George Elwood Rockwell (b. 1800), of Wilton, Conn., and Ursa, Adams Co., Ill. (R221 in 1st edition, R218 in 2nd): further details

The 1850 census is the last tangible record I have found of George Elwood Rockwell. At the time he was living in Ursa, Adams Co., Illinois. By 1860, his wife Hannah was the head of the household in Mendon, Adams Co., so George must have died sometime during the 1950s. I have not found any cemetery records or probate records to give us further details of George's death, but I assume he died at Ursa or Mendon.
I haven't found record of Hannah's death, either, but I am confident that she remarried. An Adams County marriage record is found for Harriet Rockwell marrying Hiram Burke of Ursa on 15 March 1864. [From: Adams Co. (Ill.) marriage record listing (1825 thru 1917): brides, page 367; FHL Film #1870152, it. 3.] They are in the 1870 census, listed next to the family of Leander and Sarah Burke. This last couple consisted of a son of Hiram and a daughter of Harriet; they married on 12 Dec. 1867. Thus, they were step-brother and step-sister. A check in the Adams County probate yields record of Hiram Burke, who died in 1882, leaving as heirs-at-law three sons and a grandson--no wife. So Harriet (Ogden)(Rockwell) Burke had died by then.

The 1830 census of George's household in Wilton shows 1 male in his 30s, 1 female in her 20s, 1 female 10–14 [surely not their child], 1 female under 5 years of age, and 2 males under 5. In the 1840 census, the household included 1 male in his 40s, 1 female in her 30s, 1 male under 5 years old, and 1 female under 5. This raises the question of what happened to the young children of the 1830 household. Given that the eldest child (Mary Frances, b. c1827) was known to Boughton’s informants, it is possible that she was present but omitted, and the same may be true of two sons. By 1850, Mary Frances was married and out of the house, while there is a 20-year-old called "Morris." The second young male of the 1830 household may be the "S. Rockwell" referred to in the History of Adams County, Illinois (Chicago: Murray, Williamson & Phelps, 1879), page 309, in a list of those who left the Ursa area for California during the Gold Rush, in 1849-1850. He would have been just about 21, a young Argonaut of whom we have no further record. His first name might have been Samuel (given that his brother Norris gave that name to a son.

I am proposing that "Morris" of the 1850 census is actually Norris C. Rockwell, whom I had listed in the unplaced section. Here are further details about him:

He was a native of Fairfield, Connecticut, according to his Civil War discharge record. [Probably this was a reference to the county rather than the town.] Betty Rockwell, in her correspondence with the Wilton Historical Society, wondered if his middle initial stood for "Canfield." This no doubt because a man named Norris Canfield lived in Wilton and, in fact, is on the same page in the 1830 census as George Rockwell. The vital records for Fairfield County in the early 19th century are quite poor, and the first record I find of him is in Adams County, first under the misspelling in 1850, and second, the record of his marriage:
On 22 February 1855, in Adams County, Illinois, Norris C. Rockwell married Sophia C. Hammond. [From: Adams Co. (Ill.) marriage record listings, 1825–1917, Grooms, p. 368; FHL Film # 1870152, item 3.] Regarding her middle initial, some records and later reports give it as "E" but the marriage record clearly shows a "C."
He is surely the blacksmith called “M. C. Rockwell,” found in Lee, Brown County, Illinois, for the 1860 census. He was then 29 and wife “Sofia” was 23.
On 12 August 1862, he enlisted in Captain William N. Mumford’s Company E, 119th Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry, to serve in the Civil War for three years. But he was discharged on 24 December 1862 and issued a Certificate of Disability. This document, a photocopy of which was sent to me by RFF President Frank Rockwell, gives his birthplace, describes him as 5 feet, 8 inches high, with dark complexion and hair and hazel eyes, and names his occupation as a blacksmith. It further states that “during the last two months said soldier has been unfit for duty 60 days… in consequence of inflammation of the eyes. About nine years ago was taken with sore eyes, and continued two years. Had frequent relapses subsequently.” He was thus found “incapable of performing the duties of a soldier because of… chronic opthalmia contracted before enlistment.”
I couldn't find Norris and family in the 1870 census, but in 1880 Norris was 49 and living at Dale Township, Atchison Co., Missouri, with 43-year-old wife Sophia E., 43, a Vermont native, and five children. They may have moved soon to Nodaway County, Missouri, where some of their children lived in 1900, for it is there that we find Norris’s grave. In Burr Oak Cemetery, Monroe Township, one headstone reads: “N. C. Rockwell, died Nov. 18, 1884, aged 54 years, 2 months, 28 days.” [From: Monroe Township cemeteries, Nodaway County, Missouri, compiled by the Nodaway Co. Genealogical Society (Maryville, Mo., 1996), p. 13] If accurate, this gives his date of birth as 21 August 1830. Sophia’s grave is not here, and her date of death is not yet known.

The children of Norris C. and Sophia (Hammond) Rockwell:

Charles Alexander Rockwell, possibly. A 1998 posting on Genforum’s Rockwell forum listed this child, born 22 Nov. 1855. No further details at this point; probably died before the 1860 census.
Samuel Rockwell, born June 1857, aged 23 years in 1880. In the 1900 census, we find “Sam” Rockwell at Monroe, Nodaway County, an Illinois native born in June of 1857, with a wife called Wellington (b. 1864) and three sons.
George W. Rockwell, aged 16 years in 1880. He is probably the Illinois native of that name born in Nov. 1863 living at Price, Linn Co., Oregon, in 1900, with Missouri-born wife Ida M. (b. April 1871). Their lone child of a 12-year marriage, Benjamin, was born in November 1888 in Washington State.
Frederick Edwin Rockwell, born Feb. 1866, the “Edwin, 14” of the 1880 household. In 1900, he lived at Green Township, Nodaway County, Missouri, with wife Mary E. (b. Oct. 1863) and two children. His headstone in Burr Oak Cemetery gives only his vital years, but a published transcript adds exact dates: 10 Feb. 1866 to 26 March 1940. Similarly, wife Mary is buried there, and the transcript gives her maiden name as Mary Estella Drummonds and her exact dates as 23 Oct. 1863 to 10 Feb. 1945. (I located their death certificates online, at the Missouri State Archives "Digital Heritage" site. Frederick's document gives his date of birth as 19 Feb. 1866, rather than 10 Feb. Mary was born in Peoria, Ill., the daughter of Abner K. Drummond and Nancy Lee White.)
Olive Rockwell, born ca. 1869, aged 10 in 1880.
Laura M. Rockwell, born 28 March 1871. Her headstone near that of Norris calls her the daughter of “N.G. and S.E. Rockwell,” who died 11 Mar. 1876, ae. 4 yrs, 11 mo., 14 days.
Roy L. Rockwell, born Sept. 1877, aged 2 in 1880. In 1900, he lived at Green Township, Nodaway County, Missouri, with new wife Jennie. According to a WorldConnect page in Rootsweb [by William H. George, Jr., viewed Dec. 15, 2008] Roy married, on 25 Dec. 1899, Jennie May Crouse (b. 24 Oct. 1880 at Antwerp, Ohio). They had one child, Fred L. Rockwell, b. 2 Nov. 1900. Roy died on 25 Nov. 1902.

Continuing with the discussion of children of George and Harriet:
Possibly there was a daughter named Emma, who on 25 Sept. 1866 married Milton F. Woodward. [Source: Adams Co. (Ill.) marriage record listing (1825 thru 1917): brides, page 367; FHL Film #1870152, it. 3] I don't find another family in the county at the time; but if she is George and Hannah's daughter, her absence from the census in both 1850 and 1860 is curious.