Miriam Wood (1825 - 1910)

Born 1825 in West Virginia

Ancestors

Wife of James Allison Shawver — married 8 Jun 1843 in Fayette County, Virginia

Descendants

Died 1910 at about age 85 in Greenbrier, West Virginia

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Pam Ellis [send private message]

Biography

Miriam's parents are not completely certain to me (Robert Ellis) as of 8 August 2015. She is either the daughter of a Wood or of a Taylor. The marriage record clearly indicates she went by the surname Wood when she married James Shawver. However, in 1976, a second cousin of mine wrote to my parents and identified her as "Miriam Taylor Wood of Virginia." In a letter written in or shortly after 1940, an aunt (a granddaughter of Miriam) wrote to my father and stated: "Grandmother Shawver was a Miriam Taylor, her mother was a Wood; before marriage to Taylor, were well to do farmers."

In a paper I wrote in 2001, I stated: "I suspect that Miriam is perhaps a granddaughter of Bailey Wood, one of the original members of the Greenbrier Baptist Church founded by Rev. John Alderson. Bailey married the daughter of one of the other original founders of the church. A connection to a Taylor exists in a history of Fayette County that states: “As early as 1790 the families of James Lykens, James Taylor, Bailey Wood, William Parrish and others settled on the present site of Ansted as "squatters" without title to their lands. About the same year these settlers build the first church erected in Fayette Co-Hopewell Baptist Church. *Fayette at this time was still part of Greenbrier.” This Bailey Wood was a Baptist and a farmer. Rev Alderson performed the marriage ceremony of Bailey Wood’s sister Elizabeth. I also found that Bailey Wood, Jr. had a grandson born in 1836 named “Grandison.” James and Miriam named their second son Grandison. "

That said, I have yet to find evidence of a marriage between a Taylor and descendant of Bailey Wood.

Sources

• Year: 1850; Census Place: District 14, Fayette, Virginia; Roll: M432_943; Page: 340B; Image: 286

Year: 1860; Census Place: Kanawha, Virginia; Roll: M653_1356; Page: 61; Image: 66; Family History Library Film: 805356

Year: 1880; Census Place: Union, Kanawha, West Virginia; Roll: 1405; Family History Film: 1255405; Page: 411C; Enumeration District: 058

West Virginia, Marriages Index, 1785-1971

Letter from Marie Davidson to my parents, H. W. and Marie Ellis, dated 30 Jan 1976.

Letter from Aunt Blanche Mariani to my father, in or about 1940. Date established by her reference to the recent death of her mother, Nancy Riddle Shawver, who died 19 April 1940.