Edward Everett DARROW was born 26 Oct 1846 in Meadville, PA when his father Ammirus was studying to become a minister. He grew up in Kinsman, OH and after his preliminary education he graduated from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI. His occupation was schoolteacher where he taught Classics, History, Civics and Economics.
On 30 June 1889 in Springfield, IL he married Helen KELCHNER. She was born about 1862. She attended University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Graduate; Elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Edward and Helen had one child.
Dr. Karl Kelchner DARROW (3009) (SEE PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY)
Edward Everett Darrow died 28 Sep 1927 at W. 111th Street in New York City, near Columbia University. Helen Kelchner died 19 Dec 1954 at 230 W. 105th St., New York, NY.
This is a copy of a letter written to Adelia Darrow Fish by her second cousin, Edward E. Darrow. In it he is answering and asking some questions about the Darrow family history. Primarily it is of genealogical interest but it also gives some insights to the Darrow family. It also points out that back in 1923 they had some of the same genealogical questions that we are confronted with at present.
The original letter is held by Mary Jo Ramsey, great grand daughter of Adelia Darrow Fish. I received the letter in 1998 from Molly Culver, a cousin and a Darrow researcher.
111th Street, New York City—Wed. June 27th, 1923.
To: Mrs. Adelia Darrow Fish; Woodstock, Ill.
My dear cousin— To be sure you and my father Amirus were real first cousins, of course we are second cousins-children of Henry A. Darrow and Amirus Darrow respectively, being children of the brothers, Henry and Jedediah. But will let our relationship go at "cousins"—not quite second cousins, as you are a generation ahead of me.
Still you don’t seem a generation older. You and I are alike in one thing: we were both born on the 28th of the month. But my month was October, yours February. I was 76 years old Oct. 28th, 1922. You were 88, Feb. 28th, 1923. So you are just eleven years and eight months older than I. Now I get back again to your letter, you were entirely right in thinking you were giving me a great surprise. It was one indeed and a most agreeable one at that. You are the most important figure now in the history of the Darrow family who trace their descent back to George Darrow who landed at New London, Ct, about 1675 and married Mary Sharswood in 1676. He had emigrated from Lancashire, England. To me you are especially important as being the daughter of the only uncle of my father Ammirus, that he ever saw. I was the eldest of the eight children that made up my father’s family. While many of your father’s brothers went West. Your father was the only one (as far as I remember) who ever returned to Ohio for a visit. I am quite sure that my father saw him personally then when he came to visit his brother Jedediah in Mecca, Ohio about 1842. But this I do remember with perfect certainty, .father told me that his uncle Henry had visited New London, and looked at gravestones in the grave-yard there and had examined court and church records (birth records, records of transfer of title to property etc.) to find out whether some of the Darrows had not left property not accounted for and their heirs had not received it. Now you would probably know whether any part of this was true about your father—his visiting New London at all, or what he or found out there. Your father’s date of birth is recorded as Sept. 19,1791. And that he went to Wisconsin where he married. You were born, the second child, Feb. 28th 1835. Your father probably came to Wis. At least as early as the early thirties, he would have been forty four years old at your birth. It would seem as though he must have visited New London in his early life before coming west or marrying. I have assumed that all of the children of our common ancestor Amirus or Amarius (your grandfather and my great-grandfather) that is, your father and all his brothers and sisters were born in Boonville or on the Darrow farm near Boonville where Amirus probably lived most of his life after marriage. One after another of these children left him and went further west. Now how fully can you give the history of your father? His early years you would have been dependent upon others for. Here we come to the very important part that your grandmother Sarah occupies in our common family history. She was the wife of Amirus, the Revolutionary Soldier. All that Revolutionary record has been dug up by the industry of a real first cousin of yours, the daughter of Alexander, your father’s brother. She lives (or did at last news from her) at Yakima, Washington. She got all the records the government had for his revolutionary career—date of birth, marriage, death, pension to widow and widow’s death, date of two years service in the Revolutionary, etc., etc.
The following items about Joseph, born June 29th, 1803, came to Wis. After the death of his father Amirus at Boonville, 1824 and brought with him his mother, the widow of Amirus. This is your grandmother, Sarah Fisher Darrow, as you call her. And here is something that I wonder whether you can clear up. Was her maiden name Sarah Fisher? For her name has come to my record as "Sarah Melona", Melona sounds like an Italian name, and I thought it more likely that it was Irish instead, corrupted from "Maloney." But there were neither Irish nor Italians at that time in New London. My theory was that she might have been a young widow when Amirus married her or else she married again after his death some one by that name. I hope you can clear up this difficulty for me. I had never seen the name "Fisher" as her maiden name. But she is very important as being the one through whom a great deal of the early history of the Darrow family may be cleared up—in fact a great deal has been cleared up-but some still remains obscure. Whether these obscure points can still be cleared up depends on two things;(1) How much your grandmother remembered about things that had taken place and told you about, and whether you can still be certain about them; the other thing; (2) is; what will that bundle of letters reveal which she guarded so carefully and which your father had after her death and then passed on to a son and which are now in the keeping of Mr. Cassidy who you say is the son of a niece of your brother? I sup-pose the niece was really a "niece-in-law" being a direct niece of his wife and therefore not a Darrow ancestry but of his wife’s ancestry through either brother or sister. I suppose, in fact, Mr. Cassidy has never made any careful determination of the papers, perhaps has not even tried to, or may have tried and given them up. In truth, no one who was not interested in and acquainted with Darrow history and knew just what he needed to look for, would make much headway in getting any thing of value out of them, of course they should never have gone out of Darrow hands but there are many excuses for that. First the neglect of those in whose hands they successfully came, to do anything with them. We can say that your grandmother ought to have looked them through carefully and classified them ac-cording to the material they dealt with. And we can then say that your father when they passed into his hands ought to have done it, or we can say that you ought to have done it for your father for I don’t doubt he would gladly have given you access to them for that purpose. Or we can say your uncle ought to have done it, especially when he knew that he had no children into whose hands he could put these papers when he died. But I think that the plain truth of the whole matter was this: your grandmother probably had known at one time or another just what they contained—lots of old letters, very likely. from her various friends, received through her lifetime and as she became old and feeble she felt unable to arrange them in order for anyone following her but she would not destroy them while she lived. I know just how I shall feel myself. I have hundreds of letters that I shall keep as long as I live; I haven’t the heart to destroy them while I am alive. Yet I know they will be of no value to my heirs. Now after your grandmother died and the letter and other contents of the bundle passed onto your father and then to your child-less uncle, none of you really had any interest in them. Perhaps when your father had them it never even occurred to you to ask him to let you look them through and see what was in them? Anyway no one of you seems to have any knowledge of what they contained. Perhaps Mr. Cassidy has read them, perhaps not. If he married and has children he would very naturally hold to the papers so as not to prejudice their interests and leave them to them to get any good out of them they could. It may seem strange that people don’t examine such old documents, or if they begin doing it, give it up.
Let me give you my experience right in our own family. I introduce it with a little explanation of family history: Of the ten children (possibly eleven, one not surviving long) of your grandfather Amirus, two only were daughters—Prudence and Sophia. Doubtless Amirus named the older daughter after his own mother Prudence Bailey (Darrow) wife of Jedediah. She married there and a descendant still lives in the Black River country at Mannsville. Sophia was the youngest and the only one of your father’s and my grandfather’s sisters and brothers I ever saw. She had married a Mr. Congdon and they had settled at Union City, Pa. She and her husband drove out to Kinsman, Ohio (some 50 miles) where Grandfather Jedediah then lived to see her brother before he died. It was probably in January 1861 as he died on March 2d, two days before Lincolns inauguration. My father lived a short half mile from him and I frequently went to his house on errands. Both of them well knew this meeting would be the last, Aunt Sophia stayed with us the last night. They kept their horses and carriage in our barn. I was much impressed with her and her conversation. Long years afterward, in 1907, my sister Mary, spending her summer vacation in large measure in places connected with Darrow family history and visiting relatives, having spent some little time in the Black River country in Boonville and going out to the farm (seven miles from Boonville where most of your father’s generation must have been born) stopped over at Union City on her way back to Chicago. Aunt Sophia had naturally long before passed away, also her husband and their son too was dead, but the widow still living was deeply interested in the visit of my sister, her son and daughter-in-law were also very glad to meet (I think the widow was living with another relative) They told my sister that there were a great many letter and papers that had been kept from Aunt Sophia’s lifetime. My sister had been interested in this genealogical work for a year or two before and the next year pursued it further, but not till 1909 did she determine to take up the letters left by Aunt Sophia and she wrote to Union City about them. This was the last year of my sister’s life. For a month or so before her death she anticipated their arrival, but they did not come until a few days after it (Nov. 14th, 1909). Here is where my "ancestor" work began. I became the administrator of my sister’s estate. A great many letters kept coming in from people asking after information as well as from those supplying it. So I had to take it up, thus I began the examination of the letters and other papers sent from Union City as well as a great deal of my sister’s correspondence. And I soon realized why people hated such work. Many old letters of a half a century before, more or less were difficult to decipher. The original handwriting would be bad—and especially ink grown very pale or faded out entirely –dates and addresses left off and finally the greater part of it did not give the things I was anxious to know. After spending time enough on them to see the nature of the difficulties, I rolled them up and sent them back with the statement that my sister had died before they came and that I thought from my short examination that I could not deal with them satisfactorily.
Now coming on to the contents of your grandmother’s bundle. Her husband Amirus died ninety nine years ago at Boonville, 1824. My father (then a boy of seven) his sister Sarah, some three years older, and their father Jedediah were there at his death and had evidently spent several months before it, there. Your grandmother was born in 1767 and was evidently 57 years old at his death. He was 63. All the papers and letters which she had at the time of his death would be next year a hundred years old and more. Everything she had written or received before she was thirty years old would be today 130 years old. Yet most of what she left was probably written before her husband died. What the effect of time would have been in rendering the writing illegible, we can readily guess. One kind of her writing would have been of later dated—everything relating to her application for a pension. That was made June 27th 1842—just 81 years ago today. And to show the illegibility or the carelessness of the correspondence then your Grandfather’s name was spelled by the pension officials in five different ways Amirus, Ammirus, Amerias and Amarius being among them. Then too you may know whether she wrote any when she was with you and so kept adding to her package of letters. And then she seems to have returned to New London before the very last years of her life for address of "Sarah Melona Darrow" is given there. Do you know that that is a mistake and that she lived with your family until her death? And were you living at that time in Iowa and if so where? Even Government makes mistakes you know. As to marriage the official report is that Amirus Darrow and Sarah Melona were married in New London Jan. 6th, 1786. Now I wish to ask whether you have the list of ancestors clear from the landing in New London down to and I give each a line (1) George Darrow—came from England 1675 - birth date unknown-died 1704, George married Mary Sharswood, widow, 1676-eldest son Christopher (2) Christopher, born Dec. 1st, 1678, date of death unknown.(3) Jedediah (your father’s grandfather): birth, Aug. 10, 1721: date death unknown (4) Amirus (your grandfather): born March 20,1761, died March 8th, 1824.(5) Henry A, your father), born Sept. 19th, 1791: died: date unknown (to me)(6) Mrs. Adelia Darrow Fish. So far I have been giving information as I had it, but I want to close with asking things of you and thus accepting your kind offer to help as far as you can on Darrow history. My brother Clarence gave your nephew an erroneous idea of the work I am doing here. When I took it from my deceased sister in 1909 it was unwillingly but I became interested in it and have aimed only at this much; vix; to answer what questions I could and try to get obscure places cleared up. I am getting too old now to go on much farther with it. What a pity it was that we did not know of each other a dozen years ago when both of us could have put more energy into it. I will put on the next page as clearly as I can just what I think it would be profitable for both of us to put on record—for you to keep written out for your heirs to have after you have passed away. For my record, it will be there for any one who applies for it as long as I am living and able to attend to it. I shall refer inquirers about you to you directly or give them what I have first. (1) What does the initial "A" stand for in your father’s name? What leads directly to the above question is that a grandson of my grandfather Jedediah Darrow (son of Lorenzo Dow Darrow) wrote me within the year and his name is Henry A. Darrow and addressed is 129 E. De La Guerra Street, Santa Barbara, California. I have little doubt that he was named directly from your father. And I believe this because it was very likely that his father Lorenzo met yours in Mecca in 1841 or 1842. This Henry A. Darrow (now 74 years old was born in 1849. Perhaps Lorenzo also visited your father in Wisconsin or Iowa. I have record that my Uncle Milton did and on his way back, married his wife Josephine in Cincinnati. (2) Now what do you know about either my uncle Lorenzo or Milton visiting your father and when and where. Also, do you know where Amirus got that name of Henry A. from, neither of Amirus“ three direct ancestors George or Christopher or Jedediah gave that name to one of his sons. So I think it came from your grandmother’s side. You ask me what I would like to have you do to help make out a history of the Darrows. Supposing I were writing a History of them from the arrival of the first ones in Connecticut, I can tell you instantly what would be the knowledge we need most. We need more of the early history, not the very earliest-the first two generations—church and town records have made them tolerably complete. But number (3) and (4), Jedediah and Amirus—your father’s grandfather and father is where we are in need of more knowledge. Amirus“ Revolutionary record has been fully cleared up—thanks to Mrs. Steenersen—there was a time when your grandmother could have cleared up the most of it. She was married at New London—Amirus went back from New York five years after he was discharged from military service to marry her. So it probable she was born in New London and they knew one another before he went into the army. She likely knew Ammirus“ father and his family and if she did go back to New London to die, that would be additional evidence. This is one place her knowledge would help greatly. The other place is in Black River Country—in and near Boonville where all of Amirus“ children were probably born. Here your personal knowledge may help a great deal, much depending on what your father told you about it as well as on what your grandmother told you and whether any record of it was made and how far you can recall it. Your grandmother once knew where and when every child was born-for she was the mother. Was it recorded and the record kept only in that bundle she kept so carefully? And how early did your father leave Boonville? He was fifty years old when he visited Mecca and forty-six when you were born. So it would seem that he did not leave Boonville early but may have remembered all the younger children until my grandfather, Jedediah came to Henrietta, married there, and so he lost from sight that branch of the family and their children. The question then comes what can you relate of these two periods and it may be a long and a hard one to answer. Of course I know that your interest is chiefly in your own descendants not in your ancestors, but, there is an interest in making your knowledge continuous—going both backward and forward. And one question I am anxious to find answer to—did you ever hear where Amirus“ father died? In a history of Boonville that I once read the statement was made that the first man buried there was either a Mr. Darrow or some one else whose name I have forgotten. If it was a Mr. Darrow, it would seem probable it was Jedediah. I do wish we knew. Now this is long enough for you for the present. If you wish completer records sent you to copy I shall be glad to send them. .I cannot tell how far you will find interest in it. If Mr. Cassidy has read the papers he has it would be an easy matter to find a sheet of birth and death records if such exists. You may know as much of the early history of the family as I do. If so all the better. Especially I shall be glad of any new knowledge you may send me. I have only a partial record of birth and death of your father’s brothers and sisters. Alphabetically arranged their names are (1) Alexander (2) Allen (3) Benjamin (4) Henry (5) Jedediah (6) John (7)Joseph (8)Silas (9)Prudence (10) Sophia. If you have any full or nearly full record of their brth date especially, I should be glad to have it. And as much of a record of your father as you can give as well as of yourself. But be careful about over exerting yourself. Some one should work from your dictation. With best regards I remain very true.
Your cousin, s/ Edward E. Darrow.
Please send e-mail to: toftehagen@yahoo.com
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Dec 2000 at 15:13:37.