There's so much more that we would like to know about this maternal great great great grandmother, like what her maiden name actually was since
her father Thomas's surname* seems to be spelled differently every time it appears.
We're not sure if Sarah was born before her father died but by the time she was about a year old, her mother Prudence (Talbot) Lynchard was listed as the head of a household with six children under the age of 16 in the 1820 U.S. Census for Owen County, Kentucky.
[Ancestry.com. 1820 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Fourth Census of the United States, 1820. (NARA microfilm publication M33, 142 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]
Prudence married a man named William Bowman, a butcher by trade, a year or two after the 1820 census and the family moved to several more locations in Kentucky before settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, perhaps as early as 1825 and certainly by 1829.
When Sarah was about 15 she lost her mother and she may be one of the three "Free White Persons - Females - 20 thru 29" in her older brother Henry Clay Lynchard's household in the 1840 U.S. Census for Cincinnati Ward 1, Hamilton County, Ohio.
[Ancestry.com. 1840 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.Original data: Sixth Census of the United States, 1840. (NARA microfilm publication M704, 580 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]
In Cincinnati on June 20, 1841, Sarah A. Lynchard married Thomas J. Taylor, a 33-year old widower with three daughters under the age of 10. From city directories we know that Thomas was working as a drayman** during that period.
["Cincinnati-in-1841" by Klauprech & Menzel -- Printer Of plates - http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?54780.Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cincinnati-in-1841.jpg#/media/File:Cincinnati-in-1841.jpg]
The couple's oldest four children were born in Ohio*** including my great great grandmother
Elizabeth in 1845. By the 1850 U.S. Census however, the family had moved to the North Side of Old Town in McLean County, Illinois, and Thomas had become a farmer, owning land worth $1,600.
[Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.]
However the 1860 U.S. Census shows the Taylors living in Crawford Township in Washington County, Iowa, with the James McKee family, whose relationship to the Taylors (if any) we don't know about. It doesn't appear that the Taylors owned any land at this point--perhaps because of the financial
Panic of 1857?
[Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]
In the 1870 U.S. Census records for
Wapello County, Iowa, we find Thomas, Sarah and three of their children in Richland Township. Thomas is listed as a farmer owning land worth $3,200 and personal estate valued at $800. A teenager named Sarah A. King, employed as a domestic servant, is living with them.
[Map of Wapello County, State of Iowa. Chas. Shober & Co., props., Chicago Lith. Co. (Published by the Andreas Atlas Co., Lakeside Building, Chicago, Ills. Engraved & printed by Chas. Shober & Co., Props. of Chicago Lithographing Co.)
Source: David Rumsey Map Collection]
[Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.Minnesota census schedules for 1870. NARA microfilm publication T132, 13 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]
Although the Taylors seem to be doing well financially, tragedy had struck the family over the years with the deaths of six of their ten children: Emma (1852-1855), two infants, Charles W. (1858) and Lydia (1861), Eleanor H. 1851-1861), Elizabeth (1845-c1863), and John W. (1843-1865)****.
Sarah died on August 28, 1879, of what the U.S. Federal Mortality Schedule for 1880 calls "Abscess of the Liver" and is buried in Westview Cemetery in Kirkville in Wapello County where she had lived for 13 years.
[Ancestry.com. U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1885 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. A portion of this collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. Original data: United States. Nonpopulation Census Schedules for Iowa, 1850-1880. T1156, rolls 54-62.National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.]
Thomas survived Sarah by 11 years and is buried in Westview Cemetery also.
Thomas and Sarah are the grandparents of my great grandmother
Rufina Ellen Tomlinson Slater.
*Examples include: Lynchard, Linch, Lenchard, Lincher, among others.
**Someone who drives a
dray used for deliveries, often of beer. Since
German immigrants to Cincinnati begun to expand the number of breweries there by 1840 perhaps that's what his work entailed.
***Probably Cincinnati.
****John W. enlisted in Company E, Iowa 13th Infantry Regiment on October 24, 1864, and died of "Chronic Dysentery" in Bridgeport, Alabama, the following January.
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