Posted on: Jackson County, WV Bios Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/WV/JacksonBios/161 Surname: ANDERSON, TILTON, WOOD, DEWEY, SHERROD, COLEMAN, LEE, STANLEY, HAYNES, HUGHES, BOICE, WOODRUFF, BISHOP, PICKENS, SHANNON, RICHARDS, ROMINE, PRUDEN, VANNOY, ROWLEY, ADAMS, PARSONS, EDWARDS, LITTLE, BONTO, REED, MAGEE, SAYRE, SMITH, BOONE, COPEN ------------------------- This sketch taken from "Pioneers of Jackson County", by John House, it appears in the section "Lower Sandy Valley". Anderson Family Many, many years ago, when the silence of the forest was yet unbroken by the sound of the woodsman's axe, while the wild animals and wilder redmen roamed hill and vale at will, in undisturbed security, Andrew Anderson left his home in New Jersey, to seek the adventures of a life in the unbroken wilderness of the Ohio Valley. He crossed the mountains and drifted down the "Beautiful River", as far as the Big Bend, below Ravenswood, where he established himself in a camp, made in the hollow of a huge sycamore tree which stood in the fertile Ohio bottom. This tree was his home for several years, while he hunted and trapped among the neighboring hills, raising corn enough to provide his Johnny cake, roasting ears, and hominy, and making occasional canoe voyages to some fort or station to dispose of his furs or venison ham, and lay in a supply of salt, powder and lead. Finally tiring of this solitary life, he left his strange, yet roomy and comfortable abode (it is said the hollow in the tree was sufficiently large to turn an eleven foot rail in), and moving further up the river, entered a piece of land, married and settled down for the remainder of his days, bringing up around him a large family, of hardworking industrious sons and daughters whose descendants are thickly scattered over Meigs and Jackson counties. So runs the family tradition. Here history comes in and relates a story, different, yet easily reconcilable, if one only knew how. In 1785, Captain Tilton and Judge Wood planted a colony (mostly Scotsmen) at Belleville. in 1787, Joel Dewey, Joseph Dewey, Stephen Sherrod and family, from Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Malcolm Coleman and family, from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Andrew Anderson, from Wheeling, joined the colony. Some years before the Belleville settlement, David Lee, a native of Pennsylvania, a famous hunter and trapper, had camped for a time on the banks of the stream which still bears his name, and , hunting until after Wayne's treaty with the Indians at Greenville, in 1795, brought security to the frontier. He married a sister of the Anderson's, and with peace, purchased a tract of land on Tygart's Creek, and raised a family of five sons and three daughters. Many of his descendants are still inhabiting that part of the state. Andrew Anderson may, like Lee, have visited this section before the building of the fort at Belleville, afterward returning to Wheeling, or he may have drifted to the wilds of the Big Bend forests from the colony, preferring this wild, free life to the companionship of his fellow men. Who he married has not been preserved, but it is known that he settled down to quiet farm life until swept away with the many victims of the Cholera Scourge that visited the Ohio Valley in 1832. Andrew Anderson's children were: Joseph Anderson, married Nancy Stanley, a daughter of one of the early Sandy pioneers. He was married about 1822, and located on the creek one and half miles below the John Haynes farm, then the home of John Stanley, his wife's father. James Anderson (Jim), married Susy Hughes (it is said she was a niece of Jesse Hughes), and lived at the "Flatwoods", below Ravenswood. John Anderson, married a Boice. Andy Anderson, married a sister of John's wife, and lived on Straight Fork. His son, Lewis, married Sydney Bishop. Polly Anderson, married John Woodruff, and lived near her father's home, at Big Bend, Ohio. William Woodruff was one of their children. Sarah Anderson, married John Stanley, a brother of Joseph Anderson's wife, and lived on Sandy, in the same neighborhood. ‘Lizbeth Anderson, married Robert Pickens, of the Big Bend, Ohio, where they continued to reside. A son, Bartholomew Pickens, lived on Crooked Fork for a while before his death. Andrew Anderson had another daughter whose name my informant was unable to recall. Joseph Anderson married Nancy Stanley, about 1822. They lived a mile and a half above Haynes, and raised a family of four sons and four daughters. Elizabeth married Josiah Stanley, a son of James Stanley, and presumably her first cousin. Elmira (Miry) never married. Priscilla (Prissy) married first a Shannon, and second, Sanford Richards, who lives on Trace Fork. Mary married Bill Romine, and lived on the creek below Sandyville. They lived at one time on the north side of Sandy. At the mouth of Bearry's Run, in one of the two cabins where so many fell victim of the Sandy Fever. John Anderson married Elizabeth Pruden, and lived on Sandy. Lewis Anderson never married. George Anderson married Hester, a sister of John Vannoy. Joseph Anderson married Hepzibah Rowley. Joseph Anderson was born in 1829, and was married to Hepzibah, daughter of Harry Rowley, in 1854. His death occurred in 1907, on Cabin Run, about a mile north of Liverpool. He was a large man, physically, but had been in poor hearth for several years before his death. Mr. Anderson was a good talker, and related many interesting reminiscences of pioneer life on Sandy, when I visited him in 1904. He remembered many of the early settlers of this section, and I am indebted to him for much information. He had known Dr. Adams, Parsons, Edwards, Little, and Bonto and all the early settlers of the Trace Fork, as well as Reed, Magee, and the Sayre family at Sandyville, Jim Smith, the guerilla captain and many others. Uncle Joesy, as he was familiarly called by all, was a crack shot with his famous deergun. He had shot with the noted Patton Carder rifle, with which someone is said to have killed Boone, in the siege of Spencer, in 1860, at a distance of a hundred yards, and fondly described it as a "honey darling". The old hunter was, until his death, as fond of a good gun as the horseman is of his steed. The first school Anderson went to was taught by a man named Copen, in a log hut on Crooked Fork, probably about 1836 or 1837. He remembers going with an older brother on a fishing expedition one winter. It had been very dry that summer, and the fish had some up the creeks in the spring as usual, but owing to the low stage of water on the bars, had not returned, and winter caught them in the deepest pools. Winters in the early days were much more prolonged and severe than they are now. A heavy freeze had formed ice several inches in thickness, and the brother, who was grown, made a harpoon with which to spear the fish through holes they cut in the ice with an axe. The fish taken were white suckers, and they took enough to make a twelve gallon sugar kettle full of dressed fish. The rock bar at the mouth of Bar Run was a favorite place for taking fish. He had seen fish and "tortles" so thick in the Bar Run hole that they almost "hid the water". After his marriage, Anderson lived some years on Mud Run. In 1861, he moved to Trace Fork, living below the Adams, now Hawk, farm. About 1896, he bought a piece of land at the mouth of Cabin Run, and put up a corn mill, and a few years later, moved up on the run to the farm now owned by his son, Jeff Anderson.