Touby Family

This is the story of Peter and Jane Touby...
a story that began with two brothers, James and Colin Duncan, who left Scotland to come to America and the John Martin Touby family, who left France for Germany because of religious persecution, then set off for America to avoid military inscription.   

Colin's great granddaughter, Jane Duncan Colville, 

married Martin's son, John Peter Touby.

James and Colin Duncan were brothers born and reared to manhood in Scotland.  James and his family came to America and settled in Virginia.  After living there several years he acquired title to about 500 acres of land in Scott County, Kentucky, where he and his family then moved.  James wrote to his brother Colin, still in Scotland, offering him title to 150 of those acres. 

In 1792, Colin and Keturah Duncan and their five children Jane (age 8), Margaret, John, James and William set sail for America.  After a month at sea they arrived and eventually migrated to Kentucky.  The two brothers were neighbors on adjoining farms where they remained until their deaths.

Jane Duncan (1784-1869) married John Dinwiddie (1784-1828) on May 9, 1805 in Shelby County, Kentucky.  They had nine children: Keturah Duncan, Elizabeth Jane, Harvey Duncan, Susannah Ann, Mary Elizabeth, Margaret, Martha Asenith, Nancy Ware and Lomira.  Lomira, the youngest, died at just one and a half, and less than a year later, John Dinwiddie died leaving Jane a widow with seven daughters and one son, ranging in ages from 22 to 5 years.  Keturah, the oldest, had been married four years (Samuel Colville) and had had two children before her father died.  After her husband's untimely death in 1828, Jane Duncan Dinwiddie remained in Kentucky with her aged parents until after their deaths in 1832 and 1833. 


Jane Duncan Dinwiddie, having lost her baby daughter in 1827, her husband in 1828, her father in 1832, and her mother in 1833, took her remaining family of five girls, and along with her one son, Harvey (age 25) and his bride, moved to Rush County, Indiana in 1834.  Jane Dinwiddie settled near the present town of Lewisville, Indiana in Rush County, and lived there for 40 years.
Excerpts: R. DeVerter, Our Pioneer Ancestors, Vol. IV, The Duncan and Dinwiddie Families with Allied Lines, Baytown, TX, 1969

  

John and Jane Duncan Dinwiddie's eldest daughter, Keturah Duncan Dinwiddie (1806-1834) married Samuel Colville.  They had two sons and four daughters.  Their daughter Jane Duncan Colville (1826-1904) married John Peter Touby (son of John Martin Touby (1795-1872) and Anna Marie Slout (1802-1877).

The Touby name has been traced as far back as 1682 when the Toubys, Remys, and Straters left France because of religious persecution by French Catholics.  They all settled in the Dukedom of Nassau, Germany, in an area just across the Rhine River and about ten miles inland from the border of France and Germany.

John Martin Touby and Anna Marie Slout 

Hearing of opportunities for religious and political freedom in America, John Martin Touby and his wife Anna decided to travel there with their nine children, whose ages ranged from two to early twenties.  They left their home in Germany on April 20, 1844 and began a seventy day journey.  The family spent forty-four days on board a ship and landed in New York City on June 30, 1844.  From there they traveled to Ohio where there was a German settlement in Richland County near Mansfield.  They settled on a forty acre tract of land in Washington Township.  They became active members of Saint Peter's Evangelical Church that had been established by German settlers in 1830.  John Martin and Anna remained in Richland County for the rest of their lives.

John Peter Touby (1824-1888) was born in Nassau, Germany, and emigrated to America with his father (John Martin Touby) in 1844, locating in Richland County, Ohio, where his father subsequently died.  

John Martin Touby and Anna Marie Slout

John Peter Touby and Jane Duncan Colville

John Peter came to Fayette County in 1850 and continued his wagon making trade in Bentonville.  It was there that he married Jane Colville, a tailoress and native of Kentucky.  In 1853 they came to Howard County purchased land, then sold it to purchase another tract upon which was a small log house.  He eventually made improvements, built substantial buildings, quit his trade and devoted his attention to agriculture.  To them were born three children: Albert, Leora and Mary.  

John Peter Touby and Jane Duncan Colville Touby with daughter Mary

Albert, born in Fayette County, and Leora, born in Howard County, IN

John Peter and Jane Touby's home in Bentonville, Fayette County, IN

In 1853 Jane, Peter and little Albert came to Howard County purchased land, then sold it to purchase another tract upon which was a small log house.  Peter eventually made improvements, built substantial buildings, quit his trade of wagon making and devoted his attention to agriculture.

The Touby Pike that winds its way northeast of Kokomo followed a route that bordered the Peter Touby homestead.  The road was originally known as a corduroy road because of the planks that were laid across it to make it passable, keeping the traveler from getting impossibly mired in mud.  Peter was instrumental in getting the road built and it bears his name to this day.  

Albert Colin Touby

Albert, Peter and Jane's only son, also took up farming.  He fell in love with the beautiful Ida Belle Yager and they were married in February 1879 when he was 27 and she 19.  Her premature death just a year later of typhoid pneumonia was heartbreaking to Albert and to the community.

Albert Colin Touby

Ida Belle Yager

 Albert Colin Touby and Kate Orinda Willits

Nearly four years later, in October of 1883, Albert married Kate Orinda Willits, daughter of C. C. Willits and Mary Warman.  They established their home on land north of the early homestead.  Here they lived in a log cabin until they were able to build a large frame home where they raised their children. 

Albert and Kate Touby

Albert and Kate's firstborn was a daughter, Alice, born in 1884.  Grace was born two years after, in 1886.  Their first son Emmett Peter, was born in August of 1888.  Just two months after that happy event, Albert's father, Peter, died at age 64.  Born in Germany, Peter was laid to rest in American soil 44 years after he stepped off the ship in New York harbor.  Albert was administrator of his father's estate.  The sale was held on Friday, March 1, 1889 at Peter and Jane's residence.  Among the items auctioned that day were livestock, wagons, farm equipment, tools, and "other articles too tedious to name."  All those "tedious" items were part of his livelihood, first as a wagon maker, then as a farmer.  His widow Jane must have found it difficult to see those items go one by one.  They had begun their life together in a humble log cabin.  Their son Albert had built a fine frame home.  No doubt Albert thought of his father's journey to America and the hardships his parents had endured as he was preparing for this sale.  Little Emmett Peter had been given his grandfather's name and proved to be a worthy legacy.

Jane Duncan Colville Touby, now a widow.

One month after the sale of his father's estate, Albert and Kate lost little Grace to "scharlatine" fever in April of 1889.  It is hard to imagine such heartbreak.

Albert kept a diary.  This diary details the year following his father and daughter's deaths.  Most entries recorded weather, grain harvested and sold, fences mended.  There are familiar names mentioned: C. B. Smith, Jesse Yager, Lawrence Yager, John Colville, Bro. Myres, and Eli Lock.

 He gives us a glimpse of his political leanings with the statement he made on a Sunday in March of 1890.  "Went to church.  Not a single liberal was there."

Albert and Kate had six children in all: Alice, Grace, Emmett Peter, Jane (Jennie), Mary, and Elizabeth (Bessie).  Emmett Peter was the only son and would continue in the occupation of his father and grandfather.

Emmett, Alice and Grace

Albert and Kate's concern for the character of the community was evidenced by the fact that in 1896 they helped to establish and build the Rich Valley Christian Church just one-half mile east of their home.  

Rich Valley Church

Rich Valley School

Emmett Peter