John Redfern.....My Wandering Ancestor Part 3

Here is where we left off on the last installment--

It's 1860 and John Redfern is farming in Richland Township, Jackson County Iowa.  Also living with him are his second wife, Mary Hagen Redfern and some of their children; Alice(14), Francis(12), Peter(9)and Anna(9).

Also in 1860 we find Sarah Redfern, daughter of John Redfern and his first wife, Sarah Elizabeth O'Neal, married to Robert Spencer Bowman and living in Orange County, New York.  They have five children together and all the children are living with their parents.

Since John Redfern does not appear on any 1870 Federal Census we have to go to other types of documentation available to us to track his movements.
If you thought he'd still be living in Jackson County Iowa in 1870 you would be very much mistaken!
Yes, John Redfern was on the move again.

In December 1868 John Redfern appears on a tax assessment list for 1000 acres of land he owns in Stinking Water Valley Montana.
Also appearing on that same assessment page is James, his son, as the owner of property in nearby California Gulch Montana.  Jame was assessed taxes on his 412 acres in July of 1868.

So we know by this tax record that by the end of 1868, both John Redfern and son James were in Montana.

Then we can look at the Montana Pioneers Society applications for John Redfern and three of his sons; William John, James and Francis Redfern.  Part of this Society application asks when and where the applicants arrived in Montana and where they traveled from to get to Montana.

William John Redfern, John Redfern's oldest son, was the first to make the move to Montana, arriving in late August of 1863 at Bagdadtown, Biven's Gulch.  He said he traveled from Denver, Colorado through Salt Lake City, but we don't know how long he was in Colorado before leaving for Montana.  When he arrived in Montana he was 32 years old.

Here is the most probably route William John took to Montana....

The leg from Jackson Iowa to Denver Colorado is 864.9 miles.

The leg from Denver CO to the Ruby Valley area of Montana is 925.7 miles.

Before we tell of the journeys of the other Redferns here's a bit about western overland travel during the 1860's.

First off there were no highways, trains, ferries or even much of any roads once you got west of the Mississippi River in the 1860's.
There were well established trails which the native peoples in America had forged and used for well over 300+ years.

In the 1840's after the discovery of gold in California and as the US government began land grabs from the British and Spanish and Mexico to annex those resource rich lands to America, and the Native peoples were driven off by the US military, people began moving beyond the Mississippi in larger numbers.

There were 3 important migration Trails at this time; The California Trail, the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail.

This was basically one trail west, the starting point of which was Independence Missouri(except for the Mormons who started from Nauvoo IL).  Many groups took boats up the Missouri River from Saint Louis, but others made the trek from somewhere East to Independence MO to begin their Westward journey.

Once you made it into Wyoming at South Pass which was on the Continental Divide where two passes were located through the Rocky Mountains that is where these three trails diverged.

The Mormons headed southwest into the Salt Lake Valley of modern day Utah.
The CA and OR bound travelers zigged northwesterly to Fort Hall Idaho Territory where the CA immigrants headed south westerly across Nevada and then decided on which of three routes into California, while those with an Oregan destination verged off from Fort Hall ID northwesterly across Idaho and into Oregon.

Here's the route of the Oregon Trail in full.

And here is the Mormon Trail.

You can see that the bulk of the trail of all three traveled along the same route, following along the banks of the Great Platte River from Omaha NE into Wyoming.
There were no bridges along the route so rivers had to be followed and then forded where water levels were low using makeshift rafts to cross the water.

Traveling into the west was a slow arduous process, fret with bad weather conditions, having to stop for months at a time and "winter over" at forts or outposts of civilization.  Add in the danger of wild animals all around you and that there were still native peoples that hadn't been driven onto reservations or into other parts of the country by the US Calvary plus bands of marauders(of all races) who lived off of raiding settlers wagon trains(not to mention killing many of them).
And don't forget about injuries and diseases that were likely to visit upon these immigrants.  If you didn't break your leg fixing a wagon wheel or run out of fresh water then you might get dysentery instead.  Many who traveled in these wagon trains died and where buried along the trail.
This was no pleasant journey.


We don't know how long William John Redfern took to make his crossing from Denver to Ruby Valley Montana.  We know that from Kanesville Iowa on the Missouri River until they reached the Salt Lake Valley, the first party of Mormons took 10 weeks in relatively good weather to cover that much ground.  We also don't know if William John went to SLC and then North or zagged North into Wyoming via the Soda Springs Cut-Off route and then due North into Montana.  We just know that it was a difficult journey and he didn't travel alone but with a wagon train of other settlers of some sort.


William John is listed in the 1870 Federal Census, living in Madison County, Montana Territory with a wife, Margaret.  (This is Margaret Cain, born about 1840 in Ireland.  Looking through the immigration records I haven't been able to pinpoint which Margaret Cain she is and who her parents were but it's most likely that she immigrated to America from Ireland as a teen or adult and came alone.  There are only a couple of official documents attached to her, one being her marriage record and the other being her mention in this 1870 census.  She died before the 1880 Federal Census was taken.)

Now as for James his brother.....
James Redfern, the second son of John Redfern, was the second to make his way to Montana.  In 1860, a family narrative says, he was living in Nebraska, though he doesn't appear in the Census for that year.  You'll recall he arrived in America in 1850 and made his way to his father's family in Iowa.  At some point he made his way to Nebraska by 1860.
Jackson Iowa to Nebraska is a journey of 548.9 miles

He arrived in Virginia City, Madison County, Montana Territory from somewhere in Nebraska in 1864.

Again we don't know if James traveled via Salt Lake Valley and due North into Montana or if he traveled via the Soda Springs Wyoming Cut-Off.  The second route would have taken off a measurable amount of miles from his journey as the NE to MT via SLC route is 864.9 miles.

At any rate, James married in 1866 in Montana, to Julia Edwards, and appears in the tax assessment book for Montana in July 1868. James was about 31 years old when he got to Montana.

Then in 1864, John Redfern, along with his son, Francis Redfern, left their home in Jackson County, Iowa and made the journey to Montana too, arriving 16 August 1864 to Stinking Water Valley. Stinking Water is one of the names people used for the Ruby River, a tributary of the Beaverhead River.  It is said that this area on the River had sulphur deposits which made it "stink".  The deposits also kept the area warmer than surrounding areas in Montana so it had been a hunting ground for Native Americans as the warmth and running water even in Winter brought wildlife to this spot.
Francis Redfern was a boy of 15 years old and John Redfern was an elderly man of 59 years old when they arrived in the Ruby Valley of Montana.

We do know from the Pioneers Society application that John and Francis took a route from Jackson Iowa across the Great Plains(Iowa and Nebraska)to Salt Lake Valley and then North into the Ruby Valley of Montana.  This route constituted a 1650.3 mile journey.

Another family narrative fills in some of the details on the migration of Francis and John Redfern.
John and family(besides my ancestor Sarah)were living in Eastern Iowa up to late 1863 when John decided to head to Oregon to homestead there.  Oregon had just been made a state in 1859 so there was plenty of wide open spaces still and land to lay claim to there.
At some point before 1860 James left the Redfern homestead in Iowa for Nebraska and William John left Iowa also for Denver Colorado-date unknown but probably before 1863 when his father John Redfern decided to move to Oregon.
I find it interesting that John the father was going to Oregon but his oldest two sons most probably were headed to Montana as their destination as neither mentions in their applications about a change of plans from Oregon to Montana.

Teh family narrative continues that John and Francis along with some of the Edwards family(a multi generational clan of one of an Edwards line)who were neighbors in Jackson Iowa left in a wagon train headed toward Oregon.  The wagon master was a man named Charles Wesley Gideon.  This is most probably the husband of Phoebe Edwards.  (Phoebe Edwards was the sister of Manville Eli Edwards, who was the father of Julia Edwards, whom married James Redfern in 1866 in Montana.  More on the Edwards Family later.)

There was tragedy surrounding this trip.  Just before departing two Edwards children drowned in a river.  This was probably a smaller tributary of the North Fork of the Maquoketa River called Farmer's Creek.  Farmer's Creek is where the Redferns and Edwards homestead were located.

The wagon train made is as far as Salt Lake City before having to Winter over in place. Another of the group's 2 year old child died that winter in SLC.
At some point along the way news got to them of silver being found in Montana which made the group vote to head North to Laurin, Montana instead of continuing onward to Oregon.
So it's only by chance(and the prospects of making it rich in a silver strike)that John Redfern ended up in Montana near his oldest sons.


What was my direct ancestor, Sarah Redfern Bowman, during these years?   In the 1860 Federal Census she and husband Robert Spencer Bowman are living with their five surviving children in Montgomery, Orange County, New York, as we saw in the last installment of this saga.
In 1863 the US Congress passed a conscription which was the first wartime draft of US citizens in american history.  This act required the registration of all males between the age of 20 and 45, including aliens who had the intention of becoming citizens in the future.  You could buy an exemption from this draft for $300(this would be over $5000 in today's money)or by finding someone who would go in your stead.
I don't need to mention that this exemption which only the wealthiest families could afford led to the NYC Draft Riots of 1863.(If you saw the film, "Gangs of New York", these riots were briefly touched on in this movie.)
Robert Spencer Bowman/s name appears in the records for the 11th NY Congressional District which included Orange County NY.  He was 36 years old and still not a citizen of the USA.  Thankfully my ancestors were tucked away "upstate" in June of 1863 and weren't in the midst of the 3 days of murder and violence of the Draft Riots.

We get a bonus as New York state did their own state census a few times in the 1800's so we have a record of the family in 1865 as well which is only one year after her father John and half-brother Francis Redern made it to Montana.  My Redren/Bowmans are still living in Montgomery, NY and Robert the father is still working as a laborer. Two more children have been born since 1860; James M. in 1861, and Sarah J. in 1864. James Bowman is my 2 x Great Grandfather.

So why didn't the rest of John Redfern's family(his wife Mary Jane, and children Barnabas, Margaret, Alice, May, Anna Susan, her twin brother Peter Joseph, Patrick and Mary J)go to Montana as well?
And what happened to them all?  And what happened to the 4 Redfern men who went to Montana?
And what happened to John Redfern's daughter by his first wife, Sarah Redfern Bowman and her family in NY?

All will be revealed next time in Part 4 of our saga.

Sluggy

John Redfern.....My Wandering Ancestor Part 2

So let's recap our story as of 1850-- So by 1850, John Redfern, his second wife, Mary Hagen, and their children Barnabas, Margaret, Alice, Francis and May A, as well as John's 2 sons William John and James Redfern by his deceased first wife are all in Bedford County PA.

Sarah Redfern is married to Robert Spencer Bowman back in Ireland and they have a 1 year old son, Matthew Bowman.

The next federal census in 1860 finds the Redfern family is no longer living in Bedford, PA.
They are in Richland township, Jackson County, Iowa!
Richland is 20 miles south of Dubuque Iowa right near the Mississippi River.
Today you can travel between these places by car in about 12 hours.  But back in 1860 it would have taken a lot longer to cover that 775 miles in a wagon with a horse and with some people walking alongside on primitive roads or paths.

The Iowa territory was established in 1838 and achieved statehood in 1846.
In 1858 according to a Redfern family narrative, John and his family pulled up stakes and set off west ward again and headed for Jackson County, Iowa.  1858 was about 18 years after Iowa became a state.

The Redfern clan settled near Farmer's Creek in Jackson County.  I don't know if John bought land there or not as no land documents have been found yet.  As he lists farming as his occupation in this 1860 Census it's assumed he either was farming his own land or someone else's land.
 I found a land grant for a John Redfern, signed by Ulysses S. Grant for 80 acres in Plymouth County(which is by Sioux City Iowa on the western edge of the state and nowhere near Jackson County near the Mississippi River)dated 1875.  Perhaps John moved further west between arriving in Iowa in 1858/59 and 1875?  It is only speculation at this point.

This is the sort of land speculation poster(from Wikipedia)that circulated out East to try to entice people out to the now open states of Iowa and Nebraska.  Buy land for no money down.

When John Redfern moved to Iowa he was not a young man, being 48 or 49 years old when they arrived.  His wife, Mary, was about 43-44 years old.
The 1860 Federal census gives us a snapshot of the family and their ages in that year.......

John 50
Mary 45
Alice 14
Francis 12
Peter 9
Anna 9

No longer listed with the family are the oldest sons by John's first wife, William John and James, as well as Barnabas, Margaret, and May A.
New children, born since the 1850 Census are Peter and Anna,both listed as 9 years old, most probably were twins.

Also now living with the Redferns is a Patrick Redfern who is 40 years old.  He is possibly John's younger brother or a cousin of some sort.  I believe this census is erroneous in listing Patrick's birth place as Pennsylvania(unless he is a cousin and his Redfern parents were from Ireland and immigrated).  He is listed as a stone mason just like John's occupation in the 1850 Census.


So how about my ancestor, John Redfern's oldest daughter, Sarah Redfern Bowman.....where is she and how is she doing?

The next record we find for her is the 1860 US Census.  Yes, her and her husband, Robert Spencer Bowman and their children are living in Montgomery, Orange County, NY at the time of the 1860 Federal Census. As for the children....Matthew is now 11 years old and he has younger siblings named John aged 8, Robert aged 6, Adeline aged 4 and Anna aged 1.

So when did Robert and Sarah come to America exactly?
Well in this 1860 Census we can narrow down the immigration year as the younger two Adeline and Anna are listed as being born in New York and the two boys, John and Robert, are listed as being born in Ireland. The last child born in Ireland is Robert, born 1854 and the first child born in NY is Adeline, born 1856.
So that gives us a time frame of late 1854-early 1856.

I found a record of arrival for a Robert Bowman on board the ship "West Point", in NY harbor on April 17, 1855.

An example of a clipper ship from that era courteous of Wikipedia.

The West Point  was built in 1847 by Westervelt and McKay, a company that acquired renown by constructing streamlined clipper ships and fast steamships.  The West Point was built of southern oak in a time when using iron and copper was on the rise.  10 years later, in 1857, it was refitted with iron to keep up with the times.
The West Point was a full rigged vessel for the Robert Kermit Red Star Line, which carried goods, mail and passengers on a route between Liverpool England to NYC and was in service until 1863.
The Ship's Master on that 1855 voyage was William R. Mullins.
The West Point would have disembarked her passengers at Castle Garden, the first official American Immigration Center which was located at the tip of Manhattan in the Battery area.  This is where all immigrants into NYC were processed from mid 1855 to 1890, before the Ellis Island complex was constructed.
Unfortunately a fire at Ellis Island in 1897 consumed all the Castle Garden administrative records to 1890 so if you an ancestor who arrived during this time frame you may never find their arrival date, unless they are listed among the Customs Office passengers lists that were stored in D.C. rather than on Ellis Island.
Let me add that prior to August of 1855 passengers did not have to be processed through Customs and many just walked off the ship into the streets of Manhattan and beyond.  Since my Redferns arrived in April of 1855 the record for Robert Bowman may be the only one I ever find.

Years later on the 1900 Federal Census participants were asked, if they were born outside of American shores, what year they had arrived in the US.  Robert Bowman had self-reported that he arrived in 1852 and Sarah his wife reported that 1855 was the year.  Now it's highly possible that Robert had come over in 1852 as that was often the case with married couples, the husband would come over before his family/wife, establish a home and employment and then send for the family at a later date once he had earned enough money for the passage(s).
But as there were children born to this couple in 1852 and 1854 in Ireland, Robert would have had to have left in 1852 after making his wife pregnant and would have had to have returned in either 1853 or early 1854 to "knock up" Sarah again to be both children's father and then have left for America again with his wife and the, at this point, five children.
Something tells me we will never know if Robert traveled to America by boat from Ireland once or twice.
We do know that he arrived in Spring of 1855 at NY harbor and thus my Redfern/Bowman American story begins.

In 1860, after 5 years living in America the Bowman clan are settled in upstate New York, in the town of Montgomery, Orange County(which is situated along the banks of the Wallkill River) to be exact and Robert is working as a Day Laborer and Sarah is keeping house and rearing, their now, five children.

What changes would the coming War Between the States and the 1870 Federal Census bring to our Redfern/Bowman families?  Will John Redfern get the itch to move yet again?

Stay tuned for the next installment of our saga.

Sluggy

John Redfern...My Wandering Ancestor

* This is a multi-part story about two branches of my Family Tree, the Bowmans and the Redferns. I have broken it into separate blog posts as the whole story is quite long.
I hope you enjoy it.
Sluggy

So let's talk about my 4 x Great Grandfather, John Redfern.

That's him looking very much the dapper Western gentleman in a photo he posed for in a photographer's studio somewhere out West.  This was probably taken in the late 1870's or 1880's in Montana.

Born in County Derry, Ireland in 1805 we know his father was also named John and his mother was Margaret, though we don't know her maiden name.

John Redfern married Sarah Elizabeth O'Neil(or O'Neal).  We have very little information about Sarah.  She was born about 1810.  I haven't found a marriage record for these two yet, but we do know that they had the following children.....
* Sarah Redfern in April of 1826
* William John Redfern on 12 June of 1831
* James Redfern on 18 June of 1833
* There may have been a fourth child named Mathilda born in 1829(as other trees have it)but we can find no records of her going forward.  The spacing of the children looks good for a couple very much living in a Catholic country in the 1800's without any notion of birth control so we'll leave it at 4 children by the time Sarah reached her early 20's.

Sarah died in 1833, most probably as a result of childbirth complications of her last child, James.

John disappears from the records in Ireland for 4 years, as do these children, until 1837 when we find that he makes two bold moves.

First John remarries in 1837 in County Derry, Ireland to Mary J. Hagen(Hagan).  Mary's birth date is believed to be 1810 so she is a few years younger than John but still very much in her prime childbearing years at around 27 years old.
Second John decides to flee Ireland and immigrate to America with his new bride.

The newly married Redferns boarded a ship for America and arrived in New YorkCity harbor on 18 June 1837.

The next time we find them, they are listed in the 1840 Federal Census living in Philadelphia Pennsylvania as a family unit of 4.  No names in that year's census, just listing the age range and gender of each inhabitant of the home.
We find.....
1 male between 30-39
1 female between 20-29
1 male under 5
1 female under 5

When we try to match the members of the Redfern family to these statistics using later records we get........

John Redfern-born 1805  1 male between 30-39
Mary J. Hagen Redfern-born 1810  1 female between 20-29
Barnabas Redfern-born 1839  1 male under 5
Girl Redfern 1 female under 5*

* The female child probably died young as she does not appear in the 1850 census.  We may never know her name.

Barnabas is John and Mary's first child of record, born in Philadelphia PA.

So what of the other older Redfern children of John and his first wife Sarah?
By 1840 they would have be....

Sarah age 13-14
William John age 8-9
James age 6-7

Obviously none of them went in 1837 to America with their father John and his new bride as none of them were under age 5 in 1840 when that census was taken.
Their mother was dead and buried as well and we have no indication who their mother's parents were and if they were living in 1833 or beyond.

We have to stoop to some conjecturing here and say that the three older children of John Redfern were most probably left in Ireland in the care of other family members.  This might have been a sibling of their mother, Sarah O'Neil Redfern, or one of her parents(or both)or a sibling or parent of John Redfern, their father.  It might have been a family friend who took the 3 children in.  Or they may have been left in an orphanage.  At this point we don't know.

Destitute children with no parents were often left in orphanages unless there were family members who had the means to support them.  There were many orphanages in Ireland at this time, supported by either the government or the Church.  Most support came in the form of "outside relief" meaning that these institutions paid money to families or local parishes to pay for supporting the destitute.

We do know that in 1838 Parliament enacted the Poor Law Act, which created a system of poor relief in Ireland that relied on a vast system of "inside relief".  This system established workhouses(and turned many orphanages into workhouses) where the poor and orphaned were sent to live.  These Workhouses started springing up all over Ireland by the early 1840's and continued in some form until Ireland gained it's freedom from English rule in the 1920's.

This was far from an easy life involving children put to laboring tasks to "earn" their daily food rations, rags to wear, and a place to lay their head at night.  It was a system that didn't coddle and wasn't easy.  Adults were free to leave these workhouses at any time but take into consideration that economic conditions of late 1840's Ireland were dire.  The Great Famine was well on it's way to driving a large percentage of the country's poor into workhouses were you had a chance of not starving and living another day.

By age 13 though, Sarah would have been a prime candidate to farm out to someone who could pay her way as a servant.  She had economic value as a young female that her younger brothers didn't have yet.
Escaping a life in the workhouse wasn't easy.  Many children who entered that system didn't survive long and if they did, they never left.  It was all they knew until they were carried off into the grave as adults.
The 1840's was also the time frame in Ireland where the Government in cahoots with the Catholic Church implemented the "Earl Grey Scheme"(yes, named for the Earl Grey of tea fame)to deport healthy teenage girls in Ireland to the penal colony of Australia as indentured servants who usually have to work off their passage costs once they were given over to an adult in Australia.  Many young girls were either drafted into this life or took the Poor Relief System up on this "offer" as an opportunity to escape a life in a poor backwards country for a life that they hoped wouldn't be so destitute and dire.  Many of these deported young women went to Australia.  In later years there was also a program set up to deport the young and poor Irish to Canada.
Some of these young women became known as the "Potato Orphans".  These were Irish orphans who were sent to Australia not to be servants but to be married off to convicts in the Australian Penal Colony.
Go here to read more and click on the video link too..... Potato Orphans .
There but for the grace of God this could have been my ancestors life.

Had Sarah been selected to go to Australia I either wouldn't be here now or I might be watching out for dingo and cassowary attacks on vacations while throwing some chook and shrimp on my barbie.  ;-)

Later on, about 100 years later, between the 1930's and 1970's, the British government deported British children to Australia that were a burden to the government much as they had done with the Irish children.  Many of these children were not even orphans and their parents were lied to about where and why their children went.  Many of these children were abused once in Australia and/or died. The truth came out in the early part of the 21st century about this scandal and has ongoing consequences today.
But I digress.

Back to John Redfern, Sarah's father.........

In the 1850 US Federal Census we find the John Redfern household has moved out of Philadelphia PA to Harrison Township, in Bedford County PA,  a western journey of just over 200 miles.
Bedford county borders the state line with Maryland to the South, the city of Altoona is due North and the city of Johnstown is located NorthWest of the area and Harrisburg is due East.
In 1850 the population in Bedford was just over 23,000.  It rose dramatically in the 1810's after it became a safe place to live(due to the native Indians being driven off).  Among other things this area was a main travel route for people heading West into the interior of the country.  The current day Interstate-76 runs right along the top of Harrison Township.

The Redfern Household in 1850 consists of....

*John aged 45
*Mary aged 40
*Barnabas aged 11
*Margaret aged 9
*Alice aged 7
*Francis aged 5
*Mary J aged 3

John is employed as a mason(someone who does building/stone work).
Also while living in Bedford County PA John Redfern applied to become a naturalized citizen of the USA.  We get his arrival date and place in American from those papers.

Why this move for John and his expanding family?
Perhaps it was in his plan all along and he didn't want to live out his life in Philadelphia?
By 1840 Philly was the fourth largest city in America with a population approaching 95,000 inhabitants.  I am sure John saw more opportunity by heading west and the dream of owning land.
After all, having escaped the squalor and destitution of Potato Famine Era Ireland, why limit yourself to remaining in one of the largest at the time Eastern US cities?  The whole country with opportunities unknown was laid out before him.  Anyone who moved across an ocean for a better life probably had no qualms about moving across a continent, right?

By 1840 John Redfern had been in America for about 13 years.  I am sure a good part of that time was spent earning money to support his family but also to finance a move out into western PA.  There was transport to buy, tools for a farming way of life, animals, and also a small cash stake to take to pay for setting up a life once they all arrived at their new destination.  It would take a lot of years to save up enough to resettle your family.


Meanwhile, back in Ireland.......
Sarah Redfern survived her poverty filled life in Ireland and by 1847 there is happy news to report.
She has married!  Either for love or for survival(probably a little of both)she has become the wife of fellow Irishman Robert Spencer Bowman in County Derry.

So what of William John and James, John Redfern's other two children by his first wife?
From later census records we have information that William John and James came to America in either 1849 or 1850 where they self-reported their arrivals.
I found records of a William John Redfern and a James Redfern both having arrived on the ship "Wyoming" in 1850 to Philadelphia.

William John going by his middle name, 15 years old.......

And James, aged 16 years......

These records were most probably the arrival of the brothers of Sarah Redfern, my ancestor.
Since James and William John obviously kept in contact with their father after he remarried and left for America it just makes sense that Sarah was also still in contact with her father in some way.

In the 1880's William John Redfern applied to the Montana Pioneers Society for admission. Hi application states that he arrived in Montana in August of 1868, having departed from Denver Colorado.  This does not mention his arrival in America nor where he was for the 13 years between landing in Philly and having been in Denver.

From a Redfern family narrative we know that William John and James traveled to be with their father in Bedford PA once they got to America.  It's probable that they do not appear in the 1850 Census with their father's 2nd wife and their children in Bedford PA because they arrived in November of 1850 in Philadelphia, and it was after that year's federal census was taken on 9 October 1850 in Bedford PA before they made their way to Bedford PA.

So by 1850, John Redfern, his second wife, Mary Hagen, and their children Barnabas, Margaret, Alice, Francis and Mary J, as well as John's 2 sons William John and James Redfern by his deceased first wife are all in Bedford County PA.

The only person missing from this family who was alive in 1850 is my direct ancestor, John Redfern's daughter, Sarah, by his first wife.  Sarah had been separated from her father at this point for 13 years(or more if he had handed her off to relatives in Ireland when her mother died in 1833).
By 1850 she was married and still living in Ireland however and had given birth to two children-an unnamed infant that died soon after birth and a son, whom they named Matthew Bowman, after her husband's father, Matthew Bowman.  The baby Matthew was born in Ireland in 1849.

While her older brothers William John and James Redfern were sailing across the ocean to America in the Autumn of 1850, Sarah was a wife to Robert Spencer Bowman and new mother to Matthew Bowman in County Derry Ireland.

The years between 1850 and 1860 would mean big changes to all of the Redfern/Bowman Clan.

More on this story later.....

Sluggy