John Metler Clover

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John Metler³Clover (Paul², John Peter¹ Clover)

This article was originally written by June Clover Byrne and published in the Clover Family Chronicles Volume 1, issue 7, 2005, page 223. Copyright 2005 June Clover Byrne.

    Numbers in ( ) are for endnotes.

         I have been lucky enough to receive a lot of information from subscribers on the children of John Metler Clover. Lois Guffy, a descendant of John’s eighth child, Elliot Clover, has sent me lovely pictures, much information, and help on the various problems here. This article would not have been possible without her generous support.

         John Metler Clover, (son of Paul Clover and Nancy Metler,) was born 25 July 1794, (1) Pennsylvania, died 7 May 1857, buried in Stevens Cemetery, which is in Dwight, Grundy County, Illinois. See picture of the Stevens Cemetery. He is not listed in the findagrave listing for the cemetery at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=2289966
       John Metler Clover was married three times. He married first ca. 1817, Mary Williams, daughter of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Swartzlander) Williams.(2) Mary was born 17 May 1796, (3) Pennsylvania, died 14 October 1839, (4) buried Vermillion County, Indiana where her tombstone reads 1796 to 1839. See the John Metler Clover bible record for another date. In a transcription of a bible page I do not have, her death date was given as 14 October 1834. I don't think that 1834 is correct. I don't know if the bible has an error or if the date was not clearly legible.
        I have received much information on Mary Williams which is on a separate page.
        There is an IGI entry giving their marriage date as 4 March 1817. The IGI entry was taken from an endowment for the dead in old Mormon records, probably dated around 1954. No source is now available. This marriage date is also given in the bible which may have been the source for the IGI entry. Family tradition is that they were married in Indiana, but there is no record of that marriage in Indiana. This could be because the civil marriage records of Dearborn County, Indiana, do not start until March 1826. My own opinion is that they were married before they arrived in Indiana. I base that on the fact that the second and third sons were born in Ohio. So I doubt that they were married in Indiana. All that we can be sure of is that some of the Clover group had definitely arrived in Dearborn County, Indiana by the 1820 census. Mary's father, Zechariah Williams, is supposed to have died in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania in 1832. This would make it more likely that they married in Pennsylvania.
        There is a John Clover in the 1820 census of Hamilton County, Ohio who fits perfectly with John Metler Clover. If he married in Hamilton County, it would explain why there is no marriage record. Hamilton County started keeping records long before that. Unfortunately, there have been four separate fires which seriously damaged their records. Some of these are supposed to have been restored. However, all of the marriage records are NOT in the restored records. I have searched what I could find and have not found any John Clovers in the early restored marriage records. They may also have simply married in Pennsylvania before they left where no record would have been kept anyway. I don't know where William, his oldest son was born. His second and third children, Isaac and Amos, are supposed to have been born in Hamilton County, Ohio.
    Hamilton County, Ohio shares a border with Dearborn County, Indiana. The fact that his brothers were in a separate state makes the group look like they were living farther apart than they actually were. So, John could have married first in Indiana, Ohio, or Pennsylvania.
       After Mary’s death, John M. Clover married second 11 February 1840, in Vermillion County, Indiana, Nancy Sumpter.(5) The state wide Indiana marriage index on line has her as Nancy Sumpter, but lists the marriage again with same date, with her name as Mary Sumpter. (6) The family has traditionally referred to her as Nancy, but this suggests that she was really named Mary Ann and was nicknamed Nancy. She was born between 1810 and 1820, (7) and died on 4 November 1840, less than nine months after the marriage.(8) John M. Clover married (third) 25 December 1840, in Vermillion County, Indiana, Martha Minerva Lewis,(9) daughter of John Lewis. The John Metler Clover Family book has a marriage date of 20 January 1841 and this date appears in other places. However, the state wide index on line has a marriage date of 25 December 1840. I have not seen the original entry.
       One of the early subscribers of the Clover Family Exchange sent in the extracted marriages of Vermillion County, Indiana, which were published in the March 1987 issue on page 12. According to this, John M. Clover married Martha Minerva Lewis on 25 December 1840 and that the record is on Volume 2, page 55. Consequently, I believe that the date of 25 December 1840 is correct. Someone may have been shocked that he remarried just one month after the loss of his second wife. However, in those days, it was common and actually necessary. It was simply not possible to run a farm and take care of his children and household alone.
     Martha Minerva Lewis was born 20 August 1816, died 2 January 1893, Hiatville, Bourbon County, Kansas. She was the daughter of John Lewis.(10) Per Wikipedia, this was a town in Bourbon County, Kansas. Findagrave has an MM Clover buried in their cemetery. [Thanks to a Clover correspondent, Michael Bexson, for solving this puzzle for me.]
      Her youngest son, Seth Clover, had moved to Mitchell County, Kansas by 1880. Her daughter, Maryetta Ellis, had moved to Greenwood County, Kansas. I think that the census entry for the neighbor, Martha Chlover is actually Martha (Lewis) Clover. The only problem is that this Martha was supposed to have been born in New York. In all the other censuses, she was born in Ohio. However, in a couple of her children's censuses, they say she was born in New York. It is very possible that her family came from New York which is causing the confusion. Greenwood County is close to Anderson County. Her age seems to change regularly which is pretty common. The booklet on John Metler Clover by some of his descendants said that her father was John Lewis. I don't know if this is true. It seems curious to me that John Metler Clover was buried in that particular cemetery which has a Lewis family in it. Since his widow was a Lewis, maybe these people have some connection to her. But the places of birth don't seem quite right. So I just mention this. Elnation Lewis is in Grundy County, Illinois in 1850. He has several daughters named with typical New York names like Minerva, and born in New York. So I am suspicious that this is her father or at least a relative. But if she was really born in NY, i don't understand all the references to Ohio. He was apparently living in Saint Lawrence County, New York in 1840. The question is when he arrived in Illinois because she married in December of 1840. If anyone works on this group and figures out the anomalies, I would be happy to hear about it. I would recommend searching for an obituary for her in Kansas. I looked for this obit in the 90s before there was so much on line. If I had known then that she was in Bourbon County, perhaps I might have located an obit. The Kansas State Historical Society has the largest collection of old newspapers in the midwest. At that time, they did interlibrary loan on rolls of newspaper. Newspapers in Kansas of that day were very fond of printing long involved biographies of individuals. It would be very likely to include a town of birth and perhaps information about siblings.

1820 Hamilton County, Ohio Whitewater Township page 183 John Clover 200010-00010-0100
1830 Vermillion County, Indiana page 233: John Clover 222001-000001
1840 Vermillion County, Indiana, Helt Township, page 917: John Clover 1313001/001001
1850 Grundy County, Illinois Town of Goodfarm NARA M432-108: Page 184b: 28 October 1850: Line 10: 10/10 John Clover 56 Farmer $1800 PA; Martha M. 34 OH; John S. 9 IN; Marietta 7 IN; Laura A. 3 IL Almaretta 2/12 IL; Elliot 19 IN; Milton 17 IN; Gerittus 14 IN; Philip 21 IN; Joseph W. Dewy 20 IN.
1860 Grundy County, Illinois Goodfarms Township PO Gardner NARA M563 roll 181 page 53-54 line 36 378/569; Martha Clover 41 OH $3200/370: John 18 IN; Maryette 16 IN; Laura 12 IL; Almaretta 9 IL; Seth 8 IL
1870 Goodfarm, Grundy, Illinois; Roll: M593_225; Page: 300B: Martha Clover 49 OH; John S Clover 28 IN; Laura A Clover 20 IL; Almaritta Clover 19 IL; Seth Clover 18 IL
1880 Salt Springs, Greenwood County, Kansas; NARA T9 Roll: 382; Page: 362A; ED 99 Martha Chlover widowed 58 NY MA NY [This may be her despite the error in her place of birth.]
1885 Kansas State Census, Twin Grove, Greenwood County, KS: [next door to Seth] G. W. Ellis 45 NY [ink smeared]; M. Ellis 42 IL; M. M. Clover 63 NY; Edward Ellis 19 IL; Florence E. Ellis 17 IL; Charley E. Ellis 10 IL; L. M. Ellis female 1 KS.