Phyllis, I think there are several good reasons for the earlier movements. For folks not lucky enough to own bottom land in Shenandoah, crop yield got pretty low after about 5 years or so. Some of the old PA Germans apparently knew enough to rotate and use manure, but others did not. I have read accounts of ten bushels per acre - that's barely living. Much of that land in Licking Co. is flat, well-watered, loamy to a depth of several feet (at least once upon a time), and fairly easy to clear. The relative cheapness of the Ohio land, whether by grant for military service or by outright purchase, made it easy for a man to sell his Virginia land and acquire 3 or 4 times as much Ohio land. Prior to, say 1850, slavery was a real problem for small farmers and industrial workers. Slave labor depressed wages and prices so that it became harder and harder for the folks on the lower econmic rungs to make a decent living. When you add the effective disenfranchisement of the non-slave owners, it "stuck in the craw" of many of those folks and they left. Many (as about half of the Mill Creek Church in 1806) simply couldn't tolerate slavery for moral reasons and left. But, once the movement started, it supported itself. Folks rarely went someplace new without having a "support system" there. So, if you wanted to go west, you went to where your cousin or the folks in the pew behind you had already gone so that they could help you through the first winter or maybe put you up for a couple months. And, you would be sure of finding a similar church and people you could trust for your children to marry. You can sort of see that for many of my relatives around the north end of Lee District who migrated to the Point Pleasant/Gallipolis area over the 1790-1830 period. They knew and married each other in Shenandoah Co; they knew and married each other on the Ohio. Tom PSpiker27@aol.com wrote: >Does anyone know the reason(s) for Shenandoah Countians migrating to Licking >Co OH. They was still going in the last quarter of 1800. > >Also, what about migration to Cass Co IN in the early 1860s? > >Has anyone found newspaper ads or imprints encouraging migration to these >areas? > >Phyllis Vannoy Spiker > > >==== VASHENAN Mailing List ==== >Shenandoah Co VAGenWeb >http://www.rootsweb.com/~vashenan/vashenan.html > > > >

Tom, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for describing what conditions were like prior to the westward movement for those of us who have never seen the area except in pictures. I had often wondered what motivated my ancestors to move from the Shenandoah to Athens Co., OH. The portrait you paint gives clues for further research. Kym -----Original Message----- From: Tom Pierce [mailto:tvpierce@infionline.net] Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 8:33 AM To: VASHENAN-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [VASHENAN] Shenandoah to Licking Co OH & Cass Co IN Phyllis, I think there are several good reasons for the earlier movements.

Kym, If you don't mind my asking, who were your ancestors that went to Athens? The movement that way started, I think, with the battle of Point Pleasant which had a lot of Shenandoah men in it. Then, one of the Steenbergens went out later and may have attracted some of their neighbors. Tom David & Kym Pitman wrote: >Tom, > >Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for describing what conditions were like >prior to the westward movement for those of us who have never seen the area >except in pictures. I had often wondered what motivated my ancestors to >move from the Shenandoah to Athens Co., OH. The portrait you paint gives >clues for further research. > >Kym > >-----Original Message----- >From: Tom Pierce [mailto:tvpierce@infionline.net] >Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 8:33 AM >To: VASHENAN-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Re: [VASHENAN] Shenandoah to Licking Co OH & Cass Co IN > > >Phyllis, >I think there are several good reasons for the earlier movements. > > >==== VASHENAN Mailing List ==== >To unsubscribe, send a msg. to VASHENAN-L-request@rootsweb.com or VASHENAN-D-request@rootsweb.com with the word unsubscribe. > > > >

Tom.......The name STEENBERGEN got my attention 'cause my notes say that NANCY FOUT, daughter of JOHN FOUT & MARY McINTURFF had accompanied the J. B. STEENBERGEN family when they moved from Virginia to Indiana. Nancy was a companion to the Steenbergens' daughter BETSY. Supposedly the Steenbergens' had large holdings of land in the Shenandoah Valley, part of which is now known as MEEMS BOTTOMS, near Mt. Jackson.......Eugene