Elijah Chenoweth, Jr.

Elijah Chenoweth, Jr. is the father of Joseph Hill Chenoweth — one of the deepest documented ancestors on the Chenoweth side of this archive, and the figure whose photograph in Roberta Burnes’s family album is queued for the next round of digitization. Roberta has noted his portrait sits in the same album that holds the photographs of his son Joseph Hill, of his daughter-in-law Mary Ohio Timmons (as a child and as a young woman), and of his granddaughter Lillie Dale Chenoweth as a small child.

The biographical record

Per Jon Egge’s Chenoweth Site entry on Elijah Jr. and Nancy:

He was born 15 August 1806 in Pleasant Township, Franklin County, Ohio — “the ninth child and youngest son” of Elijah Sr. and Rachel Foster Chenoweth, born just after his parents had moved into Ohio from Virginia. He married his cousin Nancy Chenoweth — daughter of Thomas Chenoweth and Elizabeth Watson of Clark County, Ohio — on 16 April 1827, two months after she had turned twenty. Both were twenty. Egge documents the marriage as “2nd cousin once removed.”

“Elijah, Jr. and Nancy would farm in Franklin Co. for their entire lives, bearing nine children and raising six of them to adulthood and marriage. Their lives are well documented in the Historical accounts of the County. Like most of the Thomas2 Family they belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church.” — Jon Egge

The nine children, in order:

1. Thomas Chenoweth (1828–1908) — Civil War Union, Franklin Co.
2. John Wesley Chenoweth (1831–1889) — Civil War Union, Madison Co.
3. Joseph Hill Chenoweth (1832–1910) — Civil War Union, Franklin Co.; Chuck’s great-great-grandfather. Married Mary Ohio Timmons.
4. Elizabeth Watson Chenoweth (1835–?) — married Andrew J. Shepherd.
5. Elijah Foster Chenoweth (1838–1839) — died at one year.
6. Rachel Chenoweth (1840–1843) — died at two.
7. Sarah Jane Chenoweth (1843–1932) — married Nathan Cole Gantz; the family line into the Gantz descendants.
8. Cassandra M. Chenoweth (1845–1846) — died at one.
9. Rebecca Eleanor Chenoweth (1847–1933) — married William Woods Carson.

Three children died in early childhood — Elijah Foster, Rachel, and Cassandra. The other six lived to marry and raise families of their own in Franklin and surrounding Ohio counties. The infant losses (1839, 1843, 1846) cluster across an eight-year stretch in the family’s young-parent years.

Elijah Jr. died 7 April 1898, age 91 — he had outlived Nancy by 24 years (she died 20 March 1874). Both are buried in the Chenoweth cemetery, Franklin County, Ohio, alongside his parents Elijah Sr. and Rachel Foster Chenoweth.

The lineage chain

Elijah Jr. is the bridge between the colonial-American Chenoweth lineage and the Franklin County Ohio farming generations whose descendants would carry the name forward to Lillie Dale and into the Eesley line. The chain that runs through him:

John Chenoweth and Mary Calvert (the Cornish-roots colonial founders, Pennsylvania c. 1703 → Maryland 1730s → Virginia 1740s) → William(2) (Berkeley Co., Virginia) → Thomas(2) (Frederick Co., Virginia) → Thomas, Jr. (Franklin Co., Ohio) → Elijah Sr. (Franklin Co., Ohio) → Elijah Jr. + Nancy Chenoweth (Pleasant Twp., Franklin Co., 1827) → Joseph Hill Chenoweth + Mary Ohio Timmons (Civil War-era Franklin Co.) → Lillie Dale Chenoweth + Charles Leonard Eesley → the Eesley children, including Will Eesley → Charles McMaster Eesley → Chuck.

The fuller version of this chain, including the Leonard-branch second cousins that include the Dale Eesley credited on this archive’s homepage as the fifth keeper, is set out on the Lillie Dale Chenoweth page.

Roberta’s album photograph

A formal portrait of Elijah Jr. exists in Roberta Burnes’s Chenoweth family album. The image has not yet been digitized into this archive. When it lands, Elijah Jr. will become the earliest direct-ancestor portrait on the paternal Chenoweth-Eesley side — one generation further back than the Joseph Hill Chenoweth and Mary Timmons portraits already on the site. Given Elijah Jr. lived from 1806 to 1898, a portrait of him in advanced age (1880s or 1890s) would be technically straightforward; an earlier-life image is less likely, since portrait photography did not become widespread in rural Ohio until mid-century.

Sources: Jon D. Egge, The Chenoweth Site, Elijah Jr. and Nancy descendants page (the structured record with full dates and family detail); Roberta Burnes, June 2026, on the contents of the Chenoweth family album.