This file is a compilation of many sources of information, mostly relating to a migration of families from Cumberland County, Maine to Dearborn County, Indiana in 1817. This group was led by the Reverend Daniel Plummer. Hopefully his amazing history, and that of the other families, will appear in the notes on the individual pages.
The 1817 Maine Migrants
Several families in this file have been studied fairly extensively by genealogists. Some of these histories suggest that "seventy-eight individuals" and "fifteen families" traveled together from Maine to Indiana in 1817, after enduring the harsh weather in 1816 ("The Year Without A Summer") following the explosion of Mount Tambora. The fifteen families turned out to be at least fifteen surnames! In addition to Plummer family, individuals from the Roberts, Tibbetts, Noyes, Milliken, Matthews, Mayhew, Crocker, Robinson, Ellingwood, Ellis, Runnels, Silvester and Cotton families are known to have been part of the company. At least twenty-six households were involved.
For a long while, after concluding that the early accounts had referred to surnames instead of families, I puzzled over which early Dearborn County family was the fifteenth. I now believe the family of Abel True traveled with the families named above. Abel's sister Sally was the wife of Thomas Runnels, who was part of the migration. In 1800, Abel's name appears in the Census of Durham Township, Cumberland County, Maine, next to that of a Samuel Plummer, who I believe is the father of Rev. Daniel Plummer. In 1810, same township, Daniel Plummer's brother Luther, also a Plummer Expedition migrant, apparently lives near Abel True per the Census. Abel's son Reuben also appears in the Census with him in 1810, and in 1820 and 1830 both names appear in Dearborn County, while no Abel or Reuben True are found in Durham. In Indiana, an Abram True also appears in 1830, and he names his daughter after a Heustis wife (see below.) We have recently expanded the information on the True family, exploring their later migrations.
However, my research also strongly suggests that the family of Godfrey Snow, present in Dearborn County in 1820 by Census records, also accompanied the Plummer Expedition families. Several matching Snow families are present in the 1810 Cumberland County Census. Godfrey's father, Jonathan, according to most accounts, was married to Mary Tibbetts, sister of the Benjamin Tibbetts who appears early in Dearborn County with his family and those of his nephews. Jonathan Snow himself is found in neighboring Campbell County, Kentucky, in 1820 and after, while his son Jonathan married the widow of one of his Tibbetts cousins in 1840, in Hancock County, Indiana. Other Plummer Expedition families, notably the Matthews, are known to have lived for a time in Kentucky after the migration.
Also, I have included the Abraham Jordan family in this data, which appears to also have migrated in the time period from the same starting place. They too appear in Manchester, Dearborn County, Indiana in the 1820 Census. Recently I found that the Jordans had ties to the Roberts family through their Elwell ancestors. They also married into some of the same families in Indiana that other Plummer Expedition families did, notably the Mapes and True families. However it is not clear whether the Jordan family was truly part of the 1817 migration.
Nehemiah Littlefield, also present in Dearborn County in 1820 by Census records, may be another Maine migrant linked by family to the other Plummer Expedition members. A Louisa Littlefield married into the Roberts family migrants in Dearborn County in 1823. There are Littlefields in Cumberland County, Maine in 1810 as well.
The Osgood family migrated west from Maine to Lawrenceburgh before 1820. Current understanding is that they preceded the Plummer Expedition, but more research is needed.
Yet another possible Plummer Expedition companion family was the Halls. Daniel Hall and Sabrina Knocks and their likewise married siblings John Hall and Theodata Knocks also are early Dearborn County residents. According to the 1885 biography of son-in-law George Givan, the Daniel Hall family arrived in Indiana from Maine "about 1818". The 1880 biography of Silvanus Hall in the History of St. Joseph County (Thanks to Larry Brasher for the references!) states that the Halls migrated first to Cincinnati in 1818, then across the Ohio River to Dearborn County four years later. Census data is somewhat conflicting; several Hall families (including a Hezekiah, perhaps Daniel and John's father) are recorded in Dearborn County in 1820, although at some distance from the Plummer migrants; also Daniel's son Hezekiah was born in Maine in 1814, while daughter Sabrina was born in Indiana in 1821; there are also Halls in Hamilton County, Ohio. John's son Sylvanus (perhaps born in Maine) married the daughter of Jonas Dean Matthews and Susannah Milliken, other Plummer Expedition migrants. That would make the Halls likely candidates for inclusion with the Plummer Expedition as well.
I believe that the traditional account of fifteen families was simply incomplete research.
Another Maine lineage with an early presence in Dearborn County was the Jepson/Gipson family. They are apparently related to the Samuel Roberts - Rachel Randall family through Samuel's sister Hannah. However, no 1820 Dearborn County Census entry exists by those names, but there is a Gipson elsewhere in Indiana and Gibsons in Dearborn County.
However, one Maine family migrated early, but was not part of the original Expedition. Simeon Tozier married Elizabeth Milliken, daughter of Elias, in Maine in 1804. Most of her family accompanied the Plummer Expedition to Indiana in 1817, but Simeon is still in Maine in 1820 per Census. However, he is found in Dearborn County in 1830, well before a "second wave" of Maine immigrants that arrived around 1836. This "second wave" included the Freeman, Tufts, Rice and Butterfield families, plus some members of the original families who lingered in Maine. This list is by no means inclusive. Feel free to write me with additional data.
The Wilson family of Maine and later Ripley County, Indiana, is also found in this data, due to links to affiliated families. My current information suggests that they were not part of the Plummer group, living in Ohio during the migration period, then moving to Indiana.
Affiliated Families in Indiana
Most of the participants in the Plummer Expedition were related by marriage in Maine. After they arrived in Dearborn County, they married into the family of William Heustis, which arrived around 1819. Eight Heustis siblings had family relationships with the Maine migrants.
Other families with multiple relationships to the migrants include the Kennedy, Hansell, Rice, Platt, Mapes and Clark(e) families.
The Hansell family married into the family of Samuel Roberts (mentioned above) three times. However, this was NOT the family of Samuel York Roberts and Elizabeth Plummer, nor their son Samuel Jr., whose birth date was confirmed as too late for inclusion as Head of Household in 1820, but rather a third Samuel Roberts, who married Rachel Randall in Maine. One open question is the relationships between these Roberts families.
Other data added after the original publishing of the study are the links between the True, Hansell and especially the Collier families, in Maine and Indiana. We also added to this sketch (additional) data on the Fielding, Knapp, Morton, Dunn, Thompson, McMullen and Kennedy families. Other updating includes marriage data from the online Indiana marriage databases, both the free version covering marriages prior to 1850, and the subscription version on Ancestry.com, that covers Indiana marriages after 1850 to 1920.
Data on this site shows the relationships of the Brimhall family to the others, especially the Roberts and Crocker families. These original New Yorkers migrated to Illinois in the 1840s, some to Henderson County with many other Dearborn County residents. Also found in Henderson County were the families of Samuel York Roberts Jr. and some of his kin.
This version of the project includes expanded information on the Morss/Morse/Moss family. The family name was spelled a variety of ways, even among siblings, apparently. These early migrants to Dearborn County may have traveled with other New York families, including the Heustis family. Much data was added for the Jaquith and Russell families, from Census and other sources. These families also intermixed with the Mainefamilies. The Jaquiths and Russells too may have migrated from New York with the Heustis clan circa 1819. Russell may be the surname of the wife, Lavinia, of Oliver Heustis, the oldest brother, in a marriage that took place in New York.
Other updates include New York families distantly related to the Heustis family. The daughters of Sylvester Ferris married into the Maine-origin Ellis, Rice and Matthews families. Other members of the Ferris family were early migrants to Dearborn County, but had no intermarriages with the main Plummer Expedition participants. The Ferris families are distantly related to each other, with the common Ferris-Haight ancestors born around 1660-1670. One wonders if they knew about their common ancestors, much less the relationship to the Heustis clan! The Mead family was also researched. It appears that they had strong ties to the Morss, Ferris, Rarick and Crouch migrations from NY. A large amount of data exploring the relationships of these and other New York migrants has been added in 2005.
Connections of the Mead and Ferris families extend all the way back to Colonial Connecticut, much like the Heustis connections to the Ferris family. Likewise the Knapp family mentioned above, may have similar origins.
We added to the Plummer Expedition family ties uniting the Worley, Tibbetts, Wright, Palmer and Heustis families.
The Palmer and Ketcham Families
Are there two family groups of Palmers in Dearborn County, or one? David Palmer is present in what became York Township as early as 1820. His neighbors include many of the families who are thought to have migrated with the descendants of Sylvanus Palmer from upstate New York. Because of some of the places of birth of these Palmers, they may be linked to the migration of the Ferris and Crouch families to Indiana. However data about David's origins suggest that he lived in New York City prior to his migration to Indiana. Because of these ties, his route to Indiana may be associated with perhaps the Platt family. David Palmer's family also has ties to the extended Ketcham family, which likewise seems to taken two separate routes to Dearborn County, one directly from New York, the other with a stopover in neighboring Ohio counties. The Ketchams also intermarried into some of the extended Plummer Expedition families. A considerable amount of data, some speculative and some solid, is now included in this database as a platform for exploring these relationships.
Call for Contributions
I strongly encourage anyone with more details on the families in this file to contact me with their information. I probably will never extend the lines to living people, but further clarifications of the relationships in the nineteenth century especially will be considered strongly for inclusion. Intermarriages of descendants are a theme of this work, especially those with the original surnames.
Acknowledgements
I would be negligent to not especially thank Jill McLeester, Deb Liening, Earl Thompson, Diane Rossman, Terry Donahue, Becky True Norman, Thom Carlson, Nancy Foster-Hopkins, Larry Brasher, Clara Jacobson and Paul Noyes for their special contributions to this work as sources for families and individuals. And all other contributors, too numerous to mention here (but hopefully in the notes), my thanks to you as well!
