Westward Ho

By Grant Challacombe

When the American Civil War began, it was quite possible that the only experience Jabez and William Challacombe had with horses was walking behind one as it pulled a plow. Certainly, Northern boys didnt have the same equestrian tradition as Southern boys. They hadnt been raised to ride high-spirited thoroughbreds on foxhunting or to have a romantic view of themselves as gallant warriors when sitting astride a horse. From a Northern farm boys point of view, a horse was a beast of burden, and there was nothing glamorous about that. When they did occasionally ride on the back of a horse, it would most likely be a big docile, slow-moving cold-blooded animal with large hooves, feathered pasterns, and a sway in its back that would eliminate the need of a saddle. Their objective in riding would be solely for transportation and only because it was faster and took less effort than walking. It might therefore seem a little strange that Jabez and William would enlist in the cavalry. Probably their choice of service was influenced by a slick recruiter telling them they didnt have to walk to work in the cavalry; they could ride. Whatever the motivation, twenty-seven-year-old Jabez and his twenty-one-year-old brother, William, enlisted for three years as privates in Company H of the Second Ohio Volunteer Cavalry Regiment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543453249

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Copyright © 2017 by Grant Challacombe.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017914902

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5434-5322-5

      Softcover      978-1-5434-5323-2

      eBook         978-1-5434-5324-9

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Rev. date: 10/04/2017

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Contents

Jabez B. Challacombe

Yankee Doodle

War on the Missouri–Kansas Border

Pedigree Chart

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Jabez Challacombe, 1907

Jabez B. Challacombe

by Grant Challacombe

Jabez B. Challacombe was born on the eighteenth day of March 1834. He was the second child and the first boy of Thomas and Susannah Challacombe. The oldest girl, Julia Ann, was born at sea on May 4, 1832. The remaining children—Jabez B. (1834), Thomas Jr. (1836), Mary (1838), William (1840), Emma (1842), Nellie (1844), Susan (1847), Lucy (1849)—were all born on a farm near Honesdale, Pennsylvania.

On April 30, 1850, Thomas died, leaving nine children—all younger than eighteen. His widow married a local widower by the name of George Rogers, and the family started making plans to move west. But first, another wedding took place. This one was between Julia Ann and Orin Noble. Orin was a local man born in Damascus, Pennsylvania, a carpenter by trade. By the mid-1850s, the family had moved to Ohio. Jabez and Thomas Jr. were working as carpenters in the vicinity of Cleveland. It was not known if the boys acquired most of their skill while working for their father or through their association with their older brother-in-law, Orin Noble.

In 1860, most of the family lived in Wellington, a small town in Lorain County, which was about thirty miles west of Cleveland. Susannah and George (Pa) Rogers lived in Huntington about five miles south of Wellington. Also living there were the four youngest Challacombe