Jenkins Family History
by Robert E. Jenkins
1904
Robert Jenkins, eighth son of George and Catherine (Hamilton) Jenkins, died on his farm near Alexandria, Mo., and his body was buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. He married, first, in Chester Co., Pa., Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Rambo (see Rambo ancestors.) They came West and settled in Clark Co., Mo., near the village of Chambersburg, about thirty miles west of the Mississippi river, where all their children were born. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins died October 11, 1846. Her body was buried in the burying ground near Chambersburg, where it still lies. Robert Jenkins married, second, Martha Schee, widow of Arnold Schee of Clark Co., Mo. She was daughter of John McRea. It is said her parents came from the South. She had one child of her first marriage, George Washington Schee, who has led a successful business life. He resides at Primghar, Iowa. Martha (McRea) Jenkins died about 1857; buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. Robert Jenkins removed about 1852, to the eastern part of Clark County, and purchased and settled upon a farm four miles west of Alexandria, Mo., and nine miles by the road from Keokuk, Iowa. He was a successful farmer, and left a large estate. His industry and energy were remarkable, and his tireless activity and exposure to the elements brought on his last sickness, from which he would doubtless have recovered but for his habit of persistent work, and his neglect to take proper precautions necessary to restore his health. He had a most unusual vital tenacity and lived and worked for four years after the disease which ended his life had fastened itself upon him. He had a strong individuality, and was frank, straightforward and honest in all his dealings. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins, his wife, was born Feb. 26, 1813. Two years after her birth, her mother died. Elizabeth, when she grew older, did not remain at home with her father, but lived with the Russell family in Chester County, Pa., for some years previous to her marriage. In a letter written by her husband after her decease, he speaks especially of the Russells and he says Elizabeth ever cherished the memory of their kindness to her. Her father married again and his eldest child by his second marriage was Sarah Ann who married William James McKim, and between her and Elizabeth there was a strong sisterly affection. The western country to which Robert and Elizabeth came was new; there was much sickness and few doctors; they were remote from post offices and the roads were poor. They often referred to these matters in their letters to Mrs. McKim. The burden of her household and family cares, and the malarial climate were at length too much for even the constitution of Elizabeth, which was unusually strong. In the letter of her husband, already mentioned, he says: *Tt has been very sickly in this country this fall, we were all sick at one time, one not able to wait on another. It was distressing to see and hear of so much sickness." And he says of her, she died "of congestive fever." She was sick two weeks." "* * '^ This was the first severe sickness that she had had since we have been in the West." She belonged to a very long-hved stock, and it is sad indeed that she was called to leave her young children and pass over to the other side so early in life. She was a Presbyterian, and laments in one of her letters that there was no church of her preference near them. Her husband wrote of her: "She was a loving wife, a fond mother, and a sincere Christian. She was perfectly willing to try the reality of another world. It is a great comfort to me that she died in full faith of immortal glory." Pictures in those early days were not common, and none of our mother has come down to us. Her daughter, Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley of Revere, Mo., remembers her well. Mrs. Sarah A. McKim, mentioned above, eighty-two years old in 1901, had also a distinct recollection of the appearance of her half-sister, Elizabeth. From the information received from these sources, Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins may be described as a slender woman^ rather below medium height, with light golden hair and a fair complexion; her eyes were also light, perhaps blue, her features regular, and her disposition quiet, but sweet and cheerful. She was an attractive young w^oman of rare good sense. The writer in company with Judge and Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley and Dr. George F. Jenkins of Keokuk, visited her grave Sept. 6, 1902, and found it and the tombstone in good condition. We also visited the same day the farm where she was Having at the time of her death. It is located on a creek in the Fox river bottom, was then owned by a man named John Man^ tie. As we walked about this old Homestead, the thought of the hardships and privations she endured on the then frontier touched us very deeply. On the other hand, we remembered, thankfully, how her little flock of young children had all grown up and prospered ; hovv^ each one had counted for something on the better side of the world's life, and how at that day after the lapse of fifty-six years, all except Huldah, who was called away early, were alive and in good health (and still so in 1904) ; and we felt that truly the life of our mother, short as it was, had not been lived in vain. What joy would have been hers could she have known what was to be the future of her children in her dying hour! But was it all hidden from her? Was not something of it realized to her faith, which sustained her and made her perfectly resigned to commit the care of her motherless little ones to the all-wise Father whom she so fully trusted? Yea, verily, ''Faith is the victory which overcomes the world. The house on the Jenkins' farm near Alexandria was a two-story double affair with a great fire-place in the center, affording openings for log fires in the rooms on either side. It appeared to be frame, although one-half was built of logs and afterwards covered with weather boards. It was a comfortable hom€. The farm of several hundred acres was successfully conducted, improved and enlarged by the father of the family. After his death its management devolved upon John William, the eldest son, while the twin sisters were the housekeepers, and the family lived together until all were grown up, in harmony, happiness and prosperity. The boys all worked on the farm, going to school in winter, until they reached manhood. The great value of the summer "school" attended by these youngsters is so generally appreciated that comment is unnecessary. It was a home of hospitality and good cheer, and the occasions were rare when there was not company at the table and over night. The site of this home was not without attractions: To the east, four miles, across the flat bottom, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers^, nestled the little town of Alexandria, in the "fifties" place of very extensive business and great ambitions. Along its levee front, sweeping on toward the Gulf, rolled the great Father of Waters, a mile in width, and on its opposite side rose up from the river's edge the towering bluffs crowned by the city of Warsaw, Illinois. To the west of this home at about the same distance, stretched a long ridge of sand perhaps fifty feet high, then back of that the rising blue hills covered with timber. On the sandy plain and along the foot of these bluffs were orchards and gardens and the commodious and hospitable farmhouses of well-to-do inhabitants. One mile north of the Jenkins home, the historic Des Moines wound its way, in the summer time a shallow and harmless stream, among its shifting sand bars; but swelled in its flood seasons to a mighty and resistless torrent, overflowing its banks and carrying destruction and terror to all the people of the plain. The Des Moines on its Iowa side was lined with high hills against the foot of which its waters beat continually, so that their fronts were undermined, and had slipped down and been carried away, leaving the faces of the hills to stand out bare and barren, justly called the yellow banks. Two miles south of the Jenkins' home, the Fox river came down, lined on either side with a fringe of timber, a stream of considerable length and carrying a large volume of water. It will thus be seen that this homestead was situated in the midst of an extensive natural amphitheater, rivers on three sides, and bluffs to the east, to the north, and to the west. These natural boundaries enclosed some of the most productive land in the world. The soil was alluvium so required no fertilizing, and crops of corn yielding a hundred bushels, and of wheat thirty bushels, to the acre, were not uncommon. Six miles away at the north end of the sand ridge, on the Des Moines, was located the little village of St. Francisville. Here is the Wolf Cemetery where so many of our beloved dead lie buried. St. Francisville had been a place of some promise in the early days when an occasional steamboat found its way up that river, and when the building of a canal had been proposed and actually begun. But the canal died in its beginnings, business declined, and the people of St. Francisville devoted themselves chiefly to education, self culture and hospitality. There were no railroads in that country and few anywhere in the ''fifties." The Mississippi and its tributaries were the great arteries of commerce. The steamboats of that day were gorgeous palaces. Their owners and officers were kings and princes in the monetary and business world. These mighty vessels as they ploughed the water, going up and down, could be distinctly seen, and their triumphant whistles heard at the Jenkins farm. When the water was high they towered up and stood out in the sun seemingly above the land. They were majestic; they were grand; they have gone. Along the main road the land was for the most part fenced and under cultivation but on the south there lay miles .and miles of open prairie. Here in those days was an abundant free range, affording pasturage for great numbers of cattle for more than half the year. This prairie also afforded the best of wild hay to be had by all comers for the harvesting. There were also bayous and sloughs and an occasional grove. It was a paradise for water fowl, and was frequented by thousands upon thousands of wild geese and ducks in their annual flights to the North and to the South. There were prairie chickens, too, in such numbers that their cooing in the spring time sounded a continual roar and their flight at times would almost darken the sun and shake the earth. It was a place to make glad the heart of the farmer as well as of the hunter and the fisherman. Children of Robert and Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins. 1 John William Jenkins, born January 13, 1838. 2 Margaret Jane Jenkins, born April 23, 1840, and her twin sister, 3 Catherine Elizabeth Jenkins, born April 23, 1840. 4 George Franklin Jenkins, born July 15, 1842. 5 Hulda Ann Jenkins, born October 19, 1843, died 1845. 6 Robert Edwin Jenkins, born February 6, 1846. Of Robert and Martha (McRea) Jenkins. 7 James Amzi Jenkins, born January 1, 1849. There was also a child named Douglas who died young.
by Robert E. Jenkins
1904
Robert Jenkins, eighth son of George and Catherine (Hamilton) Jenkins, died on his farm near Alexandria, Mo., and his body was buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. He married, first, in Chester Co., Pa., Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Rambo (see Rambo ancestors.) They came West and settled in Clark Co., Mo., near the village of Chambersburg, about thirty miles west of the Mississippi river, where all their children were born. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins died October 11, 1846. Her body was buried in the burying ground near Chambersburg, where it still lies. Robert Jenkins married, second, Martha Schee, widow of Arnold Schee of Clark Co., Mo. She was daughter of John McRea. It is said her parents came from the South. She had one child of her first marriage, George Washington Schee, who has led a successful business life. He resides at Primghar, Iowa. Martha (McRea) Jenkins died about 1857; buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. Robert Jenkins removed about 1852, to the eastern part of Clark County, and purchased and settled upon a farm four miles west of Alexandria, Mo., and nine miles by the road from Keokuk, Iowa. He was a successful farmer, and left a large estate. His industry and energy were remarkable, and his tireless activity and exposure to the elements brought on his last sickness, from which he would doubtless have recovered but for his habit of persistent work, and his neglect to take proper precautions necessary to restore his health. He had a most unusual vital tenacity and lived and worked for four years after the disease which ended his life had fastened itself upon him. He had a strong individuality, and was frank, straightforward and honest in all his dealings. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins, his wife, was born Feb. 26, 1813. Two years after her birth, her mother died. Elizabeth, when she grew older, did not remain at home with her father, but lived with the Russell family in Chester County, Pa., for some years previous to her marriage. In a letter written by her husband after her decease, he speaks especially of the Russells and he says Elizabeth ever cherished the memory of their kindness to her. Her father married again and his eldest child by his second marriage was Sarah Ann who married William James McKim, and between her and Elizabeth there was a strong sisterly affection. The western country to which Robert and Elizabeth came was new; there was much sickness and few doctors; they were remote from post offices and the roads were poor. They often referred to these matters in their letters to Mrs. McKim. The burden of her household and family cares, and the malarial climate were at length too much for even the constitution of Elizabeth, which was unusually strong. In the letter of her husband, already mentioned, he says: *Tt has been very sickly in this country this fall, we were all sick at one time, one not able to wait on another. It was distressing to see and hear of so much sickness." And he says of her, she died "of congestive fever." She was sick two weeks." "* * '^ This was the first severe sickness that she had had since we have been in the West." She belonged to a very long-hved stock, and it is sad indeed that she was called to leave her young children and pass over to the other side so early in life. She was a Presbyterian, and laments in one of her letters that there was no church of her preference near them. Her husband wrote of her: "She was a loving wife, a fond mother, and a sincere Christian. She was perfectly willing to try the reality of another world. It is a great comfort to me that she died in full faith of immortal glory." Pictures in those early days were not common, and none of our mother has come down to us. Her daughter, Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley of Revere, Mo., remembers her well. Mrs. Sarah A. McKim, mentioned above, eighty-two years old in 1901, had also a distinct recollection of the appearance of her half-sister, Elizabeth. From the information received from these sources, Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins may be described as a slender woman^ rather below medium height, with light golden hair and a fair complexion; her eyes were also light, perhaps blue, her features regular, and her disposition quiet, but sweet and cheerful. She was an attractive young w^oman of rare good sense. The writer in company with Judge and Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley and Dr. George F. Jenkins of Keokuk, visited her grave Sept. 6, 1902, and found it and the tombstone in good condition. We also visited the same day the farm where she was Having at the time of her death. It is located on a creek in the Fox river bottom, was then owned by a man named John Man^ tie. As we walked about this old Homestead, the thought of the hardships and privations she endured on the then frontier touched us very deeply. On the other hand, we remembered, thankfully, how her little flock of young children had all grown up and prospered ; hovv^ each one had counted for something on the better side of the world's life, and how at that day after the lapse of fifty-six years, all except Huldah, who was called away early, were alive and in good health (and still so in 1904) ; and we felt that truly the life of our mother, short as it was, had not been lived in vain. What joy would have been hers could she have known what was to be the future of her children in her dying hour! But was it all hidden from her? Was not something of it realized to her faith, which sustained her and made her perfectly resigned to commit the care of her motherless little ones to the all-wise Father whom she so fully trusted? Yea, verily, ''Faith is the victory which overcomes the world. The house on the Jenkins' farm near Alexandria was a two-story double affair with a great fire-place in the center, affording openings for log fires in the rooms on either side. It appeared to be frame, although one-half was built of logs and afterwards covered with weather boards. It was a comfortable hom€. The farm of several hundred acres was successfully conducted, improved and enlarged by the father of the family. After his death its management devolved upon John William, the eldest son, while the twin sisters were the housekeepers, and the family lived together until all were grown up, in harmony, happiness and prosperity. The boys all worked on the farm, going to school in winter, until they reached manhood. The great value of the summer "school" attended by these youngsters is so generally appreciated that comment is unnecessary. It was a home of hospitality and good cheer, and the occasions were rare when there was not company at the table and over night. The site of this home was not without attractions: To the east, four miles, across the flat bottom, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers^, nestled the little town of Alexandria, in the "fifties" place of very extensive business and great ambitions. Along its levee front, sweeping on toward the Gulf, rolled the great Father of Waters, a mile in width, and on its opposite side rose up from the river's edge the towering bluffs crowned by the city of Warsaw, Illinois. To the west of this home at about the same distance, stretched a long ridge of sand perhaps fifty feet high, then back of that the rising blue hills covered with timber. On the sandy plain and along the foot of these bluffs were orchards and gardens and the commodious and hospitable farmhouses of well-to-do inhabitants. One mile north of the Jenkins home, the historic Des Moines wound its way, in the summer time a shallow and harmless stream, among its shifting sand bars; but swelled in its flood seasons to a mighty and resistless torrent, overflowing its banks and carrying destruction and terror to all the people of the plain. The Des Moines on its Iowa side was lined with high hills against the foot of which its waters beat continually, so that their fronts were undermined, and had slipped down and been carried away, leaving the faces of the hills to stand out bare and barren, justly called the yellow banks. Two miles south of the Jenkins' home, the Fox river came down, lined on either side with a fringe of timber, a stream of considerable length and carrying a large volume of water. It will thus be seen that this homestead was situated in the midst of an extensive natural amphitheater, rivers on three sides, and bluffs to the east, to the north, and to the west. These natural boundaries enclosed some of the most productive land in the world. The soil was alluvium so required no fertilizing, and crops of corn yielding a hundred bushels, and of wheat thirty bushels, to the acre, were not uncommon. Six miles away at the north end of the sand ridge, on the Des Moines, was located the little village of St. Francisville. Here is the Wolf Cemetery where so many of our beloved dead lie buried. St. Francisville had been a place of some promise in the early days when an occasional steamboat found its way up that river, and when the building of a canal had been proposed and actually begun. But the canal died in its beginnings, business declined, and the people of St. Francisville devoted themselves chiefly to education, self culture and hospitality. There were no railroads in that country and few anywhere in the ''fifties." The Mississippi and its tributaries were the great arteries of commerce. The steamboats of that day were gorgeous palaces. Their owners and officers were kings and princes in the monetary and business world. These mighty vessels as they ploughed the water, going up and down, could be distinctly seen, and their triumphant whistles heard at the Jenkins farm. When the water was high they towered up and stood out in the sun seemingly above the land. They were majestic; they were grand; they have gone. Along the main road the land was for the most part fenced and under cultivation but on the south there lay miles .and miles of open prairie. Here in those days was an abundant free range, affording pasturage for great numbers of cattle for more than half the year. This prairie also afforded the best of wild hay to be had by all comers for the harvesting. There were also bayous and sloughs and an occasional grove. It was a paradise for water fowl, and was frequented by thousands upon thousands of wild geese and ducks in their annual flights to the North and to the South. There were prairie chickens, too, in such numbers that their cooing in the spring time sounded a continual roar and their flight at times would almost darken the sun and shake the earth. It was a place to make glad the heart of the farmer as well as of the hunter and the fisherman. Children of Robert and Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins. 1 John William Jenkins, born January 13, 1838. 2 Margaret Jane Jenkins, born April 23, 1840, and her twin sister, 3 Catherine Elizabeth Jenkins, born April 23, 1840. 4 George Franklin Jenkins, born July 15, 1842. 5 Hulda Ann Jenkins, born October 19, 1843, died 1845. 6 Robert Edwin Jenkins, born February 6, 1846. Of Robert and Martha (McRea) Jenkins. 7 James Amzi Jenkins, born January 1, 1849. There was also a child named Douglas who died young.
Jenkins Family History
by Robert E. Jenkins
1904
Robert Jenkins, eighth son of George and Catherine (Hamilton) Jenkins, died on his farm near Alexandria, Mo., and his body was buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. He married, first, in Chester Co., Pa., Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Rambo (see Rambo ancestors.) They came West and settled in Clark Co., Mo., near the village of Chambersburg, about thirty miles west of the Mississippi river, where all their children were born. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins died October 11, 1846. Her body was buried in the burying ground near Chambersburg, where it still lies. Robert Jenkins married, second, Martha Schee, widow of Arnold Schee of Clark Co., Mo. She was daughter of John McRea. It is said her parents came from the South. She had one child of her first marriage, George Washington Schee, who has led a successful business life. He resides at Primghar, Iowa. Martha (McRea) Jenkins died about 1857; buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. Robert Jenkins removed about 1852, to the eastern part of Clark County, and purchased and settled upon a farm four miles west of Alexandria, Mo., and nine miles by the road from Keokuk, Iowa. He was a successful farmer, and left a large estate. His industry and energy were remarkable, and his tireless activity and exposure to the elements brought on his last sickness, from which he would doubtless have recovered but for his habit of persistent work, and his neglect to take proper precautions necessary to restore his health. He had a most unusual vital tenacity and lived and worked for four years after the disease which ended his life had fastened itself upon him. He had a strong individuality, and was frank, straightforward and honest in all his dealings. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins, his wife, was born Feb. 26, 1813. Two years after her birth, her mother died. Elizabeth, when she grew older, did not remain at home with her father, but lived with the Russell family in Chester County, Pa., for some years previous to her marriage. In a letter written by her husband after her decease, he speaks especially of the Russells and he says Elizabeth ever cherished the memory of their kindness to her. Her father married again and his eldest child by his second marriage was Sarah Ann who married William James McKim, and between her and Elizabeth there was a strong sisterly affection. The western country to which Robert and Elizabeth came was new; there was much sickness and few doctors; they were remote from post offices and the roads were poor. They often referred to these matters in their letters to Mrs. McKim. The burden of her household and family cares, and the malarial climate were at length too much for even the constitution of Elizabeth, which was unusually strong. In the letter of her husband, already mentioned, he says: *Tt has been very sickly in this country this fall, we were all sick at one time, one not able to wait on another. It was distressing to see and hear of so much sickness." And he says of her, she died "of congestive fever." She was sick two weeks." "* * '^ This was the first severe sickness that she had had since we have been in the West." She belonged to a very long-hved stock, and it is sad indeed that she was called to leave her young children and pass over to the other side so early in life. She was a Presbyterian, and laments in one of her letters that there was no church of her preference near them. Her husband wrote of her: "She was a loving wife, a fond mother, and a sincere Christian. She was perfectly willing to try the reality of another world. It is a great comfort to me that she died in full faith of immortal glory." Pictures in those early days were not common, and none of our mother has come down to us. Her daughter, Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley of Revere, Mo., remembers her well. Mrs. Sarah A. McKim, mentioned above, eighty-two years old in 1901, had also a distinct recollection of the appearance of her half-sister, Elizabeth. From the information received from these sources, Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins may be described as a slender woman^ rather below medium height, with light golden hair and a fair complexion; her eyes were also light, perhaps blue, her features regular, and her disposition quiet, but sweet and cheerful. She was an attractive young w^oman of rare good sense. The writer in company with Judge and Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley and Dr. George F. Jenkins of Keokuk, visited her grave Sept. 6, 1902, and found it and the tombstone in good condition. We also visited the same day the farm where she was Having at the time of her death. It is located on a creek in the Fox river bottom, was then owned by a man named John Man^ tie. As we walked about this old Homestead, the thought of the hardships and privations she endured on the then frontier touched us very deeply. On the other hand, we remembered, thankfully, how her little flock of young children had all grown up and prospered ; hovv^ each one had counted for something on the better side of the world's life, and how at that day after the lapse of fifty-six years, all except Huldah, who was called away early, were alive and in good health (and still so in 1904) ; and we felt that truly the life of our mother, short as it was, had not been lived in vain. What joy would have been hers could she have known what was to be the future of her children in her dying hour! But was it all hidden from her? Was not something of it realized to her faith, which sustained her and made her perfectly resigned to commit the care of her motherless little ones to the all-wise Father whom she so fully trusted? Yea, verily, ''Faith is the victory which overcomes the world. The house on the Jenkins' farm near Alexandria was a two-story double affair with a great fire-place in the center, affording openings for log fires in the rooms on either side. It appeared to be frame, although one-half was built of logs and afterwards covered with weather boards. It was a comfortable hom€. The farm of several hundred acres was successfully conducted, improved and enlarged by the father of the family. After his death its management devolved upon John William, the eldest son, while the twin sisters were the housekeepers, and the family lived together until all were grown up, in harmony, happiness and prosperity. The boys all worked on the farm, going to school in winter, until they reached manhood. The great value of the summer "school" attended by these youngsters is so generally appreciated that comment is unnecessary. It was a home of hospitality and good cheer, and the occasions were rare when there was not company at the table and over night. The site of this home was not without attractions: To the east, four miles, across the flat bottom, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers^, nestled the little town of Alexandria, in the "fifties" place of very extensive business and great ambitions. Along its levee front, sweeping on toward the Gulf, rolled the great Father of Waters, a mile in width, and on its opposite side rose up from the river's edge the towering bluffs crowned by the city of Warsaw, Illinois. To the west of this home at about the same distance, stretched a long ridge of sand perhaps fifty feet high, then back of that the rising blue hills covered with timber. On the sandy plain and along the foot of these bluffs were orchards and gardens and the commodious and hospitable farmhouses of well-to-do inhabitants. One mile north of the Jenkins home, the historic Des Moines wound its way, in the summer time a shallow and harmless stream, among its shifting sand bars; but swelled in its flood seasons to a mighty and resistless torrent, overflowing its banks and carrying destruction and terror to all the people of the plain. The Des Moines on its Iowa side was lined with high hills against the foot of which its waters beat continually, so that their fronts were undermined, and had slipped down and been carried away, leaving the faces of the hills to stand out bare and barren, justly called the yellow banks. Two miles south of the Jenkins' home, the Fox river came down, lined on either side with a fringe of timber, a stream of considerable length and carrying a large volume of water. It will thus be seen that this homestead was situated in the midst of an extensive natural amphitheater, rivers on three sides, and bluffs to the east, to the north, and to the west. These natural boundaries enclosed some of the most productive land in the world. The soil was alluvium so required no fertilizing, and crops of corn yielding a hundred bushels, and of wheat thirty bushels, to the acre, were not uncommon. Six miles away at the north end of the sand ridge, on the Des Moines, was located the little village of St. Francisville. Here is the Wolf Cemetery where so many of our beloved dead lie buried. St. Francisville had been a place of some promise in the early days when an occasional steamboat found its way up that river, and when the building of a canal had been proposed and actually begun. But the canal died in its beginnings, business declined, and the people of St. Francisville devoted themselves chiefly to education, self culture and hospitality. There were no railroads in that country and few anywhere in the ''fifties." The Mississippi and its tributaries were the great arteries of commerce. The steamboats of that day were gorgeous palaces. Their owners and officers were kings and princes in the monetary and business world. These mighty vessels as they ploughed the water, going up and down, could be distinctly seen, and their triumphant whistles heard at the Jenkins farm. When the water was high they towered up and stood out in the sun seemingly above the land. They were majestic; they were grand; they have gone. Along the main road the land was for the most part fenced and under cultivation but on the south there lay miles .and miles of open prairie. Here in those days was an abundant free range, affording pasturage for great numbers of cattle for more than half the year. This prairie also afforded the best of wild hay to be had by all comers for the harvesting. There were also bayous and sloughs and an occasional grove. It was a paradise for water fowl, and was frequented by thousands upon thousands of wild geese and ducks in their annual flights to the North and to the South. There were prairie chickens, too, in such numbers that their cooing in the spring time sounded a continual roar and their flight at times would almost darken the sun and shake the earth. It was a place to make glad the heart of the farmer as well as of the hunter and the fisherman. Children of Robert and Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins. 1 John William Jenkins, born January 13, 1838. 2 Margaret Jane Jenkins, born April 23, 1840, and her twin sister, 3 Catherine Elizabeth Jenkins, born April 23, 1840. 4 George Franklin Jenkins, born July 15, 1842. 5 Hulda Ann Jenkins, born October 19, 1843, died 1845. 6 Robert Edwin Jenkins, born February 6, 1846. Of Robert and Martha (McRea) Jenkins. 7 James Amzi Jenkins, born January 1, 1849. There was also a child named Douglas who died young.
by Robert E. Jenkins
1904
Robert Jenkins, eighth son of George and Catherine (Hamilton) Jenkins, died on his farm near Alexandria, Mo., and his body was buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. He married, first, in Chester Co., Pa., Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Rambo (see Rambo ancestors.) They came West and settled in Clark Co., Mo., near the village of Chambersburg, about thirty miles west of the Mississippi river, where all their children were born. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins died October 11, 1846. Her body was buried in the burying ground near Chambersburg, where it still lies. Robert Jenkins married, second, Martha Schee, widow of Arnold Schee of Clark Co., Mo. She was daughter of John McRea. It is said her parents came from the South. She had one child of her first marriage, George Washington Schee, who has led a successful business life. He resides at Primghar, Iowa. Martha (McRea) Jenkins died about 1857; buried in Wolf Cemetery, St. Francisville, Mo. Robert Jenkins removed about 1852, to the eastern part of Clark County, and purchased and settled upon a farm four miles west of Alexandria, Mo., and nine miles by the road from Keokuk, Iowa. He was a successful farmer, and left a large estate. His industry and energy were remarkable, and his tireless activity and exposure to the elements brought on his last sickness, from which he would doubtless have recovered but for his habit of persistent work, and his neglect to take proper precautions necessary to restore his health. He had a most unusual vital tenacity and lived and worked for four years after the disease which ended his life had fastened itself upon him. He had a strong individuality, and was frank, straightforward and honest in all his dealings. Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins, his wife, was born Feb. 26, 1813. Two years after her birth, her mother died. Elizabeth, when she grew older, did not remain at home with her father, but lived with the Russell family in Chester County, Pa., for some years previous to her marriage. In a letter written by her husband after her decease, he speaks especially of the Russells and he says Elizabeth ever cherished the memory of their kindness to her. Her father married again and his eldest child by his second marriage was Sarah Ann who married William James McKim, and between her and Elizabeth there was a strong sisterly affection. The western country to which Robert and Elizabeth came was new; there was much sickness and few doctors; they were remote from post offices and the roads were poor. They often referred to these matters in their letters to Mrs. McKim. The burden of her household and family cares, and the malarial climate were at length too much for even the constitution of Elizabeth, which was unusually strong. In the letter of her husband, already mentioned, he says: *Tt has been very sickly in this country this fall, we were all sick at one time, one not able to wait on another. It was distressing to see and hear of so much sickness." And he says of her, she died "of congestive fever." She was sick two weeks." "* * '^ This was the first severe sickness that she had had since we have been in the West." She belonged to a very long-hved stock, and it is sad indeed that she was called to leave her young children and pass over to the other side so early in life. She was a Presbyterian, and laments in one of her letters that there was no church of her preference near them. Her husband wrote of her: "She was a loving wife, a fond mother, and a sincere Christian. She was perfectly willing to try the reality of another world. It is a great comfort to me that she died in full faith of immortal glory." Pictures in those early days were not common, and none of our mother has come down to us. Her daughter, Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley of Revere, Mo., remembers her well. Mrs. Sarah A. McKim, mentioned above, eighty-two years old in 1901, had also a distinct recollection of the appearance of her half-sister, Elizabeth. From the information received from these sources, Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins may be described as a slender woman^ rather below medium height, with light golden hair and a fair complexion; her eyes were also light, perhaps blue, her features regular, and her disposition quiet, but sweet and cheerful. She was an attractive young w^oman of rare good sense. The writer in company with Judge and Mrs. David Nelson Lapsley and Dr. George F. Jenkins of Keokuk, visited her grave Sept. 6, 1902, and found it and the tombstone in good condition. We also visited the same day the farm where she was Having at the time of her death. It is located on a creek in the Fox river bottom, was then owned by a man named John Man^ tie. As we walked about this old Homestead, the thought of the hardships and privations she endured on the then frontier touched us very deeply. On the other hand, we remembered, thankfully, how her little flock of young children had all grown up and prospered ; hovv^ each one had counted for something on the better side of the world's life, and how at that day after the lapse of fifty-six years, all except Huldah, who was called away early, were alive and in good health (and still so in 1904) ; and we felt that truly the life of our mother, short as it was, had not been lived in vain. What joy would have been hers could she have known what was to be the future of her children in her dying hour! But was it all hidden from her? Was not something of it realized to her faith, which sustained her and made her perfectly resigned to commit the care of her motherless little ones to the all-wise Father whom she so fully trusted? Yea, verily, ''Faith is the victory which overcomes the world. The house on the Jenkins' farm near Alexandria was a two-story double affair with a great fire-place in the center, affording openings for log fires in the rooms on either side. It appeared to be frame, although one-half was built of logs and afterwards covered with weather boards. It was a comfortable hom€. The farm of several hundred acres was successfully conducted, improved and enlarged by the father of the family. After his death its management devolved upon John William, the eldest son, while the twin sisters were the housekeepers, and the family lived together until all were grown up, in harmony, happiness and prosperity. The boys all worked on the farm, going to school in winter, until they reached manhood. The great value of the summer "school" attended by these youngsters is so generally appreciated that comment is unnecessary. It was a home of hospitality and good cheer, and the occasions were rare when there was not company at the table and over night. The site of this home was not without attractions: To the east, four miles, across the flat bottom, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers^, nestled the little town of Alexandria, in the "fifties" place of very extensive business and great ambitions. Along its levee front, sweeping on toward the Gulf, rolled the great Father of Waters, a mile in width, and on its opposite side rose up from the river's edge the towering bluffs crowned by the city of Warsaw, Illinois. To the west of this home at about the same distance, stretched a long ridge of sand perhaps fifty feet high, then back of that the rising blue hills covered with timber. On the sandy plain and along the foot of these bluffs were orchards and gardens and the commodious and hospitable farmhouses of well-to-do inhabitants. One mile north of the Jenkins home, the historic Des Moines wound its way, in the summer time a shallow and harmless stream, among its shifting sand bars; but swelled in its flood seasons to a mighty and resistless torrent, overflowing its banks and carrying destruction and terror to all the people of the plain. The Des Moines on its Iowa side was lined with high hills against the foot of which its waters beat continually, so that their fronts were undermined, and had slipped down and been carried away, leaving the faces of the hills to stand out bare and barren, justly called the yellow banks. Two miles south of the Jenkins' home, the Fox river came down, lined on either side with a fringe of timber, a stream of considerable length and carrying a large volume of water. It will thus be seen that this homestead was situated in the midst of an extensive natural amphitheater, rivers on three sides, and bluffs to the east, to the north, and to the west. These natural boundaries enclosed some of the most productive land in the world. The soil was alluvium so required no fertilizing, and crops of corn yielding a hundred bushels, and of wheat thirty bushels, to the acre, were not uncommon. Six miles away at the north end of the sand ridge, on the Des Moines, was located the little village of St. Francisville. Here is the Wolf Cemetery where so many of our beloved dead lie buried. St. Francisville had been a place of some promise in the early days when an occasional steamboat found its way up that river, and when the building of a canal had been proposed and actually begun. But the canal died in its beginnings, business declined, and the people of St. Francisville devoted themselves chiefly to education, self culture and hospitality. There were no railroads in that country and few anywhere in the ''fifties." The Mississippi and its tributaries were the great arteries of commerce. The steamboats of that day were gorgeous palaces. Their owners and officers were kings and princes in the monetary and business world. These mighty vessels as they ploughed the water, going up and down, could be distinctly seen, and their triumphant whistles heard at the Jenkins farm. When the water was high they towered up and stood out in the sun seemingly above the land. They were majestic; they were grand; they have gone. Along the main road the land was for the most part fenced and under cultivation but on the south there lay miles .and miles of open prairie. Here in those days was an abundant free range, affording pasturage for great numbers of cattle for more than half the year. This prairie also afforded the best of wild hay to be had by all comers for the harvesting. There were also bayous and sloughs and an occasional grove. It was a paradise for water fowl, and was frequented by thousands upon thousands of wild geese and ducks in their annual flights to the North and to the South. There were prairie chickens, too, in such numbers that their cooing in the spring time sounded a continual roar and their flight at times would almost darken the sun and shake the earth. It was a place to make glad the heart of the farmer as well as of the hunter and the fisherman. Children of Robert and Elizabeth (Rambo) Jenkins. 1 John William Jenkins, born January 13, 1838. 2 Margaret Jane Jenkins, born April 23, 1840, and her twin sister, 3 Catherine Elizabeth Jenkins, born April 23, 1840. 4 George Franklin Jenkins, born July 15, 1842. 5 Hulda Ann Jenkins, born October 19, 1843, died 1845. 6 Robert Edwin Jenkins, born February 6, 1846. Of Robert and Martha (McRea) Jenkins. 7 James Amzi Jenkins, born January 1, 1849. There was also a child named Douglas who died young.
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