Tracing Ulster Roots
Tracing the Henderson roots in Ulster began during the 1960s, when Myron Henderson of Ft.
Wayne, Indiana, attended the annual Scottish Highland Festival at Fergus, Ontario, Canada.
Visiting with members of the Clan Donald Society, he was informed that Scottish Hendersons,
as a result of the settlement of the Ulster Plantation, were given lands north of Lough Neagh,
in County Antrim. They also told him that it was almost certain that the Hendersons in County
Armagh, which lies south and east from Lough Neagh, were of the same stock as well.
Intrigued by the genealogical trail, Myron Henderson was able to trace his lineage back to
William and Eliza Henderson of Alistragh, Grange Parish, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
Their son Samuel married a woman named Anne. Samuel and Anne had some ten children,
including Samuel M. Henderson. Born on 18 March 1849, Samuel M. Henderson was their
tenthchild and seventh son, a birth order considered gifted by the Scots-Irish.
Sometime in the summer of 1870, 21-year-old Samuel M. Henderson (a member of the Royal
Order of Orangemen) and a slightly older sister, Anna Eliza, left their ancestral home for a
wooden boat voyage to America. They landed at a port somewhere in the Carolinas. From
there, they made their way to Cherry Grove, Indiana (north of Crawfordsville), where they
joined their oldest brother, John J. Henderson. Another brother, James, soon joined them. Anna
remained there and the following year married another Ulster immigrant, James Murdock, who
had come over from County Armagh in 1866. James Murdock and Anna raised a family of 10
near Linden, north of Crawfordsville and Cherry Grove.
Samuel, however, headed further west, finally settling in Vinton, Iowa, near Cedar Rapids.
Nearby at a new town named Garrison, his future father-in-law, Joseph Flickinger, employed
him for a while in a stone quarry. Later, Sam became a teamster for Col. A.S. Chadbourne. In
addition, Sam served as a volunteer fireman in Vinton. On 1 July 1878, he married Mary Joan
Flickinger.
While attempting to save a team of horses in the Cedar River on Saturday morning, 8 October
1881, Sam drowned at the age of 31. Although the fire department offered a reward for the
recovery of his body, he was not found until April of the following year, about two miles
downstream from the site of the accident. The Vinton Fire Department conducted services for
Sam on the afternoon of the tragedy. He was buried in the southeast part of the Vinton
Evergreen Cemetery, alongside his first two children, James and George Connell. Besides a 27year-old widow, he left a 5-week-old son, Samuel Chadbourne Henderson. Two children had
died in infancy.
On 16 December 1882, the same year, Mary remarried. Her new husband’s name was Charles
William (Bill) LaHue. Mary’s parents, Joseph and Elizabeth Flickinger, and her unmarried older
sister, Esther, took young Samuel C. Henderson to raise. After losing two more children
(Joseph Arthur in 1886 and Carrie M. Reddy Lahue in 1887), Mary died north of Vinton at Mt.
Auburn on 20 June 1891. Samuel C. Henderson eventually left Iowa to attend Ashland College
and Seminary in Ashland, Ohio.
Aunt Esther continued to live alone in the old home of Sam’s maternal grandparents (the
Flickingers) at Garrison, Iowa, until her health failed her in the mid-1920s. She was then cared
for in the home of her sister, Ellen Jane (or Mrs. George Raymond). Esther died from a heart
attack at the farm home of her niece and namesake, Esther (Essie) Raymond (or Mrs. Chris
Kinsel), on 6 December 1925. She was buried near her parents in the Big Grove Cemetery,
southeast of Garrison, Iowa.
All connections between Samuel C. Henderson and his paternal Henderson relatives were lost
for some fifty years. They were re-established in 1952, however, when Myron Henderson
became a welcomed house guest of Samuel John Henderson and his family, who were living at
the time in the old Henderson homestead in Ireland.
Based on Myron Henderson’s efforts, here is a summary of what was recorded regarding the
other children of Samuel and Anne Henderson:
– Born in 1833 and also known as Minnie, she emigrated to the United States.
Although married twice (first to a man named Curran, then to a man named Hendrixon), she
had no children and died in Brooklyn, New York (the year is not recorded).
James – Having joined his brother and his sister, Samuel M. Henderson and Anna Eliza,
in Indiana, he married Sarah Robinson and had eight children: Anna, Rachel, Thomas,
William James, John (Jack), Mary (also known as Minnie), Sarah E., and Fannie. He died in
1904.
– Born in 1837, she emigrated to the United States and married a man named
William McCollough. She died in 1915.
– Born in 1842, he came to Indiana’s Montgomery County at the age of 25 and
settled near Cherry Grove. He married Mary J. Knox. He died on 15 June 1871.
Eliza – Born in 1847, she and her husband (James Murdock) had 11 children:
William, Mary Frances, Charles D., Samuel, Clara, Sarah, Eliza, Katherine Maude, George,
Blanche and Anna.
William – Born in 1848, he was a deaf mute and died, unmarried, in 1926 in Portadown,
County Armagh.
Fannie – The year of her birth recorded sometime around 1859. She emigrated to
Australia, probably as the widow of a man named William Trotter. She later married a man
there named Jamison.
– She died in Ireland, presumably very young.
rge Nesbit – Born in 1856, he also remained in Ireland. He married Susanna Johnston
and had five children: Samuel John (whose family owns the ancestral home in Ireland), Joseph
George, Thomas James, Mary Jane and Frances Sarah (Fannie). George died in 1990 in
Cockhill, Drumanphy, northwest of Portadown in County Armagh.