Great-grandpa Andrew Jackson Sterling and his family about 1885. Andrew fought for the North in the Civil War and must have thought highly of Winfield Scott and Abraham Lincoln because he named one of his sons Winfield Lincoln.
Obtained from Eileen Brehm in Topeka, KS on 6/7/2000
Andrew Jackson Sterling was born in Preston County, Virginia (now West Virginia), the son of John and Eleanor Bachmann Sterling. He and Elizabeth Eleanor Scott, daughter of David and Katherine Long Scott, were married in Preston County, August 22, 1849. She was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Andrew enlisted in the Union Army in 1863, and served with Company B, Fourth Regiment of the West Virginia Cavalry until he was mustered out in Wheeling, Virginia in 1864. Following the close of the war, he moved his family to Whiteside County, Illinois, as he did not wish to raise his children in the South. They lived in Illinois until 1871, when they moved once again, this time to Kansas, traveling overland by covered wagon to Dickinson County, where they settled on a homestead about 20 miles south of Abilene, arriving there on June 17, 1871.
The following account is given in the “History of Kansas” (1883), Vol. 1, p. 693, Dickinson county: “A. J. Sterling, farmer, born in Preston Co., W. VA., May 25, 1825. He was raised and educated in his native state. Soon after he engaged in farming, which he pursued until 1863 when he enlisted in Company B., Fourth Regiment. W. VA Cavalry, and was mustered out in Wheeling, VA., in 1864. He then returned to his native state where he remained until 1865 when he moved to Whiteside Co., Ill., and engaged in farming.
Back row L to R: Wilson, Waitman, Marion, Winfield, Charles, Archer. Second row: Melissa, Andrew (father), Elizabeth (mother), Mary Jane & Anna. First row: Philip Sheridan.
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