James Sr & Ann Ervin McLarty

MCLARTY MCCLARTY ERVIN SINNETT

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/21/2010 at 21:04:52

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

James, Sr and Ann Ervin McLarty
By Mrs James Heck

James McLarty was born on May 27, 1827, at Woodpark, Ballyemon, near Cushendall, County Antrim, Ireland, the second son of Daniel McLarty and wife. The name is spelled McClarty in the Irish records of Layde Parish. His father died on February 22, 1846, aged 63 years. James migrated to the United States in 1849-50. His widowed mother saw him depart in tears and she died on May 4, 1864, aged 74 years in Ireland.

James arrived in the port of Philadelphia where he obtained employment in a livery stable. Later he moved on to Sugar Island, Michigan, where the principal industry was harvesting maple syrup. The island was located offshore of Upper Michigan near Sault Ste. Marie and offshore Ontario.

Other McLarty cousins had earlier migrated from County Antrim and settled in Grey County, Ontario, near Owen Sound. James McLarty later settled near them and built a log cabin in a clearing. He made the acquaintance of Ann Ervin, daughter of Samuel Ervin and Eliza Sinnett – also of Scotch Irish descent, who was born on March 26, 1845, in Ontario. They were married on January 24, 1862 by Rev AHR Mulholland, Rector Incumbent of St George’s Church and Rural Dean, Owen Sound, Ontario.

The Grey County 1871 census showed the family was living in Holland Township with their first four sons: Donald, born October 13, 1863; John, born April 12, 1866; George S, born December 2, 1868; and James, Jr, born March 22, 1871. Another son, William Joseph was born on April 4, 1873, in Ontario. When he was seven months, the family made a decision to go west to homestead in South Dakota.

They staked their claim on a farm land in Union County near Elk Point, South Dakota. In 1874, James McLarty made his first filing for U S Citizenship. A daughter, Mary Ann, was born on October 18, 1875, and died on August 1876. A son, Robert Mark, was born on October 3, 1877 and died on July 27, 1881.

The grasshopper plague descended on these pioneers and the drought and devastation rendered by the insects made them decide to leave the Dakota plains with the intent to head back to Michigan where Ann McLarty’s family then resided. They pulled up stakes and packed their possessions into wagons and crossed the Big Sioux River back into Iowa, the older boys herding their cattle and other livestock ahead of them.

Mr O B Smith, the founder of Smithland, Iowa, convinced James to stay in the vicinity of Smithland. They settled at a site in Lum Holland west of Smithland, (on what was known as old Hwy 141 or the old Denison Highway, they state hwy 982, and now called County Road D25), later to be known as the Hall farm. There in a dugout with frame addition, their daughter, Elizabeth Jane, was born on September 24, 1880, a daughter Mary Ellen, on June 2, 1885; and Thomas Gilmore on November 30, 1887.

Subsequently, James purchased a farm northwest of Smithland where the children attended the College Corner one room school. The children walked to school in good weather and bad. In the winter, wood had to be carried into the school to fuel the pot-bellied stove. A bucket of water was kept on a stool and everyone drank from a common dipper. Elizabeth related that she was so anxious to go to school that she went along with her older brothers, but did not meet with kindly reception from the schoolmaster who flatly told the brothers that he was not hired t start to school. The teachers took turns boarding with the families of the school district.

Elizabeth recalled walking down country lanes with her mother on their way to the aid of some sick neighbor of a household with a new baby, and while plodding along, Ann McLarty would be simultaneously knitting black stockings for family members with wooden knitting needles. Prior to the 20th century farm households had little in the way of labor-saving devices.

The offspring of this couple married as follows:

John McLarty married a widow, Mrs Minnie Niehart Kohler on June 21, 1893.

George S McLarty married Ella Leottie Parker on February 16, 1898.

James McLarty (Jr) married Dollie Christiansen on September 17, 1913.

William Joseph McLarty married Eva Parker on August 24, 1898.

Elizabeth Jane McLarty married Lewis O Clift, on January 20, 1909.

Mary Ellen McLarty married Clarence Herbert ‘Bert’ Parker on January 1, 1902.

And Thomas Gilmore McLarty married Sylvia Peterson on August 11, 1911.
The oldest son, Donald, never married and he died on February 1, 1924. These families and their descendants for the most part lived on/in Woodbury County, Iowa.

James McLarty, the immigrant, was a tall man and in his later years always appeared with a long white goatee beard. He had been educated in Ireland and had a great respect for learning and fostered a love of good literature in his children. Elizabeth was to recall how he would take time to read to his children, teaching them maxims of the virtues of toil and perseverance. He died on March 5, 1903, and before final settlement was received from his bachelor brother, George’s estate from Ireland. (His brother, being the eldest, had inherited the family holdings under right of primogeniture.)

The widow, Ann McLarty, lived on the farm for a number of years with the children remaining unmarried at the time. She expired on January 22, 1931, at Smithland, Iowa. James and Ann McLarty, and their sons, Donald ‘Danny’ and Robert Mark, were buried in the cemetery at Smithland, Iowa, as were other of their married offspring and descendants.