DESCENDANTS OF JOEL AND HULDAH HEACOCK

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Of the 10 children of Joel and Huldah Heacock, only five reached maturity. The oldest son, Frederick Mortimer born March 25, 1846 died April 20, 1863, age of 12. The one girl, Araminta, born February 25, 1848 died August 28 of the same year. Byron born March 23, 1850, died January 19, 1851.

The third and fourth generation descendants, of whom there are now about 140, trace their ancestry through one of the four older sons of Joel. Nathan Albert, the youngest son who lived, left only an adopted daughter, Florence Natalie, who merried but had no children.

Charles Clement Heacock (born December 27, 1851), eldest of these five sons, married Caroline Davis on October 6, 1874 at Atwater, Ohio. Daniel Heacock (born March 29, 1855) married the sister of the bride. Harriet Jeanette Davis, on December 1, 1874. Charles and Caroline departed immediately for Iowa, whereas Daniel and Harriet remained in Ohio and lived on a farm owned by her parents. Daniel Heacock died of cancer of the throat at the age of 33 years, leaving his wife and six children, one of them only a year old. A year later the five year old daughter Estella died. In 1905 the family moved to Oregon, where the descendants of Daniel Heacock now live.

 Two other sons of Joel, Leona Silas (born July 25, 1853)^(*) and William Penn (born May 24, 1857) apparently left their parental home when they were in their late teens or early twenties, and joined their Uncle John and other relatives in West Branch, Iowa. About 1880 they married the Morris sisters, Sadie and Ruth, and a few years later moved to Brighton, where their brother Charles had established himself in 1874. Guy Heacock has the following recollections of these families:

"Uncle Will came to Brighton in the '80s. Father owned all the ground then clear to the road that ran by the creamery. We had a little bam by the home and father had it moved to the south of the property and made over into quite a comfortable house. Uncle Will moved into this and taught school in the country and worked in the Enterprise office some. This improvement was mentioned in the Brighton News about as follows: 'Heacock is moving his barn to the south end of his place for part of his family to live in.' Uncle Will did not live there but a year or two and than he got the California fever. They moved to Santa Clara, California, where they lived a while and then moved to Newburg. Oregon and later to Portland. After Uncle Will went to California, Uncle Leona moved down from West Branch and lived in this house. He raised garden truck and peddled it. He did not do so well as everyone in Brighton had their own garden and he could not sell his crop. He built a sorgum mill and they made molasses. I used to hear father say that sorgum mill was what saved the children from starving that winter. Uncle Leona had lots of potatoes and the children ate boiled potatoes with sorgum molases and liked it. One time they overcooked a batch of sorgum and it was the finest taffy. They poured it out in a big kettle by the side of the mill and all us kids had to get a stick and pry out what we wanted. Uncle Leona got discouraged and moved to Burlington, Colorado. Here he came nearer to starving than in Iowa. He finally got out to Oregon and he and Sadie separated and the family broke up."

William Penn Heacock ran a lumber yard in Newburg, Oregon, and later a planing mill in Portland. His son, Everette, continues his father's business, which is now the largest of its kind in Portland. Nathan Albert Heacock, born November 23, 1859, youngest son of Joel except for John Elmer, born November 9, 1862, died December 29, 1862, married Florence Rhodes at Brighton, Iowa, on May 12, 1887. He lived many years in Burlington, Iowa, and was employed by the United States Government as a railway mail clerk. He later moved to Chicago and died about 1926.