Family:Whitney, Eliza (1818-1880)

Eliza⁷ Whitney (Ephraim⁶, Amos⁵, Amos⁴, Nathaniel³, Benjamin², John¹), daughter of Ephraim⁶ and Keziah (Moffatt) Whitney, was born in 1818, near Urichsville, Mill Township, Harrison, Co., OH, and died 22 Jul 1880, Omaha, Douglas Co., NE.

She married firstly, before 1844, John V. Bennett. He was born about 1816, PA, and died after 1850.

She married secondly, ----- Mercer.

OBITUARY:

"Died in Omaha, Monday July 22, Mrs. Eliza Mercer, from effects of a street accident in 71st year of her age. Appropriate funeral services were held at the residence of Mrs. Delia Carlin, 221 North Tenth Street, conducted by Rev. House of the First M. E. Church when her remains were conveyed in Forest Lawn cemetery and tenderly laid away in their final resting place."

MEMOIR:

"Our mother, Mrs. Eliza Whitney Bennett Mercer, was born in Harrison County, Ohio, in the year 1818. She was the youngest child of Ephraim and Elizabeth Whitney who in the early dawn of the 18th century emigrated from the state of Maine into the then wild and unknown west, and under the giant oaks surrounded by all the dangers of a primeval forest upon the banks of the big Stillwater and not far from the present city of Wichsville in a humble log cabin our mother was born. At the age of six years her mother died and the devoted father and his little flock were compelled to struggle on without the aid of a mother's love and care. Left thus alone as it were, with out the advantages of education, refinement and thought, and like the forest, the flowers and the babbling brooks of her childhood's happy home she grew up true to her destiny, free from much of the same and hypocrisy and cast of the present day. In religion she was in her younger days Puritanic, but as light overcame darkness, and the infinite the nite, she was compelled to believe that the good Father, in His infinite wisdom and love has a final place of rest and peace for all mankind. As a mother she was kind, affectionate and true. No misfortune or discouragement could be so great but she would brave them all to care and provide for her family, and thus when stricken down, when the journey from the cradle to the tomb was ended, surrounded by all her children, by kind and loving friends, and with a firm and child like faith in the immutable goodness of her heavenly Father, mother passed over the crystal sea." [This obit was suppose to be written in 1880, which would make her 61?]"

Children of John V. and Eliza⁷ (Whitney) Bennett:

i.	Sylva A. Bennett, b. ca. 1844, IL.
ii.	John E. Bennett, b. ca. 1849, OH.

Census

• 1850, Perry, Tuscawaras Co., OH; Draftman

References

Obituary and memoir are contributed by Thora V. Thompson of Tacoma, Washington.

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Copyright © 2009, Kenneth L. Whitney and the Whitney Research Group.