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Pioneer Life: Some Things That Happened in Paulding County Many Years Ago

Era: Growth & Industry (1880–1920)
Date: November 21, 1906
Source: Letter to the Editor of the Reflector, dated Geary, Okla., Nov. 21, 1906. Reprinted in Paulding Pathways, Paulding County Chapter OGS, Aug. 2007, V21 #3, p. 52.
Rights & source note: Personal letter reprinted via a local genealogical society newsletter; rights status not otherwise confirmed.
Tags: pioneer reminiscencepaulding pathwaysantwerppayne1852

A daughter, writing from Oklahoma after learning of her mother’s death, recalls settling near Antwerp around 1852 with her parents, John A. and Catherine (Younker) Ryel. Details include: the family arriving with a horse and wagon (traded for the eighty-acre homestead), no roads save the path Anthony Wayne’s forces had cut, helping dig “the first ditch along the Antwerp road from Payne to Antwerp,” and a barrel of Christmas goods sent from relatives in Portage County that nearly cost her mother her feet — she and the children hauled it home by sled through icy water, and her mother’s feet and legs froze badly. Names neighboring pioneer families: Chinworth, Shelly, Graham, Radenbaugh, Shepard, Chaney, Fisher, Snyder, Daniels, Henry, and Malott, among others.

See the full PDF for the complete letter.