Earliest - Jane Boggs Torrance

Torrence Family Record, Copied by Isabelle

This week I’m going to write about the earliest direct maternal line ancestor I can trace, Jane Boggs, the mother of Isabelle Torrance Dodds, who wrote the letter I posted last time. According to her tombstone Jane was born in September of 1791, somewhere in Ireland. I’d love to know where exactly in Ireland she came from, but so far that information has eluded me. I do know, from a family record, that she married Joseph Torrance on 14 May 1822 in Ireland. I also know that they did not waste any time in traveling. Their oldest daughter, Jane, was born a year later in Philadelphia. So far I have not found their immigration information, but perhaps someday I will be able to track down a passenger list. From Philadelphia, probably where their ship had landed, they moved to Allegheny County. There Jane and Joseph had four more children, James Wiley, Jacob Boggs, Joseph Alexander, and Isabelle. Joseph Alexander, however, only lived a year. Because of the name they choose for their second child I can’t help but think that Jacob Boggs might have been the name of Jane’s father.

               About 1830 Joseph and Jane moved to their final home, Ohio. In 1840 they were living in Logan County. They had two more children in Ohio, another Joseph Alexander, and Nancy, who died as a teenager. By 1850 they were living and farming in Adams County with four of their five living children. Their oldest daughter, Jane, had married Robert Shields and was living nearby. Jane and Joseph were also involved with the reformed Presbyterian Church, their daughter married a Reformed Presbyterian Pastor and several of their sons were elders. They lived near Northwood, which was the early home of the Reformed Presbyterian College, later Called Geneva, and some of their children and grandchildren attended.

On 28 June 1854, Joseph Torrance died. He was buried in Tranquility Cemetery in Adams County and Jane was left a widow. Over the next twenty plus years Jane would live as a widow. At different times she lived with her daughter Isabelle Dodds, and with her son, Jacob Boggs Torrance. In 1870 she was actually enumerated as living with both. In June of 1877 Jane died at the age of 86. She was buried in Northwood Cemetery in Logan County Ohio. I don’t have much from the Torrance family, but recently I found a sheet of paper, where Jane’s daughter Isabelle copied the Torrance family record from their family bible. She noted that the record was written in her father’s hand, excepting the last few entries.