The Clawson Family - A Brief Introduction

My grandmother Edna Mae Laird was born Edna Mae Clawson in 1893. Her father was Allen David Clawson, his father was Allen Clawson (shown above as the photo in the header - from a tintype photo taken in the 1860’s - he died in 1872), his father was Josiah Clawson, and his mother was believed to be the widow of an unnamed Clawson, who died in the 1770’s in southwest Pennsylvania. He was likely of the New Jersey Clawsons, originally of Dutch descent in New York. Some researchers have made links between the New York - New Jersey Clawsons, and our lines in frontier Western Pennsylvania, frontier Ohio, and frontier Indiana. I have not worked extensively on making the links to the early Clawsons, as no one has yet found a document or paper trail proving that connection (although modern DNA testing seems to provide some links). Frank Crosswhite did extensive research on the connections to the New Jersey and New York Dutch Clawsons, and the page on this Clawson tab of his emails details his research on research.

Of all the family lines I have in my ancestry, I have probably done as much research on the Clawsons as any - and it presents the challenge of how to prepare and post information. When I get to posting more information, I will likely focus on the extensive research I have done beginning with the first known Clawson of our line - Garret Clawson on frontier Pennsylvania and go from there. It appears now that Garrett may well have been the son - not the father - of the immigrant and husband of Mary. The page on the Clawsons of frontier Southwest Pennsylvania addresses this issue.

A Garrett was first recorded in a militia unit in the Western Pennsylvania frontier in the mid-1770’s. By 1781, Mary Clawson was in the tax records as a widow - and she was joined by sons Thomas, Peter, Garrett, and John in those tax records as they came of age. Just before the 1790 census, they went down the Ohio River and were early settlers in the Ohio frontier just outside of the brand new town of Cincinnati - with only Garret Jr. remaining in Pennsylvania.

In Ohio the Clawsons lived at a fort called Covalt Station, roughly fifteen miles from Cincinnati, and at the time literally the edge of the frontier. Covalt Station was named for Captain Abraham Covalt, who founded the station with a number of families and was killed just outside the station’s walls in 1791. Thomas Clawson married his daughter Sophia Covalt a few years later. After the Treaty of Greenville, Peter, Thomas, Josiah, and brother-in-law Joseph Shanks (married to Mary Clawson) settled in Centerville in Montgomery County. There is a page under this Clawson tab about the Covalt Station years, and a listing of the records of the Clawsons at that time.

Ca 1824, Thomas, Josiah, and three sons of Peter moved to the area of Fountain County, Indiana. Initially, Joseph Shanks and Matthew Bolin, married to the other Clawson sister, Hannah - were in the area as well. This is where Allen Clawson lived with his mother Sophia Luce Clawson, and his siblings, after Josiah died in 1827. There are Clawsons in Fountain County to this day.

I discovered the following article, from the Josiah Attica Fountain Warren Democrat of August 18, 1921, which describes a reunion of the Josiah Clawson descendants in 1921. My grandparents, Ralph and Edna Clawson Laird, and my great-grandparents, Allen D. Clawson and Sadie Kinney Clawson, were among the atendees. I do not know if some of the facts in the article are correct (such as Allen Clawson owning Portland Arch in Fountain County), but it is a great description of the tie between the generations, and the pride they had in their Clawson ancestry.

I will use different pages on this website to post Clawson research by subject area - a page for Pennsylvania, another page for information about their time in Ohio, and an additional page about their time in Indiana. I hope to get to those in the future - I have already done most of the research on those topics - but for now I am posting this introduction and the page I am about to describe. I managed to obtain a number of tin type photos that include the Clawsons - likely taken in Fountain County Indiana in the 1860’s. I have a separate page on those photos - with an article I authored for the Fountain County Genealogical Society newsletter, as well as a posting of each of the photos in that group. It is the only known photos we have of that generation, and half of the photos were not identified and maybe by posting them on this website, someone will recognize one of the unidentified photos.

Over the years I have been researching family history, I have benefited from associations with other Clawson researchers. The late Frank Crosswhite was diligent in his work on the early ancestry and New Jersey connections. [I now have posted his emails on Clawson ancestry and the story of John Clawson of Preble County, Ohio.] Charles Clawson has published a few works on the Pennsylvania Clawsons and their time in Indiana. There are many others, and I hope to credit them as I move through the subjects I worked with them on. There must be thousands of descendants of these early Clawsons.

There also are many research struggles with Clawson ancestry. Yes, the ancestry of the original Clawsons is one. Whether the first Clawson of our line was Garrett, arriving in the western Pennsylvania frontier in the mid-1770’s is another - some researchers believe the progenitor of that line was named John Clawson. Whether the John Clawson of the next generation went to southwest Ohio with the rest of the Clawsons ca 1790 is an additional research question - some descendants believe there were two John Clawsons in this area during this time. Another question is who each of Peter Clawson’s children were - I have made a connection of Margaret “Garrett” of his probate to actually be Margaret Gerrard. Other researchers believed that the Garrett and Peter Clawson who came to Indiana ca 1825 with the other Clawsons were not sons of Peter Clawson. I have proven that this Garrett was a son of Peter. I hope to have all the research on these questions on this website, for all to see, question, and correct. It is a big task, and will be done piece by piece - and the website will have gone live without all these questions addressed here yet. But I hope to pose the complete information over time.