A Rhoads Saga

 This blog was established to present the history of the Imles. But interesting tales sometimes require a detour to other connections. One of those detours involves the Rhoads family, which was a major focus in our last blog. If you remember, the Revolutionary veteran Daniel Rhoads had a great great granddaughter Olive Geisert, who married my grandfather Adam Imle. And Daniel had a great great grandson Lawrence Willington Rhoads, who married Bessie Maude Hanks, a relative of Abraham Lincoln’s mother. Except, as we saw in the previous blog, she wasn’t.

Daniel Rhoads had other interesting descendants, one of them his son Thomas Rhoads.

Thomas Rhoads

In 1835, while living in Edgar County, Illinois, Thomas Rhoads converted to the Latter Day  Saints Church. In May 1846, Thomas, his wife (Elizabeth Foster), a multitude of his children, and other Saints started out to help look for spots for Mormon pioneers. This was a year before Brigham Young left Nebraska on his trek to Utah, and was the month and year that the Donner Party headed west from Independence, Missouri. Thomas and his fellow travelers bypassed the Salt Lake, traveling all the way to California and arriving in October. They made the journey without mishap. The Donner Party, which was delayed by only a few weeks, did not.

Thomas and his eldest son John were called on to help rescue the Donner party travelers. John headed the first Donner relief expedition, an adventure worthy of much more than a blog.

Thomas settled in the Sacramento Valley and was reportedly working for John Sutter in January 1848 when gold was discovered on Sutter's property. Thomas and other saints were called to come to Salt Lake City and Thomas obeyed, leaving California in August, 1849. Thus, Thomas Rhoads returned in a direction opposite that being taken by the "Forty Niners."

Though Thomas did not participate in the California gold rush, he reportedly arrived in Salt Lake City a rich man. He acquired a fine home and, it is claimed, seven more wives. He is believed to have significantly helped finance the Deseret Mint.

In later years Thomas and his son Caleb were said to have obtained large amounts of Indian gold from abandoned Spanish gold mines in the Uinta Mountains. Apparently, Thomas, and later Caleb, were assigned to collect gold from a Ute war chief, Wakara (called "Walker" by white men), who had been converted to the LDS Church. Whether true or not, the rumor has been the basis of many prospecting trips and a number of books, including one coauthored by Thomas's great great grandson Gale R. Rhoades (his line adds an "e"), Footprints in the Wilderness. The prices of Rhoads mines books have skyrocketed due to buyers hoping to discover the mines. A well-used paperback copy of Footprints cost me $140, and my only interest was history, not fortune. Even though I was Gale's fourth cousin, once removed, I received no discount.

A Lincoln Connection?

 In the Ogden Cemetery, near Paris in Edgar Co, Illinois, and just a few miles north of Marshall, are markers for several members of the Rhoads family, ancestors of Olive Geisert, wife of Adam Imle. In the cemetery lie Olive’s great great grandfather, Daniel Rhoads, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Her great great grandmother Elizabeth (Newman) Rhoads. Her great great uncle Newman Rhoads. Her cousins (first, second, third, and otherwise) Willington, Benjamin Tolbert, Daniel, Benjamin Rhoads. And also in Ogden Cemetery is a marker for Sarah (Hanks) Varrell, whose great granddaughter is believed to be Bessie Maude Hanks, who married Lawrence Willington Rhoads, Olive’s third cousin. Now that would not be anything special except that Sarah’s marker is inscribed 

SARAH HANKS
VARRELL
1786 - 1876
AUNT OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

 So, do we relatives of Adam and Olive Imle have a connection with Lincoln, our sixteenth president? Disappointingly, we don’t. Though Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln, did have a sister Sarah, the two Sarahs are not the same. The Sarah Hanks buried in Ogden was probably a daughter of Abraham and Sarah (Harper) Hanks and not of Lucy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s grandmother.

 The grave marker clearly states that Sarah was Abraham Lincoln’s Aunt. But on the marker is a plaque inscribed “DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.” The marker proclaiming the Lincoln relationship was erected by the DAR long after Sarah’s death, and we all know how reliable the DAR is. Often, not very. For more information on the extremely murky genealogy of Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln, I recommend Nancy Hanks, of Undistinguished Families, published 1959 by Adin Baber. You can see a free copy on Internet Archive. (As a side note: Adin Baber’s first cousin, three times removed, David Baber, married Elizabeth Tapscott, my third cousin, four times removed. This, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the Hanks or Rhoads family.)

Me with Sarah’s replaced marker, back 
when I thought I was connected (2003).

Sarah’s original marker (Find A Grave).