The Ancestors of Carrie Evelyn Hall Sheley

My second great grandmother, Carrie Evelyn Hall, is standing on the right. Her husband, Ralph Sheley, is kneeling in front of her.

50% likely to be mostly English

25% confirmed German

25% likely to be mostly Scottish

There’s something about learning your family history that makes you feel more connected to your family in an eternal way. So although my second great grandparents Carrie Evelyn Hall and Ralph Sheley divorced after a lengthy marriage, I appreciate their willingness to spend eternity buried side-by-side in Crouch Cemetery in northern Hamilton County, Illinois.

One of Carrie Evelyn Hall’s four main lines of ancestry is the Warfield family. Her oldest traceable ancestor with this surname is her great grandfather John Warfield, who was born in Kentucky in 1800. Although he’s described as one of the first settlers of Crouch Township in Hamilton County, Illinois, I don’t quite know when he got there. Apparently, the first Hamilton County settlers arrived in 1816, and one of John’s daughters was born somewhere in southern Illinois in 1821. I’m guessing he and wife Nancy Ward got to Hamilton County in 1820, but that probably has a margin of error of a couple of years either way.

Most of Rebecca Jane Warfield Hall’s gravestone

Nancy gave birth to two sons and several daughters, including Rebecca Jane Warfield in 1823. A few days after her 19th birthday, Rebecca Jane married William Matthew Hall, who is Carrie Evelyn’s grandfather and oldest known Hall ancestor - kind of. William was born in 1817 - according to some sources in modern day Saline County, Illinois. This could be true, or he could have been born in Tennessee, where some Hall children were born as the family made its way from Anson County, North Carolina to southern Illinois, arriving and establishing a place called Halltown just south of the Hamilton County line in modern day Saline County sometime before the 1820 census.

I actually haven’t found any sources definitively connecting our William Hall to the Hall family of Halltown, Illinois, but it’s almost a certainty that they’re his ancestors. According to the Mormon genealogy website, this Hall line started in England before coming to Connecticut in the 1600’s, and then generations later to North Carolina, Tennessee, and Illinois. The only part I have any doubts about is the part about Connecticut. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not true.

Here’s a map from 1881. Notice Halltown just south of the county line. St. Francis Xavier in northern Hamilton County was founded by Carrie Evelyn Hall’s German ancestors. Today the town is called Piopolis.

Carrie’s second great grandfather John Hall was born in 1746 in Anson County, North Carolina and fought in the revolution there, presumably against the Faulkenboroughs, who fought in the same county as Loyalists. John appears in the 1820 census of Gallatin County, Illinois, which at the time included what is today Saline County. At the time, he had six adult sons, and they all appear as heads of households in the census as well.

Three of those six sons had their own sons between the ages of zero and ten, which is the range where William Matthew Hall would have been in 1820. At the time, James Mathew Hall had three sons in that age range, William Carrel Hall had two, and Archibald Hall had one. It's practically a given that William Mathew Hall's grandparents are Revolutionary War veteran John Hall and his wife Mary Broadway Hall. The question is if the link between them is James, William, or Archibald.

Here are some pictures of the 1820 census book of Gallatin County, Illinois, which at the time included all of modern day Saline County, where Halltown is located. It looks like James Mathew used his middle name.

William Carrel Hall is buried at the Halltown Cemetery. He was born in 1792 and his wife in 1795. Their son, James Relaford Hall (born 1822), is buried at Garrison Cemetery in northern Hamilton County today. That's less than a five mile drive to Rawls Cemetery, where William Matthew Hall is buried. Both of these cemeteries are about a half hour drive from Halltown in modern cars.

James Relaford Hall, a man buried in northern Hamilton County, Illinois who is likely the brother of Carrie Evelyn’s grandfather William Matthew Hall. If the two aren’t brothers, they must be first cousins.

Carrie’s grandfather William M. Hall is 25 years younger than William C. Hall, 22 years younger than William C.'s wife Sarah, and five years older than William C.'s son James, who is buried very near the place where the younger William Hall is buried. It all seems to add up to me that William M. and William C are father and son, but I can't say with 100% certainty because it is possible that William M. is actually the son of Archibald or James Mathew, who used his middle name in the 1820 census. Both of their grave locations are unknown, so perhaps one was buried in Hamilton County.

Members of the Warfield-Hall family are buried on this hill at Rawls Cemetery in Belle Prairie City, Illinois

Regardless, William Matthew Hall and Rebecca Jane Warfield Hall lived in a town in Crouch Township called Belle Prairie City, and are buried there today at Rawls Cemetery, along with at least one of Rebecca Jane’s sisters and one of her sons. In 1852, Rebecca Jane gave birth to her fourth of nine children, a boy named George Mathias Hall. He is Carrie Evelyn Hall’s father.

North Carolina was one of the most popular destinations for Scottish people migrating to America. Here’s an uncaptioned picture from an article about immigration from Scotland to North Carolina.

Carrie Evelyn Hall’s maternal grandmother Margaret McMillan was born in 1847 in Tennessee - possibly Henderson County, where a McMillan clan was living in 1850. McMillan is a Scottish name, and the McMillans in Henderson County had previously come from North Carolina. Margaret probably came to Illinois with her parents as a small child or teenger, and while the date of her arrival is a mystery, we do know that she eventually married the son of two German immigrants.

Ersingen, Germany

To find the origins of Carrie Evelyn Hall’s maternal grandfather, let’s rewind to April 19, 1841 - just over six years before her grandmother Margaret McMillan was born. It was on this day that eleven Catholic families disenchanted with the quality of the local farmland left their hometown of Ersingen, Baden, Germany. From there, they took a boat to the nearby city of Knielingen, Karlsruhe before traveling through the cities of Manheim, Mayence, Cologne, and finally Rotterdam, where they boarded a ship for New York City. They arrived 42 days later.

Ferdinand, Indiana

Among these German immigrants were Carrie Evelyn Hall’s great grandparents, Mathias Kaufmann and Elisabetha Ruebenacker. Elisabetha had already given birth to eight children by this time, but I don’t know how many of them lived long enough to make the trip.

Shortly after reaching New York, two of the original eleven families split off from the rest, and the remaining nine travelled through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Eventually, they arrived by steamboat in Troy, a town along the banks of the Ohio River in Perry County, Indiana. They stayed there for a while, and even ventured north into the town of Ferdinand, which had just been settled by another group of German Catholics. Apparently, the group from Ersingen liked everything about Ferdinand except the price of land.

Left: The steamboat the Kaufmanns traveled on might have looked like this.

Right: The old bank in Shawneetown was brand new when the Kaufmanns’ party came through.

After a while, one member of the party traveled alone down river to Shawneetown, Illinois, where he was advised by a local that there was fertile, affordable land up in Hamilton County. Then finally, in 1843 all nine German families settled in northern Hamilton County, just south of Belle Prairie City. There they founded a town known today as Piopolis. Apparently, it underwent multiple name changes in its early history, and I actually have an old Hamilton County map where it’s labeled “St. Francis Xavier”.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Piopolis, founded by the Kaufmanns and eight other German families

Three years later, Carrie Evelyn Hall’s maternal grandfather was born. His first name was also Mathias, but his last name is usually recorded as “Kaufman” with one “n”. When he married Margaret Elizabeth McMillan around 1867, he probably either converted to a Protestant denomination for Margaret or at least failed to convince Margaret to join the Catholic church.

I say this because today the two of them are buried at Crouch Cemetery as opposed to the nearby Catholic church founded by the Kaufmanns and the eight other German families who arrived in 1843. Mathias’s parents are buried at the Catholic church, and there’s actually a marker for him there as well, but not for wife Margaret. For what it’s worth, Mathias and Margaret’s two sons are buried there at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery, but they probably became Catholics for their wives. One married the daughter of German immigrants, and the other married the descendants of immigrants from Cork, Ireland.

It might be hard to tell from this picture, but this tree in Belle Prairie City is enormous and extremely old. It was probably there before any of my ancestors arrived.

The other thing that makes me think Mathias and Margaret weren’t Catholic is that they lived in Belle Prairie City instead of just down the road in the Catholic little town of Piopolis. It was in Belle Prairie that Carrie Evelyn’s mother, Margaret “Lula” Kaufman, was born in 1870. She married George Mathias Hall in December of 1888, and ten months later Carrie Evelyn Hall was born. Today, Carrie Evelyn is buried in Crouch Cemetery, along with her daughter’s family, her parents, and her mother’s parents.