Sofia (Sadowski) Johnson Darling

DAR MATRON OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION - Sophia born on - - at ___died at ___ on - - married William Darling on - - 1751 -tcd

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Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 18:45:45 EDT From: <EdPink@aol.com> [ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ] To: <Sandusky-L@rootsweb.com>, <wdarling@excite.com>, <samara31@tampabay.rr.com> Subject: Sophia Sadowski

Sophia Sadowski and Her Bloodline

Until recently Sophia, Sofia, or Sophie, whatever you prefer, Sadowski, in its purest form, was one of the least known of Anthony Sadowski’s children. No one knows exactly where she was born. Obviously, her father came from Poland, where Sadowski is a pretty common name, and his coming to American soil, maybe not directly, was a big decision. It meant that he would never see his parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, and friends again. As we know, he started fresh in New Jersey and one of the reasons he migrated from there about 1712 was to become more involved in trading with Indians. Under investigation: where he married Mary Bordt and where their children were born. If any of them were born in William Penn’s province, the most likely person was Sophia, who was still at home and not married in 1736, the year Anthony Sadowski died and left her a good feather bed and furniture, two cows, a horse to get around, and ten sheep from which to make woolen clothing. Her sister, Justina, died five years before that, leaving two sons, and another sister, Anna, married Increase Miller of Bedford, New York, and brought eleven children into the world. Two other children died before Anthony Sadowski. One source said that Sophia was born in 1728. It was not likely that Anthony Sadowski would give an 8-year-old child livestock to use. As she was growing up, Sophia learned to knick stockings for her brother, if not for her father. After Anthony Sadowski’s death, Andrew was the only son to carry on the family name. Sophia changed her last name twice by marriage. The Sadowski bloodline is, then, quite unique in American history. Had Gerald R. Ford not become the 38th President of the United States on August 9, 1974, the work his mother did(she hired a professional genealogist) to dig up Anthony Sadowski in her bloodline would not have gone very far. President Ford wasn’t interested in genealogy. His brother was. He inherited his mother’s notes and shared them with others who married into the family. Hence a new army of Sadowski researchers. Sophia doesn’t have as many people looking into her past as President Ford has. Outstanding were Elizabeth Gehrke and Virginia Mencer in Ohio, Virginia Dexter in Wyoming, and Patricia K. Miller in Montana. Because of time, I lost track of Martha Jane Helm, who was the first person to let me know that Sophia, or Soffia as she spelled her name, Sadowski had several generations of descendants. In her case, Martha, sixth generation descendant of Anthony Sadowski, was born at Norfolk, Virginia, 7 June 1921, the daughter of Walter S. Engelhardt and Edna Mildred Severns, and she married Roy W. Helms Jr. at Pittsburgh, Pa., 7 June 1947. Going back in Sophia’s line, Edna Severns was the daughter of French W. Severns of Mt. Nebo, Ohio, who was the son of Isaac Darling Severns of New Castle, Ohio, who was the son of Justina Darling of Hardy County, then Virginia but now West Virginia, who was the daughter of Robert Darling, the first son of William Darling and Soffia(sic) Sadowski. On 25 March 1787, shortly after William Darling died intestate, William Darling stated that Robert Darling was his younger brother. If so, then it means that Sophia had two children by William Darling instead of three but raised three children, not including children, if any, by Isaac Johnson. Never before has it been said that the two William Darlings were part of another marriage. It is necessary, therefore, to look carefully at the proof that Robert Darling was the first child of William Darling and Sophia Sadowski. When Robert Darling died 13 April 1836, his family erected a headstone in Darling Run Cemetery in Cohocton County, Ohio, to which he moved in 1806, marking the year of his birth in 1753, and replaced it with a new headstone in 1920 which changed the year of his birth to 1762. Although the DAR accepted 1753 as the year of his birth, all in the family did not because one of the census records considerably lowered his age. Whatever the reasons for not accepting 1753, no one could change a newspaper obituary which said that Robert Darling was 84 years old when he died. In another look at the ages of the three Darling children, in 1756, when their father was serving in the Virginia militia to protect the frontier, his arm was broken in two places by a party of Indians, and he was unable to support himself, his wife, and three small children. Thus, changing the year of Robert Darling’s birth to 1762 was a big mistake. On April 23, 1757, William Darling received ten pounds from the state government to support himself, his wife, and three children. He had no more children. As it turned out, Robert Darling was closer to Sophia Sadowski than his older brother was. On 3 August 1773, Lord Fairfax gave William Darling the right to farm 145 acres of wetlands on the west side of the South Branch of the Potomac River, across the river from Moorefield, the present seat of Hardy County, West Virginia, and eventually William Darling owned the title to Lot #18, as it was called. When he died, Robert Darling bought the farm from his brother, William Darling, who then lived in Monongahela County, and John Reed, his sister’s husband. Whatever Sophia Darling’s dowry was, Sophia Darling was listed separately in a 1790’s tax list of Hardy County with a large herd of livestock. She was still there in 1803 when she donated three dollars to a Union Church in Hardy County. Unfortunately I don’t know the details of two deeds between her and her son-in-law, John Reed, I 24, page 320, and MR21, page 238, which might shed more light on her life. No one in the family has to my knowledge looked at them. Quite recently, other relatives of Sophia Sadowski, like R. Eads and William Darling, have logged in and exchanged messages on GenForum, but have not reported when Sophia Darling died. Neither have they traced their lineages as Martha Helm has done. Like Anthony Sadowski, his daughter made a decision to move to Virginia with her first husband, Isaac(Yellus before that) Johnson, who was acquainted with Anthony Sadowski in New Jersey, and knowing what influenced her decision to migrate and remain locked in a lonely mountain wilderness until her death can help to understand the pioneer spirit that her kith and kin carried with them. One of the reasons evidently for moving southward was following friends. Sophia moved to Virginia before her brother did in 1752, because her first husband was on a committee that laid out a road in 1749 from the mouth of Patterson’s Creek, where they settled, to a settler named Pearsall. Johnson died in the summer of 1752. Sophia posted a bond in Frederick County, Virginia, on August 4, 1752, to administer his estate. Hampshire and Hardy counties were in turn created from Frederick County. Patterson’s Creek is now located in Hardy County, West Virginia. It is not certain how many children they had, whether a Virginia militiaman by the name of Isaac Johnson was Sophia’s son, or if she had any issue at all from the first marriage. Between August 4, 1752, and Feb. 14, 1753, Sophia changed her name again by marriage to William Darling. Although the year is questioned, Robert, who was born in 1753, served in the American Revolution as his father did in the French and Indian War and two sons would do in the War of 1812. Robert Darling, if he was mistaken for another person of the same name, enlisted 25 April 1778 in Lt. James Smith’s Company, 4th Maryland Regiment. Continuing in the same patriotic tradition, his father gave flour to feed General Washington’s soldiers who were guarding British prisoners of war. For the first time in the history of the DAR, Sophia Darling’s name hit their records when Robert Darling’s descendant, Patricia K. Miller, joined the DAR.

Edward Pinkowski

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sophia sadowski.FTW <i>sophia sadowski.FTW</i> Y

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0 Date of Import: Jul 24, 1999

GEDCOM Source

sophia sadowski.FTW <i>sophia sadowski.FTW</i> Y

GEDCOM Source

0 Date of Import: Jul 24, 1999

• Reference: WikiTree Genealogy - SmartCopy: Oct 30 2020, 1:29:40 UTC