Biography: Elizabeth Ann Stoughton
Stoughton is an English name, and the ancestors of Elizabeth Stoughton were both English and Dutch. She was descended from other pioneer families of Butler County, including the Covert, Glenn, and VanZandt lines, among others.
Elizabeth Annabell Stoughton was born in 1862, the fifth of eight children, to John C. Stoughton and Mary Jane McCandless. She was born during the Civil War and her father was a veteran of that war. He was elected to public office several times, serving as school director, collector and supervisor. Nine years before Elizabeth’s birth, at the time of their marriage, her parents acquired a one hundred sixteen acre wilderness farm which her father cleared. The Stoughton family attended Mr. Zion Baptist Church at Isle, Franklin Twp., as had Elizabeth's grandparents. Her grandfather Andrew Stoughton had been an active member of this congregation and served it in various official capacities over the years.
In 1880, at age eighteen, Elizabeth married James L. Wilson, and between 1880 and 1891 had four children, first a son, then a daughter, then two more sons. The first son they named John Luther, John being Elizabeth's father's name, and Luther being her husband's middle name. They owned a farm in Worth Township, in the area currently bounded by West Liberty road to the south, Swope Road to the East, and Barron Road to the north. (When the creek was later dammed to form Tamarack Lake, the property that had been the Wilson farm was flooded to a large extent). Here the sons worked with their father at farming, threshing, timbering and sawmilling. Pearl no doubt worked with her mother learning to cook and preserve food, sew and quilt, launder and iron the clothes, make the butter, bake the bread…all the things necessary in running a household.
In 1898 their only daughter Pearl died suddenly at age fifteen from a bee sting. In 1910 their oldest son John Luther died at age twenty-nine from typhoid fever. These two children were buried in the cemetery at Muddy Creek Seceder (now United Presbyterian) Church, located in the area known as Muddy Creek bottoms, where the creek flows from Clay Township into Brady Township.
About 1911 the youngest son Bert married a young woman, Clara, from the neighboring Wimer farm, and the couple made their home with Bert's parents for several years. Their first four and possibly five children were born while living on the farm of Elizabeth and James L Wilson. Then Bert and Clara purchased a farm directly across the road from the Wilsons and lived there until 1929. This move may have coincided with the parents buying property in the borough of Slippery Rock and moving to a house on Franklin Road (Rt. 108). They also owned a house in town which they rented to a disabled veteran, Mr.Arblaster.
Both the Wilson and the Stoughton families were inclined toward entrepreneurial efforts. Elizabeth's youngest brother Sol Stoughton developed a beach area with picnic tables, a skating rink, and food concessions, known as Stoughton's Beach. The park was located where Rt. 173 crosses Slippery Rock Creek, south east of the town, and just south of Stoughton Road. Elizabeth's husband, James L. Wilson, at some point ran a garage in Slippery Rock with Robert McDeavitt, the brother –in-law of Bert's wife Clara. The two Wilson sons, Jim and Bert, worked here also, repairing and selling cars.
In about 1908 or 1909, the third child, Jim Wilson, married Lorena Bernice Mayer. She was a third cousin descended from Elizabeth Stoughton's great uncle William Stoughton. Jim and Lorena had seven children between 1909 and 1918. When Lorena died in 1924 Jim married again, to Della Reddick-Wicks, and they had three children between 1925 an 1930. Over his lifetime Jim acquired various pieces of property, one parcel from his wife Lorena's grandfather Mayer, one from his mother's father John C. Stoughton, a third from his mother's brother, Sol Stoughton, and a fourth from his father..
Elizabeth must have enjoyed having her sixteen grandchildren nearby, the older ones walking up the hill from the farm to the McClymonds School, and Bert's children walking down the creek to visit their Wimer grandparents. However Elizabeth and James L. Wilson left the farm and moved into Slippery Rock.
A stressful period began for Elizabeth. In March of 1929, her youngest son Bert and wife Clara moved to Venango County, following the oil drilling boom in that area. Three months later, her husband James L. Wilson died of a heart attack in the town of Slippery Rock, but his body was not located for several days. Two years after that, on December 20, 1931, her sole surviving child Jim Wilson died. Elizabeth lived for four more months, and died of heart trouble in April of 1932. She died in Clay Township, where she had possibly gone to stay with Stoughton relatives. She and her husband were buried with their son John and daughter Pearl in the Muddy Creek cemetery. . John T. Wilson, one of Bert’s sons, wrote of his grandparents “The Wilsons lived at Slippery Rock, Butler Co., Pa. He worked at timber business and saw milling, also traveled about the neighborhood doing custom threshing with a steam-powered threshing machine. He liked to hunt for both big and small game. He killed one deer and about 1920 brought back alive a small black bear which he kept for about three years; finally sold it to Barnum & Bailey circus. He was a good six feet tall, weighed around 200 pounds. He mostly wore a coat, vest and tie, and he always wore a mustache. She was average height and was fairly heavy. She was neat in her appearance and always wore a good grade of clothes. She was a good cook. They had a good well furnished home with all the conveniences of that time. I don’t think they ever had an automobile. She worried about the safety of her family working around that shacklebone equipment as she called it. I think they had a good life together. Both died with heart trouble.”
