John Ross (1798 - 1876)

Born 18 Mar 1798 in Rodley, Yorkshire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 20 May 1876 at age 78 in Omro, Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States

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Biography

John was born in 1798. He passed away in 1876.

John of Bramley, and Omro, Wisconsin.

Birth

B. Rodley, Yorks., England, in 1798.

As a youth he attended a boy’s school in Gomersall, near Bradford, called Turton Hall. In later years the principal of this same school was Mr. John Sargent, the husband of John’s sister Sarah.

Marriage

He married in 1819, at twenty-one years of age, Mary (b.1797;d.1869), dau. Of George Clough (pronounced Kluff), of Bramley, a basket maker.

Tradition says that John met Mary as she was on her way to market. The donkey which she was driving had stumbled and fallen, letting his burden of cloth drop to the ground; and the young man was moved to admiration at the resourcefulness and physical strength which the young woman showed in getting her beast up and the bolts of cloth again adjusted to his back.

The romance soon culminated in marriage which was not entirely acceptable to John’s family, and the young couple finally settled in Bramley (Mary’s home town), about four miles from Rodley (See topographical sketch), and John set up his loom. Children came, ten of them, and eventually John and his family moved into a stone house, the first of a row of new houses built at the edge of the village, on a country road known as Bramley Back Lane, now well within the town of Bramley, as Bramley in turn has become a suburb of the great expanding city of Leeds.

His house was the largest of the row, consisting of two floors and an attic. As the older boys grew up, Reuben and William, then John and Walter, they helped with the business of weaving which was carried on in the large attic room. But a big, red, cloth factory, located in the open fields, opposite the lower end of Bramley Back Lane, menaced the small home loom; and John began to talk of America. He was thinking of the future of his lads. They knew only “cloth” as a livelihood; their forebears had been for generations independent cloth manufacturers; they could not stoop to factory work, at least not in England.

Finally Hannah, the eldest, married now to William Boocock, of Bramley, emigrated with husband and family, settling in North Paterson, New Jersey. Reuben, the eldest son, and his young family were on the point of “coming out” also, as Reuben’s wife had a brother, a Mr. Joseph Musgrove, already in Wisconsin, where farm land was to be had for a small sum; and William, the second son, actually had crossed, leaving his wife and children to follow when he could send for them.

The proposed move was discussed for at least three years. John was approaching fifty; it seemed an undertaking; and one member of the family at least could not endure the thought of the journey. That was the daughter, Sarah, a girl of nineteen; when the talk turned to American she would go out of the room. And it was not to be her fate; for she died from the effects of a severe cold in 1845, two years before the family started. She was buried in Bramley Baptist chapel yard. There is no stone.

The memory of that young sister was ever sacred throughout the years which followed. The writer often heard her mother sing an old-fashioned hymn, the words of which were written on the flyleaf of her tiny New Testament brought from Bramley chapel Sabbath school and which were headed “Sister Sarah’s Favorite Hymn”. It began: “I hear my Shepherd’s voice, He bids me not to roam.”

John, the father, left for America in 1847, bringing with him the youngest, George, a lad of eleven. He described the crossing in his first letter written back to his wife and children in England.

“Paterson, N.Jersey, Sept.21/47.

My dear wife and children:

We have landed safe and in good health on the American shore, after a pleasant and easy passage of 32 days (!). George was sick 3 times, 2 days each time, and I was a little sickly 3 times when we had a smart breeze which made the ship to heave and rock, but the weather was generally calm with gentle breezes blowing in the right direction….

We had great inconvenience in crossing. We had two fires, one in east side of ship, no chimney to take away the smoke….

The ship was not detained on quarantine. We were very soon at Mr. Sykes, No. 62 Liberty street, where we were kindly treated. He had got orders to look out for us. We stopped there 1 night and then went direct by ferry boat and railway to Paterson and from there to William Boocock. We found Hannah and little Fanny at home and in excellent health and spirits and never mind about us being welcomed into their house. ..”

It was necessary to begin earning money at once; so John went into a factory. He writes that the work was not hard. The following year his wife, Mary, and the rest of the children came over, John and Walter, eighteen and sixteen respectively, being in charge during the trip.

For more than four years (1848-1853) they moved from place to place in New England, living in Woonsocket Falls, Rhode Island, Cherry Valley, Lawrence and Worcester, Massachusetts. But the open spaces of the West were calling. Son Reuben had taken up a claim on one hundred and sixty acres of land near Omro, Winnebago County, Wisconsin; John himself had been out to look things over; and the two boys, John and Walter, had finally come out for the sake of Walter’s health.

Soon the rest of the family followed, making the journey from Worcester to Albany by railroad, thence to Buffalo by Erie Canal, then by the Great Lakes to Milwaukee, and finally from Milwaukee to Omro by stage, locating on a farm two miles from the village.

In a letter to England, John tells of the building of the “old grout house” still standing at “grandfather’s farm” near Omro. His letter dated Aug. 3/54 from Omro, says:

“We have built our own house this summer. It is 27 ft. long and 20 wide and cellar kitchen and cellar in the basement and four rooms above. We built the lower part of limestone 7½ feet, and the upper part with lime and gravel 8½ feet, what is called a cement house. We have done all the work ourselves. It is rather novel kind of house in this part, though there are many of them in this state. We intend to plaster outside and inside before winter. We shall color the outside stone color, and score it into blocks. This house will have cost about 45 dolors (dollars) or 10 pounds when thoroughly closed in and floors laid, besides our own labour.” ….

This homestead, the house being enlarged later, was the home until the end. Here Mary, the wife, died in 1869. Later, with the good will of all his children, the father married as his second wife the widow of Deacon Priest, who survived him, John dying in 1876. Both he and his first wife, Mary, are buried in the Omro cemetery.

John was a typical Yorkshireman: of medium height; well-built; dignified and reserved in bearing. He was by nature a proud man; but his pride was balanced by Christian humility. Somewhat stern of countenance, he often displayed a bantering good humor, and was always tender in family relations.

He was conscientious and devout; a member of the Baptist Church from youth; and the faith and fervour of his prayers at the family altar have been a wholesome memory even to the third generation.

Children

1. HANNAH, b.1820.
2. REUBEN, b.1821.
3. WILLIAM, b.1824.
4. Sarah, b.1826; d.1845 in Eng. Bu. at Bramley.
5. Elizabeth, b.1826; d.1849 in Lawrence, Mass.
6. JOHN, b.1830.
7. WALTER, b.1832.
8. MARTHA, b.1834, and
9. MARY, b.1834.
10. GEORGE, b.1836.

Sources

• https://rossfamilyhistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/the-family-line-of-john-ross-whitman-genealogy.pdf .
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71731325/john-ross: accessed 26 October 2022), memorial page for John Ross (18 Mar 1798–20 May 1876), Find a Grave Memorial ID 71731325, citing Omro Cemetery, Omro, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, USA; Maintained by Merrily Lawson (contributor 47492862) .