Charles Fea II and Mary Ann Strouts

Charles Fea II was engaged to Mary Ann Strouts at the time of the bankruptcy of his father.  He was to have managed the family business in Charing, Kent.  By the will of his maternal grandfather (the father of Elizabeth Moss), he was well provided for.

He married Mary Ann Strouts in February 1837.  She was the youngest daughter of Edward Strouts, Esquire, of Kingsdown Court near Sittingbourne in Kent and his wife, Sarah.  Mary Ann was born on 16th November 1811.  They married at Kingsdown and decided to try their fortune in the United States.

It is written that a black curly headed young man, Charles Fea II, and his black headed wife together with his wife's red headed brother, Robert Plumbley Strouts, set sail for America in March of 1837.  They must have landed in Montreal or New York City.  They may have gone from New York City to Buffalo by the Erie Canal as it was finished sometime in the 1820s.  They went from Buffalo to Detroit by boat and from Detroit to Flint and Mt. Morris on the plank road that ran from Detroit to Saginaw.  These brothers in law settled on adjoining farms about two miles north and two and a half miles west of Mt. Morris which is six miles north of Flint, on 160 acres of land each.

The Feas toiled on the farm for a few years and had three sons (Charles, William and George), before they returned to England in the Spring of 1840.  Mary Jane Fea was the only child to be born in England as the family returned to the United States in August 1842 and settled near LeRoy, New York, where they bought a farm of 85 acres.

Charles Fea II and Mary Ann Strouts had ten children:


About 1855, Charles Fea II and Mary Ann Strouts moved back to Jackson County, Michigan where they bought another farm.  They lived there for about ten years and then sold that farm and bought one in Ionia County on 11th May 1865.

Mary died on 19th June 1889 and Charles Fea II on 19th March 1894.