b. 29 December 1788, d. 18 March 1873
Birth | 29 Dec 1788 | Sarah Ryburn was born on 29 Dec 1788 in Washington County, Virginia.3,4 |
Marriage | 24 Dec 1813 | She married William Davis, son of (?) Davis, on 24 Dec 1813 in Washington County, Virginia, according to Washington County marriage records.5 |
| 28 Dec 1813 | However, their daughter Mary Jane Beaty (Davis) Moffett created a journal during Sarah's lifetime in which she recorded her parents marriage date as 28 Dec. 1813.6 |
| | Sarah's older sister Jane married William's twin brother John in 1820. |
Legatee | 22 Feb 1818 | Sarah's father mentioned her in his will, written in February 1818, five years after Sarah's marriage. He left her a Negro boy named Sam and a share in the property left after specific legacies were made to his sons.2 |
Anecdote | | The following is taken from Mary Jane Beaty (Davis) Moffett's journal:
"My mother's place of residence and all of her people was in [the] Glade Spring neighborhood before she was married, all Presbyterian. After her and Father were married they lived on a small farm within 3 miles of what was called Kings Salt Works, 5 miles north of [the] Glade Spring Neighborhood, lived there until the children were grown and married (some of them) and sold out there with [the] intention of moving West but backed out and bought Father Moffett's farms down the valley north of Abingdon and lived there until he died..... then mother and the rest moved to Carroll County in the fall. Father was buried in the place that [he] died on, beside the dead of the Moffett family."7 |
ChildDeath | Apr 1845 | Sarah's first few years in Carroll County were not easy. In April 1845 she lost two of her sons within a ten day period. William died of typhoid fever at age 16 on April first and ten days later his brother John died of cancer at age twenty-seven. Two month's earlier her 28 year old daughter lost her husband. |
Cens-Sum | | Sarah settled in Freedom township with her only surviving son Mathew assuming the role of head of the family. Living with them was Sarah's widowed daughter, Eleanor Davis McCoy and her four children. Living nearby were Sarah's four married daughters including Mary Jane (Davis) Moffett.8,9 |
| | For some years Sarah lived in what was described in an 1850 letter as the "old place". This was most likely the cabin Garner and Mary Jane Moffett lived in when they first settled in Carroll County.10 |
Anecdote | 24 Feb 1870 | On 24 Feb. 1870 Mary Jane, by then herself a widow, wrote this about her mother:
"Sarah Davis, my deare mother, is still liveing and liveing with me, her age being 81.... 5 of her children liveing in Carroll Co. IL, haveing moved from Va some 25 or 6 years ago.... she is quite smart and can read and sew and knit as well as she ever did and can do a great many other things".3 |
Cens-1870 | 20 Jun 1870 | A few months later the census enumerator preserved a glimpse of Sarah and Mary Jane's household. Mary Jane's son John and his family were also living with them; John was enumerated as the head of the household.11 |
| | They all lived on the land settled by Mary Jane and Garner Moffett years earlier. Enumerated next to the family was John Wolfe, on whose land many family members were buried. Three years later Sarah would also be buried there. |
Death | 18 Mar 1873 | Sarah died on 18 Mar 1873 at age 84 of dropsey.12,13 |
Burial | 8 Oct 1881 | She was interred at Lanark Cemetery in Carroll County, Illinois on 8 Oct. 1881, having been previously buried at Wolfe Cemetery, also in Carroll County. Sarah's sons, John, William and Mathew are buried nearby.13,14 |