Phelps Family History -- Noble Phelps Goes West
The Journey from Massachusetts to the Illinois Frontier
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| Ronald Aaron Noble Phelps came to Illinois in 1836. He married Sarah Jerusha Adams of Painesville, Ohio on 29 Mar 1847 in Painesville. This picture of Noble is circa 1870-80. His trip in a group that included his mother and two sisters via a riverboat came to be known locally as the ill-fated boat party. |
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| King’s Bend Park on the Erie Canal in 1837, just outside of Pittsford Village in western New York state. This is the scene Noble Phelps saw as he emigrated west to Illinios. Painting Pittsford on the Erie Canal, 1837, By George Harvey. Larger image |
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| Award-winning farm of Aaron Noble Phelps, Section 8, Sparta Township, Knox County, Illinois, 1870. Larger image |
In the early 1800s, a religious fever swept much of the upper Ohio Valley and into New York State. This was part of a nationwide series of religious revivals called the Second Great Awakening, which lasted from the 1790s to the 1830s. This awakening established revivalism as a fixture of American religion and became intertwined with the westward expansion of the new nation.
Related story: Settlement of Galesburg, Illinois, Including Noble Phelps and Family
Among those affected by this spate of religious fervor and social activism was the family of Clarissa Root Phelps of Massachusetts. She traveled with her 16 year old son Ronald Aaron Noble Phelps, her two daughters Seraphina and Sybelana (her husband having died in 1830). They also brought along two nieces and one nephew, the children of Clarissa's brother, Riley Root, who had preceded them to Galesburg earlier in 1836, his wife Lavinia Butler having died in 1834.
Land in the West is Purchased
The Erie Canal, opened in 1825, had become a pathway for many to migrate west. "In 1834 Rev. George W. Gale of Oneida county, New York, matured a plan for planting a colony in the West which should be a center of moral and intellectual influence. Later he issued a circular setting forth his plan and soliciting subscribers.(1)" A subscribers' committee led by George Washington Gale purchased 17 acres in Knox County in 1835.
"The subscribers sold their farms in New York, packed their household goods, hitched their work horses to the farm wagons, and got ready for the toilsome journey to Illinois. Some made a round of farewell visits to relatives they never expected to see again, going miles out of their way to spend a night with parents who shook their heads at so wild an adventure, as age ever does at youth.(3)"
The first settlers, including Riley Root, arrived in 1836. His sister and brother-in-law, Clarissa and Noble Phelps, were among the second group of settlers.
The "Ill-fated" Canal Boat Trip West
According to the History of Knox College(3), "The historic canal boat trip of the spring and summer of 1836 was made up of a series of vicissitudes and disasters seldom paralleled in the history of pioneer emigration. John C. Smith, of Oneida County, New York, one of the subscribers to Mr. Gale's enterprise, was the owner of a number of boats on the Erie canal. It occurred to him that such a boat could be utilized in making the trip by water to their far distant future home in Illinois.
"Accordingly he consulted with others of the subscribers, with the result that a company was formed to buy a canal boat on shares, fit it up for passenger service and embark in it for a trip of a thousand miles or more over an untried water-way, untried, at least, in so far as that kind of a venture was concerned. A strong team was bought which could be used on the tow-path, and all preparations being completed they loaded their goods, stowed them away in the men's cabin and embarked".
Members in the Company
"The company numbered thirty-seven, and was made up of men, women and children, ranging in age from a babe of three weeks to men and women of forty or fifty years. Mr. Smith was the captain of the boat and backer of the party; his wife at first did the cooking and the housekeeping, but these duties proving to be too heavy in so large a family, the cooking was afterward shared with two others, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Mills."
"The persons making up the party were Captain Smith and wife; Miss Catherine Ann Watson, a niece of Mrs. Smith, and two little sons of Dr. Grant, a Nestorian missionary, who came under their care; Mr. and Mrs. Mills, two sons and a daughter; Miss Hannah Adams, a sister of Mrs. Mills; a girl named Mariah Fox, and a negro boy named Harry, who was under the charge of Mr. Mills; Mr. Lyman, his wife, two sons and two daughters; Mr. Orrin Kendall, his wife and two little sons; John Kendall; N. H. Losey, his wife and one child; Henry Hitchcock, a brother of Mrs. Losey ; Mrs. Clarissa Phelps, two daughters and one son, two nieces and one nephew (the children of Riley Root); John Bryan and a negro who steered the boat. This negro expected to stay with the colony, but when he heard that the law of the state required some one to be responsible for his behavior he went back to New York."
