Genealogy note, Thomas and Susannah McKitrick Kidd

My sis and I were discussing a little genealogy, or family history, today. It's interesting to realize that some of the information I have, she may not, and vice versa. So I decided to post a few things every now and then about the family. Today's note, Thomas & Susannah McKitrick Kidd taken from The McKitricks and Roots of the Ulster Scots.

Thomas Kidd -born July 17, 1790 Allen, Northampton Co., PA; died Aug. 24, 1873, Mount Pleasant, UT 

married Susannah McKitrick -June 9,1789 Hopewell Township, York Co., PA; died March 21,1865, Decatur, Green Co., WI

in Washington Co., Pennsylvania in 1812. They had the following children:

William Kidd, June 28, 1813 Washington Co., PA
Alexander Kidd, Dec. 2, 1814 same
Thomas Kidd, April 27, 1816 in Virginia (now W. Virginia)
John Kidd, June 8, 1818 same
Catherine Kidd, Dec. 24, 1819 same
David Kidd, Aug. 19, 1820 same
Eliza Kidd, Aug. 20, 1821 same
Anna Kidd, July 15, 1824 LaPorte, Lorain Co., Ohio
Susan Kidd, Nov. 30, 1828 same
Eliza (?)Kidd Nov. 12, 1832 Warren Co., Ohio

Thomas & Susannah courted at the farm home of her parents (Alexander McKitrick 1747-1822 & Catherine Baker 1758-1822) in Finley Township, Washington Co., PA. They were part of a solidly Presbyterian concentration of Scotch-Irish. They may have attended the 10-Mile Church, founded before the Revolution at nearby Amity. The course of this young family is seen to have stopped short of the Ohio goal of the great exodus and the place they chose in WV could not have been very far from Belmont Co., Ohio. They went with their seven children (at the time) and Susannah's parents, on an ill-fated migration down the Ohio and up the Wabash and White Rivers to a settlement in Cay Township, Pike Co., in the new state of Indiana. Somewhere during a landing for fuel and provisions, their little boy, presumably John but called Baker in another account, disappeared while chasing butterflies along the shore and was never found. Scarcely two months later, tragedy struck again in the unexplained deaths of Susannah's parents at the Indiana settlement near the present village of Bowman.* Thomas and Susannah soon left this settlement, taking with them the large McKitrick family bible and Alexander's spectacles, together with a few other household belongings, all bought and paid for at the public sale in August, 1822. Abandoned was their unquestioned title to 1/6, or about 100 acres, of Alexander's large tract of rich farmland. Thereafter, their life together was one of wandering and evident heart-break.

Kidd family records place them next at LaPorte in Lorain Co., Ohio where Anna and Susan were born. Their trail then leads to Warren Co., Ohio and that of Joseph Smith and his Mormon followers. Here their 10th child was born in 1832, oddly shown as a second Eliza. One contributor shows Smith as her married name. In estate papers thought to be those of the above son David Kidd, a sister, Eliza Moore of Caldwel, Sumner Co., Kansas, another sister Mary, whose name is illegible but could be anything from Stutt to Smith, and a brother, Thomas Kidd, are mentioned as heirs at law. The second Eliza may have had a first name, Mary.

There is no doubt that Thomas Kidd, the father, was converted to the Mormon faith. Although one contributor does not agree, the concensus of submitted information is that Susannah never became a Mormon; yet she continued her troubled wanderings with Thomas as he followed his new faith. Unshaken by the power struggle for leadership after the murder of Smith at Nauvoo, he prepared to follow the new leader, Brigham Young; and Susannah carefully sewed his money under the lining of his great-coat.** She may even have started out with him and the grown children who went with him to settle in Utah; the family records say only that she was sick, too weak to stand the long journey and remained with her son, David at Juda in Green Co., WI. There is an intimation that he was to return for her when able to go, but evidence indicates that this was the end of their life together.

*I'll write more about this tragedy at a later date.
** Feb. 9, 1974 letter of Ethel May Kidd Bryant, Santaquin, Utah