Sepia Saturday: Daniel and Cyrene

It's another Sepia Saturday,

so I'd like to introduce to you

Daniel Clayton and his wife Cyrene Moore Clayton.

Daniel, son of John and Elizabeth (Elly) Clayton,

was born October 14, 1824 in Richland County, Ohio.

He was probably the youngest in a family of ten children,

though the birth order is a bit hard to pin down

because census records were not particularly detailed

during his childhood and adolescence.

It was only in 1850 that individual members of a household

were named in a census and their ages given.

That having been said, we do know that Daniel married a local girl,

Mary Craig, when he was 21. They married March 10,1846

in Richland County, Ohio and Mary Craig Clayton died

 on December 17, 1846, in Allen County, Indiana.

Given that her death came just over nine months after the marriage,

I'm guessing that she died in childbirth, though I don't know for sure.

Daniel's father John died a few months after his daughter-in-law.

About two and a half years later, Daniel married for the second time.

His young bride was Miraba Depew, daughter of Isaac Depew

and Margaret Williams. Daniel and Miraba wed in Allen County

in June 1849 and had a baby daughter Minerva in February 1851.

Only eleven months later, baby Minerva died.
 She's buried in the Old Leo Cemetery in Cedar Creek Township
 in Allen County. About ten months later,

Miraba Depew Clayton died. I don't know how she died,
 but the cause of death was likely illness
 or complications of childbirth. If the latter,
 the infant did not survive.

Miraba, like Minerva, was buried in Old Leo Cemetery.

So by the ripe old age of 26, Daniel had buried two wives,

an infant daughter, and possibly two stillborn or infant children.

He pressed on, moving with several family members to Iowa

in about 1854, as the 1856 Iowa Census indicates
 they'd been  in Iowa for 2 years.

On October 17, 1855, Daniel married for the third time.
 His bride was Cyrene Jeraldine Moore,
 daughter of William and Priscilla Ayers Moore,

Cyrene (pronounced Sah-reeny) was almost twelve years
 younger than Daniel. Marriage records erroneously
 listed her surname as "Moon" rather than Moore.

This time the marriage took.
Cyrene Moore Clayton proved hearty in childbirth.
 She had seven children. The first child, Albert,

died as a toddler while Daniel and Cyrene
 and other family members, including Cyrene's parents
 William and Priscilla Moore and their children,

were waiting for a wagon train to leave for the journey

along the Oregon Trail.

When the wagon train left for the west coast,
 Cyrene had given birth  a few weeks before to William Curtis Clayton.
 Daniel prepared a bed in the wagon for his wife and baby son.
 He tied a cow behind their wagon and milked it
 to have extra milk for the baby. Cyrene did not fare well

on the journey, and by the time they reached Oregon,
 family members feared she would die before they reached
their final destination, Walla Walla in Washington Territory.

She surprised them all by surviving the arduous journey.

which took slightly more than four months.

Once in Walla Walla County, Washington,

the elder Moores obtained homestead land
that is now in an area of fertile vinyards.

It is not clear where Daniel and Cyrene first lived,
 though after a few years they patented land
 in what became Columbia and Garfield Counties.

Children born after arrival in Washington Territory included:

Rosalia Clayton (who married Charles A. Ruark)

Allen Sylvester Clayton (married 1.Myra Lewis 2. Bessie Birdwell Schultz Hart)

Priscilla Jane Clayton (died at age 7)

 Thomas Perry Clayton (married 1. Clara Van Ausdle and 2. Lucy Stocking)

Sarah Emoline "Emmy" Clayton (my great-grandmother - married George D. Lile).

Thomas and Emmy were twins.

Twins seemed to run in the Clayton family,

as several Clayton cousins were twins.

Daniel's sister Elizabeth Clayton Roop had one set of twins.

His sister Mary Caroline Clayton Hursh had three sets of twins.

Luckily,

I didn't get the "twin" gene.