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GLASS FAMILY
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Oral History: Somewhere
in Scotland....
The family of Mary (Rose?) Glass lived in a big house at the
top of the hill. They were more prosperous than the family of
Samuel (or Robert?) Sharpe. Mary was a very beautiful girl and
she and Sam fell in love and were married over the objections
of her parents, who thought he was not good enough for her. Mary
and Sam eventually crossed the Firth of Forth probably first to
England and then to Ireland and Belfast where they settled. There
they raised a large family of 9 to 11 children. Among these children
were Uncle Dennis and Grandfather Samuel.
There is not much known about the family in Scotland or Ireland.
There was a relative by the name of Rose MacClarnen, who was probably
Sam and Mary's daughter. The Glass and Sharpe families were Presbyterian
in Ireland and also the United States.
It was said that there
was always a "Robert" in
the family. Aunt Cora Glass remembers that when she was a child
she had often heard her parents talk of old Bob Sharpe.
On April 22, 1809, Samuel
was born to Sam and Mary in the shadow of the Bush Mills (Antrim), which
was a whiskey
distillery,
so apparently they lived very close to be in the "shadow".
In 1829, the two brothers, Dennis and Samuel, along with their
cousin Patrick Boyd came to the U.S. Sam took his mother's maiden
name, thus the name Samuel Glass.
After reaching Ellis Island, the
three boys had to work and Grandfather Samuel found work on the
Erie Canal, building and digging. Later, he was a lock tender
at Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), Pennsylvania. One evening as
it was time for him to go back across the canal, his little 3-year-old
son Willie came running to meet him, across the top of the canal.
The little boy fell in the canal and ruptured his spleen and died.
After that, the mother, Mary Elizabeth Yowles Glass, refused to
live there anymore and so the family moved to Illinois. There
Grandfather Samuel bought a farm near Kappa, but north of the
Machinaw River, where they lived in a log cabin. It was said,
that all three, Samuel Glass, Dennis Sharpe and Patrick Boyd,
lived near El Paso, Illinois at one time. (See picture on left
of Mary Ellis Stover visiting Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania) Cora Glass
says that her grandmother, Mary Yowles was Pennsylvania Dutch.
However, if you look at the census at the bottom of this page, it shows Ben's
mother as being from Prussia. We have now learned that Samuel Glass had a
second family with
his wife, Mary Cleary.
For more information on Samuel Glass, click
here.
Samuel Glass and Mary Elizabeth Yowles Glass' must have had
12 children, though only these are known:
William (Willie) Glass died at age 3 of a ruptured spleen
Margarette Glass died in Chicago at the age of 96 a widow
of William Winklepeck
Em Glass buried across the Mackinaw River
Jane Glass never married
Susan Glass died very young
Robert Glass lived in Michigan
Rebecca Glass married, died with several small children
Samuel Glass married, moved to Nebraska, farmed and raised
horses
Sabina Glass married Pete McGowan and after he died married
Johnny Ames of Chicago (a wealthy black sheep) (There is a Sabina
or Bina Glass buried at the Kappa, Illinois, cemetery but it is
not known if this is Benjamin's sister or Uncle Bob Glass' daughter.)
Dennis Sharpe has two wives buried at the El Paso, IL, cemetery:
Lillie Sharpe b: 5/12/1807 d: 12/16/1868
Mary Sharpe b: 7/10/1831 d: 1/9/1878
Other burials at the El Paso cemetery;
Robert Sharpe: 4/21/1842, d: 1/2/1886
Dennis Sharpe b: 7/5/1877, d: 3/3/1882 (son of Robert)
Maggie Glass Sharpe b: 11/10/1872, d: 9/15/1876
Dennis Sharpe b: 9/18/1811 (no death date) (IGI Film# 1760827 & 1760957 show
a Dennis Sharpe b: 16 Sep 1811 in Co. Antrim,
Ireland)
William D. Sharpe b: 8/31/1855, d: 8/16/1922
Maggie B. Sharpe b: 2/26/1858, d: 4/6/1921
John W. Sharpe b: 3/17/1855, d: 7/28/1908
Nancy Sharpe 1851-1915
From courthouse records: Samuel Glass farm Booke E-Page 362-Section
20: 40 acres southwest corner El Paso Township
Samuel's mother, Margaret (Maggie) Glass Sharpe, born November
10, 1782, died September 15, 1876, buried in sharp Lot, El Paso,
Illinois. Old notes gave her death about 1880) and said she was
buried at Kappa, however Cora Glass found her tombstone in the
Sharpe lot in the El Paso cemetery. The following is taken from
that:
Margaret (Maggie) Glass Sharpe born Nov. 10, 1782 died Sept.
15, 1876.
Interestingly, in the beginning of this story we are told
that her name is Mary Rose Glass, yet her headstone says Margaret.
I believe it was indeed Margaret. Though I have found no traces
of a Mary Rose Glass, there are Margaret's listed in various LDS
records.
Samuel Glass married second to Mary Cleary on August 08, 1869
in Bloomington, IL.
Children of Samuel Glass and Mary Cleary are:
1. +Catherine Teresa Glass, b. November 22, 1872, Kappa, Illinois,
d. April 10, 1915, Gridley, Illinois.
2. +Anna May Glass, b. May 15, 1870, d. March 23, 1948, Crown
Point, IN.
3. +Mary Jane Glass, b. May 15, 1870, Kappa, IL, d. December 08,
1915, Bloomington, Illinois.
For more information on the above family, check out the Kearney
family website, click
here.
Here are some pictures of my daughter Gretchen and I as we visited Bushmills,
Ireland and the distillery in 2003.
The Bushmills distillery is the oldest legal whiskey distillery in the world.
King James granted the original license to distill in 1608. The village is
a mile from Giants Causeway and sits on the River Bush, one of the north's
finest salmon rivers. The river provided waterpower for a number of mills in
the village, which is how the village came to be name Bushmills.
For information on the Glass name click
here.
