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- of Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, USA
Thomas, third son of James and Mary Ellen (Drennan) Douglass, was born in Elizabeth township, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, January 18, 1822, and there passed his life, a prosperous farmer. He died June 6, 1896. He married Lydia C. Peairs, of Dutch ancestry, daughter of Elisha and Sarah (Wycoff) Peairs, and granddaughter of Joseph Peairs, who purchased his farm in Elizabeth township from the state of Pennsylvania in 1778, and there lived with his wife and family until his death in 1808. The old Peairs farm adjoins the Old Round Hill church, the ground occupied by that church and by Round Hill Cemetery having been originally a part of the Peairs farm. Joseph Peairs left sons Elisha, David, John, Joseph, Allen, William and Isaac; all of these sons except Elisha moved to the state of Ohio in early days, five settling near Zanesville, and one, William, in Morgan ounty. They all left large families and descendants are found all over the west. He also left three daughters: Nancy, married William Fulton, lived in Westmoreland county, leaving children: Robert William and Nancy, the latter unmarried, died in Keokuk. Iowa. Another daughter.
Susan, married John Wvchoff: and the third daughter, Marv, married John Plummer. Nancy Peairs, many years after the death of her husband, William Fulton, moved with her son, Robert Fulton, and his family to Warsaw, Illinois, not far from Keokuk, Iowa, where her son William had previously located. She died in Warsaw, aged over ninety years. Robert Fulton, her son, left a large family. One of his sons is a Presbyterian minister; another, William J. Fulton, is now a lawyer of the Keokuk bar. Elisha, eldest son of Joseph Peairs, inherited the Peairs homestead in Elizabeth township, Allegheny county, and there lived until death. He married Sarah Wycoff and had nine children, eight growing to mature years. Lydia C., youngest child of Elisha and Sarah (Wycoff) Peairs, was born March 22, 1830, died April 6, 1912; she survived all her brothers and sisters and attained a greater age than any of them, eighty-two years. Children of Thomas and Lydia C. (Peairs) Douglass: 1. Elisha P., of whom further. 2. Mary E., now residing in McKeesport, unmarried. 3. Sarah J., married J. B. Billick, and resides in Elizabeth township; children: Thomas D., Clyde, Fergus, Earl and Catherine, all married and residing in Elizabeth township. 4. David P., married Annie M. Barron, and lives on the old Thomas Douglass homestead in Elizabeth township; he has a son Elisha Barron. 5. James D., died 1866, aged five years.
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