Isaac Wood and Rachel Ramah Wood
Isaac Wood and Rachel Ramah (later spelled Ramey) Wood were Carolyn Habermehl’s great, great, great, great grandparents. Isaac was the first of our Wood ancestors to arrive in what is now the United States of America.
Isaac Wood was born in England on December26, 1729. A copy of a family bible indicates that he immigrated to Pennsylvania with two brothers and one sister. The family suffered a fire at its homestead in Pennsylvania, and the family Bible brought from England was destroyed.
We do not know the names of Isaac Wood's parents or siblings. Since he emigrated into either the Loudoun or Shenadoah valley during the mid-1700s, it is possible that the family first settled near Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where many Loudoun valley immigrants first settled.
It is possible that Isaac Wood settled for a time in Frederick County, Virginia, near Winchester, since an Isaac Wood appears on Captain Odell's militia list for the French and Indian War.
By 1763 Isaac Wood purchased 30 acres north of Upperville, Virginia and west of Middleburg, Virginia, on Panther Skin Creek, (also described as Painterskin in contemporary documents). Isaac built a grist mill on the site, building a dam to run the grist mill. A description of the mill is available to us from depositions taken at the Store House of Joseph Carr, Upperville, Loudoun County, Virginia, in October of 1813. These depositions indicated that Isaac Wood built a Grist Mill in Loudoun County, Virginia, in the 1750s. The depositions indicated that the mill was located on land as described in the deeds, on the Panther Skin Creek upstream from Goose Creek at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Available data from testimony over a land dispute nearby indicating that Isaac Wood built the mill about 1753, owned 30 acres, and sold those holdings by 13 September 1767.
While Isaac Wood lived in Loudoun County, he married Rachel Ramah (now spelled Ramey, originally De Remi). Rachel Ramah was of French Huguenot Protestant descent. According to the National Huguenot Society, she was born in the French Lorraine on March 31, 1744, but other evidence indicates that she was born in Virginia. More about her family will be presented in another paper. Family legend indicates her family lived near Front Royal, Virginia. If this legend is true, Isaac probably met his wife in or near Front Royal, Virginia.
At the Loudoun County farm and grist mill James Wood, Elizabeth Wood, and Susanna Wood were born, 1763, 1764, and 1767 respectively. John Wood probably was born in either Rockingham County, or Augusta County, Virginia. Our uncertainty is based on the lack of data indicating when Isaac Wood and Rachel (Ramah) Wood lived following their move from Loudoun County, Virginia.
Betty Wood Houghton speculates that Isaac Wood and family moved to the Tygart Valley, Augusta County, Virginia between 1767 and1776. (see Houghton, Betty Wood. History of Isaac, John and Noah Wood Family. Portage, Wisconsin. 1990). There is a good circumstantial case to suggest that is so. An Isaac Wood signed a petition dated26 September 1776 requesting that the Virginia Convention provide Virginia Rangers for defense of the Tygart Valley. Land entries in 1778 suggest that this Isaac Wood lived near today's Beverly, West Virginia, close to Wilson's Fort. BettyWood Houghton further speculates that Indian attacks during the Revolution had become too close for comfort; several homes were attacked by Indians in the upper part of the Tygart Valley during December 1777.
By 1781 Isaac Wood and his family moved to Rockingham County in what is now Brushy Run, Pendleton County, West Virginia (38-50N,079-24W). (The 1784 Rockingham County, Virginia Census has 8 white souls living with Isaac Wood). The VA 1790 census has Isaac on the North Fork of the Brushy Run. (Pendleton County was formed from parts of Rockingham County and Augusta County, VA, in 1788). The 1787 property tax list indicated that Isaac Wood owned3 horses, and 8 cattle, suggesting that he had accumulated some wealth. This area was sparsely settled, with 2,456 people noted in the 1790 census. It is almost certain that Isaac spent the remainder of his life at the Brushy Run farm. His son, Joel Wood, (Carolyn Habermehl’s great, great, great grandfather) married Elizabeth Miller on 1 June 1797, according to the Pendleton Co. Marriage Bonds. Isaac Wood and Rachel Ramah Wood transferred 160 or their 260 acres to Joel Wood shortly before Isaac's death in 1803. We are unsure where Isaac Wood is buried, but he probably is buried in one of the cemeteries in the Brushy Run area.
Isaac’s son Joel pioneered to the Virginia Military District of Ohio in 1811. Joel’s son, Eli Wood, Carolyn Habermehl’s great, great grandfather, was born in Ohio. Eli pioneered to Iowa with his son Joel Deacon Wood. Joel Deacon’s son Joel Melvin married Lydia Lee in Iowa, where Carolyn Habermehl’s mother was born. Joel Melvin Wood and Lydia Wood are buried in Grand Junction, Iowa.