THOMPSON, CREIGHTON, SCHMITT
Peter Gabel was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1825, the son of George and Catherine(Bauman) Gabel. Other sons were John, Daniel,George & Samuel.
Family records show that they were possibly from either Montgomery or Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania.He first married Adelaide Brockerman in 1846, but she and their three year old daughter died in 1852. In 1854, Peter married Elmira Cuthbert Wunder, of Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. In March of 1856, he and Elmira moved west to Illinois, settling on a farm outside of Newark, Illinois. In 1858, they moved into Newark proper, where Peter owned Peter Gabel Meat Market. In 1871, he sold the market to one of his wife's relatives, Paul V. Wunder.He moved his family to Sandwich, Illinois in 1882, and again moved in February of 1889 to Sycamore, Illinois, where he and his wife remained. After Peter's death in 1908, two of his six children moved to Michigan and California, while the remaining four raised their families in the Dekalb and Kendall County areas.
Peter's son, Francis Gabel, my great-grandfather, married Luora Ann Thornberry in 1897,and by 1913 had moved with his wife and children to Michigan. Luora's Thornberry family was of Quaker origins from Chester County,Pennsylvania during the 1700's,and by the mid 1840's had settled in Monroe and Belmont Counties in Ohio. The Quaker Thornberrys emigrated to Pennsylvania from County Armagh, Ireland, circa 1722. The Thornberrys, spelled Thornborough, were English Quakers who fled England in the late 1600's to Ireland, to escape religious persecution. I am still researching this period, and will update this page as I discover more.I have listed my Thornberry pedigree under THORNBERRY in the list above.
Francis' son, Kenneth Gabel,, was my grandfather. He married Edith Creighton from Chicago in 1924. Her Creighton and Dewar families emigrated from Scotland in the1840's and settled in Chicago and Grundy County (Morris), Illinois.
Kenneth and Edith Gabel's son is my dad...he married my mom, who has long-standing roots in Ravenna, Michigan. Her Thompson and Eason families were among the early settlers in Ravenna, the Easons emigrating from Canada in the mid-1800's, and the Thompsons from Scotland in 1850. Her mother, Margaret Emma Thompson, married Ernest James Whitfield from Pekin, Illinois in 1924. Her great-grandfather, John A. Thompson,and his wife, Ann HughesThompson, had the first white child born in Ravenna, Michigan.
As time goes on, I will update this page with more links and information, and welcome any insights,suggestions or information. Do you have ties to any of these families?? I am always willing to share information, or answer questions!.
Anne Creighton Gabel
I would like to link all of our sites to help all
of us out there looking...send me your URL
and a BRIEF description of your site, and I
will add it in! Anne
...as well as some good general links
that I've found in my "travels"...
