Maria Jane Watson (1822 - 1883), keeping house , mother of 14, Mary Lou's great grandmother

 Maria Jane Watson (July 8, 1822, Ohio - April 27, 1883, West Virginia) 

This is Mary Lou Brown's great grandmother (Mary Lou Brown < Garland T. Brown < Gideon Brown Jr. < Maria Jane Watson) 

Maria Jane Watson (Pop's Paternal Grandmother) was born in Ohio.  All we know about her parents is that her father was born in Ireland, and her mother was born in Pennsylvania. 

Variations of Maria's name found in the records: Mariah, Mirah 

At the age of 17, Maria married Gideon Brown in Meig's County, Ohio, on November 21, 1839 and settled there to farm.   This was Gideon's second marriage (we think his first wife died in childbirth) of three marriages. 

The 1850 census shows their family in Sutton, Meig's County Ohio, with no owned real estate.  Gideon is a farmer (possibly working for a neighbor) and there is also a 68 year old Irish laborer living with the family.  There are seven children from sixteen years old to 1 year old, and all but the youngest attended school.   (this census indicates Maria was born in Virginia, but this is the only source among many that does not indicate Ohio as her birthplace). 

Ten years later and less than a year before the start of the Civil War, we find the family living about fifty miles southwest, still near the Ohio River, but now in Mercer's Bottom, Mason County, Virginia, on their own small farm worth $8000 (267K in today's dollars) and value of personal estate is $2000 (66K in today's dollars).  This part of Virginia would become the Union state of West Virginia three years later in 1863.  

And in 1870, six years after the war, the family has grown and is living in Hannan township, Mercer's Bottom West Virginia, on a large farm worth $20,000 (420K in today's dollars) and personal estate worth $5000 (105K in today's dollars).  They have ten children.  Three of the older boys are farmers alongside their father, and their second to youngest child is Gideon (Pop's father). 

In 1880, Maria is 58 years old, keeping house, with her husband and seven sons, all of whom are farming, and one daughter-in-law and Maria's youngest child, Ella, who is 13.  

Maria died in Apple Grove, Mason County, on April 27. 1883 and is buried in Brown Holloway Cemetery in Apple Grove.  

Sources:

1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 federal census 

Meigs County Ohio marriage records 

Find a Grave index

Cynthia Poth Nanto family tree on Ancestry dot com