52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  Week #7 Theme - LANDED. 

In 1848, my Gt Gt Grandparents, William Terry and wife, Charlotte Ann Clark Terry, sold their wagon and carriage shop in Deal, County of Kent, England. They set out for the United States, with their 7 children. Family letters say that Charlotte’s marriage to a “tradesman” was frowned upon by her father who was superintendent of the Royal Navy Hospital.  She may have even been disowned.  

The  ship they took was the American Eagle.  It was an American sailing ship that traveled between New York and London from 1846 to 1867, during which period her westbound passages averaged 35 days, her shortest passage being 22 days, her longest 57. 

They sailed from Liverpool and were out 4 or 5 weeks when the captain feared they had yellow fever or smallpox aboard.   The captain turned back to Liverpool, and they were quarantined until given a clean bill of health by port authorities.  One of the children, Amelia, who was about 8 years old at the time, remembered it was a sailing ship and that the voyage took six weeks. She wrote that she saw a man being buried at sea during the voyage. 

They reached New York in 1849, and went first to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Charlotte was traveling for two… as my great grandmother Elizabeth (Lizzie) Terry was born when they reached the town of Milwaukee. William was again in the carriage making business, and they lived next to a livery stable. 

Later they farmed in Illinois, where William and three Terry children died. The widowed Charlotte followed family members to Kansas and then on to Oregon.

In  Kansas, our Lizzie married Samuel Griffin, who had fought as a Union Soldier in the Civil War. In 1891, after Samuel Griffin died, Lizzie and her six children, ages 3 to 17, moved from Kansas to Oklahoma Territory, where she homesteaded a quarter section of land.