Eliza Jane Wilder was born in 1850 to James and Angeline Wilder. In 1879 Eliza Jane accompanied her brothers Royal and Almanzo to De Smet, South Dakota where they all took claims. At the age of 42, she married Thomas Jefferson Thayer (d. 1899) and they had one son, Walcott Thayer. She died in 1930 in Lafayette, Louisiana. Eliza Jane lived a life which became a topic of public interest years after her death. Were it not for her brother Almanzo's writer-wife...

Farmer Boy, one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's most popular books, introduced her husband's family, who were not written of as extensively as her own. This Story of the Wilders will hopefully satisfy questions concerning the Wilders and shed light on Alamanzo, the "Farmer Boy" who was Laura's husband for over sixty-four years.

Widow Martha Wilder and her four children (oldest son, Thomas) immigrated from Shiplake, England in 1638 to Lancaster or Bolton, Massachusetts. They were direct ancestors of Almanzo Wilder (b. 1857), who married Laura Ingalls in 1885 in De Smet, South Dakota.

Samuel Gardner Wilder (1831-1888), son of William Chauncey Wilder (1804-1858) and Harriet Waters, was born in Leominster, Massachausetts. He married Elizabeth Kinan Judd in 1857, in Honolulu. Hawaii. They had six children. He died in Honoloulu, Hawaii. Ancestors, descendants and relatives lived mainly in Ontario, Vermont, Massachusetts, Illinois and Hawaii.

Daniel Harvey Pritchett (1854-1919) was born in Rollo, Missouri and married Priscilla Caroline Fulbright (1851-1901) in Laclede County, Missouri. Descendants lived in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, and elsewhere.

Newsletter for the interchange of genealogical data and history about the Gates families in America. Includes abstracts and transcripts from local, county, state, and federal sources, Bible records, cemeteries, obituaries, vital records, land and property, probate, census, etc.