Family of Thadeus Merrill Phelps

Col. Aaron Noble Phelps, A Pioneer in Illinois

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Ronald Aaron Noble Phelps, circa 1870-80. He married Sarah Jerusha Adams of Painesville, Ohio on 29 Mar 1847 in Painesville. Noble came to Illinois via a riverboat that came to be known as the ill-fated boart party. Noble's tombstone in the Galesburg, Illinois pioneer cemetery:"Rest. A. Noble Phelps born Sept 19, 1819 Died June 16 1881. Sarah J. his wife born Apr 5 1818 died Sept 10 1890." (Photo courtesy Foxie Hagerty.)
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1870 section map of Sparta Township, Noble Phelps' farm is located northeast of town in the highlighted section. (4) (Larger image 230K)
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"Premium farm of A. N. Phelps Sec 8 Sparta Tp Knox Co ILL" (4) (Larger image 101K)

Col. Aaron Noble Phelps is descended from George Phelps and Phillura Randall Phelps, pioneer settlers of Windsor, Connecticut. Based on statements made in The Phelps Family of America and Their English Ancestors, many genealogists have accepted at face value that William Phelps and George Phelps were brothers who emigrated together from Tewkesbury, England. Substantive research has since disproved their origins in Tewkesbury. Additional DNA analysis of descendents of both men have also shown that the two do not appear to be closely related.

My third great-grandfather Aaron Noble Phelps was a Captain in Footes Regiment, Massachusetts Militia, during the War of 1812, and served in William McMurty's company of Rangers in Knox Country, Illinois, during the Blackhawk Indian Wars.

"During the war, William McMurtry organized a company of Rangers of about eighty-nine, which embraced nearly all that were fit for service in Knox, Warren, and Mercer counties.  They were all mounted, each man furnishing his own rifle and horse.  They pursued the Indians in all directions but were never engaged in battle."(1)

Aaron died in Massachusetts after the war. His son Ronald Aaron Noble Phelps was born on 9 Sep 1819 in Westfield, Massachusetts. Noble, as he was called in contemporary accounts, left Massachusetts among a party of 37 people, with his wife Sarah Jerusha Adams Phelps, his mother Clarissa Root Phelps, and other settlers for Galesburg, Illinois, among a group that came to be known as the ill-fated boart party.

Clarissa was the sister of Riley Root and brought two of his daughters west, along with another brother's son, Moses. A generous spirit, she later took charge of two additional children, sons of Dr. Gordon Grant.

According to the Knox College history, "On June 2, 1837, the first colonists arrived in a wagon train and settled temporarily at Log City [near current Lake Storey], three miles northwest of the present site of Galesburg." At the time of Mr. Phelps' arrival in Illinois, the amount of his worldly possessions at that time was enough to buy a box stove and a cow, valued at $30, or about $17,000 in inflated 2008 dollars. (2) (History of Knox County, p. 840). Knox College was founded by the same social reformers in 1837 who opposed slavery and were committed to help all individuals uncover their potential, to learn, grow and contribute to the greater good of the community.

Galesburg was also home to the first anti-slavery society in the state of Illinois, also organized in 1837, and was a stop on the underground railroad. Real railroads played a key role in Galesburg's history. The first railroad came to Galesburg in 1854, causing no amount of unhappiness with the residents of Knoxville, the county seat. The settlers later founded the pioneer First Church of Christ in Galesburg.

The book Phelps Family in America gives Ronald's name as "Roger." My grandfather, Harold B. Phelps Sr., penciled this out and inserted "Ronald". He also corrected Ronald's birth year from 1812 to 1819. The book also gives his death at Wataga, Illinois, which my grandfather has crossed out, but not corrected. Noble is buried in the Hope Cemetery in Galesburg, Illinois.

The Best Farm in Knox County, Illinois

"Mr. Phelps was born in Westfield, Mass., September 8, 1819. He came, with his mother and two sisters, to Galesburg [Illinois] in 1836. The amount of his worldly possessions at that time was enough to buy a box stove and a cow, valued at $30. The eldest daughter [of Col. Phelps, or Aaron's sister, Seraphina Princess Phelps] became Mrs. G. Avery, of Galesburg, and the youngest [Sybelana Phelps] the wife of B. Killbourn, of Wisconsin. The mother died at Galesburg, November 29, 1855.

The father, Aaron Noble Phelps, had died previous to the family's moving west, at Westfield, Mass., in March 1830. He and his wife (Miss Clarissa Root) were married in 1814. Their only son, Aaron Noble Phelps and Mrs. Sarah Jerusha Adams were married March 29, 1847, and moved to their present home in 1856, which has since taken the premiums [for best farm] already mentioned." (3)

"Section 8 also includes the premium farm owned by A. N. Phelps, Esq., and contains 200 acres without a foot of waste land... As an indication that Sparta [Township] is a rich agricultural locality, capable of producing a great quantity as well as a great variety of crops and having in it many enterprising stock-raisers, besides begin well watered by natural streams and springs, may be noted the fact that A. N. Phelps' two-hundred acre farm now owned by William Robson on Section 8, took three first prizes from the State Agricultural Society."(5) The farm was ranked first in 1868, 1870, and "previously for five successive years." The "premium" itself was a silver-plated coffee service which is still in the family today.

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^ (1)1899 Historical Enclycopedia of Illinois Knox County

^ (2) History of Knox County, It's Cities, Towns, and People by Albert J. Perry, Chicago. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. 1912. p. 840.

^ (3) History of Knox County, p. 489

^ (4) Illustration from Atlas Map of Knox County, Illinois, Andreas, Lyter & Company, Davenport, 1870, 91 pages. Scanned by Todd Walter.

^ (5) History of Knox County, p. 836.