The Mystery of Rebecca Walker

Rebecca Walker

Sept 30, 1849

Wife of  

John Walker

No Walker families have been found in the Census for our area during that time.

 We will come back to this later. From now on we will be featuring stories of the first settlers of North Olmsted for their Bicentennial year. It would be logical to start with David Johnson Stearns. But that is too easy and not Sandi’s style. We think that we should start with the Fitch family as all the Olmsted Fitches started from one couple.  They are Thaddeus Fitch b. July 27, 1761 at Hartford Connecticut d. April 16, 1816 Vernon Connecticut and Rebecca Webster b. September 10, 1766 d.?

The Fitch Family of North Olmsted

There are 67 Fitch internments in Butternut Ridge Cemetery (The Ridge) not counting the females that would be buried under their husband’s name. The Stearns family is the only family with more. The Fitches are related to the Stearns and Thompson families.  I found a digital book on line (Google Books) Genealogy of the Fitch Family in North America collected and arranged by John G Fitch. John was born in Olmsted and wrote the book in 1886.  In creating the Ancestry© family tree (North Olmsted First Families) we have found that there are a few of the digital books for the families of North Olmsted.

The tree traces the 7 original families that arrived in the 1820's and how they started in America There are about 2100 in the tree now. Those that are buried in in Butternut or Coe have their grave location and if they have a Find a Grave site it is there.

Now back to Mrs. Walker. In the Fitch book we found the following entry.

“Thaddeus Fitch died April 16 1816, aged 54 years, and was buried at Vernon Connecticut.
Rebecca, widow of Thaddeus Fitch, married (2) February 11, 1819, John Walker, Esq., of Vernon, Connecticut.   
After the death of her second husband, Rebecca Walker went to Ohio with her children. She died at the home of her son Eli, at Olmsted Ohio. September 30, 1849 aged 83 years and was buried at Olmsted, Ohio"

We use the term Township of Olmsted for the area before it was divided into Olmsted Falls, Olmsted Township and the Southern part of North Olmsted. The northern part from just west of Columbia Rd east (Coe Property) was part of the Township of Dover.

Next month we will have the Webster Family and find out how we found out they were an early family