A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

Samuel, Jacob and Eli, Thomas Moss, and David John. Some of these lived from Mt. Pleasant (Mt.Healthy) to Cincinnati along Hamilton Avenue.Phebe Cary, another of William’s sisters, married John Crary in 1783, Lyme, New Hampshire. Theirfamily moved to College Hill in 1806. Lyman Crary of College Hill was her son and Rev. B. F. Crary, D.D. president of Wisconsin University was her grandson. Mercy Cary, sister of William, married ThomasWeston of Townsend, Mass. They came to College Hill in 1828. She died in 1830 and her childrenmarried into families in Colerain Township.Samuel Cary, William’s brother, came to Cincinnati in 1802 and was the first tailor in the city. Hedied of smallpox in 1804.Christopher Cary applied for his military pension in 1824. His children were grown and he workedas a farmer and a laborer. In the pension affidavit he stated he owned no real estate, was indigent, living atthe home of his son Robert, and that his property of 1 mare, 1 cow and household goods were worth$73.00.He married three times, the first was Elsie Terrel in Lyme, New Hampshire, then Lear Brokaw ofCincinnati and lastly to Margaret McCarty in 1825. He died in 1837. He had a large family: Lucy marriedJames McGinnis; Robert who married Elizabeth Jessup and later Anna Lewis; Benijah settled nearCollege Hill. He married Polly Nichols of Hartford, Vermont in 1812 and moved to a farm in NewRichmond, Ohio where he died. One of his sons, Joseph, was a sea captain and was engaged in the slavetrade, dying on the coast of Africa; Maria married John Loring; Christopher who died young in anaccident; Irwin, Maria died as an infant and Anna, who married Mr. Sprong and lived in Missouri.Robert and Benijah both fought in the War of 1812. Robert was with General Hull and at thesurrender of Detroit. He married Elizabeth Jessup in 1813 and she died of cholera in 1835. Robertpurchased 60 acres of land from his father in 1824 and for fifteen years the family toiled to pay off thisdebt. It was a working farm. The family lived off of what they produced and sold off any excess. Theyhad nine children: Rowena married Isaac B. Carnahan; Susan married Alexander Swift; Rhoda who diedyoung, Alice, the poetess (1820-1871); Asa married Leah A. Woodruff and lived on a farm near CollegeHill; Phoebe, the poetess (1824-1871); Warren, who lived near Harrison, Ohio for a number of years;Lucy, died as an infant, and Elmina, who married her widowed brother-in-law, Alexander Swift.Alice described: The first fourteen years of my life it seemed as if there was actually nothing inexistence but work.Phoebe described her father thus: “He was a man of superior intelligence, of sound principles, andblameless life. He was fond of reading, especially romance and poetry, but early poverty and the hardexigencies of pioneer life had left him no time for acquiring anything more than the mere rudiments of acommon school education, and the consciousness of his want of culture, and an invincible diffidence,born with him, gave him a shrinking, retiring manner, and a want of confidence in his own judgment,which was inherited to a large measure by his offspring. He was a tender, loving father, who sang hischildren to sleep with holy hymns, and habitually went to work repeating the grand old Hebrew poets, andthe sweet and precious promises of the New Testament of our Lord...In his youth he must have beenhandsome. He was six feet in height, and well proportioned, with curling black hair, bright brown eyes,slightly aquiline nose, and remarkably beautiful teeth.” 26“Those who saw him in New York, in the home of his daughters, remember him a silver-haired, sadeyed,soft-voiced patriarch, remarkable for the gentleness of his manners, and the emotional tenderness ofhis temperament...It was a delight to the father to take that long journey from the Western farm to theNew York house.” 27It was Alice that named the farm “Clovernook” because of the fields of clover on their property. Theoriginal three room frame cottage was located approximately where the Shell Service station (735826 The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary, With a Memorial of their Lives, Mary Clemmer, 1876. From the library of Pam andGary Shinn.27 Op. cit.29