McDonough County Genealogical Society
Before 1850, the U.S. Federal Census listed only the head of household by name, tallying the remaining family members by age and sex categories. In the 1830 census of McDonough County’s 89 households, 88 heads were men. One was a woman: Celia Tomberlin. What led a widowed mother to the Illinois frontier in the 1820s?
Celia (or Selah) Davis, born in 1791, married Lacy Tomberlin on October 1, 1807, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Lacy, son of James Tomberlin and a Cherokee woman, Robin Ostenaco, served in the War of 1812 along with his brother, John William Tomberlin. Lacy died in October 1814, before the war’s end, leaving Celia with three young children: James B., Fountain Coridon, and Priscilla W. Tomberlin.
Tax lists from Pittsylvania County show the Tomberlins living near William Carter, whose family later migrated through Tennessee and Kentucky to Illinois.
The connection may have been close; Carter had a son named Lacy. By 1830, a John Tomberlin—about the age of Lacy’s brother—was living near Celia in McDonough County, likely having traveled west with the Carters and perhaps watching over his brother’s family. No military land bounties in McDonough County are in the name of a Tomberlin.
Celia followed that same western path to Illinois, establishing a home in McDonough County with her children. Though often referred to simply as “Widow Tomberlin” in early histories, she was more than a name in a record. She was one of the women who helped build the county. Her son James went on to serve as one of McDonough County’s first constables in the early 1830s In the 1840 US Census, Celia is most likely living with her son, Fountain and his family, but she drops out after that. Many relatives have her death date as 18745, but no records can be found.
Pioneers of the Past by Julie L. Terstriep, of the McDonough County Genealogical Society, facebook.com/
