William F. Way

William F. Way is the earliest documented ancestor on the Way line — Chuck’s maternal five-times-great-grandfather, and the man who brought the Way name across the Atlantic.

The 1820 crossing

Per the biographical sketch preserved in Robert Earl Wildermuth’s genealogy (which quotes the 1887 History of Noble County, Ohio), William F. Way was born in England and came to the United States in 1820 with his family — his wife and two children, a son and a daughter. He landed at Norfolk, Virginia, and from there made his way to Duck Creek, Washington County, Ohio, where he followed his trade — blacksmithing — before a final move across to Wood County, Virginia (now West Virginia), where he died in 1846. The county history remembers him as “an honest, industrious man of unquestioned integrity, and highly esteemed for his sturdy manhood.”

His wife was Harriet Rowlands. The son who crossed with them in 1820 was Edward Taylor Way — born on the Isle of Wight in 1812, so about eight years old at the crossing — who grew up poor near Crooked Tree, built a 600-acre Noble County farm, and fathered the line that runs through Edward E. Way and Victoria Anna Way Davis down to Chuck. The daughter who came with them is named only as “a daughter” in the record.

What’s open

• William’s given-name middle initial “F.”, his birth date and English birthplace (the Isle-of-Wight birth of his son suggests the family’s English home was on or near the island).
• Harriet Rowlands’s dates and family, and the identity of the daughter who emigrated with them in 1820.

Source: Wildermuth Family of Marietta, Ohio (Wildermuth & Bain), the “Way, Edward T., I” section, quoting the biographical sketch of William F. Way in the 1887 History of Noble County, Ohio (Noble County Historical Society, pp. 558–559).