Jury
John Charles Sr.
1836 – 1911
♦Verified
John Jury was born in born in Ontario, Canada in 1836. He is the son of William and Eleanor (Willett) Jury of English origins.
Marriage
John was the first of the Willliam Jury’s children to marry. He wed Matilda White, the daughter of Luke White and Frances Ann Humphrey who originated from England.
Children
John and Matilda had four children before Matilda died at age 30 leaving John with small children to raise.
- John Charles Jr. married Bertha McKee. They lived in Kansas and later moved to Redlands, California.
- Walter Abraham farmed and worked on the railroad. He became a naturalized citizen, but he never married.
- Wilburt Henry first married Susan Stubberts. She died at age 22 leaving one daughter. A few years later he married Elizabeth Varble. They had two more children. Wilburt worked on the railroad and lived in Crawford County, Kansas. He also became a naturalized citizen.
- Matilda E.♥
Kansas Here We Come
The following year, John, the children, his mother, his brother William’s family, and his sister Ellen immigrated to the United States, arriving in Bourbon County, Kansas in October 1869. The family spent their first night in the area at the Wilder House in Fort Scott. The family then made a home southwest of Fort Scott eventually purchasing land with a log cabin on it.
Why the family chose to come to Kansas at this particular time is not known, but is assumed that it was tied to moving on after the loss of John’s wife and the fact that Kansas was a new state and open to settlement. Living on the prairie were not easy.
The Grasshoppers
In 1873, the grasshoppers destroyed everything and the family decided to move to northern Missouri. However, within a couple years, the family was back in Bourbon County where John Sr. remarried to Harriett Warner.
Moving North
In 1879, the family moved again. This time John, his children, his brother William’s family, and his mother settled in Sand Lake, Michigan. They had left John’s sister Ellen behind in Kansas with her husband.
Soon, the family decided that they had moved too far north. They relocated a few miles south, living near Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Back To Kansas
After John’s mother (Eleanor Willett) died, John was on the move again. However, this time his brother William decided to remain in Michigan.
John sent his daughter Matilda back to Kansas to stay with his sister Eleanor while he and John Jr. (and possibly Walter) went to South Dakota to look into land in that state. Finding too many people and not enough opportunity, John soon returned to Kansas, where he remained for the rest of his life.