Family Notes

Andrew and Sarah were married at John Ramey's by Reverend James Stallard near Dungannon, Scott County, Virginia.  J. Riley Ramey and Gerge Hopkins Addington were the witnesses to the marriage.  Riley was best man and his wife, Ellen was the bridesmaid.

After their marriage, Andrew and Sarah moved for a short time to Ohio where their oldest child as born.  They returned to Scott County sometime before 1870.  From the Robbin, August 1941 is a story related by one of the children: A sawmill was brought in my a man by the name of Alex Hayes in order to cut the poplar timber on the old farm.  There was a fall in the criik below our farm and the sawmill was located below that and the logs were trucked to it.  That summer Winfield and the youger ones of the family did the farming and Father, Albert, John and Emmet worked at the lumbering.  Mart was a lad of 16 - a little too young for the heavy work of the woods but he worked at the sawmill.

Father reserved enough lumber to build a frame house.  The rest was all sold.  His expenses were large and the lumber cheap.  The work was heavy and although he was agiant in strength, it was the befinning of his failure in health.  He got in debt, from which he never recovered.  His home was mortgaged and later he lost part of his land through foreclosure.

Father then took jobs as a laborer, wages were so low he could hardly support his family, without paying and debts.  He built the first logging road and was hired because of his experience.  The highest wages paid were $ 1.25 per day.

After a year or two, Father seemed to despair of succeeding.  Some of his relatives who helped persuade him to settle on the old homestead accused him of bad management and spoke unkinkly.  He always longed to go back to Ohio.

One day his Mother (Verlina Hutchinson Addington) paid us the last visit.  She regretted what some of the family had siad and tried to disuade him from moving.  But he said, "I'm going to get out if I have to crawl out."  She went out crying and asked that we not come by as we left.  Saying goobye to Father was more than she could bear.

That was the last time amy of us ever saw Grandma.

It was a sad end to their stay in Virginia.  Twenty three years had passed since their return from Ohio.  They cam back to Old Virginia with a six month old son.  In the twenty three years since, the other 16 children were born.  The older boys were all in Kentucky and had rasied crops of corn to the feed the family until they could get settled in a new home.

Emmett and William, Sons of Andrew Jackson arrived from Kentucky bringing two horses to team up with the old family mare, to draw our cover wagon.  A delighted family we were.  Even Mother seemed elated over the prospect of going back to Ohio.

Father must have been sad, but we did not detect it if he was.  It was the last time he was to see either his parents, sisters or brothers.  Those with whom he had spent his whole life were left behind.

Came December 19, 1895.  We stated our last night in the old home where we had been so long.  The new house that had given us hope was left half built.  We climbed the hill and took a last look.  There is stood in the hills, a young orchard around it and the clear rippling brook singing its way through the narrow valley.  A picture I never forgot.

They settled in Ohio, but after 12 years some of the boys moved on to Michigan and they followed.  In another eight years some of the younger children had settled in California.  The West called again and the traveled across the Sierras where the western breezes blow and mountain streams water the valley of perpetual verdure, their 59 years of married life ended.  Andrew Jackson Jr. was buried in the sight of a snow-capped mountain in an old Church year in California

Sarah returned to Michigan and after 12 years, she pased away in Central Lake, Antrim County. Her body was returned to California where is was laid beside her husband to rest there in the Golden West.