Name: Martha Jane ANDERSON 1,2,3,4 Click here
for photo of gravestone.
Sex: Female
Father:
Jacob
Anderson SLOGVIG (8 Jun 1807 - 6 May 1864)
Mother:
Serine
(Serena) Tormodsdatter MADLAND (Dec 1813 - 7 Jan 1898)
Individual Facts
Birth 12
Jun 1836 Fox
River, LaSalle Co., IL5
Death 16
Jul 1873 (age 37) Pottawattamie
Co., IA
Burial Mormon
Cemetery*, Grove Township, Pottawattamie Co., IA
Marriages/Children
1. Augustus "Gus" T. or F. WHEELER
Marriage 1854 (age 18) Wagon train, IA to CA (Family verbal
tradition)
Marriage recorded 13 Dec 1857 (age 21) Napa, Napa Co., CA
Children
Andrew
Jackson WHEELER (22 Sep 1858 - 24 Dec 1926)
Emma Jane WHEELER
(2 Mar 1861 - 25 Nov 1940)
? ? (daughter) WHEELER ( - )
2. Richard Chester HILLIARD
Marriage 1 Nov 1866 (age 30) Napa Co., CA
(Napa Co. Marriage Index, Book A, p. 176)
Children Albert
Chester "Dick" HILLIARD (4 Jul 1867 - 12 May 1944)
George
Alma HILLIARD (21 Dec 1871 - aft Nov 1940)
Notes (Individual)
General: "Of the Jacob Anderson children, reputedly
seven girls and three boys, Sarah, the oldest died sometime after the age of
16. Martha, the next, married Augustus
T. Wheeler, who traveled in the same wagon train on the way to California in
1854." (Slooper book)
Martha appeared with her family in the 1850
Pottawattamie Co., IA, US census as age 14. Martha appears with her husband and 1 year
old son Andrew in the 1860 US census. At that time they were living in Yount Township north of the town of Napa, Napa Co., CA. In the 1870 US census she was listed with her
husband, Chester Hilliard, in Twp No. 1 (Jackson P.O.), Amador
Co., CA. Also
listed in the family at that time was Andrew (age 11), Emma (age 7 or 9?)
and Albert (age 3).
"Martha and Gus Wheeler settled at Jackson, Amador County, California.
They had three children before Gus was killed in a mining or lumbering
accident. (According to his obituary,
Augustus died near Napa.) Martha then
married Chester Hilliard, a grape grower, and had two sons by him. Meanwhile her mother and brother Andrew had
gone back to Iowa and when Martha's health began to fail late in 1872, she
became despondent and heartsick. Taking
her daughter Emma and two small sons, she went to Iowa, knowing she would
probably never return. Within about six
months she died of consumption and was buried in the Mormon Cemetery just
across the road at the south edge of the Anderson property." (Slooper
book, pp. 426-427)
After her death, Martha’s 12 year old daughter Emma
stayed in Iowa with her grandmother, uncle and his wife. Emma later moved back to California with her
own family when she was about 40. The
two sons she had by Chester Hilliard, Dick (Albert Chester) and George,
returned to their father in California after their mother's death. They were raised in Amador
Co. until Chester Hilliard died in 1879; they were then sent to live with their
aunt, Martha's sister Isabelle Anderson Oaks, near Paskenta in Tehama Co., CA. Martha’s oldest son, Andrew Jackson Wheeler,
was about 14 ½ when his mother died. It
is believed he stayed in California, probably with his step-father, later
settling in Newville, Glenn Co., where he started his family.
In 1999 her weathered Iowa grave stone read,
"MARTHA WIFE OF HILLIARD, Died July 16, 1873, aged 37 years 1 mo. & 4
days. She is not dead but sleeping." (* Reportedly being buried in the Mormon Cemetery in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, does not
indicate that Martha was an LDS member, as this cemetery was named for being on
the Mormon trail, not for the Mormon Church.)
Notes (Family #2)
Marriage: [Married by Justice G. W. Towle. Marriage information found in list of 1866
marriages contracted in Napa Co. in the Napa Daily Evening Reporter, 4 Jan
1867, p. 2, col. 2.]
Sources
1. Rosdail, J. Hart. The Sloopers; Their Ancestry and Posterity; The Story of the People on the Norwegian Mayflower, The
Sloop, "Restoration.".
Broadview, IL: Norwegian Slooper Society of America, 1961. pp. 425-427, 468.
2. 1850 US Census.
3. 1860 US Census.
4. 1870 US Census. Line 35, p. 32, twp No. 1, Amador Co., CA.
5. Rosdail, J. Hart. The Sloopers; Their Ancestry and Posterity; The Story of the People on the Norwegian Mayflower, The
Sloop, "Restoration.".
Broadview, IL: Norwegian Slooper Society of America, 1961. p. 93.
Prepared by:
O. Keith Wheeler
Mad River, CA 95552
(707) 574-6595
