From the U.S. Census of 1850, 1860 and 1870 we can reconstruct the family of John and Polly Hill as follows: John C. Hill Born 1809 in North Carolina Polly Kizzire Hill Born 1813 in Kentucky Elizabeth Hill Born 1832 in Indiana Jackson Hill Born 1834 in Indiana Nancy Hill Born 1836 in Indiana John A. Hill Born 1838 in Indiana William Hill Born 1840 in Indiana Mary Hill Born 1842 in Indiana Mathey Hill Born 1845 in Indiana Not on the 1850 census Eliza Hill Born 1849 in Indiana Alexander Hill Born 1852 in Missouri Levi Hill Born 1855 in Missouri (note: Listed as �Zemiah� and �Jemima--unknown but likely child of Jackson & Mary�s.--SB) Mary Hill, age 60 (note: step mother of John C., widow of William Hill -- SB) was listed in the 1860 census as living with the John Hill family. Mathey Hill was also listed as living with the John Hill family in the 1860 census but since she was not listed with the family in the 1850 census there is a question about her relationship. She could be a daughter of John Hill or perhaps a half sister. Mathey does fit in the family age group chronologically. There was also a Nancy Hill in the 1870 census reported as living with Polly Hill but I have omitted her from the John C. Hill family because I believe this Nancy Hill was Jackson Hill�s daughter and therefore a granddaughter of John C. Hill. (note: the 1870 Osage census lists Polly Hill as a widow with her son, Alex Hill -- age 18 and her (assumed) grandchildren, the children of Jackson and Mary Hill, Jemima--age 16 and Nancy--age 14. -- SB) Elizabeth Hill (Hampton) Jones� maternal grandparents have been a bit harder to trace for women lose their family name and identity when they marry. If Raymond Bell is correct in his statement that 95% of the time the first four children carry the names of their grandparents, we should be looking for the names of JACKSON and ELIZABETH KIZZIRE in Kentucky. Kizzire families are listed in two counties of Kentucky Indexes but I have not found micro-film for these counties that is readable. I have only found out who they are not. (note: Jackson Kizzire has been documented. Is likely the brother of William Kizzire, Polly Acton�s husband. -- SB) There has been a bit of confusion over the relationship of Polly Kizzire Hill and Polly Acton Kizzire. Because my father, Grant Jones, used to say to towheaded children, �Your hair is just as black as Ol� Granny Kizzire�s�, I had assumed she was his grandmother and spent much time assembling her records only to find that my father�s grandmother Polly Kizzire was not a member of Ol� Granny Kizzire�s family but of Ol� Granny Kizzire�s husband�s brothers family. It seems that father must have spoken of Ol� Granny Kizzire not as his grandmother but as a term of affection. Ol� Granny Kizzire whose maiden name was Polly Acton had married William Kizzire in Kentucky in 1812 and later moved to Indiana with her husband. They had three daughters Hanner, Minta and Margaret. William Kizzire died leaving Polly and the three daughters. Polly Acton Kizzire did not remarry but lived the rest of her life with her daughters. Her daughter Margaret died at the age of twelve years. Among the first settlers in Decatur County, Hamilton Township, Iowa in 1840 are listed these familiar names: ASA BURRELL, WILLIAM HAMILTON, WILLIAM ACTON, COLE SEYMOUR AND AARON and MOSES TURPIN. Many of these people thought they were settling in Northern Missouri. HAMPTONS, HILLS, KIZZIRES and others inter-married with this group. In 1842 Geo Burrell married Polly�s daughter Hannah, (Hanner) Kizzire and Polly, �Ol�Granny� and Minta her unmarried daughter lived with Geo and Hannah. The family came to Decatur County,Iowa in 1843. Hannah died in January of 1862 and is buried in the Burrell Cemetery located one mile North of Leon. Geo. Burrell then married Polly�s unmarried daughter, Minta Kizzire, in 1864. Polly Acton Kizzire, �Ol� Granny Kizzire�, continued to live in the Geo Burrell home. She moved with them when they tried Missouri and later Kansas. Minta Kizzire Burrell died on April 21, 1886 and her husband Geo Burrell died in Jan. 1904. Polly Acton Kizzire, �Ol� Granny Kizzire� died on March 3, 1895 at the age of 104 years, 10 months and 22 days. Descendants of Geo Burrell say that we are �Shirt-tail� relation; that is, in-laws and related only through marriage. This claim is through the marriage of Emaline Burrell, daughter of Geo and Minta Burrell, first to Johnnie �Wild John� Hill and later to our uncle Alex Hill. (note: Johnnie is the son of Jackson and Mary (Hampton) Hill. Alex is Jackson Hill�s brother. -- SB) It also seems likely that Ol� Granny Kizzire�s husband, William Kizzire, was an uncle of Polly Kizzire Hill who was the mother of Elizabeth Hill (Hampton) Jones and the grandmother of my father Grant Jones . (note: This is true for Jackson Hill. William and Polly (Acton) Kizzire were then his grandaunt and granduncle, aunt and uncle to his mother, Polly Kizzire Hill. Jackson Hill�s daughter, Hannah Hill, married George Macy Acton whose relationship to Polly (Acton) Kizzire is being researched. Hannah Hill Acton is my great grandmother. --SB) Elizabeth Hill also known as Betsy is not listed in the census records of the John C. Hill family for she had married Levi Hampton. I have been unable to determine whether the marriage took place in Indiana or in Missouri. The marriage record has not been found. From other records I have found it seems most likely that they were married in Missouri and in Osage County. I have not looked in Osage County, Missouri but hope to do so the next time I am in Missouri. (note: the Maries Co. courthouse burned in 1868, all records destroyed. -- SB) My father, Grant Jones, thought his mother, Elizabeth Hill Hampton, moved to Decatur County, Iowa around 1848. The place of birth listed in the census for the children seems to indicate that the year the family moved was 1857 since Nancy Hampton was born in Iowa in 1857. This date also corresponds to the period of migration into Decatur County, Iowa which occurred between 1854 and 1860. The 1854 census shows 3,026 inhabitants in 10 township and the 1856 census more than double or 6,280 inhabitants. The first settlers n the southern part of Decatur County, Iowa came in from Missouri but were really from Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas and Kentucky. They thought they were settling in Missouri. Many were across the line in Mercer County, Missouri. The financial panic in 1857 uprooted many families and sent them scuttling for new lands to try and better their positions. This financial panic destroyed the financial standing of Lewis Jones in the Western Virginia Territory and he moved to Miller County, Missouri while the Levi Hampton family left Missouri and settled in Decatur County, Iowa. This was not a good time in Decatur County, Iowa according to Himena Hoffman�s History of Decatur County, Iowa. She wrote, �Many took up wild land and saw visions of a fine farm, a good house and big barns that would some day be theirs. Visions did not come a reality for some. Those who combined thrift and good judgment with strength and willingness to work long hours and the courage to stick through the yeas of tornadoes, drought, floods, grasshoppers and low prices saw their visions become reality. There were many months when the rich bottom lands were flooded....1857-58 were very bad years for Decatur County, Iowa.� Grandma Betsy thoroughly agreed. She often expressed her horror and nightmarish experience of those two years and very stubbornly proclaimed that she would never return to Iowa. Paul Hoffman wrote, �We planted corn the 8th of May but the soil was cold and damp. Some have planted three times. There were terrible tornadoes this summer that caused much destruction.� On June 13, 1858 he wrote, �Tuesday it rained for three solid hours as hard as I�ve ever seen it rain. It washed out all the corn on rolling land and on the level land it drowned out. We have poor prospects for crops here except for fall wheat and rye.� The wives of those early pioneers exhausted themselves at hard labor. They not only did their household task; but also, worked in the fields beside their men folks. Certain tasks were labeled women�s work; therefore, the garden, the milking and the care of chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks was unquestionably women�s work. Betsy Hampton at 26 years of age was a defeated woman. She had given birth to four children, John and Polly Ann named for her parents, Lucinda and baby Nancy. She had endured nature�s worst; too much rain, damaging hail and tornadoes and the grasshoppers that came in such numbers that they darkened the sky and devoured everything in their path. Because of its high altitude Decatur County, Iowa was cold with deep snow and horrible blizzards. Betsy�s husband, Levi Hampton and little Johnnie Hampton died of pneumonia during the cold winter of 1858. This was the final blow and Elizabeth Hill Hampton returned to her parents home in St. Maries County, Missouri. St. Maries Couty because a new county had been formed from part of Osage County, Missouri. Elizabeth�s parents, John and Polly Hill, had been living in Missouri about ten years when she returned to them. In 1855, however, the southern half including Jackson Township, became St. Maries County, Missouri. I have never heard the true story of how Elizabeth Hill Hampton and Lewis Jones met but I believe they may have met on the Charles Wells Farm as neighbors while the men folk in each family cut timber for Chas. Wells. Elizabeth�s brother John and his family are named in the 1860 census immediately following the Lewis Jones family. When Elizabeth Hill Hampton met Lewis Jones she met a man who needed her as badly as she needed him. She had lost her husband and had three little girls and he had lost his second wife and his daughter, Margaret, who had been his housekeeper, was about to be married to James Roark. --continued in Part 4 Sherry Balow balowmsg@earthlink.net