Reunion Date - at the Farm Aug 4-5th, 2007

I got an email from Vana she has talked with Pete (Kevin) ...she said...

We will continue to work on the details but we are planning the weekend of August 4 and 5th-Saturday and Sunday!

More details to follow...

Prayer Requests

Anyone have any specific prayer requests they would like to share? Any Wilhite Prayer Warriors out there? Please post as a comment below. It would be great to be able to track how God answers prayers - I look forward to looking back on the comments in a few months and being encouraged by answered prayers. Let the praises begin...

Let's try to connect!

Just wanted to fire-up this site to maybe get some conversations going between families...
I have got to go feed the cats...
have a great day - Keith

Wilhite Brothers Photo

wilhite Brother & Spouses Photo

Wilhite Brothers Photo

Wilhite Photo 1941

A little Wilhite History

Here is an excerpt from an email from Dennis Wilhite.

I have a number of generations from the Reformation in Germany until the immigration to America. Those are relatively easily found on the web. I would bet that links from Germanna Foundation can give you that. At any rate, Johanne Michael Willheit came to America between 1717 and 1719 and attached to a group of Germans in Virginia often called the second Germanna Colony. These were Germans headed for Pennsylvania but placed into indentured servitude to the VA governer for a period of about 7 years. They were placed on what was then the frontier near Culpeper, VA.

Once they were free of service they moved to a location further west just under the Blueridge mountains, settling what is now the town of Madison, VA. I have been to that lovely town and walked around Johannes first farm. I believe he is buried on that property in a plot where there are broken tombstones that are no longer readable. I also have attended the Evangelical Lutheran church that he helped to build in the 1740s. It is the oldest woodframe church in the country, still in use. Johanne died there and we actually decend from two of his sons in that several generations later a pair of second cousins married. Direct decent comes from Adam Wilhoit (it seems that most spelled it that way in VA), who was likely born on the way to America or shortly after arrival married a Broyles and ended up taking over her father's farm across the valley. Adam had a son John who had a son Aaron, who had a son Joseph Thornton, all of whom grew up in that same valley. In 1806, after Joseph Thornton had married he followed his father and grandfather (now in his 60s) to Kentucky and settled in Jefferson County, quite near where Abraham Lincoln's family was settled. It was there that a shift seemed to be made from Lutheran to Baptist, though by the time Joseph Thornton moved on later in life it seems that there was little religious interest at all.

In the mid 1830s Joseph Thornton moved on again to Cass County, Illinois. Uncle Otho told me that his father said that Wilhites and Lincolns moved to Illinois together. They did land in the same area. Joseph was for a while before he moved on to eastern Iowa with his second wife. While many of the Wilhites were prolific, JT in particular had 12 children by wife number one and 6 more by wife number two. JT's son Eli died in Illinois in his forties leaving his wife Elizabeth (Ryman) with several sons that were still young teens so she moved to the Iowa City area in the 1860s with several older sons. I still have been unable to find where she died or is buried. One of the younger sons was Eli Thornton Wilhite who is buried in the Corwith cemetary. He had gone back to Illinois and married Mary Arnold then moved back to Iowa and with another of the younger brothers settled in Corwith. Of course Eli was Grandpa Wilhite's father.

The Zeigler line I have traced back to Pennsylvania in the late 1700s. Grandma's mother, Josie Stufflebeam's family I have back to about 1600. Anyway, there are many interesting details and stories. The easiest thing would be to shoot you the whole file. I also have piles of documents, pictures, and other resources that you are welcome to copies of if you want to go that far. I have visited many of the graves and met many shirt tail relatives all over the country. It is intriguing.

Dennis has a great deal of info on Wilhite Genealogy. I will try to get some updated history to the site. Any comments are welcome.

Thanks Keith