The Eastman Line

Letitia Owen was married to Benjamin Franklin Mallory for over 50 years, raised eleven children, and lived to be 83 years old.  She was born in San Saba, Texas, in 1866, the daughter of Erasmus Miller Owen, a Methodist Minister, and Rhoda Salome Eastman.  She was the fifth of Rhoda’s twelve children. 

 

Letitia traveled extensively through the American Southwest, often while pregnant or caring for an infant.  She helped settle Grouseflat, Wallowa, Oregon, and lived there for more than 30 years.  She died in Clarkston, Washington, in 1950 and was buried in the Vineland Cemetery in Asotin, Washington, with many of her family.  

Letitia’s ancestry can be reliably traced to the American Revolution and the founding of American colonies before that.  This entry will focus on her mother’s line, the Eastman family.

Rhoda Salome Eastman (Letitia’s mother) was born 1837, in Mississippi.  Her father was Levi Jacob Eastman, who spent most of his days in Mississippi, but moved to Texas near the end of his life.  He was married to Mary B Arnett.  They had eight children all born in Mississippi, but for the youngest, who was born in Texas in 1847. 

 
Levi Jacob Eastman was born about 1806 in Mississippi to Abel Eastman and Salome Harman Eastman.  Levi had six siblings: four sisters and two brothers.  

 

Abel Eastman arrived in Mississippi in 1788, at the age of 22, but died in 1812, when Levi was only six years old.  Salome then married a man named Benjamin Beard.  In 1829, Levi paid Beard $100 for 93 acres that were originally part of Abel Eastman’s property.  Levi then went on to acquire another 550 acres on his own. 

Abel's property is the large rectangle on the right.

It appears that Mr. Beard was made guardian of the six children, but was not forthcoming with their inheritance, either land or personal property (Abel Eastman had acquired at least 640 acres in Mississippi before his death and over $4,800 in personal property, equivalent to about $120,000 in today’s money).  After the children filed suit, the court ordered Beard to turn over their inheritance.  

Abel Eastman was born in 1766 in Hopkinton, Hillsborough, New Hampshire to John Eastman and Judith Jewell Eastman, who had seven children before John was killed during the American Revolution.  John died at Fort Ann, New York, in 1777 “as a result of having a ball shot through his head in the skirmish with Burgoynes Army.”  Abel was eleven years old when his father died. 

 
Abel’s older brother, Joseph, was only thirteen years old when he enlisted in the First New Hampshire Battalion, in 1776.  Just over a year later, in 1778, Private Joseph Eastman became sick and died in hospital.  

John Eastman (born 1739) was the son of “landowner” Joseph Eastman and Tamison Woodwell Eastman.  Joseph was born in 1697 in Salisbury, Essex, Massachusetts, but moved to New Hampshire in 1747.  Joseph and Tamison had two daughters and five sons.  Oddly, two of their sons were named David (the first David did not pass away before they named the next male child David, as well, so not sure why).  Tamison died less than a year after the second David was born.  There appears to be a another wife (there were four in total), with whom Joseph had his sixth son just two years before his own death in 1760 at the age of 63.

 
Joseph Eastman was the sixth son of “landowner” Samuel Eastman and Elizabeth Scriven Eastman.  Joseph had eleven siblings.

  
Elizabeth Scriven (born 1658) was the daughter of John Scriven (who died 1675, and whose name also appears as Scribner and Scrivener).  He was a New Hampshire landowner from Kent, England.  

Samuel Eastman (born 1657) was the son of Roger Eastman, who arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony aboard the ship Confidence in 1638.  Roger was born about 1610 and came to the colonies from Langford, Wiltshire.  Two years later, he married Sarah (traditionally surnamed Smith) and received land in the first division of Salisbury.  He was a carpenter by trade and lived in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts.  Roger and Sarah had seven sons and two daughters.

  
Interestingly, when Sarah, the daughter of Roger and Sarah, and the widow of Joseph French, was about to remarry, her father and father-in-law petitioned the court: “…now it is that the widow is about to marry again with a man who is much a Stranger whose estate is not to us known (if any) And so he is suddenly like to be possessed of the said estate [of Joseph French, deceased, and his children Joseph, Timothy and Simon]…It is the humble request of the petitioners who are grandfathers to the said children That the Court would be pleased to make some such settlement of the estate as to your wisedomes [sic] shall seem meet.”  (1684)  Here, the grandfathers were attempting to prevent the very situation that occurred four generations later with Abel and Salome Eastman and their children!

Note: The Massachusetts and New Hampshire Eastmans have numerous histories and early town records available online.  The paper trail to the Eastmans in England are not as well substantiated, however.  There is a DNA link to Nicholas Eastman and Roger Eastman of Downton, Wiltshire, in the 1500s.