Family History, Gilbert Chart 0700 William Gilbert and Sarah Hall

1850 US Census - Pigeon Ward 8, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA.

1850 US Census - Pigeon Ward 8, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA. John's wife is down as Emma on this Census, but certain correct as with the family is Sarah GILBERT aged 60 born England, who I would think was Amy/Anna/ Emma's mother. There were three other people with the family, Joseph KESTER who was a Tobacconist and aged22 with his wife Eliza aged 18 born in England. I think Eliza was the daughter of John and Amy. The other person was a Robert GUNTON aged 20 a Drayman born in England.
186o US Census - Butte, California, USA. There were two other people in the household. A Mary Ann SAUNDERS aged30 born England and a Him Took, aged 28 a Cook born China. The census is smudged so difficult to see everything, but the first child is down as being born in NY the next appears as Ia?? and then I think the next are ditto's of this with the last child being born in California. We have the wife of John through information from Pat HARRIS first name was Amy but on this Census it is Anna
1870 US Census - Ophir, Butte, California, USA. Amy is down as Amy on this Census.
1880 US Census - Ophir, Butte, California, USA.
Told by Pat Harris that John and Amy had five daughters and three sons. The 1860 US Census shows three sons and three daughters.
There is a marriage, date as shown, on the IGI, details supplied by a member of the LDS church and not an actual record extracted from the records. They have the marriage down as being in Putney, but I do think this is unlikely and that is was more likely in Pidley in Cambridgeshire, Putney in at that time in Surrey and now in SW London.
An Article by Linda ORAMS in the Huntingdonshire Family History Society magazine:
FENS TO FEATHER FALLS: The Story of John Onyett & Family
by Linda Orams
John Onyett was born in Pidley in 1812, the son of Thomas Lovel Onyett and his wife Elizabeth Mackness. In 1829 John married his sweetheart Amy Gilbert, the daughter of William Gilbert and his wife Sarah Hall who lived in Colne, John was only 17 but Amy was pregnant and their first child Mary Ann was born four months later.
In the spring of 1834 Amy's parents and two of their children, John and Esther decided to emigrate to America. They sailed from London to New York on the ship Meteor and arrived in New York on 26 June. Another daughter, Elizabeth, emigrated the following year. Also in 1835 John and Amy followed the rest of the family, departing on the ship St Lawrence from London. There were 73 passengers listed on the ship's manifest and it must have been a gruelling journey for the young couple together with Mary Ann only 5 and a new baby Eliza just a few months old.
Arriving in America, John and Amy settled in New York State and John worked on the construction of the Erie Canal. According to family legend John was a very large man, 6' 4" tall and weighing 250 lib - "all bone and muscle". Labourers were paid by the cubic yard of earth shifted and by building himself a very large wheelbarrow and using his superior strength John was able to shift much more earth than the other workers and his earnings were much greater.
With his hard-earned money carefully saved, John and his family decided to travel west to Evansville in Indiana where John's uncle William and his family had moved in 1820. The journey was a tough trek by wagon and took three months. Evansville was a frontier town at this time standing on the banks of the great Ohio River. A great deal of trade was carried up and down the river and the stagecoach lines went east and west. John went into the draying business starting with one dray pulled by two horses. As time went on he expanded until he owned all the draying business in Evansville.
By 1850 John and Amy were parents to seven surviving children and the eldest Mary Ann married James Millard a tavern keeper who had also been born in England. In 1852, after living in Evansville for nearly 17 years, John sold his draying business and organised a wagon train to head even further west to California. As well as John and Amy's children, her mother Mary Ann and James Millard and other extended family members joined the wagon train. The journey was long and boring and often hazardous and the chief daily preoccupation was finding fresh grass and water for the animals and fuel for cooking fires. A full account of the journey is a story all of its own but one mishap stand out from the many others. When John sold his business in Evansville he was paid in cash and Amy rode the wagon train with the money in a barley sack placed at her feet. One night whilst Amy slept some of the money was stolen and the next morning James Millard was missing. He had stolen the money and headed back east. John and some of the other men rode back to try and catch him and here there are two versions of the tale. The first is that James got clean away and was never heard of again, the other that John caught up with him and hanged him for the theft!
Whatever did happen, poor Mary Ann was left distraught, her husband had turned out to be a callous thief who abandoned her. She carried on to California with her family, sadder and wiser. Eventually the wagon train reached its destination, but not everyone survived the journey. Amy’s mother Sarah, her brother James Gilbert and his family and Amy’s little grandson William all died on the journey, probably from cholera, and were buried alongside the trail. John and Amy first settled south of Oroville and set up a stage stop called “Prairie House”. They served good meals, sold hay and grain and prospered. They also continued to produce more children and in 1853 their ninth surviving child was born.. Just a year after setting up Prairie House John bought land next to the Feather River, built himself a large log cabin and began to farm. At the age of 41 he had finally found the place he wanted to settle in for good and he worked the ranch for the rest of his life. He became a popular and respected member of the community and became known as ‘Captain John’ as he had been leader of the wagon train.
The years passed and in November 1878 the local newspaper, The Oroville Weekly Mercury, printed a long and detailed account of John and Amy’s Golden Wedding Party. They actually celebrated the event a year early because after all their years of travel and adventure they miscalculated the date! The anniversary party was the social event of the year with tables laden with food and dancing late into the night. John and Amy renewed their marriage vows in front of County Judge W S Safford who made a very long speech and John was presented with an engraved gold watch by the citizens of Oroville. Disaster occurred two years later when the house caught fire but it was rebuilt and John lived for a further nine years after his anniversary. He died on 27 September 1887. Amy lived on until 1897 and had an even grander obituary than had John. It stated that she had 35 grandchildren and 52 great grandchildren and, together with her own surviving children, (Amy outlived some of them) she left behind 95 living direct descendants! John and Amy lived long, amazing, exciting lives and saw great changes. They were true pioneers. From the hardships of rural England they travelled to and then across the new and fast developing land of America. They saw many changes; the discovery of gold and the rush of the mining days, the rapid building of towns as the Great Plains became dotted with homes and the land brought under cultivation and the production of immense crops. The couple are buried side by side in the Pioneer Cemetery on Lincoln Boulevard in Oroville and John’s memorial reads, “His good work is done”.

NOTE - At the beginning of the line the name is UNNIOT and through the years it changes until today it is ONYETT. At present we are not certain as to when the name actually became ONYETT. As there are several variants in the spelling I have put the name ONYETT first on all the charts and then followed that with the spelling for that particular chart and indexed the whole line under ONYETT. ie ONYETT/UNYAT Chart 0700. The actual name as we have it appears for the actual people on the Chart.

	married

1 WILLIAM GILBERT born about 1790 England emigrated 1834 to USA died about 1848 Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA.		2 SARAH HALL born about 1788 England emigrated 1834 to USA died about 1852 Oregon, USA

This is a Chart for William Gilbert and Sarah Hall