Brothers and Sisters
Elias Stallcop was probably born January 22, 1785 in Orange County, North Carolina. He moved with a large group of Stallcop's including his father Swithin and brother John to Kentucky before 1815. There he married his first wife Ruth Hall and had two children. In the 1830's this family group was ready to move again.
Settlers from Kentucky arrived in the southern part of Indiana in increasing numbers after the War of 1812. The majority of these settlers were accustomed to frontier living. Migration northward into more rugged parts of the state was made difficult by the lack of land routes. Early roads traced native and animal trails or military expedition routes. The Michigan Road connecting north and south Indiana was opened in 1836, providing a vastly improved land route. It was probably this increased accessability that allowed our extended Stallcop family to make a series of moves to a final central Indiana Clay/Johnson county destination.
In Indiana, Elias married his second wife Margaret Denham about 1827. He had nine more children. His two sons William Amazon Stallcop (b. 1834) and Levi Elias Stallcop (b. 1839) are central to this story.
The Elias family moved further westward to Deep Creek, Iowa sometime before 1847. At this time, the area was still sparsely populated.
"Though Indians gave possession of the county in 1837, for ten years thereafter, every winter, large bands, sometimes numbering fifty or twenty persons, of friendly and honest Sacs and Foxes, would return to the Deep Creek and Goose Lake region and there encamp, attracted by the abundance of game and fur, and pass the winter hunting and trapping."
Elias died in 1851 and left his belongings to his extended family. His wife Margaret died in 1854. Many of the Stallcop children moved as a group to Minnesota.
William Stallcop married Anjanett Alvord (b. 1837) in 1855 in the Deep Creek area. By 1857 they had moved to Olmsted, Minnesota where they began to raise their family of 5 children.
The Stallcops lived near Anjanett's parents throughout their marriage. It was also after getting established in Minnesota when Anjanett's parents adoped a younger Elizabeth Shenton (b. 1846). Her parents apparently died shortly after arriving from England.
Levi Stallcop enlisted in Company K, Second Minnesota Volunteers, in 1861 and served until the end of the war. He saw a great deal of active service and was in some of the most important engagements of the war. In 1864 he married the new Alvord sister Elizabeth Alvord.
The Elizabeth and Anajanette sisters had married the Levi and William Stallcop brothers!
In 1866, Levi moved with his new wife to the Minnesota Todd/Douglas county area. There he raised a family of 7 children including Gertrude Stallcop (b. 1875) and Clara Stallcop (b. 1878). . The family were
".... great readers and always read aloud evenings from Dickens works and also Toledo Blade and never neglected their Bible or family prayer."
Levi remained an active participant in the local civil war associations and also,
".... was a great hunter of big game, he had a good hunting dog which he always called to help by blowing on an ox horn which mad a good trumpet and could be heard echoing through the woods just before the hunt was on."
Levi's daughter Gertrude was married in 1896 to Arthur Baker. Clara was married in 1899 to Arthur's brother William Baker.
Elizabeth Shenton Alvord, who participated in the previous generations Stallcop/Alvord brother-sister arrrangement, had daughters Clara and Gertrude Stallcop who married Arthur and William Baker brothers, the second generation Baker/Stallcop brother-sister arrangement!
by Neal Ekengren
updated 9/1/1997