Colonel Stephen Pettis looms behind the curtain of history as many things, but mostly as a military man. However, there is a question about the title, "Colonel," because it seems that he was never a Colonel and secondly, his service in the War of 1812 was 4 months and 21 days, after which he received an honorable discharge. We get this information from documents that were transcribed by Douglas J. Peterson. I will not repeat those transcriptions here, but I will list a location where they can be found.
The other mystery about Colonel Stephen Pettis is his parentage; was he the son of Stephen Pettis or Joseph Pettis? Robert Conrad was the first (and only one) to write to me about why he believed that Colonel Stephen Pettis was the son of Stephen Pettis instead of Joseph Pettis like we have all been lead to believe. His arguments are powerful and convincing. I have to admit that prior to communicating with Robert Conrad that I thought it was odd that Colonel Stephen Pettis had formed such a close bond to his female cousin, Amy Pettis, who was eleven years younger than him. They both married into the Giles Wing family, wherever one re-located to, the other was sure to turn up in the same place. It seemed unlikely to me that they would have been that close if their relationship were truly that of cousins and of the opposite sex. I will not repeat all of Robert Conrad's arguments here...I will list the page where they can be found. Suffice it to say that I do agree with Robert Conrad primarily for 2 reasons; 1. Stephen Pettis and Joseph Pettis were brothers, the sons of William Pettis and Mary Kinyon. Stephen Pettis was born November 1, 1751 while Joseph Pettis was born 8 years later on February 27, 1759. We do not know when Stephen Pettis married his wife, Amy Button, but we do know that Joseph Pettis married Mary Chapman on February 17, 1786. Colonel Stephen Pettis was born January 23, 1777, 9 years prior to the marriage between Joseph Pettis and Mary Chapman. 2. Amy Pettis Wing wrote a letter to her son, Joseph Smith Wing, in February of 1862. She responds to his question about his heritage and she tells him, among other things, "Stephen Pettis and Amy Button's children were Amy, Sally, Stephen, William and Nathan. Joseph Wing married Amy Pettis, you know the rest." For now though, we will leave the debate about who fathered Colonel Stephen Pettis to another time and place. I will continue to refer to Colonel Stephen Pettis as "Colonel." That is how we have all come to refer to him and I think it would be confusing to use any other terminolgy during this biography. It was on January 7, 1796 that Colonel Stephen Pettis married Catherine Wing, daughter of Giles Wing and Mary Jane Cornell. They were married at Kingsburg, New York. Born on October 8, 1779, Catherine Wing was only 17 years old when she married the 19 year old Colonel Stephen Pettis. On July 2, 1812, Colonel Stephen Pettis enlisted in the First Regiment of Vermont Detached Militia first commanded by Colonel William Williams. He enlisted at Levanton Falls, Franklin County, Vermont. When he enlisted he had a wife and 8 children at home and his wife was pregnant with the 9th child. Although Colonel Stephen Pettis enlisted for a term of 6 months, he would only serve 4 months, according to his own sworn statement. His wife delivered their 9th child, William Pettis, on November 4, 1812 but the infant only lived 3 days, dying on November 7, 1812. Catherine Wing Pettis would follow her infant son in death on November 22, 1812. Anne Cecila Pettis, the oldest child of Colonel Stephen Pettis and Catherine Wing, often stated that her mother literally gave her life for the War of 1812, that she died as much of a hero as her husband was. Catherine Wing Pettis labored incessantly for the soldiers, cooking for them even when she was on the verge of collapse due to her pregnancy. The story goes that although Colonel Stephen Pettis tried to get home to his wife and family, he was too late, arriving after both his wife and his youngest child had died. Captain Stephen Pettis and Catherine Wing had the following children; 1. Anne Cecilia, born March 2, 1798 at Alburg, Vermont, died September 9, 1873. 2. John, born May 2, 1799 at Alburg, Vermont, died June 11, 1850 3. James, born December 15, 1800 at Alburg, Vermont, died December 19, 1800 at Alburg, Vermont. 4. Mary, born January 4, 1802 at Alburg, Vermont, died January 16, 1802. 5. Sarah, born June 4, 1803 at Alburg, Vermont, died October 18, 1829 in a shipwreck on Lake Erie. 6. Rowena, born May 22, 1805 at Alburg, Vermont, died July 15, 1858. 7. Charles, born June 19, 1807 at Alburg, Vermont, died April 19, 1856 at Kasota, Le Sueur, Minnesota. 8. Polly, born April 26, 1810 at Alburg, Vermont, died October 18, 1829 in a shipwreck on Lake Erie. 9. William, born November 4, 1812 at Alburg, Vermont, died November 7, 1812 at Alburg, Vermont. By November of 1814, Captain Stephen Pettis has fought in the War of 1812, has had nine children, three of which are dead and he is a widower of two years. Captain Stephen Pettis's oldest child is sixteen years old and the youngest is four years old when he marries for the second time to the young Sally Philinda Nichols on November 22, 1814, the 2 year anniversary of his first wife's death. In a deposition that Catherine Hosford filed in Pike County in 1878, she describes Colonel Stephen Pettis when he enlisted in the War of 1812; "Aged about 34 years, farmer, born in Rhode Island height about 6 feet, hair dark brown, black eyes, dark complecton." (Source; CLAIM OF WIDOW FOR SERVICE PENSION). He sounds like a hunk to me and he must have appeared to be a hunk to the 17 year old Sally Philinda Nichols who gave him her hand in marriage despite the fact that he was 37 years old and had 6 children at home. Sally Philinda Nichols, born May 2, 1797 was about 10 months older than Colonel Stephen Pettises oldest daughter, Ann Cecilia Pettis. Young Sally would have 2 children in the 6 years that she was married to Colonel Stephen Pettis before she died on October 12, 1820 at Alburg, Vermont. Only 23 years old when she died, her tombstone reads, "Consort of Major Stephen Pettis." Major Stephen Pettis and Sally Philinda Nichols had two children; 10. Benjamin Franklin, born May 2, 1817 at Alburg, Vermont, died November 2, 1830. 11. Catherine Sally Philinda, born October 10, 1819 at Alburg, Vermont, died June 5, 1852. Sometime in 1822 Colonel Stephen Pettis marries for the 3rd time to Olive Hutchins. Olive's son, Alexander Pettis, described his mother in the MEMORIAL OF SOUTHWESTERN MINNESOTA as " a native of Vermont, was born in 1799. She was a most excellent woman, bright in intellect, amiable in disposition and loved by all who knew her. She died near Warren in Trumbull County, Ohio on May 19, 1829." When his 3rd wife died after 7 years of married life, Colonel Stephen Pettis must have thought that he was being stalked by the specter of death itself. However, Olive Hutchins Pettis did leave 4 children from their marriage who would grow into adults, marry and have many, many children. Major Stephen Pettis and Olive Hutchins had the following children; 12. Alexander, born March 21, 1823 at Alburg, Vermont. 13. Almira, born February 9, 1825, died December 1, 1903 14. Polly Matilda, born April 27, 1827, died November 24, 1914. 15. Mary Olive, born April 24, 1829 at Mecca Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, died July 15, 1851. The year 1829 would have remained tragically memorable to Colonel Stephen Pettis because of the death of his 3rd wife, but in October of that year, he would also lose 2 of his daughters from his 1st marriage to Catherine Wing. Sarah Pettis, born June 4, 1803 and Polly Pettis, born April 26, 1810 to Captain Stephen Pettis and Catherine Wing, had both married brothers. Sarah married Roland Pelton and Polly had married Milo Pelton. From the Genealogy of the Pelton Family in America, page 533: Rollin H. Pelton6, first son of Ephraim5, Ephraim4, Henry3, Samuel2, John1, born at Otis, Berkshire Co., Mass., December 19, 1796; married (1) in 1826, Sarah Pettis, daughter of Col. Stephen Pettis. In November, 1828, while on the way with his family to Pettis township, Pike Co., Ill., where his father-in-law lived, they were shipwrecked(*) on Lake Erie, the wife and only child lost and he saved, upon the Canada shore, where, in 1830, he married Abigail Pelton, his cousin, daughter of James Pelton, of Blenheim, Oxford Co., Ont. Farmer. Lived in Grand Isle Co., Vt., until the loss of his wife, afterward in Blenheim, Ont., and thence removed to Tallmadge, Ottawa Co., Mich., where he died, May 19, 1864. He served in the War of 1812, and was in the battle of Plattsburgh. Mrs. Abigail Pelton died July 12, 1876. Children, all but the first born at Princeton, Ont.: I Ephraim, 1, born about 1827; lost with his mother, by shipwreck, on Lake Erie,about 1828. (*) Milo T., brother of Rollin H., with his wife, a sister of Mrs. Rollin H., was on the same vessel. They encountered a violent storm, the compass was out of order, and they drifted on Long Point bar on the Canada shore, where the vessel (a salling craft) pounded to pieces. The waves swept over all, the wives and child perished; the brothers were saved. There is no record of whether or not the bodies of the dead were ever recovered. There is also no record of the pain and grief that Colonel Stephen Pettis endured when he received the news. His personal losses were devastating and there is no question that they took their toll. Perhaps his only salvation was his religion and the fact that he knew his two daughters and his small grandson were with his first wife, Catherine Wing Pettis. While probably still in the deepest mourning for his wife, his daughters and his grandson, on November 2, 1830, Benjamin Franklin Pettis, the oldest child of Colonel Stephen Pettis and his second wife, Sally Philinda Nichols Pettis, dies in Ohio. John is only thirteen years old at the time of his death. On March 31, 1831, Major Stephen Pettis married for the fourth and last time. He chose Catherine Hosford to be his wife. Catherine, the daughter of Solomon and Sarah Howland Hosford, was born September 17, 1801, in Canaan, Connecticut. Catherine Hosford was thirty years old when she married Major Stephen Pettis in Johnstown, Ohio. According to the Ponwith sisters, Catherine Hosford remarked " NOW the Colonel has a wife who will outlive him." Catherine Hosford did outlive Colonel Stephen Pettis. It is very likely that the love and understanding that Catherine Hosford had for Colonel Stephen Pettis kept him sane in the light of all of the tragedies that he had endured. Married for twenty-four years when Colonel Stephen Pettis died on January 6, 1855, Catherine Hosford would be his longest marital relationship. It was to Newburgh Township in Pike County, Illinois where Colonel Stephen Pettis and his family moved in 1835. According to the Ponwith History, Colonel Stephen Pettis developed a fine farm comprising 1000 acres. He was a surveyor and a farmer in Pike County. It was his surveying that lead to his death. He had been doing some surverying in the rain which caused him to catch a cold. The cold turned into "lung fever" which caused his death on Saturday evening, January 6, 1855 at the age of seventy-seven years. He had been married four times, widowed three times, spending a total of fifty-three years in a state of matrimony, he had fathered twenty-one children, eleven of which had preceded him in death and saddness must have followed him for most of his adult life. Catherine Hosford would live thirty-three years longer than her husband. She eventually moved to Kasota, Minnesota where she lived with her daughter and son-in-law. The St. Peter, Minnesota newspaper announced her death as follows; "Mrs. Catherine Pettis, mother of Harlow and Dan Pettis, Mrs. Ruble and Laura Pettis, died at the residence of her son-in-law, Isaiah Ruble at Kasota, Sunday evening at 6 o'clock at the age of 86 years. She was laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery, Rev. Bailey officiating. Mrs. Pettis was an estimable old lady, respected and revered by all her acquaintances. She was a loving wife, and a kind and loving mother and her pathway to the grave was smoothed by kind and loving hands." Catherine Hosford died February 12, 1888. Colonel Stephen Pettis and Catherine Hosford Pettis had six children; 16. Infant son, born November 30, 1832 17. Solomon Harlow, born January 11, 1834 at Trumbull County, Ohio. 18. Daniel Webster, born January 23, 1836 at Pike County, Illinois 19. Susan Laura, born April 27, 1838 at Pike County, Illinois 20. William Henry, born March 27, 1840 at Pike County, Illinois, died April 27, 1842 21. Maria, born September 6, 1842 at Pike County, Illinois. It is unclear just when Major Stephen Pettis attained the rank of Colonel...if he ever did. It has been suggested by Robert W. Conrad that Major Stephen Pettis gained the rank of Colonel in the Black Hawk War while he lived in Ohio. At this time there is no evidence to prove that Major Stephen Pettis was in the Black Hawk War. Perhaps we will never know exactly what rank Stephen Pettis attained during his military career. We do, however, know that he did live an honorable life, one marked with loss and severe grief. Colonel Stephen Pettis was buried at the Pettis Cemetery at Newburgh Township, Pike County, Illinois. May he rest in peace. |