Monday Is for Mothers: Hope Rossell (About 1745 - Before 1804)

Often, as in the case of this maternal fifth great grandmother, the only record we can find that actually names the woman relates to her marriage. Otherwise we must rely on her husband's records for her whereabouts.

[New Jersey State Archives, Colonial Marriages, 1665-1799]

What we have here is the marriage bond posted by the bridegroom Caleb Gaskill* and Joseph Gaskill (most likely his uncle) which served as a marriage license and didn't require banns being read out in church for three weeks before the wedding could take place. Because getting the license cost a fee, it wasn't something that poor people could afford to do.

 [The early marriage laws of New Jersey, by W. Nelson.--Index to marriage bonds and records in the office of the secretary of state at Trenton. Paterson, N.J., The Press Printing & Publishing Co. Year: 1900.

Source: Internet Archive. Original: Library of Congress]

Hope and Caleb were married on July 15, 1765, and continued living in Burlington County, New Jersey, where their third child and oldest son, also named Caleb**, was born about 1775.

By the time their eighth child Mary was born in 1781, the family had moved to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where they are found in the 1790 U.S. Census in Washington Township.

[Ancestry.com. 1790 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: First Census of the United States, 1790 (NARA microfilm publication M637, 12 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

We can get an idea of their 200-acre farm in Washington Township from tax records in 1798 which valued it at $1,200.

[Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S. Direct Tax Lists, 1798 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. Original data: United States Direct Tax of 1798: Tax Lists for the State of Pennsylvania. M372, microfilm, 24 rolls. Records of the Internal Revenue Service, 1791-2006, Record Group 58. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.]

In the 1800 U.S. Census they were still living in Washington Township and we believe that Hope is represented by the 1 entered in the 10th column which enumerated "Free White Persons - Females - 45 and over".

[Ancestry.com. 1800 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Second Census of the United States, 1800. NARA microfilm publication M32 (52 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. Second Census of the United States, 1800: Population Schedules, Washington County, Territory Northwest of the River Ohio; and Population Census, 1803: Washington County, Ohio. NARA microfilm publication M1804 (1 roll).]

We don't know when Hope died, probably in Pennsylvania, but it was sometime before 1804 when Caleb married a woman whose given name was Elizabeth. Sometime later he moved to Ohio where his son Caleb and several of his married daughters were living. He died in 1817 in Deer Creek, Pickaway County.

*This Caleb Gaskill was the great grandson of Provided Southwick and her husband Samuel Gaskill, and the great great grandson of Dirick Areson.
**My direct ancestor, whose daughter Catherine married Jesse Tomlinson.
© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.