A Lush Life

Week 25: #52 Ancestors – Earliest

By Eilene Lyon

James Ransom and Elizabeth Anderson were among the earliest settlers in what would become Blackford County, Indiana, settling at what came to be called Trenton. They arrived in 1836 from Belmont County, Ohio, towing the first five of their twelve children, including a newborn.¹ Blackford County was formed from Jay County to the east in 1839.²

This part of Indiana was slow to be populated by Euro-Americans, because it was swamp land. Even today, you can find inundated areas. But James Ransom was a man of energy and set himself to the task of making farmland and selling it to newcomers. Buying and selling land and livestock became his livelihood.

Blackford is the second smallest of Indiana’s counties, containing just four townships. In 1840, there were only 1,226 residents.³ Not surprisingly, James had civic duties.

He served on the first grand jury, and was a justice of the peace for Jackson Township.⁴ Like all male citizens, he had to help with road-building and inspection. James also spent several years as a school teacher.⁵

Not only a justice and juror, he sometimes found himself subject to a lawsuit. Once a court had been established, the citizens didn’t hesitate taking their neighbors to task for every slight infraction.

As one wag put it,“When a boy is possessed of a hatchet or a jackknife, the temptation to use them becomes irresistable. So it seemed to be with these few social neighbors. By the election of a Justice of the Peace, they obtained the facilities for going to law, and litigation commenced.”⁶

In 1845, a fellow farmer from the Trenton area, Robert Lanning, took James to court for slander, obtaining a judgment against James for $229.17.⁷ Not having the particulars, I can’t relate just what sort of slanderous thing James said about Robert. But perhaps James’s drinking habit had something to do with it.

According to many family tales, James was a heavy drinker. His grandson and namesake, Jim Ransom, said,

“I remember grandfather Ransom pretty well. He was rather slender and walked from father’s store pretty often to his home about ½ mile distant with his hands folded behind his back and rather slowly. He was not very rugged when I knew him although he had been when younger, so Uncle Will R. told me. He drank liquor to a considerable extent although I never saw him stagger. Most people at that time were liquor drinkers. I refer to the men of course.”⁸

This habit changed my family’s trajectory. When Robert Ransom, my 2^nd great-grandfather, returned from California in 1855 to marry his sweetheart, Emma Jenkins, he planned on moving back west. However, James’s “inability to govern his appetite” led to illness and Elizabeth really needed Robert to stay home in Indiana to help manage family affairs.⁹ Robert and Emma would undoubtedly have had a very different life if they’d moved to California, probably much less tragic.

James Ransom was born February 15, 1806 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.¹⁰ He married Elizabeth Anderson (b. 1807) in Belmont County on August 16, 1827.¹¹ Of their twelve children, only one died as an infant, which is remarkable, given how unhealthy the environment in Blackford County was at the time.¹²

Despite his later failings, James appears to have been devoted to his family and community. He and Elizabeth also played a role in history, as they and their children became a surrogate family to a young man from Virginia, Elias D. Pierce.¹³ He will be the subject of my next 52-Ancestors post: Legend.

James Ransom did not have a particularly long life, dying just five days after his 59^th birthday, on February 20, 1865.¹⁴ He is buried beside Elizabeth and two of their children in the Trenton South Cemetery. Elizabeth lived another eight years, part of that time consumed with the unenviable task of settling James’s estate in probate court.¹⁵

As I did for my ancestors in nearby Pennville, I had James’s and Elizabeth’s headstones professionally cleaned last year. They really stand out now in this semi-neglected cemetery. They are not forgotten.

Feature image: Elizabeth (Anderson) and James Ransom (Courtesy B. Wickward)

James Ransom on Ancestry.com