The Browning Series -- Part Ten, or Susannah Browning and Isaac Fordyce Crago

With this post I continue what I call "The Browning Series." Samuel and Margaret Browning had thirteen children between them and after Margaret's death, Samuel chose a widow named Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis for his second wife. The two of them had two more children together. My plan has been to feature each one of the fifteen children in a separate post and finally tie the family together with a discussion of their parents.

This post is about Susannah Browning, the tenth child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee. She was born in 1833 in Harrison County, Ohio and lived in the county until she moved to Crawford County, Illinois with the rest of her family around the year 1851.

Prior to the Browning's move to Illinois from Ohio, two of Susannah's older brothers (Elias and Absalom) had married daughters of James Crago and Sarah Jennings Fordyce. The James Crago family had moved into Harrison County in the mid-1830's but had moved on to Defiance County, Ohio by 1850.

(For more information on the Crago family and descendants, refer to the Crago Connections website maintained by Brian Smith. The Crago family is of interest to me because three of James Crago's children -- Isaac F., Elizabeth and Susannah -- married into my Browning family.)

Absalom and his wife Susannah Crago decided to move to Defiance County, Ohio to join the Crago's. It's less certain what Elias Browning and his wife Elizabeth Crago chose to do but I have some evidence (their sons, born 1848-1853, claim OH as their birthplace) that indicates they chose to remain in Ohio. Though they're not on the 1850 census there, they may have also lived in Defiance County for a while. It's certain that Elias and Elizabeth were in Crawford County by 1855, though; Elias died and is buried there.

A couple of years later, in late 1853 or early 1854, Isaac Fordyce Crago (born 22 Feb 1825 in PA) journeyed to Crawford County from Defiance County. Isaac was Elizabeth and Susannah Crago's brother. Did Isaac travel to Illinois alone or did he come with his sister Elizabeth and her husband Elias Browning? I don't know. It's entirely possible he traveled with them but perhaps he came alone and stayed on to court and to marry Susannah. Whatever the circumstances of his arrival, Isaac and Susannah married in Crawford County on 9 November 1854. Their marriage license is to the left.

By October of 1855 Isaac and Susannah had moved back to Defiance County. I surmise this because Isaac isn't enumerated in the Illinois state census that year and their first child, son James T., was born in Defiance County in 1856. I'm fairly certain I can narrow it down to between June and October, though. I can't prove it but I've got circumstantial evidence that suggests that Isaac and Susannah lived in Crawford County until at least June of 1855. Isaac's sister Elizabeth lost her husband Elias that month. Elizabeth took her sons and moved back to Defiance County, Ohio almost immediately following Elias’s death since she and her four boys aren't found on the IL state census in October either. A single woman traveling with four boys might've been a trial at best, so it's my theory that Isaac and Susannah chose to accompany Elizabeth and her boys back to Defiance County.

Isaac and Susannah lived in Defiance County from about 1855 until around 1865. They jumped around a little during that decade -- perhaps they moved near the Defiance/Williams County line or might have actually lived in Williams County for a brief period. During their time in Defiance County they had three more children born there -- Emma Jane (b. 1857), Luella Clementine (b. 16 July 1859) and Mary Elizabeth Adeline (b. 5 Jul 1864.) Emma Jane's obituary says that she'd lived in Williams County and had moved from there to Noble County at the age of one, but unless the family lived in Defiance County in 1857, moved to both Williams County and Noble County, Indiana in 1858, and then moved back to Defiance County by 1859, this seems rather improbable. If the family did make a move to Williams County at any time it would most likely have been between 1860 and 1870 but besides this one mention of a probable Williams County tie, there's no other evidence I have to support the idea that the family ever lived in the county.

Wherever they lived prior to moving to Indiana, Isaac and Susannah and their children did move to Noble County, Indiana before 1870. They're enumerated in the 1870 census there and their last child, daughter Susannah Olliezona, was born in Noble County in 1871. Isaac and Susannah joined a number of family members in the move to Indiana. Isaac's sister Elizabeth had married William Pollock in Defiance County in October of 1856; by 1860 the Pollocks had moved to Noble County and by 1870 had settled in Elkhart County, Indiana. Susannah’s brother Absalom Browning and his wife (Isaac's sister Susannah) had also moved to Indiana around 1868, settling slightly northeast of the Cragos in neighboring Steuben County. In the 1870 census Isaac and Susannah were living in Sparta Township in Noble County. Living with them that year was their 18-yr. old nephew, John W. McConnell. John was from Harrison County Ohio and was Susannah’s sister Rachel (Browning) McConnell’s son.

Sometime between the years 1878 and 1880 the Crago family moved again, this time to Labette County, Kansas. While their two eldest daughters, Emma Jane and Luella Clementine, had married and decided to stay behind in Noble County, accompanying them to Kansas was their eldest son, James, his first wife Lorinda, and Isaac and Susannah’s two youngest daughters. The two families settled in Fairview Township in Labette County.

Isaac and Susannah lived in Labette County for the remainder of their lives. Their youngest daughter Susannah Olliezona died in the latter part of 1880 and Susannah herself followed shortly thereafter in 1881. Both were buried in the Labette City Cemetery.

These two deaths may have been the basis for Isaac and Susannah’s youngest surviving daughter’s move back to Noble County, where her elder sisters were. The couple’s eldest son James stayed in Labette County and Isaac himself lived alone for some time before he died in 1893. Isaac was buried beside his wife in the Labette City Cemetery in Labette County, Kansas. Isaac and Susannah's tombstones are shown above and to the right.