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THE LOLLARS and THE LAND Chapter 4 David Lollar II - 1827-1858 Following the usual custom, when Moses Lollar’s first son was born, he named him after his own father, making the second David in our story of six generations of Lollars and two pieces of farmland in Warren County in southwest Ohio. David Lollar II was born February 16, 1827, just 27 years after his grandfather, David Lollar I, had purchased the one hundred acres in Turtle Creek Township we are calling “David’s Land.” After the first David died in 1807 the family continued to live at the homestead and the 1850 Census shows Moses as a farmer and his son, David, 23, as a carpenter. On April 03, 1853, David Lollar II married Eliza French, daughter of Samuel French, who owned several pieces of land not far south over the township line in Union Township. It’s through Eliza French’s entry into the Lollar family that we come to the second farm of “The Lollars and The Land,” the one we are calling “The Ridge.” The Ridge was the name of the whole community of prosperous farms that spread for more than three miles along the Lebanon-South Lebanon Road, but, for our purposes, we are applying the term to a specific 500 acres. On December 1, 1838, Samuel French purchased land in the SW l/4 of Sec. 3, Twp. 4, East Range 3, from David Reynolds, including “all buildings and improvements.” Eliza was the daughter of Samuel from his first marriage to Nancy Brandenburg. Samuel French died in 1862 and on August 1 that year his son (Samuel French, Jr.) signed over 106 acres to Eliza Lollar, the nucleus of the Lollar farm on The Ridge. By 1860 she was apparently living on that place because the Union Township census that years shows Samuel French, Jr., as head of Family #128 and Eliza Lollar as head of Family #129. But to go back and pick up the story after her marriage to David: Eliza and David Lollar II had a son, Robert Bruce, born August 22, 1854. One may wonder for whom they named their child. Thorough search shows no one by the name of “Robert” or “Bruce” in either the French or Lollar lines. But a clue did appear in Warren County Ohio & Beyond by Dallas R. Bogan (1997) in a article headed “Union Township’s Wilson Family known across U.S.” This was highly surprising, in the smallest township in Warren County, with no town of any size. However, a search of the 1856 atlas did show property owned by R. Wilson immediately across from Samuel French’s property and this provided a logical clue. The article goes on to describe a family of three generations of lawyers, including judges and other public servants, starting with Judge Robert Wilson who had come to Ohio in 1814 from Virginia. Third in the line of three lawyers was ROBERT BRUCE WILSON, who among other things, was a Captain in the Civil War. It would certainly seem possible that the baby’s name was the result of a strong bond of friendship and respect which had grown up between the close neighbors. (More evidences of this will appear as our story. moves ahead). In September 5 and 12, 1856 issues of The Western Star, a generous-sized advertisement appeared “GOING WEST! PUBLIC SALE. liberal credit will be given, by DAVID LOLLAR at his residence on the farm owned by J. P. Gilchrist, near the Cincinnati Pike, 5 miles from Lebanon and 3 miles from Mason.” The ad also gave a full list of farm and household items including 1 work horse, 1 yearling colt, 11 head of cattle, 4 head milch cows, 80 head fine wool sheep, etc., etc.” Here, for a second time, the Wilson-Lollar connection is evidenced because the wife of J. P. Gilchrist, prominent dry goods store owner in Lebanon, was Mary Wilson, daughter of one of Robert Wilson’s family. What could have impelled David and Eliza, married four years, apparently well settled in their own farm, and with a two-year-old son, to pull up their roots and “Go West?” I hoped answers to that question might be found in property records of Washington County, Iowa, after, in 1997, I happened across one line, almost as an after thought, appended to an inventory in an estate settlement filed in Warren County, Ohio, in 1891, which read: “The undivided half of eighty acres of land in Washington County, Iowa - $4,000.00” And so, that summer of 1997, I Went West myself - I drove the back roads of Indiana and Illinois, crossed the Mississippi River on a bouncy, two-lane bridge, and found my way late one afternoon to a small motel at the edge of Washington, Iowa. Early the next morning I went downtown to the Court House and was soon in a far back room, standing at a high counter, huge, dusty books piled all around me, pouring over property records, when suddenly I was startled by a voice at my ear, saying my name. It was the motel owner! When I asked him how on earth he found me, he said that he needed to move me into a different room at the motel and so he had driven around town until he found a car with a Florida license plate parked on the public square, surmised I was in the Court House, and had a friend in one of the offices phone around until they found a strange lady in their midst. Another one of the memorable little incidents that add spice to a genealogist’s life! Recorded deeds in the Washington County, Iowa, Court House show that on November 13, 1856, David and Eliza Lollar purchased 80 “wild” acres from one Samuel Rogers for $1,600; and that, on December 24 ( approximately 3 months after the date of their “Going West” sale in Ohio), they sold the same piece of property back to him for the same amount. And that, on October 23, 1857, they bought a different 80 acres, closer to town, from one Norman Everson , besides having, on August 21, 1857, purchased an undeveloped lot in town from George Thompson for $200. While I was in Iowa I drove the gravel roads called Nutmeg and 210th Streets about five miles north of Washington, which had been identified for me in the Court House as David’s 80 acres. I also looked at the one farther north which he had bought and sold back but I could see no evident reason for the exchange. The land seemed to be typical fallow farmland, perfectly flat, no trees, wire fencing all around, pleasant in an evening light. What I was seeing, of course, was land that had been farmed for many years. The “wild” land that David bought, covered with tall, native prairie grasses, probably unfenced, must have looked quite different, more the answer to a dream of “Going West.” So - Why did young David II and Eliza leave southwest Ohio and go more than 500 miles to southeast Iowa? We must assume they took little Robert Bruce with them but we have no proof that they did. We do know that both David and Eliza were there because their signatures were notarized in Washington on a document sent to them from Lebanon regarding the family homestead on Bee Run. Back in Ohio, by earlier legal transfers, ownership of David’s Land had been put into the name of Moses Lollar, David’s father. David’s mother, Elizabeth Ross, died in 1850, Moses died in 1852, leaving the property in the joint ownership of David and his six siblings. Three of the children were no longer living at the homestead: David (the eldest) had married Eliza French and gone off to Iowa; Rebecca had married Isaac Swanger, and Mary Ann had married Peter Drake, and both were establishing their own homes and families. That left the four younger ones at the homestead: Sarah 19, Phoebe 17, Ross 14 and Ann Lucinda 10. It would seem that the possibility of selling the property might have come up, and despite their young ages, the four younger siblings were determined to stay on at the homestead. The document sent to Iowa for David’s signature was a lease in which the three older ones gave the four younger ones the right to live there from April 22, 1857, to April 22, 1861. And determined those four young people must have been, because at the time they signed the lease, Sarah was 24, Phoebe was 22, Ross (the only male) was 19 and Ann Lucinda was 15. No financial arrangement was made except that those staying at the farm were to pay all the taxes. Signature for Ross and Ann Lucinda was made by William Gallaher, guardian. It is interesting to note that Ross and Ann Lucinda thereafter spelled the family name “Lawler” rather than “Lollar.” Although Moses died in 1852, his estate was not settled until much later. On May 14, 1857, The older three older siblings signed over to the four younger ones a full line of household goods, foodstuffs, etc. On May 16, 1857, an Administrator’s sale was held at which many of the farm items, from “a spotted cow to a sorrel mare, to a scoop shovel, to a field of wheat west of the house” were bid in by Sarah Lollar. Finally on February 5, 1859, James D. McCain, the Administrator, distributed equal shares to each of the seven heirs in the total value of Moses’ estate of $627.67, but, as we shall see, in David’s case, to his heirs. At the time David and Eliza went to Iowa the whole United States was in a ferment over the Mormons. Thousands of people were rushing to join the Latter Day Saints in their westward movement and other thousands were violently opposing them. Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been murdered in Illinois in 1844 but Brigham Young had managed to get thousands to Salt Lake on continuing wagon trains after the Pioneer Company reached there in 1847. In 1856 the Rock Island Railroad had reached as far as Iowa City, less than forty miles north of Washington. From 1856-1858 Iowa City was used as the staging ground for companies of poor converts from England and Scotland and Wales waiting to start their handcart treks across the Plains. The United States sent an armed expedition against the Mormons in 1857, said by some created to deflect public attention from slavery or to discourage secessionism in the southern states by a show of firmness in suppressing the secession of the Mormons in Utah. In any event, the Utah War ended with no lives lost and hasn’t played a big part in history, but it does point to the stirrings in the country which would later result in the Civil War. Perhaps David and Eliza, young and idealistic, got caught up in this either pro or con. Or perhaps David, a carpenter, simply went to Iowa for a job - to work on building the handcarts and wagons for the Mormon migrations. Or, as family lore has put it, that ”someone in the family” went to help in the anti-slavery issue. Or perhaps David and Eliza were simply impelled by the same pioneering spirit that led his grandfather and grandmother, the first David and Phoebe Dunham Lollar, to leave New Jersey and move to southwest Ohio in 1797. Whatever their dreams and goals, they came to an unexpected end because the next information we have about David Lollar II is in the death notices of the Lebanon, Ohio, Western Star of January 15, 1858. One simple line stated “On the 2d Inst., near Lebanon, Mr. David Lollar,” no obituary or further information. On the same page there also appeared “Administrator’s Notice . . . is hereby given that the undersigned has been appointed and qualified as Administrator of the estate of David Lollar, dec., late of Warren County. . . signed William Gallaher.” This William Gallaher is undoubtedly the same one who was guardian of Ross and Ann Lucinda in the lease between the older Lollar siblings and the younger ones on April 22, 1857. Undoubtedly, a neighbor, too, because the 1856 Map of Warren County, from a survey by P. O. Beirne , shows land, facing on South Lebanon Road, but adjacent to David’s Land at the rear of the farms, across the deep ravine caused by Bee Run. David Lollar II did not leave a will when he died at Lebanon on January 2, 1858, but the settlement of his estate moved along at an unusually fast pace. Even today, in 2002, papers from his estate settlement are on file in the Warren County Archives in Lebanon. Study of these estate papers reveals many details of the fifteen and one half months that passed between the insertion of his exuberant ad “Going West” on September 12, 1856, and his death on January 2, 1858. Perhaps a chronology taken from the estate papers and the records of real estate transfers in Iowa will give an idea of that very active time in his life. November 13, 1856 - David bought - 100 acres plus or minus, Sl/2, SEl/4, Sec. 8, T76 R7 Washington County, Iowa, for $1,600 from Samuel Rogers December 24, 1856 - David and Eliza sold the same property for the same amount to Samuel Rogers May 7, 1857 to November 17, 1857 - David ran an open account with Bush Stinson, Richmond, Iowa, for miscellaneous merchandise, from food, to tools, to baby shoes May 4, 1857 David gave a promissory note to John Harper for $35, 10% interest, for twelve months, Washington, Iowa August 21, 1857 - David bought Lot 12 in Block 2 in the town of North East Washington from George W. and Mary A. Thompson for $200 October 23, 1857 - David bought a second 80 acres from Norman Everson, North half ofthe Southwest quarter of Section 29 inTownship 76, north of Range 7 West, Washington County, Ohio November 7, 1857 - David turned over a list of notes into the hands of Absolum Bush of Richmond, Washington County for collection. These notes on 21 different individuals totaled $809.65. November 17, 1857 - Last charge on Bush Stinson account, Washington, Iowa - a traveling bag for $1.25. November 17, 1857 - David gave note to William L. Wilson for $31.00 at 10% interest. It is interesting to note that W. L. Wilson was also one of the persons owing David whose note had been turned over to Bush Stinson & Co for collection. November 24/December 5, visits and prescriptions for child - Dr. Joshua Stevens, Lebanon, Ohio - $4.15 December 12, 1857, David gave a note for $34.00 to John Harper. John Harper was married to Anner A. French, sister of Eliza. Undated - Receipt from Dr. R. H. Van Harlingen, Lebanon, for $l.50, for medical attendance during last illness of David Lollar. Dec. - There is another receipt from Dr. Jno. Van Harlingen for $11.00 for medicines and services during last illness. (Dr. Jno. Van Harlingen was the father of Dr. R. H. VanHarlingen; they practiced separately). It would seem that David and Eliza had to leave Washington, Iowa, abruptly in November, 1857. They wound up their affairs, leaving money due them, for work done, or perhaps for possessions sold at the last minute, and still owning a “wild” 80 acres and a town lot. Perhaps, since all of the documents were signed by David in a firm hand, it might have been that little Robert Bruce was ill. Whatever the circumstances were, the little boy survived to become my grandfather, and David died on January 2, 1858. After that all financial matters were in the hands of William Gallagher, Adminstrator of his estate. William Gallagher collected moneys due and paid items, such as, $23.00 paid to D. C. Tichenor, on January 4th, for velvet covered coffin and care; and $2.50 to Samuel Gustin for digging a grave; and $17.00 to R. W. Manley for a “toomStone.” David was buried in the town Cemetery at Lebanon, Ohio. We can only conjecture as to why David died at age 31. Dr. George VanHarlingen (now retired), another in the generations of his family who practiced in Lebanon, offered the opinion that it was not the prevalent consumption because, if it had been, probably neither the small son or father would have survived. Now, before we go on to the story of Robert Bruce and Eliza French Lollar on The Ridge, let us go back to complete the story of David’s three sisters and one brother who had remained at David’s Land. Census records of 1860 show: Ross Lawler 22 Farmer; Lucy 18 school teacher; Phoebe 24; and Sarah 27, Tailoress. As we have seen, at two previous times, legal transactions have been resorted to in order to clear the title of David’s Land, finally putting it in Moses’s name. But now Moses was gone and his estate (except for the land) was settled in 1859. The lease negotiated between Moses’s older and younger children was to expire on April 22, 1861. And so, on September 2, 1860, a petition was filed demanding partition of the real estate. To accomplish this, A. E. Stokes, Sheriff of Warren County, held a public auction “to sell real estate to Isaiah Ross Lollar, Sarah Lollar, Phebe Lollar and Ann Lucinda Lollar for the sum of Four Thousand and Five Hundred Dollars, which sale was . . on the 30th day January, A. D. 1860, reported to and approved and confirmed by the Court, and a deed fee simple deed issued, subject to a certain mortgage, however, executed on the 24th day of July 1858, by Isaac Swanger and Rebecca Swanger his wife, to John E. Dey.” (Rebecca, being Moses’ oldest daughter) All of which seems to mean that the four younger siblings at long last had title to David’s Land, with the exception of the mortgage held by John E. Dey. It is not clear how that mortgage got satisfied, but it is interesting to learn something about John E. Dey. An article by Josiah Morrow in the November 25, 1920, Western Star tells about Mr. Dey, as an enterprising business man who traveled in the south promoting plows which he and a partner made in Lebanon and shipped down the Ohio and the Mississippi. A statement about him in his retirement is of most interest to us: “he planted the first Catalpa trees in Lebanon.” Could there possibly be a connection here between Mr. Dey and the long rows of catalpa trees still standing on what was David’s Land? In any event, the trees still lend distinction to a growing development of large single family residences which they call “Catalpa Ridge,” but I prefer to think of as “David’s Land.” On February 25, 1861, Ross and his sisters Sara, Phebe and Ann Lucinda sold 33.85 acres to Samuel W. Gustin for $1,166.66. (Perhaps the same Samuel Gustin who dug the second David’s grave?) On March 9, 1869, they sold the remaining 70 acres to Samuel Irons for $5,950. Clara Swanger, daughter of Isaac and Rebecca Swanger, witnessed the deed. In subsequent years, the Irons family has large holdings in that part of Turtle Creek Township. The 1860 census shows Isaac and Rebecca Swanger living in Union Township, just a few farms away from Eliza and Bruce Lollar, the widow and child of David Lollar II. On June 22, 1865, Ann Lucinda married William Shakespeare Dynes. Ann Lucinda and William Shakespeare Dynes later lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Cleveland, Ohio, where they are both married. (An interesting sidelight: In the summer of 2002, my niece, Kathy Lollar was acting as a tour escort on a cruise in Alaskan waters when she met residents of Lebanon, Ohio, Mike and Sue Dynes Cramer. Afer we all got to know each other we found that we are all descended from Moses Lollar, although at first there was a confusion because Sue had known Ann Lucinda as “Lawler.” and our branch had continued to use the spelling “Lollar”). On April 4, 1866, Ross Married Adrianna Dill, and eventually lived on Hart Road, northwest of Lebanon, and he and his children continued to use the spelling of ”Lawler” and it so appears on their tombstones in Lebanon Cemetery. End of Chapter 4
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