Polly Campbell (Groshong)

Mary Groshong 1811 - 1889

Mary "Polly" Groshong, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Buckalew Groshong, was born on May 11, 1811 in the area of Lincoln County, Missouri and died on September 28, 1889 in the area of Ursa Township, Adams County, Illinois. After the War of 1812, her father Samuel Groshong, who was of French descent but born circa 1782 in Pennsylvania, was a government messenger in the Illinois Country between the outpost at Alton along the Mississippi River and the newly erected (1814) Ft. Edwards at the confluence of the Mississippi and Des Moines Rivers at Warsaw, Illinois. He spoke French and at least four Indian dialects fluently and was probably the first white man to visit and later settle in the future township area of Ursa, Adams County, Illinois, known before 1850 as the Bear Creek Territory. He settled there in 1822-23 and died in the Ursa Township area in the winter of 1826-27. Samuel Groshog was buried in the south west corner of what was to later become the Denson Pioneer Cemetery at Ursa, Illinois. Mary Groshong met George Campbell when he came from Blount County, Tennessee, to Adams County, Illinois in 1823, they were married two years later, on August 18, 1825 in Adams County, Illinois, at the time, if my calculations are correct, in 1825 he would have been around 31 years of age and Mary would have been 14 to 15 years of age, never-the-less, Mary's father gave his permission for them to marry. George died in December of 1864 at the ripe old age of 71 yrs 1 mo 16 dys and they are both buried in the New Providence Cemetery at Ursa, in Adams County, Illinois. Her husband's parents, Thomas (1764 -1825) and Sarah Wilcox Campbell (1780 - 1835) , like her father Samuel, are buried in the Denson Pioneer Cemetery, approx. one quarter mile south west of the New Providence Cemetery at Ursa, Illinois. George Campell's father Thomas, is identified by Adams County, Illinois historians, as the 1st death to occur in the Ursa area of Adams County, Illinois. Mary and George Campbell's son Andrew (1826 - 1849)is also considered to be the first white child born in the Ursa area of Adams County, Andrew Campbell died in California in 1849. (bio by: mrbrtsn)

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Feb 7 2022, 23:18:10 UTC