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except for profit.  Please understand that the information herein is as accurate as I
can make it, However, I do make plenty of mistakes. So, PLEASE, do not use any of
this information without checking your own research.

Email: James

link: The Tippy Page

Year without a summer

The summer of 1816 was unusually cold. Their was no fall harvest and animals and people
starved.



1816: The year without a summer. (From the Jefferson Co. Genealogical Society newsletter,
Jefferson City, Tn. Feb. 1995)

As the result of the eruption of Mt. Tambour volcano in Java 1815, 12,000 island residents lost
their lives. The volcano is to blame for an unusual weather pattern the following year in North
America, resulting in mass migration of people trying to avoid the ensuing climatic changes.

The summer of 1816 was unusually cold, with killing frosts and even snowfall destroying crops
throughout the united States. June and July were the coldest months, 19 states had snowfall in
June! There were no fall harvests; animal and people starved; wild animals ravaged the frontier.
Not understanding the meteorological causes, people blamed the Wrath of God for their
hardships. Some, destitute and despondent, committed suicide.

By 1817 the climate had returned to normal. However, many had moved to warmer parts of the
country and numerous farmers left for the cities to go into industrial work.

Charlie



The 1816 trip to Illinois. (Page 2 of Nancy' diary)
These four Spiller brothers, William , Benjamin, Elijah, and Warren, and their two sisters, Nancy,
wife of Abraham Tippy, and Lydia, wife of John Duncan, along with a large company of other
families, came in a long wagon train to Franklin County (now Williamson County, Illinois) in 1816.
They were leaders in this colony. They thought they were coming to the Spanish Territory but this
land was not a part of the Louisiana Purchase.

The Story of their trek westward has been handed down in Nancy SPILLER Tippys family as
follows; This trip was a great undertaking. There were many preparations for this dangerous trip
overland. The women spun and wove and made plenty of clothing. Dried apples and pumpkin etc.

They selected the best seeds, dried venison and smoked hog meat, best cows who had been
trained to pull the lighter covered wagons and in which the women and children slept at night.
They were well guarded by the young ladies sweethearts and the husbands of the other women.

In front of them and in back of them were the heavier wagons drawn by large bulls and a few oxen
and horses, stallions and mares. The women looked after the extra ammunition and rifles and
shotguns. Most of the women could shoot deer, wild turkeys and ducks and geese, even bear,
wolves, and 'painters' (panthers) or Indians.

If they were attacked by Indians, these women and girls could load the extra guns and even bring
down a 'red skin' if necessary. They had 40 large white dogs trained to give notice if Indians were
near and would kill an Indian by taking him by the throat or the back of the neck.

Nancy SPILLER Tippy was a very successful doctor. She knew all the medicines, herbs and how
to use them and how to treat the sick and wounded. Many a pioneer mother owed her life to her.

After this wagon train arrived in what is now Williamson County, they soon entered land and
established homes on Phelps Prairie. They were all land owners never belonged to the hunter
class who never accumulated much property. Their land entries were made in 1818 and 1819.

Elijah Spiller, the Baptist preacher either died or left the country in the 1840s. He married couples
in that year. There is on record in Franklin county court house a bill of sale of Elijah Spiller to
William Turner made June 1, 1837. This sale was for household goods and farming implements
and stock. Also. He and his wife, Susannah, sold land in West Marion Township adjoining
Warrenton K, Spiller in April 1836.

Nancy Spiller Tippy and family lived for a time near what is now Creal Springs. Their land entry
however was near the other Spillers on Phelps Prairie.

Warrenton K. Spiller and family lived and died and are buried near what is now the Whiteville
school #47 house west of Marion.

Benjamin Spiller and family are buried on their farm North West of Marion. William Spiller and his
wife, Winifred, lived three miles west of Marion; his burial place has not been located. His
daughter Sally who married John Crain, is buried at the golf club on the West hard road. There are
many descendants of these families in Williamson County and all over Southern Illinois and many
other states,

Author unknown.

This page is dedicated to the
descendants of Abraham Tippy,
the son of Peter and Elizabeth
CONN Tippa. Family history
states that at the age of 16
Abraham left his home in
Germany and sailed to America.

Census of the Tippy
Family