Alden, John (1599?–12 September 1687), farmer and magistrate, was one of the original settlers of Plymouth Colony, arriving in New England on the Mayflower in 1620. No definite information exists about his birth, parentage, childhood, or education. In 1620 he lived at Southampton, England, where the migrating Pilgrims stopped for provisions on their way from the Netherlands to the New World. There he was hired as the ship’s cooper in charge of its supply of beer and drinking water. Upon landfall, Alden joined in signing the now famous Mayflower Compact. After the colonists’ arrival in Plymouth, Governor ...
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Alden, John (1599?–12 September 1687), farmer and magistrate
Mark A. Peterson
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Bidwell, John (1819-1900), California pioneer, agriculturalist, and politician
Richard H. Dillon
Bidwell, John (05 August 1819–04 April 1900), California pioneer, agriculturalist, and politician, was born on a farm in Chautauqua County, New York, the son of Abram Bidwell and Clarissa Griggs, farmers. The family moved to Pennsylvania and then Ohio. John was bookish, although he had only three winter months of schooling each year, at best. But he walked 300 miles to attend Kingsville Academy in 1836 and, after a year, was elected its principal. He returned home to teach, then went to Missouri to farm. There, a western trader told him of fertile California, a land of perpetual spring. So he helped organize a western emigration society....
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Blackstone, William (1595-1675), Anglican clergyman, horticulturist, and first European settler in what is now Rhode Island
Paul F. Eno
Blackstone, William (05 March 1595–26 May 1675), Anglican clergyman, horticulturist, and first European settler in what is now Rhode Island, was born in Whickham, Durham, England, the son of John Blackstone, a wealthy landowner and poultryman, and Agnes Hawley. At Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Blackstone (sometimes Blackston or Blaxton) took his B.A. in 1617 and his M.A. in 1621. He at once took orders in the Church of England....
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Brent, Margaret (1601–1670?), landowner and colonial leader
Stephanie A. Carpenter
Brent, Margaret (1601–1670?), landowner and colonial leader, was born in England, the daughter of Richard Brent, lord of Admington and Lark Stoke in the county of Gloucester, England, and Elizabeth Reed.
When Margaret Brent was about thirty-seven years old, she traveled to the New World with her sister Mary, brothers Giles and Fulke, and their servants. They landed at St. Mary’s (later St. Marys) Maryland, in November 1638. Although the two sisters traveled with their brothers, they did not depend on them for their economic survival. They arrived with servants as well as the means to procure large land grants from the proprietor, Lord Baltimore (...
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Brewer, William Henry (14 September 1828–02 November 1910), explorer-scientist and agriculturist
Nancy G. Slack
Brewer, William Henry (14 September 1828–02 November 1910), explorer-scientist and agriculturist, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, the son of Henry Brewer and Rebecca DuBois, farmers. Brewer grew up on a farm in Enfield, New York. From 1848 to 1850 he studied scientific agriculture at the School of Applied Chemistry at Yale under ...
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Bush, George Washington (1790?–05 April 1863), pioneer, farmer, and cattleman
Frank L. Green
Bush, George Washington (1790?–05 April 1863), pioneer, farmer, and cattleman, was born probably in Pennsylvania or Louisiana. His mother was Scotch-Irish, his father perhaps East Indian; little is known of Bush’s birth and ancestry. He may have been born as early as 1770. However, that would have made him seventy-four by the time he came to Oregon in 1844. Oral tradition among the family gives the date as 1779....
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Chapman, John (1774-1845), pioneer nurseryman and folk hero
Frank R. Kramer
Chapman, John (26 September 1774–10 March 1845), pioneer nurseryman and folk hero, known as “Johnny Appleseed,” was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel Chapman, a farmer and carpenter, and Elizabeth Simons (or Simonds). No authenticated account of Chapman’s childhood has come to light. It is likely, however, that he began to develop his remarkable woodsman’s skills during his childhood and youth along the Connecticut River near Longmeadow, Massachusetts, to which the family had moved following his father’s remarriage. As a young man, Chapman established an appletree nursery along the Allegheny Valley (1797–1798) in northwestern Pennsylvania. From there he gradually extended his operations into central and northwestern Ohio and then into eastern Indiana....
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Dunbar, William (1749-1810), scientist and planter
George E. Webb
Dunbar, William (1749–16 October 1810), scientist and planter, was born near Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland, the son of Scottish nobleman Sir Archibald Dunbar and his second wife, Anne Bain. Educated chiefly in Glasgow, he later studied mathematics and astronomy in London. When his health began to fail, Dunbar decided to emigrate to North America in 1771 to regain his vigor and seek economic success....
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Jones, Buffalo (1844-1919), frontiersman, rancher, and conservationist
H. Allen Anderson
Jones, Buffalo ( January 1844–01 October 1919), frontiersman, rancher, and conservationist, was born Charles Jesse Jones in Tazewell County, Illinois, the son of Noah Nicholas Jones and Jane Munden; the exact date of his birth is unclear. His father often served as an election judge and reportedly once hired ...
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LeFlore, Greenwood (1800-1865), chief of the Choctaws, planter, and member of the Mississippi legislature
Yasuhide Kawashima
LeFlore, Greenwood (03 June 1800–31 August 1865), chief of the Choctaws, planter, and member of the Mississippi legislature, was born near the present site of the old state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, the son of Louis LeFlore, a French Canadian who lived among the Choctaws as an agent and trader, and Rebecca Cravat, a young girl from an important Choctaw family. When Greenwood was twelve years old, Major John Donley, who handled mail along the Natchez Trace, took the boy to his home near Nashville, Tennessee, where he stayed for five years attending school. At seventeen Greenwood asked permission to marry Donley’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Rosa, but Donley did not consent to the marriage because they were too young. Greenwood and Rosa slipped away to a friend’s home to get married, and Greenwood thereafter took his bride home to Mississippi, where two children were born....
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Other Day, John (1819?–30 October 1869), Christian farmer chief of the Wahpeton Dakotas
Mark F. Diedrich
Other Day, John (1819?–30 October 1869), Christian farmer chief of the Wahpeton Dakotas, who became famous for leading white settlers to safety during the Dakota War of 1862, was born in southern Minnesota, the son of Scarlet Bird (Zitkadanduta), a war shaman. His mother’s name is not known. His Indian name was Anpetutokeca; he was also known as Good Sounding Voice, or Hotonhowaste....
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Robinson, Solon (1803-1880), author, agricultural journalist, and Indiana pioneer
Donald B. Marti
Robinson, Solon (21 October 1803–03 November 1880), author, agricultural journalist, and Indiana pioneer, was born in Tolland, Connecticut, the son of Jacob Robinson, a farmer and cooper, and Salinda Ladd. His father died when Solon Robinson was about six, and then his mother married James Robinson, one of her deceased husband’s cousins. After his mother died and her second husband refused further responsibility for his stepchildren, Solon Robinson was in the care of William Bottom. He worked on his guardian’s farm, got a little education in a country school near Lisbon, Connecticut, and briefly worked as a carpenter’s apprentice, which was harder labor than his health could stand. In 1818, for unknown reasons, Solon successfully petitioned that Vine Robinson, an uncle in Brooklyn, Connecticut, be his guardian. Solon’s later devotion to temperance may have been learned from his uncle, but little more is known about the next few years of his life....
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Rosen, Joseph A. (1877-1949), agronomist and resettlement expert
Susan Hamburger
Rosen, Joseph A. (15 February 1877–02 April 1949), agronomist and resettlement expert, was born in Moscow, Russia, and apparently raised 100 miles south in Tula. Nothing is known of his parents and early life. He once acknowledged being held in the Boutirka prison for two months at age fifteen for reading a book that said Czar Alexander was a drunkard. He attended Moscow University in 1894 but, because of anti-czarist activities, was exiled to Siberia for five years. Within six months Rosen escaped to Germany, where he supposedly enrolled at the University of Heidelberg to study philosophy and chemistry. He supported himself by writing for Russian journals....
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Vann, Joseph (1800-1844), Cherokee leader, planter, and businessman
The Editors
Vann, Joseph (1800–26 October 1844), Cherokee leader, planter, and businessman, was born in the Cherokee Nation (in what is now Murray County, Ga.), the son of James Vann, a Cherokee leader, and Margret Scott. Vann, known as “Rich Joe,” has often been confused with his cousin and contemporary Joseph Vann (1798–1877). As was common among nineteenth-century Native American leaders, Vann had white and Cherokee ancestors. His father, a wealthy Cherokee of mixed blood, left his son much of his wealth when he died in 1809, including a large plantation, many black slaves, and a handsome federal house at Spring Place, Georgia. Vann continued to live at Spring Place until the Cherokee removal began in the 1830s. The house, which was built in 1804, was later designated a state historic site. In addition to his landholdings and slaves, Vann owned a ferry and engaged in various business ventures. He married Jennis Springston (date unknown); they had at least five children....
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Wilbarger, John Wesley (12 March 1812–? February 1892), farmer, minister, and author
David Minter
Wilbarger, John Wesley (12 March 1812–? February 1892), farmer, minister, and author, was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, the son of John Wilbarger and Anne Pugh, farmers. In 1823 the family moved to Pike County, Missouri, where he continued his schooling, fulfilling the desire of his frontier parents that he master the English language. There, he and Lucy Anderson were married on 26 May 1836, less than a month before the Battle of San Jacinto assured the independence of Texas....
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Winchester, James (1752-1826), soldier, planter, and pioneer
Robert E. Corlew
Winchester, James (06 February 1752–26 July 1826), soldier, planter, and pioneer, was born in Carroll County, Maryland, the son of William Winchester, a surveyor, and Lydia Richards. As a youth he learned his father’s trade and was widely respected for his skill and industry. He enlisted as a private in the Continental army in 1776 and rose to the rank of captain. Wounded, captured, and imprisoned briefly by the British, he served to the war’s end and was a leader in the organization of the Society of the Cincinnati....
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Wolfskill, William (1798-1866), frontiersman, trader, and rancher
Joe A. Stout Jr.
Wolfskill, William (20 March 1798–03 October 1866), frontiersman, trader, and rancher, was born in Boonesborough, Madison County, Kentucky, the son of Joseph Wolfskill, Jr., and Sarah Reid, farmers. In late 1809 the family moved to Boone’s Lick, Howard County, Missouri. William was sent back to Kentucky in 1815 to attend school for two years and then returned to Missouri, where he remained. In May 1822 he joined William Becknell’s second Santa Fe trade expedition. In New Mexico, Wolfskill and fellow Kentuckian ...
