The John Stephen McFadin
Family
OF NORTH CAROLINA, KENTUCKY
INDIANA AND KANSAS
by
Maude A. McFadin M.A.
[Died in Wichita, Kansas on July 25, 1982, a retired teacher. It sure would
be nice if someone could send me a good picture of Maude to include. The
book cover did not scan well at all. If you are Maude's family please contact
Jim.]
Including Memoirs of
George E. McFadin
Copyright © 1971 by Maude A. McFadin
Library of Congress Catalog No. 70-187713
Printed in U.S.A.
Mennonite Press Inc.
North Newton, Kansas 67117
In Loving Memory of My Parents,
George and Bertha McFadin,
of My Sister Frances, and My Brother Jack
Who Gave Me Encouragement, Help, and Hope
That Through This Study, The
Early McFadins Might Be
Remembered
Contents
Page
Introduction 7
Part One. John Stephen McFadin Family 1760's-1855 in North Carolina, Kentucky
and Indiana
Chapter
1. John Stephen McFadin of Maryland and North Carolina 11
2. William, Eldest Son of John Stephen McFadin 16
3. James McFadin, Second Son of John Stephen McFadin 21
4. John McFadin, Jr., Third Son of John Stephen McFadin 23
5. Samuel McFadin, Fourth Son of John Stephen McFadin 26
6. Elias McFadin, Fifth Son of John Stephen McFadin 28
7. Andrew McFadin, Sr., Sixth Son of John Stephen McFadin 31
8. Stephen, Alexander and Margaret—Younger Children of John Stephen McFadin
42
9. Andrew McFadin, Jr., (Slim Andy), Son of Andrew Sr., and Grandson of John
Stephen McFadin 45
10. Younger Children of Andrew McFadin, Sr. 53
Part Two. Andrew Hogan McFadin Reaches Kansas 1855
11. Andrew Hogan McFadin, son of Slim Andy, Grandson of Andrew, Sr., and
Great-Grandson of John Stephen McFadin 57
12. Kansas in Early Times—Written in 1930 by George Edwin McFadin 1849-1933
63
1 3. George Edwin McFadin, Son of Andrew Hogan McFadin; Great-Great-Grandson
of John Stephen McFadin 87
14. Children of George and Bertha McFadin; Great-Great-Great-Grandchildren
of John Stephen McFadin 89
15. Younger Children of Andrew Hogan McFadin 98
16. Future Research of the McFadin Family 104
Chart of Land Owned in Kentucky by the McFadin Family 107
Bibliography 110
[page numbers from book--you will have to search or page
down to them.]
Introduction
Among the Clans of Scotland the McFadins
are listed as a Sept of the Clan Maclain of Loc Buie. Their native place
is in the Western Highlands and the Isles.
In the sixth century and later groups from old Scotia (Ireland) crossed the
narrow waters to Pictland (Scotland) and gave their name to their new home.
During the following centuries these Scots moved back and forth. There were
seemingly continuous wars among the clans and some clans were weakened almost
to extinction. To survive, these weakened clans joined under the leadership
of some powerful friendly clan leader; thus, the ancient McFadin Clan became
a Sept of the Clan Maclain of Loch Buie.
It is believed that John McFadin of North Carolina belongs to this Sept.
He was a Scot, born in North Ireland of Scot parents, and came to America
with his parents.
The name of McFadin has been spelled as variously as the name of Shakespeare.
The early McFadins in America spelled the name either with an "in" or "en"
ending. However the spelling has changed through the years. The writer has
spelled the name as the owner spelled it.
This study of the McFadins is far from complete research must be carried
back to include the parents of John and his brothers and sisters. That work
must be left to future historians. Many years have gone into this research.
and as a result, a great deal of information has accumulated, so much, in
fact, that it is now necessary to put it into permanent form. Time is running
out for the writer.
To the many people who have encouraged and contributed to the research, we
extend our thanks. These people have been especially helpful: Ann McFadin
Miller of Corpus Christi; Dr. Francis Woody Werking, Evansville, Indiana,
Burlison historian; Mr. B. T. Pisely and Mr. Guy Cleveland, Clerks of the
Posey County Indiana Court, who thoroughly searched the records there for
McFadin data; Mrs. N. L. Hampton (a descendant of John McFadin). Mrs. Hampton's
family still own the land where old Fort McFadin stood, just west of Rutherfordton,
North Carolina. Mrs. Ward C. Sumpter of Bowling Green, Ky. After Mrs. B. O.
Hanby's death her notes on the early Mount Vernon McFadins were sent to the
writer.
Information has lately come concerning perhaps an earlier generation of John
McFadin's family. Thanks go to the historians who have worked on this early
Andrew McFadin Family of Maine. These historians are Mrs. Grace Lewsthop of
Seattle, Washington; Mrs. Arthur Gilmore, Manchester, New Hampshire; Mrs.
George McFadden of Winchester, Massachusetts; and Mrs. Bradbury Clark of Portland,
Maine.
Chapter XVI will contain a brief resumé of the Maine McFadins. This
chapter has been left to the last since the writer feels it will be more
meaningful to the reader to read first about the North Carolina McFadins.
Signatures of the McFadins
John Stephen McFadin
c1700 1777
Andrew McFadin, Sr.
c 1750 1816
Andrew McFadin, Jr.
1794 1847
Andrew Hogan McFadin
1817 1875
George Edwin McFadin
1849 1933
Jack L. McFadden
1896 1971
PART ONE
John Stephen McFadin Family
1760's 1855
In North Carolina, Kentucky
and Indiana
John or Stephen McFadin, as he was named
by his son William in settling John's estate, was born about 1700 in Ireland.
He came to America when he was a young man and was for a time in Massachusetts.
Later he was in Maryland.
Actual records begin when he brought his family down into old Tryon County,
North Carolina, some time in the 1760's. His earliest land grant was dated
16th December, 1769. This grant gave him title to three hundred acres on
McFadin Creek on the Second Broad River. Included in this title were "all
his improvements. Department of State, Raleigh, North Carolina: Land Grant
No. 323, Book 20, page 538, File 227.) This document was signed by William
Tryon, Governor of the colony of North Carolina.
In 1770, George Dickey sold to John McFadin three hundred acres of land.
In 1774, John McFadin, Jr., sold to John McFadin, Sr., two hundred acres,
both parcels of land were on Mountain Creek. (Register of Deeds, Lincoln County,
Lincolnton, North Carolina , First sale Book I, p. 74; second sale, Book
II, p. 227.)
The exact year of the move from Maryland, is not known. Tradition indicates
that the family came from New England and their place of residence in Maryland
was near Hagerstown, but these points are not proved. John's youngest son,
Alexander, in 1832, in h is request for a Revolutionary War Pension, stated
that he, Alexander, had been born in Maryland in 1760. The statement in John's
land grant "and all his improvements" suggests that he may have been on his
land and improved it before the land was legally granted to him.
Other land records show that his sons had settled near the father whose land
had on it an Old fort. This was known during the Revolution as Old Fort McFadin.
In dividing his property at the time of his death John left to Stephen his
seventh son, land on the west side of Mountain Creek, and to Alexander the
east side of the creek. (Lincoln County Superior Court, Lincolnton, North
Carolina, Will of John McFadin, 1777.)
Old Fort McFadin was one of three forts established before the Revolution
for protection of the settlers from raiding Indians; but, as the tension grew
and the war broke out, the Loyalists, who were strong in that part of the
country, became a greater menace than the Indians. The fort was possibly only
a stockade and a reinforced log building. In 1777 the Loyalists attacked the
fort and destroyed it.
Samuel Espy in his disposition October 31, 1832, for a Revolutionary War
pension stated that from July to August 1776, he was stationed at Fort McFadin
under command of Colonel William Graham who had been ordered to reinforce
the troops there. It was during that summer that the North Carolina Militia
were gathering there for the Cherokee Expedition. (Draper, MSS., State Historical
Society, Madison, Wisconsin, 2DD 136, 137.)
A descendant of Alexander, John's youngest son, now owns the old McFadin
land. She is Mrs. N. L. Hampton, Rutherfordton, North Carolina. This property
lies about three miles west of the town of Rutherfordton and is near the old
Miller-Twitty graveyard that was in use two hundred years ago.
Mrs. Hampton said that the old McFadin graveyard is on their place; members
of the family were buried in the forepart of the plot and their slaves were
buried farther back. The graves are marked, head and foot, with plain stones;
but she could find no inscriptions on any of the stones. She further stated
that her father knew who were buried there.
During the growing dangers of war on the 25th day of March, 1776 John or
Stephen McFadin wrote his will which was witnessed by his two friends and
neighbors, David Dickey and Thomas Walker. John named his wife, Hannah, and
a daughter, Margaret. He named his eight sons beginning with the eldest, "William
my beloved and oldest son." Others in order of their births were: James;
John; Samuel; Elias; Andrew; Stephen; and Alexander.
Hannah was to have the use of the home plantation during her life. He had
already provided for the older sons. To Stephen and Alexander he left the
home place to be divided equally after their mother's death. His will was
probated on July 17, 1777.
By 1782-83 Hannah must have died because the estate was being divided between
Stephen and Alexander. By that date William, Andrew, John, and James had
left Rutherford County and were in eastern Tennessee. Their acknowledgements
to Alexander, who was administrating the estate, are documented.
There is a conviction as one studies this family that Hannah may have been
the second wife, and that there was an earlier marriage of John Stephen's
in Massachusetts.
The writer has been unable to find a record of the births of any of these
sons except Alexander's statement of his own birth. A member of this family,
possibly their cousin, was another John McFadin, born in Maryland, and a
soldier in the Revolution, who mentioned a McFadin Bible. On August, 28,
1832, this Maryland John McFadin, then living in Augusta County, Virginia,
stated that he was born nine miles from Hagerstown, Maryland, on September
15, 1760, that the record of his birth was in the McFadin family Bible, but
it had been taken into Kentucky by members of the family. (Lyman Chalkley,
Record of Abstracts of Augusta County, Virginia, Vol. II, p. 469.)
This statement was true about the Bible. After John Stephen McFadin's death,
the Bible had passed into possession of the sixth son, Andrew McFadin who
had gone out to Kentucky right after the Revolution. After Andrew's death
at McFadin's Bluffs, Indiana, in 1816, the Bible went to Andrew's second
son Raleigh (Rolly); later to Raleigh's son David, still in Mt. Vernon. About
1900 David, then an old man, took his possessions and went to Missouri to
live with his daughter. The house burned and all was lost. This story was
told to the writer in 1930 by Mrs. B. O. Hanby, a historian in Mt. Vernon
who had spent her mature years talking with the old settlers. She regretted
that she did not know the daughter's name nor her place of residence. However,
Mrs. Hanby had seen the Bible many times and said the dates in the Bible went
back about two hundred years. She remembered that the Bible had been published
in Scotland. This item is added to show the reader the many disappointments
that come to a family historian.
Descendants of different sons of John Stephen McFadin agree that he was
Scotch-Irish, born in North Ireland of Scotch ancestry, and came to America
as a youth with his parents. The family were Covenanters, strict Presbyterians,
later in America. They were educated men, patriotic citizens and many held
public office.
Not far from old Fort McFadin was the Scotch church of Little Brittain, established
by the Scots in 1768. It was disappointing to learn that the Historical Foundation
of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, at Montreat, North Carolina, which
have the records of Little Brittain, write that their records of that church
begin as late as 1859. The writer has been unable to find any records of
Little Brittain prior to 1859.
One wonders why John Stephen in his late sixties left the settled parts of
Maryland for the unsettled parts of North Carolina. There were various reasons.
The sons needed more land. All these sons were trained as surveyors and the
opening West needed them. The Scotch-Irish were leaving Pennsylvania and
Maryland and moving down the valleys into Virginia and the Carolinas.
It is not known whether the family left Maryland at the same time, or whether
the older sons went first. In 1772 William was settled in Anson County, North
Carolina, where he was a juror.
It is interesting to read (Robert W. Ramsey's Carolina Cradle, Settlement
of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747-1762; University of North Carolina
Press, 1964).
One finds in Ramsey's list of early settlers on Davidson's Creek the names
of friends of the McFadins; Andrew Logan; Jonathan and Adam Hampton; Robert
Taylor, Sr.; Anthony Dickey; David Dickey; Joshua Taylor; and Thomas Walker.
In 1776 David Dickey and Thomas Walker with others named here were in Rutherford
County and these last two signed John Stephen's will as witnesses on March
25, 1776.
During the Revolution all of John Stephen's sons served in various ways.
After the war only Stephen and Alexander remained in North Carolina. Elias
was dead, but the other sons had gone into Tennessee and Kentucky.
What has been learned of the lives of these eight brothers will be given
in the following chapters.
Chapter 2
William, Eldest Son of
John Stephen McFadin
In his beautiful handwriting John Stephen
wrote, "To William, my Beloved and oldest son . . ."
The place and date of William's birth are both unknown. He died before 1812
at McFadin's Bluff, later renamed Mount Vernon, Indiana Both William and
wife Rachael (Hendricks) McFadin are buried in a private graveyard on the
Templeton farm near Mount Vernon. William may have been in his seventies
at the time of his death. Markers are gone.
Shortly after 1783 William joined his brothers Andrew, John, and James in
eastern Tennessee, where James and Andrew surveyed several roads. Some time
later William returned to North Carolina and later brought out his family,
settling after 1785 farther up on Big Barren River, at least ten miles above
Andrew McFadin's Station which was some four miles from the present Bowling
Green, Kentucky, in Warren County. Name, date of birth, and death date of
William's first wife are unknown.
On October 18, 1789 William married Rachel Hendricks who was then living
with her mother Elizabeth and her brother Thomas at McFadin Station settlement
Rachel's sister, also named Elizabeth had married Edward Hogan of Sumner County,
Tennessee, in 1783. Both of these marriage records are on file in the Sumner
County Courthouse at Gallatin, Tennessee.
Indian troubles plagued the settlers in Kentucky, in the late 1780's through
the 1790's. In 1786 and again in 1793 the men went out to drive back the
Indians. A story is told about William's young daughter Martha having shot
an Indian as the warrior was trying to steal the horses out of the corral
at the Station. Several versions of the story have been handed down, but all
agree the young girl was guarding a porthole when the incident occurred. Whether
this happened in Kentucky in 1786 or 1793, no one now knows. Lyman Draper
referred to. the attack on McFadin's Station as occurring in April of 1786.
(Lyman - Draper MS. 9CC7, April 1786. McFadin's Station, Wisconsin State
Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.)
In retelling the story a hundred years later, W. P. Leonard in his History
and Directory of Posey County, Indiana, page 21, assumed. that the event
took place in Indiana before or during the War of 1812. The story, however,
did not happen to Mary, Martha's sister, as Leonard states. It was Mary's
descendants who treasured the story about their Aunt Martha.
On October 2, 1790 William and Andrew with some two hundred other settlers
south of the Green River in Kentucky signed a "Petition of the Early Inhabitants
of Kentucky to the General Assembly of Virginia, 1769-1792." This petition
was a request for Virginia to establish a court nearer the settlers who found
the trip to distant courts dangerous because of the Indians. (James Robertson,
Kentucky Legislative Petition, Historical Archives of Virginia, Richmond:
Document No. 79. Pages 141, 142.)
Consult the land chart for Kentucky land owned by William.
William had a large family of children. In a suit filed in Warren County,
Kentucky, after William's death, is the first statement that William had died.
His death date was previous to the date of the land suit May 27, 1812. He
had died in Indiana. (Equity No. 73, Warren County, Kentucky, Circuit Court,
Bowling Green, Kentucky.)
In this land case, William's wife Rachael is named. The children's names
follow: Mary; John; William, Jr.; Noah; Catherine; Squire; Andrew; Elizabeth;
Rebecca; and James. These children are not named m the order of their births.
Omitted were: Martha; Gouvenour; and Lucinda.
After Rachael's death in Mount Vernon, Indiana, John born in 1792, was appointed
guardian of his minor sisters and brothers. These children were: James; born
March 26, 1800, over sixteen. Noah, born June 10, 1802. Gouvenour, born April
10, 1804. Rebecca, born February 5, 1806. Lucinda, "Out of the State," possibly
the youngest. (Posey County, Indiana, Circuit Court Probate Book A., June
10, 1817.)
Mrs. B. O. Hanby of Mount Vernon, Indiana, a local historian gave to the
writer a partial list of these children and a little information about their
later years.
William, Jr., died in Posey County and was buried at Templeton's graveyard.
John moved to Owensville, Indiana, and later to Missouri where he settled
in Lexington.
James died in the East.
Lucinda married M. W. G. Sproule and moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
Polly or Mary, the first white woman in Posey County married Sam Bradley
of Mount Vernon. Patsy or Martha who shot the Indian, married three times,
first to her cousin Peter Hendricks, son of Thomas Hendricks who was a brother
of Patsy's mother Rachel. Second, she married _____ Givens; and her third
marriage was to another cousin _____ James. Noah lived and died in Posey County,
Indiana, and left many descendants there.
The writer was able to find the descendants of John McFadin, born in 1792
at McFadin Station, Kentucky. About 1813 John married Lucinda Davis, a cousin
of Jefferson Davis later President of the Southern Confederacy. Tradition
says there were six children of this marriage, but the writer found records
of only Jane and John, Jr. Lucinda died in 1824. John moved to Owensville,
Indiana in 1825. (Montgomery, D. B., History of Southern Indiana and History
of the Montgomery Family.)
In 1830 John McFadin, son of William, married a second wife, (Betsy) Elizabeth
Montgomery. In 1844 the family moved to Lexington, Missouri, where John bought
land near the town and built a large house.
When the gold rush came in 1849, John and his son John, Jr., made the trip
to California. It was a long trip and they did not get rich. By 1854 both
men were back in Lexington.
At heart John Sr., son of William, was a Southern sympathizer, and as tension
between the sections of the country became more violent, John spoke out openly
in favor of slavery and secession. The Missourians were more or less divided
as to their loyalties, and Northern groups and Southern groups often clashed.
Especially was this true after the Civil War began.
When John McFadin, Sr., flew the Stars and Bars from his front porch that
October 4, 1862, Northern sympathizers took John, Sr., out into his own cornfield
that night and shot him. They left the murdered man lying there for his family
to find. These facts were told to the writer by John's descendant Mrs. Fanny
McFadin Moreland, a great-granddaughter of John, Sr. Her home, the house
that John, Sr., built, is called "Reidmore" near Lexington, Missouri.
Another son of William was James, born in 1800 in Kentucky. On September
28, 1821 he married Jane Fenner in Posey County, Indiana. This marriage record
is at the Posey County Courthouse, Mount Vernon, Indiana.
William's daughter Catherine, born in Kentucky, married Thomas Duckworth
at Mount Vernon, Indiana, on October 21, 1815. (Marriage record at the Posey
County Court House in Mount Vernon, Indiana.)
Gouvenour, another son of William, is said to have gone to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
William McFadin, Jr., lived and died in Posey County. His will is on file
at the courthouse there. He named his children: Joseph, Anne E., Volley,
Martha, John B., and Fieldin.
William's military record is rather sketchy. John Gwathmey in his Historical
Register, Virginians in the Revolution, lists John, James, Alexander,
and Sam, but not William McFadin in the Revolution. King's Mountain Men,
by Katherine Keogh White, spells his name Wm. McSpedden with the statement
that "It is claimed he was with Evan Shelby in the Chicamauga Expedition."
See page 206. His land warrants are in the Virginia State Library. The writer
has not checked these military statements. They are added for further study.
James was born before the family left
New England for Maryland, but the date of his birth is not known. He died
in Kentucky previous to July 28, 1830, when his son John exchanged Warrant
No. 6746 for bounty land script, issued under the Act of May 30, 1830. The
script was surrendered in January 27, 1831, to the Receiver of the United
States Land Office in Indianapolis, Indiana, in payment for land.
This Bounty Warrant to James McFadin was for 4,000 acres of land. It was
unclaimed during James' life. After James' death the Warrant No. 6746 was
given to son John on July 28, 1830. It reads: "This shall be your Warrant
to survey and lay off in one or m ore surveys for John McFadin (McFadon) his
heir or assigns, 4000 acres of land to the said McFadin, heir-at law to James
McFadin, deceased; in consideration of his services as Captain of Artillery,
Virginia Continental Line during the Revolutionary War."
(Land Office Military Warrant No. 6746 issued to John McFadon, heir
of James McFadon, dec'd. National Archives Record Services, Washington, D.C.)
James' War Record: Second Lieutenant, First Continental Artillery, January
1, 1777; First Lieutenant, March 22, 1777; Captain, November 1, 1779; served
to the end of the War. (John H. Gwathmey, Historical Register of Virginians
in the Revolution.) He further states that James McPhaddin was in the
Illinois Regiment, but the date is not given.
When the War began James was stationed at his home, Old Fort McFadin, and
served under Colonel William Graham; also he went on the Cherokee Expedition
in the late summer of 1776. Captain Moore wrote of this expedition:
"Captain McFadin and myself took a small party of men . . . to make further
discoveries, and left the main body of the Army behind."
After the expedition left the Cherokee towns, Captain Moore continued, "Captain
McFadin is going to see your honor at Congress." (The Colonial Records
of North Carolina, Vol. X, p. 897. Pub. by order of the North Carolina
General Assembly.)
On March 20, 1788, James McFadin married Martha Graham, daughter of John
Graham. The Grahams were settlers in Mercer County, Kentucky, as early as
1783. (Lincoln County, Kentucky Court Records, Stanford, Kentucky.) also,
(Mrs. Harry Kennett McAdams. Kentucky Pioneer and Court Records, p.
115, Genealogical Pub. Co. Baltimore: 1967).
The writer knows of only two children of James and Martha McFadin. They are
John, born about 1790, and Synthia McFadin Williams, born in 1792, in Garrard
County, Kentucky, who died December 23, 1853, aged 61 years. Parents were
James and Martha McFadin. (Kentucky State Historical Society Register.
1914. Vol. 43, p. 164.)
So far James' will has not been located.
John McFadin, Jr., Third Son of
John Stephen McFadin
Samuel McFadin, Fourth Son of
John Stephen McFadin
Chapter 6
Elias McFadin, Fifth Son of
John Stephen McFadin
Chapter 7
Andrew McFadin, Sr., Sixth Son of
John Stephen McFadin
Andrew was born about 1750 or later and
died before February 26, 1816. He was at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811,
and also fought in the War of 1812, as a mounted rifleman. He was seemingly
well and active at that time, only four or five years before hi s death.
His second wife Volley was also born about 1750 or later, died in 1840. These
dates give only an idea of his age. It is not known whether Andrew was born
in Massachusetts or Maryland. Date and place are left for further research.
Like all his brothers, Andrew took some part in the Revolutionary War (Department
of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina, Revolutionary War Army
Accounts, Vol. XI, p. 18, Folio 1). This is a military list, dated November
1777, showing that the United States of America had paid to the State of
North Carolina 56 pounds to Andrew McFadin and to Adam Hampton "for services."
Also listed "for services" were Captain William Green and Company. The exact
date, place, and unit of Andrew's services are not known. Research is continuing
for the years of the Revolution for Andrew's record.
After the Revolution Andrew was with his brothers, Captain James McFadin
in eastern Tennessee and later they joined John. Listed in the Lincoln County
Court (Kentucky Order Book for 1781 - 1791, September Court 1783) is the following:
"Andrew McFagin, gentleman of good character, having Intentions to travel
southwardly down the Mississippi on merchantile business, we desire that all
persons let him pass and repass about his lawful business and pay a due respect
to him which is justly due to his character and, also that his assistants
may be unmolested."
It was about this time that Andrew began his trading trips to New Orleans.
(See also "The Kentucky Genealogist," a quarterly, Pub. Washington D.C., Editor
Martha Porter Miller. July-Sept. 1969 issue, p. 107.)
In 1784 James, John, and Andrew were on Sulphur Creek. Andrew had settled
first on Cumberland River. He also had land on Silver Creek, a branch of Red
River in Logan County in what is now Kentucky. By 1785 he was establishing
his Station on Big Barren River in Warren County. He also had a ferry across
Big Barren River near his Station. This is about four miles above the present
Bowling Green, Kentucky.
The Station was on high ground on the north bank of the river and a good
spring was nearby. Settlers coming into the country turned south on the Cumberland
Trace for Nashville at this point. Andrew's buildings were strong enough
for protection from Indian raids. Here the travelers could rest, get fresh
supplies, mend their wagons, and get news and advice for their journey down
to Nashville (Lewis Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. I, p. 20).
(For land grants in Kentucky see the McFadin Chart of Land Grants in Kentucky.)
André Michaux, a Frenchman traveling in Kentucky, wrote in his Journal
that he had stopped at McFadin's Station on June 24, 1795.
"I passed by Big Barren River. The man who has the Station there, is well
supplied with provisions." In a footnote Thwartes stated that the man was
Andrew McFadin who was well known in that part of Kentucky. (Reuben Gold
Thwaites, Early Western Travels 1748-1846, Vol. 3, pp. 63, 64.)
On file at the Barren County Courthouse, Glasgow, Kentucky, is a deposition
by Edmund Rogers that between 1785-1790, he, Edmund Rogers, Abraham Chapline,
and Andrew McFadin had surveyed and entered almost all the land between Skaggs
Creek and Big Barren River on military warrants belonging to the Virginia
State Line.
Thomas Crittenden Cherry in his book (Kentucky, the Pioneer State of the
West, p. 160), quotes a letter written by Daphne Tiller to her mother.
The letter dated 2nd March, 1794, Gasper River in Warren County tells of
a Mr. McFadin, hunting for his stray horses, found the Tillers alone. He begged
them to move up to where he lived because it was not safe for them on Gasper
River.
Lewis Collins in his History of Kentucky, Vol. 2, p. 710, tells an
amusing story of a young Virginian, new to the frontier, who bragged that
he could outrun anyone in old Kentucky. Andrew McFadin loved a good joke
and felt that the braggart needed a lesson, so he asked the Virginian if
he would run barefoot or shod.
"Barefoot !"
Andrew agreed to find a runner, fix the time and place, and give a jug of
whiskey for the prize. The Virginian agreed to the terms.
Andrew chose the day and selected the racetrack and the settlers came to
see the race. The track that Andrew had chosen was the flintiest piece of
ground in all the country.
The Virginian's opponent was a hunter, named Raymer, who had gone barefoot
for so long that the soles of his feet were like horn. The race began and
Raymer shot off down the track; but the Virginian dropped out early, to the
delight of the settlers. After that, Collins says, the place was called Raymer's
Race Track.
Andrew's first marriage was before 1793, but the name of his first wife is
unknown. She died in 1798, probably in Tennessee where she had gone for the
birth of their third child, Raleigh (Rolly). There were three children of
this marriage: Andrew Jr., born in Kentucky about 1794; Hannah, born in Kentucky
in 1797; and Raleigh (Rolly) born in Tennessee in 1798, shortly before his
mother's death. The birth dates for Hannah and Rolly were furnished to the
writer by Dr. Francis Woody Werking who took the data from the gravestones.
Andrew's second marriage was to Volley Burleyson (Burlison) widow of Aaron
Burlison III. The marriage bond, dated March 15, 1799 and the marriage record,
dated June 1, 1799, are in the Warren County Courthouse at Bowling Green,
Kentucky. The old records had been recopied about 900 and the Burleyson name
had been misspelled. In 1962 while the records there were being microfilmed,
the marriage bond was found and the correct spelling copied on the marriage
record.
Volly Burlison was widowed in 1784 when her husband Aaron III was murdered
by Indians in eastern Tennessee. He owned land on Lick Creek, Penson Creek
and the Nolichucky River in Washington County.
Mrs. B. O. Hanby, historian at Mount Vernon, gave this version of the murder
which was told to her by the Burlison descendants.
Aaron had had a dream that he would be killed by Indians. A few days after
this dream he was returning home with a small son riding behind him on the
horse. They were passing beside a tall, thick canebrake when Aaron saw Indians
lurking in the woods. Aaron was sure the little boy had not been seen. He
whispered to the boy to hide in the canebrake; that Indians were nearby,
and slid the child to the ground beside the canebrake. The Indians shot and
killed Aaron, but they were afraid to come near the body. Aaron had a trick
of playing dead; then, when the Indian came near enough to scalp him, he
would spring up and slay the Indian. Aaron was not scalped and the child escaped.
This may have been the eldest son Moses, about nine years old.
After Aaron's death Volley and her mother-in-law Rachel Burlison were two
widows with many children who went back to North Carolina. Rachel's husband
Aaron II had been killed by Indians only a few years earlier. Some time in
the 1790's Volley was in Sumner County, Tennessee, where the Edward Hogans
lived. Just what relationship she was to this family is not clear. Was she
a sister of Edward's wife Elizabeth Hendricks, or was she Edward's sister?
Children of Volley and Aaron Burlison III were:
1. Moses, born in 1775, in Warren County, Tennessee; married 9th March 1805,
in Warren County, Kentucky, to Delilah Hogan, daughter of Edward Hogan of
Sumner County, Tennessee. Moses died in 1828.
2. Aaron Burlison IV, born in Tennessee; married Elizabeth Hampton in Warren
County, Kentucky. Lived near his mother in Mount Vernon, Indiana.
3. John Burlison, born 1780, in Tennessee; married Milly Hendricks on September
4, 1805, in Warren County, Kentucky; buried at West Franklin, Posey County.
4. Rachel Burlison, born in 1784, in Greene County, Tennessee; married Samuel
Gill 9th of June 1804, in Warren County, Kentucky; died in Posey County,
Indiana, on February 18, 1848.
5. Adam Burlison—went out to Texas.
The above marriage dates are at the Warren County Courthouse at Bowling Green,
Kentucky. The names and other information were furnished by the Burlison
historian, Dr. Francis Woody Werking of Evansville, Indiana.
Adam and one other son went to Texas, but historians do not agree on which
other one went.
These Burlison children were Andrew's stepchildren and he was guardian for
the three younger ones. In 1799 and 1800 Andrew was appointed attorney for
young John Burlison to sell three pieces of land on Big Lick Creek on the
west side of the Nolichucky River in East Tennessee. John had inherited the
land from his father, Aaron.
At the time of her marriage to Andrew in 1799, Volley had reared her own
five Burlison children. Then she became stepmother to Andrew's little ones.
Andrew Jr., born about 1794; Hannah born in 1797; both of these born in Kentucky;
and Raleigh (Rolly) born in 1798 in Tennessee shortly before his mother's
death. Then Volley had three McFadin sons: James; Samuel; and Alexander,
all three born before the family left Kentucky in 1806.
Indian troubles had steadily grown worse as settlers continued to come into
these western lands. In 1798, Governor James Garrard called out the Kentucky
Militia. On 8 February, 1798 he appointed Andrew McFadin Major of the 25th
Warren County Regiment. (G. Glenn Cliff, The Cornstalk Militia of Kentucky,
1792-1811.)
Lewis Collins in his History of Kentucky states that there is no doubt that
Daniel Boone passed through Allen County, following down the river as far
as McFadin's Station. Tradition states that after the McFadins moved across
the Ohio River, Daniel Boone visited them there; also that Andrew made a
trip out to Missouri to see his old friend. A "very old" document was found
in the Warren County Courthouse at Bowling Green, Kentucky. It is a list
of names of men living in that community who were to work on the road from
Henry Cammel's to Andrew McFadin's. The date is not given, but it would be
before or about 1800. These men were Andrew's neighbors.
Levy Compton Henry Cammel
1 Negro Peter Burkals
Robert Strader Wm. Steward
1 Negro John Nelser (?)
John Strader Peter Boucher
Samuel Strader Obed Boucher
Joshua Jourdan Joseph Leet
Thomas Coleman Abraham Devol Howard
Stephen Richey John Howard
Henry Howard John Burleson
Samuel Hays Andrew Hampton
Wm. Hays Richard Glover
Henry Thomas Dorrett White
Wm. Long Peter Boucher
Andrew McFadin Lewis (?) Compton
Elias McFadin
Sometime in the late 1790's Andrew, Sr., and his older brother William, on
hunting trips across the Ohio River, found the high bluff on the north bank
of the river and planned to move their families north to this new land as
soon as it was safe to do so. However, at that time all the territory north
of the Ohio was Indian Country. But in 1803 the United States opened this
Northwest Territory to settlement. People could then buy the land, get it
surveyed, and legally own it. (W. P. Leonard, History and Directory of
Posey County, 1882, pp. 54, 55.)
During the winter of 1805-'06 Andrew and William lived on the Bluff, and
with the help of others who were there at intervals they built stout cabins
in preparation for bringing their families from Kentucky to the new territory
in the spring of 1806 (Goodspeed Publishing Co., History of Posey County,
Indiana, pp. 357-358, 361-367; and John C. Liffel, editor, History of
Posey County, Indiana, pp. 87-90).
Late in the spring of 1806, the families came in wagons, bringing their belongings
and livestock. The Ohio River was low and the boats crossed at Diamond Island.
General William Henry Harrison and some officers, camped on the north shore
of the Ohio, surprised the McFadins by welcoming them ashore. Mrs. B. O.
Hanby said that General Harrison, as he handed Mary, William's daughter,
ashore, told her she was the first white woman to land in that part of Indiana.
From the earliest days of the settlement at McFadin's Bluff the Indian danger
was growing. Murders in outlying farms were becoming more frequent. Yet,
in spite of this knowledge, progress was being made in the community.
By 1813 young Squire McFadin, William's son, was operating the first ferryboat
to make regular crossing of the Ohio at Diamond Island. It was a small vessel
propelled by hand. (W. P. Leonard, p. 56.)
Lumber mills were in great demand. The first ones were operated by water
or horse power.
As the year 1811 approached, two Indian brothers, Tecumseh, and the Prophet
in despair at the influx of the white people, decided to make a stand and
fight. General William Henry Harrison was placed in command of the combined
Indiana Militia, the Kentucky Militia, and the United States Troops. On November
7, 1811, this combined force waited, encamped on the Tippecanoe.
The battle began at four o'clock in the morning of November 8, and the Indians
were repulsed. The story of the first shot at the Battle of Tippecanoe will
be told later, in the chapter on Slim Andy, son of the elder Andrew. Both
father and son were present at this battle on November 8, 1811 (General Services
Administration, Washington, D.C., War of 1811-1812 records). Andrew, Sr.,
and son Slim Andy were in Warwick's Company of Infantry, called into the
service of the United States, 16th September, 1811 to 19th November, 1811.
They were in the Fourth Regiment, Indiana Territory Militia.
In 1812 both Andrew, Sr., and son Slim Andy enlisted from September 11th
to November 19th, 1812 as mounted riflemen. They served with Captain Samuel
Kennedy's Company, Fourth Regiment of Indiana Militia. (Goodspeed's History
of Posey County, Indiana, pp. 98-100.)
After the War of 1812 ended, settlers continued to come into southern Indiana;
some came by land but many came by the Ohio River. Crafts on the river were
increasing, canoes, river rafts, and flatboats were common. Supplies were
brought down the river from the settled parts of the upper Ohio Valley. There
was a growing need to sell the produce from the new Territory. Flatboats
were taking corn and salt pork down to New Orleans, but only light river craft
could come back up the river. In the East steamboats had been tried out;
but few, if any people in Posey County, had heard of this new invention of
steam power.
Early in 1811, Mr. Roosevelt had had a steamboat, the "New Orleans," built
at Pittsburgh. As he took this new steam propelled craft down river he was
held up at the falls of the Ohio until the spring floods rose above the falls
so that the "New Orleans" could pass over the falls.
Late one night that spring of 1811 near McFadin's Bluff settlers were awakened
by a throbbing noise on the river. When they left their houses to see what
caused the noise, they were frightened to see a black hulk on the river.
Sparks and flames were belching from its smokestack; and the craft was coming
down river at an incredible rate of speed. Some of the settlers, fearing
bodily harm, fled to the woods. Braver ones watched in astonishment as the
spark-shooting craft approached the Bluff, passed by, down river, into the
night. (W. P. Leonard, pp. 105, 106.)
This was the first steamboat to go down the Ohio-Mississippi rivers. At New
Madrid where the earthquakes had shifted the bed of the Mississippi so that
for a time the great river flowed northward, the "New Orleans" ran into trouble.
But in time this steam-boiler-powered craft reached its destination in the
city of New Orleans.
In 1811, the first flatboat on record, loaded with Posey County produce,
made a successful trip to New Orleans. The flatboat was built at McFadin's
Bluff and was taken south by William McAdoo that winter during the earthquakes.
It carried a cargo of salt pork and corn. (W. P. Leonard, p. 106.)
One wonders if Andrew McFadin, Sr., remembered his merchantile trip to New
Orleans in 1783. His seventeen year-old son, Slim Andy, might try shipping
when he was a little older.
Andrew, Sr., owned land along the river front as well as up in the small
town. This land was where the Nelson House was built later. A cemetery was
also on Andrew's land. It was in this cemetery that Andrew McFadin, Sr., was
buried shortly before February 26, 1816. Four other people had been buried
there (Posey County Court Records, Estate of Andrew McFadin).
Mrs. B. O. Hanby said that Dave McFadin, son of Raleigh (Rolly) and grandson
of Andrew, Sr., had told her this. He said that John Gill had taken him (Dave)
and shown him Andrew's grave on the north side of the Nelson house.
The land had been bought by Nelson after Andrew's death and the hotel built
later.
One must bear in mind that after 1816, the name of McFadin's Bluff was changed
to Mount Vernon.
In 1934 citizens of Mount Vernon placed a monument near this site. The inscription
reads:
"In memory of the McFaddens and Other Pioneer Families, who in 1805 settled
McFadden's Bluff, Later Mount Vernon.
"Site of McFadden's Store and Dwelling. Burial Ground a few feet north.
"Posey County Historical Society 1934."
Note by Maude. This is the way McFadden is now spelled in Mount Vernon.)
Mrs. B. O. Hanby who turned over to the writer notes she had made as she
conversed with older citizens, had a deep love for the old times and places.
Some of those people that she quoted were old when Mrs. Hanby was young. Here
is a description of the McFadins. This paper was written almost one hundred
years ago:
The McFadin men were fairly tall and sparely built. They had fair skin, blue
or gray eyes, and dark brown hair. They were men who could be trusted and
all were well-liked in their community. Some of the McFadins were consumptive
and Mrs. Hanby thought that was why many of the second generation at Mount
Vernon, left the Ohio Valley for a dryer climate.
Looking back over Andrew's long life and considering the uncertainties ahead,
one wonders why in his old age he left the settled community at Bowling Green
to begin all over again. He helped to establish the Kentucky settlement and
also the Indiana one. In his sturdy, hopeful way he helped to carry our nation
onward.
After her husband's death in 1816, Volley again was provider and guide to
a young family. She had her Burlison children near—at least two of them;
also her McFadin stepchildren to help her.
Her last years were spent in Mount Vernon. A grandson, Aaron Burlison, in
his late years spoke lovingly of her as gentle and courageous. He said that
she was very independent, milking her cow until she reached her ninetieth
year. Both the Burlison and McFadin children loved and honored her; in several
of their families one will find a Volley a generation or two later.
The writer did not find her name listed in the U.S. Census 1840 for Mount
Vernon, Indiana. If she was ninety when she died, her birth year might be
near 1750. It is not known where she is buried. One story states at Franklin
near one of her sons.
There were three private graveyards where the McFadins were buried. William
and Rachel McFadin were buried at Templetons. Slim Andy McFadin and wife
Rebecca were buried at Bradley's graveyard.
Other McFadins were buried at the Gill private graveyard. All of these are
near Mount Vernon.
Andrew McFadin, Sr., as already stated, is buried in the center of Mount
Vernon, near the memorial monument.
Chapter 8
Stephen, Alexander and Margaret,
Younger Children of
John Stephen McFadin
Alexander McFadin, Youngest Son
of John Stephen McFadin
Margaret, Only Daughter of
John Stephen McFadin
Chapter 9
Andrew McFadin, Jr., (Slim Andy) Son of
Andrew, Sr., and Grandson of
John Stephen McFadin
Store built in Mount Vernon, Indiana, by Andrew McFadin (Slim) in 1847.
Chapter 10
Younger Children of
Andrew McFadin, Sr.
Hannah McFadin Bradley, Granddaughter of
John Stephen McFadin
Raleigh, Son of Andrew McFadin Sr., and
Grandson of John Stephen McFadin
James, Son of Andrew Sr., and Grandson
of John Stephen McFadin
Samuel McFadin, Son of Andrew McFadin,
Sr., and
Grandson of John Stephen McFadin
Alexander McFadin, Youngest Son of
Andrew McFadin Sr., and Grandson
of John Stephen McFadin
Very little is known of Alexander. He was
Volley's youngest child, born in 1804, in Kentucky. He died in Posey County,
Indiana, on January 5, 1852. There is no record that he ever married; or
if he did marry, his wife died and there were no children. His life was spent
in Mount Vernon. He had some wealth as his will showed. He thoughtfully named
his brothers and sisters and children of each one. His will is on file at
the Posey County Courthouse at Mount Vernon, Indiana.
PART TWO
Andrew Hogan McFadin
Reaches Kansas
1855
Chapter 11
Andrew Hogan McFadin, Son of
Sum Andy, Grandson of Andrew, Sr.,
and Great Grandson of
John Stephen McFadin
Andrew Hogan McFadin and wife Elizabeth (Stott) McFadin.
Chapter 12
Kansas in Early Times —
Written in 1930 by
George Edwin McFadin
1849 1933
George's Story Continues
In the spring of 1856 we had survived our
first winter in Kansas and Father was beginning to break sod that spring
for our crops, but this growing trouble along the Border was driving more
and more people away from their claims. There were murders to the south of
us. The situation had at last grown so bad that Father felt that the family
was no longer safe, so he loaded the wagons with part of our household goods;
then with teams, wagons, and livestock we left for Lexington, Missouri. We
remained there with Cousin John McFadin until the worst of the excitement
had died down. When we returned to the Territory in September of 1856 and
went back to our claim west of Paola, everything there was gone. The house
and all improvements had been carried away; nothing remained but the well
and a patch of sod that was rank with reeds. There we were in the new country
with nothing but the teams and wagons and some household articles. Father
then turned back to Paola.
In those days Paola was a very small town. Father managed a hotel on the
Square and ran that for a time bu without much success. He had been trained
neither for hotel business nor for farming. His father, one of the found ers
of Mount Vernon, Indiana, had been a merchant a had also been his grandfather.
But Father liked a farm anc wanted one.
My maternal grandmother came out to Kansas about this time and died at Paola
soon after. She was Mrs. Mar) Stott, wife of George Stott of Frankfort, Kentucky.
Grand mother Stott is buried in the Miami Indian Cemetery about one mile
east of Paola. She died in 1857 at the age of sixty. nine. This cemetery is
also called Baptiste Peora's or Battice Burying-ground, named for the Indian
chief. In late! years I went to this cemetery often with my mother. Many
of the early settlers were buried there with the Indians.
In 1858 the Indian land sales began. These lands were owned by the Indians
themselves, and when the tribe decided to move farther south, they sold to
the incoming settlers. At this same time some government land was also opened
for sale. Father helped locate incoming settlers and prospered on commissions
on sales. He made enough to buy the quarter section of land about twenty
miles south of Kansas City and northeast of Paola where they had camped on
the way to Paola. It was the southeast quarter of Section 22, Township 15,
Range 25 in what is now the northeast corner of Miami County. Later he
owned other land. People were coming into Kansas Territory from all over
the nation; most of them were looking for homes and peace, but some were
bent on trouble. There was constant movement in the little town of Paola.
I was old enough then to be interested in what I saw.
I well remember how we little boys of about eight liked to watch and spot
drunken Indians. We would follow them and wait while they slept off their
debauch. Then the Indian would wake and stumble away and we boys would hunt
around where he was lying for coins that had dropped from the Indian's clothing.
We generally found some coins, sometimes some of value, and it was growing
into a profitable business when my mother learned of it and put a stop to
the whole thing. Thinking back, I am often amused because Mother did not know
what disposition to make of the tainted money, so she gave it to the church.
I recall the front room of the hotel there in Paola, and I distinctly remember
one night when this room was lit up from the glow of the fireplace. Our guests
were seated around the room talking when someone mentioned that a newly married
couple were staying at the hotel. The young men began hunting for them and
found that the couple had been sitting there in the room all the time. Then
the young people began an old fashioned charivari with ringing of bells,
pounding on floors and walls until it seemed that the house would come down.
But the groom was not to be persuaded easily; the boys had to fire off a
gun under his chair before he would buy the cigars and candy.
As I have stated before, Father wanted to be a farmer and he was eager to
get out onto the new land that he had bought; but he waited until he had
enough money for improvements for you must remember that he had used up what
money he had brought into the Territory. The house that he built on the new
farm in 1858 or possibly '59 had but two rooms and built of native lumber
that he bought from a man named Ellis. Father had to haul this lumber ten
miles, quite a distance even in those days. This first house was cold in
winter. That summer after Father moved the family out to the farm, he began
building an addition of a larger and warmer room. It had double walls, the
space between walls filled with sawdust. That made a fine room, warm in winters
and cool in the hottest summers.
All of our crop land had to be broken, and for this sod breaking Father used
oxen. We had no fences at first; later we built some rock fences and stake
and rider fences of wood. Wire did not come until after the seventies or
eighties. Our farm was beautiful, open woodland sloping toward the Little
Grand River. There were many springs on our land and some really fine woodland.
Father's croplands lay not far from the house so that we boys could see that
stock did not get in and destroy the crops. This was the plateau where my
parents had rested at noon that day on their first journey to Paola in 1855.
I well remember one time when my brother John and I, still little fellows,
went to the timber about two miles away across the line into Missouri. We
were to bring back a load of wood that Father had already cut into lengths
short enough for us to handle. For some reason John tried to cut down a sapling
which flew back and struck the boy right in the mouth knocking out a front
tooth. Another time we went for a load of wood with the oxen. When we had
the load of wood nicely on the wagon and were ready to start back home, the
oxen's yoke broke. There we were far from home in the timber at dusk and
those oxen pulled apart. What to do! John and I skinned a sapling and found
the bark tough and pliable enough to mend the yoke and so got home.
John was two and a half years younger than I, but we two learned to plow.
He would drive the team and I would more or less hold the plow handles so
that the plow would stay in the ground, while Father followed us and did the
planting. This planting called for skill. Corn, beans, melons, pumpkins and
such like seeds were planted with a spade. Father would swing the spade forward,
set the blade lightly in the freshly turned sod and make a shallow cut. He
would then press the handle forward leaving a small gash in the soil into
which he tossed a few seeds; then he withdrew the spade and stepped on the
hill. He could plant a row at a slow walk, following us down the field. When
seed was scattered broadcast the plowed sod had to be broken up and that
was seldom tried the first year. As our seed beds became mellower and better
plowed, we planted wheat and oats, millet and the canes.
During the years of 1859-1860 we in Kansas experienced the worst drouth that
I've ever known. For nearly two years little or no rain fell until the country
was practically dried up. Native grasses just cured on the stem, but they
held substantial nourishment for our stock and the wild things. It was hardest
on our horses for we had no grain for them during the plowing. When our corn
came up, it withered and what corn there was, was only nubbins. We began
eating it while it was in the milk stage as roasting ears. When it grew too
hard for that, we grated the kernels for spoon bread. In its hard stage the
corn could of course be ground into meal for corn bread. Our wheat crop failed
entirely and before we raised another crop we got mighty hungry for biscuits
and white bread. We had a sugarcane crop that year, somewhat scanty but enough
for our needs. As for meat we had wild game and plenty of it. I have noticed
this often, that a drouth will seal into the plant all its food; and creatures,
during a drouth, will pasture on these cured grasses and grow fat. Our hogs
that year were mostly bacon. As for coffee, that was a treat for the older
folks when they could get it. Father made ours. He parched rye grains and
pounded them up for coffee. He made it that way during the Civil War when
coffee was not to bc had at any price. We used the bark of sassafras and
also the clean white chips from our native sycamore trees to make a good
tea, and good tea it was too.
Mother did our cooking at the fireplace, an unusually large one in our big
kitchen which was a dining room and a living room. Mother had a Dutch oven
and several three-legged iron pots as everyone else had. When we went to
Kansas City, and such trips were rare, we would see the new stoves that were
then coming into use. Back home again we would plan for the big house that
we would some day build for Mother there on the plateau. Even during the
early years of the Civil War Father would, in his spare time, haul in limestone
from our place for the house, but that part of the story came later.
As I have already told you, we had an abundance of springs on our place.
The one just southwest of the house poured a large stream of cold, sweet water
into a little basin, and the spillway water escaped over the escarpment into
the draw. Even during the worst of the drouths that spring never failed. Late
in 1859 Father built a stone milkhouse over the spring. There is a square
island made of flagstones in the middle of the milkhouse and all around the
flagstone is a deep stone-paved moat into which the spring water falls from
the east side, circulates, and escapes through a spillway on the west side.
A heavy door on the north keeps out the afternoon heat, and there are no
windows. Mother used to keep crocks and jars of milk and cream and other
dairy food in the water. The east sidle of the moat is shallower than the
west moat to accommodate different sized containers. Once in awhile we boys
were set to work to clean the milkhouse and keep it sweet with wood ashes
and lime. Even today nearly seventy years later, they tell me that that milkhouse
is still in use.
I well remember the first money crop that Father had from his land. It might
have been in 1861, I am not sure. He had planted a field of melons down near
the draw in a likely place for a good crop, and he had raised some splendid
watermelons for the Fourth of July market in Kansas City. We loaded our melons
and drove up at night to save ourselves, our team, and the melons from the
heat. Now I must have been eleven or twelve years old, but this was the first
city visit that I could remember. Father drove the first wagon and I the other.
I am not sure how the accident happened. We were right down in the heart
of Kansas City and I was all eyes at the strange sights, when suddenly two
splendid horses and an elegant carriage dashed around the corner and right
toward me. In my excitement I evidently pulled the reins of my team and hooked
the wheel of my wagon quite neatly inside a wheel of the beautiful carriage.
It took my father, the driver of the carriage, and some bystanders to untangle
the wheels. I am afraid thai the repairs that Father paid for cut down the
profits of that trip.
There were later trips to Kansas City. Father put up much hay and we hauled
that to market in Kansas City and in the hot weather we drove in during the
night. I'll never forget one beautiful moonlit night when we took hay to
the city. We were using oxen on that trip, and since the pace was slow, I
had time to enjoy the beautiful wooded parkland through which we were passing
on our way north. I do recall that the hay brought us three dollars and fifty
cents a tons and that was a good price for that time.
Our neighbors out there at Aubrey were few and far apart at first, but gradually
the country settled up. South of Paola in 1855 as I have already related,
we knew Mr. Ackerly. In Paola I recall Mr. Michener, a dry goods merchant.
We knew the Indian Baptiste Peoria, generally called Batisse. My father also
knew Ben Simpson who was, I think, at that time County Attorney. At Aubrey
we knew Mr. Albin and family four miles west of us, and also the Wicklines.
To the east of us in Missouri were: Mr. Butts, Mr. Easterbrook, Mr. Williams,
and the four families of the Andersons. These families were all good people.
Roads were poor in those early days; generally trails led straight across
country or followed Indian paths. Many of those early roads have been abandoned,
but one can still see the faint trails unless, of course, the land has been
plowed. Our buildings were placed on the plateau above the spring. Our farm
was in the extreme northeast corner of Miami County, just across the line
from Johnson County and two miles west of the Kansas-Missouri boundary line.
The only laid-out road at first near us was the old Fort Scott Military road
that ran south just east of the ridge. Years later when the country settled
up and road lines ran geometrically true, some of those old farm houses like
our found themselves sitting far back from the roads. Many time in those
first years I have seen the Indians going across the country, single file,
following their own trails.
Like many another pioneer woman my mother was un commonly skillful in treating
the sick, and so she was called upon many times to go and tend a neighbor.
She kept small bag ready at all times for such calls. She had in it scissors
and thread, splints, oil, and such remedies as she knew, and clean linen
cloths. She always saved old whit pieces of linen cloth, carefully washed,
and ironed with a very hot iron. I can see her yet as she rode away on her
horse, her little figure erect in the saddle as she set off for the sick
neighbor. Once when Father was gone and she could not catch up a horse, she
walked four miles to help out a neighbor. It was while she was on one of
these missions that our terrible tragedy came to us. But that came later.
Father had no help on his farm, other than my brother John and me. There
was no other help to be had out there on the frontier; everyone was trying
to do the best he could for himself and land was cheap. We had no slaves.
My father's family had originally come to Indiana from Kentucky, but they
had been in Mount Vernon since they established the place in 1805 and so were
out of touch with slavery. My mother's parents who had lived in Anderson County,
Kentucky, had owned slaves. It was a strange situation; both of my parents
were against slavery and loyal to the Union; and yet, they were yearning for
the ways and manner of thought of the South. And all this in a new and raw
country where few of the gentler ways seemed to count. I speak of this now
because we brought not one slave into Kansas; and while Father got along fine
with all of his neighbors, still he was considered by some as sympathetic
to the South. At heart he was I think, but not as far as Secession; the Union
came first. When the Civil War came on we suffered as much from the South
as we did from the North.
By the opening of the War Father was raising crops of many kinds and trying
out others. He experimented with cotton and did fairly well, but Kansas was
too far north for success. We had our own sheep for wool, and we raised flax
for our linen.
Father had our shoes made for us. While we boys were little he braided our
straw hats for summer, and Mother made us woolen caps for winter. Mother
was very particular that we were neatly clothed.
When the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, times were terribly hard
here in Kansas. It seemed as if men of evil disposition took wartime for
an excuse to carry out evil deeds. The soldiers of both the regular Union
Army and of the Confederate Army were not so bad, but there were men on both
sides of the Kansas-Missouri Border who were bad. For example there were
Quantril and the James Boys over in Missouri and Jennisen's men and Cody's
men in Kansas.
One evening after dark while we were milking, my father said to me, "Listen."
We heard men talking and horses galloping. My father said, "You take the milk
bucket and hide in this old goods box," which I did. He went to the cornfield
and hid. The men entered the milking shed and as the men passed me, I heard
one man say, "We will get him this time." Then they went on to the house
and said to my mother: "Where is McFadin?" My mother said, "He is not at
home; I don't know where he is." And she didn't; she knew only that he had
got away. Then the men cursed and abused my father for awhile, and made Mother
give them something to eat, after which they went away.
This being war times we had other troubles from ruffians. One day some time
after this some of Jennisen's men came to our house in broad daylight and
took the only good team of horses that we had.
The weather was so dry that we did not raise a very good crop that year of
1861, and although we suffered other hardships, we did not starve or freeze.
Along about the year 1862 the excitement got so high that it seemed it could
not get any higher. One morning about nine or ten o'clock, while my father
and I were at work in the yard at an ash hopper, all at once a group of mounted
men rode over the Ridge and would have ridden us down, but stopped and the
leader said, "Why didn't you run?" My father said that he didn't see anything
to run from, but the leader asked, "Don't you know we are Jennisen's men?"
Father said, "No, I did not know that you are Jennisen's men." Then they
swore and blustered around for awhile, and made my mother get them something
to eat, and rode away. But after they left that morning, we learned from one
of our neighbors that these same men had been over at their place and had
killed a man. Before they killed him, they made him dig his own grave, kneel
down on the edge of it, and they shot him, and he fell over into it while
his family stood by and witnessed the horrible crime. It seemed that my father
was not to die in that way for he had got by with his life once more.
Before I forget it I will say that although the soldiers in the Union Army
were well fed by the Government, they got tired of army food and often came
to our house and had my mother cook them an old-fashioned meal such as they
were used to at home, but they always paid her for it. We had many drawbacks,
and some interesting times, and some fun too.
In 1861, in the fall I think, the greatest trouble of our lives came to us
when our little sister Mary was burned to death in the big fireplace. It
came about in this way. Early that morning my father, John, and I went to
work on a fence that he was building. It must have been Saturday and no school
so we intended to be gone until noon. Mother was at the house with Charles
and two-year old Mary. Sometime in late morning a neighbor came for Mother
to come at once to help his sick wife. There was no time to ride out and
get Father and us boys, and besides it was so near noon that we would be
back at the house very shortly. Mother told Charles what to tell Father, and
taking her little bag she left at once with the neighbor. It was in that little
time before noon that the accident happened. The first we knew that anything
was wrong was when we saw Charles running toward us across the plateau. He
told us, as soon as we ran to him, that Mother was gone and Sister was hurt.
When we ran into the house, Mary lay in front of the fireplace with her clothing
still burning. When Father lifted the little unconscious child, her flesh
came off in his hands. She stopped moaning very soon, but she lived for several
hours. As she died I thought the grief would kill my father. Father had had
John ride immediately for Mother while he and I did what we could for our
baby, but he could not save her life. No doctor was nearer than Paola, too
far away to take the child. That was a terrible day. The next day we with
the help of our neighbors buried Mary in the center of our flower garden.
We might have taken her and buried her beside her Grandmother Stott in the
old Indian burying ground at Paola, but it was so far away, and Father could
not bear the thought of Mary away from us. Father himself made the little
coffin from walnut logs that he was curing for woodwork and floors when we
should build the new house. Mother lined the box with parts from a pretty
dress that she had worn when she was a young woman. We were all so stunned
by the terrible death of our only sister that I can scarcely remember details
of those sad days. Mother never really got over Mary's death although she
welcomed on June 7, 1863 her second daughter, Fanny America.
And through our sorrow as I remember, the
war dragged wearily on. Of course many of these happenings might have faded
from my memory had not the family spoken about them as the years passed on.
But I must tell you about two raids that we experienced; Quantril's in 1863
and Price's in 1864.
On that afternoon of August 20, 1863 Quantril just missed our house when
he led his forces in from Missouri across our farm and east of the ridge.
As I have told you, our first quarter on which we built our house was the
southeast quarter of section 22, township 15, range 25 in old Lykins, now
called Miami County. Late the next day and during the next night Quantril's
band rode back to Missouri through our farm at exactly the same spot where
the band had entered Kansas twenty-four hours earlier. For reasons I do not
remember we had been uneasy for several weeks about raiders. Whether it was
rumor of this band or some other I do not recall, but Father was at the house
that late August afternoon. How he alone could have protected us I do not
know for Quantril had about eight hundred men.
The weather was hot and the air still so that we heard the thunder of hundreds
of cavalry long before they passed on the east side of the ridge. The band
came in from the northeast riding toward Paola toward the southwest. We did
not see the band until they were far away to the southwest and then we could
not tell whether they were Union Cavalry, Confederates, or Border raiders.
At Aubrey near us there was a small detachment of Federal Troops under Captain
Pike whom we knew, but there were not more than twenty men. After the mounted
men had passed, Father rode after them for a short way, but he could learn
nothing, but he estimated that nearly a thousand were in the band. At home
we did not burn any candles that night, and Father sat up with his gun loaded.
Later we were to learn that toward evening Quantril swung his guerrillas
straight north and reached Lawrence, Kansas, just at dawn. He sacked the
town and turned his band southeastward.
Late that night of the twenty-first of August the raiders came back across
our place, again missing the house, and reentered Missouri at the spot where
they had left it. No one molested us for they did not know our little house
was there. It was several days later before we learned of the destruction
of Lawrence. A morning or so after Quantril entered Kansas Mother, Father,
and I went up through the orchard to the ridge to see the trail left by the
mounted men. Mr. Ben Simpson from Paola came riding across the prairie to
talk to Father, and it was he who told Father that he did not think they were
regulars but a powerful force of raiders. He said that the trail went nearly
to Paola, and he was puzzled why the force turned north and where they had
gone. None of us knew then about Lawrence.
After this raid the state of Kansas was up in arms and so we had a short
period of peace along the Border, but a calm was sure to bring another storm.
That storm came in the fall of 1864 when a part of the Southern army under
General Stirling Price invaded Missouri, captured Lexington, tried to capture
Kansas City, but was defeated. That was on Sunday, and as the army retreated
south that same day, late in the afternoon, a wing of Price's main army under
Captain Frost came to our house about sundown. Captain Frost called for my
father and ordered food for a hundred men and feed for a hundred horses.
A few minutes after the order was given, the hundred men rode up, took the
bridles off their horses, tied the bridles round the horns of their saddles,
and turned their horses loose into our cornfield which was in shock. It was
late in the fall and Father had just got back from the mill in Lawrence, with
cornmeal, and we had butchered a hog. But just think of feeding a hundred
men and their horses all at one time and for nothing.
The moon shone brightly that night and it was not very cold, so after the
soldiers had turned their horses loose, they set out guards to watch. Some
of the soldiers came into the house and lay down on the floor while others
lay out doors on the ground. My mother and they cooked, and they ate all
night.
During the winter after Price's raid we had it pretty hard again so we turned
to prairie chickens and rabbits for meat and cornmeal for bread. When spring
came corn was seventy-five cents a bushel and we had to buy it to make meal
for bread. Our team had to do the plowing without grain and only prairie grass
that year. We planted some spring wheat, but the harvesting and threshing
were hard work. The wheat had to be cut with a cradle which is slow work,
then bound into bundles and put into the shock. When it was dry enough to
thresh, we built a square pen with fence rails about two or three feet high.
We roofed it with rails and spread the bundles of wheat out on top and pounded
the wheat out by hand, using sticks. We tossed the wheat grain in the wind
and let the chaff blow away. We built a storage bin about eight or ten feet
high, lined it with wheat straw, and put our wheat in it. We found this method
of threshing grain too slow.
My father made a contrivance, called a separator. It consisted of a cylinder
with long spikes all around its surface. It had a fan and screens which were
so arranged that when the cylinder turned, the spikes took the grain out
of the husks, the fan blew out the chaff, and the grain fell through to a
container. We had no power to run the machine except horse power. We then
made a wagonbed about four or five feet wide and ten or twelve feet long.
It stood some four feet high and had a ground clearance of a loot on one
end and three feet at the other end, thus it had a steep slope. Now this contraption
had a floor made of heavy slats with rollers on each side and a heavy belt
under the rollers. We intended to have a team on the slanting slat floor
over the roller belt. This floor would be higher at the front so that the
floor would roll down and the team would have to tread the floor to keep
their balance. A brake could control the floor's movements. We connected this
power machine to the new separator by a belt attached to the front roller.
That way we had enough power to run our separator. But we still had to cut
and bind the wheat by hand. With our wheat crop we had white flour again with
biscuit and pie and white bread.
I have not told you of any of our pleasures. My. father never let us as small
boys handle a gun unless he was with us. One afternoon, when I was about
half grown, Father and I went hunting and he let me carry the gun. Before
we had gone very far a flock of prairie chickens flew up, and this being
my first experience, I began to get the buck ague, I guess. At any rate I
raised my gun and fired away and a chicken fell. I thought I had done a wonderful
thing as I had shot the chicken in the head.
In those days there were still lots of wild animals in the country and we
had to keep a pack of dogs to protect the pigs, chickens, and young calves.
Sometimes we had lots of fun with the dogs. Since Father did not allow us
to hunt alone, some neighbor boys and we, with the help of the dogs, prevailed
on Father to come with us on a hunt. So away we went with our clubs and the
dogs to the timber, but the dogs were so eager that they got to the timber
before we did. We thought that we heard the dogs barking as if they had found
something. When we hurried up there, we found that they had a coon in a deep
hole of water. Every time that a dog tried to take hold of the coon, the
animal got the dog by the back of the neck and dragged the dog's head under
water. He kept that up until the dogs were almost drowned and had to give
up. We boys then decided to get that coon, and get him we did, but we were
a bunch of wet boys and wet dogs when we did.
We were great on the hunt when we had
the time. Once when deer were still plentiful in the Missouri Hills, my father
with one of our neighbors and his boys, John, and I went deer hunting. We
took our guns and away we rode to the timber some two miles east of us. The
men placed themselves where the deer crossed the branch, and they sent us
boys to hunt and scare up the deer. Each boy ‘went in a different direction
hoping to find a buck and start it toward the little branch where my father
and our neighbor waited. Suddenly I thought that I saw something quite a
long way off, and as I watched it, it seemed to be moving toward me. I got
off my horse and led it behind some bushes and watched this moving object
for a few minutes, and I was sure that whatever it was, it was coming right
by me. It was a deer all right, but it slowed up as it passed near me and
that was just right. I raised my gun and fired, and then I followed it. When
I found the deer, I saw that I had accidentally hit it, but it was not yet
dead. By this time my father and our neighbor, Mr. Patten, hearing the gun
shot, came and killed the creature. The other boys came in, in time to help
us bleed and skin and divide the deer. We took our half home, and as it was
a fine, fat buck, we surely enjoyed it.
For years, in fact since we first came to live on the plateau, we had talked
about a new house that we hoped sometime to build there above the spring.
All during the war when Father and we boys had some spare time, we had been
hauling up limestone for the house and piling it there on the site. We had
planned to build eight rooms as the main body of the house with later an
east and a west wing if we could. Sometime we planned to add tall white columns
to the south front. Mother's home in Kentucky had been nice and so had the
big brick that Father had built for her in Mount Vernon. It did not occur
to us that our plans were a little ambitions for us out in Kansas, especially
since we had just been eaten out of everything by Price's Army. By 1870 the
pile of undressed limestone had grown sufficient to start the new house.
We quarried this limestone on our own land; it did not come from a distance
as some later people claim. I know because I helped quarry it and haul it
to the building site.
That year of 1872 our peach orchard had a bumper crop, peaches bringing as
much as two dollars a bushel and a ready sale at the orchard, for people
came long distances to get the peaches. From their sale, Father finished the
house.
I have said little about our schooling, but from the first there had been
a school near enough for us to attend. We had a literary society, and a singing
school to which the neighborhood came.
In 1870 when I was twenty-one I got the fever to go to Colorado where Father
had a sort of courtesy cousin, John Logan, living at Canyon City, Colorado.
It took some little time to talk me out of the trip; but Brother John got
the fever then, and he was apt to carry out the things he wanted to do. Off
and on during the next few years we dreamed of Colorado. In the fall of 1874
John decided to outfit with team and wagon and go out. I was to follow in
the spring because I was a little reluctant to leave Father for he was not
feeling well. He had a stomach trouble that the doctors did not think important,
still Father was not well. He did not get any better as John's time of departure
neared so I asked John to wait until spring. In April Father seemed better
and helped John and me to outfit for Colorado with two teams and wagons and
our camping equipment, grain, and food. I think he even wanted to go along
with us. He gave us what money we would need to get to Cousin John Logan's
and saw us off.
John and I started west across the Kansas "desert" to Colorado. The railroad
had been built so we followed that. Before we had gone very far, I thought
the country was the most beautiful that I had ever seen. In late April and
early May the skirts of the timber looked so nice and softly green, and the
water in the streams was so bright and clear, and the soil along the banks
looked so deep and rich that the temptation to stop and go no farther was
increasing. However, we had started to the mountains and to the mountains
we would go. Seemingly John was not bothered by these ideas as I was. All
the land as we crossed the "desert" was a vast area of grass, and the wind
blew constantly. Since we followed the railroad, we got our water at the round
towers and carried it in barrels in the wagons. Sometimes the wind blew so
hard that with the weight of the filled barrels the wagon boxes would be
lifted from the running gears. We had to take ropes and tie the wagonbeds
down to the running gears to keep them from being blown away. When we camped
and built a fire we had to watch that the fire did not get away. We used buffalo
chips for fuel until we reached Colorado. When we ate, we had to keep a tight
hold on our tin cups and plates or the wind would blow them away.
At Fort Dodge we stopped to buy more food at a half-dugout store near the
Fort. It was very early morning just after sunrise, when I opened the door
of the store and went in; I froze in my tracks. Behind the counter was a
big burly fellow pointing a gun at a woman sitting up in bed there in the
corner. I just backed out and went on. I've wondered many times if she was
his wife and if he shot her.
Finally we reached Canyon City, Colorado, deep in the gorge of the Arkansas
River. We had a nice visit with Father's courtesy cousin, John Logan, while
our teams rested for they were very tired. We then went on to Alma, a mining
town in the mountains. Alma, though small, was quite a gold and silver mining
town at that time having a number of smelters and a thousand men working in
the mines and the smelters. To our surprise law and order were highly respected.
My brother John and I took a log cabin about a quarter of a mile from town
and followed freighting while we were there. We never locked our cabin, not
even through the day when we were gone. Nothing was ever molested during
all of the time we were there. Near town was a slaughterhouse with no sides
to it; beeves hung there night and day unguarded and nothing was ever stolen.
As a rule the people were very friendly and sociable to anyone who acted
square. Those men were keen and shrewd in their dealings with each other,
and I never knew of a single thing being stolen. However, sometimes a man
would be found hanging to a limb of a tree and no one seemed to know anything
about it.
One day a man came to my brother and me saying that he had a rich gold mine
up on the mountainside but he had so much to look after that he would trade
it to us for our teams. John and I wanted to go up on the mountain anyway
so we let him show his claim to us, but we were strangers there and did not
make the trade. This was Mount Lincoln which is over 14,000 feet high. We
were interested because these were the first mountains we had seen, and we
watched how, as we neared the top, the trees kept getting smaller and smaller
until at the timberline there was no vegetation at all. We stopped there
to rest. To the west we saw only snow-covered mountains, but to the east
we saw beautiful green forests and green valleys. We then realized that we
were above the clouds for we could see them moving over the treetops below
us. The stranger left us, and we found a footpath and wondered where it led
so we followed it. We soon met a man with burrows carrying sacks of ore down
the mountain. Farther on we came to a shack where men were breaking up silver
ore. They were putting the ore in sacks to be carried down the mountainside
on the backs of burrows. The men seemed very friendly and asked us to come
in. We talked with them for awhile, and as we were leaving, I asked to take
a sample of the ore. Their foreman said, "I'd rather you did not." We did
not say anything to that and were leaving when the foreman spoke again saying
that he was only joking and for us to take as many specimens as we liked.
We took some and went back to camp in the valley, passing through a snow
storm on the way down.
About this time we got a telegram from our mother that Father was dying and
to come home at once. We had no money to speak of and couldn't go until we
made some. We both went to work and when we got enough for one of us to go
home, John thought that since I was the elder that I had better go. The merchants
had been very good to us in giving us work. Soon after this we had enough
for me to fit out a team and wagon and I started back. My brother stayed
with John Logan at Canyon City.
Going back alone with a team and worried as I was, was very slow. In a few
days I met up with a man who had a team and wagon and was on his way to Kansas
City. He chartered a car and put both our teams and wagons on it and we went
home that way. From Kansas City I drove down home and by that time it was
late in September. My father had died on the first of September and I was
nearly a month late. He was buried in the old Aubrey Cemetery just about two
miles west of our place. At first there was only a fieldstone marker at his
grave, but now it is properly marked. Mother did not bury him beside our
little Mary in our flower garden because Mother knew that she would leave
the farm now that Father was gone.
Mother and I talked our situation over and transacted such business as was
necessary. Mother decided that we would move into Paola where I could get
more schooling at the Academy and teach. We sold the farm and the stock and
moved into Paola, Kansas. I attended the Kansas Normal School and read law
for awhile.
As soon as I could teach I taught at rural schools, but it did not take long
for me to see that I could not get rich at teaching. I then tried my hand
at feeding young Texas cattle and shipping them in the fall to the market
in Kansas City. This work proved profitable and I bought land near Westphalia,
Kansas. Mother and I moved onto this place and the next phase of our life
began.
(End of George Edwin McFadin's memoirs.)
George's mother, Elizabeth, died a few years after George's marriage. In
the summer of 1898 Elizabeth made her regular visit to her daughter Fanny
McFadin Hargrave at Richmond, Kansas. Elizabeth had a stroke in August, and
died on September 28, 1898. She was buried in the Hargrave Family Plot in
the Richmond, Kansas Cemetery. Her grave has a marker.
George Edwin McFadin, Son of
Andrew Hogan McFadin,
Great, Great Grandson of
John Stephen McFadin
Chapter 14
Children of George and Bertha McFadin,
Great, Great Great Grandchildren of
John Stephen McFadin
[Picture is from cover of book, need a good one, please.]
Maude McFadin
William Ruthven McFadden
Shirley Elizabeth (McFadden) Wyss
John William McFadden
John William is the second child of William
and Dorothy (Olsen Dosland) McFadden. He was born in Wichita, Kansas, educated
in Kansas and in California. The day after he graduated from high school
he joined the Coast Guard in World War II. He took part in the following campaigns:
Hollandia 4-23-'44
Aitope 4-29-'44
Wakde 5-31-'44
Sansapor 8-11-'44
Broke 8-23-'44
Noemfoor 8-26-'44
Morotai 9-19-'44
Dorothy Louise McFadden
Lloyd Andrew (Jack) McFadden
Frances Gwen McFadin
Frances Gwen was the youngest child of
George E. and Bertha (Graham) McFadin. She was born on June 28, 1899
near Burlington, Kansas.
The following is from the tribute paid to her by the Alexander Love Chapter,
Daughters of the American Revolution, Houston, Texas:
Frances McFadin Blank, a faithful member of Alexander Love Chapter, passed
away on December 19, 1968 in Houston, Texas. We wish to record a special tribute
to her whose life was one of faithful service to her family, her church,
and to her community.
As a child she attended private grade school in Burlington, and later was
a student at Ottawa University. She attended Ottawa Business College for
three years and graduated. It was there that she met her future husband, Freeman
Byron Blank. They were married on August 3, 1920. She has been a resident
of Houston, for forty-three years.
Frances was a member of the First Methodist Church and a wonderful
Christian. She was President of the Colonial Dames of America, Chapter VIII,
and was serving as parliamentarian of that organization at the time of her
death.
She was also a member of the Houston Colony,
Magna Charta Dames; a member of the Daughters of 1812; and a member of the
Daughters of the American Colonists.
Both Frances and Freeman loved all God's creatures; for many years they had
a deer park on their property and cared for their pets with kindness and
love.
We have lost a devoted member, a charming and gracious friend.
"To live in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die."
Freeman Byron Blank is buried in Forest Park, Houston, Texas. He died on
September 9, 1964, and Frances is buried beside him, her beloved husband
of over forty years.
Houston, Texas, home of Freeman and Frances McFadin Blank.
Chapter 15
Younger Children of
Andrew hogan McFadin
John Lunsford McFadin
John Lunsford, second child of Andrew Hogan
McFadin and wife Elizabeth, was born at Mount Vernon, Indiana, on February
7, 1852.
John's story has been partly told by his brother George. After Andrew Hogan's
death on September 1, 1875, John came home from Colorado in the late fall.
He remained with the family that winter of 1875-'76, in Paola, Kansas, where
Elizabeth had moved when she left the farm near Aubrey. In the spring of
1876, John decided to return to Colorado.
The family was grieved to have him go. On the day he departed by train Elizabeth
prepared a special dinner for him, but was unable to go to the station to
see him off. George and Charles "saw him off" for Colorado. George told his
daughter that he, also, wanted to go along, but his responsibilities were
too great so he did not mention his wish to John.
At first John wrote frequently from Cripple Creek and other places where
he had worked for Barrow and Sanderson Stage Company. He wrote of John Logan
at Canyon City. Then his letters stopped coming.
The family became worried and wrote to the few people in Colorado whom John
had mentioned, or people that George knew. Not even John Logan had any idea
where he was. The family remembered that John had told his mother that he
would not return until he could bring her twenty thousand dollars.
George went out to Colorado in the spring of 1877 and visited all the places
where he and John had been that summer of 1875; he even visited new mining
camps and learned nothing of John. This trip was only the beginning of the
long search for the lost John.
Elizabeth never gave up her hope that John would return. Often of an evening
she would sit alone singing softly to herself, "Where is my Wandering Boy
Tonight?"
No word ever came from John or about him.
In 1930 George and his son Jack made a trip to Cripple Creek, Colorado, to
see a John McFadin they had heard about. He was an old man, a prospector
who owned mines nearby. He spelled his name McFayden and said he was born
in Scotland, came to Nova Scotia, and then to Colorado. He said that in 1877,
he had been in a mine cave-in and had lain for months with a broken back
and broken legs; that the miners had taken good care of him. But he did not
remember much about his life before the accident. He said he had promised
his mother that he would some day bring her a fortune, but that was long
ago. Once he had almost had the fortune, $19,000, but his partner had stolen
the money.
When George mentioned the names of his parents, his brothers, and his sister,
the names did not arouse any interest in the man.
George finally said that he had also filed on a mine claim nearby.
"Sure enough!" the man said eagerly. "Right up there on the mountain side,
that was George's claim." He pointed in the general direction of the claim
that George and John had filed on back in the summer of 1875. Yet,
George knew that if the man had been there that long, he might have heard
of those old claims.
Charles Edwin McFadin
Mary McFadin
Fanny America McFadin
Fanny McFadin Hargrave
Elizabeth Lillian Hargrave
Elizabeth Lillian, only child of John and
Fanny (McFadin) Hargrave, was born at Garnett, Kansas. She was educated at
Baker University at Baldwin, Kansas, and at Kansas State University.
On September 9, 1918, Elizabeth married Lowell Edwin Baldwin, also a graduate
of Kansas State University. He was born November 1, 1892, at Yates Center,
Kansas. He died on September 1, 1967 at St. Petersburg, Florida; he is interred
at the Royal Palm Cemetery at St. Petersburg.
There was only one child of this marriage, Richard Loren Baldwin.
Richard Loren Baldwin. Richard Loren was born on September 15, 1924,
in Kansas City, Missouri. He was graduated from the University of Florida,
1949, with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. He graduated
also from Alabama Polytechnic University (New Auburn University) in June
1953, with the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.
Richard was drafted into Military Service on May 11, 1943. He went overseas
in October, 1944. He was discharged at Camp Kilmer, in March 1946.
On March 20, 1954, Richard married Anne Crary, born August 20, 1927. There
are three daughters of this marriage.
Susan Baldwin, born April 11, 1955.
Nancy Baldwin, born April 19, 1956.
Sharon Baldwin, born May 15, 1962.
Dr. Richard Loren Baldwin died suddenly on February 14, 1965, at Orlando,
Florida. He is interred at the Royal Palms Cemetery at St. Petersburg, Florida.
Anne Baldwin and her young daughters live in St. Petersburg, Florida near
Elizabeth Hargrave Baldwin.
There is much yet to investigate, but, as the story fills in, it is hoped
the family historian, a younger one, will carry the study forward. For the
present the study rests here.
Future Research of the
McFadin Family
Andrew McFaden, born in Scotland, in 1675,
went to North Ireland in 1693, and settled at Summersett, a village on the
Bann Water. In 1693 he married Mercy Mallory; after her death he married
Jane Lindsey in 1704.
In 1718 with many other Scots from the Bann Water towns in North Ireland,
Andrew and Thomas McFadin signed a petition asking Governor Shute of New England
for permission to settle in America.
Andrew and his wife and children arrived in Boston on September 6, 1718,
on the ship "Maccallum" from Londonderry, Ireland. The family with others
went out into the unsettled part of Maine, and took land at Cathance on Merrymeeting
Bay.
The four children traced were James, born in 1701, son of the first wife;
Andrew, born about 1715, son of the second wife; Summersett, a daughter, born
I 720, and named for the village in Ireland that Andrew loved so well; and
Daniel, born in 1722.
Thomas of the Petition remained in Maine until about 1725. War (Indian) records
give his name and John McFadin of Boston. When the Indians destroyed all
that Thomas owned, and when in 1722 John and wife fled to Boston, further
records of these two men ceased. Tradition states that Thomas and William
went to Philadelphia. In 1722, Andrew, wife and six children were ordered
out of Boston because refugees from Indian raids had filled the little town.
These six children of Andrew's may have included Thomas, John, and a William.
On March 8, 1753 John McFadden had a son John baptized; the record is at
the Melton Church at Melton, Massachusetts.
(End of Summary.)
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 49, pp.
187, 188, give the following information, noted above: "Thomas McFaden, muster
role of Captain John Penhallow, 9th November, I 725, from Boston, against
the Indians. John Macfadres (McFadin) muster roll of Captain John Penhallow,
9th November, 1725, against the Indians."
Of the migration of Scotch-Irish to Pennsylvania and Maryland, Dr. William
Henry Egle in his History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, p. 17, states that the first of the Scotch-Irish
began arriving in Pennsylvania after 1718, landing at New Castle, Delaware,
and at Philadelphia. He estimated that the greatest number of them settled
in Dauphin and Lebanon counties except a few who settled on the Kennebec
River in Maine, and of these the greater portion later came down into Pennsylvania
and settled among their fellow Scots. As the years went on and the best land
was taken, Egle states that these Scots moved on down south into Virginia
and the Carolinas.
Search must be continued in the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania and
the border counties of Maryland.
Chart of Land Owned in Kentucky By the McFadin Family
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Old Kentucky Grants Records in Warren County, Kentucky, Courthouse
_________________________________________________________________________________
Name Acres Book Pages Date of Survey County Watercourse
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 1000 1 68 On or before Warren Near Hancock Taylors, on Branch
69 1- 1-1785 of Big Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 150 8 539 4-28-1793 Military Big Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 100 8 540 4-28-1793 Military Big Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 150 8 541 11-18-1793 Military Ray Spring Creek
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 500 11 112 12- 2-1797 Military Old Kentucky Trace
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 500 14 354 10-10-1797 Military Drake's Creek
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 100 12-21-1798 Military Big Barren River, opposite Boat
Island
_________________________________________________________________________________
Grants South of Green River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 2 254 10-13-1797 Warren Big Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 2 280 3-21-1800 Warren Ray's Branch Creek
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 50 7 201 3-22-1800 Warren Ray's Fork
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 150 7 203 8- 5-1800 Warren Ray's Fork
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 230 27 278 4-27-1805 Christian Little River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Surveyor's Book A, Pages 261, 279, 292, 318, Warren County, Kentucky
Courthouse, Bowling
Green, Kentucky
_________________________________________________________________________________
Name Acres Book Pages Date of Survey County Watercourse
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A 261 July 1796 Logan
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A 261 1-10-1800 Warren This land, bought from D.
Commissioner's Boone. Location of McFadin
Certificate H 1969 Ferry on Big Barren River.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A Jan. 1800 Warren On Ray's Branch
Certificate No. 2392
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A Jan. 1800 Warren Ray's Branch. Bought from
Certificate No. 2364 Samuel McFadin
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A Jan. 1800 Warren On William's Line
Certificate No. 1950
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A Jan. 1800 Warren Gower's Line, south side of
Certificate No. 2286 Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A Jan. 1800 Warren North side Big Barren River
Certificate No. 2262
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 50 A 378 Feb. 1802 Warren
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 A May 1802 Warren Second-rate land
_________________________________________________________________________________
Andrew McFadin 200 Oct. 26, 1811 (Warren?) On Green River
_________________________________________________________________________________
"Old Kentucky Grants" and "Grants South of Green River" were verified
by The Filson Club
Publication Vol. 33; also by Willard R. Jullson's Land Grants South
of Green River.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Land owned by John, Samuel, William, Jonathan, and Elias B. McFadin
_________________________________________________________________________________
Name Acres Book Pages Date of Survey County Watercourse
_________________________________________________________________________________
John McFadin, Sr. 131 1/4 2 48 9-26-1799 Christian West Fork of the Red River
_________________________________________________________________________________
John McFadin, Sr. 66 23 341 10-24-1807 Pond River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Samuel McFadin 100 1 292 8-15-1796 Logan West Fork of the Red River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Samuel McFadin 50 1 431 2-28-1800 Christian West Fork of the Red River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Samuel McFadin 200 2 49 9-25-1799 Christian Henry's Creek
_________________________________________________________________________________
William McFadin 200 27 26 10-20-1797 Warren Big Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Jonathan McFadin 200 27 26 9-13-1805 Warren Big Barren River
_________________________________________________________________________________
Elias B. McFadin 100 4 322 8-28-1799 Warren Beaver Creek
_________________________________________________________________________________
Elias B. McFadin 200 4 332 6-30-1807 Warren ?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Elias B. McFadin 200 4 333 6-27-1807 Warren Ray's Creek
_________________________________________________________________________________
Many of these land records are also in the office of the Secretary of State,
Frankfort, Kentucky.
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James R. Dangel
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