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.
Bibliography
Boddie, J. Bennett. Historical Southern Families.
Redwood City:
Pacific Coast Publishers, 1957.
Brumbaugh, Gaius Marcus. Revolutionary War Records of Virginia. Lancaster:
Lancaster Press, 1936.
Cartwright, Betty Goff Cook, and Lillian Johnson Gardner (eds.). North
Carolina Land Grants in Tennessee 1778-1791. Foreword by
Robert T. Quarrels, Jr. Memphis: I. C. Harper Co., 1958.
Chalkley, Lyman. Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in
Virginia, "Extracted from the Original Court Records of Augusta
County, Virginia, 1745-1800," Vol. 2, p. 469. Rosslyn, Va.:
Commonwealth Co., 1912.
Cherry, Thomas Crittenden. Kentucky—The Pioneer State of the West.
Chicago: D. C. Heath and Co., 1923.
Clift, G. Glenn. Cornstalk Militia of Kentucky, The. Frankfort:
The Kentucky Historical Society, 1957.
_______. "Second Census" of Kentucky. Frankfort: Kentucky
Historical Society, 1954.
Collins, Lewis. History of Kentucky. 2 vols. Frankfort:
Kentucky Historical Society, Reprint 1966.
Draper, Lyman (ed.). Calendar of the Tennessee and King's Mountain
Papers of the Draper Collection of Manuscripts. Calendar Series,
Vol.
III. Evansville, Wisconsin: The Antes Press, 1929.
Gerson, Noel B. Cumberland Rifles, The. New York: Doubleday
Co., 1952.
Griffin, Clarence. History of Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties
North Carolina, 1730-1936. Forest City: Forest City Courier, 1936.
Gwathmey, John H. Historical Register of Virginians in the
Revolution, "Soldiers Sailors, Marines 1775-1783." Richmond: The
Dietz Press, 1938.
Heitman, Francis B. (ed.). Historical Register of Officers of the
Continental Army During the War of the Revolution. Washington:
Rare Book Shop Publishing Co., Inc., 1914.
History of Posey County Indiana. Compiled by the Goodspeed
Publishing Co. Chicago: John Morris Co., Printers, 1886.
Jillson, Willard Rouse. Kentucky Land Grants, The. Louisville:
The
Southland Printing Co., 1925.
Leffel, John C. (ed.). History of Posey County, Indiana. Chicago:
Standard Publishing Co. 1913.
Leonard, W. P. History and Directory of Posey County. Evansville:
A. C. Isaacs Book Printer and Binder, 1882.
McAdams, Mrs. Harry Kennett (ed.). Kentucky Pioneer and Court
Records. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1967.
New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vols. 1, 24,
44, 48, 49, 50. Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical
Society,
1907.
Ramsey, Robert W. Carolina Cradle, "Settlement of the
Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762." Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1964.
Roster of Soldiers from North Carolina in the American Revolution.
Durham: Published by Order of the North Carolina Daughters of
the American Revolution, Seeman Press, 1932.
Saunders, William L. (ed.). Colonial Records of North Carolina. Published
by Order of the General Assembly, Raleigh: 1890.
Thomas, Helen, Mary Rabold, and Elizabeth Price. Warren County
Kentucky Marriages 1797-1851, from "Original Marriage Bonds and
Consents." Bowling Green: 1970.
Thwaites, Reuben Gold. Early Western Travels 1748-1846, Vol.
3, "Travels of André Michaux." Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co.,
1904.
U. S. Census 1790, "Heads of Families in North Carolina."
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908.
U. S. Census, 1850, 1860, Posey County Indiana, Black Township,
City of Mount Vernon. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908.
White, Katherine Keogh. King's Mountain Men, The. Dayton,
Virginia: Joseph K. Ruebush Co., 1924.
James R. Dangel
P.O. Box 219
Sitka, Alaska 99835 USA
Phone: 907-747-3348
Email: