around Palmyra, Missouri, Abraham traveled one hundred miles south to St. Louis where he boarded a steamboat for the three hundred and eighty mile trip upriver to where a new way of life awaited him.

Continue reading →

Blessing Sisters Story Part 2
by

Blessing Sisters Story Part 2

This is a multi-post series about the Blessing Sisters. Anna Eliza Blessing Winney is my 3rd great grandmother. You can see all of the posts in the series here: Blessing Sister Stories

Restless Virginians

The Ohio-bound Blessings weren’t the only Virginians to feel the urge to move. Starting in mid-1825, when James Monroe’s presidency ended, Virginians were surprised by an unfamiliar status. “Four of the first five presidents were Virginians who guided the nation through its first three decades. But now, the political stature of Virginia declined on the national stage when no successors of ability emerged to replace the Founding Fathers.

The state had lost power in Congress because of population shifts. ‘What has become of our political rank and eminence in the Union?’ worried Benjamin Watkins Leigh. ‘Virginia has declined and is declining.’ (10) Continue reading →

Blessing Sisters Story Part 1
by

Blessing Sisters Story Part 1

This is the first post in the Blessing Sisters story. Anna Eliza Blessing Winney is my direct ancestor. I’ve previously written posts about her son, Leonard James Winney and his wife, Elizabeth Wellman Winney.

The Blessing family in Virginia

When I first wrote this story in 2018, my limited knowledge of Abraham Blessing was that he ended up in Wisconsin Territory around 1830 with his young daughters, Elizabeth Jane and Anna Eliza, in tow, then abandoned them a few years later. I had the image of a cold man who was estranged from his parents and siblings and didn’t treat his daughters well.

There were very few records to find out more and stories passed down seemed to corroborate this image. Then, as they say, everything changed. In November 26, 2019, I was given access to a private collection of 6 original letters from Abraham Blessing to his family in Ohio, which has enriched this story considerably and shown me that my 4th great grandfather was the complete opposite of what I had imagined. Continue reading →