Monday, January 14, 2013

Matrilineal Monday: How the Larimers Came to America

From "Our Larimer Family" by John Clarence Work
The Larimer line of my mother-in-law's family made the leap to America in 1740, with a tale that's still told by descendants today. It's recounted in the Larimer booklet written by John Clarence Work (hubby's 2d cousin, 3x removed).

John did his genealogy research in the 1950s and 1960s, relying partly on information reported by the families and partly on primary documents he painstakingly discovered in local repositories. Not all of the dates in his booklet are correct (I checked) but John included every descendant he could track down or learn about through letters to relatives. He had hoped to find a connection to any Larimer ancestor who served in the American Revolution, but discovered only 1812 service among Larimer men in the family.

John's more than 60 pages of Larimer research starts with the saga of patriarch Robert Larimer setting sail from the North of Ireland with a chest of Irish linen in 1740, getting shipwrecked, being rescued, and then winding up indentured to the captain of the rescue vessel for the cost of his rescue.

After untold years of service, Robert Larimer walked away from this near-slavery, went to the "Kishocoquillas Valley" of interior Pennsylvania, and married Mary Gallagher (or O'Gallagher). She died in Pennsylvania in 1800 and the Larimer family soon moved to Ohio (ca 1801-2). Wiseman's History of Fairfield County (Ohio) indicates that Robert Larimer was the first resident of the area to die, John says (citing his sources, of course, page number and all).

Robert Larimer and his wife Mary were hubby's fifth great-grandparents, on his mother's side. Thank you to John Clarence Work for this head-start on Larimer genealogy!

3 comments:

  1. Head start, indeed! How cool to have so much already done, and all those stories!

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  2. Thanks for reading! It's quite a tale, often retold (on Ancestry too). One day I hope to be able to determine for sure Mary Gallagher/O'Gallagher's REAL maiden name. Sigh.

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  3. Hi Mrs. Wood,
    My maiden name is Leanne green, my grandmother is descended from Robert Larimer on both her father and her mother’s side. I love history and have a deep love for my family’s history. Before my grandmother passed away, her and I went back to Bremen (Ohio) where she grew up so she could show me the Presbyterian Church that she went to and the land that her family used to own.
    I happened to stumble across your page as I was doing research on the name Larimer. And I thought it was amazing that you had a copy of the Robert Larimer story (which my grandmother had a copy of that exact same story, the print copy that I looked at the other night looks exactly the same as yours that you posted). As I was researching how to find records through the databases that Ireland provides to the public I stumbled across some interesting information. A particular page mentioned that Gallagher is actually the reduced anglicized version of Gaelic “ O Gallchobhair” which means “descendent of Gallchobhar”. From what I remember reading Gallchobhar means something like “eager aide”. I would love to chat. I just don’t feel too comfortable putting lots of information out there via a comment lol. Feel free to e-mail at Leanne.lacayo@gmail.com

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