Troy's Genealogue

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MCNEIL Family History

Our McNeil line consists soley of Jane (or Jean) McNeil¹ (~1831-~1890) of Ayrshire, Scotland. She was said to be a washing girl from Kilbirnie who married James Goodwin and immigrated to the United States.

Jane raised eight children in Coulterville, Mariposa County, California by James before he died in 1864. She later remarried to Peter Johnson (b. 1831) and had another four children by him. After Peter's death in the 1870s, Jane married once more to James Opie.

Jane (MCNEIL GOODWIN) JOHNSON¹ (~1831-~1890)

1. Jane McNeil¹ was born about 1831 in Ayrshire, Scotland. She married James Goodwin there and immigrated to America. They made their way through Pennsylvania to California where James died at the age of 34. Jane later married Peter Johnson and afterward James Opie. Altogether Jane had 11 children:

Per the 1880 census of Mariposa County, California, Jane's father was born in Scotland but her mother was Irish. She was a laundry girl in Ayrshire when she met and married James Goodwin on February 3, 1829, at the St. Thomas Methodist Church in Kilbirnie, Strathclyde, Scotland. She gave birth to two sons before they emigrated to America in 1851. The first died in Scotland and the second died on the trip over to America. Upon reaching the New World, Jane and James first settled in the area of Bear Gap, Northumberland County and Minersville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. James was a coal miner there, probably continuing a trade he knew in the old country. The Goodwin couple then had two daughters, Elizabeth and Martha Jane, both born in Bear Gap and baptized there at the Methodist Church. Their next child, John Charles was either born in Pennsylvania or California.

It was about this time that James decided to follow the wave of gold prospectors to California. He went ahead of his family and set up a store along the Kern River which runs through Sequoia National Park in Tulare County. He stayed there until the store was destroyed during an Indian massacre and then moved to the area of Coulterville, Mariposa County. Once settled, he sent for his family around 1857. They went by way of boat from New York to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed and then took another boat to San Francisco.

Once the family was reunited, the next children were born, probably around Coulterville near the Banderita Mine. James and his brother, John Sr. first worked at the Banderita Mine which was established in 1856. In 1861 the Goodwin family moved down into Coulterville and John Sr. eventually had a ranch at Dutch Creek in the Red Cloud area (present day Greeley Hill).

Just years after settling in Coulterville, James Goodwin died at the age of 34 on January 2, 1864, leaving his wife and six children. Given the early age of his death and his earlier profession of coal mining, it is likely that James Goodwin died of "black lung" disease.

Following James' death, Jane filed for a homestead declaration on Friday, February 24, 1865.

Continue on to
Goodwin Family History

Pete Johnson

Jane remarried to Peter Johnson, a French Canadian immigrant, on September 26, 1866, in Mariposa County. She had four more sons by him and continued to live in Coulterville (Maxwell Creek) through the 1870 census. By the 1880 census of Coulterville, Peter is absent, presumably having died prior to 1880, somewhere in his 40's. Jane was then living with her four youngest sons.

James Opie

After Peter's death, Jane remarried for a third time in 1888. This time to James Opie, an English immigrant.

Jane (McNeil Goodwin Johnson) Opie died two years later in 1890 at about the age of 58. She is buried at the Coulterville Cemetery in an unmarked plot near the Goodwin plot. Granddaughter, Ila Goss-Barrett later added her name "Jean" to the headstone of her first husband, James GOODWIN. Jane is not necessarily buried beneath that head stone, but in the general area.

Joseph A. Johnson (1867->1930)

1I. Joseph A. Johnson was born in January 1867, probably in Coulterville, Mariposa County, California. He married Alma J., a daughter of Iowa and Missouri pioneers, about 1890 and had five children, only two of whom survived beyond childhood:^{[Cen 1900]}

Alma died prior to 1910 and Joseph is found in the 1910 Mariposa County census as a widower, prospecting in the Stanislaus Forest Reserve (associated with Red Cloud/Greeley Hill north of Coulterville).^{[Cen 1910]}

By the 1920 census, Joseph remarried to a Louisa, a native of California^{[Cen 1920]}, and come the 1930 census was remarried again to a Jennie/Jessie M. of Minnesota and provided for her son, Ernie R. Pearson.^{[Cen 1930]}

Joseph was also married to Donia Castro.

Daniel N. JOHNSON (1869-)

1J. Daniel N. Johnson was born in November 1869, probably in Coulterville, Mariposa County, California. He appears to have died after the 1870 census.

Peter Nicholas JOHNSON^Δ (1870-1929)

1K. Peter "Pete" Nicholas Johnson^Δ was born June 6, 1870, in Coulterville, Mariposa County, California. He married Ida Mae Converse^Δ on December 2, 1896, in Modesto, Stanislaus, County, California. They had two children:

Continue on to Converse Family

The Johnson family lived on Main Street in Coulterville through at least 1920, where Peter mined for gold^{[Cen 1900-1920]} and Pete hauled the mail in his 1913 Buick truck. They later moved to Modesto.

Peter Nicholas Johnson died on April 9, 1929, in Modesto, and was buried at Modesto Citizens Cemetery. He was 58 years old. His headstone is adorned with the emblem of the Knights of Pythias.

His widow Ida Mae (Converse) Johnson died 34 years later in Coulterville, on June 2, 1963, at the age of 87 years. She is also buried at Modesto Citizens Cemetery.

Continue on to Part II