Elledge Family – Caroline Frentress Elledge Deed

The Elledge side of my genealogy gets some attention now. This deed is Caroline Frentress Elledge selling her daughter Saranda Elledge Tarr a lot in Orange County, Indiana. My Elledge’s were concentrated in and around Orange County back to Zachariah, who settled there (Caroline’s husband Joseph’s father). Zachariah is one of my brick walls but that’s another detective story. Joseph was dead when Caroline made this deed out, he had been a guard in Camp Chase during the Civil War, where during the damp, cool weather and severe winter with inadequate supplies he caught pneumonia and consumption later dying of its complications. An Uncle in my mom’s family, Nathan Conaway was a Confederate soldier under Joseph’s guard, and he, too, caught consumption and died. Funny how Mom and Dad’s families brushed shoulders like that nearly a hundred years before they married.

This indenture witnesseth that Caroline Elledge of Orange County in the state of Indiana convey and warrant to Saranda S. Tarr of Orange County in the state of Indiana for the sum of forty dollars the following real estate in Orange County in the State of Indiana. To wit: commencing at the southeast corner of north east quarter of the southeast quarter of section four (4) Township one (1) north of range two (2) west running thence north 26-24/100 rods thence west 31-76/100 rods thence south forty (40) feet to the place of beginning thence running west twenty and three quarter (20-3/4) rods thence running south sixty (60) feet to the place of beginning. In witness whereof the said Caroline Elledge has hereunto set her hand and seal, this 26 day of February AD 1900.

{signature of Caroline Elledge, in a nice hand (seal)}

State of Indiana

Orange County ss: Before me James Cassidy a notary public in and for said county this 26^th day of February 1900 personally appeared Caroline Elledge and acknowledged the execution of the annexed deed. Witness my hand and official seal.

James Cassidy (seal) Notary Public

Commission expires 4-27-1900

Received for record the 13^th day of March 1900 1 o’clock PM and record in Record 49 page 465.

Lloyd Kimmel

R.O.C.

Caroline of this deed, was a Frentress, daughter of Emsley, she married Joseph Elledge, son of Zachariah. Saranda, their daughter, married James Morgan Tarr. Joseph and Caroline are my great-great grandparents.

Always willing to share info, documents and whatever I have with other Elledge researchers, but so far, most Elledge researchers in Indiana/Kentucky/Illinois are part of the big Francis Elledge line and Zachariah, my G-G-G Grandfather, first appears with his brother Zephaniah in the 1840 Census of DuBois County. I am 90% sure they link somehow to the Francis Elledge lines but so far…nothing before they first appear. I have one small clue, a Susannah/Susan Elledge was divorced from her husband for abandonment in Posey County in the 1820s. The 1820 census shows her with 2 sons the right age, and she is either dead or remarried by the 1830 census. I’ve been unable to locate the actual court record of the divorce, or a subsequent remarriage and the probate court index for Posey County gives no more info than I listed here. Truly a brick wall. Records for very early Indiana are scattered to hell and gone, from Cincinnati, to NW territorial stuff, to poor record-keeping practices and the natural calamities like fire and flood that have destroyed many of them, making early research very difficult. Any records before the 1830s are truly precious for their scarcity. If you’ve ever visited the area you’ll get a clue – it is still very rugged, hilly, forested and isolated. Maybe you don’t think of Indiana when you think of Appalachia but the region is very similar topographically. Very beautiful, pristine in some places, but its easy to imagine the difficulty early settlers & ministers had getting records to court for recording.

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