Heirs Were Hunted Up

It's often luck of the draw, as to whose exploits are retained in written records. The Oklahoma Historical Society preserved issues of the Fallis, Oklahoma Gazette. An institution digitized them; newspapers.com indexed them. Read Finding Everett: Fallis has not always been a ghost town. Given that civilization departed, I feel fortunate that Fallis society columns are even available to researchers.

Images enlarge when clicked.

Front page of the 7 November 1913 issue several times made specific reference (left) to my direct ancestors. Grandfather Roy David Hardesty (1891-1970) dined with his grandfather James Lewis 'Jim' Hyde (1834-1917).

One hundred and six years ago, this week.

'Hyde,' that's a surname to retain in this accounting. As in Hyde Park, New York.

The Gazette observed Roy's father, Oliver Ellsworth 'O. E.' Hardesty (c1867-1943), took dinner that Sunday with men friends. Roy's sister Hallie Hardesty (1893-1980) is twice mentioned: she associated with an aunt Guffey .... and a Calla Guffy.

Hallie had returned from visiting 'Mrs. G. W. Guffey' at Shawnee, Oklahoma. Cassandra Ann (Hyde) Guffey (1857-1934), also seen as 'Cassa' and 'Cassie,' was sister to Roy and Hallie's mother, Addie May (Hyde) Hardesty (1870-1938), who, for all I know, had her own dinner plans ... obliging Roy and husband O. E. to find their supper elsewhere.

Having returned from Shawnee, Hallie, who would be in her parents' household until the close of 1914, is reported – with sister Gertrude – as hostessing 'Calla Guffy' as a guest for three nights. Ila Calla Guffey (b1896) was maternal first cousin to Roy, Hallie and Gertrude (right). Calla's mother, Mary Ann 'Annie' (Hyde) Guffey (1864-1953), was sister to Cassie and Addie May; all were daughters of Jim Hyde and the former Mary Ann Pace (1837-1910).

We can almost pivot from Guffeys: Addie May (Hyde) Hardesty's sisters married Guffey men in Nemaha County, Kansas; born in Ohio and Iowa, they may not have even known they were first cousins, once removed.

I say 'almost' because figuring out how all these Guffeys were related took me to a most interesting transcript. (Graphics below depict family relationships.)

I like that the document is called "A True Statement." As to exploits circuitously appearing online, Ila Faye (Murphy) Combs mailed photocopy of a hand-written document before her 2012 death.* Alice Gleason Gould apparently transcribed the True Statement ... along with bits of Combs' 1980s correspondence ... and posted text to ancestry.com in 2008. "Enclosed is my grandmother's statement regarding ... the Hyde Park fable," wrote Combs. "My cousin found the story in his mother's papers. As you can see, it was deteriorating with age ..." And, indeed, Gould's text lurches around gaps. "We don't know when grandma wrote the story, but it must have been in the late 1940's," continued Combs.

'Grandma' was Annie (Hyde) Guffey, mother to our Calla. "In a nutshell, I believe ... grandma was saying that the Hyde Park land had been rented or leased by the state for New York for 100 years. Its hard to tell, but I think she believed that – in the 86 years that the land had been leased – the rent had amounted to 20 million dollars."

I realized the Hyde Park Fable deserved looking into.

"Near 1907, a man in a New York government office found on record the unclaimed Hyde Park estate deeded to Jacob Scott by his father who sailed across the waters to America to see his son Jacob Scott, but failed to find him, and bought this land Hyde Park 86 years before the Heirs were hunted up. This New York man married one of the cousins. They looked for all of the heirs and found them and had all of them make an affidavit that they were legal heirs of Jacob Scott and send the affidavits to them."

"Grandmother ... lived in our home most of the time that I was growing up," wrote Combs. "I have been intrigued by the tale since I was a little girl." Understandably, revelation of her grandmother's True Statement has spurred effort to run our Scott ancestry. I can say "our" because Annie, in the now-deteriorated document, identified her mother: Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde. She is my 2x great-grandmother. Dead forty months, she'd been wife to Jim Hyde, with whom my grandfather was reported as taking Sunday supper in 1913.

Twenty million dollars. That is some incentive. "I have been anxious to pass the Scott legend on to you," wrote Combs. "It is said that the Scott's arrived in New York very early. I think the immigrant grandfather's name was John & he was from Scotland?? His land grant was along the Hudson River in Dutchess County & its present day location would be Hyde Park, NY, home of the Roosevelts. When John Scott died, the land was to go to his sons which included Jacob."

And, sure enough, I have a Jacob Scott (perhaps 1778-1824) in my database. As Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde's maternal grandfather. My 4x great-grandfather. Combs' Grandma Annie also identified three Pace siblings already in my files. These are my people.

"The legend claims that a lawyer was commissioned to go back east & check on the situation. Grandmother says he was never heard from again & they suspected that he had been paid off or met foul play. In 1909 the family tried again. I do not know how many of the family members were in on the deal but my great-grandmother Mary Anna (Pace) Hyde obtained an affidavit ..." in what appears to have been the year before her death.

Gould also transcribed the reverse side of Annie (Hyde) Guffey's tattered but True Statement ... as best she could.

"affidavit out at Fallis, Okla. Amanda Pace Lewis at Walnut Iowa. Harvy Pace at Council Bluffs, Iowa"

With "affidavit out at Fallis, Oklahoma," we circle back to the above Fallis Gazette reporting. The Hardestys lived in those specific environs for a brief time. At Finding Everett I describe the end of Gertrude's short life there in 1916. Roy David, my then-unmarried paternal grandfather, carried U.S. mail from Fallis until at least 1917. Great aunts Gertrude and Hallie entertained Calla Guffey, daughter of the True Statement's authoress, at Fallis. In the home that Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde's daughter Addie May (right) shared with O. E. Hardesty. It's exhilarating to think my great-grandmother wanted the unidentified man once holding a "New York government office" to know of our ancestry. (Demonstrable reverence for historic predecessors is scarce, among sub-sequent generations of my Hardesty kinsmen.)

Gould knew – and annotated the True Statement to reflect – Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde's mother was Sophronia (Scott) Pace (1813-1853).† In 1917, and almost assuredly unbeknownst to Combs and Gould, the Springfield Missouri Interstate Historical Society published The Ozark Region, Its History and Its People, Vol. 2. Sophronia is depicted in recountal of a prominent, Aurora, Missouri mine owner. As well as her parents, including her namesake: "Among the first of this energetic family to come to this country was old Jacob Scott, born in 1778 on March 19th, and his good wife Sophronia (Stedman) Scott, born on Christmas day, 1779. This ambitious couple had the strength and hardihood to not only make a success in conquering adversity in the country but also to rear a thriving family ..." which included my 3x great-grandmother, Sophronia (Scott) Pace. "Jacob Scott died after a most useful life on October 24, 1824, and was followed to the other shore by his faithful wife on April 22, 1850, and lies buried at King Hill cemetery, near St. Joseph, Concordia, New York."‡ I felt compelled to get to another shore ... and assert Jacob Scott's paternal ancestry.

I grew reasonably certain of my descent from dispossessed heir, Jacob Scott (1778-1824)! "As we know, Jacob came west," wrote Combs, correct where the above biography is problematic. "It was never explained what happened to Jacob's holdings but the family apparently felt that they had been hoodwinked out of a fortune."

It is time to rectify that injustice.

In 1897 Jim Hyde relied on O. E. Hardesty's father David Hardesty (1836-1903) when he "proved up" forty Oklahoma acres he'd homesteaded. Witness testimony secured title to that land. With an eye to owing a slice of Hyde Park, New York, I launched into my own proofs. When Combs wrote "I just hope some clues can be gleaned to give us something to go on for our research," I knew what she was talking about.

Facts sorta peter out. "Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]" is typical, in meager online trees bearing Jacob Scott's profile. Wife Sophronia (Stedman) Scott was likely baptized in the Spring of 1780. At the still-standing First Church of Christ, Congregational meeting house in Farmington, Connecticut. (Thank you Connecticut State Library, for transcribing those records in 1943.) Chalkley does identify a Jacob Scott as an orphan of John; but as the fellow was age sixteen in 1764, I find this Virginian particularly unlikely as candidate for a New York inheritance. That Jacob Scott had a guardian ... and legal representation.

I'm more certain Sophronia and a young son are anonymously enumerated in the Jacob Scott entry on an Oxford, New York tax list from 1800. From that also-true document, one might appreciate "conquering adversity" lauded in the Aurora miner's hagiography. Scott paid a mere 6¢ tax on his farm and house near the Chenango River: there was no value to his personal estate. Scott's standing seems quite distinct from an international traveler who can pluck up a New World land grant and sail off.

I had been no more successful at fortune hunting than Jim Hyde's daughters. Simply because her meditative countenance seems to convey consternation I have on this matter, I post a c1922 photograph of paternal great-grandmother Addie May (right). In Oklahoma barrenness.

Before I leave final observation to Combs, I must introduce Amanda Jane (Pace) Lewis (1835-1926). Sister to Jim Hyde's wife, Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde, "Aunt Amanda" appears in Guffey's True Statement. She's been challenging to inquire into. After marriage, census records place siblings and various nieces in her household: despite perplexing my research, I admire that Amanda likely knew how (and accessed sufficient resources) to keep family knitted together following loss of a parent. Combs wrote "My great-grandmother Mary Anna (Pace) Hyde obtained an affidavit & sent it to Amanda & Amanda hired their cousin, John Scott, attorney, to see what he could find out. Amanda payed his fee. I guess John Scott came up empty handed as the story ends with him."

RETURN TO TOP

NOTES:

* Combs was no doubt named – in part – for Ila Calla Guffey, seen in the above society page. Combs' mother was born within a year of Hallie Hardesty ... her maiden name was Mabel Hallie Guffey. Hallie (Hardesty) King (1893-1980) and Mabel Hallie (Guffey) Murphy (1892-1969) were likely named for their maternal aunt, Hallie Maud (Hyde, Morrow) Conwell (1876-1959). Jim and Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde gave the name to their youngest surviving daughter.

†  Teetotalism played a role in my last post, I Cannot Enjoy Reading Bad News. I feel compelled to note Sophronia was in 1832 an inaugural member of the Mount Vernon, Illinois Temperance Society. She had married physic Joel Jackson Pace (1813-1846) four months earlier: Pace was the organization's inaugural Secretary. Johnson, who culled Pioneer Association archives, was published in 1893: "As they were all akin to us, I have a mind to [name] the whole outfit."

‡ I found no such cemetery. A King Hill Cemetery is "arguably the second oldest cemetery in St. Joseph," Missouri, reported the St. Joseph News-Press. Find A Grave bears no memorial to Jacob Scott. They also disclose only 58% of King Hill markers have been photographed by volunteers.

To Write on Ends As Was at Hand

Virginia Darcey Slaughter in 2004 opened a window into the life of Kentucky jurist Squire Turner (1793-1871). She posted on a message board that my subject corres-ponded with Talton Turner (1791-1858), then at Glasgow, Missouri. "One of these letters survives today," she advised. "It was written August 9th, 1845" from Squire Turner's home at Richmond, Kentucky.

Squire's papers, once entrusted to what is now Eastern Kentucky University, have been lost; yet he is voluminously represented in the record, if you know where to look. Henry Clay kept Turner's letters. Clay was but months from vaulting to U.S. Secretary of State from a third stint as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1827. Turner was in the third of six annual terms he'd serve in Kentucky's Lower House. Turner fed political intelligence to his fellow Kentuckian.

The two would migrate to the Whig Party. Turner would speak for Clay's nomination as Presidential candidate at the party's 1844 convention at Baltimore.

(Turner is well-represented in debate records for the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1849. A prolific writer, he can be credited with much of state law, codified under his influence the following year.)

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If his mien, conveyed by an oil portrait (detail, right) hanging in the Madison County courthouse at Richmond doesn't do it, surviving historical documents – primarily his legal opinions – tend to portray Squire as taciturn. A rather poignant communique to his cousin breathes life into other reaches of the man's character.

I thought to identify the persons referred to, in this correspondence.

Sir,
Being at leisure this morning I determined to drop you a few lines and found I had no letter paper and thereupon determined to write on ends as was at hand. It is now a good while since you and I started this life - four fifths of our school mates have passed off this stage and gone from this world of care. It is meet therefore that we, while spared, should rekindle our early affections long buried in the busy scene of life. In a few years more, should we be spared, we shall be among the oldest of our name and kindred.

I was very much gratified at the visit your two interesting daughters paid us lately & that gratification was much increased by their companion Miss Clarke.

I hope it is not the only visit we shall receive from your family and Gen'l Clarks - The Turners have never [sic] for as much as they were entitled to. They have never paid enough attention to educating their children and giving them accomplishments and high aspirations.

You have organized a fine estate & are fully able to place your children in the first ranks & I am trying to do it with mine.

I was quite gratified to hear all about you and family & your father and all branches of this family - Your sister Polly was a great favorite of mine. We are nearly of the same age –

Tell Gen'l Clark that he and his wife & Ann must come. Ann is a smart girl & a pleasant fellow - I contraried her several times & when she became crusty over it, her good humor soon returned.

Father is greatly taken with Mrs. Pulliam. She must write the old man a letter. He will be delighted to get one [sic] cher him up. Mrs. Estill is a good girl & very discreet so far as I could discover. She was at my house less than the others. They were all such good company that we appeared lonesome after they left.

My health is reasonalby good but age is creeping up on me & my cares are greater as my family grows up.

Your children have of course given you an account of my family & of the community generally. Horace Turner, Joseph's son, has gone to Philadelphia to live.

My daughter Mary rec'd a letter some ten days since from Ann Clarke. Mary will go to Louisville to finish her education in a few weeks.

Old Marsh was about as glad to see your children as anybody was. He came a second time three days after they left. Betsy and all the family send their respects to you all - especially to our late visiters. Tell Mrs. Pulliam to carry to your father my highest respects & to tell the old man that I inquire after him every opportunity & find a lively interest in his health & happiness.

Yours,
Squire Turner

Turner admits he "contraried" a young woman. This may confirm churlish tendency. Idea that he would convey sentiments on scraps of paper, "on ends as was at hand," is incongruous. Let's call 'frugal' an attorney who twice turned down judicial appointment to the state's Court of Appeals, "because of the small salary." Superior in property law, Turner felt "entitled to" seven slaves, enumerated in 1840 and likely rented out and distributed across several landholdings. In 1845, Squire was midway to an 1850 accounting of a whopping twenty-nine souls held in bondage … valuing his 'real estate' at an impressive $45,000. (This calculator estimates labor's historic value. If all his property was in slaves, Turner's holdings would today represent an estimated $10,400,000.) An attorney in private practice, our subject was also investing in canals and the like, as part of Clay's visionary 'internal improvements' to infrastructure.

Squire Turner was by some evaluations in the billionaire class of his day.

Squire styled his father, Thomas Turner (1764-1847) as 'Old Marsh.' It is folksy euphemism for aging slave-master. Undoubtedly comfortable in perceived racial supremacy – a view shared by many Euro-Americans in Squire's sphere of association, even peers advancing emancipation – it may indicate inter-generational value the two men placed on domination. (In 1852 depiction of his jury-trial conduct, Livingston would compare Turner to a commanding general. The antebellum biography may have been based on self-report.)

I find it affirming that Turner valued "our name and kindred." My maternal grand-mother showed similar inclination when lauding the "fine man" she had never met. Loura Kittrell (Leer) Early (1893-1984) intended that I recall Squire Turner by name. My family history research grows out of handed-down reverence for kinship.

Recipient Talton Turner was twenty months older than Squire. It may be remarkable to note these cousins were a generation removed from one another. Both descended from John Turner, Sr. (1705-c1768) and Sarah Elizabeth Williams (c1720-aft 1778). Squire by John and Sarah's third surviving (son and) child John Turner, Jr. (c1738-1813) and wife Rebeckah Smith (d 1774); Talton by John and Sarah's last surviving child, Philip Turner (1762-1852) … to whom Squire above sends "highest respects." John Jr. was purportedly a full twenty-four years older than Philip. John Jr.'s son Thomas - 'Old Marsh,' above - actually occupied Talton's generation. Also seen as 'Tradin' Tom' Turner, Thomas had fathered a dozen children by two of his three wives. (And likely others, by his slaves. More here.)
[Thomas Turner and parents appear at A Basket Filled with Tears and Flowers.]

Talton was age fifty-three; Squire, fifty-two. In "the busy scene of life," the cousins' political paths had aligned after Talton left his Madison County North Carolina birthplace for Madison County, Kentucky. An 1883 History declared the early Missouri settler was "remembered to this day" as being one of "only two Whigs who voted that ticket for years."

No biographer I found indicates Talton (left) or Squire received anything more than crude, frontier education as children. The men in 1812, as Privates, gave short-term enlistments to different Kentucky Militia regiments in a "second war of American independence." Talton did acquire training, and by 1817 had secured the role of County Surveyor for Chariton County, Missouri. Three years later he married Sarah 'Sallie' Small Earickson (1802-1878). By 1825 Talton began speculating in land: his agglomeration did not fall short of phenomenal. At times partnering with his father-in-law, who became Missouri State Treasurer in 1829, the men secured thousands of acres in the years preceding Squire's note.

The Santa Fe Trail and Missouri River both brought Talton great wealth. In 1839 he and James Earickson took on proprietors and organized the Town of Glasgow in Howard County. On a fine-timbered rise the pair owned, midway between Saint Louis and the newly rising Kansas City. A deepwater landing on a bend in the Missouri propelled Talton's hemp and tobacco to European markets.

According to Wikipedia, The Missouri Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans places Howard County at the "heart" of Little Dixie. By 1840, Talton held twenty-five slaves on the "fine estate" (right) he is to have built for his bride fifteen years earlier. A dozen labored in crops and livestock, four brought him wealth in manufacture and trade. By 1850 he would value his real estate at $100,000: Talton became twice the equivalent billionaire that Squire was.

Some in this cast of characters are easy to identify.

'Polly' was first-born Talton's closest sibling in birth order: Mary Turner (1793-1856) was not much more than eight months older than Squire. She had by 1845, the date of Squire's remembrance, outlived two husbands and was in her third marriage.

"Should we be spared" takes on poignancy. Squire does not ask after Polly and Talton's younger brother Cyrus Turner (d 1844). Almost exactly a year earlier, while driving cattle to Minnesota, the enterprise had wandered into territory The Great Sioux Nation held by sovereign right. Cyrus was "captured and maltreated by the Sissetoan Dahkotahs," according to Neill. He escaped. Destitute and wounded, he drowned in attempt to find civilization. U.S. dragoons apprehended alleged perpetrators that fall. Who also promptly escaped. The loss may have remained raw. In July 1845, perhaps while Cyrus' nieces were with Squire, four Sisseton men were captured "and sent down to Dubuque, Iowa for trial by the civil authorities."

'Betsy' had been Elizabeth Stone (1800-1887) before marrying Squire Turner in 1819, one year before Talton and Sallie made their union. In Betsy's 1840 household were Squire, three sons and two daughters. Among their slaves, eldest was a woman then between thirty-six and fifty-four years old. Of seven enumerated, three slaves were younger than ten.

Squire and Betsy's daughter Mary Ann (1828-1879) was seventeen and preparing to leave home. He also mentions Horace Turner (1822-1871) as "gone to Philadelphia." Horace is likely notable for having survived the recent death of his father Joseph (1793-1854), with whom Talton and Squire grew up. Perhaps Horace the brewer was remarkable among Turners … for moving north, to cast his lot among Yankees.

Reference to Joseph indicates these Turners could be clannish, no matter where westward migration took their kinfolk. By his father Edward, Joseph was grandson to Thomas Turner, Sr. (1734-1822) … eldest sibling of Talton's father Philip and Squire's grandfather John Turner, Jr.. Thomas was likely delivered while parents John Sr. and Sarah (above) were yet in Virginia. Brothers John Jr. and Philip were born at Rowan County, North Carolina. All three siblings would follow Daniel Boone out of the Yadkin River valley and into Madison County, Kentucky. Only Philip would resettle in Missouri, however.

Women occupied Squire's recall, of the troupe that had visited.

"Mrs. Pulliam" was Talton and Sallie's eldest daughter, Eliza Jane (1822-1902). The twenty-three-year-old was eligible: first husband Elijah Robertson Pulliam (1816-1842) had died less than three and a half years into their marriage. It was in the 1839 period of their union that George Caleb Bingham painted a (now missing) portrait of Elijah, then postmaster at Chariton. Elijah had in 1840 – no doubt with his father-in-law's guidance – purchased a forty-acre parcel of Missouri land in nearby Saline County.

The discreet "Mrs. Estill" was Talton and Sallie's second (child and) daughter, Mary Ann (1826-1900). She was but two years older than Squire's daughter of the same name. Talton had given her away four months earlier. To James Robert Estill (1819-1900). Mention of 'Estill' enchants my research: by his father Wallace, James Robert was grandson of James Estill (1750-1782) … owner of 'Uncle' Monk Estill (d 1835), the one-time slave who saved the life of my 4x great-grandfather James Berry (1752-1822) in 1782. Following 'Estill's Defeat,' or the 'Battle of Small Mountain.' (Meet Monk Estill.)

By 1850, following birth of the couple's first children, Talton and Wallace, James Robert Estill farmed Missouri with fourteen slaves, valuing his real estate at $12,000. He named his plantation 'Estill' (now Greenwood). An 1883 map (detail, left) is revealing: Glasgow contends in importance with Fayette, the Howard County seat. Estill's enterprise is indicated; south of Boonesboro in this enclave of Kentuckians. Talton's 'Home Place' sprawled a mile and a half south of bustling Glasgow.

Companion "Miss Clarke" was certainly the most challenging to identify. One can assume she is Ann, daughter to a General.

On 10 January 1840, Talton had purchased almost 1200 acres: 312 of them – in Linn County, Missouri – were secured by a syndicate. From the record (detail, below) I discern his partners were William C. Boon, Thomas Reynolds & John B. Clarke.

William Crawford Boone, Sr. (1812-1885) already occupies my database.* Father William Linville Boone (1768-1847) was in August 1845 aboard a steamer. A pall bearer returning to Kentucky from Missouri. At the very time Squire took leisure to correspond, William Linville Boone accompanied what he took to be disinterred remains of his aunt and uncle, pioneers Daniel and Rebecca Boone. For memorializing and reburial at Frankfort.

William Crawford Boone, like Talton, ran a Missouri mercantile business. When he'd been Boone's age, Talton had government contracts to supply beef to the military and an Indian Agency. If he had not already, Boone would soon provision the state legislature from his warehouse at Fayette.

Partner Thomas Reynolds (1796-1844), former Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, had for three years been riding Missouri's 2nd circuit. Judge Reynolds was a climber: in the interim, he had swiftly risen from Missouri's House of Representa-tives to serve as Speaker of that body.

The Turner-Boone-Reynolds-Clark land syndicate is interesting for its timing and membership. On 11 August 1840, seven months after its filing, Missourians would go to the polls to elect Reynolds, a member of the 'Central Clique' political machine of pro-slavery Democrats. As Missouri's seventh Governor. His opponent? Whig John Bullock Clark, Sr. (1802-1885), also indicated on the above land grant.

Reynolds was dead by the time Squire reconnected with Cousin Talton. Apparently 'melancholic' and disturbed by treatment in the opposition press, Reynolds had the year before shot himself in the head. With a state-supplied rifle. While at his desk in the Governor's Executive Office.

But for peradventure, the 1840 gubernatorial election could have cost Clark his life as well. A month following the governor's race, a purloined letter – in which candidate Clark that July had proposed voter fraud – appeared in the Boonslick Democrat. In back-and-forth public correspondence via that newspaper, General Clark finally demanded a "personal interview." After unmasking his accuser as banker and serving State Representative Claiborne Fox Jackson (1806-1862).

Dueling was then illegal in Missouri. Yet Jackson's second, Chauncey R. Scott, proclaimed response (right): rifle fire at seventy yards. A medical doctor, Scott subsequently refused Clark's demand for a venue where none held jurisdiction over code duello.

Clark's final, written shot in this matter gives context for Reynolds' melancholy: he styled Jackson "a cold-blooded slanderer, a reclaimless scoundrel and a blustering coward." As a result of Reynold's election, syndicate member Boone replaced Jackson as Cashier at the Fayette branch of the Bank of the State of Missouri.

It is through John Bullock Clark, Sr. that I believe I've identified Ann, daughter of a General whom Squire thought "a pleasant girl." In 1826 Clark had married Eleanor Turner (1805-1873) … younger sister to Polly and Talton. None I found offer sources, but several online family trees assign a daughter Ann to these Clarks. Not all Ann Clark researchers attributing an 1848 death date are running her mother's lines; they may have cut and paste this data from Phillip Turner researchers who've placed a child of this name in their trees. I suspect Ann Clark never married. And died without issue. (At Finding Everett I explore how the childless tend to fare in preserved, historical record.)

As did Squire and Talton, Clark (right) took his first steps in Madison County, Kentucky. He removed to Missouri with his parents c1818, and was Clerk of the Howard County court when passing the bar in 1824. In 1832, a militant Sac war chief led his people back onto land fraudulently ceded in 1804. Clark was commissioned Colonel of Missouri Mounted Volunteers, but saw no action in the Black Hawk War.

In 1838, Governor Lilburn Williams Boggs issued (the likely unlawful) Missouri Executive Order Number 44 to "Genl. John B. Clark." Squire, holding the honorific 'Major' after serving as Inspector of Kentucky militia in 1825, would have been well aware of Boggs' commission of Clark as Major General, 1st Division, Missouri Militia. And the Governor's directive: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace …"

Clark "ferreted out the guilty" among state's enemies and forced dozens, including the beleaguered sect's founder Joseph Smith, into jail without charges. He reported to Boggs, "They have societies formed under the most revolting covenants in form, & the most horrid oaths to circumvent the law & put them at defiance, & to plunder & burn & murder & divide the spoils for the use of the Church." Once the majority were released, Smith's 'Danite Club' (unlike the Sac band, also weakened by hunger) were, by Clark's order, allowed to winter over before being sent from their land.

"As my family grows up."

Squire seems prompted to write to his cousin, to plead that the Turner clan "never paid enough attention to educating their children and giving them accomplish-ments and high aspirations." Placing children "in the first ranks" was important to him. He disclosed his daughter will finish her education in Louisville, then thirty percent more populous than Saint Louis, Missouri.

(See A Basket Filled with Tears and Flowers: Squire would, c1854, obtain financial reckoning on behalf of my great-grandmother Amelia (above) while she and her sister Matilda Tribble Turner (1845-1926) boarded … likely to attend school.)

Squire, the prominent jurist, repeated solicitation for Clark's attention. He may have known full well that his son, John Bullock Clark, Jr. (1831-1903), was entering the University of Missouri. And bent on a career in law.

Squire and Betsy's sons were among dozens of men who read law with their father. His first-born, Cyrus Squire Turner (1819-1849), attended but did not matriculate from Centre College. Still two years from serving his first term in Kentucky's legislature, Cyrus seemed content to start a family on a fine farm his father no doubt financed. Squire and Betsy's second surviving (child and) son, Thomas Turner (1821-1900) had graduated from Centre, taken a law degree from Transylvania College, served nearly four years as Attorney for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and, with seven slaves and an estate of about $40,000, taken his law practice to nearby Montgomery County. Youngest son William Stone Turner (1825-1876) had entered but not matriculated from Centre either. In the 1850 census he declared no real estate, as he practiced law while lodging at a Louisville inn. Squire, with the state's Chief Justice, had received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from the college in 1843.

Katherine 'Kate' Turner (1831-1913), Squire and Betsy's youngest surviving child, turned fourteen that summer. Perhaps during the cousins' visit. With Mary's pending departure, Squire may have reckoned with a declining sphere of parental influence. Hence, "my cares are greater as my family grows up."

"I was quite gratified to hear all about … all branches of this family."

By "a few years more, should we be spared," Squire alluded to the cousin's futures. I found it challenging to create a snapshot in time, culminating as best I could at August, 1845. (Discovery that "Mrs. Estill" would die eight days after her husband, in 1900, touched me.) The U.S. Congress would allocate $1,500 from annuities due the Sioux, in August 1846. To compensate 'legal represen-tatives' of Talton's childless and unmarried brother Cyrus "for depredations." Talton would partner in forming the Exchange Bank at Glasgow. He was not entirely spared: he would die, bedridden by rheumatism, in an upstairs room at his 'Home Place' (above). A Glasgow obituary gushed, "at the time of his death, he was perhaps the most extensive land owner in the state." Squire's firstborn, another Cyrus, would be killed at a political event in the following year. History did not finish with others identified: a War of Northern Aggression would leave - in particular - Squire and the Clark father and son on consequent pages of history.

NOTES:
*I share ancestry with William Linnville Boone's wife, Nancy Grubbs (1771-1835). Their son (William Crawford's older brother) Rev. Hampton Lynch Boone (1802-1851) is notable. I have vague plans for book-length depiction of the Reverend's son-in-law, Napoleon Bonaparte Giddings (1815-1897). The pair's political and social exploits are 'intriguing.'

Bold face indicates the author's ancestors.

Beyond the above time-frame, I thought it might be gratifying to report that Squire concretely anchored notions of "fine estate" and placing children in society's "first ranks." A home (below) he had built near his own - for widowed daughter Mary - would be completed after his death. It still stands, in Richmond, Kentucky.