Templeton Family

Elizabeth Hampson was born into one of the oldest families in the newly-minted United States even as the Yankee Doodles were fighting for their independence against strong Loyalist sympathies across her State. An "Ancestral File - Pedigree Chart" provided by the Church of the Latter Day Saints says that her New Jersey grandfather, Nathaniel Ayers, descended from a signer of the Mayflower Compact: George Soule of Eckington, Worcester, England. One of our correspondents disputes that lineage, (and he's probably right that the Mayflower link has been "disproved"1) and we admit that we're still grappling with the dual identity of one Rhoda Ayers in New Jersey, and have an alternate Ayers pedigree that leads back to the "Puritan" colony, Massachusetts, of the 1630's, that doesn't include George Soule. Either way, Elizabeth Hampson's known lineage establishes her as coming from a long-established, 100-year+ pre-Revolution, Colonial family at the time of her birth.

Miss Elizabeth Hampson was born March 10, 1782 in Sussex County, New Jersey. She was one of five children of Robert2 and Jane (Ayers) Hampson. George Bostwick Templeton remembered that, "Her parents were among the earliest settlers of eastern Ohio."3 Their traverse of the rills and peaks of Western Pennsylvania in a Conestoga Wagon drawn by oxen is the stuff of legend.4

Elizabeth's father died when he was only forty years old; she was too young to remember him, other than by stories told by the hearth. Her mother, Jane Ayers, remarried to one John McCollum from Virginia. He was an early settler of the wilderness, rather than one of the more "substantial" late-comers; a man accustomed to the hard life of the western woodlands and a valued soldier in the defense of his community. McCollum had served with Historical distinction in the Revolutionary War under General "Mad Anthony" Wayne of Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth's step-father had answered his old commander's call when President Washington called upon his dependable Pennsylvania warriors to campaign against the confederated tribes of of Wyandot, Mingo, Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwa warriors on the far western frontier of the Northwest Territories -- to crush Techumseh and The Prophet and their Ohio Valley Hunting Ground tribal kindred as "The Legion of the United States," the first formation of the U.S. Army we know today.

On August 20, 1794, Wayne's 3,500-man Legion "met a similar number of Indian warriors, two companies of Upper Canadian militia, and a few British Indian Department advisers, [...] in Indiana near Fort Wayne," according to Family chroniclers, before the official topography was fixed.

"Wayne devoted months to the thorough training of his soldiers. This careful preparation was noted by Little Turtle, who recommended to his confederates that a peace agreement be sought. Blue Jacket, a Shawnee, opposed that suggestion and emerged as the war leader of the confederacy. In July 1794, Wayne's army moved out of Greenville (present-day western Ohio near the Indiana border), a force of 2,000 regulars, known as the Legion of the United States, and 1,500 volunteers.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers was decisive in opening the Northwest Territories for settlement by the newly-enfranchised, "United States' Americans" that were chafing to invade the rich hunting grounds and fallow farmland beyond Fort Pitt with rifle and axe, canoe and then river-raft; and to exploit their speculative resale of cleared and productive farmsteads to the more timorous 'adventurers' of Connecticut and New York, Virginia, and other, more settled precincts that flooded in after the frontier was secured against Indian depredation, in order to bring 'Civilization' and proper civic government to the West.

All this was at work and came about long before John McCollum met and married Jane Ayers Hampson. By ten- and then five- or six years; the both of 'em arriving in Trumbull County, clearing fields and defending their homestead.

Large families and ever-younger marriages were the norm on the American frontier (unlike the "normal" English middle-class family at the time, that married late in their Twenties and limited their offspring6), around the turn of the 18th- to the 19th Century. Frontier and more settled farming families grew since, to prosper, non-mechanized farming and the home manufacture of virtually all goods save metal tools required a lot of hands put to the job. The marriage of two people had less to do with "love" than with the raw ability of the combined families to work out a viable survival in the wilderness, across the Alleghenies.

For example, Elizabeth's mother, Jane, went on to bear another eight children for John McCollum after the untimely death of her first husband. The resulting McCollum family consisted of thirteen half-brothers and -sisters: five Hampson children and eight McCollum children. One sister married a Reverend William Hayden, considered to be a very great preacher in his day, and another married the Reverend's brother. The rest were probably clearing land and farming nearby, or uprooting their family in favor of promising lands farther west in Indiana and Illinois.

The eleven surviving children of William and Elizabeth Templeton were apparently close with their McCollum cousins in eastern Ohio. We don't know how many of the William Templeton children followed their father to the heavily wooded lowlands southwest of Detroit in Putnam County after William Jr's 1835 sale of his Austintown property. We do know that after about half a year after, he moved on to Jackson, Ohio. The several-month's sojourn must have severely disrupted Elizabeth's household. And, clearing and surveying a new Jackson Township tract in southern Ohio at a later stage in life must have been a hardship for Elizabeth. She died in Jackson, Ohio, August 31, 1841, at the relatively young age of 57 and was buried back in Mahoning County at the Cornersburgh Cemetery near her mother and stepfather.7

1. 0067 RMT, email written by Tom Jones, 01 July 2001.
2. Family-originated genealogies compiled in letters, particularly those of (Ella) Belle Templeton from an interview with her father, Michael Templeton (0015 FHT-GLT Papers), and the collection of information by Fanna Streator and their correspondents, remember "Hampson" as having been named "Michael," or recorded ad "M. Hampson." Whether this is the result of confusing the name of Elizabeth's first husband, none of Michael's generation having known him, with the name of Elizabeth's father, or possibly "Robert" was informally known by a middle name or other possibility, we do not know. The "record" gathered from more 'official' sources persuade us that Hampson (or "Hamson") was, in fact, named "Robert."
3. 0014 FHT-GLT Papers, copy of article written by George Bostwick Templeton, ca. 1885.
4.note to come ...
5. Online Highways, Editorial Research: Steve Avery, http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1015.html 2005.04.16.01:45
6. Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage In England, 1500-1800, Harper & Row, New York, p. 43, et. al.
-. See McCollum and Historical Significance of Fallen Timbers, below.
-. 0014 FHT-GLT Papers, copy of article written by George Bostwick Templeton, ca. 1885.
-. Historical Significance of Fallen Timbers, "Fallen Timbers Officer Roster" by T.F. Beauvais, Heidelberg College, 2002.
-. 0015 FHT-GLT Papers, reminiscences of Michael Templeton as recorded by Belle (Templeton) Hine.
7. Graves of Revolutionary and War of 1812 Soldiers, etc., Henry R. Baldwin, transcription of gravestones, Cornersburgh Cemetery, May 13, 1906.


Elizabeth Hampson
	Elizabeth Hampson was born into one of the oldest families in the newly-minted United States even as the Yankee Doodles were fighting for their independence against strong Loyalist sympathies across her State. An "Ancestral File - Pedigree Chart" provided by the Church of the Latter Day Saints says that her New Jersey grandfather, Nathaniel Ayers, descended from a signer of the Mayflower Compact: George Soule of Eckington, Worcester, England. One of our correspondents disputes that lineage, (and he's probably right that the Mayflower link has been "disproved"1) and we admit that we're still grappling with the dual identity of one Rhoda Ayers in New Jersey, and have an alternate Ayers pedigree that leads back to the "Puritan" colony, Massachusetts, of the 1630's, that doesn't include George Soule. Either way, Elizabeth Hampson's known lineage establishes her as coming from a long-established, 100-year+ pre-Revolution, Colonial family at the time of her birth. Miss Elizabeth Hampson was born March 10, 1782 in Sussex County, New Jersey. She was one of five children of Robert2 and Jane (Ayers) Hampson. George Bostwick Templeton remembered that, "Her parents were among the earliest settlers of eastern Ohio."3 Their traverse of the rills and peaks of Western Pennsylvania in a Conestoga Wagon drawn by oxen is the stuff of legend.4 Elizabeth's father died when he was only forty years old; she was too young to remember him, other than by stories told by the hearth. Her mother, Jane Ayers, remarried to one John McCollum from Virginia. He was an early settler of the wilderness, rather than one of the more "substantial" late-comers; a man accustomed to the hard life of the western woodlands and a valued soldier in the defense of his community. McCollum had served with Historical distinction in the Revolutionary War under General "Mad Anthony" Wayne of Pennsylvania. Elizabeth's step-father had answered his old commander's call when President Washington called upon his dependable Pennsylvania warriors to campaign against the confederated tribes of of Wyandot, Mingo, Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwa warriors on the far western frontier of the Northwest Territories -- to crush Techumseh and The Prophet and their Ohio Valley Hunting Ground tribal kindred as "The Legion of the United States," the first formation of the U.S. Army we know today. On August 20, 1794, Wayne's 3,500-man Legion "met a similar number of Indian warriors, two companies of Upper Canadian militia, and a few British Indian Department advisers, [...] in Indiana near Fort Wayne," according to Family chroniclers, before the official topography was fixed. "Wayne devoted months to the thorough training of his soldiers. This careful preparation was noted by Little Turtle, who recommended to his confederates that a peace agreement be sought. Blue Jacket, a Shawnee, opposed that suggestion and emerged as the war leader of the confederacy. In July 1794, Wayne's army moved out of Greenville (present-day western Ohio near the Indiana border), a force of 2,000 regulars, known as the Legion of the United States, and 1,500 volunteers. The encounter took place on August 20 in an area where a recent storm had brought down many trees, hence the name "Fallen Timbers."5 The Battle of Fallen Timbers was decisive in opening the Northwest Territories for settlement by the newly-enfranchised, "United States' Americans" that were chafing to invade the rich hunting grounds and fallow farmland beyond Fort Pitt with rifle and axe, canoe and then river-raft; and to exploit their speculative resale of cleared and productive farmsteads to the more timorous 'adventurers' of Connecticut and New York, Virginia, and other, more settled precincts that flooded in after the frontier was secured against Indian depredation, in order to bring 'Civilization' and proper civic government to the West. All this was at work and came about long before John McCollum met and married Jane Ayers Hampson. By ten- and then five- or six years; the both of 'em arriving in Trumbull County, clearing fields and defending their homestead. - - \|\| - - Large families and ever-younger marriages were the norm on the American frontier (unlike the "normal" English middle-class family at the time, that married late in their Twenties and limited their offspring6), around the turn of the 18th- to the 19th Century. Frontier and more settled farming families grew since, to prosper, non-mechanized farming and the home manufacture of virtually all goods save metal tools required a lot of hands put to the job. The marriage of two people had less to do with "love" than with the raw ability of the combined families to work out a viable survival in the wilderness, across the Alleghenies. For example, Elizabeth's mother, Jane, went on to bear another eight children for John McCollum after the untimely death of her first husband. The resulting McCollum family consisted of thirteen half-brothers and -sisters: five Hampson children and eight McCollum children. One sister married a Reverend William Hayden, considered to be a very great preacher in his day, and another married the Reverend's brother. The rest were probably clearing land and farming nearby, or uprooting their family in favor of promising lands farther west in Indiana and Illinois. The eleven surviving children of William and Elizabeth Templeton were apparently close with their McCollum cousins in eastern Ohio. We don't know how many of the William Templeton children followed their father to the heavily wooded lowlands southwest of Detroit in Putnam County after William Jr's 1835 sale of his Austintown property. We do know that after about half a year after, he moved on to Jackson, Ohio. The several-month's sojourn must have severely disrupted Elizabeth's household. And, clearing and surveying a new Jackson Township tract in southern Ohio at a later stage in life must have been a hardship for Elizabeth. She died in Jackson, Ohio, August 31, 1841, at the relatively young age of 57 and was buried back in Mahoning County at the Cornersburgh Cemetery near her mother and stepfather.7 <-- back to "Biographies" <-- back to "Templeton Family Tree" NOTES: 1. 0067 RMT, email written by Tom Jones, 01 July 2001. 2. Family-originated genealogies compiled in letters, particularly those of (Ella) Belle Templeton from an interview with her father, Michael Templeton (0015 FHT-GLT Papers), and the collection of information by Fanna Streator and their correspondents, remember "Hampson" as having been named "Michael," or recorded ad "M. Hampson." Whether this is the result of confusing the name of Elizabeth's first husband, none of Michael's generation having known him, with the name of Elizabeth's father, or possibly "Robert" was informally known by a middle name or other possibility, we do not know. The "record" gathered from more 'official' sources persuade us that Hampson (or "Hamson") was, in fact, named "Robert." 3. 0014 FHT-GLT Papers, copy of article written by George Bostwick Templeton, ca. 1885. 4.note to come ... 5. Online Highways, Editorial Research: Steve Avery, http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1015.html 2005.04.16.01:45 6. Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage In England, 1500-1800, Harper & Row, New York, p. 43, et. al. -. See McCollum and Historical Significance of Fallen Timbers, below. -. 0014 FHT-GLT Papers, copy of article written by George Bostwick Templeton, ca. 1885. -. Historical Significance of Fallen Timbers, "Fallen Timbers Officer Roster" by T.F. Beauvais, Heidelberg College, 2002. -. 0015 FHT-GLT Papers, reminiscences of Michael Templeton as recorded by Belle (Templeton) Hine. 7. Graves of Revolutionary and War of 1812 Soldiers, etc., Henry R. Baldwin, transcription of gravestones, Cornersburgh Cemetery, May 13, 1906.
© 2005, R Templeton & Associates Contact us: