Timothy Roark's Escape from the Shawnee - Sanford Line

James Roark, who lost most of his family to an Indian massacre on March 18, 1780, suffered twice at the hands of the Shawnee.  When his family was attacked that day, 11-year-old Timothy Roark, it is said, had fought back with a toy hatchet and, for his bravery, was spared.  Whether that is the reason or not, young Timothy was kidnapped at age 11 and remained with the Indians until he finally contrived a means of escape some years later. 

Though some have speculated that Timothy was taken at a later date, it is just as easy to reckon that he was captured on March 18, and living to tell the tale, was probably the person who later reported the story of the boy and his toy hatchet; otherwise, how would it have become known?

Over the time he was among the Shawnee, he must have conceived countless plans as to how he could escape.  Transport out of the area would have been key to a successful escape, and the plan Timothy eventually used involved a horse and a canoe.  Having earned the trust of the Indians, he was sometimes left unescorted, and one day he managed to slip away from them. 

Not willing to leave behind two girls who had been in captivity with him, he managed to take them as well.  One account of their story states, “They rode horseback to the river where Timothy had hidden a canoe, and by paddling furiously, they made their escape.”  By then, he must have known the area like the back of his hand, and he managed to make it back to the white settlements in the region, reuniting Sarah Bolen and her younger sister Lucy with their families.

But that is not the end of the story.  By 1798, Timothy had married Sarah Bolen, and their first son was born that year in October.  They settled in at Cave Spring in Claiborne County, Tennessee, where they raised their thirteen children and lived, it is hoped, as happily ever after as everyone in a Currier and Ives painting. 

Sources:

Currier and Ives.  A Home in the Wilderness.  http://currierandives.net/AHomeInTheWilderness/

“Michael K. Hendrix Family.” 27 Mar. 2005.  Web. 16 Mar 2013.  <http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mhendrix&id=I02149 >

Pendleton, William Cecil.  History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia:1748-1920.  Web.
16 Mar. 2013.  http://books.google.com/books?id=KNEz0vNWJG4C&pg=PA231&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false >
Yates Publishing.  U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database online].  Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2004.



© Eileen Cunningham, 2013

Mappy Monday - Where Is Bottom Station, Kentucky? - Cunningham Line

On Ancestry.com, Bottom Station, Kentucky, is frequently identified as the place of death for James Roark (1740-1792) and his son John (1769-1792), while others list the location as Harman’s Station.  From what I can tell, these are one and the same place.  In this case, the term Bottom is a geographical term referring to low-lying alluvial land adjacent to a river, while the word Station denotes a stopping place for travelers.

 Some confusion is caused by the fact that Bottom Station is said to be in Floyd County, while Harman’s Station is in Johnson County.  However, this can be explained by the fact that in 1792 when Roark died fighting the Indians at “Bottom Station,” Johnson County had not yet been formed.  Thus, Floyd County would be the county of the station’s location (below left).[i]

 As one source puts it, in 1750, Matthias Harman and others from the first white settlement in North Carolina “established a hunting station and built a large cabin of logs, prior to the Sandy Creek Voyage, on the identical spot which afterwards became the site of their blockhouse”[ii]  Since white settlements were few and far between, Harman’s Station became a gathering place for hunters, traders, and other whites who passed through the region.  An article hosted by Rootsweb, refers to the location as “Harmon Station in Historic Block House Bottom" (above right)[iii]  It is easy enough to see how the terminology can become confusing.

 Harman’s Station is well known for its part in the 1789 captivity narrative of Jenny Wiley.  Mrs. Wiley, while her husband was away, was attacked by Indians who slaughtered her children and took her into captivity.  After eleven months, Mrs. Wiley managed to escape from the Indians and is said to have clung to (or straddled) a sizable tree branch as it floated down the river.  At Harman’s Station, which was on John’s Creek, she was rescued, but not without a fight between her rescuers and the Indians who were pursuing her.  Four years later, the situation had not improved much, and James Roark and his son Timothy died fighting Indians at Harman’s Station.

The accompanying hand-drawn map (above right) depicts Harman’s Station on Jones Creek with a red rectangle near the bottom of the map.[iv]  The handwriting says, “Block house built by Harman and Auxier.” It is east and across the river from Paintsville, Kentucky.

 

---

[i] http://www.thefullwiki.org/Johnson_County,_Kentucky

 

[ii] Connelley, William Elsey.  Eastern Kentucky papers; the founding of Harman's Station, with an Account of the Indian Captivity of Mrs. Jennie Wiley and the Exploration and Settlement of the Big Sandy Valley in the Virginias and Kentucky. NY: Torch, 1910. Web.  15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.archive.org/stream/easternkentuckyp00conn/easternkentuckyp00conn_djvu.txt >

 

[iii]22 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Mar. 2013. <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyjchs/harmonstation.html>  Image used with permission.

 

[iv] This map was drawn in 1851 by Marion Tevis Burris and titled "In Memory of Home." Burris was born August 28, 1828, on John's Creek. Apr. 2009.  Web.  16 Mar. 2013. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kycarter/maps/1851_map of_Johns_Creek.htm



© Eileen Cunningham, 2013

 

Shopping Saturday - “Trader” Hughes – Lanham Line

In the mid-1600s, Captain John Rice Hughes, a Welshman known in the area simply as “Trader” Hughes, established a trading post at Jamestown, Virginia, in order to trade primarily with the Powhatan Indians in the area.  It has been said that if the Jamestown colony had not been trading with the Native Americans in the area, they would not have survived their first winter.  But how did trade benefit the Indians?

            The Powhatans, a confederacy of thirty Algonquin-speaking tribes, highly prized copper, but at that time, they were at war with the Monacan and Mannahoac tribes, who mined copper in the Lake Superior region.  Thus, the Powhatans were motivated to find an alternative source.

            In 1580, at the time of the Roanoke colony, the English had become aware of the value of copper to the Powhatans and, in subsequent trips, brought sheets of copper from England for the express purpose of establishing trade.

            Why did the Powhatans value copper so greatly?  Considering copper to be rare and beautiful (the way many cultures look at gold), they used copper to make jewelry—both necklaces and bracelets—and, accordingly, to signify the elite status of the copper-bedecked warrior (see above). Copper was also used in religious practices and in burials.  The famous John Smith of Jamestown recorded the brisk nature of the trade, thus, “For a copper kettle, the Powhatans will sell you a whole countrey [sic]” (Mallios and Emmett).

            Another commodity of interest to the natives was blue beads.  Heather A. Lapham of the University of Virginia tells the story well.  When John Smith and others from Jamestown met with Powhatan to trade for corn, they became aware of Chief Powhatan’s great interest in the blue beads the English had with them.  Though the beads did not have great value in the eyes of the Europeans, the Powhatans prized them for use in their religious rituals.  Smith noted the chief swapped “a pound or two of blew beads” [sic] for “2 to 300 bushels of corne” [sic], proving the maxim that rarity increases the value of a commodity. 

The Powhatans would also trade pelts and, in addition to corn, foodstuffs such as squash and beans  [“Monacan Indians”].

“Trader” Hughes set up his trading post near the spot where Virginia’s Routes 130 and 29 meet today.  In the course of his contacts with the Powhatans, he met and married one of the daughters of Chief Opechancanough.  A sister of Pocahontas, Nicketti Mangopeesomon (“She-Sweeps-the-Dew-from-the-Flowers”) eventually gave birth to a baby girl (Mary Elizabeth) in Jamestown in 1650, and she, in her turn,  married Nathaniel Davis, another trader.  The son of Nathaniel and Mary Elizabeth continued the “family business,” so to speak, and he is known in the records as Robert “the Trader” Davis.

As we know from the history books, the Powhatans and the Europeans had their share of confrontations.  Interestingly, though, it is also said that Chief Opechancanough made sure that the Hughes and Davis men received protection from any violence in the region.

Sources:

Land, Deborah.  “Trading Post at Otter Creek.”  Ancestry.com.

<http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/24721487/person/1564921675/media/1?pgnum=1&pg=0&pgpl=pid%7cpgNum>.

 

Lapham, Heather A.  “More Than ‘A Few Blew Beads’: The Glass and Stone Beads from Jamestown Rediscovery’s 1994-1997 Excavations.” The Journal of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center.  Vol. 1.  Jan. 2001.  Web.  9 Mar. 20013.  <http:// www.apva.org/resource/jjrc/vol1/lapham.pdf>.

 

Mallios, Seth, and Shane Emmitt.  “Demand, Supply, and Elasticity in the Copper Trade at Early Jamestown.  The Journal of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center.  Vol. 2. Jan. 2004.  Web.  9 Mar. 20013.  <http://www.apva.org/resource/jjrc/vol2/mallios_low.pdf>.

 

“The Monacan Indians of Virginia.”  Monacan Indian Nation.  2003.  Web.  9 Mar. 2013.

            <http://www.monacannation.com/history.shtml>.

 

“Powhatan.”  Encyclopedia Britannica.  Web. 9 Mar. 2013.  <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/473423/Powhatan>.

 

Images:

“The Demise of Copper’s Trading Power.”  Historic Jamestown.  n. d. Web.  9 Mar. 2013.

 

World Exposition.  2013.  Web.  9 Mar. 2013.  http://www.worldexhibition.org/worldexpo/1907-hampton-roads/

© Eileen Cunningham, 2013

 

http://geneabloggers.com

 

 

A Shirt-Tail Tale - Gard Line

Okay, to all of you Gards out there in Kith-and-Kin Land, here’s a tale that will give you bragging rights even though (alas!) it is definitely a tale of a shirt-tail kin.

 Let’s start with something you may have heard in school or read in the press at some point in time.  Have you ever heard it said that George Washington was the SECOND president of the United States?  That there was someone else who served as president from the time of the Constitutional Convention until Washington’s inauguration? 

 His name was Samuel Huntington, and guess what!  We’re related to him. Now, even if you don't buy the idea that he was actually our first president, you can at least take great satisfaction in the fact that he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and  president of the Second Continental Congress.  He’s an in-law of sorts.  In-laws are great—especially when they give you bragging rights (as which in-law amongst us does not?!). 

I was not able to attach the genealogy chart to the blog, so I will email that to you separately.  You will notice that the entrants are done in two colors: blue for the Huntington family and red for the Gards.  Now, the Huntingtons arrived in New England in 1633.  Simon, the man at the top of the chart, actually died on board the ship when the Connecticut coast was already in sight (smallpox, you see)!  The first thing the family did upon setting foot in their New Land was to bury their father.  Not an auspicious beginning.  Yet despite this tragedy, the family did not “curse God and die,” as Job’s wife would probably have advised.

Instead, they put their noses to the grindstone and got busy.  Now look on the chart, focusing particularly on Simon I's second and third sons: Simon II and Thomas.  From Simon II descends our illustrious shirt-tail ancestor: Samuel Huntington, signer of the Declaration of Independence and “the real” first president of the United States (more about this anon).  From Thomas descends Phoebe Huntington, wife of Gershom Gard.

 Now, who was Gershom Gard (red box) and how is he related to us?  You will see that Gershom’s father was Jeremiah Gard (b. 1717) of Morristown, New Jersey (which was Washington’s “capital” during the Revolutionary War).  You will also note that Gershom had a brother named John (here he is designated as John Gard, Sr., because he had a son whom I have designated as John, Jr.). 

So, the in-law connection is that John Gard, Sr., was the brother-in-law of Phoebe Huntington, who had a blood relationship with the Great Man Samuel Huntington, whose name appears inside a star at the bottom of the chart.  (You don’t really expect me to tone this down, do you?  Let the trumpets resound!)

 

 

 

 Here is the resume of dear old Sam:

1753:  Self-taught; passed the bar exam

1764:  Elected “select man” for the town of Norwich, Connecticut

1764:  Elected representative to the Connecticut House of Representatives

1765:  Elected to the Upper House of the Governor’s Council

1768:  Appointed king’s attorney for Connecticut

1773:  Appointed to Connecticut Superior Court (like a supreme court)

1775:  Elected to the Second Continental Congress

1776:  Signed the Declaration of Independence

1779:  Elected president of the Second Continental Congress (Articles of Confederation were passed during his tenure)

1781:  Forced to retire and return home due to ill health (smallpox)

1782: Again elected as delegate to the House of Representatives but too ill to take the position

1783:  Health improved; again able to serve as delegate (Treaty of Paris signed 1783)

1784:  Re-elected to the Upper House of the Governor’s Council

Became Chief Justice of the Superior Court

1785:  Elected Lieutenant-Governor of the state of Connecticut

1786:  Elected Governor of Connecticut (re-elected annually until his death in 1796)

1786:  Brokered the Treaty of Hartford (resolving land claims by New York
           and Massachusetts)

1787:  Supported the Northwest Ordinance

1788:  Presided over of the Connecticut Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States

1789:  As president of the Second Continental Congress, was unofficially the first president of the United States (Washington not inaugurated until April 30)

1789-96:  Transitioned Connecticut from a colony to a state; helped establish Hartford as the capital; oversaw the construction of the State House

1796:  Died at his home in Norwich (tomb located down Old Cemetery Lane adjacent to the Norwichtown Green)
 

So, in-laws!  Keep up the good work!  We all are proud of you!

 

Sources:

 

Crayon, J. Percy.  Rockaway Records of Morris County, N. J. Families.  Rockaway, N. J., Pub. Co., 1902).  Available online.
 

 “Declaration of Independence Signatures.”  http://www.revolutionary-war-and-
             beyond.com/declaration-of-independence-signatures.html
 

 “Samuel Huntington.” Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Huntington_
            (statesman)

 

 

© Eileen Cunningham, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

Surname Saturday - A Cherokee Link with the Surname Eastridge? - Campbell Line

Apparently there has been a vague but long-standing tradition in the Lanham family that an ancestor of James Campbell of Claiborne County, Tennessee, was a member of the Cherokee nation.  James (1852-1929) was the son of Benjamin Campbell and Louisa (or Eliza) Eastridge Campbell.  The research began with the Eastridge name, but did not extend far beyond Louisa because after her father, James Eastridge (1778-1860), the trail ended suddenly.  That is a bit unusual for a name that is, relatively speaking, fairly close to the present.  County histories, census records, family histories, tax records, and passenger lists make researching the nineteenth century much simpler than, say, the Middle Ages.  But nothing at all turned up.

Ancestry.com’s surname section stated the following about the Eastridge name: “Possibly English, a habitational name from any of various minor places named Eastridge, for example in Wiltshire and West Sussex.  However, the surname is not known in the British Isles [emphasis mine].  It may alternatively be of German origin, an Americanized form of Estrich, a topographic name for someone who lived by a paved road (Middle High German esterich, from Late Latin astricus), or an Americanized form of Oesterreich.”  Regarding English records for this name, however, the Internet Surname Database does indicate that the first known English record of the name was in 1608 when a Margaret Eastridge of London married a Jame Bakster [sic]. 

Brooke and Kris Glaittli have written about the Eastridge surname on their blog, Our Roots Are Deep, writing a rather detailed entry about their ancestor, Chief Dragging Canoe (1734-1792), who is identified as a Cherokee chief and founder of the Chickamauga Nation.  They focus specifically on Dragging Canoe’s daughter, Abagil [sic], who was born in Ashe County, North Carolina, in 1760.  Abagil’s granddaughter, Pheobe [sic] Taylor (1800-1884), married a William Eastridge (1800-1870), which establishes a link between the Eastridge surname and the Cherokee Indians. The geographical connection to North Carolina supports the link in that the Cherokees did live in the region of the Carolinas, and James Eastridge, with whom we started, did hail from South Carolina. 

 

The Cherokees were located in the Smokey Mountains [see image above], which ranges over parts of Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  Claiborne County, Tennessee, the birthplace of James Campbell, is on the northeast border where Tennessee meets Kentucky at the Cumberland Gap.  Chief Dragging Canoe [right], the possible Cherokee ancestor of James Campbell, led his people in a series of conflicts known as the Chickamauga Wars. The chief died in 1792, and two years later the war ended with the Cherokees ceding “their lands between the Cumberland and Duck rivers (i.e., the Cumberland Plateau) to Tennessee,” which would have placed his descendants in the area where the Eastridges were active.

 

Now, returning to James Eastridge and his wife Lucy Bolinger (1783-1860), we discover they had several children, one of whom was a boy named Pleasant (1805-1850), who is said to have been born in Granville, North Carolina.  It wasn’t uncommon back in that time period for Christian parents to choose a name such as Hope or Temperance for their child, but I can’t recall of any cases where adjectives were used as Christian names.  I know that in other cultures, adjectives are used.  For example, once, while working with international students, I had a Korean student who wanted to use Potent as what he called his “American name.”  We had the unhappy task of telling him that that name had meanings he might not intend, and I believe he decided to stick with his Korean name, which perhaps could have been the Korean language equivalent of potent or powerful.  This made me wonder if Native Americans ever used adjectives as surnames, so I got online to see what I could find out about Cherokee names, and—sure enough—it turns out that the Cherokee name Prafulla means Pleasant, and, what’s more, it is a name for a boy.

 Now this is where it gets interesting.  On Ancestry.com one researcher wrote a story about a mystery involving Pleasant Eastridge.  Apparently he married and had about 12 children, then one day disappeared; this apparently happened in 1850, which is oft cited as Pleasant’s date of death. However, it was eventually discovered that Pleasant had left his family, changed his name to Estridge, remarried (bigamously), and started a second family (all the children of which have birth dates after 1850).  The researcher states (correctly, I believe) that Pleasant’s actual date of death is not known. Though the researcher has Pleasant listed as the son of Henry Eastridge and Elizabeth Floyd, he is listed elsewhere as the son of James Eastridge and Lucy Bolinger (James Campbell’s ancestors). 

 

To sum up, without the documentation so desired by genealogical researchers, it is not possible to conclude definitively that Louisa (Eliza) Eastridge and, thus, James Campbell, are descended from the Cherokee chief, Dragging Canoe, but it is at least a possibility that bears further research. 

 

Sources (in order mentioned):
 

“Eastridge Family History.” Ancestry.com.  <http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=eastridge> Accessed 26 February 2013.

 Internet Surname Database. < http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Eastridge >  Accessed 26 February 2013.

Our Roots Are Deep. < http://myrootsaredeep.blogspot.com/2010/04/dragging-canoe.html > Accessed 26 February 2013.

Baby Name World. < http://www.babynameworld.com/cherokee-p-25.asp >  Accessed 26 February 2013.

“Mysterious Questions Remain for Me.”  Pleasant Eastridge entry.  The Money Family Tree.  Ancestry.com.  < http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/17253780 >  Accessed 26 February 2013.

 “Cherokee.”  Wikipedia.  < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee > Accessed 3 March 2013.

 “Dragging Canoe.”  Wikipedia.  < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragging_Canoe >  Accessed 3 March 2013.

 

Images:

Image of the Smoky Mountains.  "Great Smoky Mountains.  Wikipedia.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Mountains>  Accessed 3 March 2013.

Image of Chief Dragging Canoe. Chattanooga Parent Magazine.  <http://chattanoogaparentmagazine.com/2012/02/the-fracas-over-franklin/> Accessed 3 March 2013.
 

 © Eileen Cunningham, 2013

 

Link:
http://geneabloggers.com

Workday Wednesday - The Ogden Family: Stone Church Builders - Gard Line

In 1640, the immigrant brothers John and Richard Ogden from Bradley Plain, Hampshire, England, arrived at the port of Southampton, Long Island. This particular John Ogden (b. 1609) is referred to in history as John “the Pilgrim” Ogden to differentiate him from his cousin, also named John Ogden, and pilgrim indeed he was.

William Ogden Wheeler, a descendant of John Ogden and author of the book The Ogden Family in America, says this about John the Pilgrim: “It is true that a close study of the ‘good old times’ reveals the presence and doings of many selfish and unscrupulous men, and the Colonial period thus loses much of its pristine fascination; yet the sturdy, self- poised, resolute, and godly Pilgrims and Quakers, whose righteous principles and lives were interwoven in the American fabric of civil and religious liberties, are to be held in the highest veneration by their numerous descendants. To this class belonged John Ogden, the Pilgrim . . . .”

John Ogden and his son after him, David Ogden, were stone church builders. At the time of Ogden’s arrival on this continent, New York was a Dutch colony called New Amsterdam. Like many of the early Americans, the Dutch immigrants were members of the Reformed religion, that is, they followed the teachings of John Calvin (much like the Presbyterians of Scotland). One of their early needs, therefore, was the construction of a church. To this end, they employed John the Pilgrim to build a stone church in New Amsterdam. The image above right depicts the church the Ogdens built, rising above other buildings in Fort Amsterdam, while the plan of New Amsterdam (below right) shows the sizable area given over to the church and churchyard in the southwest corner of the town.

 

Wheeler provides these details about the church's construction: “A contract was drawn up in May, 1642, setting forth an agreement between Governor William Kieft, Gisbert op Dyck, and Thomas Willet, of New Amsterdam, Church-wardens, to build a stone church in the fort, 72 ft. by 50 ft. and 16 ft. above the soil, for the sum of 2500 guilders (about $1000), to be paid in cash, beaver or other merchandise; if the work was done ‘in a workmanlike manner’ 100 extra guilders were to be paid the contractors, John Ogden and his brother Richard, both of Stamford, Conn. It was stipulated that the latter should be allowed the use of the company's boat to ferry the stone ashore near the fort, the wardens agreeing to carry the stone from the shore to the fort, and to furnish the lime with which to lay them.”

The old stone church of Fairfield Township, New Jersey (left), which still stands, is of the type that David Ogden built. Though the style was influenced by the Quaker churches of the era, this was a Presbyterian church. Interestingly, the graves of numerous Ogdens are in the churchyard.

A resident of Newark, New Jersey, David Ogden (b. 1639), son of John the Pilgrim, was also a stone church builder. Wheeler notes that the Newark Town Records of 1670 state that “nearly all the trades and callings necessary to the convenience and comfort of the colony were represented”; among them is mentioned “a stone church builder, David Ogden.”

http://geneabloggers.com

Sources:

Free Amsterdam. http://www.freeamsterdam.nl/news/culture-and-history/amsterdam-history/oldnew-amsterdam.html

Fairfield Township, NJ. Web. http://www.fairfieldtownshipnj.org/default.asp?contentID=6

Wheeler, William Ogden. The Ogden Family in America, Elizabethtown Branch, and Their English Ancestry: John Ogden, the Pilgrim, and His Descendants, 1640-1906. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/william-ogden-wheeler/the-ogden-family-in-america-elizabethtown-branch-and-their-english-ancestry-j-eeh/page-2-the-ogden-family-in-america-elizabethtown-branch-and-their-english-ancestry-j-eeh.shtml

© Eileen Cunningham, 2013

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
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