HomeMy WebLinkAboutWillis, John H and Caroline (Marshall)JOHN H. and CAROLINE (MARSHALL) WILLIS
John H. Willis was born in New Rochelle, Westchester County, New York on October 20, 1820 son of
John and Mary (Sivalls) Willis. He was the youngest of three sons: William, James, and John. The family
came to Tompkins County in 1838 and settled in the Town of Enfield.
For the first few years, John worked at being a harness maker. Then in September 1843, he married
Caroline Marshall. They had one child, a son, Morris S. Willis born in 1848. By that time, John’s father
had died in 1847 and he had given up being a harness maker and was back on the family farm where he
farmed a portion of it. His mother Mary died in October 1848.
Between 1850 and 1855, John and his family moved from the Town of Enfield to the Town of Belfast in
Allegany County where they settled on a 132-acre farm. This was not a ‘spur of the moment’ move as
John’s wife had family living in Allegany County.
After son Morris had completed his education in the adjoining Town of Angelica (Angelica Academy), in
1868, the family moved back to Tompkins County in the Town of Ithaca where John had purchased a
farm. In a few years, by 1875, three of John and Caroline’s nephews and niece (James, Edward, and
Louise Marshall) of Allegany County were old enough and joined them on the Ithaca farm.
As the rigors of age set in, John left most of the farm work to his nephew Edward Marshall and a live-in
farm laborer, E. E. Kellogg while he, at the age of 60, peddled milk in and around Ithaca.
Meanwhile his son Morris married Ella Kennedy, daughter of Steven Kennedy of Ithaca in December
1877. She died six years later at the age of 32 in September 1883. In 1886, Morris purchased a 150-acre
farm in the Town of Lansing that had a running stream which supported a grain and sawmill. He invited
his parents John and Caroline to live with him. Two years later Morris married for a second time, Louisa
(Norton) Drake, daughter of Jonathan and Emma Norton of Lansing.
John and Caroline continued to live with Morris and his wife until their deaths: John in June 1898 and
Caroline in January 1912.
John, Caroline, Morris who died in May 1928, and Morris’ first wife Ella are buried in Hayts Cemetery in
the Town of Ithaca.