Something of Stephen's years of maturation can be learned from connecting bits of information appearing in letters and various published accounts. Northeastern Ohio and in the early and mid 19th century was a center of religion and education giving birth to two of the colleges associated with our family, Hiram College of the Disciples of Christ movement and Oberlin established by the Presbyterians. Coitsville was the home of Wm. H McGuffey of the primers fame. Trumbull County was a major stop on the Slave Underground Railroad. From the letters we know that his guardian Orenus Hart was, as Stephen in Wisconsin, an active member of the Disciples movement and our great grandfather Rolandus states he was active in politics beginning with the election of 1836. Orenus Hart and his future father-in-law, Wm. D. Hirst, were Whigs, passionately abolitionist and favored Negro suffrage prior to the Civil War We know Stephen taught school in Ohio prior to the move to Wisconsin and that one of his students was Sarah Bushnell, Oberlin College graduate, who became his second wife.

According to Great Grandfather Rolla in 1844 or 1845 Stephen went to Blackjack, Wisconsin where he taught school for a year. He then returned to Coitsville, Trumbull (now Mahoning) County and was married to Florinda Hirst 18 January 1846. Florinda was born 26 October 1826. She was the second or third child of William D. and Sarah Porter Hirst. There were numerous younger siblings including two males, Rolandus P. and Larodus D. Hirst. These aunts and uncles and later cousins kept contact with their Watkins relatives into the 1920s.

In the spring of 1846 Stephen, Florinda and Florinda's brother Rolandus migrated to Grant County, Wisconsin. Stephen, borrowing to supplement his inheritance, purchased land in Lima Township and set about clearing the land, building a home and farming. There is a lovely letter from Florinda describing the house and setting. Wood from the clearing was set aside and eventually was used for the construction of the secretary desk that resides with my brother. Stephen and Florinda both combined farming with teaching school. We have Stephen's record book containing not only births, marriages and deaths but also a diagram of the apple orchard he planted and also his school attendance book both covering a large segment of that time.

Florinda and Stephen also began to have their family with the first child, a little girl arriving 30 May 1847. Is it a reflection of Stephen and Florinda's education in the classics that this first baby was given the name Ginevra the same as da Vinci's "first masterpiece" a portrait of the same name. Emma Euginia was born 13 March 1850, Rolandus Aurelian 15 January 1853 and Dora Imogene 15 September 1855.

In 1847 Florinda's parents and remaining siblings migrated from Coitsville and purchased land in Lima Township, Grant County, Wisconsin (Territory). Stephen's half-sister Eunice and half-brothers John and Orlen Howard, their mother and father, Mary and Ben Howard. Diana Ayres and family as well as a number of their Ohio friends and neighbors also migrated during subsequent five or so years. The letters of this time period are so beautifully written and textured with the emotions and personalities of their authors that I feel I know something of what was in their eyes for the future. In 1854 Florinda's brother Rolandus after teaching and farming in Lima joined the migration to the California gold fields and his letters contribute to the story.

Sadly for the Steven and Florinda Watkins family this was a brief period. Florinda in 1858 died of tuberculosis, the plague which prematurely ended the lives of so many of the Hirsts. Though preceded by her older sister, Mary Jane Hirst Burns and husband Thomas Burns, Florinda was one of the first burials in the Lima Union Cemetery. All were victims of tuberculosis. The property on which the Lima Union Cemetery rests was taken from a corner of the Burns farm. It remains well tended. Our generous colleagues in Grant County have provided photographs and precise cemetery records.***, +++

In 1859 the year following Florinda's death Stephen traveled back to Ohio and married Sarah Bushnell, later Sarah B. W. Davies. Her father was a physician in the Hartford, Ohio area and also a committed abolitionist who manned a station on the slave's underground railway prior to and during the Civil War. (There is also a Hart who tended a station in Trumbull County, Ohio whom I believe to have been related to Stephen's guardian Orenus.). Sarah was sister to U S Congressman A. R. Bushnell who joined with John Garvin Clark in establishing the law practice in Lancaster that Great Grandfather Rolandus eventually joined.

That Stephen was an active school teacher, farmer and public servant is memorialized in not only letters but also his account ledgers, the Lima township school attendance records, and Lima Township records during his tenure as Town Clerk. His obituary recounts his having lost a hand in a farm machine accident and before his death, moving to Lancaster where he and Sarah established the first bookstore in the community. He is described in his later years as in frail health and died in 1868 while in Hubbard, Ohio. Their only child, a son, George died five years later at age 10 years. All of Stephen and Florinda's children, including Ginevra who was already married when orphaned, speak in many letters of their love and closeness to Sarah throughout her life and she was clearly a caring influence for the children.

Stephen's sister Diana was married in Ohio to Amos Ayres, a harness maker. There were a number of children though many died in infancy and I have been unable to trace surviving descendants though I know there were some. While Stephen seems more "cerebral" in his letters Diana is "full of the earth." She and Amos, after a time in Wisconsin, eventually migrated with her daughters and I assume Amos to the far Western corner of Iowa and there is one letter to Great Grand Father Rolla late in her life.

There are few Stephen Watkins letters after Florinda's death though Stephen maintained contact with his half-brother John Howard who had married Mary Hannum and immigrated to Mountain Home, Arkansas prior to the Civil War. John fought with the Confederacy, was captured by Union forces and was apparently in some manner rescued from captivity by relatives in Wisconsin whom I assume to be Stephen who could have been of help by way of his association with Col. John Clark or Henry Hart (son of Orenus) both of whom served in the same theater of the Civil War. John went on to found and administer an academy in Mountain Home, Arkansas. He is yet an honored historical figure there. The other brother, Orlen, died soon after coming with his parents to Wisconsin