Clara's Cotton Buyer

After Clara Paxton's mother and father died, she lived with a succession of relatives: her grandmother in Independence, Missouri, her uncle Charley and aunt Sue Overholser in Valley Falls, Kansas, and her uncle Will and aunt Ella Overholser in Oklahoma City. She lived with the Overholsers in the 1918-1919 school year, when she seems to have been taking courses at Central High School--probably to get some college preparation that her high school in Valley Falls had not provided. In 1919-20 she was at Hollins College in Virginia with Mary Overholser, and in 1920-21 she was back in Oklahoma City and earning her teaching certificate from what is now the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. Because the Overholsers were part of what passed for society in Oklahoma City in those days (1918-1921), Clara turned up in the newspaper from time to time: hosting a lunch for friends at the Skirvin Plaza Hotel with her cousin Mary Overholser, attending a party here and there. On Sundays, the Oklahoman's society page would feature photos of pretty and prominent young women, apparently just so everyone would know who was who.

On September 26, 1920, it was Clara's turn (see clipping at left--click to make it larger). She was one of five women included that week, and the caption began "Two ambitious students, two charming brides, and an interesting young traveler in foreign lands. Upper left--Miss Clara Paxton, niece of Mr. and Mrs. Will L. Overholser, who is striving for a degree at the Central State normal at Edmond. . . . "



















Two days after the picture appeared, a Mr. Sidney Caldwell in Duncan, Oklahoma, wrote her a letter (above--click on the pages to make them bigger). Mr. Caldwell had wisely ruled out the two brides and evidently preferred Clara to the interesting young traveler, who had just returned from Germany, and the other ambitious student, an undergrad at Cornell (unless of course he wrote to them, too.) Here's the letter in its entirety:

Duncan Okla.
Sept. 28--1920
Miss Clara Paxton
Centeral State Normal

My Dear Miss Paxton, I thought I would write you a little love letter to let you know I love you very much. I saw your picture in the Daily Oklahoman Sunday. It said that the college girls loved to receive letters from other towns and I thought I would write you a small letter to let you know I love you. If you will write me I will answer your letters.
I think you are the most beautiful girl in the world, and I don't know what you think about me. If you will send me a picture of your self, and I will send you a picture of myself. If you love cotton buyers that get a salary of $5000 a year you had better tie into me. I'm 19 and a little bit over and you look in the picture about the same age.
Don't forget to write, I must close as a wagon load of cotton is on the street.
Yours truly,
Sidney Caldwell
P.S. Be sure and write me.

I don't know what Clara thought about the letter; my guess is that she kept it because she thought it was funny (and of course a little flattering). What Mr. Caldwell had no way of knowing was that 86 years later, Clara's descendants could use the Internet to do a little fact checking on him. I found him in the 1920 census, and there seems to be some truth--well, truthiness--to what he told Clara. His FATHER is listed as a cotton buyer, but at the time of the census (January 1920), Sidney was still in high school. So perhaps he'd joined his father in business by September of that year.

So what do you think? Did Clara choose the right guy? Maybe if she'd gone with Sidney, we'd all be in the tall cotton now.

Why We're Not Razorbacks, Part III

So now you've read Cal Jones's story about his father's departure from Arkansas, and his sister Tommy's response disputing some of the details. Now, we'll look at what the Arkansas justice system had to say. Like Bill Clinton and Scooter Libby, Silas appears to have gotten himself in bigger trouble over perjury than whatever he might have done in the first place.

A few years ago, I wrote to the Washington County Courthouse in Fayetteville asking for any records they might have involving Silas Matthew Jones. They came up with one thing: a perjury indictment against Silas from November 6, 1903. The story told in the indictment doesn't directly address the killing of the dog at all, but rather some events in its aftermath.

The events in question—apparently an argument over the killing of the dog—took place on July 19, 1903. According to the sworn testimony of H.L. Robbins—that's Zode Robbins, the neighbor whose dog Silas killed—Silas "made use of violent abusive profane and insulting language towards and about one Della Carter and in her presence and hearing which language in its common acceptation was calculated to arouse to anger the said Della Carter and cause a breach of the peace." The exact words Silas is alleged to have said to Mrs. Carter? "You are a liar. I've got a rock for you. I'll hit you as quick as I would the dog."

The indictment, a hand-written document, says that four days later, Silas was in court having been charged with breach of peace. At that proceeding, under oath, he denied saying those words. The grand jury, apparently relying on the word of witnesses (more on that in a minute), decided that "in truth and fact" Silas did make that statement and that his testimony was "feloniously, willfully and corruptly false."

The cover of the indictment names the case ("State of Arkansas vs. S. M. Jones") and identifies the grand jury foreman and the witnesses. Besides Zode Robbins, the witnesses were Della Carter herself, Arizona Largent, J. Cherry, and Charlie Tunstill. I don't know how Tunstill fits in, but Cherry is identified as the justice of the peace at the original proceeding. As for the others, here's where it gets interesting.

In looking at some genealogy sources, I found out that Arizona Largent was the former Arizona Masters—not a desert golf tournament but a woman in Arkansas. She was the mother of Zode Robbins and Della Carter, who were half-siblings.

But the really funny thing is that Zode was a second cousin to Silas's wife Nannie Shumate—something that neither Cal nor Tommy had mentioned. It's possible they didn't know—or didn't remember it sixty years later. It's not a big coincidence; in their town of Durham in the 1900 census, at least a third of the residents appeared to be related to Silas and Nannie. But when Cal described the bad blood between his mother's and father's families, he wasn't kidding!

Was this indictment the paper that Cal remembered the man on the horse reading to his father? Was this what made him disappear out the back door and leave Arkansas for good? Cal says they left in the fall, which would square with the November date of the indictment.

This is all I have on the subject for now. I should say that Silas's grandchildren remember him fondly, and as a good man. The words he said to his neighbor that day—if he said them—might have been in character, or they might have been the meanest thing he ever said. I just hope that the meanest thing I ever said doesn't wind up on record in a courthouse somewhere!

Samuel Paxton, maybe for sure

I recently found this photo (click to enlarge) among pictures and papers that belonged to Clara Paxton Jones, and I believe it is probably her grandfather Samuel Paxton (1834-1903), whose farm in Montrose, Missouri, is pictured here.

The photo was taken at Latour Studio in Joplin, Missouri, where Samuel lived the last few years of his life. There is no identification on it, but the subject's age and the photo's presence in Clara's pictures leads me to believe it is Samuel.

I don't know why, but whenever I look at him I can't stop thinking about Wooly Willy.

UPDATE, 7/22/07: A Paxton cousin remembers having a copy of this photo and confirms that it is in fact Samuel Paxton. Thanks, cousin!

Why We're Not Razorbacks, Part II

In my last post I presented Cal Jones's report on why and how his family left Arkansas. This time, here's some of his sister Tommy's response, from a letter to Cal written just a few days later. Cal and Tommy were the second and third children, respectively, of Silas and Nannie Jones. As you'll see, her account differs in some particulars--it's kind of a hillbilly "Rashomon."

Tommy writes:

Now! While we are correcting and reminiscing let me correct you! First, I don't know who told you that I said Dad ran away from Ark. I did not! Them Zode Robbins' dogs did not attack Dad, but Zode had "sicked 'em" on to a young heifer that Dad had and they tore her to pieces. (I don't remember if she died.) But anyway they had a preliminary hearing (Dad killed the dog) and old Zode and Dad's own cousin Ambrose Clark swore to a bunch of lies so Dad felt that he couldn't get a fair trial and he took out. Mamma told me this a few years ago. But I remember when Dad had some of us kids at Grandma Shumate's one night and someone came to the front door and told Uncle George something and Dad grabbed us kids and we left by the back door and ran through the orchard for home and Dad left immediately. Later he came back and I saw him go into the barn and told Mamma, so she went to the barn and came back and said I was mistaken. I was just old enough to know there was something wrong. And I remember when he met us at a campfire just out of Westville, and somewhere in my things which are stored I have the little leather bag which Grandpa Jones gave him the gold in.

The biggest difference in their accounts is why Silas killed the dog--was it self-defense or retaliation? Tommy also seems to have known more about the legal proceedings, which we'll get to in the next installment.

Why We're Not Razorbacks

At left: Silas Jones as a young man, in a photo generously provided by a Jones cousin from Arkansas. (Click to make it bigger) I'd guess that this was a little before Silas's run-in with the law, which came when he was in his early 30s.

I've been promising to get around to this post for a while: the story of how Silas Jones and his family left Arkansas. Unlike a lot of the things I've reported on this blog, this story has been part of Jones family lore for years, and Silas's son Cal wrote it all down in a letter to his sister Irma just after their mother died in 1964. I'll start in this post by quoting the relevant parts of Cal's letter. You should know that Irma was much younger than Cal, and all these events took place long before she was born. Their sister Tommy, whom he refers to in the letter, was just a year or so younger than Cal. He begins with some background, some of it touching on things I wrote about in an earlier post about the Joneses and Shumates in the Civil War.

After some initial remarks about their mother's death, Cal writes:

This letter is to set you straight on another matter which I had intended to discuss further with you but I just didn't get around to it. It was a remark you made, quoting Tommy, and I'm sending her a copy of this letter for I certainly want her mind put at ease.

A remark she had made to you about Dad being "run out" of Arkansas. This has been bugging me ever since and I want to let you know this matter just as it was, for I believe from what you said, Tommy has the thing completely out of focus, and to get you straight on this, I must go way back, even before our father was born. As you know, Grandfather Jones fought on the Union side in the Civil War, while Mama's father fought on the side of the Confederacy, both in Arkansas. Jones the Republican, Shumate the Democrat. After the War, Grandfather Jones decided he wanted to settle in Arkansas (he was from Alabama), and how he came to fight on the Union side I do not know, nor for that matter I don't know how he happened to be a Republican. But of course there have always been a few Republicans in all the Southern states.

I'll stop here just to say that Cal had part of this wrong--his Grandfather Jones (Charles Matthew "Matt" Jones) had come to Arkansas with his parents in the 1840s, when he was still a child; his family had settled there long before the War. Cal continues:

Now picture if you can a family of robust young Republican boys (the Jones Boys) growing up in a predominantly Democratic community where just about all the fathers had fought on the losing side, the Confederacy. Being the oldest son and I believe a little closer to our father than the others, I can tell you now that Dad and his brother Will, both excellent boxers and rough-and-tumble fighters, fought their way out, back to back a many a time. He told me that in their youth they usually had to double date, in order to be close together as much as possible.

At left: three of the "robust young Republican boys" in later years, from the same cousin who sent me the photo above. (Click to make it bigger.) Left to right: Will, Silas, and Edgar Jones.

Well, to cap this off, Dad went and married a girl out of a Democratic family, which spelled more trouble. That separated the brothers and they each had to go it alone, and by the way Will married a Shumate too, a cousin of Mama's. But by that time Dad and his brother had pretty well established themselves and didn't have to fight too much, but the old hatreds continued and the first year of married life he had to lick two of Mama's brothers, Johnny and George. After that they more or less left him alone but he was still quite a minority in the community.

That should be enough of the background, and now I will tell you what happened:

Yes, I guess you could say that Dad was "run out" of Arkansas, and when you hear what it was about you may smile a little, but if you have ever entertained the idea that he left because of some criminal act you can set your mind at ease.

Remember what I said about the old, persisting hatreds. Just across the road and 100 yards west of our house, toward Durham which was less than half a mile away, lived a man named Zode Robbins, one of the worst of the haters and a man whom Dad had had to quiet down a couple of times. He had two large ferocious dogs which he had trained to bark at Dad and which I'm sure he had hoped would attack him some time. When Dad went to the store or west on the road he usually rode a horse or drove a wagon, but this time he didn't. Remember I was either 7 or 8 years old, I just can't remember if it was the spring of 1903 or 1904.

I've been able to figure out it was 1903 based on court records. More on that later.

Anyway, Dad had part of his crop in and he and I were making posts for a fence, and he decided he needed a new saw and a hammer, and on the way back these dogs actually did attack him and he killed one of them with the hammer.

The whole community knew about this and there was quite a stir about it. I remember it. I remember it quite well, the conversations he and Mama had about it and naturally opinions were divided. Zode wanted Dad to pay for the dog and he wouldn't do it, so Zode went into Fayetteville and swore out a warrant for Dad's arrest. Of course I was too young to know about that, or what it meant, but I will never forget what followed. Dad and I were putting those posts in the ground when a man rode up on a beautiful chestnut colored horse. He had a fine saddle and I was impressed by that too, for we didn't have a saddle of any kind. I probably wasn't interested in the preliminary remarks, but I remember this manreading a paper to Dad while I was looking at the horse and saddle. I will never forget the last words he read from that paper "and for killing the dog." It was then that I knew Dad was in trouble, and I cut and ran to the house as fast as I could and told Mama about it. I can't remember if she was scared, but I'm sure she was, because law-abiding people are just not used to getting arrested. To cut it short, Dad and the man came on into the house and Dad told the man to wait while he got some things out of the bedroom. Well, he simply went out the back door and so far as I know, the next we heard from him he was working in the state of Washington.

Now you can smile to think how naive Dad was to think he was in real trouble over killing a dog. Even a son of a Union soldier in the deep South couldn't have been hurt too badly over that, but evidently he didn't think that way.

I started out thinking I could get it all on one sheet, but since I couldn't find a stopping place I'll just fill you in on what happened after that.

As I said Dad had started a crop. He was gone and Mama was left alone with six children, Hub was a baby. So it fell to Grand Dad Jones to look after us and see that that crop was tended. How he did it I do not know, but in the fall of 1904 we left Arkansas, and here is how that happened:

Dad had two fine teams of mules and I don't know what else, but Grand Dad Jones fixed up a covered wagon, filled it up with bed clothes, clothing, himself, a mother and six kids, plus a little wood-burning King Heater and we headed west. I remember that trip quite well, in fact I'm sure Tommy and Boy do too. Just before dark every day we would find a promising camp site and as Boy called it, we would "scamp out." Outside of the rough, jolting part of the trip, the one thing that stands out in my mind was that Mama, most of the time, had no milk to cook with. I'll never forget that gravy and those baking powder biscuits. And I remember one treat we had. Grand Dad shot a hawk and then got some milk at a farm house and we had a feast--as far as one hawk would go. I thought that was the best bread and gravy I had ever had. How long it took I don't know, but as covered wagons go, I guess we made pretty good time, alternating those two teams of big mules and most of us walking most of the time.

For the record, Google Maps tells us that by modern highways, the distance from Durham to Westville, their destination, is about 40 miles.

Then one night which seemed no different from the rest, we camped out again. Mother had done the best she could with what she had to do with and we were gathered around the camp fire eating whatever she had prepared. We looked up and there was a man coming out of the shadows. Yeah, you guessed it. It was Dad, and you can imagine what a reunion that was. We were in Indian Territory, and out of the clutches of the law, but into what was another story. I remember Dad letting me sit up with him and Grand Dad after the others had gone to sleep, and another incident was burned into my memory. Grand Dad Jones had bought our farm and he paid Dad for it right there, and I had the privilege of watching them count the money--all in $20 gold pieces, how much I never knew, out of a cloth bag.

Hay, I just thought of something. Where do you suppose you and I would be today if Dad hadn't killed that dog?

So there you have the story as told authoritatively by the eldest son. In the next post, I'll give Tommy's reply--she remembered things slightly differently, but the gist was more or less the same. After that, I'll report on what the Arkansas court records were able to tell us. But nothing else I've learned about this story can measure up to the wonderful details that Cal provided: the chestnut horse and saddle, the hawk dinner, counting out the gold pieces by the fire. I hope it'll inspire all of you to write down some family memories. People will be grateful for decades to come.

Paging Doctor Calaway

Because parts of Sherman Calaway Jones's name have been passed down to some of his descendants, I've been interested in finding out where his name came from. The name Sherman doesn't appear in the family before his birth, and I've never heard any explanation about how his parents, Silas and Nannie Jones, chose it. But since we know that his father was a Republican and the son of a Union veteran, I am inclined to believe that, despite the fact that they lived in Arkansas, Silas Jones named his first son for General William Tecumseh Sherman, who was loathed by Southerners for his destructive March to the Sea in 1864. It was just this kind of thinking that ultimately got Silas run out of Arkansas. (I'll get around to that story soon.)

So what about Calaway? Cal's daughter remembers being told that the name was in honor of a Dr. Calaway, but I've not been able to find such a person in their part of Arkansas at the end of the 19th century. But there's one other thing worthy of note: Silas Jones's grandmother, whose maiden name was Salina Hash, had a brother whose name was Alvin Calaway Hash; in his case, the name was probably in honor of his and Salina's great-grandmother Ann Calloway, who was of a line of Calloways that came from England to Virginia in the 1600s. So whether or not Silas knew it, Calaway was a family name. I hope I'll figure out where the mysterious Dr. Calaway fits in at some point. I'll let you know.

Me and William McGee

Well, after dealing with Levi Overholser's shady past, I think it's time to clean things up a little bit on the blog. So let me move over to the other side of the family and tell you about my ancestor the preacher.

The Rev. William McGee (1768–1817) is credited in many works as one of the men who kick-started a huge religious revival that began on the Kentucky-Tennessee frontier and spread across the country at the beginning of the 19th century. (It is known today as the Second Great Awakening.) A series of small revivals that included William and his brother John culminated in the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801--a weekend camp meeting that brought thousands of people to a rural church in Kentucky for what a Vanderbilt University historian has called "arguably . . . the most important religious gathering in all of American history." William McGee is also noted for being one of the founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, a denomination that split from the Presbyterians a few years later.

Before I go on, I should tell you how William fits into our family. He was Blanche Vermillion Branch's great-great-great-grandfather, a great-grandfather of her grandmother Martha Burrow. I realize there's a lot of generations between us and William, but over time I'll fill in the gaps. But for now, here's his story:

William McGee was born in 1768 in Guilford County, North Carolina. He was the fifth and youngest child of John and Martha (McFarlane) McGee, Scotch-Irish Prebyterians who were among the wealthiest people in the county. John McGee died in 1773, when William was only five years old, but John left his family well provided for, and his mother later married William Bell, a mill owner who was himself very well off. (Martha McFarlane McGee Bell has a remarkable story of her own connected to Cornwallis's campaign through North Carolina in 1781. I'll get to that story in another post.)

When he was ten years old, William began studying with the Rev. David Caldwell, a local Presbyterian minister and Princeton graduate who ran a well-regarded academy for boys. Caldwell's school was described by a 19th-century historian as "an Academy, a College, and a Theological Seminary" where students studied classical languages and theology. The school trained many of the ministers who would go on to fuel the religious revival. William, intending to become a minister, spent ten years studying with Caldwell and was, it is suggested, impeccably prepared for the ministry by the time he was twenty.

The only trouble was, he didn't feel that he had had the "conversion experience" that he felt was necessary to his Christian life, and was burdened by the spectre of sin. His older brother John later wrote: "His distress was unspeakable, under a conscious sense of the frowns of an angry God which hung over him. This may seem strange to some, when they are informed of the manner of his life prior to this time. I do not believe he ever drank a pint of ardent spirits, or swore a profane oath, in his life. He was the most moral youth I ever saw."

And John, it seems, knew from sin. While William was studying his Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, John--"a wild young man," one source tells us--ran off and bummed around on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. While he was away, he wrote home with a big surprise for his mother and brother: with no formal training at all, John had joined the Methodists and had quickly become a preacher on the traveling circuit.

I should explain that the Methodists and Baptists who were traveling the South after the Revolution were seen as a threat to the Presbyterian domination of the Scotch-Irish. The Methodists and Baptists were preaching a more experiential, less intellectual religion, and a more inclusive gospel that suggested that people could, by embracing Christ and the church, effect their own salvation. This was contrary to the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination--the idea that God had predetermined who would be saved and who would not, and nothing people could do could change their fate. People who had just won a war for the right to govern themselves were receptive to the Baptists and Methodists telling them that they could have a role in their eternal life as well.

Martha Bell so disapproved of her son's new faith that she considered disowning him. When he came home two years later, he wanted to hold prayer with his family. His mother was opposed, but WIlliam persuaded her that they should hear him out. As a historian later said, "they soon began to believe there was a change in him and began to treat him with respect."

John's arrival seems to have helped William sort out his doubts and fears. As one historian put it: "William McGee was chosen by the family to be a preacher, but God made a preacher first of John McGee, and he was God's instrument in the conversion of his brother, who soon began to preach the Gospel."

We don't know when William became a licensed Presbyterian minister, but it was probably around 1795. Not long after that, he and John both went out to the Tennessee frontier to preach. William took charge of a congregation in Sumner County, in the middle of the state's long border with Kentucky, a place where religion was seen to be in decline.

And this is where it gets interesting. The Presbyterians of that day carried on an old Scotch-Irish ritual of holding communion in large groups about four times a year. People would come from long distances and be tested on matters of religious faith and knowledge before they were permitted to take communion. It was at one of these, at Red River Church across the border in Kentucky, in June 1800, that the first stirrings of revival were seen. William McGee was invited to participate, as was his brother John--a sign of Presbyterian-Methodist cooperation on the frontier. I'll let Mike Sublett of Restoration magazine tell it from there:

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday passed quietly and reverently - as these Presbyterian Communions were wont to go. On Monday, though, as one local minister preached, a woman who had long sought assurance for her salvation began shouting and singing. The preacher concluded the sermon, and all the ministers left the church - except for the McGee brothers.

Presbyterian William sat on the floor near the pulpit and began weeping. Soon the congregation was weeping, seeking the full security for salvation. Methodist John rose to preach; a witness said he exhorted people to let "the Lord God omnipotent reign in their hearts, and to submit to him."

People began to cry and shout.

Then the woman who had first started shouting let out a shrill of anguish. Methodist John McGee, seemingly entranced, made his way to comfort her. Someone (probably his Presbyterian brother) reminded him this was a Presbyterian church; the congregation would not condone emotionalism! Later John recalled, "I turned to go back and was near falling; the power of God was strong upon me. I turned again and, losing sight of the fear of man, I went through the house shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain" - people were falling in ecstasy.

James McGready, the minister who had presided over that meeting, knew he was on to something, and scheduled what is considered the first religious camp meeting a month later at Gaspar River Meeting House, not far from Red River. The results were just like Red River, and William McGee is said to have preached with passion. "Towards the close of the sermon," McGready later wrote, "the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice."

The revivals continued in other locations that fall, and among those who heard about them was Barton Stone, another Presbyterian minister and former student of David Caldwell, McGee's former teacher. Stone was pastor of a church at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in Bourbon County near Lexington. (He would later be one of the founders of the Restoration movement, out of which the Disciples of Christ and Church of Christ denominations were born.) In the spring of 1801 Stone attended one of the camp meetings he'd been hearing about on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, and he came back with plans for his own, which took place in August 1801. He spread the word that it would be an experience not to be missed, and the turnout was greater than anyone expected. The McGee brothers came to preach, among many other ministers, and many thousands of people descended on the rural spot--far more than the locals could accommodate. I've seen estimates ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 people. One writer has called it "The Religious Woodstock of 1801."

Cane Ridge is as famous for the excesses of enthusiasm that occurred there--a kind of mass hysteria--as is it is for its influence on American religion. Stone himself later described some of the things that went on, which he described as "religious exercises": "falling" (the fainting previously described); "the jerks," a series of spasm-like movements that sometimes affected the head and sometimes the whole body; a beatific kind of dancing; "barking," which was just the jerks accompanied by grunts; an entirely solemn and humorless laughter; and singing.

All this made the traditional Presbyterian authorities uneasy, and their support for the revival movement was tepid. It was this tension that would soon lead to a split between the larger Presbyterian body and the ministers on the Kentucky-Tennessee frontier.

But the presenting issue was not theology or worship style but education. It was hard to get qualified preachers on the frontier, and in McGee's presbytery, they had ordained a number of young men who had not had a formal education in theology and ancient languages. McGee took the side of the "young men," as they were known during the long dispute with the larger church that followed. I imagine he was torn--he himself had been the product of a careful and rigorous education, and yet he had seen the powerful work that his Methodist brother and other untrained ministers had been doing on the frontier.

Beyond the question of education was another one that the revivals brought to the fore: McGee and many of his fellow Presbyterians on the frontier, witnessing the sensational and dramatic conversion experiences of the revival, began to have doubts about the doctrine of predestination. McGee himself is said to have been deeply confused and undecided about this, and his uncertainty kept him from signing on right away when some of his colleagues took steps to separate from the larger church in 1809. But by 1810 he joined the new Cumberland Presbyterian denomination and indeed is considered one of its founders.

McGee continued to preach in frontier churches until his death in Tennessee in 1817. He and his wife Anna King--the sister of one of his ministerial colleagues--had eight children. One of them, named Martha for his mother, married James Burrow and moved to Lawrence County, Missouri. (Most of the McGees moved to a different part of Missouri after William's death.) Among James and Martha's children was a son named William for his preacher grandfather. William Burrow died in the Civil War, fighting for the Union in the battle of Fayetteville. His wife, Frances Stacy, died around the same time, leaving two orphaned daughters-- Artelia Jane and Martha Burrow. Martha later married John Washington Vermillion; they were the parents of Walter Vermillion, Blanche Branch's father.

Blanche, of course, was a Methodist, and whatever pride she might have had in her ancestor (I found all this information and shared it with her late in her life) was probably tempered by the fact that William was not a Methodist. But he came as close as a Presbyterian could--to the point of not being a very good Presbyterian! And one detail I didn't find until recently would surely have pleased her. As some of you know, Francis Asbury was one of the leading lights of Methodism--John Wesley himself appointed Asbury as one of the two first Methodist bishops in America, and he led American Methodism for 32 years, taking time to travel throughout the country preaching. He kept a journal of his travels, and on January 26, 1790, he stopped in on William McGee's family in North Carolina. Here is what he wrote: "Thence we went to Mr. William Bell's, on Deep River, and were received in the kindest manner; before I left the house, I felt persuaded that that family would come to experience the power of religion."

Asbury nailed it.