Underwoods came from England, and were early Quakers in America. Multiple generations lived in Pennsylvania before Zephaniah and Priscilla Louis Underwood, my g-g-g grandparents, moved to Columbiana County, Ohio in 1809. He died there, and she moved with her many kids to northern Clinton County, Ohio about 1826. Her son and grandsons bought the farms north of Jonah’s Run Baptist Church, in 1856 and later. They planted large acreages of apples and other fruit. I was born on one of them.
One fall Saturday morning, I figured out why Underwood’s picked the land for their orchards. John, my brother, had rented the farms after Paul Tomlinson, our cousin, had sold the Tower House place. That morning, John was greasing his combine on the north slope on the north end of the farm. I walked up to the top of the ridge and looked down on Jonah’s run Baptist Church, as well as the west farm where Grandpapa and Mom and I were born. Although the soybeans were still damp and too tough to harvest on the north slope, the stalks and seeds were dry on the south slope. That’s because of the great air drainage there, and that’s why my ancestors picked that place. Someone claimed to have visited all the Underwood farms back to Pennsylvania. They said they all had orchards. I remember noting an early Underwood purchase here was just east of the Tower House, for a place to raise fruit trees.
Chester Quaker Meeting, Gurneyville Road, maybe two miles east of Collett-McKay Picnic site in NW Clinton County, Ohio.
Priscilla Louis Underwood, my g-g-g grandmother, who died in 1835.
Center Quaker Meeting, Center Road, maybe two miles south of Chester Meeting.
Amos and Mary Shirk Underwood, my g-g grandparents.
Miami Cemetery in Corwin, near Waynesville, Warren County, Ohio.
Elihu and Hester Kirk Underwood, my g-grandparents. A few minutes ago, I showed our grandsons, Nathanial and Eric Glaze, the location of the headstones for Elihu; for his first wife, Hester; and for his second wife, Matilda. When she and I visited the cemetery on Memorial Day, Mom always remarked how her father, Daniel Underwood, decided how to place them. Elihu is buried next to Hester, but his head is next to Matilda’s head. Hester, from Clarksville, died in 1899. Zephaniah, Elihu’s older brother, 1820-1900, died a year later. Elihu then married his sister-in-law, Matilda Downing Underwood, 1851-?. Jane Haines, Zephaniah and Matilda’s youngest child, was born in 1888, when her father was 68. She died in 1986. Note the time span for Jane and her father-1820 to 1986, 166 years.
Born in Pa, Matilda came to Ohio with her mother, sister and brother, to cook and keep house for Zephaniah, after he went back there to see his grandfather’s relatives. Her mother was an Underwood cousin of Zephaniah’s. Matilda wrote a book, “Bluebells of the Forest”. Matilda soon got involved with the Temperance movement and helped close the saloons in Clinton County in the early 1870’s, and was selected a Recorded Minister at Grove Quaker Meeting (Hicksite) on the east edge of Harveysburg, as well as being involved with the woman suffrage movement. Mom said Elihu, her grandfather, was pleased when she and her three younger sisters, all born after the Elihu/Matilda marriage, all called her “Grandmother”. Matilda’s sister married a Romine and became the first woman physician in Ohio. Her office was in the house on the east side of Maple Street at the south edge of Harveysburg. She influenced Mary Cook (of Mary Cook Library in Waynesville), who graduated in the first HS class at Harveysburg in 1887, to become a physician. Her brother became a noted local photographer. I have also seen a copy of his patented invention for causing auto lights to blink.
Howard
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