Thursday, October 21, 2010

Limited Choices for Spouses

Julia Ann Tuller of Royalton, Vermont must have been happy to meet Abiathar Smith Robinson. I'm not sure for sure if he was also born in Royalton, but it must have been somewhere nearby though he did say on one census that he was born in New York. Vermont was created out of part of New York, so he may not have accepted the change. I keep finding people marrying into families of previous generations. I believe they must have depended on neighbors and friends of friends to find mates.

They didn't go far to marry. Their wedding was in Tunbridge, Vermont, a town very close to Royalton. They married on February 29, 1852 when Julia was 18. Abiathar was 23.

To meet and marry they needed transportation, I imagine. They had at that time wagons, sleighs for winter, carriages and horses. The East Coast had a lot more advantages in 1850 than the West had. After 1850 the railroad brought in traveling salesmen and manufactured goods.

By 1857 they had moved to Canada and it was then that their 3rd child was born. I can imagine that this land was far more primitive where Abiathar probably farmed.

They returned to Vermont in 1865 but didn't stay long. 1869 finds they had moved to Wenona, Illinois and stayed there. After having 10 children, Julia died December 2, 1887. Abiathar was a farmer, laborer and teamster in Illinois.

Abiathar remarried Mary Jane Walters, a widow, probably a neighbor in Wenona in 1896 so he waited 9 years to do so. He died in October 1904.

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