William Cross of Botetourt Co., Va

WILLIAM CROSS OF BOTETOURT CO., VA., AND HIS DESCENDANTS, 1733-1932 Also a Record of the Related Families of Mc Cown, Gentry-Blythe, Cain-Robertson, Harris Martin, and Conner, of Virginia, Kentucky, Ill inois and Missouri. By JOHN NEWTON CROSS and lVIARY CROSS COLE E. W. STEPHENS PUBLISHING CO. COLUMBIA, MO. 1932 JOHN NEWTON CROSS WILLIAM CROSS OF BOTETOURT Co., VA., AND HIS DESCENDANTS 1733 -1932 DEDICATED To JAMES THOMAS CROSS Brother and Uncle- W hose financial aid has made this publication possible. CONTENTS Page Foreword -------------------------------------------------- 11 Acknowledgments for Assistance ------------------------------ 13 Part I.---------------------------------------------------- 15 Chap. I. The Cross Ancestry --------------------------- 17 Chap. II. Cross Characteristics -------------------------- 20 Chap. III. Documentary Evidence ________________________ 22 Chap. IV. First and Second Generations ------------------ 27 Part II. The Missouri Crosses -------------------------------- 29 Part III. George Cross of Illinois and His Descendants __________ 81 Part IV. John Cross of Virginia and His Descendants ___________ J31 Part V. Chap. I. Brief Record of McCown Families ______________ 151 Chap. II. Harris-~Iartin Families ________________________ 155 Chap. III. Gentrv-Blvthe., ., Families ------------------------164 Chap. IV. Cain-Robertson Families _______________________ } 74 Part VI. The Philemon Conner Family ________________________ 191 Addenda ___________________________________________________ 219 Index of Names ____________________________________________ 220 (7) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Anderson. Dovey Blythe .............................. facing page 170 Bevier Cross Family Group . " " 5 6 Brown, Lucy Cross . " " 40 Cole, Mary Thompson Cross . " " 62 Conner, Ann Elizabeth Kimbrough . " " 200 Conner, David Lewis . " " 202 David L., Sr. " " 200 D. L. _Conner Family Group . " " 210 James Frederick . " " 202 Lewis, Sr. '' '' 19 8 .lVIartha Wells Jones Kimbrough . " " 196 Sarah McLonie . " " 190 Washington . ... ·_ . " " 1 9 6 Cross, Charity Ann Dodds . '' ·' 8 8 Children of William B. Cross . " " 34 Enola . '' '' 40 Fanny Lamb . " " 40 Harrison . " " 4 0 Henry Clay . " " 36 Henry Clay and Family Group .. _ . " " 80 James . " " 100 James Harvey . facing pages 8 8, 1 0 0 James Thomas . facing page 4 6 John . '' '' 32 John - (Jack) . " " 3 6 John Newton . Frontisp~ece Mary J. Shores ............................... facing page 3 6 Cross Memorial Tower ...... _ . " " 48 Minerva Brinegar ...... _ . " " 8 6 Roger . .. '' '' 100 Sally Blythe . " 12 Stephen Anthony .................... _ . " 1 00 William Blythe . _ .......... __ . " " 3 6 William Richard (Dick) . " 4 2 Wright . '' '' 42 Ellis, Sarah Cross . " " 8 8 Good, Hannah Major Cross and Family Group . " " 90 Grandchildren of the Author .................................. 21, 26 McDaniel. Martha Jane ..... ~ ......................... facing page 8 6 Roberts. Mary Cross . " " 8 6 Robertson. James Hiram. Sr. " " 182 Robertson, Philip . " " 182 (9) FOREWORD The authenticity of a history of this nature depends largely upon the character of its author, and for that reason, I believe that a brief personal history and an explanation of my sources of informa tion, is not out of place. Whatever egotism moves me in this matter ought to be fully suppressed by the thought that at eighty I am nearing the end, and a few years hence the reader will not stop to consider which one of the Johns I might have been. I was born in Howard County, Missouri, in 1850, and in 1853 moved twenty-five miles east to a farm adjoining what is now the town of Clark, Randolph County, Missouri. This country was at that time sparsely settled. Our home was in "Long Arm," a stretch of prairie sixty miles long and from two to six miles wide. Here deer were plentiful, wolves were frequently seen and heard, and many a squirrel wandered into our orchard from the timber not far away; and while the dogs held him at bay, Pa's trusty rifle brought him down and furnished a change from our cornbread, pork and hominy diet. Don't misunderstand me; all these articles were mighty fine eating, and I often long for the "crackling" bread or the good old "pone" and the appetite of the long ago. By the fall of the year, the blue-stem prairie grass had become so rank in many places on this prairie of thousands of acres of outlying iands that the grass would hide a man on horseback fifty yards away. Frequently when old Sookey or old Brindle would be missing from the herd at evening milking time, I would have to mount Old Gray, the family "nag," and trail the cattle paths and the distant tinkling cow bells to see if the recreant one were not following a strange crowd. Such, however, were cases of wilful misconduct for every cow knew absolutely her own paths and her own bell. Here I went to school, held in a log schoolhouse some three miles away. I attended three or four months each year, except for two or three weeks out, now and then, when it was necessary for me to stay at home to help Pa gather corn, or haul wood for winter fires. Remember too-in those days we had real winters, deep snows often covering· the ground for two months at a time. My schooling was also interrupted by the Civil War. We lived in the borderland where strife, killings, and battles, kept us in terror night and day. (11) 12 ,v ILLIAl\f CROSS At the age of nineteen, with a very limited education, I began to prepare myself for teaching. This I did by teaching, and going to school alternately. At the age of twenty-five I married a farmer girl, and after that, we spent most of our lives on a farm, generally near some town. I taught thirty-three years, owned and edited two newspapers, and helped run another in which I had half interest. While teach ing I was several times County School Commissioner of Audrain County where I lived for thirty years. I have held the principal offices in the local lodges of Masons, Odd Fellows, Modern Wood men and others. I kept a general store at Keyes, California, several years, and was Express Agent and Postmaster there at the same time. We reared a family of one son and three daughters, all of whom married happily and reared families, and only one of them lives on a farm. I learned to read when quite young, and before I was twelve years old I had read "Weems' Life of Washington", and "Frost's History of the United States" in three volumes; so, when as a boy, I heard my father and his brothers talk of our ancestors and their connec tion with the early history of the United States, I was filled with a great desire to see our family record in print. I knew well my grandfather, John Cross, and he was p~rtly reared by his grandfather William, the emigrant, so it does not seem so very far across when you look at it that way. I was ten years old when grandfather Cross died, and I was present at his death and burial. His funeral was preached by my maternal grandfather, Rev. William Shores, a retired Methodist preacher. Grandfather Cross was a blacksmith and did work for a large section of country around him. He was about five feet, eight inches in height, of stout build, red complexioned and roly-poly. Somewhere along in the forties, Grandmother Cross inherited two negro women from the estate of her uncle, Thomas Blythe, in North Carolina. These two women and their families thereafter became helpers on the farm. You can imagine however, which side of the ledger they helped, when I tell you that none of their progeny were grown at the time of the Civil War. The youngsters hardly knew ·what it was to be "bossed," except by their own mothers who fre quently cuffed them without mercy-events which I often witnessed. These two women, one black, one yellow, were named Amanda and Emily. When I arrived on this mundane sphere, Mandy, the black one-very black-was sent to help me hold on, by :furnishing me the staff of life. This she continued to do, more or less, for several months. She may have saved my life, nevertheless, I con sidered it very bad taste, when as I grew older, she never ceased Axn His DESCENDANTS 13 reminding me of the part she had played in the affair mentioned, and she even threatened to repeat the process on me at a time when I felt myself far above the needs of child treatment. I was greatly humiliated thereby and, much to her amusement, always grew furious; but she never spared me. When William Cross, Jr., died on "Old Christmas Day," January, 1848, he had lived for several years, with his family consisting of wife and one or more unmarried daughters, in a small house on the farm of his son, John, in Howard County, Mo. At that time Joh n's Rons-William Blythe (my father) was twenty-eight years old, George twenty-five, Jack twenty, Henry fourteen. None of these brothers were married, and as farmers, had spent their lives on the home farm or nearby. and had splendid onportunities to learn f am ily traditions from their grandfather, and from their father. who was partly reared in the home of his grandfather, William Cross, the emigrant. In 1856, Uncle George Cross settled near uc:; at Clark and fol lowed his trade of blacksmithing, living on his farm. When Clark, several years later, became a village, he sold his farm and located there where he died in 1878. Uncle Jack Cross settled in Howard County but he made frequent visits to his brothers at Clark, twenty five miles away. Father and Uncle George were together much, and I was with them quite a good deal. Father helped Uncle George build houses and barns and helped him with his crops; Uncle George did father's blacksmith work, and frequently helped us with the farm work.

Load more