The Vians of Dickinson and Clay Counties
The Vians in Ohio
The Vians of Knox County, Ohio were a large and vigorous clan, with extended family through much of that part of the state. William Vian, son of Revoluntionary War veteran (on the British side) John Vian and Catherine Ruff (daughter of German immigrants) and his wife Jane Perkins, raised 14 children in Knox County. Although William Vian had fairly extensive land holdings, both in Knox and Mercer counties, dividing it among 14 children did not leave enough land for each to make a substantial living.
Like so many others, either due to a scarcity of land, or just an "itch" to move on, several of the Vian children went west, to Iowa, Missouri and finally, Kansas.
The Vians in Kansas
Sarah Jane Vian McMurray
The first of the Vians to reach the part of Kansas that included Clay and Dickinson counties were Sarah Jane Vian McMurray, her husband James, and daughters Vina and Mina. They arrived sometime before 1865. Although there had been settlers there before, they had packed up and left, and James McMurray and family were the first permanent white settlers in Athelstane Twp. McMurray Creek, just north of Industry, was named for this family. This family remains somewhat of a mystery to me. I last found Vina teaching at the Industry school in 1887. She may have married an Akers or Ayers. Her sister may have married a Mr. Haley and moved on, first to Harper Co., Kansas and then to Oklahoma. They also had a brother, Francis, born in Kansas but his whereabouts after 1885 are unknown to me.
Amanda Ellen Vian Hardesty Wood Ray McCoy
Not long after, another of the Vian siblings, Amanda Ellen Vian Hardesty, and her husband John, a cousin from Knox county, along with their seven children, came to this area, settling in Republican (later Gill) Twp. of Clay County. Amanda later divorced John and married Abraham Wood from the same township. After his death Amanda married two other times, to a William Ray and a Mr. McCoy. She died in Clay Center in 1922.
Ira Vian
Around the same time the Hardestys arrived, there came brother Ira Vian, his wife Elizabeth Carson and children Mary Jane, Belle and Millard. They homesteaded in Sherman Twp., very close to the town of Industry, after first living in Abilene for about five years. Ira worked as a butcher in Abilene, saving money to buy land to farm. Several more children were born in Kansas.
Mary Jane Vian married George Ruchty of Sherman Twp., and they had several children there before moving on to Washington state.
Sarah Isabelle "Belle" Vian married first Neil McKay, bearing him two sons, William and Henry, then married a Mr. Poe--they had one son, James Wesley Poe. Sarah married last, and most happily, Adam Elsasser, who had been born in Germany. They had three sons, Rudolph, Albert and Charles. Belle Vian McKay Poe Elsasser lived in the Industry area her whole life, her death occuring in 1948.
Millard Vian married Lettie Thacker, and they farmed for several years in Dickinson County, moving to Cherry County, NE, where they founded the town of Vian. Ira and Elizabeth Vian had five more children in Kansas: Katherine, John, Rosa Abilene, Ada and Elizabeth.
Katherine married Jacob Berger, a native of Switzerland, and after farming near Industry for several years, homesteaded near Medford, Grant Co., Oklahoma. Poor Katherine found the Oklahoma summers unbearable, and often expressed the wish that the family could return to Kansas. However, she remained in Oklahoma until her death in 1945.
John, "Johnie" Vian died in early childhood.
Rosa Abilene Vian married a John Buycken (or Buychen), and they had only one child. a daughter Marie, who married early and died at the birth of her first child. She is buried in Topeka. Rosa died in Dickinson County in 1962, outliving all her siblings.
Ada Viola Vian married a cousin on the Vian side, George Mefford (more on this family below) and they moved to Colorado.
The youngest of Ira and Elizabeth's children, Lizzie, married Oliver Good and they lived in Dickinson County and Kansas City, Kansas.they had three children, John, Lawrence and Iona.
The Children of Mary Vian Downs
The eldest of William and Jane Perkins Vian's children, Mary, had married William Downs in Knox County, and bore him eight children. However, she died in childbirth after her last, Catherine, was born in 1852, and William and his children moved from Mercer Co., Ohio to Lancaster, MO. From here the children scattered, going to other parts of Missouri and to Iowa. However, three of the children, all married, went to Kansas to be near their Vian aunts and uncles.
William W. Downs, a veteran of the Civil War, had married Margaret Ashlock in Missouri in 1866 and came to Clay County with his wife and daughter, Rosetta (a son, William, had died in Missouri). He homesteaded in Republican (later Gill) Twp., and he and Margaret raised seven more children. The eldest, Rosetta Downs, married John Ray of the same township and farmed in Athelstane Twp. of Clay County, and Cheever Twp. of Dickinson County until moving to Junction City, where she died in 1920, her husband and seven children surviving her. The next surviving child, James Downs, married Marie Miller. They had five daughters, one dying as an infant. Ira Theophilus Downs, named after two Vian great-uncles, married Millie Bates and they had eight children, the youngest Loie, dying in Leoti Kansas as a toddler, where the family homesteaded in later years. Albert Milton Downs, the fourth son of William and Margaret Ashlock Downs, married Catherine Sigler and they farmed in the southern Clay/northern Dickinson counties area for many years. They had two sons, Francis and Jesse. Charles Edwin Downs married Ida Robinett and they had three children, Earl, Ruby and Fern. They farmed for the most part in Exeter Twp., Clay County. William and Margaret Ashlock Downs had three other daughters, Loie, Margaret LaFavor, and Mabel. Loie married George Wood and they had five children. Margaret LaFavor, "Favor", died at age 12 from diptheria. Mabel Downs married Thomas Whittenburg, and they moved to Colorado where they raised four children.
William Downs' brother, Jeremiah, married Amanda Williams in Lee Co. Iowa and they had six children. Jeremiah, "Jerry" lived in Gill Twp., where oldest child Rophama married Frank George of Cheever Twp., Dickinson Co. Another daughter, Edith, married one of her Hardesty cousins in Clay County, but died soon after giving birth to a son. Rophama and Frank George moved to Marshall County and raised a large family, including daughter Mabel, who married a McAsey. Her son Norman McAsey was director of the Greyhound Hall of Fame in Abilene. Jeremiah and Amanda and the other children went back "east" to Wyandotte County, near Kansas City.
William and Jeremiah Downs' sister, Dorcas Sophia Downs, married Abraham Mefford in Iowa, and they migrated first to Nebraska, then to Dickinson County. Besides the parents, the family consisted of Lucretia, Martha, Emma, William and George. Martha Mefford married Joshua Vinson, and they farmed in the Buckeye area before moving to Abilene. Emma Mefford married William Rush and they farmed in Dickinson County, raising five children, until they moved on to Colorado. William Mefford married Sarah Knowlton and they had eleven children, some born in Kansas and some in Colorado. George Mefford married his cousin Ada Vian and they had six children, also later moving to Colorado. Sarah Dorcas Downs Mefford died in Abilene in 1924.
Most of the people above who remained in Kansas are buried in Greenridge Cemetery, Sherman Twp., Dickinson Co., Some are also buried in Henry Cemetery, Buckeye Twp., and in Abilene, and a few others in Wesleyan and Greenwood cemeteries in Clay County. Many descendants still live in the Clay/Dickinson counties
Written by Sheryl McClure
If you have any corrections or additions to this family history, I would love to hear from you, as this is my family, too.