WELCOME
Welcome to the Pipes Family Home Page. My name is Bob Pipes and I am the guy who maintains and authors this web site.
Several people have suggested that I write something that will tell everyone about me and also give them a method to navigate through all of the material that is here. Many of you seem to enjoy just poking around and finding what you can, but many others are not aware of the family history and need a place to start. I receive E Mail from about 2 or 3 new Pipes descendants every month and many of them come here after finding us on the web and do not really know what part of the family they "connect to".
So, my intention here is to give a brief (very brief) personal introduction and then a navigation guide to the web page.
I was born in Michigan during WWII, and have one younger brother who still
lives in central Michigan. My mother passed away in 1987 after a painful
bout with cancer and my father passed away in 2003. My birth in Michigan
was the result of the migration from New York State by English ancestors
and Irish Immigrants
and
by the migration of James Franklin Pipes, my Grandfather, to the siren song
of General Motors. He left Kentucky around 1900, lived in Indiana for a short
while,
married my grandmother, Florence May Rains and eventually ended up on the assembly line in Chevrolet
Engine Plant #4 in Flint. See James Franklin
and Florence May Rains
After graduation from High School, I spent 4 years in the Air Force as an Aircraft Electrical/Electronics Technician and then came to live and attend school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My work life has been entirely in manufacturing, first as a technician and field service engineer in the machine tool business and later as a supervisor and manager in various manufacturing companies. I later transitioned to computers and programming and application development.
I have been working on my family history for over 25 years now and I continue to be amazed that I grew up knowing almost nothing about my father's side of the family except some vague memories about his father being from someplace called "Gravel Switch" ( that is the name of the small crossroads town in Kentucky near where my Grandfather was born). My father knew little of his family but did know his aunts and uncles, some of whom still lived in Danville, Kentucky. The Civil War has always fascinated me and that is what triggered my search into the family history .In the early 1980's I discovered that my Great Grandfather was named Obediah Brumfield Pipes and that he had served in the infamous Cavalry unit called "Morgan's Raiders". That was it. I was hooked. I started digging into my parents history and worked on it for several years. In 1996 I started a web site to post some of the info on my family and as a substitute for writing a book, which didn't make sense when there was so much yet to be learned about the early history of the Pipes family.
First, I enjoy gathering all of this info and having it organized so that someone can write to me and say "this is my grandfather's name and he lived in this town and can you help me connect to the Pipes family?" That happens all the time and so far, only two or three times have I been unsuccessful in making the connection. (I'm still working on those)
I am able to do this because of all of the help that has been provided by all of you. I am overwhelmed sometimes by the number of you who have sent info about this branch or that family and I just keep connecting it together and making a larger picture of the Pipes family. Synergy and sharing info is what this site is all about. The internet makes it all work.
Second, the goal now is to identify and connect as many of the persons named Pipes that were born before 1900 as we possibly can. That means looking at birth, death, marriage and census records. It means convincing persons to send me what they might see as obscure data about some guy named Pipes who had an article in the paper somewhere. It means spending a lot of time searching through old records and digging out connections on every Pipes descendant of the original five brothers. The family is fairly well documented through the early 1800's and the first two generations of the five sons. That is all thanks to Mrs. Ellsberry, Elsie Mae Amerine, Lloyd Harmon, Charles B. Pipes, Ella Pipes Dumas, Sydney Kilpatrick, John Hawkins, Wayne Pipes and several others who worked on this family history long before I started.
A possible result of all of this may be to put it all on a CD ROM at some point in the future. I am concerned about preserving the data for future generations. The technology is changing quickly and will allow either that or some better method very soon. I also have a great number of photos to add to the data. There is not enough room on the web site for all of them.
In Summary, I need your continued support and assistance to gather all of this together. Please help!
My address is:
Bob Pipes9 Crestmont Ct
Durham, N. Carolina
27703
414-442-5952
If you are an absolute newcomer to this page, here are a few tips to help you find your connection to the Pipes family.
Although we go back to England or Europe in several lines, we focus on the oldest known Pipes ancestor in America and his first wife and their 6 known children.
John Pipes Sr. and his wife Susannah Hathaway are the starting point for the Pipes family in America. John was born about 1710, place unknown, and Susannah was born in 1712 in Massachusetts to the very old Hathaway family.
John and Susannah had five sons and one daughter that we know of and we label the branches of the family according to these children because each one headed off in different directions and started very large contingent families. And, as you will see, there is still a mystery in one additional branch of the family. If you know where your family lived, then it is fairly easy to connect them to the main family.
John and Susannah moved to Morristown, New Jersey and all of their children were born there. Susannah died somewhere between 1765 and 1780. John Sr. moved to Surry Co. N. Carolina about 1770 and then re-married to Priscilla Bowling about 1783. They had three daughters and moved on to Spartanburg Co., S. Carolina about 1785. He died there in 1804. We have done little work on tracing the descendants of these three additional daughters.
All of John Sr.'s children eventually passed through N. Carolina with him. It appears that John Jr. stayed in New Jersey until 1780, when he also moved there. Windsor moved to Pennsylvania in 1771 and to Kentucky in 1773 and Mississippi in 1780 but he was also in North Carolina in the 1770s. John Sr.'s other sons, Phillip, Abner and Sylvanus were also all in North Carolina at one time or another.
These are the branches of the family, named for the child who founded it and the place they are associated with, and in two cases, named for the grandchildren who lived there.
1. Windsor Pipes - He was in SW Pennsylvania (1771) and then Kentucky (1773-1780), but his family and children are located in South West Mississippi (1780)and later Louisiana and some even later in Texas. They are known as the Louisiana or Mississippi Family.
2. Abner Pipes - His family also located in Mississippi (1780) and many of his descendants moved on to Louisiana and Texas. He spent time in N. Carolina (1770) as well before going to Mississippi. They are known as the Louisiana Family also.
3. John Pipes Jr.- He had two families. The first was with Jemima Harriman (1760-1770) and the children (Joseph and John Pipes) from this marriage located and stayed in SW Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania family. Many of this family moved west into Indiana and Ohio. The second family was with Mary Morris (1777) and they moved to N. Carolina (1780)and then to Kentucky( 1795). All of his second family remained in Kentucky and can be traced from there until after the 1880's. They are known as the Kentucky family.
4. Phillip Pipes - He was in N. Carolina (1770) and then Kentucky (1787) and finally located his family in North Western Alabama(1820). They are known as the Alabama family. Several of this family moved to Tennessee and to Arkansas and Texas about the time of the Civil War.
5. Sylvanus Pipes - He was also in N. Carolina (1770) and migrated to Kentucky (1787). All of his children made the move from Kentucky to Missouri (1811-1825) and he went with them. They are known as the Missouri family.
6. Hiram Pipes - He is a descendant of John Sr. and his family can be traced back to N. Carolina. There is a detailed account on the web page of Hiram's connection to the family. If your name is Pipes and you are from N. Carolina, then you are a descendant of Hiram Pipes.
7. Susannah Pipes - The only known daughter of John Pipes Sr.. She married Samuel Carter in N. Carolina (1771) and they have many descendants from there.
On the web page you will find a Map of the Pipes Migrations. This map illustrates the movements described above and may help you see where your family connects. There are a very few instances of someone named Pipes coming to America from Europe and not being a member of this family, but they are fairly rare and occurred after 1850. There is also a contingent of Pipes' who immigrated to Nova Scotia, Canada in 1774 from England. It is not known if they are related to John Pipes Sr. or not, but many of them ended up in Maine and the far NE part of the country.
The information is now organized by topic and includes a page for military items, history items, research items etc. You can move to these topics by clicking on the headings at the top of the page.
1. Each of the families listed above has a genealogy report on the web page. These reports list all of the known descendants of that person and gives dates, places, facts, documentation etc. The report is in Web format so that you can click on a name and link through the report, tracing a family as you go. The reports are indexed so that you can search for a person by name.
2. A list of all known Civil War Soldiers is available. It provides a short Biography of the person if that is known. I am still working on this section and add info as I dig it out. There are 102 Soldiers from almost every state where the Pipes' had residence.
3. A contacts Page is available that lists all of the descendants who wish to be contacted by others from their family or who are willing to share information. Please consider adding your name here. Use this page to contact others who may be interested in the same family.
4. A list of books that document the family history is on the web page. Some of these books are very difficult to find, but most are available.
5. A catalog of books and publications that were for sale by Mrs. Ellsberry, who lives in Missouri but is retired and no longer selling these books.
6. A history of the Hathaway family, from Ancient England to New Jersey, with pictures of the Castle at St. Briavels.
7. Several lists of data are available to help in your research. We have Tax and Census lists, Marriage lists, Social Security death index lists, lists of names from old England, Birth records from the LDS IGI, etc., etc.
8. And we also have some stories of outlaws, memoirs of the civil war and heroism in the military as well as a list of all of the known Military heroes named Pipes who have fought and died in the many armed conflicts that this country has engaged in over the years. There are decorated heroes who have performed amazing feats of bravery in combat and even a Medal of Honor Winner from the Civil War.
9. There is a chronological list of the events where Pipes' are mentioned from the earliest times.
10. We do our best to maintain an interesting assortment of the photos that are sent to us. Some of them are very old and very interesting. Please consider letting us add your pictures to the collection.
And finally, I am always willing to answer questions and help anyone with information about the family. If I don't know the answer, I can often research it out or ask others who may know the answer. Please feel free to contact me.
