John ALLUM

  General Notes:

Photo: The time and weather-worn gravemarker of John Allum, 1820-1854, is at Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery, Jefferson Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania
Credit: Greene County, Pennsylvania Cemeteries CD No. 3 by James Fordyce, 2002


1820 BIRTH of John Allum

(According to the 1820 census, population of the nation when John was born was 10 million. New York was the largest city followed by Philadelphia. Five states had been admitted to the Union since 1810, namely Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi. James Monroe won a land-slide re-election in 1820 over John Quincy Adams, who received just one vote! Congress passed the Land Act of 1820 reducing the minimum price for property from $2 per acre to $1.25 with 80 acres the maximum purchase. Called the "Missouri Compromise" ... after heated debates on the question of slavery, Maine was admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. Already in 1820, Americans believed that slavery, "could tear the country apart." Steps were taken by Congress to designate slave trade a form of piracy and to threaten importers with harsh penalties that included death. Meantime, more than 20,000 Indian slaves were in California missions. In 1820, Daniel Boone died in the Missouri Territory. Longfellow published his first poem, and Sir Walter Scott's IVANHOE sold 2.5 million copies.)

1820 CENSUS, Pennsylvania, Greene County, Richhill Township (with parents) ("Allims")

6 people are in the household in 1820:

4 males (father Charles and sons William, Thomas and John)
2 females (mother Jemima and ?)

1830 CENSUS, Pennsylvania, Greene County, Richhill Township (with parents)

10 people are in the household in 1830:

1 male 30-40 (father Charles, born 1796)
2 males 10-15 (sons William and Thomas, born 1817 and 1818)
2 males 5-10 (sons John and James, born 1820 and 1822)
1 male under 5 (son Isaac, born 1828)
1 female 30-40 (mother Jemima, born 1795)
1 female 5-10 (daughter Delila, born 1823)
2 females under 5 (daughters Peninah and Hannah, born 1825 and 1827)

1840 DEATH of grandfather William Allum

1840 CENSUS, Pennsylvania, Greene County, Richhill Township (with parents)

11 people are in the household in 1840:

1 male 40-50 (father Charles)
1 male 20-30 (son John) (sons William, born 1817, and Thomas, born 1818, are documented in their own households in Richhill Township in 1840)
1 male 15-20 (son James "Jimmy," born 1822)
1 male 10-15 (son Isaac, born 1828)
1 male under 5 (son Porter, born 1840)
1 female 40-50 (mother Jemima, born 1795)
2 females 15-20 (daughters Delila, born 1823, and Peninah, born 1825)
1 female 10-15 (daughter Hannah, born 1827)
2 females under 5 (Should the census category have really been "2 females 5-10"? If so, they would have been daughters Pamelia and Eliza)

1844 MARRIAGE of John Allum and Nancy Cumpston

1850 CENSUS, Pennsylvania, Greene County, Jefferson Township ("John," age 28, "Blacksmith") (wife "Nancy," age 27)

1854 DEATH of John Allum at 34 years 3 months 21 days

(The ongoing issue of slavery led to the formation of a political party in Wisconsin called "Republican" that promised to gain power at state and federal levels. The party was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed settlers of new territories to choose between "free" and "slavery." In Illinois, Abraham Lincoln also expressed opposition to the Act. Henry David Thoreau's WALDEN, OR LIFE IN THE WOODS was issued in 1854, and Stephen Foster's "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" was a hit. Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson invented a new rifle. Franklin Pierce was President.)

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1859 DEATH of John's mother, Jemima (Barnhart) Allum

1860 CENSUS, Pennsylvania, Washington County, East Finley Township (Nancy is remarried to Jacob Newland) (Jacob "Newel," age 60, Farmer") (wife "Nancy," age 36) (see immediately below)

By 1860, Nancy had remarried to Jacob Newland, whose name is "Newel" in an 1860 census index. In the Jacob Newland household are three of Nancy's children by John Allum: Manerva, William, and Osa (as "Oca"). Also in the household is Margaret Newland, Nancy's daughter by Jacob.

In 1860, Nancy's two remaining children by John Allum are in the household of their paternal grandfather, Charles Allum ("Allums"): Malinda [as "Matilda"], age 15, "House Domestic," and her younger brother John [John Erwin Allum], age 11.

1864 MOVE (approximate) from Pennsylvania to Illinois (Nancy, second husband Jacob Newland and children)

1868 DEATH of John's father - Nancy's former father-in-law, Charles W. Allum

1870 CENSUS, Illinois, Livingston County, Belle Prairie Township, Fairbury (Head of household, John* "Allen" ["Farmer"], age 22, with siblings William, 20, and Osa, 18, mother Nancy (Allum) Newland, age 46, and Newland children, Margaret, 12; Marietta, 10; Plezzie, 5; and Alfred, 2)

1880 CENSUS, Illinois, Livingston County, Belle Prairie Township, Fairbury ("Nancy Newland," age 55, with sons John Allum, 32, and William Allum, 30; and Newland children Maggie, 22; "Etta," 19; Plezzie, 15; and Frederick, 12 (documented as "Alfred" in the 1870 census) (Alfred's middle name may have been Frederick)

1900 CENSUS

1904 DEATH of Nancy at approximately 80 years. Nancy is buried as "Nancy Newlyn, 1824-1904" at Upper Tenmile Cemetery in Prosperity, Washington County, Pennsylvania (Theodore Roosevelt was President when Nancy died)


*John Erwin Allum (1848-1920), son of John Allum (1823-1854) and Nancy



Comments:

Cumpston families from Pennsylvania lived in Fairbury, Livingston County, Illinois when Nancy (as Nancy Newland) lived there in the mid-to-late 1860s. One of the Cumpston females in Illinois was "Plezia" Cumpston, and Nancy's daughter by Newland was "Plezzie" Newland. (Their formal first names may actually have been "Pleasant.")

--DeeAnna Allum Granston



Shirley Allum Hudlicky:

"The children of John Allum's marriage with Nancy--at least the younger ones--may have used the surname ' Simpson ' after John's death and after Nancy remarried to a Mr. Simpson of Simpson's Store at Washington County, Pennsylvania. In 1905, Osa Jane Allum signed her name 'Osa Simpson' on the marriage license application of her son, Clayton Allum."

The information directly above originates in a late 1950s letter to Shirley from the wife of Clayton Allum. To date I have not found Nancy married to a Mr. Simpson, although it is possible she married after John Allum's death in 1854...and before the 1860 census when she is documented as the wife of Jacob Newland. --DeeAnna



SOME DOCUMENTS:

1854 - John Allum Estate, No. 1607, Volume 3, page 170, Greene County, Pennsylvania

1854 - Letters of administration: Granted on the estate of John Allum, deceased, to Israel L. Craft "on the first day of Nov. A. D. 1854. Same day bond was taken in the penal sum of six hundred dollars with Charles Allum and Jas. Lindsey as sureties. Inventory and list of goods & chattels taken by widow, filed Nov. 6, 1854"

1854, 1855 and 1856 - Orphans Court Records

John married Nancy CUMPSTON, daughter of Jacob CUMPSTON and Mary CUMPSTON, in 1844 in Greene County, Pennsylvania. (Nancy CUMPSTON was born in 1824 in (Near) Greensboro, Greene County, Pennsylvania, died on January 11, 1904 in (Near) Old Concord, Washington County, Pennsylvania and was buried on January 13, 1904 in Upper Ten Mile Cemetery, Prosperity, Washington County, Pennsylvania.)