The Greathouses
The history as compiled by Emory Morland Greathouse.

(Note: Subsequent research has not been able to support all of what he wrote.)

Emory Morland Greathouse Ola Jean "Boggs" Greathouse

In the year of 1778, a couple from England came to America as settlers and built a cabin in the Monongahela forest in the State of West Virginia, their name being Edwards. The following year, they were blessed with the birth of a son, which made them very happy until a tribe of Indians discovered the cabin and came by night setting it on fire, taking the baby and killing the parents. They took the baby to themselves, and brought him up to manhood as their very own.

When the boy grew to manhood, he was bearing the tribal name of the indians which was Greathouse. The young man, eventually had a wife, and they were parents of Irvin Greathouse. Irvin was married to a Miss Effie Webb, whom it is said she came to the Monongahela by steamboat from the south. Ervin and Effie had four sons and three daughters.

It was the custom of the tribe, for a mother, when a son was born, to name the baby, the name of the location she first looked on after the birth. She gave the name to the third son, Emery, for the hard rocky black land and Moreland for the surface farther away.

Hence, E. M. Greathouse was four years of age when Irvin his father secured a prarie schooner, and loaded all the earthly belongings of the family, with the two daughters and three sons, and his father, who at that time was one hundred and eight years of age, driving the schooner to the forks of the , in what is now known as Nicholas County [now present day Richwood]. They staked claim for the land and planted an orchard. In spring and summer the boys would lift the grandfather out to a pallet of bear skins where he enjoyed the outdoors through out the summer.

Two other children were born to Irvin and Effie in this location. The mother named the boy Pal as she gazed on the face of her husband, the first sight after the birth, whom she lovingly called Pal. The father, family and friends recognized the new family member as Paul. The youngest child was named Zona.

The grandfather died at age one hundred and ten.

Lineage of Emory Morland Greathouse

John Greathouse and Sarah McDade
..Edward "Ned" Greathouse and Matilda Blosser
....Isaac B. Greathouse and Sarah E. Tanner
......Ervin M. Greathouse and Effie Leveary Webb
........Emory Morland Greathouse and Ola Jean Boggs