Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr., & ChildrenOld, superseded version of "Old McCorkle Letters." (Contains endnotes inadvertently omitted from later version.)
McCorkle Correspondence
Centered around, first, Yorkville in Gibson County, Tennessee, then, after the Civil War and the railroads, the new town of Newbern, Dyer County, Tennessee. Scots-Irish Immigrants from Northern Ireland to:
(1) Lancaster County & Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;
(2) down the Great Wagon Road of the 18th century to Rockbridge County, Virginia, in the area of Lexington, whence the McCorkle and Thomas and Houston families are thought to have traveled together on down to
(3) Rowan County and other sites in the Piedmont of North Carolina near Salisbury and Statesville near Charlotte—particularly around the Thyatira Presbyterian Church; to
(4) Sumner County, Tennessee, near Lebanon and Gallatin (Northern Middle Tennessee excluding Nashville and Davidson County)—Look for some of them at the organization circa 1793 of Shiloh Presbyterian Church near Gallatin;
(5) Then with escape by some from Hostilities up to Cane Ridge and Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky; and Logan County, Kentucky, after John Purviance was “scalped” in 1792 [The John Purviance who was “scalped” and died in 1792, was a son of Revolutionary War soldier John Purviance and wife Mary Jane Wasson (Purviance).] More work needs to be done looking for their tracks in Kentucky, certainly around Cane Ridge and Paris, Kentucky; and possibly at Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church near Lexington, Ky.;
(6) With some family members, such as “elder” David Purviance (another son of John Purviance and Mary Jane Wasson Purviance), remaining in Bourbon County, Kentucky, then later on moving on to Preble County, Ohio, to “New Paris;”
(7) But with others—such as Robert McCorkle & his 1st wife Lizzie Blythe, and brother William McCorkle [1st wife Peggy Blythe] and William’s 2nd wife (“Mattie”) Martha King the widow of the “scalped” John Purviance), and we think “colonel” John Purviance & wife Mary Jane Wasson Purviance—going back southward to the area of Gallatin and Lebanon in Middle Tennessee. Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache wrote that her father Robert and uncle William McCorkle lost their wives after moving back down to Middle Tennessee, and that William’s 2nd wife “Mattie” King died on the way from North Carolina in what was then wilderness and was buried on the trail in a “rude grave”—however, James M. Richmond thinks there is evidence she may be buried at Shiloh C.P. Church’s King Cemetery near Gallatin. Then, in Sumner County, Tennessee, in 1800 William McCorkle was to marry a 3rd wife, Jennie Graham. William’s brother Robert McCorkle went back to Rowan County, North Carolina to marry “Peggy” Margaret Morrison (McCorkle) and fetch her westward to Middle Tennessee;
(8) Receipt by brothers Robert & William McCorkle of their father Alexander McCorkle’s Revolutionary War land grant in Rutherford County (Murfreesborough), Tennessee (Stone’s River and Bradley’s Creek). This land was to be lost circa 1826 in title-dispute litigation; this Rutherford County land had been devised to the two brothers upon their father’s death in Rowan County, NC, in 1800, and after Alexander McCorkle’s interment at Thyatira Presbyterian Church beside the wife who predeceased him, Nancy Agnes Montgomery McCorkle, and his widow Rebecca Brandon McCorkle;
(9) Then Robert McCorkle, but evidently not his brother William McCorkle, removed westwardly to Dyer County in the newly opened western district of Tennessee to claim land granted in lieu of land from which they had been disseised in Rutherford County litigation—with nearby towns first Yorkville (Gibson County, Tennessee) and then, after the Civil War, Newbern (Dyer County), Tennessee.
(10) One of Robert McCorkle and William McCorkle’s sisters who remained in North Carolina, Nancy McCorkle Ramsay (Mrs. Robert Ramsay), engaged in correspondence with family members who had removed westwardly into Tennessee. These papers lie in the Archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and are not included here. Nancy McCorkle Ramsay and Robert and William McCorkle’s brother Samual Eusebius McCorkle, Doctor of Divinity, was a founder of UNC.
Compiled by Marsha Cope Huie
with significant contributions by Natalie Cockroft Ragon & husband James Ragon of Jackson,Tennessee; and by Mr. and Mrs. James M. Richmond of Napierville, Illinois.
Published in March 2006.
Any person discovering an error, will confer a favor by making it known to marshahuie@aol.com I’ve tempted time by waiting over 20 years to make all this available. The good thing about my procrastination is the advent of the Internet, which has afforded us much more genealogical information than our mere old family records. My theory in publishing now, finally in 2006, is that it’s better to make a full effort, replete with errors of commission and omission, than it is to wait for a perfect edition.
I. ۞ Correspondence of (“Peggy”) Margaret Morrison McCorkle (Mrs. Robert McCorkle) and, mostly, one of her daughters, Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach. Margaret called her new home in Dyer County, Tennessee, “Verdant Plain.”
“I think you do me injustice to imagine me opposed to the abolition scheme at least I know that I am unfriendly to slaveholding amongst us. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the politics of the times to judge of the measures pursued by the abolitionists therefore I wish them success only just so far as they are trying in a right manner to do what I believe to be a good work, one thing I can say with certainty that it would truly rejoice me to see all my dear posterity settled in a free state.”
-- Letter from Margaret Morrison McCorkle to her brother-in-law James McCorkle, a brother to Robert McCorkle. James McCorkle was born 4 May 1768. James McCorkle moved to Ohio [John Hale Stutesman wrote that his removal was to escape slavery], but James McCorkle died residing in Frankfort, Indiana, on 2 December 1840.
II. ۞ Letters of Margaret’s son Robert Hope Andrew McCorkle who married Tirzah Scott and was therefore a son-in-law of James & Sarah Dickey Scott of Yorkville, Gibson County, Tennessee, each – James & Sarah Dickey Scott—having been born in 1777. Tirzah’s parents were interred in the Old Yorkville Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery.
III. ۞ Letters of Margaret Morrison McCorkle’s grandson John Edwin McCorkle – his correspondence concerning the estate of his uncle David Thomas. David Thomas of Republic of Texas fame was a brother of Mrs. Edwin Alexander McCorkle née Jane Maxwell Thomas. [Jane Maxwell Thomas was a daughter-in-law of Margaret Morrison McCorkle. Jane’s father was William Thomas and her mother née Elizabeth Purviance.] Edwin Alexander McCorkle: 18 March 1799 – 10 January 1853.
IV. ۞ One of the Civil War-Time Diaries of John Edwin McCorkle, a grandson of Margaret Morrison McCorkle.
The one of his journals transcribed here covers parts of 1860 and 1861, also 1863.
Other of his journals, which my sister and I view to have been wrongfully distrained, are in the possession of the University of Tennessee at Martin Archives; ditto some of the records of our paternal grandfather Howard Anderson Huie (1870-1935), particularly his Huie & Ozier Hardware Company records of Newbern, Tennessee, circa 1900.
The wartime diaries of John E’s brother HRA (Hiram) McCorkle are not included. In the year 2003, Hiram R.A. McCorkle’s diaries are in the possession of David Caldwell of Newbern, Tennessee, the only child of Betty Jane Atkins & Charles Caldwell. The following offers a sample of Hiram McCorkle’s journal entries, about 6 years before Hiram died in 1907:
September 12, 1901: Death of Frelin McCorkle.
“ Frelinghuisen McCorkle (col’d) died, aged 57 years and 8 days.”
Next entry: “We attended Frelin’s funeral at the McCorkle cemetery. Quite a number of colored people there as also were a goodly number of white neighbors. All of his young Masters and Mistresses in slave time who were in reach were there. Frelin was born and raised and married and raised a large family on the old McCorkle farm. [He means his grandparents’ farm, I guess.] Never lived anywhere else except, I think, maybe he was hired out a few times when he was fifteen or sixteen years old. Frelin was a good boy, a good obedient slave and after being freed he was a good colored citizen. Always polite, truthful, honest and industrious, providing well for his wife and a large family of children, all girls, but one. Although he had been a believer in the Christian religion for quite a number of years, he never obeyed the gospel until a few years ago. Since which time, up to his death he has lived, as best he knew how, a Christian life. Let us all drop a tear and let the curtain fall. Frelin’s gone where good negroes go.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
One record says that Alexander McCorkle who m. “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery had an older brother named Francis McCorkle but not Aunt Ora McCorkle Huie’s and not Aunt Katie Pearl Fox’s.
Children of Alexander McCorkle, born 1723, emigrant from Northern Ireland, and 1st wife “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery, who died in 1789, also an emigrant from Northern Ireland, both of whom are buried at Thyatira Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Rowan County, N.C. After Agnes predeceased Alexander McCorkle, he married Rebecca Brandon (not the mother of his children); and he died in 1800.
II.1 Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, D.D., married Margaret Gillespie on 21 June 1811.. Samuel was educated at a precursor of Princteon College; received Doctor of Divinity degree from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. –He founded a classics school called Zion Parnassus. He was a founder of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His wife Margaret Gillespie McCorkle was kin to Elizabeth Steele, heroine of the Revolutionary War in North Carolina.There is a 2004 article about his feelings on the Great Revival: Peter N. Moore; Journal of Southern History, Vol. 70, 2004, entitled : Family Dynamics and the Great Revival: Religious Conversion in the South Carolina Piedmont
II.2 John McCorkle m Katy Barr
[AJohn an elder in the church[121] and member of the Legislature useful and much beloved, died in the prime of life leaving an only son who walked in his father=s steps and enjoyed his honors.@--Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache, John’s niece. –Is John in the records of the legislature?]
II.3. Joseph m Peggy Snoddy
[AJoseph moved to Ohio at an early day B was a man of ability B but rather eccentric.”]
II.4. Alexander m Katy Morrison
[AAleck was emotional in character and joined the Methodists@] -- I think he went to Henry County, TN,
II.5. William m 1st “Peggy” Margaret Blythe, 2nd “Mattie” [Martha]] King [widow of John Purviance who was scalped in 1792], and 3rd in 1800 Jennie Graham. This Margaret ‘Peggy’ Blythe was a sister to the first wife of our Robert McCorkle, immediately below, who m. 1st Elizabeth Blythe (“Lizzie”)
[AWilliam, following Barton Stone, set his negroes free and went to preaching@]
The modern authority on William McCorkle is James M. Richmond whose wife is William’s descendant.
II.6. Robert m 1st Lizzy Blythe, 2nd Margaret ‘Peggy’ Morrison, born 29 Oct. 1764-died in the spring of 1828. 1828 is the date of the founding of the1st Presbyterian Church Memphis. Robert’s granddaughter Martha D. Anderson Leath was there as Mrs. James T. Leath.
[Moved from Rowan Co., NC, to Middle Tennessee in the environs of Lebanon and Gallatin; then up to Kentucky to escape Indian depredations; then back down to Middle Tennessee; to Stone’s River, Tennessee, area to take up his father’s Revolutionary War land grant, then to Dyer County.]
II.7. James m 1st Lizzy Hall; [moved to Ohio; but lived at his death in Frankfort, Boone County, Indiana).
II. “Lizzie” to her niece Elmira [“Bettie” in her father’s will] Elizabeth McCorkle Barr—as Elizabeth Barr she appears, I think, in the church records of Shiloh Presbyterian (C.P.) Church near Gallatin, Tennessee. Mrs. William Barr; and II. Nancy McCorkle Ramsay (Mrs. Robert Ramsay)—papers at U N Carolina Archives; and “Mattie” Martha McCorkle Archibald (Mrs. William Archibald)
V. Frontispiece ۞ Letter from Bowden Cason (Casey) McCorkle in San Leandro, California, to me, Marsha Cope Huie, Sept. 7, 1984, when I was living in Memphis, just before moving to Cambridge, England, then to San Antonio, Texas. “Casey” McCorkle was a grandson of Finis A. McCorkle & 1st wife Sallie Jo Jackson McCorkle. Casey McCorkle of California was a great-grandson of Edwin A. McCorkle & Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle; and a g-g-grandson of Margaret Morrison McCorkle (died 1828) & Robert McCorkle (died 1828):
We can begin only with proper attribution to the honored memory of our cousin Casey McCorkle, late of San Leandro, California:
FRONTISPIECE
1983
Dear Miss Marsha:
I enclose herewith a sampling of the Roach-McCorkle letters. There are many more as it seems there was an extensive correspondence carried on for several generations. I have no idea how these originals were preserved and came to my branch of the family. They are now collected in a display folder. Some of them are fairly delicate but in general well preserved. Copying has been haphazard or what remains is the residue from extensive copying the disposition of which is unknown to me.
Obviously these papers should not be the exclusive property of any branch of the McCorkle family. I should think complete copies should be made and the originals preserved and made available to all. So far many have expressed agreement but no one has expressed interest in doing the job. Perhaps you may have some ideas along these lines.
I realize there may be much similar material in existence and available to you. I will be interested in hearing from you and your reaction to the letters.
It was a pleasant surprise to hear from you and I will be looking forward to hearing from you again. [It was tedious work, back then before the Internet, but I dialed so many telephone numbers in California that I finally located Casey McCorkle. He was a gracious gentleman, I thought.]
We will be out of town for a month but will return early in October. I hope this finds you and yours well and happy.
Kindest personal regards,
B.C. McCorkle
[San Leandro, California, 1983. -- Casey McCorkle’s 1st wife was Floy Disney (mother of Carter McCorkle, male; and of Lynn McCorkle, female) and his 2nd wife was Lois Miller. His children: Carter McCorkle, son; Lynn McCorkle, daughter; and Kathleen McCorkle Brudno.]
Generation I. Alexander McCorkle & Agnes Montgomery McCorkle
Generation II. Robert McCorkle & 2nd wife Margaret Morrison McCorkle
Generation III. Edwin Alexander McCorkle & wife Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle
Generation IV. Finis Alexander McCorkle & 1st wife “Sallie Jo” Sarah Josephine Jackson. Something in Uncle Hiram’s (Finis’s oldest brother’s) diary said that Finis rode on his horse during the Civil War to find Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. And something in John E. McCorkle’s journal made me think that Finis attended, with John E., Bluff Springs Academy.
Children of Finis Alexander & Sallie Jo Jackson McCorkle:
1. Gentry Purviance McCorkle, born May 31, 1870 – died 28 July 1962. Wives: Maggie Meeks; Ruth Elizabeth Cason of Henderson, Tennessee; and Maude Simons Riley.
Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Jr., California. Born Center Point, Texas, on June 6, 1903; and died in California in 1983. His wife was Marguerite Moreman, born April 2, 1905. G.P. McCorkle, Jr., had one son, named Micnael Moreman McCorkle, born 29 November 1938.
Hiram ? Robert Anderson McCorkle, California—I think his name was David McCorkle, not Hiram, but I may be wrong. I think David is the one who was a WWII prisoner of war, according to Aunt Kate Pearl McCorkle (Fox)’s journals.
Mary Helen McCorkle (Mrs. Glenn Glen), Hollywood, California. If you’ve watched Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz “I Love Lucy” reruns, you will have noted the Glenn Glen Recording/Sound Studios name.
2. Gillum Edwin McCorkle, b. Aug. 6, 1872--died 21 Feb. 1894. Evidently, the ill-fated Gillum was named after his Jackson grandfather, Gillum Jackson, a minister in Obion County, Tennessee, and his McCorkle grandfather, Edwin A. McCorkle.
3. “Jennie” Susan Jane McCorkle, b. 7 July 1874-died in Hot Springs, Arkansas as wife of Dr.
E.E. CARTER of Arkansas, death recorded as October of 1906. B
Below is a photograph of Jennie’s brother Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr., with his children:
.
Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr., & Children
Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr. 1904. President of Bandera County Bank, Bandera, Texas.
4. Homer Thomas McCorkle – I suppose the “Thomas” was for his grandmother Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle’s maiden name.
5. Jodie L. McCorkle, August 12, 1880-October 2, 1880.
6. (by Finis Alexander McCorkle’s 2nd wife (Mag) Margaret F. Hart: ) Maida Maxwell McCorkle (Montgomery), born Jan. 13, 1895 (Mrs. Howell Montgomery). Maida lived over 100 years. One daughter Margaret Montgomery never married & was a librarian in California; no issue. Born 8 Oct. 1908; nowdead. –Maida Montgomery told me on the telephone circa 1983 that she had no knowledge of where her father Finis Alexander McCorkle is buried.
Generation V. Homer McCorkle (born 1877, Newbern, Tenn. – died 1964 San Leandro, Calif) & wife Helen Hart Cason. What kin if any was she to his father Finis’ 2nd wife Mag Hart?
Generation VI. Casey McCorkle & Floy Disney (mother of 2 children) and Lois Miller (mother of Kathleen “Kate” McCorkle Brudno)
Casey McCorkle, born March 21, 1909, of sacred memory, had three children, viz.,
Generation VII. Carter McCorkle, b. 22 Feb 1936 -- [Was Carter McCorkle named after Casey’s father’s sister, Susan Jane [Jennie] McCorkle Carter of Hot Springs, Arkansas, Homer’s sister who m. Dr. E E Carter and moved from Newbern, Tennessee, to Arkansas, dying there in 1906?]. Carter McCorkle’s children: Jamees McCorkle b. circa 1963; Elizabeth McCorkle b. circa 1964; and Catherine McCorkle b. circa 1968.
Generation VII. Lynn McCorkle, born 1937, married but returned to McCorkle surname for herself and her three children, viz., Debra Jo McCorkle, born circa 1960; Michael McCorkle, born circa 1962; and Mark McCorkle, born circa 1963.
Generation VII. Cathleen [Kathleen?] McCorkle Brudno, born 8 February 1945; California.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Casey McCorkle’s siblings, also sons of Homer & Helen Hart Cason, were:
Casey’s older brother Horace Jackson McCorkle, M.D., born 5 Feb 1905 in Center Point, Texas; removed to San Francisco. I know nothing further about his family but think he had several children in California;
and
Casey’s younger brother “Tom” Homer Thomas McCorkle, Ph.D., born b. 30 Aug 1914 in Comfort, Texas; removed to California. Graduate of University of California Berkeley. Married Margery Manchester, b. August 13, 1917. –Tom had three daughters, viz., Kate, Susan, & Marjery.
|
Maggie McCorkle Pinson, International Manager |
Susan
Jane “Jennie” McCorkle (Carter) (Mrs. Dr. E.E. Carter) with
her big brother, Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr.
Regarding Homer McCorkle’s son (the same as Finis A. McCorkle and Sallie Jo Jackson McCorkle’s grandson) Horace Jackson McCorkle, M.D., the University of California San Francisco web site says this:
“One hundred years ago the surgical curriculum consisted of lectures on the principles and practices of surgery, demonstrations of surgical technique on the cadaver, and clinical lectures at the college building and the city and county hospital. In 1899, Dr. Thomas W. Huntington of the Department of Surgery performed the first total gastrectomy for carcinoma. The specimen was kept in the museum of the department for many years and it is said that the patient survived for many years without evidence of recurrence.
“Dr. Wallace I. Terry assumed the chairmanship of the Department of Surgery in 1912. The operating room suite in the Herbert C. Moffitt Hospital was named in his honor.
“The modern era of surgical education in the department dated from the appointment of Dr. Howard C. Naffziger as professor and chairman in 1929. Under his dynamic leadership the department quickly became recognized as one of the leading surgical units in the country. Among the many distinctive contributions from the department at that time was the development of the "Naffziger operation" for progressive exophthalmos. For a considerable period of time, this was the standard procedure for preventing the loss of vision in this distressing condition.
“After Dr. Naffziger's retirement, Dr. H. Glenn Bell was appointed chairman. During his tenure, the department produced some of the finest clinical surgeons in the country. A major achievement in the department was the development of a surgical research laboratory headed by Drs. Harold A. Harper and Horace J. McCorkle. A number of distinguished contributions in the field of gastrointestinal physiology came from this laboratory in the 1940's.
Dr. Leon Goldman was appointed chairman in July, 1956, and during his tenure the stage was set for the present structure of the department. By the mid-1960's, the department was well known for its contributions to vascular surgery under the direction of Dr. Edwin J. Wylie; cardiac surgery under the direction of Dr. Benson B. Roe; the transplantation of organs under Dr. John S. Najarian; and experimental and clinical gastrointestinal studies under the direction of Dr. William Silen.
Dr. J. Englebert Dunphy was appointed chairman in January, 1964, and during around that time a number of younger men joined the department. The research activities were broadened to include studies in wound healing, hyperbaric oxygenation, mechanisms of membrane transport, and immunological mechanisms in neoplasia. The development of improved methods of undergraduate education in surgery was the major interest of the chairman. Meanwhile, the tradition of graduate teaching and residency training in surgery initiated by Dr. Naffziger and brought to a high level of fruition by Dr. Bell continued. **** **** **** **** *** [End of quoted material from U California San Francisco web site….]
I’m almost sure I recall having read somewhere that Horace Jackson McCorkle, M.D, was at one time chief of staff at the U California San Francisco Medical School hospital. .. And so, the metaphysical question arises: who did more good [and more correleative harm] overall—he who did not care for an elderly parent as did his two brothers Casey and Tom; or the physician who neglects his family for the sake of advancing Science? I don’t pretend to have The Answer.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Peregrinations of Robert McCorkle (who died in Dyer County, West Tennessee, in the spring of 1828):
· We know Robert McCorkle was born in Rowan/Iredell County, North Carolina, to Alexander McCorkle & “Nancy” Agness Montgomery, immigrants to, first, Pennsylvania, from Northern Ireland, then, we think but are not certain to the area of Lexington, Virginia, in Rockbridge County; then, third, the Piedmont of North Carolina near Salisbury and Statesville.
· “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery McCorkle’s mother was née Finley, and “Nancy” Agness Montgomery (McCorkle) was a sister to Presbyterian minister Joseph Montgomery, born 1733 in Paxtang, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania & died 1794. That sibling relationship between Agness Montgomery McCorkle and Joseph Montgomery, the old family records reflect.
· Broader historical records reveal that our Joseph Montgomery served in the Continental Congress. This Joseph Montgomery, born 1733, is highlighted in the web site of the Presbyterian Church. “The Political Graveyard” says this about him: Montgomery, Joseph (1733-1794) — of Pennsylvania. Born in Paxtang, Dauphin County, Pa., September 23, 1733. Delegate to Continental Congress from Pennsylvania, 1780-82; common pleas court judge in Pennsylvania, 1786-94. Died in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pa., October 14, 1794. Interment at Lutheran Church Cemetery, Harrisburg, Pa.
· See also: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: MONTGOMERY, Joseph, a Delegate from Pennsylvania; born in Paxtang, Dauphin County, Pa., September 23, 1733; pursued classical studies and was graduated from Princeton College in 1755; studied for the ministry; licensed to preach by the presbytery of Philadelphia in 1759 and ordained as a minister in 1761; held several pastorates 1761-1777; commissioned a chaplain in Col. Smallwood’s Maryland Regiment of the Continental Army and served from 1777 until 1780; delegate to the general assembly of Pennsylvania 1780-1782; Member of the Continental Congress 1780-1782; recorder of deeds and register of wills for Dauphin County 1785-1794; justice of the court of common pleas 1786-1794; died in Harrisburg, Pa., on October 14, 1794; interment in the Lutheran Church Cemetery. Bibliography: Forster, John Montgomery. A Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Joseph Montgomery. Harisburg, Pa.: Printed for private distribution, 1879.
Martha Finley Montgomery was the mother of “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery McCorkle (that is to say, the mother of Mrs. Alexander McCorkle). One record, not ours, says her husband’s name was John Montgomery. The mother née Martha Finley would have been born sometime around 1700. The old handwritten Dyer County family records [kept by Aunt Ora McCorkle Huie (Mrs. Julius Adolphus “Dolph” Huie) and Ora’s younger sister Katie Pearl McCorkle (Fox); and typed up in the 1960s by Ora’s only child Maury Adolphus Huie, 1895-1973] say that this Mrs. Martha Finley Montgomery’s father, named John Finley, was somehow a founder of Princeton University. The Princeton U records reveal that a Samuel Finley was president 1761-1766. – As I (Marsha Cope Huie) write this paragraph, I think the old records say a John Finley was our ancestor’s (Mrs. Martha Finley Montgomery’s) father who was instrumental in founding Princeton; this Finley name must however be checked for accuracy, with which I hereby charge the next generations. Perhaps John Finley was an ancestor of Samuel Finley of Princeton and Samuel Finley was a collateral to our Martha Finley Montgomery—a brother—or perhaps a nephew; I do not know.
“26 April 1791 - James Finley, executor, account (Account Box F, No. 14)
Appended to this document (at the very end) are materials from the Princeton University Internet web site, which say that a Samuel Finley was an early president of Princeton, 1761-1766. – What kin was our ancestor John Finley to this Samuel Finley? We do know, again, that our “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery McCorkle’s brother, Presbyterian minister Joseph Montgomery (born 1733) served in the Continental Congress, so it is worthy of note that the Princeton web site says the following about its early president John Witherspoon, who also served in the Continental Congress: “ John Witherspoon, eminent Scottish divine who held the office from 1768 to his death in 1794. Witherspoon was the only ordained clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, and for six years thereafter he was an active and influential member of the Continental Congress….” -- The Continental Congress nexus lends credibility to Ora and Kate’s old family records in Dyer County, as we know “Nancy” Agness Montgomery McCorkle’s brother Joseph Montgomery (a Presbyterian minister born 1733) served in the Continental Congress.
Robert McCorkle’s older brother, Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, had been born in Pennsylvania (Samuel Eusebius McCorkle was a graduate of the precursor to Princeton College; was admitted to the Presbyterian ministry for New York; & received a Doctorate of Divinity from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania). It may be that our Robert McCorkle was born in Pennsylvania, as was his older brother Samuel, but I think that he was born in North Carolina.
We know that Robert moved from North Carolina westerly to Sumner County, Tennessee (then, a generic term for northern middle Tennessee excluding Nashville and Davidson County). Robert married (1st wife) “Lizzie” Elizabeth Blythe and had two children, Aleck McCorkle who died in infancy and Elizabeth McCorkle (Anderson) who was raised by her deceased mother’s mother. Elizabeth McCorkle (Anderson)’s maternal grandparents were, I think: Reverend James Blythe and Elizabeth King (Blythe). Elizabeth McCorkle (Anderson) was raised by her grandmother Blythe [Elizabeth King Blythe] in or near Lebanon, Tennessee. After Elizabeth Blythe McCorkle died, evidently after Robert had moved back down to northern middle Tennessee from having taken refuge up in Kentucky, Elizabeth Blythe McCorkle’s widower Robert McCorkle went back to Rowan County, North Carolina, to marry and fetch westwardly, as his 2nd wife, Margaret “Peggy” Morrison, daughter of Andrew & Elizabeth Sloan Morrison.
[Source: Letter from Robert & Peggy McCorkle’s daughter Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache to her nephew, James Scott McCorkle, M.D., of Newbern.]
We also know that Elizabeth Sloan (Morrison) was herself a McCorkle descendant.
[Same source, Elmira, who thought that her mother Peggy and father Robert McCorkle were 2nd cousins; -- but from Elmira’s descriptions of their consanguinity I read them to have been first cousins-once removed.]
Robert McCorkle [and perhaps his 1st wife “Lizzie” Elizabeth Blythe? ] temporarily moved from Sumner County up to Bourbon County, Kentucky, near Paris, Kentucky, site of the Great 1801 & 1804 camp meetings which resulted in 1804 in the formation of the Christian Church/ Disciples of Christ, a part of which became, after schism around 1900, the Church of Christ. [We should see if Robert was a member of Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church near Lexington, KY; this clue is thanks to James M. Richmond.] Some of the McCorkle & Purviance families moved up to Bourbon County to escape Indian troubles after the 1792 “scalping” of “Mattie” Martha King’s husband, John Purviance. [This scalped John Purviance was a son of an elder John Purviance, the father being the Revolutionary War Lieutenant –called “colonel” Purviance as, I think, an honorific—It was the elder John Purviance (father of the John Purviance who was “scalped” in 1792) who married Mary Jane Wasson (Purviance). The widow of the murder victim John Purviance (Martha King Purviance) then married William McCorkle, becoming William McCorkle’s second wife, as mentioned. -- It can get a bit confusing to discuss William McCorkle as he had 3 wives, born viz., 1st “Peggy” Margaret Blythe; 2nd “Mattie” Martha King (Mrs. John Purviance)); and 3rd married in 1800 in Sumner County, Tennessee: Jennie Graham. -- The scalped John Purviance’s brother, church elder “David Purviance” remained in Bourbon County, Kentucky, for years, and signed the “Last Will and Testament of the Springfield, Kentucky, Presbytery” in order to form the new “Christian Church.” This David Purviance served in the Kentucky legislature then moved on to Ohio where he served in the Ohio legislature and served as a founder and often president pro tempore of Miami University of Ohio. Some of the Purviance and Thomas people removed on to Preble County, Ohio, where “church elder” David Purviance moved, and died and is buried in Preble County in, I think New Paris, Ohio. Others of the Thomas and McCorkle and Purviance families moved back down to northern middle Tennessee after troubles with the indigenous peoples resolved.
This David Purviance who died in “New” Paris, Ohio, was, as mentioned, a son of Mary Jane Wasson [died in 1810 aged 68] & Revolutionary War “colonel” John Purviance, who moved back down to Tennessee from Bourbon County, KY. and are presumably buried in Middle Tennessee; and a brother to Elizabeth Purviance Thomas, the mother of Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle—Mrs. Edwin Alexander McCorkle, who in 1855 was buried in the McCorkle Cemetery; and this “elder” David Purviance was a brother to the “scalped” John Purviance; and to alia). This David Purviance is listed as a co-founder with Barton Stone of the Christian Church/Church of Christ. And, again, it was this David Purviance who was a brother to, inter alia, Elizabeth Purviance (Mrs. William Thomas), who (Elizabeth Purviance Thomas) was the mother of Jane Maxwell Thomas (Mrs. Edwin A. McCorkle), the Jane who died in Dyer County in 1855, after Edwin A. McCorkle had died 10 January 1853. -- The Thomas and McCorkle and Purviance families, and a Scott family, are mixed up together in many ways. And the Thomases were somehow mixed up with old Sam Houston’s family of Houston. [Asenath Houston married Isaac J. Thomas; Isaac J. Thomas was a son of the John Thomas who married Mary Jetton. The John Thomas who married Mary Jetton was himself a son of Jacob Thomas who married Margaret Brevard, Rowan County, N.C.] I wish I could find where David Thomas “read law.” History records that Sam Houston himself read law at Maryville College in eastern Tennessee, but I’ve so far found no record for David Thomas. [The Isaac J. Thomas who married Asenath Houston would have been a first cousin to David Thomas, 1795-1836, David having been the first attorney general ad interim of the Republic of Texas, and acting Secretary of War just before his untimely death from a musket ball wound in 1836.] To sum up: Jacob Thomas & Margaret Brevard Thomas had four sons, viz., John Thomas who m. Mary Jetton; Henry Thomas who m. ___ McKnight; James Thomas; and William Thomas who married Elizabeth Purviance. It is believed that William and Elizabeth Purviance Thomas are buried in Dyer County, Tennessee.
And so John Purviance [Jr.] had been scalped in 1792 in Sumner County, Tennessee. We know that Robert’s brother, William McCorkle, married as his 2nd wife Martha “Mattie” King, the widow of John Purviance [(John Purviance, Jr.)—I’m denominating the scalped John Purviance as a “Junior” but in truth do not know if his name exactly matched the name of his father, the elder “colonel” John Purviance]. And we know that Martha King Purviance McCorkle died before 1800 because that is the year in which William McCorkle married his 3rd wife, Jennie Graham. -- We know also that the Cumberland Presbyterian schism from the more formal Presbyterians occurred in 1810 just outside Dickson, Tennessee, in what is now a Tennessee State Park: Montgomery Bell Historic Shrine. Mary Jane Wasson Purviance died aged 60 in 1801 so I presume she did not join the Cumberland movement from the Presbyterians; but Levi Purviance’s biography of his father David Purviance (David a son of Mary Jane Wasson) says that “colonel” John Purviance became a Cumberland Presbyterian.
I have found record of an 1810 marriage of a Robert McCorkle in Boone County, Kentucky, to a Miss Keith: Polly KEITH married 15 Mar 1810 to Robert McCORKLE. This is not our Robert, who was a son of Alexander McCorkle (Sr.). It may be this other Robert who became a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. This other Robert who was in Kentucky may even have been a nephew of our Robert McCorkle, but I imagine he was from the Staunton/Lexington/Rockbridge County, Virginia (that area) McCorkles.
It is known that a Robert McCorkle appears in the earliest Presbyterian then Cumberland Presbyterian records of Kentucky and northern Tennessee in trials for the newly formed Cumberland Presbyterian ministry and, even though he would have been over 40 years old at the time, the applicant (licentiate) may have somehow been our Robert McCorkle. The new denomination was desperate for educated clergy. The two reasons for separation from Presbyterianism involved, one, rejection of the Presbyterian insistence upon a college-educated clergy, which was impracticable on the frontier; and, two, rejection of the Presbyterian Doctrine of Predestination. – Our Robert & “Peggy” Morrison McCorkle’s daughter, Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache,wrote that her father Robert McCorkle and Robert’s brother William McCorkle had retreated up to Bourbon County, Kentucky, during troublous times with the indigenous population; then moved on back down to Sumner County [Lebanon or Gallatin area] after Indian relations improved. [See the Cumberland Presbyterian web site on the Internet.]
Robert and William McCorkle or their people, or some of them, appear in Sumner County, Tennessee, as members of Shiloh Presbyterian Church near today’s Gallatin. Someday I hope to visit the “King Cemetery” which is sometimes the name given the Shiloh Presbyterian Church Cemetery. -- James M. Richmond, alive today, whose wife is a descendant of William McCorkle (brother to our Robert) has identified the parents of “Peggy” Margaret Blythe as Reverend James Blythe and Elizabeth King (Blythe), parents of: (1) Mrs. William McCorkle, née “Peggy” Margaret Blythe; and (2) the first Mrs. Robert McCorkle, née Elizabeth “Lizzie” Blythe. If so, it was Mrs. Elizabeth King Blythe who raised Robert’s daughter Elizabeth McCorkle (Mrs. Thomas Anderson), who died in Lebanon, Tennessee, in the home of her daughter Elizabeth Anderson McMurry (wife of Cumberland Presbyterian minister John Mitchell McMurry who long preached in McMinnville, Tennessee, then retired to Lebanon).
Our Robert McCorkle and his brother William McCorkle claimed the Revolutionary War land grant made to their father, Alexander McCorkle (who died 1800 in Rowan County, NC, buried at Thyatira Presbyterian Church Cemetery near Mooresville near Salisbury near Statesville). Alexander left this land grant to only these two sons. Robert McCorkle begins to appear on the Rutherford County, Tennessee, deed records in the early 1800s, around 1808, as does William.
It may be that Revolutionary War “colonel” John Purviance, the one who married Mary Jane Wasson, was a member of Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church while they were up in Kentucky after in 1792 the son John Purviance had been scalped by Indians. It may be that some of the McCorkles worshipped there also. Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church is near Lexington, Ky.
|
“Constructed
in 1801, Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church has the distinction of being
the oldest Presbyterian Church
building in
Kentucky.
The church was established in 1785 to serve the religious needs of the
early pioneers. The first pastor of the church was the Reverend James
Crawford who also served as a delegate to the Kentucky Constitutional
Convention in Danville in 1792. In 1785, Reverend James Crawford was one
of two ministers ordained at the first meeting of a presbytery in
Kentucky. In 1791 he opened a school at Walnut Hill for Latin, Greek,
and the Sciences. Crawford died in 1803 and is buried in the church
cemetery. |
|
“The present building was constructed during the "great revival" to replace an earlier log building that stood on the site. The building is stone and as it was originally constructed had eight square windows on two levels that allowed light to enter the sanctuary at the ground level as well as in the galleries that surrounded the inner room on three sides. In 1880 the church was remodeled and eight large Gothic windows were added to replace the square windows and the galleries were removed from the inside. The church continues to serve as an active house of worship. ”
“Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church is located on Walnut Hill Rd. in southeastern Fayette County at the intersection of old Richmond Rd. ”
· Bean, Richard M. The Jewel on Walnut Hill : the Story of the Walnut Hill Church, Lexington, Kentucky, 1784 through 1994. Lexington: Richard M. Bean, 1995. R285.1769 W163b KY 1995
· Daughters of the American Revolution. Kentucky Cemetery Records v. 1-5 Lexington: Kentucky Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1960 - 1986. R976.9 D265k KY (Genealogy Ref. )
· Daughters of the American Revolution. Inscriptions on Tomb Stones of Old Cemeteries of Lexington and Fayette County, Kentucky. Lexington: DAR, 1984. R976.947 D265i KY 1984
· The Lexington Kentucky Cemetery. Lexington: Hisle’s Headstones and Kentucky Tree Search, 1986. R976.947 L591 KY 1986
· Milward, Burton. A History of the Lexington Cemetery. Lexington: The Lexington Cemetery Company, c1989. R976.947 L591m KY 1989
· Nash, Leslie. Old Union Christian Church Cemetery, 6856 Russell Cave Road, Lexington, KY 40511.Lexington: Leslie Nash, 1995.R976.947 Ol1 KY 1995
· Pisgah 1784-1984, Woodford County, Kentucky. [Woodford, County?] Pisgah Presbyterian Church, 1984. R285.17694 P674 KY 1984
· Sanders, Robert Stuart. Annals of the First Presbyterian Church Lexington, Kentucky : [1784-1984]. Tallahassee, FL: Rose Printing, 1984. R285.09769 Sa56a KY
· Sanders, Robert Stuart. History of Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church (Fayette Co., Ky). Frankfort, KY: KyHistorical Soc, 1956. R285.1769 Sa56hi KY ”
· It may be that “colonel” [I think he was really a lieutenant but am not certain.] John Purviance and wife Mary Jane Wasson Purviance are buried at Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church in what is called the King Cemetery; but this is speculation as yet. He outlived Mary Jane Wasson Purviance, who died in 1810 aged 68, and he may be buried in Brown Cemetery, Giles Co., TN, as there has been mention made of a Mr. Maxwell (a son-in-law?) who is buried next to a “Mr. Pevines.” Or, John Purviance widower of Mary Jane Wasson may possibly have died when visiting his son David Purviance up in New Paris, Preble County, Ohio. These are our 33 clues: Shiloh Presbyterian Church near Gallatin; Brown Cemetery in Giles County; and possibly up in Preble County, Ohio. Also, somewhere in this document is a statement that a Mr. Donnell or O’Donnell preached his funeral.
· Recall: Reverend James Blythe and Elizabeth King (Blythe) were the parents of two daughters, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Blythe and Margaret “Peggy” Blythe, who married two McCorkle brothers, Robert and William respectively. Elizabeth King (Blythe) was a sister to the Rev. Samuel King who witnessed Alexander McCorkle’s 1800 will in Rowan Co., NC.
Explanations of who Some of the Above-people were
I. More about Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache
-- Much more is discussed further on below about the family of this daughter of Robert & Margaret Morrison McCorkle, the daughter who, though born in NC, in Middle Tennessee married Dr. Stephen Roache. There is correspondence between her and one of her brothers, RAH McCorkle (Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle) in Yorkville (at first there was no Newbern); and information is presented about the death of her son Howard Harris Roache consequent to mortal injury in the Battle of Shiloh; and about her son Addison Locke Roache, Sr., a justice of the Indiana Supreme Court; and about her son Robert QUINCY Roache, who became a wealthy banker in the town of California in Moniteau County, Missouri.
I I More about Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle (“RAH”) & Tirzah Scott McCorkle.
This Robert McCorkle and wife Tirzah Scott (she died 1865)are interred in the McCorkle Cemetery; Tirzah’s parents James (1777-1853) & Sarah Dickey Scott (1777-1838) are interred in the Old Yorkville Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery. -- Just before I was to leave Memphis to study law at Cambridge University in England in 1985, John Shelton and I moved James & Sarah Dickey Scotts’ tombstones from the then-in-ruins Yorkville cemetery over to the then better-kept McCorkle Cemetery. (John Shelton was our beloved African-American “share cropper” for many years on the Gibson- Dyer county line, until laws changed in the 1960s making him able to get a better, salaried, job as a big-machine mechanic.) Now, of course, government monies have restored the old Yorkville cemetery and it is our family cemetery that begs for infusions of cash for restoration.
At the end of this document, the descendants of RAH & Tirzah Scott McCorkle are gathered by James Ragon (husband of Natalie Cockroft Ragon, Natalie being a direct descendant through James Scott McCorkle of Newbern). James Ragon has finally convinced me that Sarah Dickey was not a daughter born in Rowan County, North Carolina, to John Dickey, first a silversmith in Pennsylvania, and born of a Purviance woman; but was instead a daughter of a John Dickey of Virginia then South Carolina (York District) and his wife Sarah Robinson Dickey.
In 2003, James & Natalie Cockroft Ragon live in Jackson, where they were lovingly kind to Jennifer Huie Tucker and me when we were at the Jackson hospital in April of 2005 attending the all-too-slow death May 9, 2005, of Jennifer’s husband Stephen Fisher Tucker after a massive stroke. Steve Tucker, Sr., lived to be almost 65 years old, and was buried in the McCorkle Cemetery. Steve left three grown children, viz., Stephen Fisher Tucker, Jr.; Alison Tucker Keogler; and Mary Brennan Tucker.
III. More about Hiram Robert Archibald or “HRA” McCorkle,
a grandson of Margaret Morrison & Robert McCorkle, through their son Edwin Alexander McCorkle (1799-1853) & Edwin’s wife Jane Maxwell Thomas. The first child, e.g., is listed below as HRA-1. --Hiram Robert A. McCorkle had the ff. children by his 1st wife Margaret Cowan McCorkle, who died in what was then called the “lunatic asylum” in Nashville. Hiram visited her grave when he returned to Nashville for a Confederate veterans’ convention and noted the unkempt state of the cemetery. One of Margaret’s children, Tolbert, had fallen accidenetally from her lap and been overrun by a surrey, a tragedy which certainly would not have helped her mental health.
Uncle Hiram’s diary entry about Frelinghuisen McCorkle, freedman who was buried 12 September 1901, mentioned above at page 2, is intriguing. Theodore J. Frelinghuysen was a German preacher of note in the 1720s who preached in America among the Dutch Reformed. Not only is Frelinghuisen McCorkle buried in the McCorkle Cemetery in Dyer County, Tennessee; his funeral services were held on the cemetery grounds and attended by Hiram R. A. McCorkle.
*** *** *** *** *** More from Hiram Robert Archibald McCorkle’s diary:
In 1899, Hiram McCorkle records that Jordan McCorkle (“colored”) visited HRA McCorkle’s home. “I raised him from a one-year-old up to nearly manhood. He lives now and has for many years at Trimble, Tennessee.”
And this entry on April 10, 1900: Lightning struck Howard Anderson Huie’s barn and killed one mule. [On March 9, 2006, lightning struck the electrical system of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Yorkville and burned the church down. Almost miraculously, the pulpit did not incinerate.]
Also in the spring of the year 1900, HRA McCorkle and granddaughter Kate Cawthon (Pace), a sister to Mamie Cawthon (Mrs. Clint Atkins), took the train to Eminence, Kentucky to see Hiram’s son Winfield Purviance McCorkle.
In Feb. 1901 Uncle Hiram received1 pair Wyandotte chickens from W.E. [B?] Doak of Russelville, Tenn. [Marsha’s note: a man named Will E. Doak moved on up from Dyer Co., Tenn., to Hickman, Ky, but this may be someone else, and it is someone else if it’s WB Doak.]
Oct. 1901: Hiram R A McCorkle, with John D. Smith and R R Rose, was elected Poor House Commissioner (chosen by the Dyer County Court).
A.L. “Bud” McCorkle shot one Labe Cowsert, who died in May 21, 1901, “just 3 years 2 mo. and 14 days after he was shot by A.L. (Bud) McCorkle.” --This may (or may not) be regarding the boundary line dispute about which I remember my Aunt Beth Huie’s telling me. Bud McCorkle was a grandson of Jehiel Morrison McCorkle & wife Betsy Smith McCorkle, through their son Samuel S. McCorkle. Stated another way, Samuel S. McCorkle was father of this “shootist” Bud McCorkle.
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
.
* * * Some of HIRAM R. A. McCorkle’s Descendants, particularly through his eldest son Winfield Purviance McCorkle:
[Generation I. The immigrants to America, Alexander McCorkle & “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery McCorkle. Generation II. Robert McCorkle & Margaret Morrison McCorkle. Generation III. Edwin Alexander McCorkle & Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle. Generation IV. Hiram R. A. McCorkle & Margaret Cowan McCorkle. Now to McCorkle Generation V: Winfield Purviance McCorkle:]
<HRA1: Winfield Purviance McCorkle who m. Mary “Mamie” King (McCorkle) of Eminence, Kentucky, where he had moved to teach school; Mamie King McCorkle was a daughter of Gideon King & Sophia Woodruff (King) of Eminence, Henry County, Kentucky. Gideon King was a Cotton 1st cousin to the 2nd wife of John Edwin McCorkle of Newbern: that is to say, Gideon King was a 1st cousin to Mary Elizabeth Cotton (McCorkle) of Botland near Bardstown, Kentucky. Mary Elizabeth Cotton (McCorkle)’s father was John Cotton and her mother was Juliet Tong (Cotton). This John Cotton was a brother to Mrs. Mountjoy King, the Cotton-born mother of Gideon King, Gideon being the father of Mrs. Winfield Purviance McCorkle (Mary King). Grandma Mary Elizabeth Cotton McCorkle’s father, John Cotton’s father, was Henry Cotton. There are Crumes buried in the old cemetery in which John Cotton lies (father of Mary Elizabeth Cotton McCorkle).
For example, John W. Crume married Elizabeth Cotton (Crume), a daughter of Henry Cotton and Mary Harrell on 26 Mar 1811 in Nelson County, Kentucky. Elizabeth Cotton (Crume) was born on 20 Mar 1789 in Nelson County, Kentucky, and died on 11 Sep 1823 in Nelson County, Kentucky, and is buried in Poplar Flat Cemetery, Nelson County, Kentucky.
In 2003 we placed a new grave marker for John Cotton[1] at Botland, Kentucky, near Bardstown, in what has become now a Baptist church cemetery; astoundingly, an interstate highway now runs closeby. John Cotton died in Ky.in either 1852 or 1853 and left a widow, Juliet Tong Cotton, who died in Dyer County where her daughter Mary E. Cotton McCorkle lived. -- Winfield Purviance McCorkle moved from Dyer County, Tennessee [where he resided at his father Hiram R. A. McCorkle’s in the 1870 census], up to Eminence, Henry County, Kentucky. Uncle Hiram’s journal records during the Civil War that little Winfield cried when the Federals stole his horse. Census records show this:
Winfield Purviance Mccorkle, born about 1851, was living in 1870 in District 9 of Dyer County, Tenn. He moved to Eminence and in the 1910 census is shown as living in Eminence, Henry County, Kentucky. The 1920 census lists him as still living in Eminence.
Gideon King Excursus: Children of Gideon & Sophia Woodruff King [parents of Mrs. Winfield Purviance McCorkle]:
One. Allie King Haymaker. Allie F. King (Haymaker) was a sister of Winfield Purviance McCorkle’s wife (the wife was née Mary P. King [McCorkle]). Allie F. King became Mrs. Jesse Newton Haymaker, later of Wichita, Kan.. Allie F. King Haymaker was born ca. 1860, a dau of Gideon King & Sophia Woodruff King. Allie F. King [Haymaker] appears as 1 year old in the 1860 census of Eminence, Ky. Other children of Gideon & Sophie W. King listed are [Two:] “Mamie” Mary P., aged 3, daughter [later, Mrs. Winfield Purviance McCorkle]; and [Three:] James P. King, aged 12. Also listed is [Four:] Almedia S. King, female aged 28.
Gideon King is listed in 1860 as being 42, his wife Sophia Woodruff King as 34.
The daughter of Gideon King named Allie King, who m. Jesse Newton Haymaker, married a Christian missionary and moved to Wichita, Kansas. -- Grandma Mary Elizabeth Cotton was out in Kansas visiting the Haymakers when Mr. Shumate “broke the bank” in Newbern, of which Grandpa John Edwin McCorkle was a director; and Grandma had to come home to West Tennessee. Back then, bank directors had to make good the investors’ losses from their personal funds. -- Jesse Newton Haymaker as a missionary moved through Ellis Island circa 1900, traversing the ocean to France and England. One son, Henley Haymaker’s, name is on a building at Kansas State University in Manhattan. [The daughter of Gideon & Sophie Woodruff King who m. Winfield Purviance McCorkle was “Mamie” Mary King. ] Herbert Henley Haymaker was born 28 Nov. 1892. –I think a Pat Floersch is a Haymaker descendant.
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Margaret Gooch, Ph.D., of Tufts University sent me the following information in March of 2006:
Allie May McCorkle [McDiarmid] b. May 3, 1877. Her sister, Bertha McCorkle, was born Dec. 6, 1878 and died sometime after 1937. Florence Woodruff McCorkle b. Oct. 20, 1883 -- died aged about 21. Graham King McCorkle b. Jan 5 (?) 1887
Mary Foster Haymaker b. Dec. 19, 1858
Herbert Henley Haymaker, b. Nov. 28, 1892
“These are from a page my father [Cowen Gooch] wrote out and left with other genealogical info in Gideon King’s Bible.
“I found a newspaper clipping reporting Florence McCorkle’s death that said she was about 21 when she died of a sudden illness. I know that Bertha lived some length of time beyond 1937, when I was born, but I don’t know how many years. Since she was largely or wholly deaf, she would not have been a music teacher, so probably that info applies to Allie May rather than to her. I never heard her referred to as Bertie, but that could have been her nickname growing up. Also, I have a paperweight showing the name Allie Mae McCorkle, but otherwise, I never saw my grandmother’s name written other than as Allie May. (Hope this is helpful, at whatever point you may be making adjustments.)
“Did Martha Ann [Gooch Hogrefe] mention our mother Florence’s trip to Washington D.C. to be recognized for her Wednesdays in Mississippi involvement by the Children’s Defense Fund (just a few years back)? “ --Florence McDiarmid Gooch, long living in Jackson, Mississippi, received an award from Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund for her work towards interracial understanding in the early civil rights movement.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Below are the children of Winfield Purviance McCorkle & Mary King McCorkle as listed on the 1900 census for Eminence, Henry County, Kentucky, with my additions:
Allie May McCorkle (McDiarmid), born circa 1877, aged 23, music teacher; she was to m. Errett Weir McDiarmid. Allie Mae McCorkle was a college graduate. Was her college Hamilton College which merged into Transylvania College, now Transylvania University? The Christian Church lists him amongst its “Heroes of the Faith.”
The 2nd of the two daughters of W.P. McCorkle & Mary King McCorkle was Allie May McCorkle who married Errett Weir McDiarmid, who taught at Hamilton College; then for a time at Texas Christian University, where he was sent for dryer air (tuberculosis). Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid lived at the end in Jackson, Mississippi, and upon the death of her husband switched from membership in the Disciples of Christ-Christian Church to Christian Science. Errett W. McDiarmid & Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid are listed in the 1930 census as residing in Fort Worth, Texas, home of Texas Christian University: E.W. McDiarmid is listed as aged 53 in 1930, having been born in Canada circa 1877, but an American citizen whose parents had each been born in Ohio; spouse’s name: Allie May [McCorkle]McDiarmid. Mr. E.W. McDiarmid is listed as a college teacher. As mentioned, materials published by the Restoration Movement list E.W. McDiarmid, Sr., as a “hero of the faith.”—His son, a “junior,” was called “Weir.”
The children of E.W. McDiarmid, Sr., and Allie May McCorkle are: [(1) Archie Campbell McDiarmid was born and died in 1906.]
(2) Florence Woodruff McDiarmid (Gooch), born March 10, 1908; m. in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 15, 1931: “Cowen” Luther COWEN Gooch and Florence lived in Jackson, Mississippi. Luther Cowen Gooch was born 10 May 1903 and died 20 Dec. 1996, with his last residence listed as Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Cowen Gooch served as president of the Mississippi society of accountants. His uncle was Cecil Gooch of Memphis, who amassed a fortune in the lumber business and determined to give his fortune away for educational purposes; Mr & Mrs Cecil Gooch were philanthropists in West Tennessee, endowing numerous educational scholarships, and members of Idlewild Presbyterian Church of Memphis [or was it Evergreen Presbyterian Church?] The three children of Florence McDiarmid & Cowen Gooch were:
Margaret Gooch, Ph.D. in Literature and librarian at Tufts University in Massachusetts; born 1 July 1937
Martha Ann Gooch (Hogrefe) who m. Charles Hogrefe (Robert Charles Hogrefe) -- each is a 1962 graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis (when it was Southwestern at Memphis). She was born Juloy 2, 1940. After graduation from college, he was stationed in the military in Blytheville, Arkansas, circa 1962, where Martha Ann was asked to teach math and thus began her teaching career. He worked with computers at, and retired from, the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, and she taught at a private high school.
They have 3 children:
a daughter Sarah Ellen Hogrefe, born 1974, who is a nurse in Mississippi;
a son James Errett Hogrefe who is a physicist-engineer who married a female physicist from Rumania;
Laura Christine Hogrefe, who in 2006 is getting a master’s degree in music (voice) at the University of Indiana Bloomington.
James Cowen Gooch , attorney in Nashville, born December 27, 1942. The following appears in the Nashville Post, by David A. Fox, January 2003, about this son of Florence Woodruff McDiarmid Gooch:
“Best Lawyers in Nashville … Trusts & Estates… James Gooch -- Bass, Berry & Sims Over the past 30 years, has built the best book of trust and estate planning clients in the city. Began in the U.S. Army’s JAG Corp, then earned an LL.M. in tax from New York University. Relied upon by many of Nashville’s wealthiest families to handle their complex tax matters. A former president of the Tennessee Federal Tax Institute. A Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and a trustee of the Southern Federal Tax Institute.
By 1st wife Julia Davidson (Gooch), there were two children:
Anne Davidson Gooch, daughter, born March 25, 1983, Nashville; and
a son James Cowen Gooch II (an attorney turned finance person, in Atlanta).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Generation I. Revolutionary war soldier John Purviance born June 6, 1743 (in either Lancaster Co., PA, or in Northern Ireland) died 6 August 1823 from infection incurred in a scratch on his heel when tree branch fell. He married Mary Jane Wasson in Rowan County, NC, on August 2, 1764. She died aged 68 in 1810. Generation II. Elizabeth Purviance m. William Thomas. Generation III. Jane Maxwell Thomas m. Edwin Alexander McCorkle. Generation IV. Hiram R. A. McCorkle m. 1st wife Margaret Cowan. Generation V. Winfield Purviance McCorkle m. “Mamie” Mary King of Eminence, Ky. Generation VI. Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid. Generation VII. Florence Woodruff McDiarmid Gooch; Errett Weir McDiarmid; and John McDiarmid, Ph.D.
(2) “Weir” E.W. McDiarmid Jr., born 13 July 1909, a child of Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid, aged 20 in 1930 and born in W.Va. [Was this the McDiarmid homeplace? or perhaps the Woodruff homeplace?] Weir McDiarmid m. Orpha Nelson. was on the faculty at the University of Minnesota. Born 13 July 1909 in Beckley, West Virginia, he died 27 April 2000 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He had a PhD from the University of Chicago and was a librarian there. He amassed an impressive collection of Sherlock Holmes-iana, and was critical to the founding of the Sherlock Holmes society at the University of Minnesota.
Weir had three daughters, the first of whom is director of admissions at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences: Emly McDiarmid, Sage Hall, 205 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut. Admissions. Emly McDiarmid, Yale Office Number (203) 432-5138. Emly May McD, born Jan. 29, 1939, m. SN Klaus by whom she had two children before divorce: Jeffrey Klaus, born March 28, 1961; and Peter Klaus, born July 4, 1963.
Weir McDiarmid’s 2nd daughter: Anne McDiarmid (Brahmey), born January 22, 1943. Son before divorce: Michael Weir Brahmey.
Weir McDiarmid’s 3rd daughter: Mary McDiarmid, born June 10, 1947.
Third child of Cousin Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid:
(3) John McDiarmid, child of Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid, then aged 18 and b. in West Virginia. He had a Ph.D. and married a woman whose panache greatly aided his career. They had two sons and a daughter.
Aunt Katie Pearl McCorkle (Fox)’s record says John McDiarmid was a political-science professor at Princeton. He is in International Who’s Who, which lists him as having been at one time director of personnel for the United Nations.
Unbeknownst to us in 1970-71, John McDiarmid was at that time director of the U.N.’s programme for India, when my sister Sophie Joyce Huie Cashdollar and her husband Parker Ditmore Cashdollar were in India for Parker’s Agency for International Development grant to study building a dam for Mysore State. -- Sophie kept infant Hunter Huie Cashdollar in the city of Bangalore. During his early childhood years, after returning to the states, Hunter quoted his ayah Philapena and made clucking noises to “cluck the bullocks” as he had heard on the streets of Bangalore.
The following is in Who’s Who about our John McDiarmid: … … … … … … … * * * * * * * * * * *
John McDiarmid, Ph.D., was born 12 August 1911 and died November 4, 1982. He is buried in the Titusville N.J. Stakes Vault, Titusville, New Jersey. He had three children:
1st Nancy McDiarmid Norling, born July 23, 1940. Nancy (Mrs. Perry or Parry Norling) had two children” :
Christine Norling, born August 7, 1967.
Jonathan Norling, born Feb. 13, 1969;
2nd John McDiarmid, married but divorced Candy Cunniberti (1977);
3rd David Weir McDiarmid, born 4 March 1946. Married Margaret Colvin. Three children:
Jeremy McDiarmid, born January of 1974
John Douglas McDiarmid, born April of 1977;
Andrew McDiarmid, born Nov. 14, 1979.
Late-Breaking Update about Cousin Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid’s Descendants that I don’t have time to integrate. So here it is, in the lazy way, until I have time to make it look correct. Here is an update from Nancy McDiarmid Norling sent to Martha Ann Gooch Hogrefe. Many thanks to them for making this information available.
Martha Ann Hogrefe Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006
9:39 AM
To: Marsha Cope Huie (mashlock)
Hi, Marsha. Here is the response from my cousin Nancy McDiarmid Norling to my request for family names and dates. Nan is John McDiarmid's oldest child. I thought you would like to see the picture she sent of her daughter Christine and her family. Christine's husband Andrew works with CARE, and they have just returned to the D.C. area from Africa after a two year - I think - assignment where he has been in charge of the CARE operation in Rwanda. Prior to that, he was in Nairobi. Christine has her MA in museum studies and worked in that field prior to their move to Africa. She plays and teaches violin, and has taught English in the schools in Africa. Nan's other child, Jonathan, lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works as a lawyer in environmental law. Jonathan is also a musician and plays violin with a blue grass group there.
"nan norling"
<norling@udel.edu>
To: "Martha Ann Hogrefe" <mahogrefe@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Family info
Date: Mon, 24 Apr
2006 10:56:30 -0400
Darice Elmer McDiarmid:: born May 12, 1915, in Trenton, NJ. Died in March, 1990 --
John McDiarmid:
Nancy McDiarmid Norling: born July 23, 1940, in Los Angeles CA., married Parry McWhinnie Norling (born April 17, 1939, in Lincoln, NE) on September 11, 1965.
Christine McDiarmid Norling, born August 7, 1967 in WestChester, PA.
Jonathan McWhinnie Norling, born February 12, 1969, in West Chester, PA.
Christine married Andrew Scott Jones on October 10, 1992. Andrew was born on May 23, 1966, in Darien, CT. Their children are:
Nathaniel Scott Jones, born September 9, 1996., in Atlanta GA.
Darice McDiarmid Jones, born November 17, 1998, in Atlanta.
Evan Marshall Jones, born May 22, 2002, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Jonathan married Kelly Jeffries on September 4, 1999. Kelly was born on November 22, 1966, in Indiana. She and Jon have two children:
Beck Jeffries Norling, born in Portland OR on Sept. 6, 2001.
Elsa Claire Norling, born in Portland OR on June 30, 2003.
I think that's going to be it for our grandchildren! But here's a picture of some of them.
To: emly.mcdiarmid@yale.edu ; norling@UDel.Edu ; dmcdiarmid@rcsltd.net ; jm7@comcast.net ; mmcdiarmid@pioneerpress.com
Dear Cousins,
I have been in touch with Marsha Huie - a realtive of ours through our King/McCorkle ancestors. Some of you may already be familiar with her research. She has collected an impressive amount of family history dating back …to the early 1800's. If you visit her site at www.marshahuie.com, be sure to explore the Old McCorkle Letters.
I don't have an email address for Anne, so perhaps Mary or Emly could fill in the blanks for her. Or better yet, I would like to have her email address, so send it to me and I'll contact her myself.
Thanks for your help with this. It is nice that someone in the family is interested in our shared history and is making an effort to make our family tree accessible to those who might like to know more about their roots.
from] Martha Ann
Back to the children of Winfield Purviance McCorkle & wife Mary King McCorkle:
‘Bertie’ C. McCorkle, Bertha was born circa 1877, aged 21 at time of this census.
[Bertha was another child of Winfield Purviance McCorkle & wife Mary King McCorkle] She contracted scarlet fever and became totally deaf, making her life tragic. Her sister, Allie May McCorkle McDiarmid, considered Bertha to be the pretty one.
k Florence McCorkle, born circa 1884, aged 16
[Another child of Winfield Purviance McCorkle & wife Mary King McCorkle]
k Graham King McCorkle, born 5 January 1887 in Kentucky; died Nov. 1964 in Chicago, Illinois. He was president of the Illinois Bell Telephone Company. Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity still lists him as one of its distinguished “Pike” alumni.
[Another child of Winfield Purviance McCorkle & wife Mary King McCorkle.]
Winfield Purviance McCorkle begot one son, Graham King McCorkle who was circa 1930 the president of Illinois Bell Telephone Co., Chicago—I know this because my father’s maternal uncle, Errett Cotton McCorkle, 1888-1976, kept in touch with his cousin Graham King McCorkle. Errett Cotton McCorkle & Graham King McCorkle were 1st cousins through their McCorkle fathers (John Edwin McCorkle & Hiram R.A. McCorkle) and were 2nd cousins-once removed through their Cotton ancestors: Mrs. Mountjoy King (mother of Gideon King) and John Cotton (mother of Mary Elizabeth Cotton McCorkle, Mrs. John Edwin McCorkle) were 1st cousins. Errett Cotton McCorkle lived in Chicago and St. Louis, having moved from the farm near Newbern up to his aunt Laura Cotton Hunter’s in Louisville, Kentucky, where Uncle Errett attended night law school. I found this Social Security Death Certificate of Graham McCorkle on www.ancestry.com:
Graham McCorkle, SSN 320-10-1293, born 5 January 1887 in Kentucky; died Nov. 1964 in Illinois. His World War I draft registration card was issued from Chicago City, Cook County, Illinois.
Graham King McCorkle, son of Winfield Purviance & Mary “Mamie” King McCorkle, born January 5, 1887. He married Frances McFarland on June 7, 1911. Two children were born:
Jean Frances McCorkle Mesick, born August 5, 1913 and died 1984. She married in 1937: William Mesick and they had two children:
Frances Louise Mesick (Mrs. John Szyer), who had two sons Szyer.
Stephen Graham Mesick
Mary Elizabeth McCorkle Hess, born December 1925. Married in 1946: Robert L. Hess.
Gail Graham Hess Meade, born 1949 (Mrs. Robert G. Meade), who had two sons: Kristyn Graham Meade and Evan Joseph Meade.
Philip Arthur Hess, born 1951, m. Debra Franks.
Lindsey Hess LaMarche, born 1955, married Michael Joseph LaMarche. One daughter: Amber LaMarche.
[Gideon King/ his daughter Allie King Haymaker/ connection: Floersch? A King/Haymaker kinswoman named Pat Floersch placed the following material on the Internet about the Haymaker-King connection:
“ Barb ( in reply to “Haymakers in Southern Indiana” by Barb W): Check
out the Ohio River Valley database prepared by David Distler. It's at
http://www.orvf.com I believe that Anna Crum, dau of John Crum and Elizabeth
King, m. John Haymaker 26 Apr. 1824 in Clark Co. Indiana. Their children were:
1. Joseph M. Haymaker, b. ??
2. John Wesley Haymaker, b. 1829
3. George Washington Haymaker, b. 1831
4. Isaac Newton Haymaker, b. 1836
5. Mary E. b. 1838
6. Margaret E. b. 1844
7. Amanda b.1847
Looking for Crum information may help you with Haymakers as the two families
used the same first names and traveled as part of a group from Quaker meeting
house to meeting house. Also look into the
Henley family, Foster
family, Newby family and Mayo family… …”]
*** *** *** ***
… … … … … … … … … …
Anyone interested in “uncle” Hiram R. A. McCorkle should read parts of his journal as excerpted by the late Arahwana Ridens of Newbern. The journal is now in the hands of HRA’s g-g grandson David Caldwell of Newbern, Tennessee. My father Ewing Huie, who was born in 1907 the year of Hiram’s death, called HRA McCorkle “Uncle Hiram,” so I do, too. Uncle Hiram faithfully kept his journal throughout the Civil War. Occasionally when he was away from home, his brother, my father’s maternal grandfather, John Edwin McCorkle, made journal entries for Hiram. One of my treasures, given me by Edward Campbell Huie (died 2001), probably to deflect me from pestering him for genealogical information as he became one of our oldest survivors, is an old ledger book jointly kept by HRA & John Edwin McCorkle. Just after the Civil War they had a general store that seemed to sell all dry goods. John E. kept meticulous accounts.
An extant letter from Robert A. H. McCorkle (son of Robert & Margaret Morrison McCorkle) writes his sister Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache of the sad condition of the mental health of Margaret Cowan McCorkle, that there is no joy in her company. And RAH then states that his nephew Hiram, Margaret’s husband, just goes on making money.
As far as I know, the rest of Uncle Hiram R. A. McCorkle’s children (other than Winfield
Purviance McCorkle, supra, who moved up to Eminence, Kentucky) remained in the area of Newbern, Tennessee. One entry in HRA McCorkle’s diary concerns his train trip up to Eminence accompanied by a sister, Kate Cawthon Pace, to his orphaned granddaughter Mamie Cawthon (later Mrs. Clint Atkins, the mother of Bettie Jane Atkins, Mrs. Charles Caldwell of Newbern). It was a great event for Hiram and granddaughter, perched on reclining leather seats.
–And when the railroad finally came through Newbern to go on down to Memphis, it was Uncle Hiram who got the honor of driving the last spike across the Hatchie River. All the McCorkle brothers living in Newbern at the time were treated to the train ride from Newbern down to the Peabody Hotel, and return. Source: Diary of Hiram R.A. McCorkle; the “Newbern Enquirer.”
Why have I concentrated here on Uncle Hiram McCorkle’s son Winfield Purviance McCorkle? -- in part, because Arahwana Ridens [2] of Newbern published a book on early Dyer County families including the descendants of HRA McCorkle other than those of Winfield Purviance McCorkle. I felt the need to fill in the Winfield gap. In part, other reasons: My father Ewing Huie’s mother, who died in 1915 when he was just 7 years old, was née Sophie King McCorkle. When I was convalescing in the old Huie homeplace and found carefully preserved letters back and forth from Eminence, Kentucky, I still had not been able to learn why the Sophie “King.” [As usual, nobody seemed to care but me.] It took years to determine that the first Sophie King was née Sophie Woodruff, the wife of Gideon King of Eminence, Kentucky. Gideon King turned out to be a 1st cousin to Mary Elizabeth Cotton (McCorkle), whose father was John Cotton, while Gideon King’s mother was Mrs. Mountjoy King, née Cotton. As mentioned, there were, and are, in the old Huie home occupied by my mother, old letters to “Mollie” Mary Elizabeth Cotton McCorkle in Newbern from the Gideon King family in Eminence. The children addressed her as “May Toffie.” -- Mary Elizabeth Cotton (McCorkle) (the 2nd Mrs. John Edwin McCorkle) was displaced by the Civil War. She sewed for a living, I think my Aunt Beth Huie told me. Her father, John Cotton, died on or about 1852 or 53. I’ve not been able to learn whether her brother Rease Cotton [Pease Cotton?] was killed in the war, but I know Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Cotton at one time had to live with the family of a Christian Church minister, Brother J. B. Briney, who had at least one son: Newt Briney. At one time, Grandmaw McCorkle, as my father Ewing Huie called his maternal grandmother, lived with the Brineys up in Maysville, Kentucky, near the Ohio border. My dad always said Mary Cotton was kin to the Jim Beam bourbon family of Bardstown. And sure enough, many Beams are buried with the Cottons in the Botland Cemetery near Bardstown which now lies adjacent to a Baptist Church, as are Crumes. We acquired for John Cotton, my father’s maternal great-grandfather [father of Mary Cotton McCorkle] a new tombstone in 2003; I think the cemetery is Mill Creek Cemetery. -- One old letter from Juliet Tong (Cotton) in Kentucky to her newly married daughter who had recently arrived in Dyer County, Tennessee, said, “I think you should tell Mr. McCorkle it was wrong to discharge the cook.”
<HRA2: Almeda McCorkle (Pope) (Mrs. Priest Pope)—this is not as I had once thought the McCorkle daughter whose mother chased her across the corn field in an unsuccessful effort to prevent her marriage,as Uncle Hiram recorded in one of his journals; that fleeing descendant of Hiram was née Janette Pope, and she married a Mr. Barkley. – I think Priest Pope’s full name was Eugene Priest Pope; and I think my Unce Mutt’s (Maury Adolphus Huie’s) “Cousin Meda” would have been this Mrs. Priest Pope -- ;
<HRA3: Elizabeth Jane “Bettie” McCorkle (Cawthon) married Johnny Cawthon; this is the ancestor of Mrs. Charles Caldwell, mother of David Caldwell of Newbern who now has possession of Uncle Hiram’s diaries.
<HRA4: Lula McCorkle (Woods) (Mrs. Johnny R. Woods), who died peri-childbirth & is buried in the McCorkle Cemetery as “Lulu McCorkle” because, Aunt Beth Huie said, Uncle Hiram despised his cousin/son-in-law Johnny Woods as a drunkard, although John R. Woods was a son of Hiram’s maternal first cousin “Billy” William T. Woods, and John R. Woods was a grandson of Eleazor Woods & Sarah Purviance Thomas. -- Sarah Purviance Thomas (Woods), born 22 July1804, married Eleazor Woods, 1813-1875. [John Edwin McCorkle’s 1860-61 journal refers often to Eleazor Woods as “Uncle Woods.”] Sarah Purviance Thomas Woods was a sister to Hiram McCorkle’s own mother, Jane Maxwell Thomas (Mrs. Edwin Alexander McCorkle).—This sad story about the ill-fated Lulu Woods McCorkle intrigues me, because I suspect that the real root of the dissonance was that William Thomas Woods (“Billy” Woods) probably joined the Union Army from Dyer County, while I know Uncle Hiram McCorkle joined and fought for the Confederacy. A letter of Billy Woods’ descendant, the beloved “Miss” Cattie Morrow Flatt of my childhood, says not, that Billy Woods never joined “the army” but she writes of troubling times for Billy Woods. I know from old newspaper articles that William T. Woods [Is the “T” for “Thomas?”] lost his lands in Dyer County in numerous foreclosure lawsuits brought after the war. And so I remain to be convinced that William Thomas Woods did not enlist on the Union side. If he did, I applaud his courage.
<HRA5: Tolbert McCorkle (died young; I would guess that his middle name was Fanning, because Tolbert Fanning was a noted Church of Christ-Christian Church preacher). The family records of Aunt Ora McCorkle Huie and her younger sister Aunt Katie Pearl McCorkle (Fox), as updated by Maury A. Huie, state that Tolbert fell from his mother’s lap while riding in a buggy and was mortally wounded by being run over by a surrey-- whether the culprit was the buggy from which the child fell, or an oncoming one, I cannot tell. --
and Uncle Hiram R.A. McCorkle also begot:
one child, a son, by his 2nd wife Janette Menzies:
<HRA6: Edwin Archibald McCorkle who m. Dona McCutchen. Uncle Hiram’s 1st wife (née Margaret Cowan) died in the “lunatic asylum” at Nashville, Tennessee, as it was then called, and his own diary records her death, Margaret Cowan’s, without comment. He visited her grave when attending a Civil War Confederate Veterans reunion in Nashville and remarked upon the cemetery’s unkempt state. Sad to say, HRA McCorkle succinctly records lynchings in Dyer County this way: “Captain Lynch is at work in Dyer….” He mentions shedding a tear at the funeral service conducted on the grounds of the McCorkle Cemetery after the Civil War for freed slave Frelinhuisen McCorkle, deciding that Frelin had gone ‘where good Negroes go.’ So, we know Frelinghuisen McCorkle is one of the African-Americans buried in the McCorkle Cemetery whose markers have been lost.
Uncle Hiram McCorkle kept a joural of events in and near Newbern and Yorkville. He lived several miles east of Newbern. The following is an admixture of Uncle Hiram’s entries and recollections of my Aunt Beth Huie and mother Joyce Cope Huie:
Post-Civil War:
1876:
Winfield Purviance McCorkle and W.B. Johnston were elected trustees of the Newbern Academy
1876:
John Edwin McCorkle and Smith Parks were elected Justices of the Peace. –[Benjamin Huie had earlier bought at least one plat of land from Smith Parks.]
In 1879, Prof. C.M. Arnold of Eminence, Kentucky, came to Newbern to take charge of the Newbern school. [ –Surely this is the connection in how Hiram R. A. McCorkle’s eldest son, Winfield Purviance McCorkle, ended up going to Eminence to teach school up there, & marrying Gideon & Sophia Woodruff King’s daughter “Mamie” Mary King.]
In 1881, Benjamin Lafayette Van Eaton [husband of LaMyra Huie, a daughter of Benjamin Huie & 1st wife nếe Lavinia Cowan] sold his land to Hiram R. A. McCorkle; while H. Shoffner granted land to B.L. VanEaton. [This is recorded in Uncle Hiram McCorkle’s diary.]
Evidently, Fate Van Eaton moved
to Newbern from the farm. LaMyra Huie (Van Eaton) was his wife.
Children of Benjamin Huie & Lavinia Cowan (Huie) were: (1) Cornelius Huie
(died as teenager and was carried in a pine box to be buried in the Old
Yorkville Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery) (2) Julius M. Huie,
(3) Lydia “Liddie” Huie Pierce, (4) LaMyra Huie Van Eaton, and (5)
“Nan” Huie (Tucker, last of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and buried there
in the city cemetery). All the above were children of
Benjamin Huie of Cabarrus
County, NC, (then Yorkville-Newbern) and of Benjamin’s 1st wife
Lavinia
Cowan (Huie).
Lavinia Cowan Huie was a daughter of Samuel Cowan &
Rachel Lewis Cowan of Rowan County, North Carolina. Evidently
the mother, Lavinia Cowan Huie, never made it west to Tennessee; but we
are not certain about this. There may have been more children, but that’s all I
can think of off the top of my head. Then, in Gibson County, Tennessee,
Benjamin Huie married as his 2nd wife a younger woman, Margaret Betts
or Betz (Huie), the mother of Joseph G. Huie. Joseph G. Huie--who married
Frances “Fannie” C. Franklin--removed to or near Vernon in Wilbarger County,
Texas, and was last known in his old age to be town clerk of Hobart, Oklahoma,
not too far from Vernon, Texas. I expect he took advantage of the “land grab”
when Hobart was opened up for further settlement.
The Saga of Aunt Nan Huie Tucker:
In my childhood in the 1950s we still called the farm about a mile north of the Benjamin Huie /Julius M. Huie /Howard Anderson Huie / Howard Ewing Huie/ place: “the Van Eaton Place,” as we still spoke of the “John May Place” just north of our land.--
Aunt Beth Huie, as a second principle of her Christian belief, passed on virtually no gossip, and told me only reluctantly certain family stories -- only in her old age and only after unmerciful wheedling. Aunt Beth finally yielded me this titbit: Myra Huie (Van Eaton) had a comely young sister “Aunt Nan” Huie (Tucker). Myra’s husband Mr. Van Eaton came to decide he wanted to rid himself of his wife LaMyra Huie [“But how, Aunt Beth?” “Oh, I’m not certain, Marsha; by placing a spider in her cup, or something like that.” ] because he wanted the younger sister Nan. The quick result was that “Aunt Nan” Huie was speedily sent off to Arkansas (where in Arkansas?) to live with Huie or Cowan family members (or perhaps both) who had already moved westwardly into Arkansas. Once in Arkansas, “Aunt Nan” Huie married a Mr. Tucker and was to live out her life in Fort Smith. – A few years ago I found her grave as Mrs. Tucker in the city cemetery of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Ever since hearing this pitiful story, I’ve hoped Aunt Nan Huie (Tucker) managed to have a happy life, as well as Aunt Myra Huie (Mrs. Van Eaton).
LaMyra
Huie Van Eaton, daughter of Benjamin Huie &
Lavinia Cowan Huie of
N.C
Moving to Texas after the Civil War:
In Sept. 1877, Jo Pope, Wesley W. Pope, A.B. Rose, and John Thedford began to move to Texas, they thought; but Joe Pope and Wesley Pope remained in Texas only three months and one week before returning to Newbern.
March 1881: John Edwin McCorkle, William H. Franklin, and H. Shoffner went to Texas. H. Shoffner returned to get his family, then left Newbern, with his family, forever, on Dec. 12, 1882. -- I would expect John E. McCorkle’s trip had something to do with trying to claim the land-grant available to, but not yet claimed by, the heirs of John Edwin McCorkle (and Hiram’s) uncle David Thomas, acting secretary of war for the Republic of Texas and its 1st attorney general, as well as signatory of the Texas Declaration of Independence. David Thomas was killed in 1836 from the result of enemy action and is buried at the San Jacinto Texas State Memorial, in the de Zavala Cemetery.
Then in April 1881, James H. Templeton and family (6 little girls) moved to Texas and so did John L. Dickey. –My mother Joyce Cope Huie, born 1915, still talks about Templeton Community near Newbern, but when I come home for visits I don’t know the location of these defunct communities in Dyer County.
In 1881 Dr. A.F. Bone began practising medicine in Newbern. -- John E. McCorkle’s diary refers to “Cousin Nancy Y. Bone” but I don’t know how he was kin to her. I think it was the Thomas (Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle) line. Some of the Bone family are buried in the old Yorkville C.P. Cemetery. Here goes: Hiram and John Edwin McCorkle’s mother, Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle, was a daughter of William Thomas & Elizabeth Purviance (Thomas). William Thomas’s brother, Henry Thomas m. McKnight [I think he married a McKnight], had a child named Nancy Thomas (Bone). This would make Nancy Bone a first cousin to Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle & a 1st cousin-once-removed to her children, including HRA and John E McCorkle. -- The Henry Thomas who was a brother to the William Thomas who m. Elizabeth Purviance had other known children beside Nancy Thomas Bone, viz., Margaret Thomas Anderson; Jane Thomas Chandler; James Thomas who m. a Miss Donarel [?Donnell?]; and Eleanor Thomas Sherrill.[1] --
April 10, 1900: Lightning struck Howard Anderson Huie’s barn and killed one mule. –Howard Huie, 1870-1935, was father of Beth Huie and my father, H. Ewing Huie, 1907-1971. Howard Huie married Sophie King McCorkle.
In 1900, HRA and granddaughter Kate Cawthon (Pace), a sister to Mamie Cawthon (Atkins) took the train to Eminence, Ky.—By then, Hiram’s oldest son had moved to Eminence, viz., Winfield Purviance McCorkle, who married Mamie King, a daughter of Sophie Woodruff King and her husband Gideon King. Gideon King was founder of Eminence and donated his own land in order to get the railroad to come his way.
October 1901: Hiram R A McCorkle, with John D. Smith and R R Rose, were elected Poor House Commissioners (the Dyer County Court chose them).
In November 1901, H.J Swindler was elected Mayor of Newbern, and one of the aldermen was J.A. Crenshaw. J.A. Crenshaw, whose Sunday School class memorialized him with a stained-glass window at the Newbern Methodist Church, is the great-great grandfather of Parker Louis Cashdollar Blackwell who was born 14 April 2006. J.A. Crenshaw was father of Aline Crenshaw Ditmore, “Tippah” Crenshaw who married and moved to Tulsa; Bush Crenshaw of Newbern; and Jimmy Crenshaw who lived in Dyersburg. Aline Crenshaw (Mrs. Parker Ditmore) was mother of Doris Ditmore Cashdollar (Mrs. Stanford Edward Cashdollar) and Dorothy Ditmore (Winslow) (Holloway). Children of Doris & Stan Cashdollar are: Stanford Edward Cashdollar, Jr., Ph.D.; Parker Ditmore Cashdollar, Ph.D.; Robert Cashdollar who moved to Washington, D.C.; Betty Cashdollar; and Cathy Cashdollar, mother of Audrey of the San Francisco Bay area. Dorothy Ditmore was mother of Dinah Winslow Upton; and of John Holloway. -- At one time, Parker Ditmore Cashdollar’s father, Stan Cashdollar, was mayor of Newbern.; Stan died in November of 1977.
In Dec. 1901, Harry Cotton was elected Circuit Court Clerk. He, Harry Cotton, married a Ledsinger [kinswoman] of “Nobe” Zenobia Ledsinger. Harry Cotton was elected in December 1901 to be clerk of the Circuit Court in Dyersburg. Somehow, and I don’t know how, Harry Cotton was kin to Mary Elizabeth Cotton (the 2nd wife of John Edwin McCorkle) of Botland near Bardstown, Kentucky. The Cottons back then in Newbern/Dyersburg kinda had the name of being “bootleggers” –and no wonder, coming from Jim Beam bourbon country (Bardstown). Harry Cotton and my great-uncle Errett Cotton McCorkle, 1888-1976, claimed kinship; but as mentioned I don’t know how.]
Uncle Hiram R. A. McCorkle died in the year 1907, the year of birth of his nephew Howard Ewing Huie, my father. Requiescat in Pace, Uncle Hiram, in the McCorkle Cemetery.
IV. More about David Thomas, brother of Jane Maxwell Thomas, Mrs. Edwin A. McCorkle of Wilson County, Middle Tennessee, then Dyer County, Tennessee. More about the (successful) effort of David Thomas’ nephew, John Edwin McCorkle of Newbern—Yorkville, to claim the Texas land granted to David Thomas, posthumously, for Mr. Thomas’s service to the Republic of Texas as its acting Secretary of War and first attorney general ad interim. David Thomas was killed in 1836. -- This David Thomas material may be of interest only to the descendants of Robert and Peggy Morrison McCorkle’s son, Edwin A. McCorkle. This may be so because it was Edwin A. McCorkle’s wife Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle who was a sister to this David Thomas of Republic of Texas fame.
V. More about John Edwin McCorkle and one of the Civil Wartime Diaries of John Edwin McCorkle, a grandson of Robert McCorkle & Margaret Morrison McCorkle, through their son Edwin A. McCorkle & wife Jane Maxwell Thomas.
Other of John Edwin McCorkle ’s journals, which my sister and I view to have been wrongfully taken, are in the possession of the University of Tennessee at Martin Archives; ditto some of the records of our paternal grandfather Howard Anderson Huie (1870-1935), particularly his Huie & Ozier Hardware Company records of Newbern, Tennessee, circa 1900. We did not give those diaries and other records away, and do not know or approve of how they may have come into possession of the university. -- The chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin, Nick Dunnagan, is himself a descendant of Robert McCorkle & Margaret “Peggy” Morrison, also Nick’s sister Nancy Dunnagan Biggs; and another sister whom I never met. John Edwin McCorkle’s sister “Becky”Rebecca McCorkle married John C. Zarecor; and her descendant Sarah Zarecor on down the line married Horace Dunnagan, Junior, of Yorkville-Neboville. They moved to Caruthersville, Missouri, where Horace was a banker. Siblings of Sarah Zarecor Dunnagan: Evelyn Zarecor Austin (Mrs. L. M. Austin of Newbern area); Bob Zarecor of Yorkville m. Frances McKnight; “Billy” George Zarecor who lived at Martin; Jack Zarecor of Yorkville whose 1st wife was mother of Harriett Zarecor; 2nd wife Georgia Legions; and, I think, last came Sarah Z. Dunnagan herself.
[The Diaries of John Edwin McCorkle’s brother Uncle Hiram McCorkle, i.e., diaries of HRA McCorkle (Hiram Robert A. McCorkle), are not included here in full, unfortunately. HRA McCorkle was a 19th-century diarist of Newbern, Tennessee, and his journals descended to his orphaned granddaughter Mamie Cawthon Atkins (a daughter of Elizabeth Jane “Betty” McCorkle (Cawthon), also known as Mrs. Johnny Cawthon); then to Mamie Cawthon Atkins’ daughter Betty Jane Atkins Caldwell, b. circa 1920, of Newbern. Hiram’s diaries are now in the hands of David Caldwell of Newbern, Tennessee, and wife Diane Caldwell; David is the son and only child of Charles & Betty Jane Atkins Caldwell. Uncle Hiram’s diaries are worth reading. For example, one entry upon the death in Newbern in 1879 of Benjamin Huie (born 1798 in Cabarrus County, North Carolina) succinctly noted that the “Newbern Enquirer” newspaper had said, “Benjamin Huie died at the Newbern home of his son Joe G. Huie. One of our ablest men, he came as near as any man I’ve ever known to tending only to his own business.”
_______________________________________________________________________
Provenance of the McCorkle-Roache Papers Preserved & sent to me in West Tennessee by “Casey” Bowden Cason McCorkle of San Leandro, California:
The Roach(e) line of Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roach died out in California, to which state Addison Locke Roache, Jr., moved from Indiana; and in California some of their McCorkle cousins inherited their papers. The old letters & papers came into the hands of Casey McCorkle, who preserved them and left them to me. Casey McCorkle was a son of Homer McCorkle, & a paternal grandson of Finis A. McCorkle of Dyer Co, Tenn., & Finis’ 1st wife Sarah “Sallie” Josephine “Jo” Jackson (McCorkle).
Generation I. Alexander McCorkle m. ‘Nancy’ Agness Montgomery. They were Scots who lived in or around Ulster Plantation, Northern Ireland, and both were immigrants to the region of Harris Ferry, Pennsylvania (now Harrisburg), thence to Iredell-Rowan County, NC. Buried in Thyatira Presbyterian Church Cemetery.
Generation II. Robert McCorkle & “Peggy” Margaret Morrison. She was his 2nd wife. After the death of his 1st wife, Elizabeth Blythe, in Middle Tennessee, Robert went back to Rowan Co., NC, and married Margaret Morrison, daughter of Andrew Morrison & Elizabeth Sloan (Morrison). Robert and Margaret may have either moved back to Sumner County around Lebanon, Tennessee, or temporarily gone on back up to Bourbon County, Kentucky--near Cane Ridge Meeting House outside Paris, Kentucky--to which the Purviance and McCorkle families, and possibly Thomas family, fled after John Purviance, Jr., had been scalped by hostile Indians in Sumner County in 1792.[3] It is known that sometime around or after1808, Margaret & Robert removed [either from the Lebanon area or the Bourbon County, Kentucky, area] to Stone’s River, Tennessee; thence, to Dyer County, Tennessee)
Generation III. Edwin Alexander McCorkle & Jane Maxwell Thomas McCorkle. (Edwin moved from Rowan Co., NC, to Rutherford County, in Middle Tennessee, to Dyer County, Tennessee, and perhaps had more moves of which I’m unaware. Jane Maxwell Thomas, daugher of Elizabeth Purviance and William Thomas, died in 1855, having been widowed in 1853 upon the death of Edwin. Edwin’s brother RAH McCorkle wrote their sister Elmira that Edwin had died of typhoid pneumonia on the 10th of January 1853.)
Generation IV. Finis Alexander McCorkle & first wife “Sallie” Sarah Josephine “Jo” Jackson, Dyer County, Tennessee. Once I read an old letter that said: Finis and John Edwin McCorkle were away at school at Bluff Springs Academy. We have John E. McCorkle’s diploma (Bachelor of Arts 1860), but I would expect the supervening Civil War prevented the younger brother Finis from graduating. The war began very soon after John E’s graduation. Something I recently read made me think perhaps Bluff Springs Academy was in McLemoresville, Tennessee, not Milan as I had thought.
I think Sallie Jo Jackson McCorkle is buried in Obion County, perhaps in the community of Palestine (?). Sarah Josephine Jackson’s father, I think, was named Gillum or Gilliam Jackson, a minister, and we know she named an ill-fated son Gillum McCorkle. In the 1880 Census of Tennessee, Finis McCorkle, listed as aged 36, appears with Sallie Jo Jackson McCorkle (aged 30) in the community of Palestine, with resident children Gentry Purviance McCorkle, aged 10; Gillum McCorkle, aged 7; Jennie McCorkle (Carter) (who later m. Dr. E. E. Carter and moved to Arkansas—I think), aged 5; and Homer McCorkle, aged 2.
Finis’ children by his 1st wife included Gentry Purviance McCorkle who m. a Cason woman (inter alia; in fact Gentry married at least 2 more alia) (Dyer Co, Tennessee, to Texas, to California); Homer McCorkle (Dyer Co., TN, to Texas, to California–a jeweler); Gillum McCorkle (buried as a teenager in the McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer Co., Tennessee—the neighbors gossiped that his step-mother “Mag” Margaret Gossum McCorkle poisoned him, but he is officially listed as a suicide & is buried in the McCorkle Cemetery east of Newbern); and Jennie McCorkle Carter (who I know from old photographs lived with her uncle John Edwin McCorkle & Mary Cotton McCorkle circa 1900, not with her father and step-mother, and who, according to my Aunt Beth Huie (Sarah Elisabeth Huie, 1904 –1993) became the wife of a Dr. E. E. Carter of Hot Springs, Arkansas—I think she said Hot Springs). I think the doctor’s name was Edward E. Carter, and I think he removed to Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Jennie McCorkle Carter died in Hot Springs in 1906.
Jennie McCorkle Carter: Recently, I found a Dr Edward E Carter in the 1920 (I think) census records for Arkadelphia, Arkansas, whom I presume to have been Jennie McCorkle Carter’s widower; but I’m not certain.—In her 1900 photograph taken of her uncle John Edwin McCorkle’s home, Jennie McCorkle sits on the porch with a lyre (or mandolin or guitar) so she must have been musical. Aunt Beth Huie said that Jennie McCorkle Carter was a special friend, and of course 1st cousin, of my paternal grandmother, Sophie King McCorkle Huie. -- Aunt Beth Huie lost track of Jennie McCorkle Carter, so I know nothing more except that she died in Hot Springs in the year 1906. Susan Jane McCorkle Carter (Jennie) with her brother Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Senior:
Finis A. McCorkle’s child by his 2nd wife “Mag” Margaret HART was Maida McCorkle Montgomery who lived to become a centenarian in California. Maida married Howell Montgomery. When I spoke by telephone with Maida, living in California in 1983, she replied that no, she did not know the burial site of her father, Finis A. McCorkle. I presume he is interred in the McCorkle Cemetery; if so, Finis is, sad to say, the only brother without a tombstone; but Finis A. McCorkle may be buried in Obion County where his 1st wife had a church connection. (I doubt it.) Finis McCorkle last appears in Dyer County, in the 1910 census as living with his 2nd wife Mag Hart, at which time no children resided with them. Finis A. McCorkle’s youngest child, Maida McCorkle, had only one child, a daughter, Margaret Montgomery, who never married, had no children, was a librarian, lived in California, and is now [2003] deceased. -- Finis fought for the Confederacy, so at least should have a “CSA” grave-marker.
Generation V. Homer McCorkle m. ?HELEN? Cason (a sister to the Ruth Cason who was the 1st to marry Homer’s brother, Gentry Purviance McCorkle) (Homer moved from Dyer County to Center Point, Texas –near San Antonio–& eventually to California.) The Cason sisters who married two McCorkle brothers, Gentry & Homer, were from Henderson, Tennessee, south of Jackson.
Homer McCorkle appears on the 1910 Census as being aged 21 and living in Newbern, Dyer county,Tennessee. He appears in the Alameda, California, obituaries: Born 27 Nov. 1879 in Tennessee, he died at Alameda on 26 June 1964. He registered for the World War I draft requirement in Kendall County, Texas. I know he lived for years, after leaving West Tennessee, at Center Point, Texas, near San Antonio.
Hiram R. A. McCorkle’s diary records in October 1892 or ‘93 that a Mrs. M.E. Peacock removed from Center Point, Texas, to make Newbern her home but makes no connection between her and Hiram’s nephews, Gentry Purviance McCorkle and Homer McCorkle who were later to move to Center Point. On 18 August 1895, Homer McCorkle rode his bicycle, joined by some friends, out to the Churchton community. The friends whom Uncle Hiram lists are Ed Braidy, Robert Montgomery, and Earl Arnett.
Generation VI. ‘Casey’ McCorkle m. (2nd) Lois Miller McCorkle. (removed from Texas, to the San Francisco area.) Bowden Cason McCorkle died recently, leaving Lois McCorkle his widow in San Leandro, California, and a daughter named Kathleen McCorkle (Brudno) in California, area code 530. Had it not been for Casey McCorkle, this information would not be available for us all. Requiescat in Pace, Casey McCorkle.
As mentioned immediately above, Casey McCorkle had by his first wife Floy Disney two children, Carter McCorkle and Lynn McCorkle, and by Lois Miller McCorkle a daughter named Kathleen McCorkle (Brudno). Casey had two brothers, now deceased:
Generation VI. Horace Jackson McCorkle, M.D., at the University of California San Francisco Medical College, from whom his brother Casey was estranged. Casey’s sister-in-law Marjery told me soon before her death that her other brother-in-law, Dr. Horace Jackson McCorkle, in the doctor’s old age said he had switched to Casey’s view, that Casey had been right. Casey had generously assumed an unfairly apportioned burden to take care of their elderly parent(s) when he himself had wanted to pursue further education but could not. -- . I do not know the names of the children if any of Horace Jackson McCorkle, M.D.
Generation VI. Homer McCorkle’s baby son was “Tom” Homer Thomas McCorkle, Ph.D., born 20 July 1914 in Texas; and died 11 April 1994 in Alameda, California. “Tom” was an anthropologist, University of California Berkeley. Homer’s son “Tom” married Marjery Manchester (McCorkle) who was also a U California Berkeley graduate. The ff. records the death of Homer & Helen Cason’s son Tom McCorkle, Ph.D: “McCorkle, Homer Thomas. Born 30 July 1914 in Texas [Center Point?]; died 11 April 1994 in Alameda, California. Mother’s maiden name: Cason [misprinted as ‘Carson’].”
The children of Tom McCorkle, by wife Margery Manchester of Berkeley, California, were: Generation VII. Margery “Maggie” McCorkle Pinson now of Galveston, Texas; Generation VII. Susan McCorkle [Susannah McCorkle], 4 Jan.1946 - 19 May 2001, an accomplished & critically acclaimed vocalist; and a 3rd daughter, Generation VI., Kate McCorkle, of California.
Maggie McCorkle Pinson has the M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
|
Information Change of Address Exit Questionnaire
Meet Our Staff |
|
|
||||
|
Maggie Pinson, International Manager
“Providing assistance to UTMB internationals has been |
Finis A. McCorkle of Dyer County, Tennessee, enlisted on the Southern side of the Civil War. I would assume the initial “A” stands for “Alexander” after the middle name of his father, Edwin Alexander McCorkle, and after his paternal great-grandfather Alexander McCorkle, the immigrant to the American colonies who died in 1800 and is buried in Thyatira Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Rowan County, N.C. The mother of Finis A. McCorkle was Jane Maxwell Thomas (McCorkle), a daughter of Elizabeth Purviance & William Thomas. Again, an old letter records that John Edwin McCorkle and his younger brother Finis A. McCorkle were away at school at Bluff Springs Academy. Although John Edwin McCorkle graduated in 1860 just before outbreak of Civil War, I would suspect that war caused the school to close. Finis’ twin sister was Latina McCorkle (Mrs. Gregory).
Finis A. McCorkle
should have a marker at the McCorkle Cemetery in Dyer County, Tennessee, even
if his 2nd wife dumped him in the Mississippi River. (Aunt Beth Huie
referred to her great-uncle Finis A. McCorkle’s 2nd wife as Mag Hart not Mag McCorkle, for
whatever that’s worth from a woman who never spoke evil of anyone.)
Finis A. McCorkle had a son other than Homer McCorkle who removed to California, viz., Gentry Purviance McCorkle. He’s the one I most wish I as an adult could have met. One of Gentry Purviance McCorkle’s children, I think I recall, was named Mary Helen McCorkle (Glenn). I know Gentry Purviance McCorkle’s daughter, whether her name was Helen or Mary or Mary Helen, married Glen Glenn of the Glen Glenn Sound Recording Studio in Hollywood. Sad to say, Glen Glenn & wife née McCorkle drowned while on vacation. I think I remember seeing a Christmas card which Helen McCorkle Glenn sent to Aunt Kate McCorkle (died 1961) in Dyer County with pictures of children Helen, Molly, & David Glenn; but I am 57 years old, & that was probably more than 45 years ago & memory fades. [[I found the following on www.ancestry.com : Glen Glenn [Junior?], born 3 November 1953 in Los Angeles, California. I would presume his grandfather was Gentry Purviance McCorkle, son of Finis A. McCorkle. But perhaps not, for the California Birth Record is reported as listing this Glen Glenn’s mother’s maiden name as Heim. ]] Mary McCorkle is listed in the 1930 US Census of California, living in Cucamonga County, San Bernardino, California, as a daughter aged 13 of Gentry Purviance McCorkle & wife Ruth Cason McCorkle. Born 1913. --
Sarah Jo Jackson (1st wife of Finis A. McCorkle) was born 1849 and died 1880; she was, again, the mother of, inter alia, Gentry Purviance McCorkle & was the paternal grandmother of Mary Helen McCorkle (Mrs. Glen Glenn); Gentry Jr; and David McCorkle. Sallie Jo Jackson’s father was Gilliam [Gillum?] Jackson, a minister of Obion County, Tennessee.
n Aunt Katie Pearl McCorkle (late in life Mrs. Ed Lee Fox) died in 1961 in Dyer County an aged woman, the last to die of the children of John Edwin McCorkle by his 1st wife née Tennessee Alice Scott, Aunt Kate outliving her siblings all but a half-brother, Errett Cotton McCorkle. Errett Cotton McCorkle was a child of John Edwin McCorkle & his 2nd wife, Mary Elizabeth Cotton McCorkle of Botland near Bardstown, Kentucky. Mary Cotton & John Edwin McCorkle married in Eminence, Kentucky, presumably because Mary’s 1st cousin Gideon King & wife Sophie Woodruff (King) resided there, and the Kings’ son-in-law was there, viz., Winfield Purviance McCorkle. Winfield, 1st son of Hiram, was John E’s 1st nephew.
n
Finis A. McCorkle’s son Gentry Purviance McCorkle in California became a Christian Scientist & used to irritate his 1st cousin Uncle Glenn Roache McCorkle back in Dyer County by trying to proselytize. Gentry Purviance McCorkle got himself into some wonderful money-scheme scandals out in California & married several wives, the 1st Ruth E. Cason, from Henderson, Tennessee, born March 1870, m. 1 April 1903 in Center Point, Kerr County, Texas; and the second Maggie Loraine Meeks b. 24 Nov 1892 in Tennessee. Gentry had, I think, a 3rd wife whose surname was, I think, “Riley.” Gentry Purviance McCorkle died in 1962 in Glendale, California. Gentry was involved in the Llano del Rio Utopian community experiment, which foundered for lack of water in California.
As a child, I had never heard of Mary Baker Eddy until seeing her tract, sent from Gentry Purviance McCorkle, at Uncle Glenn McCorkle’s home & at Aunt Kate McCorkle’s home, brother & sister who were devout members of the Church of Christ. Gentry, though, had joined the Seventh Day Adventists, not the Christian Scientists.
Although the Lemalsamac crowd, mostly my father’s cousins, succeeded in preaching my father out of the Lemalsamac congregation [he decided to leave, so his sister Elizabeth “Aunt Beth” Huie went with him], they were not successful in running off Uncle Glenn McCorkle, son of John Edwin McCorkle. When they forbade Uncle Glenn from preaching in public at the old family church, he responded, “I wasn’t praying to them anyway; I pray to God.” An evangelist named Stoy [Something] came through and stirred up the troops when learning that Ewing Huie (my beloved father) had dared to lead the singing for his cousin Bill Huie’s week-long meeting at the Newbern Christian Church. There, in Newbern, they sang with a piano, anathema to the Lemalsamac crowd back in 1952. My daddy went on to Newbern, and we all happily joined the Christian Church there, and didn’t worry that piano music would transport us automatically to hell.
Above: Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr., with daughter Mary Helen McCorkle (Mrs. Glen Glenn) of Hollywood, California.
Below is a daughter of Glen Glenn & Mary Helen McCorkle (Glenn): Deanna Glenn (Taylor). She sits in a rocking chair inherited from the Roache family of Elmira Sloan McCorkle (Roache) & Dr. Stephen Roache. In the left-hand corner is her brother, - .
Gentry Purviance McCorkle ’s children (beside Mary Helen McCorkle Glenn) included HRA McCorkle [Hiram Robert A. (HRA like Gentry’s uncle Hiram Robert Archibald or Alexander McCorkle)]; and David McCorkle, b. 1916. Was David McCorkle a WWII prisoner of war? Another child of G.P. McCorkle [Senior] was Gentry Purviance McCorkle Jr. .– I think I remember seeing that name in the records kept by my great-aunt, Aunt Katie Pearl McCorkle. And I think I remember that Aunt Kate kept this David (or perhaps Gentry Jr’s) World War II photograph in her album at her home, the old McCorkle homeplace in Dyer County, Tennessee, of John Edwin McCorkle which, after the death in 1961 of Aunt Kate, Katie Pearl McCorkle Fox, became the home of Edward C. Huie and wife Drucilla Garner Huie, still inhabited after Ed’s death in 2001 by “Drucy” Huie.
His daughter Katie Pearl Mccorkle Fox wrote that her father’s house was constructed in the year 1868.
The home of Edwin Alexander McCorkle before destruction by fire sat across the road from his son John E’s house and was known as the “Red House.” Edwin A. McCorkle was born at the end of the 18th century in Rowan County, NC [I think]; moved with his parents and siblings to receive a Revolutionary War grant of land situated near Murfreesboro, Tennessee; then upon losing the land to title-dispute litigation accepted a Revolutionary War land grant made in lieu to his father Robert and therefore removed with his parents and living siblings to the newly opened Western District. He was appointed by the governor of Tennessee (a state stricken off from NC in 1796) as an initial magistrate of Dyer County.
Gentry Purviance McCorkle, Sr., circa 1925
–I think, but do not know, that Edwin Alexander McCorkle’s brother Jehiel Morrison McCorkle was clerk of court from the county’s nascence on; the only reason I think this is that his papers somehow have ended up in the University of Tennessee at Martin archives. The U’s publicity seems not to know who Jehiel Morrison McCorkle was; and I’m so unhappy with them about having our papers that I may not tell them. I think ‘Jem’ Jehiel Morrison McCorkle died in 1849, before his brother Edwin Alexander McCorkle died Jan. 10, 1853. And their sister Margaret Permelia McCorkle (Mrs. Lemuel Locke Scott) died in late 1853. Also Lemuel Locke Scott (1804-1866) suffered the death of his father James Scott (1777-1853) in 1853, as well as of two children.
I. Alexander McCorkle & “Nancy” Agnes Montgomery. II. Robert McCorkle & 2nd wife “Peggy” Margaret Morrison McCorkle. III. Jehiel Morrison McCorkle & wife Elizabeth Smith McCorkle.
Jehiel Morrison McCorkle (Jem) & Elizabeth Smith McCorkle had these Generation IV children, who would have been first cousins to Edwin Alexander McCorkle’s children, that is first cousins to: viz., Hiram R.A. & John Edwin & Anderson Jehiel & Finis A. & David Purviance & Becky McCorkle Zarecor & Elizabeth McCorkle Reeves & “Tina” Margaret Latina McCorkle Gregory:
IV.1. R.E. McCorkle
IV.2. Samuel S. McCorkle m. Margaret Wharey who I think lived in Yorkville.
SS & Marg’t McCorkle’s children were:
V Mary McCorkle
V Leone McCorkle
V James McCorkle
V David E. McCorkle, who m. Lullie Vaughn & became Dyer Co. Superintendent of Schools. See Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, biographical entries for Dyer County. ;
V. Frances McCorkle;
V. Ella McCorkle who m. Joe W. Pope. This Ella McCorkle Pope died Oct. 1 1946. ;
V. A.L. “Bud” McCorkle who died 4 Jan. 1935—the “shootist”; and
V. Susan McCorkle.
IV.3. Alexander “Dank” McCorkle –“Dank” was to be progenitor of a Governor. Note that the governor had a 1st cousin “Bud” who was a “shootist.”
Carl E. Bailey of Arkansas. Political Graveyard on the Internet says the following about Carl Edward Bailey, 1894-1948: “ Bailey, Carl Edward (1894-1948) — also known as Carl E. Bailey — of Little Rock, Ark. Born in Bernie, Stoddard County, Mo., October 8, 1894. Son of William Edward Bailey and Margaret Elmyra (McCorkle) Bailey; married, October 10, 1915, to Margaret Bristol (divorced 1942). Democrat. Arkansas state attorney general, 1935-37; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Arkansas, 1936, 1940; Governor of Arkansas, 1937-41. Disciples of Christ. Member, American Bar Association. Freemasons. Died October 23, 1948. Interment at Roselawn Memorial Park, Little Rock, Ark.” [End of quoted material from Political Graveyard]
Alexander “Dank” McCorkle and wife Margaret Pitt McCorkle had these children:
V. Jehiel McCorkle m. Bettie Hall (McCorkle) and begot:
VI. Eddie Louise McCorkle (Miller) who m. Robert Miller; and
VI. Hall McCorkle.
Photograph of Jehiel McCorkle & Bettie Hall McCorkle below:
V. Lee McCorkle m. Emma Johnson;
VI. Lee McCorkle & Emma Johnson McCorkle had Ilas McCorkle and another child. Uncle Hiram R.A. McCorkle’s diary records the death of Lee McCorkle.
V. Robert Eusebius McCorkle, Christian Church minister, m. Mrs. Nannie Smith and they had:
VI Anita McCorkle;
VI Robbie McCorkle (Mrs. Frank Chambers), who had son VII Tom Chambers; and
VI Tom McCorkle, who enlisted in U.S. Navy in 1942 aged 17.
V. Alex McCorkle m. 1st a Miss Baker, then 2nd m. Maggie Sturdivant;
Alex McCorkle & Maggie Sturdivant McCorkle had
VI Frank McCorkle and probably other VI children.
V. Margaret Elmira McCorkle (Barnett) (Bailey) m. 1st Mr. Barnett, then 2nd Mr. Bailey—mother of a Governor Carl E. Bailey of Arkansas and probably other children;
V. Howard McCorkle, burnt to death;
V. William S. McCorkle m. Lizzie Sturdivant (McCorkle) and had:
VI. Clara McCorkle (Mrs. John D. Pochler);
VI. Esther (Mrs. Henry J. Wischest [?] [?Winchester?];
VI. Nell McCorkle (Mrs. Will P. Mitchell); --{[Ora McCorkle Huie and Kate McCorkle Fox’s book says:
“Lizzie’s 4th child. [6.] Nell & Will P. Mitchell. [7.] Scott McCorkle Mitchell. [8.] Scott McCorkle Mitchell, Jr.”]}
VI. Wilmer Scott McCorkle;
VI. Edyth McCorkle (Mrs. W.F. Meyers);
VI. Edwin McCorkle m. Alma.
V. Beulah McCorkle (Tucker) m. Mr. Tucker and had
VI. Nell Tucker, who had a child named Scott McCorkle Mitchell
V. Irving Adair McCorkle m. Ida Smith (McCorkle) and had
VI Ruby McCorkle Cowan;
VI. Erin McCorkle Arnett (Mrs. Lynn Arnett)—This brings to mind the connection between Mr. Lynn Arnett and his sister Esther Arnett Poore late of Newbern, Esther May Arnett (Mrs. Aaron Poore) being mother of Jean Poore Palmer of Dyersburg and Jean’s twin sister Jane Poore Yarbrough of Newbern. This connection to the religious stirrings of minister Kenneth McCorkle in my view ultimately led to division in the Newbern First Christian Church, exacerbated by a lunatic-fringe preacher named Walizer, and to the old grand church’s ultimate demise circa 1985;
VI. Kenneth McCorkle, Christian Church preacher who, sad to say, contributed to the division of the Christian Church (from which the Church of Christ had split circa 1900) into the (more liberal) Disciples of Christ and (less liberal) Christian Church. – Kenneth McCorkle had by his 1st wife VII. Kenneth Earl McCorkle who married Rose Marie Moore; and by his 2nd wife VII. Olwin McCorkle; and VII. Kenneth McCorkle, Jr.
IV.4. Locke McCorkle (son of Jehiel Morrison McCorkle & Betsy Smith McCorkle).
Locke McCorkle was killed in or consequent to the Civil War Battle of Atlanta. His parents lost three—yes, three—sons to the Civil War.
IV.5. E.J. (son of Jehiel Morrison McCorkle & Betsy Smith McCorkle) – killed in Civil War – Ed, I think he was. A wartime letter we have from Robert alias RAH McCorkle, E.J.’s uncle, written to RAH’s sister Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache advises her that Ed had not yet returned home from the war, nor had Locke. Nor would either, ever.
IV.6. Clay (Henry Clay) McCorkle (son of Jehiel Morrison McCorkle & Betsy Smith McCorkle), buried Brice’s Crossroads battlefield cemetery, Guntown, Mississippi
IV.7. John Q. McCorkle m. Etheline Ellis [?Was he called Quincy McCorkle?] (son of Jehiel Morrison McCorkle & Betsy Smith McCorkle)
8. M. Caroline McCorkle m. 1. Greer 2. Gregory 3. James O. Roache
9. Margaret B. McCorkle
IV.8. E. McCorkle --It’s possible this was the Ed McCorkle who was killed in the Civil War, instead of the E.J. McCorkle listed above as IV.5. I do not know who this was.
The above Generation III. Jehiel Morrison McCorkle (JEM McCorkle) and Elizabeth Smith “Betsy” McCorkle are interred in the McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer County, Tennessee.
________________________________________________________________________
Robert McCorkle and wife Margaret Morrison McCorkle ’s Journey from Rowan County, N.C, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to Dyer County, Tennessee:
We know Robert McCorkle was born in Rowan/Iredell County, North Carolina, to Alexander McCorkle & “Nancy” Agness Montgomery, immigrants to 1st Pennsylvania from Northern Ireland, then to 2nd North Carolina. Nancy Montgomery McCorkle’s mother, née Finley, was a sister to Presbyterian minister Joseph Montgomery, born 1733.
Robert’s older brother, Samuel Eusebius McCorkle (Princeton graduate; admitted to Presbyterian ministry for New York; Doctor of Divinity, Dickinson College) had been born in Pennsylvania. We also know that Robert moved westerly to Sumner County, Tennessee, where he married (1st wife) Lizzie Blythe [I think they married in Middle Tennessee] and had two children, Aleck who died in infancy and Elizabeth McCorkle (Anderson) who was raised by her mother’s mother in or near Lebanon, Tennessee. When Elizabeth Blythe McCorkle died, Robert went back to Rowan County, North Carolina to marry and fetch westwardly Margaret “Peggy” Morrison, daughter of Andrew & Elizabeth Sloan Morrison. We also know that Elizabeth Sloan (Morrison) was herself a McCorkle descendant.
Robert McCorkle, and perhaps his 1st Lizzie Blythe McCorkle, temporarily moved from Sumner County up to Bourbon County, Kentucky, near Paris, after John Purviance [Junior, son of an elder John Purviance] had been scalped in 1792 in Sumner County. We know that Robert’s brother, William McCorkle, married as his 2nd wife (after 1st wife “Peggy” Margaret Blythe) Martha “Mattie” King, the widow of John Purviance [widow of the younger John Purviance who was “scalped”].
The Cumberland Presbyterian schism from the more formal Presbyterians occurred in 1810 just outside Dickson, Tennessee, in what is now a Tennessee State Park: Montgomery Bell Historic Shrine. It is known that a Robert McCorkle appears in the earliest Cumberland Presbyterian records of Kentucky in trials for the newly formed Cumberland Presbyterian ministry and, even though he would have been over 40 years old at the time, it is possible the applicant is our Robert McCorkle. Please recall though the marriage in 1810 in Boone County, Kentucky, of another Robert McCorkle, to a Keith woman; it is possible this is the Robert McCorkle applying for the C.P. clergy, and he may even have been a nephew of our Robert. The new Cumberland Presbyterian denomination was desperate for educated clergy. -- We are told by Elmira Sloan McCorkle (Roache), that her father Robert (after the families had retreated from Indian hostilities in Tennessee up to Kentucky) moved on back down to Sumner County after Indian relations improved. [See the Cumberland Presbyterian web site on the Internet.]
Robert or his people, or both, appear in what was then called Sumner County, Tennessee, as members of Shiloh Presbyterian Church near today’s Gallatin. Someday I hope to visit the “King Cemetery” which is sometimes the name given the Shiloh Presbyterian Church Cemetery. Mr. OK Smith’s daughter (and “Miss” Lady Ruth Herndon Smith’s daughter), Mary Evelyn Smith Reese, told me just yesterday on the telephone that she lives closeby. (Someday, I’m hoping to find the grave, somewhere in Middle Tennessee ( ?), of Revolutionary War participant John Purviance & wife Mary Jane Wasson Purviance, the grandparents of Mrs. Edwin A. McCorkle, née Jane Maxwell Thomas. Are they buried at Shiloh Presbyterian Church? It is conceivable that Revolutionary War veteran “colonel” John Purviance might be buried up in New Paris, Preble County, Ohio, to which location his son David Purviance, the church minister, had removed--after having moved to Cane Ridge, Bourbon County, Kentucky, near Lexington, and serving in the Kentucky legislature. The reader will recall that David’s brother John Purviance [Jr.] had been scalped by hostile Indians in 1792 in Sumner County, Tennessee, leaving a widow “Mattie” Martha King Purviance, who later married William McCorkle. This murder caused David Purviance and some kinspeople to move up to Bourbon County. Some returned to Middle Tennessee; others did not.)
James M. Richmond, whose wife is a descendant of William McCorkle (brother to our Robert) has identified the parents of “Peggy” Margaret Blythe as Reverend James Blythe and Elizabeth King (Blythe), parents of both: (1) Mrs. William McCorkle, née Margaret Blythe; and (2) the first Mrs. Robert McCorkle, née Elizabeth “Lizzie” Blythe. Quaere: What kin was the wife of Reverend James Blythe (Mrs. Elizabeth King Blythe) to the Samuel King, Samuel King having been an original signator to the new Cumberland Presbytery highlighted immediately below?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***
Presbyterian Roots -- from the Cumberland Presbyterian Internet Website
“April 8, 1813. Logan Presbytery formed from Cumberland Presbytery. Also, that another part of the present members of this Cumberland Presbytery shall be, and are hereby directed to constitute a Presbytery to be known by the name of Logan Presbytery; to be composed of the following members, to-wit: the Rev. Messrs. Finis Ewing, William Harris, Alexander Chapman, and William Barnett; to meet on the fifty Tuesday in August next at Red River meeting-house, Logan county, Ky., the Presbytery to be opened by a sermon to be delivered by Mr. Finis Ewing, or Mr. Harris, in cause of his absence.
“The following persons shall be considered under
the direction of said Logan Presbytery when constituted, to-wit: Phillip
McDonnold; Robert McCorkle, Green
P. Rice,
John Barnett, and Daniel Boe
[Buie?] ; the boundaries of said Presbytery to be as follows: Beginning at the
mouth of Duck river, thence a direct line to Cumberland river, so as to include
the settlements of Yellow creek, thence up Cumberland river to the mouth of
Half-Pone creek, thence a direct course to the Kentucky state line, where
the old Kentucky road crosses said line, yet so as to leave Karr's Creek society
in the bounds of said Presbytery, leaving out what is called the
Ridge society; thence eastwadly to undefined boundaries (it is
understood, however, that the counties of Cumberland and Wayne, in Kentucky, are
not to be considered in the bounds of said Presbytery), thence northward and
westward to undefined boundaries from each point. It is expressly understood,
however, that lines striking off from said bounds of said Logan Presbytery are
to include
William and
John Barnett and Philip McDonnold, yet not so as to include any
society in the Cumberland Presbytery, or territory to form one on, and it is
hereby understood that all the congregations, etc., within the natural or
prescribed boundaries of either of the Presbyteries shall be considered under
the care of their respective Presbyteries; and it is hereby expressly directed
and mutually agreed to, that said
Elk and Logan Presbyteries meet this Presbytery with their documents on
the first Wednesday in October at the
Beech meeting-house, in Sumner county, and State of Tennessee, for the
express purpose of constituting a Synod; and it is hereby directed that the
committee appointed to draw up a complete though succinct account of the rise,
doctrines, etc., of the
Cumberland Presbytery, make their report to the Synod when constituted.
[Source: Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery,
April 8, 1813, reprinted in The Cumberland Presbyterian Review,
January 1879] ”
* * * * * * * * *
Cumberland Presbyterian Connections. The CP church began in 1810: February 4, 1810.
“In Dixon [sic.] county Tennessee State, at the Rev. Samuel M'adow's this 4th day of February 1810. “We Samuel M'adow, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King, regularly ordained ministers, in the presbyterian church against whom, no charge, either of imorality, or Heresey has ever been exhibited, before any of the church Judicatures. Having waited in vain more than four years, in the mean time, petitioning the general assembly for a redress of grievances, and a restoration of our violated rights, have, and do hereby agree, and determine, to constitute into a presbytery, known by the name of the Cumberland presbytery. On the following conditions (to wit) all candidates for the ministry, who may hereafter be licensed by this presbytery; and all the licentiates, or probationers who may hereafter be ordained by this presbytery; shall be required before such licensure, and ordination, to receive, and adopt the confession and discipline of the presbyterian church, except the idea of fatality, that seems to be taught under the misterious doctrine of predestination. It is to be understood, however, that such as can clearly receive the confession, without an exception, shall not be required to make any. Moreover, all licentiates, before they are set apart to the whole work of the ministry (or ordained) shall be required to undergo an examination, on English Grammer, Geography, Astronomy, natural, & moral philosophy, and church history. The presbytery may also require an examination on all, or any part, of the above branches of literature, before licensure if they deem it expedient."
“Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery. Cumberland Presbyterian Church] March 20 - 22, 1810
“SUMNER COUNTY, STATE OF TENNESSEE, Ridge Meeting-house, Tuesday, the 20th of March, 1810.
“Presbytery met agreeably to adjournment. Members present: The Rev. Messrs.
Samuel McAdow,
Finis Ewing,
Samuel King, and
Ephraim McLean; elders and representatives, Chatham Ewing, Alexander
Aston, Young Ewing, Witheral Latimore, Henderson Bails, John Wheeler, Benjamin
Lockhart, Hugh Telford, Samuel Donnell, and John Williamson.
” Presbytery proceeded to choose a Moderator and Clerk.
Mr. McAdow was chosen Moderator, and Mr. Young Ewing Clerk. Constituted
by prayer.
” Mr.
James B. Porter delivered a discourse from John viii. 36, preparatory to
his ordination, agreeably to appointment of last Presbytery, which was
unanimously sustained.
” Adjourned, by prayer, to meet to-morrow morning at nine o'clock.
WEDNESDAY
MORNING.
Presbytery met agreeably to adjournment. Members present as yesterday. Opened
by prayer.
“ Mr.
Kirkpatrick delivered a discourse from James ii. 26, which was
unanimously sustained. Whereupon Messrs.
Porter and
Kirkpatrick were examined on English grammar, geography, natural and
moral philosophy, Church history, and astronomy, which examination was
sustained, and, after an ordination sermon was delivered by
Rev. Finis Ewing, from 2 Tim. ii. 15, they were set apart to the whole
work of the ministry, by solemn prayer and the imposition of hands, and were
invited to, and took their seats in, Presbytery.
Adjourned, by prayer, to meet to-morrow morning at eight o'clock.
“THURSDAY MORNING.
Presbytery met agreeably to adjournment. Members present as yesterday. Opened by
prayer.
” Ordered, that Messrs.
McLean and
Kirkpatrick attend Karr's Creek Society, agreeably to the request of
their representative, for the purpose of their organization, and that they
administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper at that place, at some convenient
time during the ensuing summer, and that they supply the said society, together
with the society on McAdow, with preaching as often as they can.
” Ordered, that
Mr. McLean administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in Livingston
county, on the second Sabbath in May, and that
Mr. Robert Donnell attend and
assist upon that occasion.
”Ordered, that it be recommended to all vacant congregations, and they are
hereby authorized, to call before their session any disorderly member, and deal
with him or them in every respect as though there was a preacher present, but
their judgment shall not extend further than suspension.
”Ordered, that Messrs.
Samuel McAdow,
Finis Ewing,
Ephraim McLean,
James B. Porter, and Young Ewing, or a majority of them, draw a circular
letter, as soon as they can, which is to be carefully examined, and superintend
the printing of a thousand copies, to be distributed under the direction of
Presbytery; and it is further directed that all the preachers, exhorters,
elders, etc., collect money from all they can, taking down the persons' names
and sums paid, which collections ought to be made as soon as possible for that
purpose; the surplus, if any, to be put into the hands of a treasurer, to be
appointed by order of Presbytery.
”Ordered, that
Mr. Hugh Kirkpatrick be appointed Treasurer, also Stated Clerk, for this
Presbytery.
” Mr. David McLin having undergone the usual examination, viz.: on
experimental religion, his call to the ministry, etc., and having received a
good report of his moral character, he is now received as a candidate for the
ministry, and ordered to prepare a discourse to be delivered at our next stated
meeting, from Isaiah iii. 10, 11.
Ordered, that an intermediate Presbytery be held on Elk river, in the bounds of
Mr. Bell's congregation, for the purpose of his ordination, on the 20th
of July; and that Messrs.
Finis Ewing,
Samuel King [what
kin was Samuel King to Elizabeth King Blythe, Mrs. Rev. James Blythe, the 1st
mother-in-law of Robert McCorkle?],
James B. Porter, and
Hugh Kirkpatrick hold said Presbytery, and that
Rev. Finis Ewing preach the ordination sermon, also preside, or some
other, in case of absence, inability, etc.
” Ordered, that an intermediate Presbytery be held on Suggs' Creek, on Friday,
the 27th day of July, for the purpose of ordaining
Mr. David Foster, and that Messrs.
Finis Ewing,
Samuel King,
James B. Porter, and
Hugh Kirkpatrick attend and compose said Presbytery; and that
Rev. Hugh Kirkpatrick preach the ordination sermon, and the
Rev. Finis Ewing preside.
” Ordered, that
Mr. Robert Bell prepare a discourse from Romans v. 1, and
Mr. Foster, from Ephesians ii. 8, to be delivered preparatory to their
ordination.
” Ordered, that
Mr. Thomas Calhoon prepare a discourse from Romans i. 16, 17, to be
considered as a popular discourse, preparatory to his licensure, at the
intermediate Presbytery to be held in July, on Suggs' Creek; also prepare to
stand an examination on English grammar. [Letters of Elmira Sloan McCorkle
Roach in Indiana mention the family of Thomas
Calhoun.]
” Whereas, Messrs.
Robert Donnell and
William Barnett have formerly been examined on experimental religion and
their call to the ministry, and having received a good report of their moral
character, they are now received as candidates for the ministry; ordered,
therefore, that
Mr. Donnell prepare a discourse from Matthew v. 8; also
Mr. Barnett, from John x. 9, to be delivered at our next stated meeting.
” Whereas,
Mr. Robert McCorkle has been
formerly [formally?]
received as a candidate for the ministry,
ordered that he prepare a discourse from Isaiah iii. 10, 11, to be
delivered at our next stated meeting.
” Whereas,
Mr. Alexander Chapman has been formerly received as a candidate for the
ministry, ordered that he prepare a discourse from John iii. 16, to be exhibited
at our next meeting.
Ordered, that Messrs.
Samuel King and
David Foster administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the upper
circuit some time (during) the ensuing summer or fall, and that Messrs.
Calhoon and
Barnett assist them.
Ordered, that
Mr. Donnell ride once around the lower circuit, and the balance of his
time to be employed on the Elk River circuit.
Ordered, that
Mr. Barnett ride once round the Nashville circuit, and the balance of
his time on the upper circuit.
Ordered, that Mr. Bumpass ride the Nashville circuit.
Ordered that Mr. McLin ride the Livingston circuit, or what is called the lower
circuit.
Ordered, that Presbytery adjourn until the fourth Tuesday in October next, to
meet on that day at Lebanon meeting-house, as aforesaid.
Closed with prayer.
SAMUEL
McADOW, Moderator. YOUNG EWING, Clerk.
”
“ Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery
[of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church]
October 23-25, 1810
“ LEBANON, Tennessee, Tuesday, the 23d of October, 1810.
“Presbytery met agreeably to
adjournment. Members present: The
Rev. Finis Ewing,
Ephraim McLean, and
Hugh Kirkpatrick; Elders Robert Guthrie, Chatham Ewing, and Young Ewing;
representatives David Baity, from McAdow and Karr's Creek; Samuel Smith, from
Sandy Creek, Piney Fork, and Hopewell; and James Baker, from Big Spring. The
Rev. Finis Ewing was appointed Moderator, and Mr. Young Ewing, Clerk.
The
Rev. Hugh Kirkpatrick preached a sermon from John v. 39.
Presbytery opened by prayer. The minutes from the Intermediate Presbyteries,
held on Elk River and Suggs' Creek, were received and read.
Presbytery adjourned, by prayer, to meet to-morrow morning at nine o'clock.
“WEDNESDAY
MORNING. Presbytery met agreeably to adjournment. Members same as
on yesterday. Opened with prayer. Other representatives appeared and took their
seats, viz.: Josiah Wilson, from Harpeth Lick, Spring Creek, and Rutherford;
Jacob Scott, from Casey's Creek, Blooming Grove, and Means' Societies; and
Robert Smith, elder, from Fall Creek.
“WHEREAS,
The
Rev. William McGee voluntarily suspended his operations as a preacher
for a time, owing to some difficulties in his own mind--did not consider himself
a proper member of Presbytery in that situation, but has since gotten his mind
clear, and feels it a duty to preach again;
“Resolved, therefore (he
being present), That he be considered and recognized as a regular member of
Cumberland Presbytery, and that he be invited to take his seat accordingly.
Concurred in unanimously. Wherefore he was invited to, and took his seat.
Messrs.
McLean and
Kirkpatrick assigned reasons why they did not administer the Lord's
Supper on Karr's Creek, which were sustained.
Upon examination, the committee appointed at last Presbytery to draft a circular
letter, have complied with the order.
“ Messrs.
King and
Calhoon complied with the order of Presbytery, in the administration of
the Lord's Supper in the upper circuit.
“ Mr.
Robert McCorkle's excuse was sustained for not being prepared with a discourse
at this Presbytery as a part of trial. Mr.
McLean complied with the order of last Presbytery in the administration
of the Lord's Supper in Livingston. Mr. David McLin delivered a discourse from
the subject assigned him, which was sustained. Messrs.
Robert Bell and
David Foster, being present, and the minutes of their ordination being
read, they were invited to and took their seats accordingly.
Mr. Ephraim Dickey, Mr. Bell's elder, is now come and took his seat in
Presbytery.
Mr.
Alexander Chapman delivered a discourse from the subject assigned him,
which was sustained.
Adjourned, by prayer, to meet to-morrow morning at nine o'clock.
“THURSDAY
MORNING. Presbytery met agreeably to
adjournment. Members present as on yesterday. Opened by prayer.
A letter to the different churches under the care of Presbytery was adopted,
viz., our circular letter.
A letter to the Presiding Elder of the Methodist Society was adopted, as
follows:
“DEAR
SIR: Having learned by Mr. Clements, that
you have manifested not only a willingness, but a wish, to come to a friendly
understanding with the Cumberland Presbytery, we have had the matter before us,
and have determined, agreeably to your wish, to appoint
Mr. McLean and Mr. William Clements to meet and confer with you on that
subject. As to former causes of umbrage, the Presbytery is sorry they ever
existed on either side, and wishes henceforth that they should subside, and the
effects produced in the mind be buried in oblivion. Nevertheless, the Presbytery
has ordered that the Rev. William McGee, one of its own body, not only because
it is a matter of which our Methodist brethren complain, but because they feel
in effect the whole body (to which he belongs) is, in a certain degree, affected
with the charges against him respecting Mr. Harper, make his defense before our
next stated Presbytery on that subject, of which time and place
Mr. McLean will inform you. But let that trial eventuate as it may, the
Presbytery does not wish it to affect the union between the two general bodies
or societies. Our commissioners will inform you that the Presbytery is cordial
and sincere in its profession of friendship, but wishes it only to be on general
and not particular principles, viz., that each Society feels at perfect liberty
to preach its own sentiments and exercise its own discipline. As to the subject
of proselytizing, the Presbytery condemns the principle, but, notwithstanding,
believes it would not be prudent to lay any particular restrictions on that
subject, but allow the members of each Society to be at perfect liberty to join
whom they please, without jealousy or animadversion from any quarter. The
Presbytery would just add that if any individual preacher or member of either
Society acts improperly in the view of the other Society, that such Society
shall feel at perfect liberty to treat him accordingly, by refusing to let him
preach or commune with them, without extending it to the body to which such
member belongs. The Presbytery would also suggest, in order to prevent future
jealousy, that neither body shall be considered inattentive because they may not
always attend the communions of the other that may be convenient, the Presbytery
having so great a proportion of societies to supply for the number of their
preachers, that they cannot always attend the communions of other Societies when
they would wish to do so, but when the bodies accidentally or designedly meet,
let them be in union. You will see, sir, the above conditions are perfectly
equal. We hope, therefore, they will meet with your approbation and that body
over whom you preside.
FINIS
EWING, Moderator.
YOUNG EWING, Clerk.
October 25th, 1810.
To L. BLACKMAN, P. E., M. S. ”
“Ordered,
that
Rev. Ephraim McLean and Mr. William Clements be a committee to wait on
the Elder with the foregoing letter.
Mr.
William Harris delivered a discourse from the subject assigned him,
which was sustained.
Mr. William Bumpass delivered a discourse from the subject assigned him,
which was sustained.
Mr. Robert Donnell delivered a discourse from the subject assigned him, which
was sustained.
Ordered, that
Mr. Alexander Chapman prepare a popular discourse from Romans x. 4, to
be delivered at our next stated Presbytery, in order to his licensure, and that
he prepare to stand an examination of English grammar.
Ordered, that
Mr. Harris prepare a popular discourse from 2 Corinthians v. 21, to be
delivered at our next stated Presbytery, and that he stand an examination on
English grammar at that time, preparatory to his licensure.
Ordered that
Mr. Robert Donnell prepare a discourse from Romans v. 1, to be delivered
at our next stated Presbytery, preparatory to his licensure, and that he prepare
to stand an examination on English grammar.
“ Ordered,
that Mr. Robert McCorkle prepare a discourse from Isaiah xlv. 22, as part of
trial, to be delivered at our next Presbytery.
Ordered, that Mr. Bumpass prepare a discourse, as part of trial,
from Psalms cxxvi. 5, to be delivered at our next Presbytery.
Ordered that Mr. McLin prepare a discourse, as part of trial, from Hebrews
ii., and first part of the third verse, to be delivered at our next stated
Presbytery.
Ordered, that all the foregoing discourses be delivered in writing.
Ordered, that Messrs.
Barnett and Bumpass supply the upper and Nashville circuits, and that
Mr. Robert Donnell supply the Elk River circuit, until our next
Presbytery.
“
Ordered, that Messrs.
McLean, McCorkle, and
McLin supply the
Livingston
circuit,
including McAdow, until our next stated meeting.
Ordered, that Messrs.
Chapman and
Harris supply the societies in Warren, Logan, and Butler counties as
often as convenient, and that
Mr. Chapman ride once round the lower circuit.
“A call was presented, through
Presbytery, from the
Big Spring congregation, in
Wilson county, to
Mr. Thomas Calhoon, which he accepted. Ordered, therefore, that he
prepare a discourse from Romans iv. 25, to be exhibited at our next stated
Presbytery, preparatory to his ordination.
Mr. McLean is ordered to preach the ordination sermon, or
Mr. Bell, in case of his absence or inability, etc.
Ordered, that our next stated Presbytery be held in Wilson county, at the Big
Spring, to meet on the third Tuesday of March next.
Adjourned, by prayer, this 25th day of October, 1810.
FINIS
EWING, Moderator.
YOUNG EWING, Clerk.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache writes from Indiana to her mother Margaret Morrison McCorkle, by then in Dyer County, Tennessee, about the Calhoun family in Indiana. I wouldn’t be surprised if the McCorkles and Calhouns had been Presbyterians or Cumberland Presbyterians together in Sumner County/Wilson County, Tennessee, and in Kentucky:]
“1816 October 15-17, 1816 Free meeting-house - near Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee Moderator - Rev. Thomas Calhoon Clerk - Rev. David Foster
[ Sad to report, the Yorkville, Tennessee, Cumberland Presbyterian Church burned down on the afternoon of Thursday, 9 March 2006. It is believed that lightning struck the electrical wiring system, during a big rain thunderstorm. Some women of the church were in the kitchen as they were preparing funeral meals for the services of deceased Mrs. Helen Hendricks, wife of Jamie Hendricks. ] The Tyson [old Tyson Store] Community fire truck came; and the Yorkville fire truck; and the Dyer, Tennessee, fire truck came, and several others. Some two hours after the fire started, a huge fire truck came from the west, but by then only the vestibule was standing (but charred). ]
________________________________________________________________________
So, there you have the Cumberland Presbyterian records. When was our Robert McCorkle in Bourbon County and / or Logan County, Kentucky, and when in Sumner County, Tennessee, later Wilson county? Did he supply the C.P. circuit as a minister in Livingston? Or was it a nephew or cousin? Did his 2nd wife “Peggy” Margaret Morrison McCorkle accompany Robert McCorkle to those places? And did he indeed ever preach for the Cumberland Presbyterian church?
We know that Robert and Margaret Morrison McCorkle moved on down to Rutherford County, Tennessee, on Stone’s River near Murfreesboro circa 1808, or at least that he received land there on that date. I’m just not sure about when he was in Bourbon County and when and whether he was in Logan County, Kentucky, or whether his 2nd wife Margaret was up there with him. We do know that Robert and William were the brothers who received their father Alexander’s rights in Revolutionary War land grants, because Alexander’s will (died 1800) devises those landgrants to sons Robert and William. Alexander and “Nancy” Agness Montgomery McCorkle are buried in the Thyatira Presbyterian Church cemetery outside Mooresville, Rowan County, N.C. He died in 1800, after Agnes’s death; in fact Alexander McCorkle the Scots-Irish emigrant from Northern Ireland had acquired a 2nd wife, Rebecca Brandon.
Margaret [“Peggy”] Morrison McCorkle’s daughter, ELMIRA SLOAN McCORKLE ROACH, was born 13 Feb. 1797, and died in 1890. As Elmira was a daughter of Robert and Margaret Peggy Morrison McCorkle, her history is pertinent to that of the McCorkles who stayed behind in West Tennessee, where Elmira and her husband remained only shortly before moving up to Indiana and Iowa, then ultimately to Missouri to live with their son Quincy Roache (Robert Quincy Roache)(President of Moniteau [County] Bank in California, Missouri).
Uncle Hiram Robert A. McCorkle’s journal records that Elmira’s son Addison Locke Roache, Senior, moved at age 12 from West Tennessee up to Indiana. Addison was to become justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, resigning that position to become president of the Indiana & Illinois Central Railroad. His son Addison Locke Roache, Jr., I think also a lawyer, living upon his death in Alhambra, California, established by testamentary trust a lectureship at the University of Indiana Bloomington in the name of the father, Addison Locke Roache, Sr. The history of the Indiana Supreme Court justices records that one son, probably Randolph Roache, tragically died just after qualifying to practise law in Indiana.
Elmira Sloan McCorkle and her husband, Dr. Stephen Roache, lingered in Dyer County only a brief time. I remember once seeing a letter to her mother Margaret Morrison McCorkle in which Elmira urged Margaret McCorkle in Dyer County to move on from “that frog-pondy place.” The peregrinations of Elmira and “the doctor” define the word wanderlust. How could this woman have lived through moving so many times? I think I remember reading something that said they moved away from Dyer County pretty quickly after settling there, then moved back there one more time, but not to linger long before removing again. Elmira McCorkle started life in Rowan County, North Carolina, stopping Lord knows where on the way west, then to Middle Tennessee, then uprooting to migrate to West Tennessee. And West Tennessee marked only the beginning of her pioneer journeys. Elmira’s grandchildren were to end up in California, as far west as they could travel in the continental United States. It is sad to know that none of her descendants survive today. -- All my life I’ve wondered what people really mean when they say as if with special discernment, “He’s from an old family.”
The following was printed in 1890 as Obsequies paid Robert and Margaret Finally, to the obsequies printed for Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roach:
“Robert McCorkle’s father [Alexander McCorkle, who married “Nancy” Agness Montgomery] had been a soldier of the [American] Revolution, and had rendered valuable service to his country. As some recompense, the State of North Carolina, which then owned Tennessee, granted to him twenty-four hundred acres of land on Stone River, in Rutherford County, Tennessee. To this land, when Elmira Sloan [McCorkle] was eleven years of age,[4] her father [Robert McCorkle] emigrated, and for some years, with the help of his three boys, Edwin [Edwin Alexander McCorkle], Jehiel [“Jem” Jehiel Morrison McCorkle], and Robert [Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle], and of some family negroes,[5] that had descended to him, he lived a happy frontier life, clearing up a fine farm and surrounding himself with the comforts and conveniences of the new country.
“But a sad stroke of fortune was in store for him. A conflicting claim on his land consumed many years in an expensive and harassing law-suit, ending in his losing his home, and, to pay the expenses of the law-suit, everything was swept away at one fell stroke – lands, live stock, his trusted slaves and all. In addition, he was suddenly stricken with total blindness [macular degeneration?]; but the brave old wife [Margaret Morrison McCorkle] took up the burden. The State of North Carolina had made a grant of land, in lieu of the one lost, in Dyer County, Tennessee, and there the stricken family moved in 1827, and tried to carve out a new home amid the swamps and mighty forests of the western district. In a year the old father died and his wife was left alone, but with sturdy and energetic children around her.”
Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache’s paternal grandparents, Alexander & “Nancy” Agness Montgomery McCorkle, had emigrated from Northern Ireland to today’s Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – then Harris’ Ferry – and migrated south down the 18th-century Great Road, almost certainly stopping off in Virginia, before settling in the Piedmont of North Carolina, near Salisbury, in Rowan/Iredell County.
As to the spelling of the surname Roache: Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roach married Dr. Stephen Roach on January 23, 1816, at her parents’ home on Stone River, Rutherford County, Tennessee. Their children Addison and Quincy were to spell their surname “Roache,” and I don’t blame Addison and Quincy Roache for adding the “e.”
The following 1829 letter is from Margaret Morrison McCorkle to her grandson Addison Locke Roach [Sr.], who as an adult spelled his surname Roache.
Verdant Plain[6] May 27th 1829
My dear little son,
Your favor of April 23 came to hand last week. I am exceedingly well pleased with it, although it produced a gust of conflicting passions or feelings resembling a whirlwind at the first reception and reading of it, yet at this present moment my mind is perfectly tranquilized into a pleasing calm full of the idea that my dear little Addison still remembers me with affection.
[¶ ] As it respects news I cannot pretend to do more than barely sketch what I would wish to relate if I could see you. Suffice it to say that I live very comfortably. Your uncle Robert[7] purchased the half of this place. Gave me his note for 200 dollars & answered Jehiel’s [8] claim for moving your Pa [9] & family. I take my half on the west, but I hold a reserve of the unmolested use of half of all the present improvements during my life, I also have another obligation on Robert [Andrew Hope McCorkle] to have me well provided for during life. I occupy the large house, your uncle [RAH McCorkle] lives in the kitchen. He has built his new house in the same yard with us, but will not have it fit to live in before next fall. He is accommodating and his wife [Tirzah Scott McCorkle[10]] makes herself very agreeable amongst us.
[¶] Franklin H. Dixon [Franklin K Dixon ?] [Franklin Dickson ?] has lived with us ever since last fall, he is a good boy, I think I love him almost as well as any of my grandchildren, whenever I get him taught to write, I intend he shall send you a letter.
[¶] Polly Cox[11] [Polly Cos?] [Mary Cox?] was a long time getting well of the ague, but she is very hearty now, and grows fast. Your Aunt Pamela[12] enjoys health & passes time pleasantly with her new sister.[13]
[¶] I have enjoyed much better health through the last winter and spring than usual. I live easy and contented, very often I lie abed till breakfast is ready then rise without a blush and spend the day in moderate exercise or reading just as my inclination dictates. I can card and spin and knit right smart yet, and cook a little, but I don’t offer to go to the cow-pen though we have six cows with young calves and an abundance of milk.
[¶] Jane M. Thompson[14] has grown to be a great fine likely young woman and is as blythe and merry as a lark,
[¶ ] Cousin John McCorkle[15] is raising a crop here this summer and intends moving down again fall. I expect he will keep Thomas Jr. [Jr. ?]
[¶ ] We have had a very cold dry winter and spring, crops are backward, People generally healthy in this country, no musketoes nor gnats nor flies to torment our poor brutes this spring.
[¶ ] Cousin Nancy[16] has a fine son, your aunt Jane[17] a fine son. Your aunt Betsy[18] a fine daughter. All healthy thriving children.
[¶] I suppose Jane Thompson will write to you sometime and tell all about her spinning and weaving etc etc etc. Give my kind respects to your pa. & ma.[19] Tell them I love them dearly and pray for them every day. I wish likewise to be remembered to Mr. Travers and his wife.
[¶] Tell little Quincy & Elmira howday for me.
Oh Addison avoid bad company as you would a mortal foe. Language fails me when I would express my desires that you may excell in steady habits of moral rectitude, so as to become an ornament to society and a comfort to your parents. With these reflections I bid you adieu!
M a r g r e t Mc C o r k l e
Addison L. Roach.
[In the above letter, Margaret McCorkle did not even spell her own name “Margaret.” She later consistently spelled it Margaret). It seems people were very casual about the spelling of names, even their own.]
Margaret Morrison McCorkle was herself of McCorkle blood. Her mother, Elizabeth Sloan (Mrs. Andrew Morrison), was a daughter of a McCorkle woman who became Mrs. Sloan. Thus, Margaret Morrison McCorkle (Mrs. Robert McCorkle) was a first-cousin-once-removed to her husband Robert.
Generation I. Alexander McCorkle..d. 1800. [=siblings=] ..... A sister of Alex- ander McCorkle named __?___McCorkle (Sloan). She married a Mr. ___?__ Sloan. [One of her children was Elizabeth Sloan (Mrs. Andrew Morrison).] Perhaps the McCorkle woman married the Sloan man in Northern Ireland, or perhaps in Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or even North Carolina.
[One version is as stated immediately above. Another version I’ve read somewhere has it that it was Alexander McCorkle’s father to whom Elizabeth Sloan (Morrison)’s mother was a sister. I do not know which version is correct.]
Generation II. Robert McCorkle, son of Alexander ......... [1st cousins] ......... Elizabeth Sloan (Morrison), a child of the above sister of Alexander McCorkle. Elizabeth Sloan(e) became Mrs. Andrew Morrison, and Mrs. Andrew Morrison was the mother of Margaret Morrison (Mrs. Robert) McCorkle.
III. Children of Robert McCorkle.......[=2nd cos.=] ...............Margaret Morrison McCorkle. In other words, the children of Robert McCorkle were a 2nd cousin to their mother on the McCorkle side. Stated another way, Margaret Morrison McCorkle was a 1st-cousin-once-removed to her husband, Robert McCorkle; and a second cousin to her own McCorkle children.[20]
Letter, 1832, from Margaret Morrison McCorkle (Mrs. Robert McCorkle) in Dyer Co, TN, to her daughter Elmira Sloane McCorkle (Mrs. Stephen Roach):
August the 16th 1832
Dear Elmira,
¶ It is with difficulty that [your sister] Pamela [Margaret Permelia McCorkle, Mrs. Lemuel Scott] has prevailed on me this morning to write you a few lines. my infirm state of health, and lack of practice in writing, is all the apology I can make for my backwardness. I love you as tenderly as ever I did, and have always an anxious desire to hear of your welfare.
¶ I need the consolations of kindness and friendly sympathy of my children to comfort me under my bodily afflictions. suffice it to say that they are all very kind and good to me. As to {?} my prospects for futurity I feel an unshaken confidence in the fulness, freeness, and sufficiency, of the gospel offer to everyone that will accept it, but I do not as fully realize my own acquiescence in the offer as I want to do. I feel myself on the verge, and I want my sun to set in, that I may venture down without fear.
¶ I think it is a light matter
to appear religious before the world, and be a strict observer of all the moral
duties, but I can never rest satisfied till I feel a living principle in my
heart, of love to God constraining me to willing obedience. This I think must
be what is meant by the a kingdom of righteousness, peace, love and joy
in the Holy-Ghost set up in the heart, when I look at my short comings I cannot
help feeling difficulties. I would be glad to know your prospects for eternity.
¶ I refer you to Tirzah [the addressee Elmira’s sister-in-law and Margaret’s daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle, née Tirzah Scott] for family news. Remember my love to all the family.
¶ Pamela [Mrs. Lemuel Scott, daughter of Margaret Morrison McCorkle] says she intends writing to you when the rest come home again.
Margaret McCorkle.
Elmira S Roach.
Letter from Margaret (Peggy) Morrison (Mrs. Robert McCorkle) in Dyer Co., Tennessee, to her daughter Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roache, who had moved on up to Indiana.
...“Possibly you will smile at my infatuation when I attempt to enumerate some of my joys, but would you not rather hear of my being pleased, and thankful for the good things I do enjoy than to hear that I grieved and repined at the want of things out of my reach. good philosophy answers yes.”...
Verdant Plain, April 26 1836
Dear child,
Short as time may seem, since I have seen you it might neverthele¶ occupy pages, to relate all that you would feel interested in hearing from me in that time. Suffice it to say that, that same kind Providence in which I have long trusted has not yet failed me. I think I may venture to say that I enjoy the good things of this world to a degree of satisfaction perhaps rarely experienced by old people. when I thus think and speak, I mean present enjoyment, humbly trusting my future destiny in the hand of unerring wisdom and Goodne¶. Possibly you will smile at my infatuation when I attempt to enumerate some of my joys, but would you not rather hear of my being pleased, and thankful for the good things I do enjoy than to hear that I grieved and repined at the want of things out of my reach. good philosophy answers yes.
[¶ ] My children[21] are all without exception affectionately kind to me, and as far as I can di¶cern friendly and obliging to each other, industriously trying to provide for their families, and I flatter myself that they po¶e¶ steady principles of moral rectitude.
[¶ ] My granddaughters [through my deceased daughter Rebecca Cowden McCorkle (Mrs. Gideon Thompson)] are fine promising girls[22] and I hope will make respectable wemon. [My son] Edwin [Alexander McCorkle] and [Edwin’s wife] Jane [Maxwell Thomas (McCorkle)] are exceeding kind to [Edwin’s niece] Jane [Thompson] and I think she is well satisfied to stay with them, although she expre¶es a great desire to go and see you all. The rest of my grandchildren are all lovely blo¶oms. they afford me a great deal of pleasure with their sweet smiles and innocent prattle[.] [My son] Robert [Andrew Hope McCorkle] has been very fortunate in the choice of a companion. She [Tirzah Scott McCorkle] has been particularly kind to me and if I dare not say that she is the most perfect of women, thus far I will venture to say that hitherto she has supported an uniform line of conduct that fairly entitles her in my estimation, to rank with the most amiable of her sex.
[¶ ] With respect to my circumstances I have joy to observe, that I am generally healthy, I am content, and feel like having an independent claim to a welcome home with my son Robert [Andrew Hope McCorkle] during life. I have entirely given up with the perplexing cares of providing for a family. I am still able to work, but I don’t feel as if nece¶ity drove me on, for I consider my income entirely adequate to my demands.
[¶ ] Give my kindest respects to Dr Roach. tell [your son] Addison [Roach] I would be glad to see a friendly line from him. tell [your children] [Robert] Quincy & Elmira howday from grandma.
From your affectionate mother
Margaret McCorkle
E S R
... I feel daily admonitions of my frailty. the pins of the old tabernacle are loosening perceptibly and I must soon descend to the pale regions of the dead ... . 1837
-- Margaret [Peggy] Morrison McCorkle to her daughter Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach
________________________________________________________________________
Dyer County March 24 1837
My dear child,
I think often of you, and though I write but seldom I try generally to fill my paper when I do, and that is my excuse for not writing oftener to you. There are many things that frequently occur here, that would do very well for you and I [sic.] to amuse ourselves to chat about if we were together, that I don’t think worth while writing about, therefore will confine myself to write what I think will be most interesting to you.
[¶ ] My own health in the first place, I generally enjoyed moderate good health for about a year past lately I have had a little touch of the influenzy though I was not entirely confined to bed but two days yet I continue weak and my head a little disordered There is pestilence in our country Some call it the cold plague some the influenzy and others it operates on as pleuresy, in this last form it attacked our friend L: Scott [Lemuel Locke Scott (?); if so, the husband of the writer’s daughter Margaret Permelia McCorkle Scott] and brought him almost to the borders of the grave. Thanks to our kind preserver who has spared him a little longer, he is recovering slowly.
[¶ ] The rest of our friends here are well. I have nine grandsons and five granddaughters here, all active thriving pretty children. [My daughter] Pamela’s [Mrs. Lemuel Scott ’s] young son was born Jan: 18th. She was up and about in three or four days and is remarkably healthy and stout.
[ ¶ ] [Granddaughter] Mary [Thompson, later Mrs. Dickey] is gone to Mr. Holmes ’s to learn the taylor trade She expects to stay 2 years perhaps longer [Mary’s sister] Jane [M. Thompson, Mrs. Williams] had a son about two weeks before Pamela [McCorkle, Mrs. Lemuel Scott] had hers, she calls it John Gideon [Williams]. [Mary and Jane Thompson’s parents were Rebecca Cowden McCorkle and John Gideon Thompson, who both died in Middle Tennessee, Rutherford County, near Murfreesboro, leaving the two little girls to the care of their uncles Edwin and RAH McCorkle and wives Jane Maxwell Thomas and Tirzah Scott.] I am informed that Jane has recovered health and looks hearty and well and has a beautiful babe. I am told that Mr. Williams and Jane are both extremely fond of it. I would be vastly glad to see it myself though it makes me count one generation older. They did not move as far off, as we expected them to do. his father has given him land within three or four miles of himself.
[ ¶ ] We have got a schoolhouse built by a spring on Mr Hendricks land, the same that cousin Montgomery uses to carry water from, and all our children that are large enough are attending it.
[Presumably “Mr Hendricks” refers to Daniel Hendricks, 1784-1865, originally from Rowan Co., NC, a great-great grandfather of Joyce Cope Huie through her paternal grandmother Narcissus Elizabeth Hendricks, alias Mrs. Wilson Newberry Cope. Daniel Hendricks & wife Isabel Pen(d)ry Hendricks and their son Uriah C. Hendricks are buried in the McCorkle McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer County, as is a brother of Uriah C. Hendricks: Daniel Roland Hendricks. We need to get these Hendricks folks a new grave marker.
[ --Regarding “cousin Montgomery,” Margaret Morrison’s father-in-law Alexander McCorkle married (1st) Nancy Agness Montgomery; and Margaret’s own mother, Elizabeth Sloane (Mrs. Andrew) Morrison, was a niece-by-marriage of Nancy Agness Montgomery. These people were hopelessly intermarried!]
[ ¶ ] We had an earthquake the 21st inst; the hardest that I have felt since I have been in the district. I received your kind letter of Feb. 26 by last mail. we got all the letters you mentioned in it except one of Addisons. [grandson Addison Locke Roach ’s.] I am sorry to hear of your ill health but I rejoice exceedingly in the goodness of God in raising you up kind friends in a strange country that minister to your necessities they have bestowed on you, I feel like it was kindness shewn to me, and I hope the Lord will recompense them abundantly agreeably to his own words Matth: 25-45 and 10-42 together with several other parallel scriptures.
[ ¶ ] I have lately heard that my sister Rachel [presumably Rachel Morrison ?] died the 1st of July year 35 but I cannot tell anything satisfactory about the rest of my brothers & sister. probably brother Andrew [Andrew Sloan Morrison] has moved into the state of Virginia in order to be convenient to attend an old law suit there
[As mentioned, I wonder if Margaret had a sister named Rachel Morrison COWDEN; the reason I suspect this is that Margaret Morrison McCorkle named a daughter Rebecca Cowden McCorkle (later Mrs. Thompson). ]
[ ¶ ] Mr [Thomas] Anderson[23] wrote to us this winter, says [his daughter] Martha [Anderson (Mrs. James T. Leath, I think] has three fine sons and has moved to the district, and located in Memphis. the old people expect to visit them next fall, and have it in contemplation to call upon us. I think I shall be truly glad to see them
[Margaret Morrison McCorkle writes immediately above of the descendants of her step-daughter, Lizzie McCorkle Anderson. Robert McCorkle, Margaret’s deceased husband, had a 1st wife named Elizabeth “Lizzie” Blythe (McCorkle), by whom Robert begot a son dying in infancy (Alexander or “Aleck”) and one daughter named Elizabeth McCorkle, who married Thomas Anderson in Sumner Co., Tennessee [Middle Tennessee] on the 13th of March 1809. The Sumner County marriage record notes a witness: John H. Bowen.]
(1.) Lizzie Elizabeth Anderson (Mrs. J. Mitchell McMurray, wife of a Cumberland Presbyterian minister in McMinnville then Lebanon, Tennessee. Early Sumner County, Tenn., marriage records show that J. Mitchell McMurray married Elizabeth Anderson on 27 December 1837.
(2.) Martha Anderson Leath (Mrs. James T. Leath of Memphis, I think, although that information was acquired post-2000 A.D. by Marsha Cope Huie, not from old family records) (Martha had three sons and moved to Memphis, where her husband was an attorney. Martha Anderson Leath is listed in the 1850 Memphis census, but by 1860 had been displaced by a new wife so almost certainly died between 1850 and 1860, as people back then almost never divorced;
(3.) Julia Anderson, who never married; and
(4) Robert Anderson –who may have been a lawyer in Lexington or Durant, Holmes County, Mississippi, although that information was acquired post-2000 A.D. by Marsha Cope Huie, not from old family records. I wish I knew if it were true.]
[Early Sumner County, Tennesee, marriage records show there was a connection between the Leath and McCorkle families: On 20 Feb. 1847, an “Eliza McCorcle” married John H. Leath, as witnessed by John W. Brigance.
[Also, Uncle Hiram McCorkle’s diary records in Dec. 9. 1902 that Hatton LEATH of Henrietta, Texas, was in Newbern. Was Hatton Leath perhaps a son of Hiram McCorkle’s first cousin, Martha Anderson Leath? I have no idea. [Robert McCorkle by 1st wife Lizzie Blythe begot Elizabeth McCorkle Anderson, who had a daughter Martha D. Anderson. In Middle Tennessee, Martha D. Anderson married James T. Leath, listed as an attorney in the Memphis census of 1850. Martha D. Leath is listed as James T. Leath’s wife in the 1850 census, but by the time of the 1860 census, he had a new wife, listed as having been born in New Jersey.]
[ ¶ ] I think I begin to run scarce of news however I will turn back and tell you some more about myself a theme that I expect you won’t easily tire with [.] I staid with [my daughter and the addressee Elmira’s sister] [Margaret] Pamela [McCorkle Scott] about two months this winter [.] I went the day before Christmas and staid till her babe was near 5 weeks old[.] little William [ Scott ][1] slept in my bosom almost every night while I was there, and became very fond of me, as likewise I did of him, I brought him home with me kept him ten days but he got sick, teething & worms, so his pa carried him away[.] I took sick in a few days after and have not got to see him since[.] I have not worked any in along time except to mind the to feed them and darn their stockings & such like[.] I read my bible a good and like it still better the longer I read it[.]
[ ¶ ] I find that temperance in diet is my best medicine, vegetables don’t agree with me but I can eat a little meat and eggs milk butter and coffee moderately without injury. nevertheless I feel daily admonitions of my frailty. the pins of the old tabernacle are loosening perceptibly and I must soon descend to the pale regions of the dead [.]
[ ¶ ] if I were in the habit of apologising I would say excuse my crooked lines and bad writing, my eyes are dim and my hand trembles, my strength fails.
I am ever your affectionate mother
Margaret McCorkle
Elmira S Roach
[Margaret Morrison McCorkle’s note to her grandson Addison Roache is written in a spidery hand on the same page as the foregoing letter to her daughter Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach:]
Dyer March 25 1837
My son Addison
I claim you as such, though I address a line to you with diffidence [.] I fear you are like some young people I have seen who say that old grandmas dont ever know how young people feel [.] my child I tremble when I think over the slippery scenes of youth and what you may be exposed to lest you get seduced and turn from the virtuous course you have been taught from your infancy [ . ] I know that your good education your polished manners and your social turn will gain you a great many acquaintances and perhaps a good many of them not virtuous
***
_____ ___ _________ ______ _____ _____ _______ ____________ _____
No more is extant of the above letter to Addison Locke Roache, Sr., who became a judge in Indianapolis, Indiana. Addison Locke Roache, Sr., married Emily Wedding[s]. Aunt Katie Pearl McCorkle Fox’s hand-written record states the following:
“The Tennessee relatives looked on the Roaches as their Wealthier kin. Once Cousin Quincy [Robert Quincy Roache, brother to Addison Locke Roache] brought all the West Tennessee male relatives a pocket testament and the females a silver thimble on which was engraved R Q R.”
[(Quincy Roache was president of the Moniteau [County] Bank in the town of California, State of Missouri.)]
“Addison’s children:
C1 1 Mary Roache married _______ Gillespie
C1 2 Emma Roache married _______ Lamma
3 Janie Roache, died 1941 in Alhambra, California. [Jane DePuy or DuPuy?]
· 4 Randolph Roache [this must be the one who died just after beginning to practise law in Indianapolis]
· 5 Addison [Addison Locke Roache, Jr., who died testate in California. Addison Locke Roache Jr. established by testamentary trust a lectureship in his father’s name at the University of Indiana, Bloomington]
“Robert Quincy Roache married Rebecca Sunderland & Isabel Sunderland.
Quincy Roache had no child but reared at least two: Carrie Stephens & her sister Emma Stephens. I think they were his wife Rebecca Sunderland’s nieces.
“Howard H. Roache – killed at Shiloh.”
[End of Katie Pearl McCorkle’s record.]
[ Howard Harris Roache is buried in the McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer Co., TN. I think I’ve read that his mother, Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache, erected a memorial stone for Howard Harris Roache up in Missouri where “QUINCY” Robert Quincy Roache, another son, was a banker, Moniteau Bank, city of California, State of Missouri.]
Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach – was born in 1797 in Iredell County, North Carolina, and died in 1890. She married Dr. Stephen Roach in 1816 in Rutherford County, Tennessee, at her parents’ home, before the parents lost their land near Murfreesboro, TN, and received a land grant in lieu thereof in the newly opened Western District of Tennessee. Elmira recorded in a letter that her parents, Robert and Margaret Morrison McCorkle, had lived on Stone’s River, then on Bradley’s Creek, in Rutherford County, Tennessee, before removal to Dyer County, Tennessee. Her son Addison Locke Roache, Sr., had become a judge in Indianapolis. Elmira died in 1890 residing with her son Quincy, who was a bank president [Moniteau County Bank] in California, a town in Missouri. Our McCorkle family oral history holds that Elmira and Dr. Roach moved to Indiana so that their boys could attend the University of Indiana. Sure enough, Addison graduated from the University of Indiana, Bloomington, in 1836, and his brother Robert Quincy Roache graduated in 1845.
The following information about Elmira’s children is from John Hale Stutesman’s unpublished manuscript which I read in year 1983 – At that time, 20 years ago now, this was his address: John Hale Stutesman, 305 Spruce Street, San Francisco, California:
Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach’s children:
Addison Locke Roache, Sr.
born 1817 in Rutherford County, Tennessee; died after 1901 in Indiana; please see below. [Added by Marsha Huie: Again, we should note the LOCKE name. The Revolutionary War general Matthew Locke or Francis Locke lived around Thyatira Presbyterian Church in Rowan Co., NC, near Salisbury-Mooresville, NC. And a Richard W. Locke [Dick Locke] moved westward to the Yorkville-Newbern area; I’ve always presumed he was a kinsman of the North Carolinian General Locke. One of Dick Locke’s wives is buried in the Old Yorkville C P Cemetery, and another, I think, in the McCorkle Cemetery; one of the wives was, I think, a Scott woman. [Sade Scott Huie, my paternal greatmother kept a photograph of Dick Locke in her photo album.] Now that the Old Yorkville Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery has been restored, we can search those records for LOCKE people buried therein.]
Franklin Stone Roache, 1820-1827
James Travers Roache, 1821-1827 – [One of Margaret Morrison McCorkle’s letters to Elmira implores that she be remembered to Mr. Travers.]
Robert QUINCY Roache, 1824-1908.
Born in Rutherford Co., TN, and died in town of California in Missouri. [I don’t think Quincy Roache had issue, but Aunt Kate McCorkle thought Quincy raised 2 of his Sunderland wife’s nieces.]
Stephen McCorkle Roache, 1826-1827
Elmira Jane Roache, 1828-1830
Latina Elmira Roache, 1831-1833
[Edwin A. McCorkle & wife Jane Maxwell Thomas named one of their daughters Margaret Latina McCorkle (Mrs. John C. Gregory). Had Elmira’s daughter born in 1831 & named Latina lived, that daughter and “Tina” McCorkle Gregory would have been 1st cousins.]
Margaret Joanna Roache, born and died June 1834, Monroe County, Indiana.
Howard Harris Roache, born 20 May 1838 in Monroe County, Indiana. [Died from wound received in battle at Shiloh in 1862 (April 10, 1862).]
[The Battle of Shiloh in West Tennessee occurred on April 6th and April 7th of 1862. Howard’s date of death is listed on his tombstone as the 10th, and his uncle RAH McCorkle writes the mother that he died not in battle but very soon afterwards. I (Marsha Huie) think Howard may have been born in 1836. His tombstone in the McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer Co., TN., will tell. Actually Howard H. Roache has 2 markers there: a make-do but respectable marker placed there during the Civil War by his uncle Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle, and a grander, taller marker later erected after the war by, presumably, his parents. One wonders why Howard went south from Indiana to West Tennessee to fight with his McCorkle 1st cousins, some of whom would have been the sons of Elmira’s brother Edwin Alexander McCorkle, namely: Finis A. McCorkle; Hiram R. A. McCorkle; John Edwin McCorkle; and Anderson Jehiel McCorkle.
Two, perhaps three, other 1st cousins to Howard H. Roache would have been these sons of “Jem” Jehiel Morrison McCorkle, viz., Locke McCorkle, killed at the Battle of Atlanta; and Clay McCorkle (Henry Clay McCorkle, buried at Brice’s Crossroads, also called the battle of Guntown, Mississippi). And one record lists an E J McCorkle as another, third (! !), son [of Betsy Smith & Jehiel Morrison McCorkle] who was killed in the war.
[– I don’t know if John Edwin McCorkle and Hiram and Anderson’s other brother David Purviance McCorkle enlisted in the Confederate army, but presume he did as he was in the State Legislature of Tennessee after the war, from Obion County.]
John Hale Stutesman’s above list of Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach’s children would seem to contradict Elmira’s statement in the letter below: “[I have] moreover the skill of my husband to depend on, who has borne me through, successfully three times already.” But perhaps Mr. Stutesman’s list is correct; perhaps Elmira is not counting in her correspondence the children who failed to live to adolescence. I just don’t know the truth of it. I do know the reason I came into these wonderful old letters is that Elmira Sloan McCorkle’s Roache line died out in California. As mentioned, her Roache descendants turned the letters over to Casey McCorkle (Bowden Cason McCorkle) in San Leandro, California, a grandson of Finis A. McCorkle. Then in turn Casey McCorkle entrusted these precious old documents to me, Marsha Cope Huie.
________________________________________________________________________
A despondent Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach wrote the following letter from Rockville, Indiana, to her mother, Mrs. Robert McCorkle (née Margaret “Peggy” Morrison) in Dyer County, Tennessee. Elmira, who would have been around forty years old at the time, wrote just before the birth of her last child, Howard Harris Roache, a child doomed to die in the Civil War, on April 10, 1862, after he had been wounded at the Battle of Shiloh which lasted two days: April 6 and April 7, 1862. Many soldiers of the era died from infection consequent to injury from munitions or otherwise.
Rockville April 28 1838 [possibly the date is 1836?]
My dear Mother
This may be the last time I ever will have the pleasure of addressing you by letter. I have delayed writing from time to time either from a sense of bodily or mental inability but will put it off no longer seeing life is uncertain, and my situation at present critical. You doubtless will be astonished when you hear, I am again in a state of pregnancy, the issue of which I expect about the fifteenth of May, which will be past before this reaches you.
[ ¶ ] I confess my situation casts a shade of gloom over me which all the philosophy I can muster up, cannot dispel. Oh: what a comfort it would be to have my dear Mother and sisters around at such a season. I feel how deeply they would enter into my sorrows and alleviate my sufferings by their sympathy and kindness. But why trouble you with words of unpleasant import, or consume time either in thinking or writing of impossibilities, I ought rather to be thankful that my prospect is no worse, that I have the necessaries of life around me, no fear of want either of food or clothing, a girl with me now, who does all my drudgery, and has promised to stay while I need her, kind neighbors, who have ever been true in sickness [,] moreover the skill of my husband to depend on, who has borne me through, successfully three times already. I gather strength from these [ ??????]. a ray of hope gleams through my troubled mind and imparts comfort, I love to indulge and cherish it.
There is a promise made to the woman in child bearing but I confess I do not understand it well enough to derive much comfort fom it, but the Lord has promised to be with those who trust in him, in dire troubles, and in seven [?? times seven ???] he will not forsake them.
[ ¶ ] [Robert] Quincy [Roache] has been at home several weeks, and will remain a week yet, it will be a great trial for me to part with but we must submit to present ills for the sake of future good [.] he is called a regular, attentive, and moral student, as far as I can learn. The greatest objection I have to his being absent from home is the danger of contracting immoral habits without a friend to watch over and guide his path.
[ ¶ ] Addison [Roache] left home on Tuesday and has not returned. I am looking for him every minute. The time has arrived when business will often call him from home, and I can expect to enjoy but little of his company. he boards and lodges at home but reads [law] at the home of his Preceptor, to whom he is strongly attached, and I believe with good reason. I rejoice that we were so fortunate as to be able to place him under the care of one so well qualified to guard him through the slippery paths of youth. he appears to take great interest in his welfare and advancement [ . ] Addison took license at the last circuit court but has not practiced any yet, nor will not, I presume untill his term of tuition expires.
[ ¶ ] The Dr had a letter from Uncle James [James McCorkle? James Morrison?]
not long since, he stated he had written to you, I hope you have received the intelligence
so much desired. The old gentleman seems contented and happy and strong in the path
of the Gospel.
{– This would almost certainly be Elmira’s Uncle James McCorkle, brother to Robert McCorkle and therefore brother-in-law to Margaret Morrison McCorkle. [Or maybe – pure speculation-- it could be to Elmira an Uncle James Morrison? ] One person named James McCorkle, known to have been a brother to Robert McCorkle, was born 4 May 1768 and moved to Ohio, but died when residing in Frankfort, Indiana, on 2 December 1840. – How far was Rockville from Frankfort, Indiana? }
[ ¶ ] Montgomery’s family are well at present, but have had sickness occasionally for some three or four years past, he has become so exasperated at the ignorance, and vice of his neighbors, and tired out with sickness in his family, that he has resolved to hunt a new home if he should meet a lion in the way. if he could find a place where he could make his quill support him, it would be a happy circumstance.
1. [I don’t know who this “Montgomery” is, but Elmira’s paternal grandmother was Nancy Agness MONTGOMERY McCorkle, Mrs. Alexander McCorkle, who is buried in Thyatira Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Rowan Co., NC. (Her husband, Alexander McCorkle, lived circa 1722-1800). – Could this be “Montgomery McCorkle?’
2. More on (Nancy) Agness Montgomery: Harriet McCorkle McGinn [a daughter of Samuel Eusebius McCorkle] wrote that Agness (Nancy) Montgomery‘s brother was Dr. Joseph Montgomery, 1733-1794, a Presbyterian minister; and that Agness (Nancy) Montgomery McCorkle’s mother was ___?_____ Finley (Montgomery), the daughter of John Finley. With the Montgomery-Finley line there’s a Princeton University connection, as Princeton began as a seminary for Presbyterian ministers. – A letter in these Roache-McCorkle papers dated 1948 in Ala. and addressed to a Mr. [or Mrs.?] Walter L. Montgomery of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, states that “one Samuel McCorkle and John Montgomery from Scotland came together settling in Pa., I think in Lancaster Co., previous to 1735.” But the author of this letter includes in that one letter errors about the McCorkle genealogy, so the above quoted statement is suspect.
[ ¶ ] The Dr [Stephen Roach] received brother Edwin’s [Edwin Alexander cCorkle’s]
favor of the 4th Feb [.] he [Edwin] speaks of having been in middle Tennessee
[in or near Murfreesboro] and seeing our friends.
[Deed records in Rutherford Co., TN, show that certain land deeds made to Robt. McCorkle, grantee, were “delivered to [Robert’s son] Edwin McCorkle.” Edwin A. McCorkle’s wife was Jane Maxwell Thomas.]
[ ¶ ] I am sorry my Aunts are not more happily situated particularly Aunt Rebecca.
[Did Margaret Morrison McCorkle have a sister or sister-in-law named Rebecca? Did Rebecca marry ____ Morrison, son of Margaret’s brother Patrick Morrison? Did Margaret in fact have a brother named Patrick Morrison, or was it an uncle named Patrick Morrison? These names are speculation, arising from information in this series of correspondence. Margaret did name one of her daughters Rebecca Cowden McCorkle (Mrs. Gideon Thompson). Is this a clue: could Margaret’s sister have been Rebecca Morrison Cowden? This is pure speculation; I have no such record. – Margaret’s letter reveals that she, Margaret Morrison, did have a sister named Rachel Morrison (?????). Margaret wrote her daughter Elmira in 1838, “I have lately heard that my sister Rachel [ Rachel Morrison ? ] died the 1st of July year 35 but I cannot tell anything satisfactory about the rest of my brothers & sister. probably brother Andrew [Morrison] has moved into the state of Virginia in order to be convenient to attend an old law suit there.”
Aunt Mary would not be happy in any situation
[Margaret Morrison had a sister named Mary Morrison. Jean Morrison of Cincinnati, Ohio, has placed a letter on the internet from Mary Morrion to her nephew, Joseph Pinkney Morrison, later a Cumberland Presbyterian minister in California. Mary Morrison was living in 1857 with a nephew in Hillsboro, Coffee County, Tennessee. Herletter is dated 29th July 1857, almost a decade after the death of Margaret Morrison McCorkle, and reports that she, Mary Morrison, had heard no word from the McCorkles since Robert [Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle] had last written to her.]
I know her better than she knows herself. Aunt Rebecca may also have become fretful from age, and long listening to the others complaints. I never could learn whether it was uncle Patrick’s son she married or not, if it was, what became of the poor children.
[Did Margaret Morrison McCorkle have a brother named Patrick Morrison?]
I never can hear of Uncle Andrew, nor any of his family.
[Andrew Sloan Morrison? I think Andrew Sloan Morrison was Margaret’s brother; & her father’s name was Andrew Morrison as well.]
April 29
Addison has just returned. is well. Changed his clothing and putt off for the Presbyterian Church. The Dr and Quincy have also gone, and I am alone except the girl who lives with me. The morning is cold, but the sun shines cheerily on the face of nature and gives encouragement to budding vegetation which the chilling winds seem disposed to check. The month of March came in like a lion according to the old Dutch Saying but after a few days of blustering and cold, exchanged the angry frown for the lamblike aspect, and continued dry and warm; we had no sugary season at all, consequently will be dependent on Orleans this year. Vegetation budded forth delightfully, bloomed out beautifully, but April has been rather chilling throughout, we have had several fine falls of snow, the last on the 6th. I presume the peach and apple orchards have suffered, but our little garden, which is liberally set with fruitshrubs and vines, seems unscathed. the gooseberry, currant, and strawberry present a mantle of bloom.
[ ¶ ] Jonathan Nichols was lying at the point of death on Wednesday: his family will be left destitute indeed.
[ ¶ ] Sister Elizabeth’s [Elizabeth McCorkle Anderson ’s] daughter Elizabeth is married to Mitchell McMurray and old Aunt Anna and the Calhouns are at loggerheads about the property of her defunct son, who married Thomas Calhoun’s daughter, you know the old lady, itching palm for gold.
[The Cumberland Presbyterian website mentions a Thomas Calhoun, early C.P. minister. No doubt that’s the connection. [Elizabeth Anderson McMurry was wife of a Cumberland Presbyterian minister who died in 1875 in Lebanon, Tennessee]]
May 4th
The weather has been wet and cold all this week, quite discouraging to farmers. The Dr would have started with Quincy to Bloomington to day if the rain and deep waters had not prevented. Tell Robert [the author’s brother Robert Hope Andrew McCorkle] to write to Addison, he is constantly looking for an answer to his last; I cannot give up all hope yet of seeing him in Rockville this spring or early in the summer. Give my love to all my brothers, sisters, and their children, tell them that time and space does not in the least abate my affection for them, but I have given up all hopes of ever seeing them in Tennessee.
Yours affectionately
[signature] Elmira S Roach.
Copied from pamphlet printed as Obsequies for Elmira Sloane Roache, 1797-1890:
“Elmira had been married at the old home on Stone River [Rutherford County, Tennessee] to Dr. Stephen Roache, Jan. 23, 1816, and for some years lived near the old homestead, and there were born her sons, Addison L. and R.Q. Roache, who now survive her. Three more, James, Andrew and Stephen, were laid in early graves there, and then Dr. Roache removed with the old people to West Tennessee, remaining there only a short time and then removing to Bloomington, Indiana, for the purpose of educating his children. While residing there, they buried their three daughters, Elmira Jane, Latina Elmira and Margaret Joanna, all in their infancy. Afterwards the family removed to Rockville, Indiana, then to Gosport and then back to Rockville, then for a few years to Oskaloosa, Iowa, and thence back to Tennessee. In 1857 the last move was made to California, Missouri, which was the home of Mother Roache for one-third of a century.
“At this day the descendants of Robert McCorkle [Elmira’s father] are so numerous in Dyer County, Tennessee, and the neighboring counties that they almost form a clan, all bearing the old Scotch-Irish characteristics of sturdy energy, honesty and morality.”
*** *** ***
|
Justice Addison Locke Roache
[Senior] (Twelfth Justice) [Indiana Supreme Court] Justice Roache was born November 3, 1817, in Rutherford County, Tennessee, and died April 24, 1906, in Indianapolis. He moved to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1828. He graduated from Indiana University in 1836 and was admitted to the bar in 1839.458 In 1847, he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives. On January 3, 1853, he took his seat on the supreme court. He resigned in May 1854 to become president of the Indiana & Illinois Central Railroad. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
458. 1
BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY, supra note 55, at 332-33. 459. 1 id.; 1 MONKS, supra note 25, at 249-50. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Source: Browning, Minde C., Richard Humphrey, and Bruce Kleinschmidt. "Biographical Sketches of Indiana Supreme Court Justices." Indiana Law Review: Vol. 30, No. 1, 1997. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Addison Locke Roache was president of the Indiana University Alumni Association (IUAA), 1902-1903. -- In 1897 (Dec. 13) the Fort Wayne News (Indiana) lists him as a member of the executive committee of the state historical society.
1860 Indiana Census, Marion County, Indiana: Household of Addison Locke Roache:
Household of Addison Locke Roache, Sr., in Indianapolis in 1870 census:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
In the 1910 census, Addison, Jr., lived in San Gabriel, California, aged 45; wife Ella P. Roache was born in Minnesota and her father was born in Vermont, her mother in Ohio. Occupation: “own income.”
Next door to them were: Isabella Roache, head of household, aged 54, born Indiana. Occupation: “own income.” And Roache, Jane (Jane?) Du Puy or DePuy, sister to the head of household, also born Indiana --“own income.”
In the 1920 census, Addison Locke Roache, Jr., is listed as aged 58, and as Red Cross Field Director. He lived with wife Ella P. Roache, aged 54, in San Gabriel township of Alhambra, California.
|
In the 1930 census, Addison Locke Roache, Junior, lived in Gabriel Township, Alhambra, California. California Death Index lists him thus: Born 23 June 1861 in Indiana; died 22 January 1945 in Los Angeles, California.
Indianapolis City Directory 1889: Addison Locke Roache [Senior]
|
Addison L Roache |
||
|
Location 1: |
5 and 6 Talbott Block |
|
|
City: |
Indianapolis |
|
|
State: |
IN |
|
|
Occupation: |
Lawyer |
|
|
Year: |
1889 |
|
|
Location 2: |
593 N Penn |
|
|
Addison L Roache, Jr |
|
|
|
Location 1: |
5 and 6 Talbott Block |
|
|
City: |
Indianapolis |
|
|
State: |
IN |
|
|
Occupation: |
lawyer |
|
|
Year: |
1889 |
|
|
Location 2: |
b 593 N Penn |
|
The following is on ancestry.com about Dr. Stephen Roach [Junior], husband of Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roach. Evidently his father’s name was Stephen Roach d. 1816
“· ID: I2124
“· Name: Stephen Roach · Sex: M · Birth: in NC
“· Death: Jan/Feb 1816 in Davidson Co, Tn
“· _UID: 16C2BF8A50EED411BC4A9E59C39B256D31F8
“Based upon the Davidson County probate records we can be certain that our Stephen Roache Sr. died in Davidson County circa. January/February 1816 because an inventory of his estate was filed there on March 1, 1816 by Lydia Roach and John McCain, administrators of the estate [Will Book 4, page 430]. We also know from those probate records that his children were Polly Dickson, Stephen Roach Jr., Jesse, Eli, Sally, Aaron, Anna, Selah, and Jane [Will Book 10, page 588]. Again, from those records, we know that Sally married John Penix [WB 10, p. 588; and Deed Book 5, page 93]; Selah married John W. Sanders [WB 10, p. 588; DB 2, p. 77], and Jane married a Blackaby [WB 10, p.588].
Father:
William Roach b ca. 1750. Mother:
Cecilia Bridgett Bryan b: ? n Bertie Co, NC
Marriage
Lydia Lovett b: ca 1771
Children 
Polly
Roach
Stephen Roach [Junior]; this is the one who married Elmira Sloan McCorkle and became a medical doctor
Jesse Roach Eli
Sanders Roach Sally
Roach Aaron
Roach Anna
Roach Selah
Roach Jane
Roach
About Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache’s son “Quincy” Robert Quincy Roache:
· ID: I1266 · Name: Robert Quincy ROACHE · Sex: M
· Birth: 16 JUN 1824 in Tennessee 1 –cemetery inscription
·
Death: 21 SEP 1908 in California, Moniteau Co., Missouri
Father:
Stephen ROACH b: 1796 in North Carolina
Mother:
Elmira Sloan MCCORKLE
Marriage 1
Rebecca Page SUNDERLAND b: 29 MAY 1826 in Parke Co., Indiana
· Married: 26 NOV 1845 in Parke Co., Indiana 2
· ID: I1329 · Name: Elmira Sloan MCCORKLE · Sex: F · Death: AFT 1880 1 Marriage 1 Stephen ROACH , M.D., b: 1796 in North Carolina
Children
Sarah
ROACHE Addison
Locke ROACHE [Senior] b: BEF 1823 Robert
Quincy ROACHE b: 16 JUN 1824 in Tennessee |
Indiana Supreme Court |
|
|
|
|
Justice
Addison Locke Roache Justice Roache was born November 3, 1817, in Rutherford County, Tennessee, and died April 24, 1906, in Indianapolis. He moved to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1828. He graduated from Indiana University in 1836 and was admitted to the bar in 1839.458 In 1847, he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives. On January 3, 1853, he took his seat on the supreme court. He resigned in May 1854 to become president of the Indiana & Illinois Central Railroad.459 |
________________________________________________________________________
McCorkle–Anderson – McMurry–Leath Excursus
Robert McCorkle by his first wife Elizabeth ( Lizzie) Blythe had a daughter named Elizabeth McCorkle, who according to our family records married Thomas Anderson in Sumner Co., Tennessee [Middle Tennessee, north of Nashville]. Elizabeth McCorkle was a half-sister to Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach, whose corrpespondence appears here. Elizabeth McCorkle (Anderson) was raised in Middle Tennessee by her maternal grandmother Blythe. –It was Elizabeth Blythe McCorkle’s sister, Margaret “Peggy” Blythe, who was the 1st wife of William McCorkle, brother to Robert McCorkle.
Thomas Anderson through Elizabeth McCorkle (Anderson) begot at least four children:
C Elizabeth “Lizzie” Anderson McMurry [Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roach wrote that Elizabeth Anderson married J. Mitchell McMurry: “Sister Elizabeth’s [Elizabeth McCorkle Anderson’s] daughter Elizabeth [Anderson] is married to Mitchell McMurray and old Aunt Anna and the Calhouns are at loggerheads about the property of her defunct son, who married Thomas Calhoun’s daughter. you know the old lady, itching palm for gold.” The Cumberland Presbyterian inernet web site lists a Rev. J. M. McMurry who long preached in McMinnville, Tennessee, but retired with his wife Elizabeth Anderson McMurray to her original home in Lebanon, Tennessee, and died in 1875. At one time, Elizabeth McCorkle Anderson, Elizabeth Anderson McMurry’s mother, is recorded as living with her in Lebanon, Tennessee.]
C Martha Anderson (Leath) [Surname looks more like Keigh or Leigh or Leith in Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache’s letter to her nephew James Scott McCorkle, M.D., of Newbern, Tennessee, but could be Leath]. Martha had three sons and removed from Middle Tennessee to Memphis. --I, Marsha Huie, think she married a Mr. James T. Leath, an attorney. Source: the 1850 Memphis census, in which Martha D. Leath appears as wife of James T. Leath, attorney. By the time of the 1860 census, James T. Leath had acquired a new wife, listed as having been born in New Jersey, so Martha Anderson Leath almost certainly died sometime between 1850 and 1860, as almost no one divorced back then. –I recently learned that the mother of James T. Leath was Sarah Leath, member of the First Presbyterian Church of Memphis, founded in 1828, who founded what became the Porter-Leath Home, still a charitable organization in Memphis today. [Who is the Hatton Leath of Henrietta, Texas, whom Hiram McCorkle mentions in a ost-Civil War journal entry? Uncle Hiram R. A. McCorkle records that Hatton Leath was visiting in Newbern.]
C Julia Anderson -- who never married, according to her aunt, Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache; and
C Robert Anderson, who, Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roache wrote, might have moved to Alabama. -- The following is yet unproven: One person named Robert Anderson appears as an attorney in Mississippi: in the towns of Lexington and Durant, Mississippi (Holmes County).[24] Source: The ff. entry is on www.ancestry.com about Robert Anderson’s father’s family: that is, about Thomas Anderson’s family. The entry is from a James Lawler: jhlawr@winconnect.com . I do not vouch for its veracity, but cannot gainsay its contents. It is the only lead I have found regarding our Robert McCorkle’s grandson Robert Anderson:
· Thomas ANDERSON , born circa 1774 in Orange Co., NC · Died 1842 in Tenn.
Father:
James ANDERSON, b: 19 Mar 1731 in
Lancaster Co., PA;
later of Orange Co., NC. Mother:
Elizabeth MEBANE, b: circa 1740 in Pennsylvania; of Orange Co., NC.
Thomas Anderson’s Marriages: 1st
Sarah ATKINSON, b: ca.1780 in Orange Co., NC.--married ca.1802 in Orange
Co., NC.
2nd marriage: Elizabeth McCORKLE, b: ca 1785 in Tennessee. Thomas Anderson & Elizabeth McCorkle married circa 1809 in Sumner County, Tennessee. [See Early Sumner County, Tenn., marriage records online]
[End of McCorkle – Anderson – McMurry - Leath Excursus]
The following is a copy of a copy of a letter written in 1838 by Mrs. Robert McCorkle, née Margaret Morrison. At the end of the copy someone has written, “Copied for Elmira S[loan] [McCorkle] Roache, by S.E. Algea [Sarah E. McCorkle Algea] March 15th 1857.
Margaret Morrison McCorkle’s son Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle through wife Tirzah Scott McCorkle begot Sarah E. McCorkle (Algea), who married Dr. Jonathan Algea. -- In a letter I once read, RAH McCorkle wrote during the Civil War a letter to his brother-in-law Dr. Stephen Roache: that Sarah E. McCorkle’s husband Jonathan Algea wandered around the countryside [RAH didn’t say whether Jno. Algea was in the army and had to be on the move], and dropped in only occasionally to visit his wife and even then stayed only a few minutes. -- And at the end of his life, RAH McCorkle in his last will and testament, made provision for Sarah to have rooms in his house for her lifetime; RAH pointedly referred to his daughter as “Sarah E. McCorkle” but called her two children by the surname Algea. --
At the end of the copied letter, yet another hand has written about Margaret Morrison McCorkle:
“Born N. Carolina, Aug. 11, 1770. Died Tennessee Nov. 21, 1848.”
See her tombstone in the McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer Co., Tennessee.
Provenance of this letter: Sent in Sept. 1984 by Bowden Cason McCorkle of San Leandro, California, to Marsha Huie. “Casey” (now deceased) was a great-great grandson of Margaret Morrison McCorkle, his grandfather being Finis A. McCorkle, brother to inter alia our John Edwin McCorkle.
Margaret Morrison McCorkle was writing the following letter to her brother-in-law, James McCorkle. I have placed in bold letters phrases which I found particularly felicitous:
[1838]
Dear Brother;
I was glad to receive your kind favor of January 2d, glad I say to receive a friendly line from the only living branch of a once numerous, dear very dear family to me. It is with a mournful recollection that I look back on former times, the companions of my youth in whose society I once delighted, where are they now? gone, some dead, the rest far away, so that my former connections are broken up, & I left in advanced life to form new acquaintances.
However I feel that I am only a passenger who will soon have to quit this vale of sorrow & pass into an untried state of existence & I trust in the promises of the gospel to support me through the little remainder of my life & cheer me through the dark vally & shadow of death. – I am becoming very frail particularly so this spring season, but I am amongst my children who are all very kind to me. I have no worldly care of my own, my children provide for & are very tender of me.
My sons are all married into respectable families & located each on a small piece of land left them by their father. They are not wealthy but are honest, industrious farmers & provide comfortably for their families. They are men of unimpeachable upright character & conduct as far as I know. They & their wives are mostly all professors of religion. My daughter Pamela is married to a man named Lemuel [Locke] Scott[25] a very respectable man. They live within five miles of her brothers. I suppose you have as good a chance to know how my daughter Elmira is coming on perhaps better than I have. Rebecca’s oldest daughter is married & lives near the southern boundary of Tennessee, the other, a young woman, lives amongst us.[26]
My children are all raising children. I have twelve grand sons, one great grandson & eight grand daughters living, & number sixteen more of them amongst the dead. The rest of our friends live at such a distance from me that I have no personal knowledge of them.
With respect to the state of society here I have nothing very flattering to tell you. speculation & the pride of life, I think generally carry the sway, but I am so old & know so little of the world that I perhaps am not a competent judge. – I think you do me injustice to imagine me opposed to the abolition scheme at least I know that I am unfriendly to slaveholding amongst us. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the politics of the times to judge of the measures pursued by the abolitionists therefore I wish them success only just so far as they are trying in a right manner to do what I believe to be a good work, one thing I can say with certainty that it would truly rejoice me to see all my dear posterity settled in a free state.
As respects New schoolmen & measures I am not well enough acquainted with them to hazzard an opinion on the merits of their proceedings so I will say nothing about them only wish them God’s speed if they are doing his work faithfully. I think there is great need of reformation even amongst professors at least they need to be stirred up.
My reading is mostly confined to reading the bible & though accustomed to read & hear it from my childhood yet even now in old age I find that it is an inexhaustible mine that I have scarcely begun to explore. I discover new beauties every time I peruse the good book, knowing that my time here at most is short & uncertain, I incline to spend it in searching the scriptures in preference to any other kind of reading particularly controverted doctrines.
If I live to see the eleventh of next August I will count my threescore & eight, little more than two years behind you. of course I don’t expect ever to see you in this world perhaps we may yet rejoice together in a better world, be that as it may I congratulate you now, on the felicities you enjoy in that happy land of light & liberty. I moreover rejoice to hear that your children all respectable characters in society, tell them I love them for the sake of their worthy ancestors. I hope they will continue to imitate their virtues.
My love to all inquiring friends.[2]
Margaret M McCorkle.
]
James McCorkle ].
]
James McCorkle was the last child to be born to Alexander and (Nancy) Agness Montgomery McCorkle, who are buried in Thyatira Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Rowan County, NC. James McCorkle was born in 1768 in Rowan County, North Carolina. He married Elizabeth Hall, I think. He moved to Miami County, Ohio, where he married a third wife, I think.
James McCorkle died in 1840 at the home of a child who lived in Boone County, Indiana, and is buried in the Thorntown Cemetery there.
John Hale Stutesman Jr’s unpublished manuscript of 1983 states the above facts and speculates that James moved north, like his brother Joseph McCorkle, to escape the institution of slavery and live in “free” territory. Though his sister-in-law Margaret Morrison McCorkle evidently shared his sentiments, she remained in Dyer County, Tennessee, living out her last years in a slave-holding territory.
Though many of the graves are unmarked and time, if not outright vandalism, has misplaced what markers there once were, the McCorkle Cemetery in Dyer County, Tennessee, contains a section reserved for Negroes – it used to be the section in front of the fence, before the mowing people tore down the fence – Many of these African Americans buried there were, according to family oral tradition, once slaves. For example, Hiram R.A. McCorkle, on Sept. 12, 1901, recorded in his journal the funeral services and burial of Frelinghuisen McCorkle at the McCorkle Cemetery, a freed slave. For another example, my mother, Joyce Cope Huie, born Nov. 11, 1915, is almost certain that Jeff Bean is buried there. She knows that either her Meemaw’s mother or aunt [either Mary McMahon Hendricks, the mother, or Temperance McMahon (Mrs. Bean) Hendricks, the two Mrs. Uriah C. Hendricks-es, respectively] brought Jeff Bean with her to West Tennessee. Jeff Bean, an African-American, was a respected farmer in the Churchton community of Dyer County.
The following letter was written in 1839 by Margaret Morrison McCorkle (Mrs. Robert McCorkle) to her daughter in Indiana, Elmira Sloane McCorkle Roache, wife of Dr. Stephen Roache.
Dyer County W: T: April 2 1839
Dear child,
I am yet spared to address you a few lines
I feel as though this may be my last attempt to write not so much from any new intimations of a decline of health, as from the certain fact that I am on the very verge of threescore and ten,
I enjoy wonderful good health for one of my age, and not often afflicted with akes and pains as formerly, I cannot judge so well about the decline of my mental powers as that of my body, but so it is and it is to be expected, that what is called dotage is drawing on, and I have been told that I am hard to humour, if so you know that I need all the kindness and affection of my best friends to bear with me, and help to steer me into a smooth passage towards the grave.
I have not attained to the assurance of faith but I have become most feelingly sensible of the necessity of the witness in my heart that I am a child, in order to lay down my clay tenement in peace. Not that death is so terrifying but I wish to feel more of a growing conformity to the Divine likeness in order to be meet for the inheritance of the saints in high
Our friends here are all enjoying health peace and competence as far as I know, Pamela received yours of Feb. 10th
Old friend Scott is married again to a very respectable old lady to the satisfaction of all his friends.[2] The last let-
ter I got from you is dated September 19th 1838
I don’t recollect of writing to you since July 20 18 [??]
Give my kind respects to the Dr. kiss the babe for me
I remain your ever affectionate Mother Margaret McCorkle
Elmira S Roach. )
)
The following page was attached to the foregoing letter to Elmira Sloan McCorkle Roach:
My dear little son,
Although absent in body I am never the-less present in mind with you
I rejoice to hear that you are progressing in your studies
I flatter myself that you wont rest satisfied with the attainment of
a finished scholar in human literature but that
you will make the book of Gods revealed will your
chiefest study, read it by day and meditate on it by night.
Think of it as a pure revelation from the true [illegible word] fountain of light
apart from which, all your attain-ments in science and knoledge may serve to polish the outside but can never subdue the power of evil in your heart
I say again read the bible treasure it up in your memory and watch and see that you are
bringing forth the correspondendet fruits that are therein required
We have school in our neighborhood kept by a very good teacher
Ten of your little cousins Scholars four from Edwins three from Jehiels three from Roberts including little John Scott who boards there, he makes a fine start to learn well, and in fact there is not one dunce amongst all my grandchildren.
Mary Thompson [Dickey] is in Hardeman [County, Tennessee], Jane [Thompson Williams] had a daughter born about Christmas, we hear from them but seldom, they were all well a few weeks ago
Another written to Elmira 3 days later
[Robert & Morrison McCorkle’s daughter Rebecca Cowden McCorkle (Mrs. Gideon Thompson) left two orphaned daughters: Mary Thompson, later, Mrs. Williams, and Jane M. Thompson, later Mrs. Dickey.]
_____________________________________________________________________
† † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † †
[Margaret Morrison McCorkle died on November 11, 1848, and she lies in a grave beside her husband, Robert McCorkle, under a monument erected by her grandchildren in the McCorkle Cemetery, Dyer County, Tennessee. The grave on the other side of Margaret Morrison McCorkle is that of her brother, William Hays Morrison, 1767-1837. Margaret’s fluent pen and loving heart were stilled by death in 1848.
† † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † †
† † † † † † † † † †
† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † † †† † † † † †
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ † † † † † † † † † † †
Margaret’s son Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle (March 1807- Sept. 1873) and wife Tirzah Scott (daughter of James Scott & Sarah Dickey Scott) sustained many losses by death.
RAH and wife Tirzah Scott McCorkle (Sept. 1806 – August 1865) buried several children, viz.,
Margaret P, McCorkle -- who had died before RAH’s brother Edwin A. McCorkle’s death in 1853: Margaret P. McCorkle, born 11 August 1831; died 02 May 1832, and is buried in the McCorkle Cemetery. [This makes Margaret P. McCorkle’s the 2nd grave in the McCorkle Cemetery, as far as I know, after her grandfather Robert McCorkle and before her paternal grandmother’s brother William Hays Morrison in 1837.]
Addison A. McCorkle (1834- Jan. 1854) who was to die the next year (January 1854) after his uncle Edwin A. McCorkle’s death in 1853;
Robert Eusebius McCorkle (1841- Jan 30 1861);
Parley Pratt McCorkle (28 August 1845-Feb. 12. 1865);
[Children surviving RAH were: Sarah Elmira McCorkle Algea (Mrs
![[photo]](old_version_McC_Letters_files/image009.jpg)
