The 128th Consecutive Peelle Annual Reunion was held on Sunday, Aug. 26, at the Eli Harvey House at the Hadley historical farm at 1133 Lebanon Road, Clarksville at 12:30 p.m.

The following 23 descendants were present: Craig and Belinda (Brackney) Cook, Susanna Peelle Kenney, Sara Geer, Phillip and Marian Kay (Hussey) Howard, Bob and Jimette Kenney and Shelby Mayer, Richard Hartman, Don and JoAnne (Hartman) Lindsey, Julianne (Lindsey) Coldiron, Donna Jo (Lindsay) Snyder, Devon and Jaden Snyder, Harold and Kathy Wallen, and hosts Christine (Hadley) and Gene Snyder and Mary Ellen (Hadley) Krisher. All were descendants of John and Lydia (Bundy) Peelle with 19 from son William Peelle and two from son Reuben Peelle.

Craig Cook gave the blessing before the delicious covered dish potluck dinner. The food was nicely displayed in the large Hadley farm kitchen. The group enjoyed eating outside in a large white tent to enjoy the sunshine and gentle breeze of the afternoon.

After dinner, Devon, Jaden and Donna Jo Snyder and host Gene Snyder enjoyed catching lots of bluegill and bass fish in the well-stocked farm pond provided by Gene and Christine (Hadley) Snyder located on the Hadley farm.

Susanne Peelle Kenney announced that some of the invitations had been returned. Addresses were updated.

Susanne shared a recent picture of cousin Marvin and Mattie Peelle of Virginia on their recent 65th wedding anniversary. Marvin is a brother of Horace Peelle of San Antonio, Texas. Horace does a quarterly Peelle newsletter.

It was decided to hold next year’s 129th Annual Peelle Reunion at the Quaker Knoll Campground outside of Wilmington,on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019. Susanne Peelle Kenney will make the reservation and contacts.

Thoughts and prayers were expressed for Donna (Beckett) Myers who was too ill to come. She and her daughter, Jody (Myers) Tolle, Jamey, and daughters, Coranna and Kaydon were all missed along with many others of the Peelle living descendants.

During the afternoon, an interesting program was held. First, there was a discussion about the very early Peelles from Scandinavia including Norway and down to England and France. They were known as the Vikings; Thepeelleancestry.com connects the Peelles to the Vikings and settlements on the Orkney Islands near Scotland. There is a Peelle Castle in the area. The Peelles were also known as the Norsemen who settled in the Normandy, France area. In Northern England where the Quakers first started being Quakers, they were actually sheep farmers. Their Christianity changes them from the rather ruthless Vikings.

Don Lindsey gave an update on new things going on in Clinton County with the Bright Farm hydroponics system of growing vegetables and especially greens on Davids Drive, Wilmington creating several new jobs for folks in the area.

Christine Hadley Snyder showed the group a special handmade antique table located in the middle living room at the Hadley Farm House. She then presented a very interesting historical account of that table’s origins and how it ended up into their family. Harriett Hadley Clark had received that table from her parents Herbert and Lucille (Fisher) Hadley and grandparents Everett and Ethel (Crites) Hadley.

Here is a historical account of how the table might have come down through the Peelle generations.

Thomas Miller born in 1812 in Pennsylvania first moved to Centerville and later to Springboro, Ohio near Route 741 and Route 73 where the home still exists surrounded by a subdivision of homes. Thomas Miller married Eliza Curl. The table could have come from Pennsylvania in the wagon. Thomas and Eliza Miller had a daughter, Susan who became a school teacher and came to teach at the Grassy Run School near Sabina, Ohio. She boarded with the William Peelles’ and fell in love and married their son, Isiah Peelle.

Susan and Isaiah Peelle had a daughter Ruthanna and sons Charles Edward, Waldo and Morris Peelle. Ruthanna was a school teacher at Cornstalk School near New Burlington and married a school teacher, John Crites. He was also a farmer and a Quaker minister. They lived in the Beechgrove area outside of Wilmington. Ruthanna and John had four children, Edith, Anna Ethel, Jesse, and Willis. In 1890, at the age of 29, Ruthanna was struck by lightning and killed. She was possibly taking down laundry from a wire clothesline.

Later, John Crites married again to Anna Ballard (known as Little Mother) and reared the first four children and had three more children.

Anna Ethel Crites (one of the first four children) married Everett Hadley and they lived on Hadley Road near Lebanon Road. They had the special historical table and gave it to Lucille (Fisher) and Herbert Hadley, who in turn gave the table to daughter Harriett Hadley Clark. She and her husband first refinished the table and also Bruce Duncan on Hiatt Road did the final refinishing in recent years. The table can be viewed at the Hadley Farm House Museum.

An interesting historical fact concerning the Thomas Miller relative is that he was a Quaker minister that traveled around.

He was chosen at age 60 to be a government Indian Agent and peacemaker by President Ulysses S. Grant to go to Lawrence, Kansas to move 700 Sac and Fox Indians to Oklahoma. There were 300 of the Indians that refused to leave until buffalo hunting season was over. They later joined the other Indians in the spring in Oklahoma.

Thomas Miller was chosen by President Grant because he was a Quaker and was very trustworthy, honest, intelligent and a good peacemaking and loving individual. Other Indian agents could not be trusted and took advantage of the Indians.

Thomas Miller went out by horseback or horse-drawn wagon or carriage. Letters to his wife, Eliza have been kept through the years.

The group thanks Susanne Peelle Kenney and Sara Geer for sending out the reunion invitations and they also thanked Gene and Christine Hadley for their warm hospitality and great afternoon together. Christine was especially thanked for the very, educational and historical account of the Peelle family and the origin of the beautiful antique tables of ancestor Thomas and Eliza Curl Miller.

It is hoped that a larger attendance will be held at next year’s Peelle reunion. So all of you Peelle descendants mark your calendar now and save the date for Aug. 25, 2019 at Quaker Knoll Campground at 12:30 p.m.

— Submitted by secretary Joanna (Hartman) Lindsey, granddaughter of Edna Peele Haines (daughter of Charles Edward Peelle)