Almyra Bishop

Almira and her sister were born in Connecticut (or maybe New York. The census records dont agree)

When she was 28 years old, living In Ohio, Almira married Austin C. Bishop, and they had three children, Lewis, Sophia (short for Sophonisba), and Francis MARION.

When Marion was still a baby, the whole family went to Indiana. They got a flat-boat, and came down the Ohio River by flat boat to the mouth of the Wabash and up the Wabash and Vermillion Rivers to Eugene by keelboat.

Five years later, in 1831, Austin died early in the year, and late the same year, land he patented was granted.

Almira was 40 years old and had four kids from 4 to 9 years old. Her neighbour was a 56 year old widower named Hudson Hughes from North Carolina. He had 10 grown children of his own. They married the following year and it seems the merged families got along very well each other.

So well in fact that Hudson's son, Israel, married Almira's sister Orra just a few years later.

Next, Hudson's son John married Almira's daughter Sophia. Late that same year, after 10 years of marriage to Almira and two children, Hudson died.

In 1850 we see that three families lived next door to one another. First there was the widowed Almira with her two children with Hudson, and her son Austin Bishop. Next door is her sister Orra and her husband Israel Hughes (Israel being one of Hudson's adult sons). The third household was Almira's now married son Marion and his wife.

Israel was a cooper, were Almira's sons Marion and Austin. Almira had a boarder who was a cooper too.

Fortners

Almira's eldest son, Lewis Bishop, and her youngest daughter Lucinda Hughes married first cousins Sally Fortner and the widower Reuben Fortner.

Their grandfather Peter had been a fifer in the American Revolution. He originally came from Germany. Intriguingly, though during the war his was Peter Fortner, he took the alias William Schuyler after the war, kept it all his life. No one knows why.