William “Long Will”
Thomas Ralph
1818-1888
William
Thomas Ralph was the son of James Lawrence Ralph, Sr. and Elizabeth McClane,
born in 1818. He was known as “Long Will”
and settled on a farm called “The Knob.”
He built a fine two-story colonial home with a stone chimney at each
end. Rooms in the house measured 8 feet by 10 feet.
At the
time of the 1850 Ohio County census, Long Will was 32 years old, married with
three children, and farmed 1,200 acres, which was part of the original farmland
owned by John Lawrence Ralph I and his brother, William P. Ralph.
The Knob
Farm was located on a knob above the farmed bottomland a mile southwest of the
Ralph Community Store located at Ralph Station on the junction of Morgantown Road and
Kentucky
1414.
William
Thomas Ralph was the first to be buried (in 1888) on the farm in what is now known
as the Knob-Ralph
Cemetery. Most of the children, their spouses, and a
few grandchildren were also interred in the cemetery.
Charlotte
Jane Moseley was born 26 Feb 1869, died at age four and was buried in the Ralph
Cemetery where her great-grandparents, John Lawrence Ralph I and Elizabeth
McClane Ralph, were interred, along with other Ralph kin. Charlotte Jane, the
namesake of her grandmother, Charlotte Jane Powers Ralph, (the wife of William
Thomas Ralph) was the daughter of Martha Vitula Ralph Moseley and Dillis Perry
Moseley, Jr. Since the Knob-Ralph Cemetery
was not established until 1888 she (Charlotte Jane Moseley) was buried at the Big Family
Cemetery.
Researched and recorded by Judy E.
Russell, Hartford. Published in Kentucky
Family Records, Vol. 38, No. 4, Winter 2014, at page 125, by the Mclean County
History Museum
& Regional Family
Research Center.
Please
note that I previously posted some information about the Ralph family on this
blog. The date of that post is 5 June 2012.
I think I
found the location of the Ralph Community Store mentioned in the article. Old Morgantown
Road intersects Old State Route 1414 roughly 5 miles west
of Fordsville and roughly 4 miles south of Whitesville. The article says The Knob farm was a mile SW
of the store. Ralph Cemetery Lane is a short distance to the East, off of Megan Road.