A well-detailed story written by my mother of her Grandfather George's life follows--beginning with his parents move from  his birth place in Pennsylvania to Batavia, NY, where at the age of twenty-two  he took Clarassa LEACH as his bride.  After completion of his Civil War service the little family went -- by way of Aberdeen, Mississippi-- to live on their farm at Onondaga, Ingham Co., Michigan. 
Here is a brief chronology of his life:

1838	born in Edinboro, Pennsylvania
1860	married Clarassa LEACH October 4, 1860 in Batavia, NY
1862	first child, Charles Clark, is born March 2
1863	Civil War enlistment at Lockport, NY
1864	second child, George, is born September 2 in Hornell, NY
1865	discharged from Civil War enlistment on May 15 at Baltimore, MD
1869	third child, Horace Walter, born June 22 in Hornell, New York
1870	listed on the census living in Onondaga, MI June 22
1875	fourth child, John, born November 27 in Aberdeen, MS
1881	last child, Norton, born February 13 in Leslie, Ingham Co., MI
1926	died at Onondaga Twp. June 10. Age 88.  Burial at Rose Hill Cemetery, Eaton Rapids (next page)

Both of George's brothers went to Ft. Scott, Kansas, during the land boom there, and both later enlisted in the Civil War.  The elder brother, Robingue, was lost in the war.  The younger brother, Charles, joined the regular army at the close of hostilities and made it his career.  Whether George ever saw either of them after they left New York is not certain. His next-older sister, Mary Electa, also went to Kansas, where in 1859 she married a cattle broker by the name of Orlando Walker.  

George's older sister, Jeanette, settled down in Byron, a small town a few miles northeast of Batavia, NY where in 1853 she married Orange Bean.

Although the three older children were in their 'teens when George's father died in 1849, George was only eleven, and his years as a young boy making his way in the world by performing the work of a grown man were harsh indeed.

While he was still small, his first foster-home was with a cousin, Horatio Nelson Terry (son of his uncle Horace Abbe Terry), of Springfield, who had married Cornelia Day.  They had four little girls, whom George later used to refer to with a wry face as "Emmie, Ellie, Annie and Adie."   His lot had been to baby-sit for these little girls, a task for which he had little taste, considering that Ada was still in diapers.

The author wonders whether Horatio Nelson Terry may not have taken his family, via the Erie Canal, to Batavia a little before his unexpected death in 1852, for the author vaguely remembers how George would laugh and admit to shyly pinching baby Ada just enough to make her cry, causing her mother to take her from him, because he wanted to be able to watch the scenery a bit while "on the boat."

After his cousin's death in 1852, George struck out for himself, hiring out to do a man's work on the nearby farms in the vicinity of Batavia, at the age of only fourteen.  Needless to say, the work was of the hardest kind and his employers seldom considerate, and only his spirit of dogged perseverance kept the lonely, homeless lad from giving up or turning against the world.  On the contrary, he kept on, saving every cent toward buying a team of his own, something which gave considerable status in these times, as well as providing a source of independent income through hiring out by the day.

He considered it the luckiest moment of his life when he met  Clarrisa Leach, daughter of Horace and Julia Colby Leach.  She was a beautiful young girl who apparently appreciated the sterling worth of his character, and on October 4, 1860, when he was twenty-two and she was seventeen, they were wed in Batavia. (see photos in Family Ties album)

Just when things seemed to be turning for the better in George's life, in April of 1861 the Civil War broke out.  Before leaving for service, he arranged for his wife to stay with relatives (perhaps her parents) in Hornell, a town about sixty miles south east of Batavia.  Their first child, Charles Clark Terry, was born there March 2, 1862, followed by the birth of a second son, George Henry, on September 2, 1864.  

Details of George W. Terry's Civil War Service

Assigned to the defense of Baltimore, Maryland, he was delegated garrison duty for the next four months at Ft. Marshall in Baltimore. On May 12, 1864, he was sent to the Post Hospital.  He returned to duty on November 14, 1864, and there is a brief notation, "February 28, 1865, wounded,"  

 He was discharged at Baltimore on May 15, 1865 and later received a pension (refer to Pension No. l519632) based on his war service.

Footnotes: George W. Terry in the Civil War-

On April 6, 1923, when he was 85 years of age, George W. Terry made a Declaration for Pension which gave his "personal description at enlistment as follows:  Height,  5 feet 11 inches

Complexion,  dark

Color of eyes,  hazel

Color of hair,   brown

Sometime after Walter's birth, George was induced to move to Mississippi.   Apparently one of his reasons for moving to a warmer climate was Clarrisa's health, which was inherently frail, seeing that she had been the sole survivor of a family of seven daughters; all  the others had died young.

With respect to the state of Mississippi, it may be of interest of members of the family to know that there is a small town in that state named "Terry", located only a few miles south of Jackson, in Hinds County.   This was settled by distant relatives, with whom George may or may not have been acquainted. 

George selected Aberdeen as his destination, a small town in Monroe County, about 125 miles southeast of Memphis, and went into business there with another man, operating a meat market.

John Terry, their fourth son, was born in Aberdeen on November 27, 1875.  Soon afterward, Clarrisa was stricken with typhoid pneumonia and it was decided to return north at all costs for the sake of her health.  Her condition on the return trip was still serious, so George had induced her to relax in her Pullman while he amused the children elsewhere.  Thinking to quiet the fretful baby John, he left the train to walk with him along the siding, where it was standing.   Suddenly, without warning, it started up again, leaving George to run at top speed along the track with the baby bobbing in his arms, before he caught onto the observation car and returned to his family.

Instead of returning to New York, they settled on a farm near Leslie, in Michigan, where the boys were raised, and the last son, Norton, was born February 13, 1881.

By dint of unremitting hard work on is part, assisted by his five sons during the time they were not in school, and through the careful management of his helpmeet, George Terry was able to amass sufficient of the world's goods to establish a pleasant home with some of the luxuries dear to her heart.

 Although his sons were "farm boys', they were well versed in general etiquette and correctness of dress, having been reared among the niceties of a refined home.  Two of the boys followed the Terry tradition of marrying sisters, making "double-cousins" of their children, and they all followed the Terry custom, which to that time, for six generations had never been broken (and this continued through the seventh) of marrying women whose ancestry could be traced directly back to England.  The author thinks is a record of which few families in America can boast.

 George Terry was a genial, gentle-hearted man, of only average height, and deceptively slender in physique.  But the long years of heavy manual labor had put "teeth",  in the form of uncommonly powerful muscles, into the self respecting pride which governed his relations with other men.

 Many times the author has laughed at her father's account of the surprise handed a certain neighbor upon George's first coming to Michigan.   This man was an overbearing bully, who had been made over-confident by grandfather's refusal to heed his insults because of the fact that he had been drinking.   His unwelcome visit occurred on a dark night, and when the man refused to leave as grandfather helped him through the gate, this big and angry  man made the mistake of threatening grandfather while pushing back through the gate. Unemotionally, grandfather turned to father to say, "Hold the lantern, Walt".  He then proceeded to deliver just one blow so powerful it lifted his adversary bodily over the gate into the darkness on the other side.   The only sound was a dull "plop" as his boots landed after him.  Lifting the lantern to make sure he would recover, grandfather went into the house, and needless to say, that neighbor never bothered them again.

 Fortunately, such neighbors were few, and they enjoyed many good years in their farm home, until finally the last of their sons married, in 1912, after which they moved to the village of Onondaga to spend their declining years together.  Clarrisa died there March 29, 1918.    Following her death, George made his home with his youngest son, Norton, and is wife at their farm home just south of Onondaga until is passing eight years later, on June 10, 1926.  Their obituaries, copied from the Eaton Rapids Journal, reflected the feelings of the community.    (see Obituaries)

Terry family plot at Rose Hill Cemetery in Eaton Rapids next