George R. Rightnowar
George R. Rightnowar was a native of Pennsylvania. His gravestone says he died in 1845 aged sixty four, which puts his birth about 1781. A county compilation of 1978, Facts and Folks, gives 1791 instead. The 1830 census, which puts him between fifty and sixty, agrees with the stone.
He married Jerusha Rose on 25 June 1809 in Livingston County, Kentucky, by the same 1978 account. She was fifteen, born in Georgia in 1794, the daughter of Henry Rose. Livingston County lies on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Cumberland, across from Illinois.
The family crossed into Illinois and lived for some years in what became Hardin County. Their son George, called Reeves, was born near Elizabethtown in 1810. Henry was born in Illinois on 15 January 1815, and Adam near Elizabethtown on 29 March 1824. Adam later said of his father that "he was a farmer, and came here in an early day."
In 1820 they were in Pope County, which Hardin County was later cut from. The state census that year lists "Geo. Rightnour" as household 56: one man over twenty-one and six other people, most likely Jerusha and their children. He lived among Roses. Elbert Rose was next door, Thomas Rose a few doors before, and Pleasant and Sharon Rose a few doors after. Jerusha's father, Henry Rose, was in the same county. The federal census of 1820 spells the name Rightenour.
Between 1826 and 1829 George and Jerusha moved north to Jefferson County. In the words of Facts and Folks, they "settled in the south end of Long Prairie, between the years of 1826 and 1829, where their sons, Reese, Henry, John and Adam and sons-in-law, Samuel F. Black, John Vaughn, and John Hicks, and their descendants have lived since." The 1830 census found George Rightnour there with a wife of thirty to forty, four boys and four girls.
On 5 February 1841 he bought eighty acres from the government, the west half of the northeast quarter of section 17, township 3 south, range 2 east, in what became McClellan Township. His sons bought the rest of that square mile over the next eleven years: Adam in 1845, Henry in 1850 and 1852, and John in 1852. The family's burying ground is on George's tract.
He and Jerusha raised ten children. The county history of 1883 says so of her, and Facts and Folks names them: "Adam, married to Ann Eliza Howe; Reese, married Nancy; Henry married Jane Hicks; George; Nancy Jane married Samuel F. Black; Jemima married a King; Gooley Jerusha married John Hicks; Rose Mary married John Vaughn; Joe; and John." Schooling was thin. His son Adam "never went to school three months, all told, in his life."
George died on 18 November 1845. He was buried in the family cemetery on his land near Waltonville, under a stone that reads "GEO. RIGHTOWAR, DIED NOV. 18, 1845, AGED 64 YRS". Jerusha lived another twelve years and was buried beside him. In 1859 their son Henry and his wife Jane gave an acre of the family ground for a school, the Rightnowar School, to three trustees: Samuel F. Black, Adam Rightnowar and John Hicks, two sons-in-law and a son.
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Cite: Heirology, "George R. Rightnowar (1781-1845)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/george-r-rightnowar-1781-1845-1d4f89.