Elijah Lacey Minister of the Gospel 1804-1885

An Introduction

I have spent the last 20-30 years chasing down my family roots! Two of the most influential people in my quest, are Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald Lacey. Amazon.com has a book I wrote: “Ruth McDonald Lacey and the Spring Creek Community”

My mother, June Lacey Eastwood can be traced back to the early colonies; The New Mexico crowd to 1500 Mexico City; the French Canadian crowd back to the 1600s in Canada; the Lacey crowd back to the late 1600s Virginia and before that to the deLacys of Yorkshire who came as Knights with William the Conqueror of Normandy.

One of the unruly bits is the story of Elijah Lacey MG; maybe this profile will help.

~Rich Eastwood~

Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald

I started to use the portion of “The William Lacy and Elliott Lacy Families of New Kent and Chesterfield Counties, Virginia” [Referenced in my work as ELB, ed.] that pertained to Elijah and Ruth (pp. 385 THRU 388a) but I found so many erroneous entries that I decided to re- write it.

Rev. Elijah Lacey, the youngest son and child of Lionel Lacey and Ann Rankin, was born in Livingston Co., Ky. in 1804. The exact date and locale of his birth is not known, since we do not know what part of Livingston County his parents were residing at the time. They did not own property there, so they may have been residing near Lionel’s two brothers, Nathaniel Lacy and Kaner Lacey, or near his sister, Mary Lacey Baldwin, who resided in a part of Livingston County which was later Caldwell.

In 1807, Lionel and Ann moved from Livingston County to the Goshen Settlements in Illinois, near the present town of Edwardsville in Madison County, later moving to St. Clair County, near the present town of Millstadt. Here Lionel settled on a tract of land consisting of 320 acres, and on the “Lacey Plantation”, Elijah grew to manhood. Lionel died in 1816, when Elijah was only twelve years of age. The farm was operated by his elder brothers, John and Stephen. Lionel’s will states: “to my sons Joshua Lacey, Thomas Lacey, James Lacey, and Elijah Lacey, I Bequeath after all my just debts are paid, all of my horses, cattle and sheep. All household furniture and all other such property whatsoever kind or nature which by right or law appertains unto me. This is to remain in the hands of and under the direction of my loving wife Ann Lacey during the period of her widowhood--”. Ann never remarried and lived until 1837. There is no record of what, if anything, the four brothers received at that time.

At the age of 24 years, on 21 August 1828, Elijah married a young widow, Ruth McDonald Locke, who was with child by her first husband, Gerald Locke. A son, William Jackson Locke, was born on 21 November 1828. Ruth was born in Tennessee in 1809, the names of her parents are not known, nor is the date of their arrival in Illinois. Since this book was written, a lot have things have happened that make research easier; primarily the internet. Thomas McDonald and Joseph McDonald and their relative, Matthew Taylor, who settled in or around Spring Creek, Gillespie County TX in the same time frame as Ruth and Elijah; were, no doubt, from the same family that Ruth grew up in, however she might have not been a blood relative.

Elijah and Ruth’s first child, Aciel (Asa) Phelps, was born in St. Clair County on 18 May

1830. There is some confusion as to their exact county of residence during this period as they appear in the 1830 census in Jefferson County, with no children. So, it must be that Asa was not born and William Jackson Locke was with someone else. Of course, these old returns are not always reliable or complete. Elijah was a 2nd Lt. in the 1st Reg., Ill. Militia (Executive Record 1832-37, Vol. 2, p.241).

Elijah is shown living in Jefferson County in 1840, by the census of that year, but we have been unable to locate him for the two following census reports for the years 1850 and 1860, although all of his children were born in Illinois before 1850, and he had moved to Texas before 1860.

One of the more influential churches on early American Frontier was the Methodist-Episcopal Church. They produced itinerant preachers that covered to whole frontier. One of these was a man named James Axley who preached in Elijah’s coroner of the world. Axley’s preaching no doubt affected the Lacey family and many more.

Beyond preaching the Axleys had a significant impact on the Lacey, McDonald, Taylor families that came to Gillespie County Texas. James’ brother, Pleasant Axley died when his children were still young; Cliff Hazelwood, married to Nancy Axley, (James and Pleasant’s sister) took over Guardianship of the children. Two of these were: Hannah Axley who married Matthew Taylor and Rachel Axley who married Thomas McDonald; both families were prominent in the Spring Creek Story. The Hazelwoods we find in Spring Creek were members of that family as well.

At some point Elijah became a Methodist Minister and so referred to himself on the census. He performed the marriage ceremony for his daughter Mahala Elizabeth Lacey and John Hardin Lacey, her first cousin; and in Gillespie County he performed several marriages for members of his family and others. As ministers of the time were wont to do, he also practiced a little medicine. This was because of the scarcity of qualified physicians and the necessity and desire of a minister to take care of his flock. Elijah was known by the nickname “Doc,” it would be a good guess that he did quite a bit of doctoring, especially in conjunction with his ministry. The nickname was passed on to future generations; a child named Elijah was often called “Doc.” A case in point: My grandfather. Peter Elijah “Doc” Lacey. Another thought, others in the Texas crowd were lay ministers but always had other professions listed; Elijah always was listed as a Minister of the Gospel. It would seem that he was an ordained Methodist Minister and had Church Appointments.

Around, 1855 he moved his family to Texas, but he is not found on the 1860 census in any county in that state. However, they seem to have first arrived in Goliad County since his son, Asa Phelps Lacey and Asa’s wife Rosanna England, and his daughter, Mahala Elizabeth Lacey, and her husband, John Hardin Lacey, are all found there on the 1860 census. He is found on the 1870 census for Gillespie County, together with the families of several of his children. The 1880 Gonzales County census is the last known census record for Elijah Lacey. There is much speculation on what happened to Elijah but the internet has shed some light on this, as we will see.

Exactly how they moved to Texas is not known. In the 1850’s there were established trails to Texas. One wagon road stretched from Memphis, Tenn., to Little Rock, Ark., to Fulton, Ark., and on into Texas across the Red River with a branch from there to the San Antonio area. That is the way the Taylor, McDonald crowd came. However, since St. Clair County in Illinois is right across the Mississippi from St. Louis, they probably took a steamship to New Orleans and then sailed around to Indianola; then by wagon up to Goliad.

Before the Civil War the Laceys seemed to be mostly south of San Antonio but Jack Locke had scouted a place just north of San Antonio. Locke Hill was started by the W.J. ‘Jack’ Locke family and the L.M. Lacey family. They ran a stage stop which grew into a school and adjacent cemetery; it was ten miles from the Alamo on the Fredericksburg Road. Lewis and Margaret’s son, William Madison Lacey, owned land there and his children were born there. This is also the area that Lewis Cass Lacey refers to in his letter about him and brother, John trying to farm on 20 acres. Today the Locke Hill Community is inside the city of San Antonio, but at that time it was 10 miles from the city. The Locke Hill Cemetery is still being used. Today it is at the corner of Fredericksburg and Hubner roads. When Ruth died on 6 May 1877, she was buried there. John Hardin Lacey, Lewis Madison Lacey, and little Carroll Scott Vincenz, who died while visiting from Illinois, are also buried there. Ruth is the only one of the family with as headstone. After the Civil War the Taylor, McDonald families and the rest of the Laceys populated the Spring Creek neighborhood.

The children of Elijah and Ruth:

[The following profiles vary in construction, they were created at different times for different reasons. I just used them as is, for expedience.]

William Jackson ‘Jack’ Locke

Son of Gerald (Gerades?) Locke and Ruth McDonald

There was a Gerades Locke and some other Lockes living near Linvil (McDaniel) McDonald, in the 1820 Census, Monroe Co. IL.

Family tradition says his father was dead but I wonder?

His mother was pregnant with him when she married Elijah Lacey

In the 1850 Census he used the Lacey last name.

Born 21 Nov 1828 in IL

Died 11 Oct 1911 at San Antonio

Buried in the San Antonio National Cemetery

Mary England (1)

Married, 6 Sep 1848 in Marion Co., IL

Daughter of William B. England (a Methodist minister) and Chloe Pike and sister to Rosanna who was married to Asa Phelps Lacey, Jack’s half-brother

Born 5 Jul 1825

Died 31 Jul 1909

Buried in Lockehill Cemetery

Children of Mary and Jack:

Mary Olive Locke b. 6 Oct 1849

William M. Locke b. 25 Sep 1851

Sarah J.G. Locke b. 20 Jun 1853

Judith Ann Locke b. 7 May 1856 d. 1946

Martha A. Locke b. 20 Apr 1859

Stephen A. Douglas Locke b. 17 Jun 1859

Sam Houston Locke b. 8 Aug 1861, d. 1920

m. Lydia Myrick b. 18 Dec 1872, d. 16 Jun 1973

Girard E Locke b. 15 Sep 1863 d. 1901

Hattie Elizabeth Locke b. 4 Apr 1865 d. 1960

m. Henry F. Horn

Sometime in the 1870’s Jack and Mary apparently divorced.

Anna M. McCarthy (Ferguson) (2)

Married before 1880

According to the 1880 Census:

Jack was married to Anna M. (Ferguson), age 33, born in MA

Living with him were:

Son, Gerhard age 18

Stepdaughter, Annie H. Ferguson, age 16, born in MO

Stepdaughter, Hacy ? J. Ferguson, age 14, born in MO

Stepdaughter, Mary G. Ferguson, age 12, born in MO

Daughter, Ruth, age 4 Mo., born in TX

Mother in Law, A. McCarthy, age 64, born in MA

Also in the 1880 Census (San Antonio Twp. Page 252, 62-66) Jack’s son William, a Surveyor, age 28 had living with him:

Wife, Fanny, age 25, born TX

Mother, Mary, age 53, listed as a widow…? ?

Sister, Judith, age 24

Brother, Douglas, age 20

Brother, Sam H., age 17

Sister, Lizzie, age 16

The child of Jack and Anna:

Ruth Locke b. 1880

Notes:

1850 – Census, Jackson Co. IL. Shown as W.J. Lacey married to Mary (Asa and Rosanna lived nearby)

1854 – Around this year Jack, Mary and kids, with the Laceys, moved to Texas.

1860 – Census (BEXAR COUNTY TX Page 470, 2119-2039) shows him living in Leon Springs as a Stock Rancher, Worth $1000 - -$900

1864 – He was Captain, Texas State Troops, 3rd Frontier District, Gillespie Co., CSA.

1865 – Later he served as a 2nd Lt. in the 2nd Texas Cavalry U.S.A. with some of his friends and relatives.

1870 – Census (BEXAR COUNTY TX, San Antonio Twp. Page 312, 384-412) shows him as a farmer, Worth $1800 - $1350

Asa Phelps Lacey

[This essay based on the Elton Lacey Book Pp 388b thru 392a coupled with information that has come to light since.]

Aciel (Asa) Phelps Lacey was the eldest son of Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald but the second son in the household, his mother Ruth was pregnant with William Jackson Locke when she married Elijah in 1828. Asa was born, May 18, 1830 in St. Clair Co. Illinois. He died 3 Apr 1913 in Asher, Oklahoma after a restless and interesting life.

Rosanna England and Asa were united in marriage on 25 Jul 1849 in Marion Co. Illinois.

Rosanna was the daughter of William England and Cloah Pike, born April 23, 1829 in Illinois. Cloah was the daughter of Capt. Zebulon Pike, and a sister to Brig. Gen. Zebulon Pike, the discoverer of Pike’s peak. Rosanna was the sister of Asa’s half-brother, W.J. Locke’s wife Mary England. Rosanna died 3 Apr 1907 and is buried at Hill Crest Cemetery, Morris Ranch, Texas, along with her daughter, Cloey Cynthia Lacey Lee and Cloey’s husband, Abijah Lee. The Lee descendants still return to the Morris Ranch reunions, held annually, and help keep up the cemetery.

The 1850 Census finds Asa and Rosanna living in Jackson Co. IL four families away from his half-brother William Jackson Locke (Lacey in the Census). Asa was listed as a farmer; the Lacey Book says that he was, like his father, a Methodist Minister but the Census always shows him in some other occupations; perhaps he was a Methodist Lay Preacher, a common avocation at the time.

On October 3, 1850 a daughter was born to Rosa and Asa, Louanna Elizabeth; they were still living in Jackson County. By 1852 they had moved to nearby Kendall County, there a son, Louis Monroe was born on August 8th. Around 1853/4 the whole Lacey clan, father Elijah and all of Asa’s siblings, moved to Texas. If they all traveled together they made their way down the Mississippi River and by coastal packet to Port Lavaca. Members of the family resided in Goliad County for a while, finally settling near San Antonio, in the LockeHill area (named later, after the W.J. Locke family) and Spring Creek, Gillespie County in the Texas hill country. Another daughter, Ruth Jane Lillian was born in Texas on Mar. 7, 1854 followed by Martha Melvina in 1856, who only lived a year. By 1858 the family had made their way to San Antonio, there, on March 26th a third daughter was born in Texas, Cloey Cynthia. A son Samuel Houston was born in 1859 but only lived a year as well.

When the Civil War broke out, they were living in Gillespie County, on the edge of the frontier. The men in this part of Texas weren’t especially pro-Confederacy; they were an independent lot that had a lot to do. Subsistence living and the ever-present threat of Indians consumed their lives; they had little interest in others problems and they didn’t have a history of slave owning. At the beginning of Texas’ involvement of the war they just ignored the call to arms but with the U.S. Army gone and most of the younger men off to fight for the side of their choice, things started to deteriorate. The Indians realized that defenses were weak and the local Confederate military began stepping up pressure on what they considered disloyalty. From May of 1862 to March of 1863, a Colonel Duff and his Texas Partisan Ranger Company went on a reign of terror throughout the Hill Country counties including Gillespie; threatening or murdering every able bodied man of military age they could find.

With all that turmoil going on, the Laceys were blessed with another son, Robert Elijah, born February 19, 1863 in Gillespie County. On August 8,1863, Asa enlisted in Co. A, Mounted Regt., Col. James E. McCord, Commanding, Texas State Troops. The Texas State Troops were a Frontier Defense organization authorized by the Texas Legislature in 1861 to meet the threat of Indian attack in the western frontier of the State. With the start of the Civil War, the Union troops had been withdrawn from the forts along the Texas frontier and the Confederate Army was too preoccupied with the war to the east to provide adequate protection to the western frontier. The TST was under State jurisdiction, a point that would be contested by the Confederate Government as the war dragged on.

His enlistment card reads: “Oath of alleg. with roll; Co. org under act of D.21.61; Serv.D Am’t of pay shown only on payroll; on mainrolls dte.D.21-62 to Mr.1-63, state ‘Pay due from muster into serv., though no duty shown; Co. sta. at Camp Davis D. 24.62; 5 mm rolls: 1 Ju.1-63 toAu.31-63, 1 5.63 to 5.3 1-63; 1 payroll not dated; Service shown from Jan.1-64 to F.29-64; Served 2 mos.-Total $24; Allowances: for clothing $40.15, Use of Horse $24, Use of Arms $8 - Total $ 90.15; amount of clothing $34.60”.

Camp Davis was located on Whitlock Creek, about four miles from its junction with the Perdernales River. It lay half way between Camp Llano and Camp Verde. His Commanding Officer was James M. Hunter. Hunter had moved to Texas in 1851 to join his brother who lived in Fredericksburg. Early on, he raised a company of eighteen men to protect the surveying parties along the Brazos River and its Clear Fork tributary. The Frontier Regiments were on the cutting edge of civilization at the time, and not only had to deal with the threat of Indian attack, but as the war dragged on, it was increasingly brought into the conflict with the Confederate government, who wanted the manpower it represented for the war in the east. Giving way to repeated efforts to conscript the members into the Confederate Army, the State Government transferred the Frontier Regiments to Confederate service at the end of 1864. A new outfit, consisting of older men or men with some other deferment; in the Gillespie Co. area, the Third Frontier District, Major James Hunter commanding was formed in Jan 1865. After the war, the Union Army once again became responsible for the defense of the frontier and reoccupied the federal forts it had abandoned. Still, local “Minute Men” of the Texas Rangers continued to protect the frontier through the end of the century.

The fact that Asa was required to take an “Oath of Allegiance” was unusual. Perhaps it was because he was from Illinois, or perhaps they had some reason to suspect his loyalty to the Confederate cause. If it was the latter, it was with good cause, because in 1864, he deserted the Confederates and made his way to Union lines and he enlisted in the First Texas Cavalry, a Union Army unit, joining his brother, Joshua Collins Lacey, and his half-brother, William Jackson Locke. It was no small feat switching sides, see the article: “Memoirs of ‘Lafe’ McDonald” in this collection; by the way ‘Lafe’ was a cousin of Asa’s.

The First Texas Cavalry was a Union unit organized at New Orleans, Louisiana, and mustered into Federal Service in that city on November 6, 1862. This unit’s commanding officer at that time was Edmund J. Davis, who had been a District Judge for the lower Rio Grande Valley for a number of years prior to the secession of Texas. He had been a candidate for a delegate’s seat to the Texas secession convention, but was defeated in the election. From that point on, he was violently opposed to secession, fleeing the state in the summer of 1861.

This picture of Asa Phelps Lacey was taken in New Orleans, probably while he was on duty there.

The majority of the members of the regiment were from east Texas. The Second Texas Cavalry, which was never fully organized as a separate unit, consolidated with the First on November 1, 1864. The unit served within the states of Texas and Louisiana during its career. On May 23, 1865, it was ordered to Vidalia, Louisiana, and remained on duty there until June 29, 1865. From there it was transferred to Texas, serving in a number of locations around the eastern part of the state. The regiment was mustered out of Federal service at Houston, Texas, on November 4, 1865.

The Records and Pension Office state that he was enrolled on May1, 1864, and mustered out on October 31, 1865. His name was shown as A.P. Lacey and as Asa P. Lacey. During that period, the rolls show him present as follows: Dec. 31, 1864 on Det. ser. at Morgan, La.; Feb. 28, 1865 detached in recruiting- present at New Orleans, La.; April 30, 1865 absent with ---- Ark. Sentenced $5 fine by G.C.M. at N.O.; Medical records show that he had acute dysentery Sept. 11th & 12th, 1864-returned to duty. No additional information was given.

After the war, they lived in Gillespie County where their last child, Benjamin Butler, was born on 8 Aug 1866; and daughter Louanna married cousin William Augustus McDonald in 1867. The 1870 census for this county shows that the Elijah, Asa Phelps, John Hardin, and Joshua Collins Lacey families all resided there. Asa was listed as a Stock Raiser with personal property valued at $1100, a good sum in those days. Son, Louis, married Mary Elizabeth McGuire Helfer in 1871. Several of Asa’s kin joined the Texas Ranger Frontier Forces, Minute Men of Gillespie Co., Co. F., Lt. Joshua Collins Lacey, commanding officer (Asa’s younger brother). Asa is shown as a private, enlisted April 18, 1872, discharged April 23, 1874, 130 days of service; Ranger Muster Roll. They were only paid for the actual time they were called into service. During this period, Indian bands (mostly Comanche in Gillespie County), renegades, and bandits, all roamed and raided in the frontier areas of Texas. Lewis Cass Lacey, Louis Monroe Lacey, and Thomas Monroe Lacey were all in this company at the same time.

In June of 1873, daughter Ruth, married Bill Alexander in Kendall County, TX. Asa continued to move his family around. He seemed to want to live in the frontier; this was true ever since coming to Texas. Gillespie County was the jumping of place for many headed West, in the 1870’s there were tales of gold being found in Lincoln County NM, as well as the need for beef in that county. Perhaps Asa took his herd of stock to Lincoln County; for by the 1880 Census the family was in White Oaks, Lincoln County New Mexico, where Asa gave his occupation as a miner. Robert and Benjamin were with them. They owned a ranch six miles South East of White Oaks which they sold for $1000, in 1883, in preparation to their return to Gillespie County. Ruth and her husband Bill were with them in White Oaks as well; they left in 1885/6 to return to Texas.

Son, Benjamin, married Nettie Taylor on 11 Feb 1887 in Gillespie County, the daughter of cousin, Thurman Taylor; the last son to get married was Robert who married Emily Alice New on 2 Aug 1887. The travel lust must have overtaken them again soon after; Benjamin and Nettie had a baby in White Oaks, NM in 1888 and by 1890 Asa and Benjamin and their flock were in Tacoma, Washington. They were there at least through 1892 then moving to Gilliam County, Oregon. He left his family while they were in Oregon, leaving them ignorant of his whereabouts. Benjamin also left his young family there about this same time.

In the 1895 state census of veterans, he was listed as living in far north Texas. Mrs. Grace Lacey McCandless, granddaughter of Asa, states that he was quite a rover and that her father said that they hardly became settled in one spot, when he would pull up stakes and move again. Rosanna returned to Texas but Benjamin’s family stayed there.

After a period of time, thinking that he must be dead, Rosanna applied for a widow’s pension on his Civil War service. The answer came back that he was he alive, and drawing his pension while residing in the Oklahoma Territory. He had applied for that Civil War pension on 11 March 1907, while a resident of Pottawatomie Co., Oklahoma Territory. He was 76 years old at the time. In his application, he states that he was enrolled at Brownsville, Tex., in May 1864, as a private in Co. A, 1st Texas Cavalry, and that he was discharged in San Antonio, Texas in Oct. or Nov. 1865. His personal description was given as 5’ 11” in hght., a wheelwright (one that builds and repairs wheels), and that he was born in St. Clair Co., Ill. He stated that his places of residence were as follows: Gillespie Co., Tex. until 1882; Lincoln Co., N.M., to 1885; Gillispie Co., Tex. to 1890; Tacoma, Washington, to 1892; Gilliam Co., Oregon, to 1895; Boone Co., Ark., to 1896; Indian Territory, Ark. and Pottawatomie Co., ever since. Pension No. 607100. His post office address was Asher, Pottawatomie Co., Oklahoma. Witnesses to his application were Jacob H. Courtney and J. R. Childress. In his supplemental declaration, dated June 4, 1898, he stated that he was married to Rosanna England on July 26,1849 Marion Co., Illinois, by Wm. England, Minister (father of Rosanna). He listed his children as Luanna Elizabeth, b. 1850; Rutha, b. 1853; Cloey Cintha, b. 1856; Robt. E. Lacey, b. 1862; B.B. Lacey, b. 1866. The document was signed by Asa P. Lacey. He was last paid on May 4, 1913, when his name was dropped because of death. His pension was $27.00 per mo. (War Dept. Gen. Ser. Adm., Nat. Archives and Records Section.)

When she returned to Texas, Rosanna went to live with her daughter Cynthia and the Lee family on Morris Ranch in Gillespie Co. She died there April 4, 1906 and is buried there in Hillcrest Cemetery with her friends and some of her relatives.

You would think that this was quite a life, but the Laceys are full of surprises.

John B. Lacey, Asa’s brother, served in the same outfit as brother Lewis Lacey during the Civil War. In that same outfit were the Alexander brothers, no relation to Asa’s son-in-law Bill; their sister Catherine had married Thurman Taylor and was Asa’s son’s mother-in-law. Brother William married Asa’s sister Nancy Lacey and brother “Lum” married another sister of Asa’s, Mary. Another sister of the Alexanders, “Anne” married Asa’s cousin “Rat” Fairchild who was step brother to Mary Jane Chesser. Mary Jane married Asa’s youngest brother Thomas and she had a twin sister, Sina, who married John B. Lacey. This little illustration seems confusing but at the same time amusing and informative about life with the greater family group.

Back to John B. - in 1880 he and his new wife Susan were living in Gonzales Co. not far from San Antonio with his and Sina’s children: Ira, James, Premy and Lydia (born about 1877) as well as their new baby William. In the 1900 Census of Van Buren Co. Arkansas finds Asa P. Lacey (age 70) married to Lydia Lacey (age23) (see e-mail below) and in the 1910 Census of Pottawatomie Co. Oklahoma are Asa and Lydia with a seven year old daughter, Rosa M. Lacey.

If that isn’t an adventuresome life I don’t know what is! Rich Eastwood

Asa and Rosanna had eight children, we present their data next.

Louanna Elizabeth Lacey

b. 3 Oct 1850 in Jackson County, IL

d. 8 Aug 1937 in Harper, TX

m. William Augustus McDonald 25 Jul 1867 in Gillespie Co. TX

b. 30 May 1847 in IL

d. 9 Feb 1918 in Spring Creek, Gillespie Co. TX

Louis Monroe Lacey

b. 8 Aug 1852 in Kendall County, IL

d. 14 Nov 1887 in Alice, TX

m. Mary Elizabeth McGuire Helfer 24 Nov 1871 in Kerr County, TX

b. 23 Jul 1849 in LA

d. 31 Jan 1922 in San Angelo, TX

Ruth Jane Lillian Lacey

b. 7 Mar 1854 in TX

d. 19 Jan 1917 in Mason, Mason Co., TX

buried, Bluff Creek Cemetery, Mason

m. John William Alexander 15 Jun 1873 in Kendall Co., TX

b. 29 Apr 1846 in Bellview, Iowa

d. Jun 1900 in Brady, TX

Martha Melvina Lacey

b. 19 Jun 1856, d. 3 Nov 1857

Cloey Cynthia Lacey

b. 26 Mar 1858 in San Antonio, TX

d. 2 Feb 1919 in Gillespie Co., TX

buried,Hillcrest Cemetery, Morris Ranch, TX

m. Abijah A. Lee 22 Apr 1875 in Fredericksburg, Gillespie Co., TX

b. 1 Nov 1850 in Monroe Co., TN

d. 26 Feb 1922 in Gillespie County, TX

buried, Hillcrest Cemetery, Morris Ranch, TX

Samuel Houston Lacey

b. 9 Sep 1859, d, 30 Sep 1860

Robert Elijah Lacey

b. 19 Feb 1863 in Gillespie County, TX

d. 27 Oct 1922 in Berryville, AR

m. Emily Alice New 2 Aug 1887 in Gillespie Co., TX

b. 24 Jan 1869 in Gillespie Co., TX

d. 9 Nov 1956 in Kerrville, Kerr Co., TX

Benjamin Butler Lacey

b. 8 Aug 1866 in Fredericksburg, TX

d. 22 Apr 1928

m. (1) Nettie Taylor 11 Feb 1887 in Gillespie Co., TX

b. 1 Feb 1872 in Gillespie Co., TX

d. 23 Nov 1930 in Eugene, OR

Divorced

m. (2) Birdie Perry

b. 21 Dec 1869 in TX 1896 in San Antonio, TX

d. 14 Sep 1953 in San Antonio, TX

The child of Asa and Lydia

Rosa M. Lacey

b. 1903 in AR

m. Satterfield

Just for fun I am including an e-mail from Robert Satterfield:

Hi Rich, I started my research on Austin Patton Tate my mother's stepfather who married Lydia E. Lacey in 1913, she was born in Texas 1877. My mother was born 1903 in Arkansas.  I found Lydia E. on 1880 census Gonzales, TX with John B. Lacy (born 1844 Illinois). A son of my mother's half sister has a bible with John B. and Sina Chesser as parents of Lydia.............. I found Lydia in 1900 census (Arkansas Van Buren Co. District 134 Wheeler Township) married to Asa P. Lacey (B 1830.Illinois)  On this same page I find Austin Patton Tate and family........1910 Census (Ok, Pottawatomie Co, Avoca) Asa P. Lacey, Lydia E. and my mother Rosa M. Lacey.  Avoca was township, Asher was the town (Post Office). ....Asa died in Asher Ok in 1913.   This has been like a connect the dots puzzle (unfinished)......Thanks for everything.......Robert Satterfield

From the 1880 Census, LC, White Oaks, Family 10

10 Lacey, Aciel m 50 Mining IL

10 Lacey, Rosa f 52 Wife Keeping House IL

10 Lacey, Robert m 18 Son Laborer TX

10 Lacey, Benjamin m 14 Son Herder TX

From the 1885 Census, LC, Pct.8, White Oaks, Family134

133 Lacey, Asa T. w m 55 x Ranchman IL

134 Lacey, Rosana w f 56 Wife x IL

134 Lacey Benjamin B. w m 19 Son x Farmer TX

Mahala Elizabeth Lacey

Daughter of Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald

Born in 1834 in IL

Died in 1907 in Greenlee Co., AZ

Buried in Greenlee Co., AZ

John Hardin Lacey

Married, 16 Jul 1853 in Jefferson Co., IL

John: Son of James Lacey and Nancy Mosby Johnston

Born 3 Mar 1831 I Monroe Co., IL

Died 4 Jun 1873 near San Antonio, TX

Buried in Locke Hill Cemetery, San Antonio

William Cannon

Married 1878

Son of John and Catherine Cannon from Ireland

Born abt. 1840 in Alabama

[ELB 451, 502, 507 THRU 511]

Mahala Elizabeth Lacey

was born in 1834 in southern Illinois. As mentioned previously, she married her first cousin, John Hardin Lacey, on 16 July 1853, in Jefferson Co., Ill. Her father, Rev. Elijah Lacey, performed the marriage ceremony, and the next year they joined him, and his family, in moving to Texas. It is probable that the picture in the file of John Hardin and Mahala Elizabeth Lacey was taken on their wedding day, or around that time. It was almost totally faded and has been enhanced by computer technology. All of their eight children were born in Texas, one each in 1864 and 1865. It may be that John H. was out of the war by that time. It is known that he was in the battle of Stones River as previously cited, and that he fought against his two brothers there, with Theophilus Lacey being killed outright, and James Lacey later dying from complications from his wounds. John would pay a visit to Illinois after the war. They would name their third son, born in 1864, after Theophilus, and he would be known by the nickname “Tobe”. Tobe would raise a large family and later move to Arizona, taking his widowed mother with him, where she would spend the rest of her days.

The children of Mahala and John:

Alexander Lacey

b. 1856, Goliad Co., TX

d. 9 Sep 1874, Locke Hill, Bexar Co., TX

Emily Elizabeth Lacey

b. 1858, Goliad Co., TX

d. 27 Nov 1921, Phoenix, AZ

buried, Calvary Cemetery, Douglas, AZ

m. William Bowman, 27 Mar 1874, Spring Creek, Gillespie Co.

b. Dec 1849 in KY

John David Lacey

b. 5 Jan 1859, Bexar Co., TX

d. 9 May 1905, Barksdale, Edwards Co., TX

buried, Barksdale, Edwards Co., TX

m. Mary Jemima Ann Lockwood, 4 Sep 1876, Burnet Co., TX

Daughter of William S. Lockwood and Jane Grindstaff

b. 13 Feb 1857, Burnet Co., TX

d. 3 Apr 1947, Barksdale, TX

buried, Barksdale, TX

Elijah Lacey

b. 1862 in TX

Theophilus (Tobe) Lacey

b. 12 Dec 1863, Fredericksburg, Gillespie Co., TX

d. 24 Jan 1937, Wickenburg, AZ

buried, Wickenburg Cemetery

m. (1) Annie Clements, 2 Feb 1882, Uvalde Co., TX

Daughter of William Jasper Clements and Elenora Kirkwood

b. 10 Jul 1865

d. 10 May 1954, Phoenix, AZ

m. (2) Susie Mahalia Inabelle Janes, 20 Jul 1886, Uvalde, TX

Daughter of Edward Robert Janes and Hannah Permelia Taylor

b. 18 Sep 1866, Kimble County, TX

d. 22 Jul 1911, Douglas, AZ

buried, Cottonwood Cemetery, AZ

Ruthie Maud Lacey

b. 15 May 1865, Gillespie Co., TX

d. 25 Feb 1944, Denison, Grayson Co., TX

buried, Humble, Harris Co., TX

m. (1) Thomas I. Richards, 2 Oct 1878, Bexar Co., TX

b. 6 Dec 1859, Albany, Dougherty Co., GA

d. 18 Oct 1900, Dewitt Co., TX

m. (2) John Norman, in 1909 in TX

b. 1857 in TX

m. (3) William Glover, 26 Aug 1922, Gonzales Co., TX

Thomas Lacey

b. abt. 1871

d. 14 Mar 1947, Prescott, AZ

m. Mollie Boales, 23 Aug 1890 in TX

Divorced

Jacob ‘Jake’ Edward Lacey

b. Jun 1872, Gillespie Co., TX

d. 16 Nov 1928, Las Vegas, N. M.

buried, Hospital Cemetery, Las Vegas, NM

m. Margarete Jones, 13 Feb 1899, Silver City, NM

b. Jan 1882 in TX

Lewis Madison Lacey

Son of Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald

Born 17 Oct 1835 in Springfield, Sangamon Co., IL

Died 21 Jul 1900 in San Antonio, TX

Buried in Locke Hill Cemetery

Margaret Lodriski Ann White, Married 7 Mar 1861

Daughter of Peter White and Mahala McCulloch

Born 23 Jan 1844 Texana, Jackson Co., TX

Died 16 Apr 1914 Bexar County, TX

Buried in Locke Hill Cemetery, San Antonio, TX

Mahala McCulloch was the sister of Samuel McCulloch Jr. Texas Revolution hero.

[ELB 528 THRU 532]

Lewis Madison Lacey

was born on 17 October 1835 in Springfield, Sangamon, Co., Ill, and died on 21 July 1900 and is buried in the Locke Hill Community Cemetery, Bexar County, Texas. He had moved there after the Civil War and operated a grocery store, owned land and raised cattle in the area. Lewis came to Texas with his father, Rev. Elijah Lacey. He, and his half-brother, William Jackson Locke, had interest in land around the Locke Hill area. It is interesting to note that he served in the Confederate Army and William served in the Union Army, First Texas Cavalry, yet they were still friends after the war and William signed as witness to his pension application on 16 May 1900, as did his brother-in-law, Austin White.

Lewis married Margaret Lodridski Ann White on 7 March 1861 in Goliad Co., Tex. Margaret was the seventh child of Peter White and Nancy McCullough. Peter White was born on 9 July 1801 and came to Texas from Missouri. He was in Stephen F. Austin’s Third Colony, and had a Spanish Land Grant in Jackson Co. During the war for Texas Independence, he was in Gen. Sam Houston’s Texian Army in the quartermaster corp, and was foraging for feed and supplies for that army at the Battle of San Jacinto. He fought at the Battle of Plum Creek against the Comanches, serving under Capt. Caldwell. He was also a private in the Texas Volunteers under Capt. Lafayette Nance in 1842, and was a private in the Mexican War in Capt. P. H. Bell’s Co. of Mounted Texas Volunteers. Some time after 1854 he moved his family to Goliad Co. According to records of the Texas State Archives, Lewis Madison’s family also resided in Goliad Co. for the duration of the war. They are listed on the indigent roles there for 1864 and 1865.

Lewis joined the Confederate Army, enlisting on 25 April 1862 in Victoria Co., Tex. He was signed by Capt. William M. Blair of Waller’s Battalion of the Texas Cavalry, and was mustered in to service at Hempstead, Waller Co., by Maj. E. Waller, and is shown on the Muster Roll of June 30, 1862, at Camp Waller. He is listed in this and other records as Sergeant. He furnished his own horse, valued at $125.00, and equipment valued at $30.00. The last muster roll he is shown on is that of 29 Feb. 1864, but in his application for pension, he states that he served from 1862 to 1865. It is a family story that he and Asa Phelps Lacey were both involved in the same skirmish in Louisiana at some point, but we do not have verification. Asa was in the (Union) First Texas Cavalry with Capt. William J. Locke.

Capt. William M. Blair’s Co. subsequently became Co. D of Waller’s Regiment, Texas Cavalry, which was first organized as the 13th, or Waller’s Battalion, Texas Cavalry, with five companies, A to E. Company F was enlisted in Louisiana, 8-27-1862. An unidentified company, Capt. Menard’s, Capt, Goode’s and Capt. Dunn’s Companies, Texas Cavalry, were added from time to time to complete the regiment. Capt. Smith’s Company, 25th Regiment Texas Cavalry, was transferred to this organization in exchange for Capt. Goode’s Company by S.0. 87, Hdgs. Dist of Tex., N.M. and Ariz. dated March 28th, 1865. (Records, General Services Adm., National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.)

As stated above, Lewis Madison Lacey moved his family to Goliad Co. for the duration of the war. They probably moved there because the White family resided in this county. After his return from the war, he moved back to the Locke Hill Community and became a storekeeper until his death. He was interred in the Locke Hill Cemetery, but has no marker, as is true of John Hardin Lacey and others in the Lacey family buried there.

In his pension application, Lewis states that he was sick with asthma. It was approved on 9 July 1900. After his death on 21 July 1900, Margaret applied for a widow’s pension on 12 November 1900. It was disapproved on 28 March 1901, the reason given was that she had “too much property”. At that time, she listed one homestead, valued at $1000. This house is located at 737 Kentucky Ave, San Antonio, Tex., and is still lived in today. [It was demolished in 2007]

Here is a picture of Margaret Ann L. White and some of her family and friends in front of her house at 737 Kentucky Ave. Left to right: John Thompson, Willie Griffith, Elzada Lacey, Emma Lacey, Mrs. Kerbel, Margaret White Lacey, and Victoria Lacey.

The children of Margaret and Lewis:

William Madison Lacey

b. 23 Jan 1862, LockeHill Community, Bexar Co., TX

d. 27 Nov 1900, San Antonio, TX

buried, City Cemetery No. 1, San Antonio

m. Elizabeth Isabel Gandine, 9 Jun 1891, San Antonio, TX

Daughter of Joe Gandine and Elizabeth Strohmeyer

b. Aug 1872

d. 6 May 1953, San Antonio, TX

Elzada Lacey

b. 25 Nov 1865, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 25 Oct 1911

Austin Lacey

b. 7 Dec 1867

d. 22 Feb 1884

Peter Elijah “Doc” Lacey

b. 1 May 1870, Locke Hill Comm., Bexar Co., TX

d. 20 Jan 1937

buried, Sierra Madre, CA

m. Fannie Lalone

Daughter of Theophilus Lalonde (Lalone) and Estanislada Padilla

b. 3 Dec 1876, Lincoln Co., MN

Theodisa L. Lacey

b. l7 Dec 1871, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 7 May 1910, Bexar County, TX

buried, LockeHill Cemetery, Bexar Co., TX.

m. Yancie McAlpine, 16 Sep 1901, Bexar County, TX

Edmund L. Lacey

b. 18 Sep 1873, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 15 Oct 1873, Bexar County, TX

buried, LockeHill Cemetery, Bexar Co., TX

Elmer Jackson Lacey

b. 14 Aug 1874, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 4 Jun 1919

buried, San Antonio, Bexar County, TX

m. Margie Sheehan in 1916

Victoria Mae Lacey

b. 24 Apr 1876, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

m. (1) John Henry Thompson, 31 May 1899, San Antonio, TX

d. 4 Aug 1910, San Antonio, TX

m. (2) George Southwell, 1920

b. 20 Oct 1866,

d. 7 May 1934

Conley Clifton Lacey

b. 16 Dec 1878, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 12 Nov 1956, San Antonio, TX

m. Willie Griffen, 5 Jan 1905, San Antonio, TX

Daughter of Alfred Griffen and Olivia Callaway

b. 10 Apr 1879

d. 30 May 1968

Pearl Herbert Lacey

b. 25 Jul 1881, LockeHill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 27 Sep 1941, San Antonio, TX

m. Pearl Shaw, 31 Mar 1904, San Antonio, TX

Ed. White Lacey

b. 21 Feb 1887, Locke Hill, Bexar Co., TX

d. 4 Apr 1887

Nancy M.C. Lacey

Daughter of Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald

Born in Illinois in 1838

William M. Alexander, Married on 13 January 1864 in Gillespie Co. TX.

William was born on 27 July 1839 in LA

Notes: During the Civil War William served in the same company as his brother, ‘Lum’ and Lewis Lacey; Co. D, Wallers Battalion, Cavalry, CSA. ‘Lum’ married Nancy’s sister Mary.

The children of Nancy and William:

William Thomas Alexander

Louis Elijah Alexander

Maggie Alexander

Source: Elton Lacey Book: “The William Lacy and Elliott Lacy Families of New Kent and Chesterfield Counties, Virginia - with forebearers and descendants” by Hubert Wesley Lacey and Howard Elton Lacey. And RDE research

Mary Matilda Lacey

Daughter of Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald

Born ca.1840 in Ill., probably in St. Clair County.

Died 21 Nov 1894, buried Nichols Cemetery, Kerrville, Kerr County

She married three times.

Morgan McDaniel (1)

Married on 27 October 1855 in Gillespie Co., TX (Bk. 1, p. 26).

They had five children. Some of the children adopted the name McDonald and their children carry the name McDonald. Morgan died.

Henry Hartmann (2)

Married on 26 Oct 1861 in Gillespie County. He left her and she obtained a divorce.

Marion Columbus ‘Lum’ Alexander (3)

Married in 28 Aug 1865 or 1863, in Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Tex.

Lum:

Born in 1840 in Claiborne, Bossier Parrish, LA

Died in Kerr Co., TX

Buried in Ingram, Kerr Co.

Note: During the Civil War Marion Columbus ‘Lum’ served in the same company as his brother William and Lewis Lacey; Co. D, Waller’s Battalion of Cavalry, CSA.

Mary and Morgan’s children:

Ruth McDaniel

b. 29 Nov 1856 (twin)

d. 23 Jul 1857

Josephine McDaniel

d. 29 Nov 1856 (twin)

Marvin Levi McDaniel/McDonald

b. 5 Jan 1858 (twin), Gillespie County, TX

Elijah L. McDaniel/McDonald

b. 5 Jan 1858 (twin), Gillespie Co., TX

Silva Bellzora McDaniel

b. 2 Jul 1859, TX

d. 17 Oct 1860, TX

Lois Margaret McDaniel/McDonald

Spouse: ¿Mr. Hartman?

Marvin Levi McDaniel adopted the name McDonald, as did his twin brother, Elijah L. He moved his family to Oregon. His sister, Lois Margaret, also adopted the name McDonald and moved to Oregon with him.

Next we present the children of Mary Matilda and Marion Columbus Alexander.

Cynthia Lou Ann Alexander (twin)

b. 1 Jan 1864 (Her tombstone says 1867), Bexar County, TX

d. May 1947, Harper, TX

m. (1) Erastus Fairchild, 1885

Son of Amos Fairchild and Lucretia Jane McDonald

b. 12 Apr 1860, Vandalia, IL

d. 10 Jan 1933, Harper, TX

m (2) Hez Warden Fairchild, 18 May 1944

Erastus’ brother

b. 17 Nov 1959, TX

d. 17 Jun 1952, Harper, Gillespie Co., TX

buried, Harper Cemetery, Gillespie Co., TX

Permelia Caroline Alexander (twin)

b. 1 Jan 1864 (Her tombstone says 1867)

d. 1873 (Died from Measles, buried Hunt-Japonica Cemetery, Hunt Co. TX)

Franklin ‘Monroe’ Alexander

b. 13 May 1868, Fredericksburg, Gillispie Co., TX

d. 15 Dec 1949

m. Rhoda Permelia McDonald, 20 Dec 1891, Fredericksburg, Gillispie Co., TX

Daughter of Rufus McDonald and Polly Jane Lockhart

Ollie Jane Alexander

b. 9 May 1871

m. George Adams

Nellie May Alexander

b. 7 Jun 1873, Fredericksburg, Gillespie Co., TX

d. 10 May 1936

buried, Hutto, TX

m. Mitchell Adams, 23 Jan 1895, Austin, Travis Co., TX

Son of Green Berry Adams and Margaret Ann Sterns

b. 7Aug 1867, Elgin, TX

d. 4 Mar 1941, Hutto, TX

Edith Alexander

b. 10 Feb 1875, Gillespie County, TX

d. Junction, Kimbel Co., TX

m. James A. ‘Tob’ Cantrell, 24 Dec 1891, Kerrville, Kerr Co. TX

Sources, ELB 542“The William Lacy and Elliott Lacy Families of New Kent and Chesterfield Counties, Virginia - with forebearers and descendants” by Hubert Wesley Lacey and Howard Elton Lacey. And RDE Research

Joshua Collins “Coll” Lacey

Cloe Irene Elizabeth Frances, was the oldest child of Amos Fairchild and Lucretia Jane McDonald. Cloe was born Aug. 10, 1852 in Jefferson Co. IL. The Fairchilds had moved to Texas as part of a larger group related to Ruth McDonald Lacey.

Mr. Fairchild met an untimely end during the last stages of the Civil War, doing his part to make the Texas frontier safe. Cloe, at 13, was left to help her mother care for five other sisters and brothers.

Cloe’s next younger sister was Louisa “Curly” Fairchild who married Jerry Hazelwood. Curly and Jerry moved to Lincoln County about 1883. Curly was the mother of Charlie and Bill Hazelwood, sisters Minda Hazelwood Frambrough and Lou Ellen Hazelwood Dale of Lincoln County; Fannie “Kid” Hazelwood, John Wesley Hazelwood and Susie Lucille Hazelwood lived their adult lives in Douglas, Cochise Co. AZ. Curly and Jerry had moved to Douglas as well, they had extended family there.

Joshua Collins ‘Coll’ Lacey was born Mar. 5, 1842, in St. Claire Co. IL. He was the next to the youngest of the eight children a child of Elijah and Ruth McDonald Lacey.

The Laceys left Illinois for Texas in 1853 or 54. They went down the Mississippi to New Orleans then by Coastal Packet to Indianola. The Laceys were in Goliad for a while, then they finally settled down in San Antonio and in Gillespie Co. The Lacey children spread out; the oldest Jack Locke and a brother, Lewis Lacey settled at Locke Hill (12 mi. from downtown San Antonio) on the Fredericksburg Road and most of the rest settled with relatives at the other end of the Fredericksburg Road (10 mi. past Fredericksburg) at Spring Creek. ‘Coll’ lived in both areas during the next 20 or 30 years.

The Civil War came to the Texas frontier and in Oct. 1862 ‘Coll’ made his way to New Orleans and joined the 1st Texas Cavalry USA. When he enlisted he gave his occupation as ‘drover’. He was promoted (elected) to 1st Sergeant. He was wounded Oct. 1863 and captured. He escaped from the Confederate Hospital in Alexandria and return to his unit Dec. 1863. He mustered out Oct. 1865 in San Antonio.

He married Cloe Elizabeth Fairchild on Christmas Day 1867. His father, Rev. Elijah Lacey, performed the ceremony; witnesses were William Alexander and Joseph McDonald. They were married in Gillespie Co.

‘Coll’ and Cloe first made their home in Spring Creek; it was a dangerous part of the world in the years after the Civil War. On Apr. 18, 1872 Coll enlisted in the Gillespie Co. Minute Men (Texas Ranger frontier defense) and was elected Lieutenant, Commanding Co. F. Many of his kinsmen were in this outfit, Laceys, McDonalds, Taylors and others. The Minute Men were only called up for emergencies. He was discharged Dec. 12, 1872 with more than 30days service.

An older brother, Asa Lacey, had itchy feet and during the course of his life, he lived in various places on the edge of the frontier. In about 1879 he moved with his family to White Oaks and tried his hand at mining and had a ranch about 6 miles to the southeast of town. With Asa was his son-in-law, J.W. Alexander, married to daughter Ruth Jane; three of their children were born in White Oaks. About 1885 the Laceys and Alexanders moved back to Gillespie Co. but his tales of opportunity there must have fired up J.C. for in the early 1880s [before 1885] the family moved to Lincoln Co. The Lacey family first settled 3 miles North of White Oaks on the west side of the Jicarilla road. The family dugout is still visible from the road today, up on the hillside beyond the metal cattle pens.

The Coll Lacey children were born in Texas, except for the last one, who died as a baby and is buried at the Cedarvale Cemetery in the family plot. They became an integral part of the life in Texas Park and White Oaks, they were mentioned in old-timers reminiscences and the Lacey name adorns some geographical locations. His oldest sister, Mahala Lacey, lived in the area for a while coming in 1894. She was with her son, ‘Tobe’, and his family, they later moved to Douglas, Arizona. Sometime, (possibly 1894 with ‘Tobe’) Coll’s nephew, P.E, ‘Doc’ Lacey joined the family in White Oaks. At various times there were a lot of Laceys living in the White Oaks/Texas Park area including P.E.’s sister, Victoria Mae Thompson and her children around 1915.

On January 26, 1901 ‘Coll’ died at his home in Texas Park, judging from his estate papers he was a well-respected and active participant in local affairs. Cloe continued to live in the community bolstered by her children until her death on January 19, 1926.

John Burnyan Lacy/Lacey

By Rich Eastwood

March 2011, I have come to the conclusion that John was one of Elijah Lacey’s children; the following is the basis of my deduction:

I also think his middle name is actually Bunyan. John Bunyan was the author of “A Pilgrim’s Progress” one of the greatest books in English Literature, and a Christian allegory; fitting the Lacey tradition.

John’s pedigree was uncertain, he stated on the 1880 Census that he was born in IL, 36 years of age (about 1844). Hubert and Elton Lacey couldn’t place him with any family when they produced the Lacy Book.

Elijah Lacey can’t be found in 1850 or 1860 Census so that contributes to the obscurity. He is not connected directly to Elijah Lacey in any known records but the empirical evidence is too great to ignore.

Another researcher has connected him with the Donald Ross Lacey family of Rusk Co. TX, if your look at all the facts I think this is improbable. The Donald Ross son is back home in the 1870 Census but ours is living somewhere near Gillespie Co. with his wife and budding family.

My biggest clue is an old note, typed by someone long ago that was part of the Lewis Lacey crowd. It gives Burnyan as one of the children, there are some other inaccuracies in the short note but it is none the less a lead

There was a J. B. Lacey in Lewis Madison Lacey’s outfit, Co. D, Ed Waller’s Battalion, during the Civil War. He must have been pretty sharp because he is shown as a Sergeant and was relatively young. It would make sense that a younger brother would tag along with an older one on a great adventure.

He married Lucy Ann Dunn (age 19) on 16 Sep 1866 in Gillespie Co.

He married Sina Chesser on 25 Dec 1868 in Gillespie Co. The Chesser family is an integral part of the Lacey-McDonald-Taylor story.

He married Susan J. Parr 12 Dec 1878 in Gonzales Co.

In the 1870s John rode with some of our Laceys as a Ranger and was mentioned in a story about Rangers that I read but didn’t capture. He was commented on as being a good tracker.

The 1880 Census Enumeration Dist. 69, Family 234, Gonzales Co., TX

John B. Lacy Age 36 (abt 1844) Born IL

Susan J. Lacy Age 21

Ira Lacy Age 10

James H. Lacy Age 8

Premy Lacy Age 6

Lydia Lacy Age 3

William Lacy Age 6mo

Next door in the house of a William Taylor lived Elijah as a boarder. Elijah was an elderly widower, for him to be living near one of his sons makes sense.

My final observation is that I’ve snooped around on Ancestry.com and elsewhere on the internet and can’t find a family to associate John with; of course he might have just sprung from the ground.

John and Sina’s children

Ira Lacey b. abt. 1870

James H. Lacey b. abt. 1872

Premy Lacey (m) b. abt. 1874

Lydia Lacey b. 10 Sep 1876*

John and Susan’ child:

William Lacey b. Jan 1880

*Lydia is mentioned in a Family Bible as being the daughter of John and Sina.

Lydia also reappears in our story as the 23-year-old wife of 70-year-old Asa Phelps Lacey (son of Elijah) in Asher, OK in the 1900 Census. They had a baby named Rosa about 1903. When Asa died she married Austin P. Tate.

Austin Tate is an England descendant, kin to Jack Locke and Asa Lacey; another connection.

Thomas Monroe Lacey

Son of Elijah Lacey and Ruth McDonald

Born 1848 in St. Claire Co., IL

Died

Mary Jane Chesser Married, 24 Jan 1870

Mary Jane:

Daughter of William Chesser and Polly Reed

Born about 1862

[ELB 568,452, 453]

Thomas Monroe Lacey

Married Mary Jane Chesser on 24 January 1870 in Gillespie Co., Tex., Rev. Elijah Lacey, his father, performing the ceremony. Mary Jane had a twin sister, Sina A. Chesser, who married John Burnyan Lacey on 25 December 1868, in Gillespie Co., Tex. he served in the same Frontier Battalion of Texas Ranger Minute Men as Thomas and some of his brothers.

Mary Jane and Sina’s father was William Lewis Chesser, and their mother was Mary Ann Reed. William and Mary Ann came to Texas in the 1850’s settling first in Gillespie County. They had nine children. After Mary Ann died, he married Lucretia Jane McDonald, widow of Joseph McDonald, as was discussed in the section on Joshua Collins Lacey. They had two more children. Despite many attempts, no further information on the twins has been forthcoming.

In the section on Alexander Lacey, we gave the story of Thomas killing him over some insult to Mary Jane. Thomas disappeared after that and nothing further is known of the fate of him, Mary Jane, or their children. They had two children.

Tarry Lacey. No further information.

Josephine Lacey. Birth Date: ca. 1872. No further information.

In case you didn’t read the Mahala Elizabeth Lacey Section

the story it is repeated below. Editor

Alexander Lacey was shown on the 1870 census of Gillespie County, Texas, at the age of 14, living away from his parents, in the household of Adam Keller and his wife Catherine, both born in Nassau. There were several other individuals in this household, including their children, Otto, Maria, Carl, Joseph, and Gregon, Elizabeth Lang, age 66, who may have been Catherine’s mother, and Henri Bustner, age 25, a teacher. Exactly why he was in this household and not the one of his parents, is unknown. Perhaps he was apprenticed to Mr. Keller, a common practice of the time. It may also be that he was some how estranged, a “wild boy”. The reason for this speculation is given in the article below.

San Antonio Express, Saturday, September 14, 1874.

“A Murder occurred 10 mile north of San Antonio, in the Lacey neighborhood, on Tuesday morning last. The murdered man’s name was Alexander Lacey, aged 18 years, and was killed by T. M. Lacey, his uncle. An old grudge, jealousy, existed of twelve months standing on the part of T. M. Lacey against young Alexander Lacey, and a year ago T. M. Lacey had young Lacey thrashed for remarks about his wife. Young Lacey threatened to kill T. M. Lacey, and remarked two minutes before the killing that T. M. Lacey would not leave the country alive. As soon as he said it, T. M. Lacey standing 20 feet off picked up a Minnie rifle and shot him through the body without another word on the part of either party, the ball ranging from one side to the other near the region of the heart, he dying immediately without saying a word. T. M. Lacey had just ten minutes before borrowed young Lacey’s spurs and seemed on friendly terms with him. T. M. Lacey, immediately after the killing, put the gun down, got on his horse and rode away and is now at large. T. M. Lacey, who did the killing, has a wife and two children. The killing was witnessed by two youths, age 14 and 16, Frank Scott and Levi McDonald, McDonald being a nephew of the parties. Coroner Cugger held an inquest, and the jury rendered a verdict in harmnony with the facts.”

T. M. Lacey is Thomas Monroe Lacey, youngest brother of Mahala Lacey. His wife was Mary Jane Chesser. Despite repeated efforts, we have not been able to learn anything of the fate of either Thomas Monroe or Mary Jane, or anything about the children. In the process of searching we learned a great deal about the Chesser family, a large family which also resided in Gillespie County at the time.

Some family myths grew up around the killing. One was that Asa Phelps Lacey did the killing, because of remarks made by Alexander about Rosanna, Asa’s wife. In fact, Dorothy Lacey Landoll reported this as a possibility in her book. Other family members also told Elton Lacey that it was Asa Phelps, or “Ace”. This does not seem likely since Asa was 26 years older and Rosanna was 27 years older than Alexander, while Thomas Monroe was only 8 years older and Mary Jane, only 4 years older. Hubert Wesley Lacey did not find the San Antonio Express article, the only source of the actual facts, and did not know what had happened, except that as he stated in his manuscript, “Mrs. Cora Chesser of Brady, Texas has informed the writer that he was murdered”. So, except for the facts of the killing, and the information in the article that it was over remarks made about Mary Ann by Alexander, the mystery remains. We will discuss Thomas Monroe Lacey later in the book.

Finally, it should be noted that Alexander’s father, John Hardin Lacey, had passed away a year earlier. The Lacey neighborhood mentioned in the article is undoubtedly in the Locke Hill Community area. The family was still residing in the area. It is possible that Alexander is also buried in the Locke Hill Cemetery, but there is no record that points to it. Despite lots of McDonald information, we have also not been able to pin-point exactly what family Levi McDonald was in. Since it was mentioned in the article that he was a nephew, he was either in the Asa Phelps Lacey line or the Emily E. Lacey line.

[Elton Lacey Book]

Elijah and Ruth, In Print

This is a miscellaneous compiling of various records that I have found; if you would like to chase down more, I’m certain they exist.

Some notes in various stories:

Married; Celia ‘Caroline’ Taylor and James ‘Eli’ McDonald on Nov 28, 1856 by Rev. Elijah Lacey. Notes: Eli’ was killed by Indians at the “McDonald Massacre” near present day Harper.

Married, Joseph McDonald and Rhoda Jane Nelson, Feb. 14, 1849 in Jefferson Co. IL by Rev. Elijah Lacey. Rhoda: Daughter of Hiram Nelson and Mary Roundtree. Born 1830 in IL, Buried in the Spring Creek Cemetery.

Elijah Lacey, his father, performing the marriage; Thomas Monroe Lacey married Mary Jane Chesser on 24 January 1870 in Gillespie Co. Tex .

The ceremony was performed by Rev. Elijah Lacey, father of the groom, Joshua Collins Lacey Married Cloe Irena Elizabeth Fairchild on 25 December 1868,

Elijah Lacey, performed the marriage ceremony: John Hardin Lacey married Mahala Elizabeth Lacey, on 16 July1853, in Jefferson, Ill

From Kerr County records found on the Internet:

Goi, William married York, Lee Perme on 15 Nov 1866 by E. Lacey, M.G.

Hartman, A. married Dunn, Laura on 21 Oct 1866 by E. Lacey, M.G.

Hudson, William married Haze, Clementine on 6 Jan 1867 by Elijah Lacey, M.G.

What happened to Elijah after Ruth died?

Ruth died in May 1878 and the Lacey researchers lost track of Elijah, I found him.

In the 1880 Census of Gonzales, Page No. 28, Family 235; in the household of Wm. Taylor we find Elijah Lacy (Lacey) age 74 as a Boarder. The family next door at 234, is that of Elijah’s son John B. Lacy (Lacey) who works on a farm.

Also in Gonzales County on Page No. 54, Family 477 a widow, Martha Sibey age 70, keeping house. I have done a cursory search for Martha but couldn’t find anything else on her.

On September 9, 1880 Elijah Lacey was married to Martha Sibey by J.B. Lacey minister.

What happened to Elijah and Martha after that would take further research. My personal view is that Elijah may be buried in Lock Hill Cemetery in one of the unmarked graves near Ruth!

The Final Section

Emma Taylor – Reminiscences

THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY EMMA TAYLOR (MARRIED SEVERAL TIMES) ON FEBRUARY 12, 1940; AT ANIMAS, NEW MEXICO. (I HAVE THE NOTEBOOK WITH HER WRITING, BUT THE PENCIL IS FADING AND MAY BE ILLEGIBLE SOON, SO AM TYPING THIS FOR POSTERITY.) (I am copying spelling, etc. just as “Amy” wrote it.)

[Emma Taylor was the daughter of Gillett Fairchild Taylor, daughter of Lucretia and Amos Fairchild. The transcriber and owner of the original document is Ann Taylor in Douglas, AZ. ed.]

Miss Gillette Elvira Morenda Fairchile was borned in Collins County, Texas on October 17, 1857. Was five years old when Father and Mother Fawchild moved to West Texas and located at Spring Creek, Txas; that’s about 12 miles from Fredricksberg, Texas.

Mr. Fairchild was a carpenter and he made wagons, chairs, spinning wheels and looms, tables, beadsteads; in fact, all kinds of furniture to sell, and that’s what he did to make a living before he entered the Government Service.

Amos Fairchild borned in Mount Vernon, Ill.

Miss Lucretia Jane McDonald borned in Mount Vernon, III, January 26, 1832 and died in

Animas, New Mexico December 7, 1928.

Amos Fairchild died June 1865 at Eagle Pass Texas.

Their oldest child was a girl; her name was Clo Irene Elizabeh Frances Fairchild. She was borned in Ill. August 10, 1852 and died in Alamagordo, New Mexico in 1926. Louisa Malissa Nancy An Fairchild, their second child, was borned in IlL June 27, 1855, and died in Douglas, Arizona June 11, 1939.

Their third daughter was GILLETT LOUELLEN ELVIRA MARENDA FAIRCHILD, was borned in Collins County, Texas, October 17, 1857 and now lives in Animas, New Mexico.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild’s fourth child was a boy; his name was Heg Waden Fairchild; he was borned in Collins County, Texas November 1 7, 1859 and now lives in Harper, Texas. Their fifth chuild was a boy; hisname was Erastus S. Fairchild; he was borned April 12, 1862 and died in Kerville, Texas. Their sixth child was a girl; her name was Amas Lucretia Jane Clarcie Adaline Fairchild, borned in Fredricksberg, Texas Sept 30, 1864 and now lives in Douglas, Arizona.

After Mr. Fairchild’s death, Mrs. Fairchild had a hard struggle to rear her family, so it came to pass she married a second time. This marriage took place at Fredricksberg, Texas, Gillespie Co., 1868 to Mr. William Chesser, and they had two boys; their eldest son’s name was Joseph Manley Chesser, borned July 14, 1870 and passed away at Spring Creek Texas in 1869. Their second son’t name was Danial Califax Chesser, he was borned at Fredricksberg, Texas, October 18, 1872, and now lives at Brady, Texas. Mr. William Chesser was married before he married Mrs. Fairchild, and he had 10 children of his by his first wife: 6 girls and 4 boys.

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Amos Fairchild left Ill. in 1856 and moved to East Texas in ox wagons, where he located and lived there until 1862. Then he loaded up the wagons again and come on out to West Texas and homesteaded on Spring Creek, where he lived for only one year, then he tired of the trouble with the Indians so he took his oxens and wagons and moved back to East Texas (57). Then he tired of carrying water two miles so after six years of hard living, he moved back to West Texas and relocated at Spring Creek in 1862. There he went to work for the Government and in 1864 met his death as messenger while working under Mr. Hunter. He was a Union Man all his life. There was many hardships for poor Mrs. Fairchild after Mr. Fairchild’s death, for her baby girl was borned three months aftr his passing away. Then she lost most everything he left for her, as there was outlaws robing and stealing in order to eat, as thay were on the dodge to keep from going to war. What the out laws did not steal the indians did for they stole all the horses and took them away and would kill the milk cows to eat also kill all the white men and boys and lots of women and girls. During one of the indian raids, they killed Mr. Ely McDonald and took his wife and baby, Mrs. Fairchild’s sister, Mrs. Gillette Taylor*, and a neighbor, Mr. Pete Hazlewood at the same time they took as prisoners Mrs. Pete Hazlewood and three children—children that were orphans of Mr. Zettic Taylor. The childrens’ names was Darcus Alice and Jessimie, and Mrs. Hazlewood’s 2 babies, Rebecca and Mahalie. At this time Mrs. Hazlewood was carrying her baby boy, Ely; he was borned in Kansas City, Kansas while she was held prisoner bythe Indians. They come to the hosue of Grand Pa Matthew Taylors where there was four familys forted up together. Three of the men and one of the women had gone back to their houses to gather the crops up on Jeames River. They were to be away eight days which they did, and when they returned they found the Indians had watched them leave the house and waited until mrs. Gillett Taylor went to the spring to get water, then they shot her with an arrow, gave a yell, and stormed the house. There was but one man the indians talked to--Ely McDonald; he offered to give them all the horses and food he had. Whil the Chief was talking to him, one of teh young Bucks shot Ely in the forehead, so then the indians tortured the old Grand Ma Hanna Taylor (she was about 65 years old). The Indians threw her down and was going to cut her throat, then the Chief told the young buck to let go “She is so old and crippled up, she never can get the 10 miles to let anyone know what has happened.” and it was 10 mils to the nearest settlement. So the Indians scalped Mrs. Gillett Taylor and Mr. Ely McDonald, then they took as prisoners Mr. McDonald’s wife and two baby girls, Mahalie and Rebecca Josie, also three orphant children of Zettic Taylor’s that Grand Pa and Ma Taylor was raising. Their names was Jessimie Taylor; the boy was 12 years and Alice 10 and Darcus 8. They took them to Kansas City, Kansas and kept them there in wigwams two years. While Mrs. McDonald was there she gave birth in th indian camp to her baby son, Ely McDonald. Then the government bought all the white prisoners back very reasonable but the little baby Mahalie; she was so loved by the Indians they did not want to giver her up, so the Government had to pay five hundred dollars for the baby.

Then time went on for three years. Mrs. McDonald married Pete Hazlewood, had two boys, Pleasant Hazlewood and Edy Hazlesood.

And a few years the indians come back down to Spring Creek and killed her second husband,

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Pete Haxlewood.

The pioneer women of those days had no bed of roses, for this is the way they lived: in a two room tog cabin. They had plenty of wild honey if they were brave enough to cut the trees and rob the bees. They would gather their fire wood in their arms, cut it then sell it, plow and plant their corn for their bread. Sheer their own sheep, wash, cord, spin the wool and knit sox to sell to buy what flour, sugar, coffee and other tings they had to have,. Made their own candles out of tallow, planted cotton and grew adn picked the seeds out by hand, corded, spun and wove their cloth for all the clothes they wore and went bare footed winter and summer, or they wore rawhide sandals they made out of cow hide. Those women never saw machine knit stockings; they knit by hand all their stockings and sox either out of wool or cotton thread they spun.

During those days Mrs. McDonald lived on Spring Creek and Mrs. Fairchild lived to so they were neighbors and worked together in the fields and helped each other all they could as both had a hard time rearing the children. Many is the time one of these kept the others children while the othr would get out the old work mair and go hunt up a cow to break in to milk so they could have milk for their family. Mrs. Fairchild had to go see a neighbor on business once, although she was a very delicate frail little woman; got the old work mair up, put the colt in the cow pen, and saddled the mair with one of those two horss side saddles, started out in the hills all covered with thick brush, and found the cow and calf; she rode all day trying to find the way back home and driver her cow running here and there; she got lost; had she let the colt follow she would of never found her way home, for when it grew dark, she knew she was lost, so she let the mair go her own way and after an hour or so the mair took her to the old home where she lived before Mr. Fairchild’s death. So there was a friend living there, so the daughters of the friend got on behind Mrs. Fairchild and went home with her. She was so up set she did not know the way home. That happened just after Mr. Fairchild passed away, for Baby Amas was still nursing and when the day wore on Miss Amos got hungry and began to howl for Mamma, so sister GilIett tryed to feed her but to no avail. The later it got the more she cryed, so Sister Gill took the baby and sister Clo and started to the neighbor’s hosue about 1/2 mile away to let the neighbor nurse it, as she herself had a baby near the same age of Miss Amas; of coarse, she had to leave Louise and Louellen and Heg and Rassie at home for it was a dark stormy night, so she locked them in and started the journey, for she could not have the baby crying for fear either indians or bush whackers might hear her, and so when she got near Ann Jay’s hosue, she herd voices and saw a light, then she got near the hosue the light went out and teh talking all stopped so then she knew Ann was not there, then it ws her heart most broke for she knew there was trouble and she must get back to the children with the crying baby and worring her heart away about Sister Lucretia—what could have happened to ehr~ she did not have many hours to wait in fear, for Lucretia and SisS turkey nest was on the way home. So they had to pass Ann Jay’s hosue and when they got near the hosue they saw a light and herd voices but when they got there all was dark and quite again to, so did they hurry by and on home. Well they got through the night and next day Ann come home, she had went to spend the night with Mrs. Lacy [Ruth Lacey] so when she got home she found she did not have much feed for the

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bush whackers had visited her house and had helped themselves to a widow woman’s food. So it was in fear those brave widows lived and half starved.

So she lived at that place for two years and then she moved to Austin, Texas where she stayed for only one year. Her family got sick with chills and ague, so she decided to move back to Spring Creek. So Mr. CoIl. Lacy, a young man she knew moved her back; of coarse he had a motive for Mrs. Fairchild had a young daughter, Miss Clo was a very pretty miss of 17 years. So was very natural for him to make friendly calls, which was satasfactory to all the family and in a short time Miss Clo became Mrs. Lacy. [Joshua Collins Lacey, son of Elijah and Ruth. ed.]

And in a short time ther was another caller visiting Mrs. Fairchild’s home, a Mr. William Chesser, a widowed gentleman who had 10 children, tose babies to kneeded a mother and the Fairchild children kneeded a father, so it come to pass Mrs. Fairchild and Mr. Chesser got married, then teh burden of supporting the family was not so trying on Mrs. Chesser, for Mr. Chesser was a very religious man. So the home was far more happy as they always had prayer meetings at the Chesser home.

Time went on. The two boys was borned, (Other page for dates.)

So after six years of happy mamed life Mr. Chesser took sick, so he went to San Antonio, Texas to see a doctor to find out he had TB; he was staying with his married daughter and a year later he passed away. So Mrs. Chesser was left a widow again at the age of 45. So the rest of her life was a struggle to keep the children in school and earn their living. She lost her son, Manuel at the age of 19 from a fall.

Mrs. Chesser now has two more young ladies, Miss Lauiese and Miss Gillett so another suiter comes to the Chesser home, a Mr. Jerry Hazlewood, tall dark handsome lad. He woe and wed Miss Louiese at the age of 17. In Fredricksberg Mr. Hazlewood took his bride and made a trip to Arkansaw, spent a year with his family then returned to Fredricksberg to live; they had a lovely visit and returned in time to be at the wedding of her sister Miss Gillett, for while they were gone, a tall genteel loocking Texas Ranger by the name of William Hutson Taylor had ben a frequent caller to the Chesser home and young Miss Gillette Louellen although very frail and small for her age had bloomed out in to a perfect beauty so Mr. Taylor ws the fortunate young gentleman who claimed her hand on that cold quite evening February the 15, 1879; it was a home folks wedding with a grand supper, with Rev. Matthew Taylor officiating.

Now Mrs. Chesser has three stop daughters and one of her own Miss Ames. So now Miss Rebecca, a small fair complectioned blond headed blue eyed plump little miss is on the carpet, so another tall b lue eyed blond headed smiling rangr calls at Mrs. Chesser’s home. So those long, lonely evenings had ending. When Miss Rebecca would step to the door to empty the dish water and see a horseman coming around the fild from over on the hilt side now where all was a carpet of bautiful green. When Mr. William McDonald arrives Miss Rebecca got her sunbonnett and they go for a strole down to the brook where he gathers

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butter cups and blue bonnetts and tells her how perfectly they match her eyes and hair, those were the happiest hours of her life since she lost her father. As William was the handsomest ranger in those parts. So at last the day come when he asked Mrs. Chesser for the fair hand of Miss Becky, so there was another quite wedding at Mrs. Chesser’s house on April 1, 1874. Miss Rebecca Chesser at the age of 15 years was married to William McDonald. Mr. Mc was a ranger to, so he took his young wife to live with his parents on account of his work. Rev. Matthew Taylor officiated at the wedding.

Mrs. Chesser still had Miss Lacy Chesser and Miss Elizabeth Chesser and Miss Amas.

Miss Lucy falls in lvoe with a man by the name of William Davis. They go to Fredricksberg and gets married and takes his bride away up North to live and after one short year she passed away.

Now miss Elizabeth Is a beautiful redheaded blue eyed sunder maid of 10 years old when she met Mr. Andy Anderson. It was love at firs sight so they had a quite wedding at Fredricksberg and took a trip tot he Guadalupe River where they afterwards made their home.

Now Miss Ames is the only one left at home but the four boys, Meg, Rass, Manley, Cal. So Miss Amas is the queen, and does she show who she is! She can ride a horse as good as the boys and throw a rock like a boy, rope a cow; in fact, do anything the boy does/could do; she is a big strong brown headed blue eyed roasy cheaked beautiful girl and as full of the old nick as ever a girl could be, with plenty of would be lovers. When there was a dance 15 miles away she beautified herself, saddled her horse and was off like the wind to the ball--come and went when she pleased and had her choice of beaus. Miss Amas lived single until she was 24 years old. She had her own cows, horses, dogs and there fore she had money of her awn to do as she pleasaed. The merry journeys she took was amazing.

So on and on until she one day made up her mind that Alonzo McDonald was the right man for her. So she up and marries, takes wagon and team and away they go, and they landed at Safford, Arizona.

CIo Irene Elizabeth Fairchild died in 1926 at he age of 73 (Borned 1852).

Lucretia Jane Fairchild dIed December 7, 1928 (Borned in 1832).

Louise Mallissie Nancy Ann Fairchild was borned 1855 and died in I 939, June 11

W.H. Taylor was borned in May 17; 1855 and died April 8, 1920.

He took his bride to Guadalupe River to visit his (? Soalitanev?) for a short honey moon. When they returned they made their home with Mother for two years on account of the Indian trouble, as Mr. Taylor had to be on duty as a Ranger arid was away from home so much of the time.

[Cute Huh?]

The next is a great memoir by Lafe McDonald. It is nine pages long, it covers the Civil War times that our relatives lived it and afterward Lafe’s relocation to New Mexico. It took me a while to figure out who ‘Uncle Liege’ was but then it made sense; Uncle Elijah.

Memoirs of Lafe McDonald

Written for Frontier Times, by Leonard Passmore, Voca, Texas. January 1929

Hills and valleys covered with tall grass; uncleared forests; great herds of buffalo, deer and wild turkeys; the nights disturbed by the yelping coyotes, and the lonesome howls of the lobo; settlers terrified every light of the moon by the sneaking raids of Commanches or Apaches such was Texas when first seen by Lafe McDonald. This Indomitable old hero was born in Johnson County, Illinois, on the 11th day of March 1844, one year before Texas was admitted to the Union. His father was old Thomas McDonald, whose wife was named Rachel, the same as the wife of Andrew Jackson- a very common name in those days. To them was born a large prodigy of children, the eldest being a girl whom they named Mary. She afterwards married George Fannin, and was familiarly known in later life as “Aunt Mary Fannin”. The next was Monroe, who died at his home on Devil’s river near Noxville a few years ago. Then was Melvina, who married John Fannin, and then Mariah, who married Dick Hall, still living In Colorado City; then Angeline, who married John Banta, the parents of the writer’s wife; then Lafe, and then another son, Gus, then Josephine, who married Jerry Hazelwood, then Sam who died at Seven Rivers, New Mexico. Thomas McDonald, with his large family, moved to Texas at an early period, but I do not know the exact date, settling at first on Willow Creek in Gillespie County. While there, the Doss Bros. prevailed upon him to move to their ranch, on Threadgill Creek in Doss Valley in Gillespie County, to take care of their large herds of cattle. This position was held by Mr. McDonald for three years, when he decided to shift for himself_, though his work for the Doss Bro’s was very satisfactory to these enterprising stockmen. From the Doss ranch Mr. McDonald moved to a place near the present site of Sherman, and built the first house at Basin Springs. After staying there about a year, the Doss Bros. again prevailed upon him to come back to their ranch, and take charge of their cattle. After staying there another three years, he moved to Spring Creek and settled on what was afterwards known as the Spencer place. In speaking of his family and of these early days, Uncle Lafe McDonald said:

“We were a very loving and affectionate family. We were of Scotch descent and true to the traits and characteristics of that race; we were very fond of kinfolks. Most of my time was spent chasing cattle. We would go out sometimes for eight or ten days at a time on a roundup, taking our blankets and grub on a packhorse. We had some very jolly times on these trips; and many things happened to cause us to laugh heartily. We all went armed, for we had to be on the lookout all the time for Indians. They would always come in the light of the moon.

“I had no chance to go to school. I went only about three months, in all my life. That was to a little school down on Spring Creek, and it was taught by a man named Allen. I studied nothing bill the Blue-back Speller. However, I learned to spell and to read a little. After the Civil War I learned to write from my brother-in-law, John Banta, he wrote a nice hand, and I would get him to set copies, and I would try to imitate them”.

This was his own account. We find from our association with him, now in his 84th year of life’s pilgrimage, he is a man well Informed and he writes a nice legible handwriting- some thing remarkable, under the circumstances. It seems that the youth in an early day acquired more education in a given time under their meager surroundings than the youth of today with the advantages of good school buildings, modern equipment and better-trained teachers. I cannot understand how it was possible unless it was due to their enthusiasm- schools being something out of ordinary line of experience. Be that as it may, we shall proceed with the frontiersman’s story, which I know will be more interesting to my readers than any passing comment I can make.

In 1861 the war broke out between the States. Of this strenuous time, our hero says:

“My people were Union in their sentiments. My father could never reconcile himself to the belief that it was right to rebel against the United States government. I was but eighteen years old at the time, but had imbibed my father’s sentiments. But not knowing what to do, I first joined a ranger company, enlisting under Captain Jim Hunter. This captain soon resigned and Capt. Wm. Banta was chosen as his successor. This was in 1862. During this time we were stationed at various camps, the first being Camp Verde in Kerr County. From there we went to a place on the Llano river that we called ‘Camp Pumpkin-Head’. Then to old historic Fort Mason and I have never forgotten that beautiful, gurgling spring near the old fort. From Mason we went to the mouth of Spring Creek in Gillespie County, and then to Camp Davis on Whiteoak Creek.

“During the time I was in this service and when I was just twenty years of age, I was married to a very beautiful girl named Alwilda Joy. Old Uncle Lige, a pioneer Methodist preacher performing the marriage ceremony.

“I did not get to remain with her very long, for my services were required with the rangers, I soon had to leave her never to see her beautiful face again, the fatal circumstances to be told further on in this narrative.

“We were soon notified that we would be required to enlist as regular soldiers in the Confederate service. This, with my Northern sentiments, I did not desire to do. In company with Ed. Jaynes and John Joy, I ran away. We were called deserters, and a company of Confederate soldiers was sent to arrest us. This was in 1864. The Confederates were under command of Capt. Louis Dixon, We had started to Mexico but the Confederates overtook us and demanded us to halt. We ran into a thicket and the Confederates fired, but overshot. Limbs of trees fell all around us. I wanted to return fire, but my two companions would not, saying we did not have a shadow of a chance of driving the company back. John Joy and Ed. Jaynes went back of the thicket. I stood where I was, the company advanced and at last a German fellow spied me. He darted back but I told him to come on, that we would surrender. They did so, and we were disarmed, and started back under heavy guard. We did not know what they intended to do with us but we supposed they would shoot us as deserters. There was not the best feeling between myself and Dixon, owing to a little trouble I had with his brother, Bill Dixon, who hit me on the head with a loaded quirt. I thought Louis Dixon held malice towards me on account of that difficulty with his brother. So the first opportunity I had, I whispered to my companions that we would stay awake and some time after midnight, arise and overpower the guard and try to make our escape, but my comrades thought it unwise to do so. I however, lay awake. Late In the night when they thought we were asleep, I heard Dixon talking about us. I heard him say: ‘That Lafe McDonald Is a good boy; but he has gotten In with a bad set, and he, like the rest, must take his medicine’.

“Early the next morning they started on with us, keeping us heavily guarded all the time. That night they camped near some old log houses. One house had been built first, and later another room had been added by putting the ends of the logs into the cracks of the one that had been built first. There was no door to the room built last except the door coming out of the other room I sized It up and saw if we were placed in that room that night, we could slip a log, where the two rooms joined and make our escape, and I was willing to try nearly anything.

“Fortunately Dixon and his men had secured some watermelons from a field nearby. They generously gave us one, and one of our men said, ‘Boys, lets go back into that room and eat ours.’ We were allowed to go unmolested, for the Confederates thought there was no way for us to escape. They sat down in groups in front of the door, and began eating watermelons. We passed into the room, put down our melon, slipped the log, and crawled out, keeping the house between ourselves and the enemy. We were soon in the timber completely out of sight. We ran as hard as we could go for about eight or nine miles when we stopped to rest. We listened and heard the tinkling of a cowbell. My hearing was extra good, and I knew what it was; but John Joy contended that it was the bark of hounds on our trail, so we started and ran again until we were completely exhausted. We were very hungry and kept thinking of the watermelon we left behind; but what was liberty compared to a watermelon. Well, we lay out in the brush for a few days when hunger forced me to venture up to my fathers house. My mother was greatly excited on seeing me, and said: ‘Lafe, are you not gone yet? The soldiers are thick around here, it is impossible for you to get away.’ She knew I was trying to get to Mexico, I said ‘Get a sack and fill It with provisions, quick’. She did so, and I merged into the darkness to the hiding place of my companions. I said as I started ‘Pa, get me a horse to the Bill Gamel ranch on the Llano.’ He did so, and a few days after that seven of us started from the Gamel ranch to old Mexico. There was, besides myself, John Joy, Geo. Davidson, Ed. Jaynes (there seems to be three missing). We were all mounted but I had no saddle. I rode all the way to Mexico bareback.

“We took some provisions with from the Gamel ranch, but depended mostly on securing food on the route. We left in too much haste to make much preparation for the trip. At one time our supply of provisions was entirely exhausted, and we lived on prickly-pear apples. At last the majestic Rio Grande was reached and we crossed at Nuevo Pueblo, or New Town, as we called it in English. It was the time of the Maximilian affair in Mexico, and the country, like the one we left, was in a very disturbed condition. We were anxious to keep our horses and sidearms, but did not know if we would be allowed to do so. We left our horses at Nuevo Pueblo, and reported to the Alcalde at Piedras Negras. He treated us with considerable courtesy, but seemed to be a little suspicious. He asked us what we had done with our horses. We told him we had traded them for provisions. He then had us placed under arrest. One of our men became scared and kept talking about his horse, and the Mexicans understood. The Alcalde told us they would have to take our horses and firearms, lest they might fall into the hands of the French. They then released us, but sent and got our property.

“Being bereft of our horses, we began seeking work. A great many cotton bales had been floated across the Rio Grand, and we were employed to pick off the damp cotton and spread it out in the sun to dry. At this occupation we worked about two weeks. Then a man came there from Santa Rosa seeking help in the silver mines. We went with him and worked about a month, it was raining and the water was pouring into the mouth of the shaft. Our employer decided to build a roof over it. We were sent to Rio Sabinas to split cypress shingles for that purpose. This was a change from the laborious task of digging out silver ore, and we greatly enjoyed it. We were in camp there about two weeks after which we returned to Piedras Negras. While there, we were joined by Tobe and Dick Joy, They had made their way into Mexico, and in some manner heard of us, and sought us out. While there, we heard that Mrs. Joy and her daughter had been killed by the Indians, but I did not know if it was my mother-in-law, and my wife that were killed, or if it were another Mrs. Joy and her daughter. I was, of course, very uneasy, but bad no way of getting facts in the case. Dear Alwilda, it was cruel to be separated from her, at such a time; but such are the ordeals, of war.

“We at last decided to leave Piedras Negras and go to the mouth of the Rio Grande to where we knew some Federal troops were stationed. The distance was seven hundred miles, and we were afoot. There were now nine of us. The trip was a long, weary one, fraught with many privations; but we finally made it, walking every step of the way. We crossed the river in a ferryboat, and reached the Federal troops. With them, we went to the Brazos Island. From there we took transportation on a boat to New Orleans, where we were mustered into the regular army. This was in February 1865, and we were sworn in on the 11th day of March, following, under Capt. James Speed. We were then sent back to Brazos Island, and after remaining there for awhile we were sent to Brownsville. From there Lieut. James, with some men, was sent to Laredo. I was with them. From there we scouted back and forth, during the rest of the war. It was while here that we heard of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. There was much rejoicing, because it meant that the cruel war was over and that we could go back in peace and safety to our homes. Visions of my young bride came up before me and would shudder when I would think of the report that a Mrs. Joy and her daughter had been killed by the Indians. I went to San Antonio, and there met old Joe McDonald and be related the sad circumstances. It was indeed Alwilda and her mother who had been murdered. With a sad and broken heart, I returned to Laredo and it was there I received an honorable discharge from the army. I am now 84 years old and am receiving a liberal pension for service rendered.

“On March 18th. 1869, I married the second time. My bride was Amanda Elizabeth Larimore. She was a very fine girl and proved to be a helpmeet Indeed. We were very happy together and a large family blessed our union. First was Samuel Thomas, but he died when about one year of age; then George, Randolph, Ella, Oliver, Walter, Rachel, Adeline, Mart, Joen, Alwilda, and Archie. Of these, Ella, Walter, Mart, Joe, Archie and George are living. My second marriage occurred near Fredericksburg and Peter Mosel performed the ceremony. We moved to Spring Creek in Gillespie County, and remained in that section till the year 1885, when I sold out and moved to Seven Rivers, New Mexico. There I engaged in the sheep business, and stayed with it through hard years and prosperous ones. My last wife died November 17, 1903. Since that time I have divided up most of my property among my children. I have a house and six lots about five miles from old Seven Rivers, and twenty-two miles from Carlsbad. Two of my boys, Walter and Archie, are living in Carlsbad. I spend most of my time with them. At present I am visiting old friends and relatives In Texas.”

So was the simple life of this old frontiersman. There were other things I wanted to get, so I asked the question, “Were you not in some Indian fights on the Texas frontier?” To this he replied:

“Yes, at one time while I was in the Ranger service we had a nice little scrap with the Indians near Noxville on Devil’s river. The Indians had come in and killed a man named Jim Little, down on what was called Shep Creek in Mason County. We were notified and John Banta, Sam Lane, Joe Whitley, Dolph Reese, Alonzo Reese, Tom Benson, John Benson, Jake Banta, Sam McCann, Bill Horton, I think it was, and myself started out to find the trail of the Indians.

“We found it down on Devil’s river. We followed it on, till we found where they had camped. It was a rainy, misty day, and as they had just recently left, we could tell where every Indian had slept by the little dry place where he had lain. We counted the places and found them to be eleven -just our number. We were not afraid to meet them evenly matched. Alonzo Reese was our Lieutenant and he ordered us to press forward. We did so at a rapid rate, and overtook them about 4 o’clock p.m. When they saw us they began running. They ran about three quarters of a mile, we on horses, and they on foot. ‘You can imagine their speed; but our horses were fagged and footsore. At last they stopped to fight. They turned facing us, we fired, but do not think we hit one. While our guns were empty the Indians charged us. We hastily reloaded but our powder had become damp. By the time we were ready to give them a reception, they were right at us, yelling furiously and the arrows flying everywhere. One arrow hit John Benson on the hip. Another hit me on the toe of my shoe. John Banta shot the chief. He fell mortally wounded and in defiance of the white man’s bullet, the daring warrior pulled a large butcher knife from a scabbard hanging on his person, and plunged the knife deep into his own breast. Then laying down on the bloody weapon, he seized his bow and shot toward us. That was the arrow that struck the toe of my shoe. In all we killed three Indians and the rest fled, immediately after the falling of their chieftain. From the dusky chief we took a fine beaded pouch that is now in possession of Isaac Banta in California. Three Indians were all we knew of killing, but the trail of the Indians was found the next day, and only three had left tacks on that trail. For that reason, we always believed we had killed eight of the eleven.”

This story is quite interesting to me from the fact that the John Banta referred to is my wife’s father. Many times have I heard him relate the story of this fight with a great many more details. I have also examined the beaded pouch taken from the person of the fallen chief. It is very beautiful. It was made from the leather of a boot top -or appeared to be- sewed with the sinews of a deer, strung on and attached with sinews, and arranged in the most perfect geometrical designs. It shows that Indians, in some ways at least, had very much artistic taste, then to think of the time and the patience required to do such work.

“Do you remember the killing of Pete Hazelwood.” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “that was the best I remember, in the year 1876. The Indians had made a raid into the country, and we were looking out for their trail. Mart McDonald, Thurman Taylor, Jim Taylor, Pete Hazelwood and Ed. Jaynes were together. Besides them were two other bands of white men, eight in one bunch and nine in the other. The first named posse came up on the Indians on the hills south of Threadgill Creek. The Indians were on one side of a hollow and the whites on the other. The savages stood there and made no attempt to fight. The whites watched them for a little while, and then Thurman Taylor remarked, ‘By the livings, I’m goin’ to have an Injun scalp’, and fired at them. So far as known he did not touch an Indian, but immediately after he fired the Indians poured a perfect volley into the whites, one ball striking Pete Hazelwood between the eyes. There were eighteen of the Indians, and they started toward the whites, Hazelwood’s companions fled, and about that time another bunch of white men came up. I was with that crowd. The Indians, seeing us, fled. We passed right close to Hazelwood’s dead body but did not see him. Hut Taylor’s horse fell, as he fled from the scene of the murder and he hid in a thicket. He could hear the sound of our horses’ feet as we rode, but supposed we were Indians. The other men who fled supposed Hut was killed. They secured a wagon and team and came back after Pete Hazelwood and expected also to find Hut Taylor murdered. Hut, hearing the wagon, crawled out from his hiding place. He went on with them and loaded the corpse on the wagon, and Pete was taken down to the Spring Creek and buried.

“The next month after Pete was killed Billy Hudson, Sam McDonald, Jim Taylor, John Wesley Taylor, Hut Taylor and myself were out riding the range when we spied an Indian camp, upon a little hill near the head of a draw. We did not know how many were there, but decided we would venture a little nearer, and try to find out. We started, and about forty head of cattle, stampeded just ahead of us and ran right toward the Indian camp. The Indian spy had discovered us, and when they heard the running cattle, they thought that immense crowd of whites was charging them. They fled, leaving their horses; we went on and took possession of the horses, about thirty head. Among them was a little mare of mine, poor and full of sores. I hardly knew her. She was very fat, when the Indians stole her. Most of the captured horses belonged to the Germans near Fredericksburg. We notified them and they came and got them.

“The frontier had many inconveniences and hardships, but life on the frontier was a free and an easy one. We had a living so far as that was concerned, right around us, The country abounded with wild game, and bee trees, and bee-caves were usually found full of honey. I have known of people going out, and killing deer, and ripping the legs, and then skinning the hide off whole, then tying the ends and filling the hide full of wild honey. In this way they could easily bring the honey in home. When we killed a bear, we would cut the meat lose from the bones, leaving it attached to the hide. The ribs we would cut out, roast and eat while in camp. On arriving at home we would spread the bear hide out, skin the meat loose, cut it into blocks, salt and smoke it. Bear meat was very delicious and healthy. Of course hunting as much as we did, we always kept a good pack of dogs. We spent a great deal of time training them, and it just seems that dogs were more intelligent then, than they are now. Of course, they were not. It was just because we put in so much time training them. Dogs, with us, on the frontier were a necessity.

“I bad two very fine dogs that I raised. I named them Shep and Mollie. They were extraordinarily intelligent -Shep especially. We milked a great many cows in those days, and many of those old Texas longhorns were fine milk cows. We milked a great many cows, and made butter and cheese. The range was all open and our milk cows would mix with other cattle, and would have to be driven in. I had Shep trained to drive my milk cows to the pen. At last he became so thoroughly trained, I could send him out alone. I would say, ‘Shep, it is time to get the cows,’ and away he would go. One evening he was playing with another dog, and disobeyed, when I told him to go. I caught him and boxed his ears, and off he went, not long after he came driving the cows in. One evening, the bell on one of the cows could scarcely be heard, but I sent Shep after them. After he left, I decided to follow and see how he separated the milk cows from the other cattle. I did so and climbed up a big tree where I could watch him with out his knowing I was near. He would walk through the cattle till he found a milk cow, bark at her a time or two, and drive her out to one side. Then he would go back and get another, until he bad them all bunched. Then be trotted around the milk cows a few times, barked, and started them in towards home. It was wonderful to watch the intelligence of that dog.

“My father owned a very fine hound that he brought with him, when he came from Illinois. A part of the way from Illinois here, we traveled on a steamer down the Mississippi river. There were some hogs on the boat, in an enclosure built of plank, the first plank being several inches above the floor of the boat. We boys would shell corn, down on the floor near the pen, and the hogs would stick their noses under trying to reach the corn. Every time they did so, Rover would land on to one’s nose. This dog belonged to a breed known as English Baxers. He was a very fine little dog.

“My father also owned a very fine hound, that he had named Snip. This dog was a very fine bear dog. If there was a bear anywhere in the country, Snip would find him. One time the old man Turkinett borrowed Snip to go bear hunting. When be came back he said, ‘I must have that dog.’ My father said, ‘No, I cannot spare him.’

“Turkinett went away, and a few days afterwards came back driving a yoke of fine young oxen. He said, ‘Here, take these oxen, I have got to have Snip.’

“The trade was made, much to the advantage of my father; for when Turkinett took the dog out the first time after getting him, a big bear killed the dog. The oxen were kept, and rendered valuable service for a long time. They made an excellent team.

“And now turning back from dogs to Indian affairs. While I was in the Ranger service, the Indians killed a Mexican sheepherder, on the Pedernales. They scalped him and left his body lying in the sun. We were notified, and as soon as we could get there, we took the trail of the Indians, we soon found where they had camped. We looked around and found where they had trimmed the scalp of the Mexican. Little pieces of it were lying on the ground. We hastily followed the trail, expecting to come upon them at any time; but they had left a spy on their trail and he discovered us. He hastily overtook his comrades and notified them of their pursuit. The Indians got away; but we found their horses hid on a high ridge in a cedar thicket. This was near Point Creek. We rounded up the horses, and took them back with us and kept them till the owners got them. My brother, Monroe, lived awhile on Onion Creek in Gillespie County. One evening about sundown, he was surprised to see a lone Indian standing in the yard. The Indian made signs of friendliness, and was unarmed. My brother did not shoot him, but brought him over to my father’s house. My father would chain him at night, and allow him to go free in the daytime. When other people came, it seemed the Indian was afraid of being killed. He would pick up my little brother Sam, and carry him around. It seemed that he thought no one would shoot him as long as he had the white boy in his arms. He stayed there about a week, and would never utter a word, either in his own dialect or in Spanish. Father at last sent him to Fredericksburg to be jailed. I do not know what became of him.”

What was the condition of affairs in New Mexico, when you moved there? I asked. The old man replied:

“I landed in New Mexico, the 9th day of June, 1885. It was a new country, but the Indians there were harmless. Very few people lived at Seven Rivers then, but there were some lawless characters. Most of the people were good, honest, frontiersmen. Nine men were killed right there at Seven Rivers, after I moved there.

“Among them was Zach Light, a man well known in Mason County. Zach was a good fellow when sober, but bad when he was drunk. At this time he had been on a spree for about a week. A very quick gunman named Les Dow was running one of the saloons. One morning this man shot and killed Zach Light. I helped guard Dow that day; I told them I would help if they would disarm Dow. I knew he was very quick. At first he refused to give up his arms. Finally he said he would do so provided we would give them back to him in the case of a mob attacking him. I told him if any crowd of men appeared, that we could not control, we would return his arms to him. He then handed them over. We guarded him all that day till late in the evening, when the Judge came over and Dow stood an examining trial. He was released, as there was no evidence in the case save his own. His story was as follows: ‘Light came into the saloon and demanded a hundred dollars from me. I told him I could let him have twenty-five but not a hundred. He then drew his revolver, but I threw my hands under it and the discharged went above my head. I shot at the same time and killed Zach.’

“We never knew if he was telling the truth or not, but there was a bullet hole, high upon the wall of the saloon, that seemed to bear out his testimony. We took up Zach’s dead body and gave him a nice decent burial, for he was a man well liked as I said before when he was sober.”

These are some of the recollections of Lafe McDonald; it is remarkable how he remembers dates. He is hale and hearty for his age, and optimistic in everything. I have tried to relate his stories just as he told them, as nearly in his own language as possible. I could have probably gotten a better connection, had I but had a little more time. I had but about two hours one evening to interview him and take my notes and was interrupted then by friends and relatives calling in to see him, and the time being taken up socially. God bless the old-timers, they were heroes indeed. Their ranks are growing thinner every day, and we should try to preserve the records of their bravery and heroism, while we can get the information, that the rising generation may learn to appreciate the attributes of character of the founders of this wonderful country of ours. We know and respect them as heroes indeed, who paved the way far our wonderful progress, and civilization of today.

The writer knew Zach Light, well. He was quite a prominent character in and around Mason, in the eighties. He and his two brothers, John and Leward, were prominent cattlemen. As Mr. McDonald said, when sober, Zach was kind in his disposition and very accommodating. He would go his ‘entire length” as the cowboy expression has it, for a friend, The Lights and their outfit often penned their herds, in my father’s pens. Zach would come down to the house, and get me, then a small child and take me out to their camp. There I was petted and made the hero of the camp. The first silver dollar, I ever possessed, was given to me by Zach Light, for a little expression of wit on my part while in their camp. The laugh was turned on Zach and he said, “I will set ‘em up.” He handed me bright silver dollar, and to me it looked as large as the full moon, But Zach, got into a great deal of trouble, owing to strong drink. When drunk he was desperate. He killed one man in Kansas before coming to Texas; this man was named Newman, I think. Then he killed another in Mason, and got mixed up in several other serious difficulties. McDonald said he got shot one time in Mexico, before his tragic ending -and all owing to his tendency to drink. But those were “wild and wooly” days. An account of all the things that transpired around Mason, at that period would make an interesting volume, within itself.

James Axley, notes;

HISTORY
of the
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
in the United States of America

By Abel Stevens

---

VOLUME 4, BOOK 6

CHAPTER IX

METHODISM IN THE WEST, CONTINUED: 1804 — 1820

Progress in Illinois — Jesse Walker — His Pioneer Adventures — McKendree and Walker in the Wilderness — Walker's Camp-meeting — His Success — He enters Missouri — Oglesby and Travis there — Missouri Conference Organized — Walker's Sufferings — He Introduces Methodism into St. Louis — His Determined Struggles there — He goes to the Indian Tribes — Labors at Chicago — His Death and Character — Samuel Parker, "the Cicero of the West" — James Axley's extraordinary Character and Labors — He Attacks Slavery and Whisky — Peter Cartwright's Early Life — Remarkable Scene at a Quarterly Meeting — His extensive Services — David Young — John Collins — Judge McLean's Conversion and Character

We have seen the extension of the itinerant ministry to the Illinois territory, by Benjamin Young, in 1804, and his extreme sufferings there. He had been preceded, however, by less known laborers. The "real pioneer of the Church," says our best living Illinois authority, "was Capt. Joseph Ogle, who went thither in 1785. The first Methodist preacher was Joseph Lillard, who, in 1803, formed a class in St. Clair County, and appointed Captain Ogle leader. The next Methodist preacher was John Clarke, who originally traveled in South Carolina from 1791 to 1796, when he withdrew on account of slavery. He was the first man that preached the gospel west of the Mississippi, in 1798. Hosea Riggs was the first Methodist preacher that settled in Illinois, and he revived and reorganized the class at Captain Ogle's, formed by Lillard, which had dropped its regular meetings. From 1798 there seems to have been no regular preacher in Illinois till 1804; then Benjamin Young was sent as a missionary. In the fall of 1805 he re turned sixty-seven members, and Joseph Oglesby was appointed to succeed him on the Illinois Circuit." [1]

A notable character appeared on the scene in 1806, a man whose name is identified for years with the westward progress of Methodism. Jesse Walker was a native of North Carolina, [2] but early emigrated to Tennessee. He became a member of the Western Conference in 1802, and traveled circuits in Tennessee and Kentucky for about four years, before his indomitable spirit led him forth to pioneer the Church through Illinois and Missouri. His ministry in these first years was preparatory for the great work of his ensuing life; few men in Kentucky or Tennessee equaled him in labor or hardships. One of his contemporaries says: "He was a character perfectly unique; he had no duplicate. He was to the Church what Daniel Boone was to the early settler, always first, always ahead of everybody else, preceding all others long enough to be the pilot of the new-comer. He is found first in Davidson County, Tenn. He lived within about three miles of the then village of Nashville, and was at that time a man of family, poor, and, to a considerable extent, without education. He was admitted on trial in 1802, and appointed to the Red River Circuit. But the Minutes, in his case, are no guide, from the fact that he was sent by the bishops and presiding elders in every direction where new work was to be cut out. His natural vigor was almost superhuman. He did not seem to require food and rest as other men; no day's journey was long enough to tire him; no fare too poor for him to live on; to him, in traveling, roads and paths were useless things — he 'blazed' out his own course; no way was too bad for him — if his horse could not carry him he led him, and when his horse could not follow, he would leave him, and take it on foot; and if night and a cabin did not come together, he would pass the night alone in the wilderness, which with him was no uncommon occurrence. Looking up the frontier settler was his chief delight; and he found his way through hill and brake as by instinct — he was never lost; and, as Bishop McKendree once said of him, in addressing an annual Conference, he never complained. As the Church moved West and North it seemed to bear Walker before it. Every time you could hear from him he was still farther on; and when the settlements of the white man seemed to take shape and form, he was next heard of among the Indian tribes of the Northwest." [3]

His appointment to Illinois in 1806 was a mission to the whole territory. The region between Kentucky and the interior of this new field was yet a wilderness, and difficult to travel. McKendree, the presiding elder, set out, therefore, with his pioneer itinerant, to assist him on the way. They journeyed on horseback, sleeping in the woods on their saddle blankets, and cooking their meals under trees. "It was a time," says an authority who knew them both, "of much rain, the channels were full to overflowing, and no less than seven times their horses swam the rapid streams with their riders and baggage; but the travelers, by carrying their saddle bags on their shoulders, kept their Bibles and part of their clothes above the water. This was truly a perilous business. At night they had opportunity not only of drying their wet clothes and taking rest, but of prayer and Christian converse. In due time they reached their destination safely. McKendree remained a few weeks, visited the principal neighborhoods, aided in forming a plan of appointments for the mission, and the new settlers received them with much favor." [4]

Walker, alone in the territory, moved over it courageously, till the winter compelled him to suspend his circuit, plan, and commence operating from house to house, or rather from cabin to cabin, passing none without calling and delivering the gospel message. He was guided by the indications of Providence, and took shelter for the night wherever he could obtain it, so as to resume his labor early the next day, and he continued this course of toil till about the close of the winter. The result was a general revival with the opening spring, when the people were able to reassemble, and he to resume his regular plan. Shortly after this a young preacher was sent to his relief, and, being thus reinforced, he determined to include in the plan of the summer's campaign a camp-meeting, which was the more proper, because the people had no convenient place for worship but the forest. The site selected was near a beautiful spring of pure water. All friends of the enterprise were invited to meet upon the spot, on a certain day, with axes, saws, augers, and hammers for the work of preparation. The ground was cleared, and dedicated by prayer as a place of public worship. Walker took the lead of the preparatory work, and tents, seats, and pulpit were all arranged before the congregation assembled. It was the first experiment of the kind in that country; but it worked well. After the public services commenced there was no dispute among preacher or people as to the choice of pulpit orators. The senior preached, and the junior exhorted; then the junior preached, and the senior exhorted; and so on through the meeting of several days and nights, the intervals between sermon being occupied with prayer and praise. The meeting did not close till, as Walker expressed it, 'the last stick of timber was used up,' meaning, till the last sinner left on the ground was converted. The impulse which the work received from that camp-meeting was such that it extended through most of the settlements embraced in the mission, which was constantly enlarging its borders as the people moved into the territory. Walker visited one neighborhood near the Illinois river, containing some sixty or seventy souls. They all came to hear him; and; having preached three successive days, he read the General Rules, and proposed that as many of them as desired to unite to serve God, according to the Bible, should come forward and make it known. The most prominent man among them rose to his feet, and said, 'Sir, I trust we will all unite here with you to serve God;' then walked forward, and all the rest followed. As the result of his first year's experiment in Illinois, two hundred and eighteen Church members were reported in the printed Minutes." [5]

His next field was Missouri, and he continued to travel thenceforward, alternately in each territory, down to 1812, when, as presiding elder, he took command of all the Methodist interests of both; both appertaining to the Tennessee Conference. He had charge of districts in one or the other till 1819, when he was appointed Conference missionary, that he might range about "breaking up new ground," a work for which he was singularly fitted, and in which he persisted for years.

Before Walker's arrival, however, Methodism had penetrated Missouri. Joseph Oglesby, who was appointed to Illinois in 1804, writes that in June of 1805 he "reconnoitered the Missouri country to the extremity of the settlements, and had the pleasure of seeing Daniel Boone, the mighty hunter. He preached frequently, which was novel to the people, as he was the first Methodist that had ever preached in that territory." [6]

The first intimation that the Minutes give of an appointment to Missouri is in 1806, when Walker entered Illinois. John Travis, then a youth, recently admitted to the Western Conference, was dispatched immediately to the Missouri wilds, when the whole country had but about sixteen thousand inhabitants. His circuit pertained to the Cumberland District, which comprised West Tennessee, parts of Kentucky, Indiana, and Arkansas, and all Illinois and Missouri. The young pioneer returned a hundred white and six African members at the next Conference, at which two Missouri circuits were recorded, "Maramack and Missouri," and Walker and Edmund Wilcox sent to them. Slow but steady progress was made till the field was mature enough to be constituted a Conference in 1816, without a boundary on the West, "but including the last Methodist cabin, toward the setting sun," and taking in all Missouri and Illinois and the western part of Indiana. [7] Its first session was held in Shiloh Meeting-house, St. Clair County, Ill., about ten miles from St. Louis, September 23. McKendree presided, and John C. Harbison acted as secretary. Its original members were but seven, but, before the adjournment, candidates were admitted, enlarging the little corps to twenty-two. Seven of its appointments were in Missouri, four in Indiana, four in Illinois, and one in Arkansas, at Flat Springs, sixty-four miles southwest of Little Rock. The Conference included three thousand and forty-one members, only eight hundred and forty-one of whom were in Missouri Arkansas had one hundred and eight, Illinois nine hundred and sixty-eight, Indiana, one thousand one hundred and twenty-four.

Walker was a great sufferer as well as a great laborer in these fields.' "I think it was in the fall of 1819," says Peter Cartwright, "that our beloved old Brother Walker, who had traveled all his life, or nearly so, came over to our Tennessee Conference, which sat in Nashville, to see us; but O how weather-beaten and war-worn was he! — almost, if not altogether, without decent apparel to appear among us. We soon made a collection, and had him a decent suit of clothes to put on; and never shall I forget the blushing modesty and thankfulness with which he accepted that suit, and never did I and others have a stronger verification of our Lord's words, 'That it is more blessed to give than to receive.' " [8]

Though Jesse Walker was not the first Methodist itinerant in Missouri, he ranks as the principal founder of the denomination there. No obstruction could withstand his assaults. As pioneer, circuit preacher, presiding elder, he drove all opposition before him, and inspirited his co-laborers with his own energy, so that Methodism effectively superseded the original Roman Catholic predominance in that country. In 1820 he resolved to plant its standard in St. Louis, the Romish metropolis, where the itinerants had "never found rest for the soles of their feet." "He commenced laying the train," says his friend Morris, "at Conference, appointed a time to open the campaign and begin the siege, and engaged two young preachers of undoubted courage, such as he believed would stand by him 'to the bitter end,' to meet him at a given time and place, and to aid him in the difficult enterprise. Punctual to their engagement, they all met, and proceeded to the city together. When they reached it the territorial legislature was in session there, and every public place appeared to be full. The missionaries preferred private lodgings, but could obtain none. Some people laughed at them, and others cursed them to their face. Thus embarrassed at every point, they rode into the public square, and held a consultation on their horses. The prospect was gloomy enough, and every avenue seemed closed against them. The young preachers expressed strong doubts as to their being in the path of duty. Their leader tried to encourage them, but in vain. They thought that if the Lord had any work for them there to do, there would surely be some way to get to it. They thought it best immediately to return to the place from which they had come; and, though their elder brother entreated them not to leave him, they deliberately shook off the dust of their feet for a testimony against the wicked city, and, taking leave of Walker, rode off, and left him sitting on his horse. Perhaps that hour brought with it more of the feeling of despondency to Jesse Walker than he ever experienced in any other hour of his eventful life; and, stung with disappointment, he said in his haste, 'I will go to the state of Mississippi, and hunt up the lost sheep of the house of Israel;' and immediately turned his horse in that direction, and with a sorrowful heart rode off alone. Having proceeded about eighteen miles he came to a halt, and entered into a soliloquy on this wise: 'Was I ever defeated before in this blessed work? Never. Did any one ever trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and get confounded? No; and, by the grace of God, I will go back and take St. Louis.' Then, reversing his course, without seeking either rest or refreshment for man or beast, he immediately retraced his steps to the city, and, with some difficulty, obtained lodgings in an indifferent inn, where he paid at the highest rate for everything. Next morning he commenced a survey of the city and its inhabitants. He met with some members of the territorial legislature, who knew him, and said, 'Why, Father Walker, what has brought you here?' his answer was, 'I have come to take St. Louis.' They thought it a hopeless undertaking, and, to convince him that it was so, remarked that the inhabitants were mostly Catholics and infidels, very dissipated and wicked, and that there was no probability that a Methodist preacher could obtain any access to them, and seriously advised him to abandon the enterprise and return to his family, then residing in Illinois. But to all such expressions Walker returned one answer: 'I have come, in the name of Christ, to take St. Louis, and, by the grace of God, I will do it.' His first public experiment was in a temporary place of worship occupied by a handful of Baptists. There were, however, but few present. Nothing special occurred, and he obtained leave to preach again. During the second effort there were strong indications of religious excitement, and the Baptists actually closed their doors against him. He next found a large but unfinished dwelling-house, and succeeded in renting it, as it was, for ten dollars a month. Passing by the public square he saw some old benches stacked away at the end of the courthouse, which had been recently refitted with new ones. These he obtained from the commissioner, had them put on a dray, and removed to his hired house, borrowed tools, and repaired with his own hands such as were broken, and fitted up his largest room for a place of worship. After completing his arrangements he commenced preaching regularly twice on the Sabbath, and occasionally in the evenings between the Sabbaths. At the same time he gave notice that if there were any poor parents who wished their children taught to spell and read he would teach them five days in a week without fee or reward, and if there were any who wished their servants to learn he would teach them on the same terms in the evenings. In order to be always on the spot, and to render his expenses as light as possible, he took up his abode in his own hired house. The chapel room was soon filled with hearers, and the school with children. In the mean time he went to visit his family, and returned with a horse load of provisions and bedding, determined to remain there and push the work till something was accomplished. Very soon a work of grace commenced. About this time an event occurred that seemed at first to be against the success of his mission, but which eventuated in its favor. The hired house changed hands, and he was notified to vacate it in a short time. Immediately he conceived a plan for building a small frame chapel, and, without knowing where the funds were to come from he put the work under contract. A citizen, owning land across the Mississippi, gave him leave to take the lumber from his forest as a donation. Soon the chapel was raised and covered. The vestrymen of a small Episcopal church, then without a minister, made him a present of their old Bible and cushion. They also gave him their pews, which he accepted on condition of their being free; and, having unscrewed the shutters, and laid them by, he lost no time in transferring the open pews to his new chapel. New friends came to his relief in meeting his contracts. The chapel was finished, and opened for public worship, and was well filled. The revival received a fresh impulse, and, as the result of the first year's experiment, he reported to Conference a snug little chapel erected and paid for, a flourishing school, and seventy Church members in St. Louis. Of course he was regularly appointed the next year to that mission station, but without any missionary appropriation, and he considered it an honorable appointment. Thus 'Father Walker,' as every one about 'the city called him, succeeded in taking St. Louis, which, as he expressed it, 'had been the very stronghold of devilism.' Some idea of the changes which had been there effected for the better, may be inferred from the fact that the Missouri Conference held its session in that city October 24, 1822, when William Beauchamp was appointed successor of the indefatigable Walker. St. Louis, now a large and flourishing city, is well supplied with churches and a churchgoing people."

Having effectually broken the way open for Methodism in Missouri, during sixteen years, Walker, eager for pioneer adventures, went, in 1823, to the Indian tribes up the Mississippi, where he labored till 1830, when the hero of so many fields was esteemed the man for other new work, and was appointed to the extreme North, to Chicago Mission, "where he succeeded," says Peter Cartwright, "in planting Methodism in that then infant city. In 1881 he was sent to the Des Plaines Mission, and organized many small societies in the young and rising country." In 1832 there was a Chicago District formed, mostly of missionary ground. Walker was superintendent of this district, and missionary to Chicago town; and although he was stricken in years, and well-nigh worn out, having spent a comparatively long life on the frontiers, yet the veteran had the respect and admiration of the whole community, and in 1838 was continued in the City Missionary Station. This year closed his active itinerant life. "He had," says Cartwright, "done effective service as a traveling preacher for more than thirty years, and had lived poor, and suffered much; had won thousands of souls over to Christ, and firmly planted Methodism for thousands of miles on our frontier border. In 1834 he asked for and obtained a superannuated relation, in which he lived till the fifth of October, 1835, and then left the world in holy triumph. He was the first minister who, by the authority of the Methodist Church, gave me my first permit to exhort. We have fought side by side for many years, we have suffered hunger and want together, we have often wept and prayed and preached together; I hope we shall sing and shout together in heaven." [9]

He died, "in confident hope of a blessed immortality," in 1835. He was five feet seven inches high, of slender but vigorous frame, sallow complexion, light hair, prominent cheeks, small blue eyes, a generous and cheerful expression; and dressed always in drab-colored clothes, of the plainest Quaker fashion, with a light-colored beaver hat, "nearly as large as a ladies' parasol." He had extraordinary aptness to win the confidence and sympathy of "backwoodsmen;" his friendships were most hearty, his courage equal to any test, his piety thorough, his talents as a preacher moderate. His great talent was his great character.

Methodism became mighty in Missouri Conference, numbering nearly twenty-four thousand members before the southern secession of 1844; but that event rent the Church to pieces; the war of the rebellion still further devastated the great field. Peace has restored the denomination, and the Missouri Conference still exists, with reorganized plans of usefulness.

During these years men of genuine greatness of character and talents were continually rising up in the western itinerancy. Samuel Parker, born in New Jersey in 1774, and converted in his fourteenth year, was a man of genius, and was called the Cicero of the western ministry. After laboring four years as a local preacher, he was received into the Western Conference in 1805. For three years he traveled in Kentucky, and in 1808 was sent to Miami Circuit, Ohio, which included Cincinnati. Here his natural eloquence attained its climax. The people thronged from great distances to hear him; his word was irresistible, and "wherever he went," says one of his contemporaries, "wondering and weeping audiences crowded about him." [10] He possessed an exceedingly musical voice, a clear, keen mind, an imagination which, though never extravagant, afforded frequent and brilliant illustrations of his subject, while his ardent piety imparted wonderful tenderness and power to his appeals. Withal, his personal appearance was striking before he became attenuated with disease, he was nearly six feet high, had a remarkably intellectual countenance, with a full forehead, and a black, piercing eye.

In 1809 he became presiding elder on a district which included Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. "From the White River, in Indiana, to the farthest settler in Missouri," says Finley, "did this herald of the cross proclaim the glad tidings of salvation" through four years, and "so 'mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed,' " that the district had to be divided. Its three hundred and eighty-two members, at his beginning, had increased to more than two thousand when he left it. He continued north and west of the Ohio, with increasing influence and success, till 1815, when he was made presiding elder in Kentucky, where his great eloquence commanded general interest. In 1819 he was appointed to lead the itinerants who were extending the Church in the far southwest, on the memorable Mississippi District. They needed such a man; but his health was broken, and it seemed but an appointment to martyrdom. He was ready for it, nevertheless, and when it was announced, at the close of the Conference, in Cincinnati, " it seemed," says a spectator, "that a wave of sympathy rolled over the whole Conference." His malady (pulmonary consumption) rapidly advanced when he reached his new field. He was never indeed able to perform any labor on the district. He sank down and died in 1819. William Winans, whom he had called out to preach, in Ohio, was now in the south, and attended him in death, and followed him to his grave, in Washington, Miss. "He died," says Winans, "not only peacefully, but triumphantly." "Love inspired his whole being, breathed from his lips, and beamed with heavenly radiance from his countenance."

James Axley has left traditions of his character and work in the Church from Indiana to Louisiana. A fellow-laborer (himself one of the most genuine products of nature and the West) has said that Axley "was the most perfect child of nature I ever knew." [11] He was born on New River, Va., in 1776, removed, in childhood, to Kentucky, where he became a hunter and thrifty farmer, joined the Methodists in 1802, and in 1805 entered the itinerant ministry. He was tossed about, with singular rapidity, in his appointments, from Tennessee to Ohio, from Ohio to the Holston Mountains, from Holston to Opelousas, in Louisiana, back again to Holston, then to the Wabash District, in Indiana, back again to the Holston District for four years, thence to Green River District in Kentucky, and finally to French Broad District, among the Alleghenies of North Carolina. In 1822 he located, near Madisonville, Tenn., where he died in 1838. Through this vast range of his ministerial travels he was one of the most energetic, most popular, and most useful preachers of the times. His pulpit talents were not above mediocrity, his manners utterly unpolished; but he combined with profound piety and much tender sensibility the shrewdest sense, an astonishing aptness of speech, and an exhaustless humor. The latter, however, was usually so well directed that it seemed wisdom itself; arrayed in smiles. Few, if any, of his contemporaries drew larger audiences, for Axley was irresistible to the western people. A bishop of the Church has given us our fullest record of him. [12] "His person was imposing. He was perhaps five feet eight inches high, not corpulent, but very broad and compactly built, formed for strength; his step was firm, his face was square, complexion dark, eyebrows heavy, appearance rugged, and he dressed in the costume of our fathers, with straight-breasted coat, and broad-brimmed hat projecting over a sedate countenance. His widespread fame as a natural genius without any early education, and especially the numerous incidents I had heard of him as a western pioneer, had excited in me a greater desire for his personal acquaintance than that of any other living man I had ever seen except Jacob Gruber. As I neared him I held out my right hand and received his, when the following salutations were exchanged: 'How are you, Brother Axley?' 'Who are you?' 'My name is Thomas A. Morris.' Then, surveying me from head to foot, he replied, 'Upon my word, I think they were hard pushed for bishop-timber when they got hold of you.' 'That is just what I thought myself; Brother Axley.' 'Why, you look too young for a bishop.' 'As to that, I am old enough to know more and do better.' Turning back with me, we walked to our lodging, being both quartered at the same place. Every hour that I could redeem from Conference and council business was enlivened by his quaint but thrilling narratives of his early travels, labors, and difficulties. He spiced the whole with such apt remarks and consummate good humor that the attention of the company never faltered. Never was I better entertained or more instructed with the conversation of a fellow-sojourner in one week than with his. There were points of singular contrast in his character. His exterior was rough as a block of granite fresh from the quarry, and his manner of reproving disorderly persons at popular meetings over which he presided was said to indicate severity, yet his conscience was so tender, and his moral sensibility so acute, that a mere suggestion from a friend that he had erred in any given case would draw from him prompt acknowledgment, with a shower of tears. In social intercourse he was both kind and attractive. His conversational talent was of a superior order. Without classical learning, or much pretension to book knowledge, he was such a master in practical, everyday affairs, that he could not only delight, but instruct sages and divines. He was proverbial for his opposition to slavery and whisky. After he located he supported his family by the labor of his own hands as a farmer, and was wont to testify, on all proper occasions, that his logs were rolled, his house raised, and his grain cut without whisky; and though he had plentiful crops of corn not the first track of a Negro's foot was ever seen in one of his fields."

Sufficient evidence has heretofore been given to show that he shared fully the opinions of the western ministry on the subjects of temperance and slavery. They saw that whisky was becoming the bane of their rude but grand country, and Axley preached numerous sermons against the distillation of the "fire-waters." They saw slavery also gradually invading the fair domain, and threatening to dishonor labor and demoralize their social life. The strongest men among them arrayed themselves against it. Not a few intelligent laymen emigrated, like McCormick, beyond the Ohio, that they might raise their families away from its menacing evils. "I do not recollect," says Peter Cartwright, "a single Methodist preacher of that day who justified slavery." Many who could not well remove opposed the encroaching barbarism sturdily. Quarterly Conferences acted uncompromisingly against it, and as early as 1808, when all western Methodism was still comprised in the "Old Western Conference," that body enacted stringent anti-slavery laws, which were signed on the journals by Bishops Asbury and McKendree. The latter was at that time a decided abolitionist, as contemporary documents show.

Axley joined the Conference at the same time with Parker and Cartwright. To the latter he was of course a congenial mind. "We were always," says Cartwright, "bosom friends till he closed his earthly pilgrimage." Cartwright records "an illustration of Axley's extraordinary faith," which is an equal illustration of the character of the times and the country. They were at a camp-meeting in Tennessee, Axley endeavoring to sustain order among a crew of "rowdies" while Cartwright was preaching. "They actually threatened to lay the cowhide over him," says the latter. "He replied with great calmness and firmness that that was not the place for an encounter, and that, if they were really bent on fighting, they must retire outside the encampment. Immediately he found himself in the midst of a crowd there. Axley remarked that he could not possibly go into the fight until he had prayed, and instantly knelt down. He poured forth his heart in a strain of uncommon fervor; the base fellows themselves were actually disarmed, and such an impression of reverence and solemnity came over them that they at once abandoned their impious design, and behaved themselves with perfect decorum. On the Monday following he preached a sermon, under which several of them were melted into tears. When the awakened came forward for the prayers of the Church there were found among them a number of these persons, and, before the meeting closed, some of them professed to have become new creatures in Christ Jesus."

His opposition to spirituous liquors led him to introduce into the General Conference of 1812 a resolution against their use by Church members. It failed; but he repeated the effort in 1816. Many in the Conference opposed him, making merry with his quaint speeches. "He turned his face to the wall and wept," says Laban Clark, who joined him in the measure. He persisted, however; and at last triumphed. "I remember," says Clark, "particularly on the first occasion of my meeting him, Axley made rather a strange and grotesque appearance. He wore a short cloak, and a round Quaker hat, and, as he rode on horseback, made a figure which could hardly fail to arrest the attention of all the passers by. To the boys who ran after him in the street he turned round and said, 'Go along, aint you ashamed of yourselves?' which only made them 'hurrah' the more boisterously. He was evidently a man of great native power, was social and pleasant, and always left the impression that he was living under the influence of the powers of the world to come."

Peter Cartwright was born in Amherst County, Va., in 1785, the son of a soldier of the Revolution, who hated Negro as well as white slavery. [13] He early settled in Kentucky, where his son was trained amid the wildest scenes of frontier life, but taught to fear God by his Methodist mother. He grew up, therefore, thoroughly seasoned with western hardihood, but saved from many of the vices prevalent around him. In his ninth year he heard the itinerant, Jacob Lurton, preach in his father's cabin, and describes him as "a real son of thunder." "My mother," he adds, "shouted aloud for joy." [14] A small class was formed at about four miles distance, to which his good mother walked every week. At last they built a little church, and called it "Ebenezer." Methodism on the old Cumberland Circuit had thrown its spiritual shelter over the wandering family, and chose their adventurous boy, their only son, for one of its chief western pioneers. In his sixteenth year, after dancing at a wedding, he went home with an awakened conscience. Unable to sleep, he spent much of the night on his knees with his praying mother, and, sometime afterward, was converted at a camp-meeting. He joined the Church, at "Ebenezer," in 1801, when there were less than twenty-five hundred Methodists and about fifteen traveling preachers west of the Alleghenies. Striking anomaly of human life, possible perhaps nowhere else than in this new world, that this young hunter of the frontier should still, while we trace these lines, be abroad an active apostle of his Church, amid mighty states then unborn, but now equal to more than half of Europe, an empire of liberty and Christianity stretching from the Alleghenies to the Pacific.

In 1802 he was licensed to exhort by Jesse Walker, a congenial spirit. He applied himself to study, conducted public meetings, formed classes, and received "the celebrated James Axley into the Church." The young exhorter actually thus formed the Lexington Circuit in 1803; and the next year Walker was its preacher. At last, in his nineteenth year, urged by his pious mother, but opposed by his father, he went forth as a circuit preacher " under the residing elder." At the Conference of 1804, held at Mount Gerizim, Ky., he was received on probation. Of all the itinerants of that session he is the only survivor. The bare enumeration of his subsequent "appointments" would cover pages. In Tennessee, Kentucky, in almost every portion of the Northwestern Territory, he fought courageously the battles of his Church; not always with the voice, but sometimes, like Finley and others, he had to use his stout fist against the onset of semi-barbarous mobs. A frontier man, he knew the perils and necessities of frontier life; and when his appeals to the conscience of his sometimes half savage hearers could not prevail, and especially when the decorum of public worship, or the safety of his congregations has been periled, he could show himself physically formidable, and make the mob recoil. We need to read the record of such a life as his with somewhat of the moral license of the early frontier spirit. "My voice," he says, "at that day was strong and clear, and I could sing, exhort, pray, and preach almost all the time, day and night." Some of his meetings lasted all night. His circuits were like lines of battle, continually in excitement, if not commotion. Some of his quarterly meetings were not only scenes of spiritual conflict and victory, but of "hand-to-hand fights" with the rabble. One of them, on Scioto Circuit, in 1805, was held in the woods. The mob, led on by two champions, who bore "loaded whips," invaded it. Cartwright called from the stand upon two magistrates in the assembly to arrest the leaders, but they replied that it was impossible. He came forward himself; offering to do it for them, but the assailants struck at him. The greatest tumult ensued; the congregation was in confusion; the whole mob pressed upon him and his friends. He seized one after another of the principal rioters, and threw them to the earth, including a drunken magistrate who had taken sides with them. "Just at this moment," he writes, "the ringleader of the mob and I met. He made three passes at me, intending to knock me down. The last time he struck at me, by the force of his own effort he threw the side of his face toward me. It seemed at that moment I had not power to resist temptation, and I struck a sudden blow in the burr of the ear, and felled him to the earth. The friends of order now rushed by hundreds on the mob, knocking them down in every direction. In a few minutes the place became too strait for the mob, and they wheeled, and fled in every direction; but we secured about thirty prisoners, marched them off to a vacant tent, and put them under guard till Monday morning, when they were tried, and every man was fined to the utmost limits of the law. They fined my old drunken magistrate twenty dollars, and returned him to court, and he was cashiered of his office. On Sunday, when we had vanquished the mob, the whole encampment was filled with mourning; an although there was no attempt to resume preaching till evening, yet, such was our confused state, there was not then a single preacher on the ground willing to preach, from the presiding elder; John Sale, down. Seeing we had fallen on evil times, my spirit was stirred within me. I said to the elder, 'I feel a clear conscience, for under the necessity of the circumstances we have done right, and now I ask you to let me preach.' 'Do,' said the elder, 'for there is no other man on the ground can do it.' The encampment was lighted up, the trumpet blown, I rose in the stand, and required every soul to leave the tents, and come into the congregation. There was a general rush to the stand. I requested the brethren, if ever they prayed in all their lives, to pray now. My voice was strong and clear, and my preaching was more of an exhortation and encouragement than anything else. My text was, 'The gates of hell shall not prevail.' In about thirty minutes the power of God fell on the congregation in such a manner as is seldom seen. The people fell in every direction, right and left, front and rear. It was supposed that not less than three hundred fell like dead men in battle, there was no need of calling mourners, for they were strewed all over the campground. Our meeting lasted all night, and Monday and Monday night; and when we closed on Tuesday, there were two hundred who had professed religion, and about that number joined the Church. Brother Axley and myself pulled together like true yoke-fellows. We were both raised in the backwoods, and well understood frontier life."

Similar scenes were hardly rare on the western frontier. Irreconcilable as they may be to our sense of religious decorum, they are essential illustrations of the time. History cannot evade them, even if we should not feel a lurking sympathy with the rude courage which they too often provoked beyond all self-control.

For nearly seventy years Peter Cartwright has been a Methodist, for nearly sixty-five an itinerant preacher; for about fifty years a presiding elder; twelve times he has shared in the General Conferences of his Church. In his long ministerial life he has not lost six months from his regular work for any cause whatever. "For twenty years of my ministry," he writes, "I often preached twice a day, and sometimes three times. We seldom ever had in those days more than one rest day in a week, so that I feel very safe in saying that I preached four hundred times a year. I was converted on a campground, and for many years of my early ministry, after I was appointed presiding elder, lived in the tented grove from two to three months in the year. I have lived to see this vast western wilderness rise and improve, and become wealthy without a parallel in the history of the world; I have outlived every member of my father's family; I have no father, no mother, no brother, no sister living; I have outlived every member of the class I joined in 1800; I have outlived every member of the Western Conference in 1804; I have outlived nearly every member of the first General Conference that I was elected to, in Baltimore, in 1816; I have outlived all my early bishops; I have outlived every presiding elder that I ever had when on circuit; and I have outlived hundreds and thousands of contemporary ministers and members, as well as junior, and still linger on the mortal shores. Though all these have died they shall live again, and, by the grace of God, I shall live with them in heaven forever. Why I live God only knows. I certainly have toiled and suffered enough to kill a thousand men, but I do not complain. Thank God for health, strength, and grace, that have borne me up, and borne me on; thank God that during my long and exposed life as a Methodist preacher, I have never been overtaken with any scandalous sin, though my shortcomings and imperfections have been without number."

He has received into the Church some twelve thousand members, and led into the itinerancy scores, if not hundreds, of preachers. Rough and hardy as the oak; overflowing with geniality and humor; a tireless worker and traveler; a sagacious counselor, giving often in the strangest disguises of wit and humor the shrewdest suggestions of wisdom; an unfailing friend, an incomparable companion, a faithful patriot, and an earnest Methodist, Peter Cartwright has been, for nearly three generations, one of the most noted, most interesting, most inexplicable men of the West and of Methodism.

David Young's labors, especially in Ohio, were long and successful. He was born in Bedford County, Va., was well trained at home, where he had the then rare advantage of a good library, and by becoming a studious youth, prepared an intelligent and effective manhood. From his seventh year he was seldom without religious reflection. In 1803 he emigrated to Tennessee, where he taught a grammar school and in the same year was converted, and became a Methodist. The next year he was "exhorting," and in 1805 joined the Conference. His appointments were for some time in Tennessee; but in 1811 he was sent to Ohio, where he labored, with commanding influence, down to 1849, when he was placed on the "superannuated list." He suffered from disease most of his life, the effect of his early itinerant exposures. His self-education, improving good natural powers, secured him "the first rank among his brother ministers." [15] He was always master of his subject. "His logical method, associated with fervency of spirit, enchained his auditory. Sometimes his pathos was overwhelming, for he was often a weeping prophet. Fond of reading, he had in store a large amount of general literature, which gave great interest to his preaching. His voice was pleasant, though sometimes shrill and penetrating; his gesticulation graceful, and his whole manner peculiarly solemn and impressive." He led into the communion and ministry of the Church its present senior bishop, who describes him as "tall and slender, but straight and symmetrical. His step was elastic. He wore the straight-breasted coat, and the broad-brimmed hat usual among early Methodist preachers. His yellow hair, all combed back, hung in great profusion about his neck and shoulders, giving him an imposing appearance. His blue eyes were prominent, and exceedingly penetrating. I heard a Virginia lawyer say that he could withstand the direct contact of any preacher's eye in the pulpit he ever saw, except David Young's; but his always made him quail. In manners he was a finished gentleman of the Virginia school. He abounded in incident, and had a rare talent at narration, both in and out of the pulpit. Yet, as a minister, he was grave and dignified. No man conducted a public religious service more solemnly or impressively than he did, especially in reading the scriptures or in prayer. His deep religious emotion was always apparent in his prayers and his sermons. On special occasions, while applying the momentous truths of the gospel, he stood on his knees in the pulpit, and, with many tears, entreated sinners, as in Christ's stead, to be reconciled God. Among the most celebrated Methodist preachers of the great West fifty years ago were William Beauchamp, Samuel Parker, and David Young, each of whom excelled in his own way. Beauchamp was the most instructive, Parker the most practical and persuasive, and Young the most overpowering. Under the preaching of Beauchamp light seemed to break on the most bewildered understanding; under that of Parker, multitudes of people melted like snow before an April sun; while, under the ministry of Young, I knew whole assemblies electrified, as suddenly and as sensibly as if coming in contact with a galvanic battery. I have myself; under some of his powerful appeals, felt the cold tremors passing over me, and the hair on my head apparently standing on end. On camp-meeting occasions, where the surroundings were unusually exciting, it has sometimes happened that vast numbers of persons have simultaneously sprung from their seats, and rushed up as near to the pulpit as they could, apparently unconscious of having changed positions." He died at Zanesville in 1858. His descent to the grave was like a serene going down of the sun. "I am calmly," he said, "though through great physical suffering, nearing my better home." [16]

John Collins has already appeared in our pages as founding the Church in Cincinnati. He was born in New Jersey in 1769, and was of Quaker parentage. When very young his attention was drawn to religious subjects by hearing a hymn sung as he passed the house of a neighbor. For several years he struggled against his convictions, living a moral life, but attaining no rest for his soul. He went to Charleston, S. C., in order to escape his local associations, and, if possible, become a more decided Christian away from the observations of his acquaintances, but failed, and, returning home, was converted in 1794. He soon began to preach, but with much self-distrust, and doubt of his divine call to the ministry. Learner Blackman, his brother-in-law, was saved by his first sermon, and Collins now hesitated no more, especially as he further ascertained that ten or twelve of his kindred were awakened by the same discourse. [17] His word, even his casual allusions to religion, seemed to have remarkable effect. He had been appointed major of militia, but now resigned the office, and sold his uinform to his successor, saying to him, "My friend, when you put these on, think of the reason why laid them off." The brief sentence was "a nail fastened in a sure place." It so impressed the young officer that he also resigned the post, and became a Methodist. [18]

Blackman went to the West, where, as has been noticed, he became a champion of the itinerancy from Ohio to Louisiana. Collins followed him in 1803, and located his family in Clermont County, about twenty-five miles west of Cincinnati. He thus became a co-laborer with McCormick, Gatch, Tiffin, and Scott in founding the denomination in the Northwestern Territory.

In 1807 he joined the itinerancy. His appointments, with two intervals of "location," were all in Ohio for thirty years. In 1837 his infirmities required him to retreat into a "superannuated relation." He lived yet about seven years a serene Christian life, venerated by the Church, beloved for his memorable services, his gentle manners, his catholicity, his pathetic eloquence, and his cheerful piety. He died a blessed death, in 1845. "Happy! happy! happy!" were his last words.

The fruits of his ministry abounded in all parts of Ohio, for his superior character and talents gave him extraordinary influence among all classes of the population. Among other eminent citizens he led into the Church John McLean, afterward judge of the Supreme Court of the nation, and the biographer of the itinerant. Born in New Jersey in 1785, McLean emigrated successively to Western Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. When eighteen years old he began his legal education, in Cincinnati, under Arthur St. Clair. He gave himself meanwhile to general studies in almost every department of science and literature. He became skeptical in religion, but, after his admission to the bar at Lebanon, Ohio, in 1807, he was rescued by Collins. One of the judge's biographers says, "Collins had an appointment to preach in a private house at Lebanon. The people crowded the rooms, and many had to stand about the doors. Among these was McLean, who stood where he could hear distinctly, though, as he thought, unobserved by the speaker. During the discourse, however, he fell under the notice of Collins' keen eye, and his prepossessing appearance attracted at the first glance the notice of the preacher. He paused a moment, and mentally offered up a short prayer for the conversion of the young man. Resuming his discourse, the first word he uttered was 'eternity.' That word was spoken with a voice so solemn and impressive that its full import was felt by McLean. All things besides appeared to be nothing in comparison to it. He soon sought an acquaintance with Collins, and, a short time after this, accompanied him to one of his appointments in the country, and, at the close of the sermon, he remained in class to inquire what he must do to be saved. On their return to Lebanon Collins told his young friend that he had a request to make of him which was reasonable, and he hoped would not be rejected. The request was, that he would read the New Testament at least fifteen minutes every day till his next visit. The promise was made, and strictly performed. After this a covenant was entered into by the parties to meet each other at the throne of grace at the setting of the sun. The agreed suppliants had not continued their daily, united, and earnest prayers long before McLean was justified by faith, and realized the great blessing of 'the washing of regeneration and, renewing of the Holy Ghost.' " [19]

The United States never had a more upright or more honorable citizen, nor American Methodism a more faithful member than Judge McLean. He was commanding in person, tall, and symmetrical in stature, with a Platonic brow, thoughtful, tranquil features, and the most modest but cordial manners. He was an able statesman, almost infallible in his cautious judgment, a thoroughly devoted Christian, persevering and punctual in the minutest duties of his Church, and catholic in his regard for good men of whatever sect. Lawyer, member of Congress, supreme judge of Ohio, member of the cabinets of Monroe and Adams, and supreme justice of the Republic, he passed through a long life unblemished, and above all his titles, gloried in that of a Christian.

McLean says of Collins that as both a local and an itinerant minister it is supposed that the Methodist Church in the West has not had a more successful preacher. He was a marked man in his person. He always wore the primitive Quaker dress. His forehead was high, his eyes small, but very expressive, and over all his feature was spread an air of refinement, a sort of intellectual and benevolent glow, that immediately won the interest of the spectator. And his spirit and manners corresponded with these indications. The unction of divine grace abode upon his soul. He was always interesting in the pulpit, and not infrequently extremely affecting. A very fountain of pathos welled up in his devout heart, and seldom did he preach without weeping himself, and constraining his audience to weep. One who heard him several days in succession, at a quarterly meeting, said, "I came to the conclusion that the 'British Spy' only dreamed of a pulpit orator, that it was left for me to behold one."

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ENDNOTES

1 Peter Cartwright's "Autobiography," p. 167.

2 Bishop Morris, in Sprague, p. 380. There Is no record of his early life; Minutes 1836-7.

3 Biographical Sketches, p. 53.

4 Bishop Morris, in Sprague, p. 381.

5 Bishop Morris.

6 Life, etc., of Allen Wiley, p. 53. Cincinnati, 1853.

7 Papers on "the Origin of Methodism in Missouri," by Rev. E. H. Waring, in "Central Christian Advocate."

8 Cartwright's Autobiography p. 489.

9 Cartwright's Autobiography, p. 491.

10 Finley's Sketches of Western Methodism, p. 206.

11 Peter Cartwright, in Sprague, p. 416.

12 Bishop Morris, in Finley's Sketches, p. 231.

13 Letter of Peter Cartwright to the author. Dec., 1865.

14 Cartwright's Autobiography, p. 24. New York, 1856.

15 Rev. Dr. Trimble, in Sprague, p. 431.

16 Obituary, by Rev J. W. White, in Western Christian Advocate.

17 "Sketch of the Life of Rev. John Collins, by Judge McLean, p. 11. Cincinnati, 1852.

18 Rev. J. F. Wright, in Western Christian Adv., October, 1847.

19 Bishop Clark, in Ladies' Repository, p. 66. Cincinnati, 1859.

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