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This is really the story of Rachel Wynne, as Hugh died at a relatively young age. Rachel was from the Wynne family of Chester County,
Pennsylvania, the descendants of Dr. Thomas Wynne, who came to Philadelphia with William Penn on the ship "Welcome" in 1690. The
Wynnes were Welsh Quakers, a persecuted minority in Great Britain in the 1600s, who found a refuge in Chester County, Pennsylvania. A large
Welsh settlement sprang up in the area just north of Philadelphia and the Wynne family multiplied. Rachel was born in Chester County and she married
Hugh Huston at the Wynne family farm at Marsh Creek. Her sister, Ann, married Hugh's older brother, James Huston. The two Huston couples, along with the
families of Andrew and Thomas Huston,
moved west to Circleville, in Pickaway County, Ohio, about 1816.
Five children were born to Rachel and Hugh in Circleville: Susan Millard in 1817,
Mary Jane in 1819, Franklin in 1821, Eliza Ann in 1823, and Luther in 1826. Hugh was probably a blacksmith with a thriving business, as an
inventory of his estate included a set of blacksmith tools, a leather apron, and 50 "debts owing" from at least 40 different individuals. The amounts
of the debts were mostly under $7.00, some as little as eighteen cents, and one large debt of $31.00. His estate also included the unlikely
item of a violin. He owned no land and only one horse. Hugh died at the age of 31 in September 1826,
and Rachel was left with five children under the age of ten, one still a baby. James became the administrator of Hugh's estate and Rachel was allotted
$195 and four hogs to support herself and her five children for a year. In the spring of the following year, however, James died, and by the end of
the summer Andrew Huston had been named guardian of Rachel's children. Hugh was buried in Adelphi, as was his brother James (died 1827), James's wife Ann
(died 1828), and James & Ann's son Robert (died 1834).
It is unclear
whether the Huston children ever lived with Andrew; they may have lived with Thomas Huston. Four years later, in July 1830, Rachel married Samuel
Rector at Circleville. If the Huston children had not been living with her before,
chances are they were returned to her now that she had a means to support them. Daughters Margaret and Octavia Rector were born in Ohio in 1832 and 1834, respectively.
Rachel and Samuel then moved their family to Hamilton County, Indiana. They owned a parcel of land in White River Township, north of Strawtown. At this time there were
only about 30 families living in the area. A son, George Rector, was born in 1837. Samuel died in 1842
and Rachel gained guardianship of the Rector children.
Rachel remained in White River and took ownership of the farm. Three years later, on March 20, 1845, she married her third husband, Samuel Jenison, and they merged their families.
In the fall of 1850 the
Jenisons were still farming in White River Township. Luther, the youngest Huston child, was 24 and helping on the farm. Margaret Rector was 18 and George
was 14; both were still attending school. Octavia, 16, had left earlier that year to marry a young lawyer, Silas Hare. Samuel Jenison's two youngest
sons, Joseph, 14,
and William, 10, were also living on the farm and attending school. The paper trail for Samuel Jenison then disappears. Family legend says he went
to California to seek gold, and that may be, as there's no indication that he died or was buried in Indiana.
In the 1850s Rachel joined her children Franklin and Martin Luther, as they headed south to Texas. She probably lived with Luther, who
worked in Norman Austin's store in the town of Belton. Norman had married Rachel's daughter, Eliza Ann, and was well established in town.
When the Civil War divided
the family, Rachel remained in Belton with Luther. She died in 1866, aged 71, and is buried in the "Old Confederate Cemetery" in Belton (now South Belton Cemetery).