Middle name appears to have been taken from her grandmother, Ellender Murphy.

From GSOR (Genealogical Society of Riverside), Vol 10 #2, pp. 37-40: "Childhood Memories" by Lucinda Ellen Cockrill Claypool [transcribed by Carolyn Claypool Thorsen]:

My mother died when I was 2 years old. She left 3 children, one brother older than I and a young baby brother who died in a few months after mother. I was the fourth child. Two died before I was born. My grandmother on my father's side raised us until my father remarried in 1851. He left my brother and me with grandmother and came to California in '49, then returned in December of 1850. In September of '50 my brother died; was not sick but two or three days. Them days you could not get a doctor because we lived out in the country. Of course I was always sick and he was always well. I remember he went in the evening for the cows. The cows run out on the prairie. There we had no mountains but everyone owned so much woods and had prairie land. When a prairie gets afire the flame is like waves on the ocean, only it is so terrible

Well, as I was saying, he went for the cows. Of course, I wanted to go with him. He got some wild grapes, and not being ripe he would not let me have any, for he said it would make me sick as I had the ague. It was very hot weather. He was taken sick at daylight, cramping, nothing relieved him. He wanted me to get him water out of the spring and hide it so no one would see him drink it. He told me not to cry as he was going to die. So I stood nigh but did not cry then for I thought if father came it would make him well, as we had been looking for him to come. He died very hard, it was the first person I had ever seen die. Oh, how lonesome I was.

I remember what a lonesome place the grave yard was. It was not a public graveyard. It had been a hazel thicket cleared out enough to bury a few: my mother, 3 brothers, one aunt, and 3 cousins. At that time everything was home made, so my uncle made the coffins and the head stones. They was limestone, he carved the name and age at death. Though he had learned no trade he made our shoes. He made our chairs with hickory bottoms. We was proud of the things.

I remember the home I was born in. It was a log house with locust trees growing so thick it made thick shade. My father sold it to one of the neighbors. I thought as it had belonged to him it still was our house, so we went there to get some tomatoes. My cousin told me to sit on the door sill until she could go a little farther in the field. So I saw some popcorn growing close by, so I gathered my apron full; had hard work to get it loose from the stalk. By the time my cousin got back it was almost dark. She made me believe I had stolen the corn, and that John MacNeel would have me put in jail. I was so scared that grandmother had to set up with me.

My grandfather kept the post office. A mail boy carried the mail to him on a horse. So all the neighbors had to come to our house to get the mail.

I remember the day my father was remarried. On the day after you would call it a reception, they called it an infair dinner. My aunt gave him the dinner. It snowed all day and all night, so we had to stay all night. My aunt had a large house. She had lots of turkey, all kinds of cake and pies, loads of things. I liked to see her cook as she had the first stove and the only one in that county. My grandfather would not eat unless it was cooked the old fashioned way by the fireplace. They never had matches, it was a curiosity to see matches. They struck two flint rock together, held toe under it, caught the sparks, blew it until it blazed, then covered the coals every night.

Well, must tell you about crossing the plains as well as I can remember. After father was married he began to get ready to go to California. We started in May. I remember the day he took me from grandmother. I had the whooping cough. He came just as I was eating dinner. He was riding on horseback. Some one said, "Sis, your father is coming to take you from grandmother". So I was eating fish, so I hid under the table as the cloth hung almost to the floor. They did not see me so they hunted awhile before they pulled me out. I was so scared I had a sick headache. It was snowing hard. He set me behind him. He took me to my aunt's as she was going with us. That was February or March. It was freezing; the snow was over the fences. Oh, how I cried. I looked back and grandmother was standing in the door watching us. He never let me go back but grandmother came every week as we was one mile from her.

Father bought several thousand head of sheep and 3 or 4 yokes of oxen to every wagon, we had one wagon to ride and sleep in, and my aunt had one also. Then we had one or 2 yokes of oxen; the men slept in a tent when they were not on guard, and we had a wagon for the provisions and tents. They had a netting fence for the sheep with little wooden stakes woven every two or three yards apart, so it took a long time to set it up ready for use. We had a floor in the wagon so we could make up the beds at night and raise the planks and put the bed down in the bottom of the wagon to keep it clean.

It took a long time to get started. When we got started they had a big dinner -- two old darkies, Aunt Suckey and Uncle Luis cooked the dinner. I remember going by West Point, was the first town, then we went on to Endependens Rouck [Independence Rock]. We lived not far from the line. I do not know how long we traveled before we got to Caw River. There they paid the Indians for their land once a year, they sold maple sugar, skins and moccasins for beads and blankets and so on. We were there 10 days. The ferry was for the Indians to cross and recross, so between times we tried to get across. As soon as they would get a boat full, there would be an Indian step in with his pony, so the sheep would swim back to the same side they started from. So father's partner had to go back with a part of the herd of sheep, and was to start the next year and did, but was killed by the Indians. Well, as I said, we stayed there 10 days. There was an Indian woman lived on the opposite where we was camped. She had a French husband, had a baby. She came over in the ferry and wanted the Chief and his family to come and stay at her house. She said her husband was gone. She meant father as he was A Captain. She had a nice looking house. The Chief's daughter came to our camp. She let me sit on her pony. She was dressed in a dull red buckskin suit, a kind of dress, came a little below the knee, fringed at the bottom, and a collar turned down, also fringed; and it was belted down, pants down to the moccasin -- also trimmed with beads in the patterns of birds or bows and arrows. Her hair was parted in the middle, combed smooth back and braided in two braids, hanging almost to the bottom of her dress or coat. Her saddle blanket was a piece of buckskin the same color of her dress. It was also ornamented with beads and small beads -- also the bridle or halter covered with beads. She rode with two Indian boys, one on each side of her. The most of them rode single file or one after the other. The men paint their faces. They shave their head all but a strip of hair running straight over the head, then let it grow long and stick feathers all along. They have a hunting coat or shirt belted down, almost like the women only shorter, all covered with beads. Then they have blankets thrown loosely around them, some bright colors. I cried to stay with them the first night we got across.

The river raised so we had to hitch our teams and move as the river was rising rapidly. It was a terrible thunder storm. We moved in a place they called Elm Holler. It was set thick with elm trees, both red and slippery elm. It seemed to be a summer hunting ground, for the old frames of the wigwams was still there. It was a beautiful place. Before we got to this river we passed thru a place called Sugar Creek, also very pretty. The thoughts was ready for tapping trees when the sap was ready. I do not know when the time was.

These Indians I have spoken of was the Nations that belonged to the Western States, as we came from Missouri. Of course I was so young I do not remember what part of the country we past nor the names of all of the Nations. I remember crossing the Platt. I think there was two rivers. I am not positive. We had terrible thunder and lightning on the Platt. We had a wagon bed made like a boat, but it was so clumsy, father was afraid to use it. So we came to a river called Green River, very deep and swift. I do not remember how the wagons got over, but I remember them swimming the cattle and horses over. The banks was so steep and they was so chilled, they came very near drowning.

Then we came across the Cheyenne Nations. They dressed something like the other nations only they had a piece of red calico fastened to their head and it trailed on the ground on the outside of the blanket. They was very tall and straight. They carried bows and arrows and a tomahawk arranged so that the head of it was hollow, also the handle, so they could smoke -- use it as a pipe. Every river we came to, it seemed like a different nation.

Father kept a journal so he knew how to go.

I remember camping in a small valley surrounded by high mountains -- no trees -- we had breakfast, was getting ready to go on. I was looking around. Father was getting the horse ready. He always went ahead as he looked out for danger and places to camp. I said, "Is that an Indian on a pony on a high hill?" He set his spy glass and in a few minutes there were over a hundred. He thought he was in a part that was not friendly. But they wanted to trade. They would steal too if they got a chance. There was a squaw with a papoose. It was laced on a board. It was hungry. Mother let me fix some crackers and milk and feed it. Its mother gave me a pair of moccasins. We did not buy much as it made them troublesome. We had not seen any for a long time tho they had to stand guard. We could always tell when there was any around. The horses would snort and rare around.

I remember going through a part for miles and for days we had to cook with buffalo chips. So if it was storming and we happened to be where there was plenty, all hands had to gather all that they could before they got wet, and we had to haul them. We could make coffee and fry meat with them. We had crackers and barrels of hard tack tho Father knew when he was going to pass through that part of the country he would camp and let them bake and wash and iron and rest the teams.

Ellender was 14 when she married her 32 year old husband, Jeremiah Claypool. Jeanne Miller told me that she had been sent away to a school for awhile after the marriage. She is believed to have gone to the State Normal School in San Jose. However, in a Historical Sketch of the State Normal School at San Jose, California with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Record of their Work for Twenty-Seven Years (Sacramento: State Office, J. D. Young, Supt. State Printing, 1889), her name does not appear among the lists of graduates (her daughter, Mary F. Claypool, is listed as graduating in 1880).

More Ellender Claypool family pictures can be found here.

Represented by her husband, Ellender was involved in two suits in the 7th District Court in Sonoma County, #561 and #657, against Henry Beaver and other Cockrill family members over the dispossession of her father's Sonoma property.

Though said to have been buried in Santa Rosa, she is not buried by her husband in the Claypool family plot in the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery.