Index	Section Two

Hammond Ancestors

Section One

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Jonathan Hale of Glastonbury, Conn., who went to Bath, Ohio as a pioneer of the Western Reserve of the State of Connecticut, along with his brother-in-law, Jason Hammond and wife. Jason Hammond was an older brother of Calvin Hammond who moved to the Western Reserve some years later. In Glastonbury, Conn., the Hales, Welles and Talcotts had lived for three generations and Jonathan Hale and his wife Mercy Piper were kin to all of them. (From a daguerreotype photo probably after 1845 in The Jonathan Hale Farm by John J. Horton, 1961.)

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Ward Kingsbury Hammond married Sophronia, a daughter of Jonathan Hale and Mercy J. Piper in the new brick house on the Hale farm at Bath Township, Ohio, 31 May, 1827. Both of them were born in New England; Ward at Fairlee, Vt., and Sophronia at Glastonbury, Conn. Ward K. was a nephew of Jason Hammond who had married Rachel Hale, older sister of Jonathan, in 1788 and migrated to Ohio with the younger Jonathan in 1810. Calvin Hammond, Ward's father and brother to Jason, and family arrived at nearby Hammonds Corners in Summitt Co. in 1815. Ward and four siblings grew up in Ohio and the families had ties both of kinship and proximity with the Hales. The Hammond-Hale relationship was thus sealed a second time in marriage in Ohio long before their migration to Illinois in 1844. The photo album of 1871 did not include a photo of Ward K. or of Sophronia Hale but it was of their family of eight surviving children and their families at that date.

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Merwin Kingsbury Hammond, grandson of Calvin Hammond, was born in Hammonds Center, Medina Co., Ohio, a son of Ward K. Hammond and Sophronia Hale, the oldest child of Jonathan Hale and Mercy Piper of Bath, Ohio, who were married in the home of Jonathan Hale in May, 1827. He shared in the California Gold Rush in 1850, going overland and returning by ship on the Nicaraguan Route. He married and settled in business and later banking in Stockton, Jo Daviess Co., Ill. Merwin remarried after the death of his wife in 1904, and built a fine new home which is serving as a bed and breakfast in 2002.

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Samantha A. Fowler Hammond, first wife of Merwin Kingsbury Hammond and mother to all ten of his children. Their home was in Stockton, Ill., and he was a merchant and later a banker. She was born January 14, 1836 at Hanover, Ill., daughter of Daniel and Anna Fowler. Samantha and Merwin were married on July 7, 1858 and several weeks later moved to Stockton. Samantha died March 4, 1904 in Stockton and is buried in Ladies Union Cemetery there.

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Mercy Jane Hammond Steffens (b. 1837, d. 1908) was the youngest of three daughters of Ward K. and Sophronia Hale. After a public school and advanced education she worked with her family on the farm until she was twenty three. She then married Richard Steffens on Oct. 25, 1860. Mr. Steffens and his brother had recently moved to Spring Valley, Fillmore County, Minn. Her early years there were pioneer living in poor conditions compared to her home in Jo Daviess Co., Ill. She was less than a hundred miles northwest of Hanover but public transportation was difficult at that time. Nine children were born to them but five of them died young. As the transcontinental railroads opened up from Chicago to the Washington-Oregon area several members of this family moved to Minneapolis and then some on to Seattle, Washington.

Among those in Seattle were Alice Mercy Steffens with whom I corresponded in 1974 about the Steffens/Hammond genealogy. Her father was Charles Hammond Steffens who lived until Dec. 24, 1961. -E. A. W.

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Julius A. (b. 1833, d. 1902, twin to Julia Sarah Hammond) and Merwin K. Hammond were the older sons of Ward K. and Sophronia Hale Hammond. By the time the family settled in Jo Daviess Co., Ill. in 1846 they were the mainstay of this farming family. Ward K. tried lead mining some months and later went to try lumbering in the Northwoods near Minneapolis for a summer while the rest of the family tended the farm. Provided with a better than average education, attending Knox College at Galesburg where his Uncle Royal Hammond lived, he studied in both the academic and scientific departments. Then he studied toward the ministry of the Methodist Church at Rock River Seminary at Mount Morris, Ill., and one year at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in the theological department.

In 1861, Mr. Hammond was received on trial in the Rock River Conference and was stationed at Hanover, Ill. After nine months preaching his health failed and he was obliged to resume farming at which he and his family had done well. In 1864 he purchased 120 acres for his own farm and added to it until he had 280 acres. In 1859, he was married to Miss Lydia Carrie Witt. He remained an active member of the Methodist Church of Hanover and active in civic duties and served two years as a district Representative to the Illinois Legislature.

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Lydia Carrie Witt Hammond married Julius A. Hammond on March 29, 1859. She was the daughter of Rev. Samuel and Catherine Cook Witt, natives of Somerset County, Penn., who was a minister in the Evangelical Association in Pennsylvania. After his death she moved with her mother to Circleville, Ohio where she grew to womanhood and was educated. Before her marriage she had taught school in Mount Carroll public schools, and at Peoria and Freeport in Illinois before coming to Hanover to teach in the upper department of the public school.

To this couple were born eight children, six of whom grew to maturity in the comfortable home which they provided. The first born girl, Carrie, died young and Joseph A., a promising young man of 19 years, died in 1889.

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Julia Sarah Hammond Edgerton (b. April 25, 1833, in Hammonds Corners, Medina Co., Ill. -- twin to Julius A.) was the second girl born to Ward K. and Sophronia Hale. The first born was Pamelia, born at Hammonds Corners, who lived into her teenage years and was well remembered by her siblings. She is said to have died of tuberculosis. She was remembered also by a third cousin, Eveline Bosworth Cook who wrote an extensive memory record of early years of the Hales and Hammonds in Ohio. Julia was thirteen by the time the family moved to Hanover in 1846 and was good help around the home and farm. After her public school education she married Sereno Dwight Edgerton on Sept. 22, 1849 who became a prosperous farmer near Hanover and they reared seven children. A public school named Edgerton was organized in 1848 where Edgerton, Jameson and Hammond children studied.

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Metta V. Edgerton was the oldest child of Julia Hammond and S. D. Edgerton and by 1868 taught in the Edgerton Public School. She married Rev. G. W. Abbott, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at Wymore, Nebraska. They lived in Iowa but kept in touch with relatives in Hanover. This seems fitting as the Hammonds and Edgertons were both religious families.

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Index	Section Two