Friday, March 27, 2020

John Lafayette Vaughan and Belle Starr

When I first got into genealogy in middle school, the first materials I was given were about my mother's family, the Vaughans. My great aunt Dale had materials she'd gotten from her cousin Colleen, her aunt Lou, and other relatives, and she brought copies for me to a family reunion at Robber's Cave State Park near Wilburton, Oklahoma. I still have all the original copies of those papers she gave me because they started my life-long obsession with genealogy on a great footing.

One of the items she gave me was an undated photocopy of a newspaper article about my great great grandfather John Lafayette Vaughan. It was called "Death of Belle Starr" recalled. A writer for the McAlester News-Capital named Baird Martin would comb through the paper's archives every so often looking for interesting articles to reprint. One of the articles Martin found was an interview given by Vaughan to a reported named Charles H. Cowles.

Martin pulled only a handful of quotes and gave a summary of the interview, but I always wanted to find the full, original interview. I eventually found out the reprinted article was from about 1968, but he never gave the date of the original article's publication, only stating that it was published some 35 years prior to his re-hashing of the article. McAlester's newspaper was never digitized for general public consumption, so I never had a way of finding the article short of requesting all the microfilm for roughly 1932-1934 and combing it day by day.

Recently I learned that the McAlester newspapers, including the News-Capital, had in fact been digitized, but most were only available on-site at the McAlester Library. You had to be logged into their Wi-Fi to access these archives. Fortunately, one of the librarians, Christopher Elliott, was kind enough to dig around enough in the papers from the early 1930s until he found what I needed.

The article was better than I could have ever dreamed it would be. The only negative was that the writer stopped his interview halfway through and said it was "to be continued" in a later edition...but he never continued it. His next article referenced a couple more stories from Vaughan, but did not pick up where the first interview left off with Vaughan discussing Judge Parker and the trial for Belle Starr's killer. Mr. Elliott could not find that second half of the interview, and when I finally connected to the McAlester Wi-Fi myself to search day-by-day in June of 1933 for it, I also could not find it.

I even had the inkling to contact descendants of Mr. Cowles to see if by chance his notes had survived in any capacity. I found that he died in prison in Detroit in 1941, but I don't know why he was sent to prison. Besides the McAlester News-Capital, he had worked for the Detroit Free Press before coming to Oklahoma and working for various newspapers. By 1940, he is enumerated in the Census for that year in prison; I am certain it is the same person because he gives his 1935 residence as "McAlister, OK". Genealogy websites indicate he did have 4 children, but I have not yet reached a descendant to find out if notes that might contain the second half of his interview with John Lafayette Vaughan might be around. It's a ridiculously long shot, but I want to leave no stone unturned.

But given the unlikelihood that the second half will be found, I am forced to be happy with the parts I do have. And believe me, I am thrilled about finally having his full interview after around 20 years of wishing for it. It gives explicit details about his connections to Belle Starr, her husband Sam, her daughter Pearl, her father-in-law Tom, and others and confirms a lot of the family legends about his connection to the Starr family. For a full biography of his very interesting life with over a dozen pictures of him, please see my recently updated blog post here: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/08/john-lafayette-vaughan-belle-starr.html

Without further ado, here is my transcription of Vaughan's interviews. You'll note that the original article does not actually include his name as the source of the information, but a correction was published the next day proving he was indeed the interview's orator. I have made a handful of corrections/amendments for spelling and clarity which are indicated by brackets.


John Lafayette Vaughan as a young man in his late teens or early 20s, around the age he would have been during the events his discusses in this interview. 

McAlester News-Capital – 4 Jun 1933 – Page 8
County Pioneer Tells Interesting Story of Contacts with Territorial Days’ Outlaws
[Author not stated; should be Charles H. Cowles]

The worst desperado, the greatest man-killer that ever roamed the wilds of Oklahoma, was a giant, seven feet three inches in height, weighing 270 pounds and wearing No. 16 shoes. He could not buy shoes in the stores—had to have them made to order. This blood-thirsty fiend was Tom Starr. He never stole a horse or robbed a bank or [train]. He was a gambler and a very successful one. His home was the [Briartown] settlement where the town of Porum now stands.

“I lived on the place of Martin Crowder, an aged Indian, 40 miles northwest of McAlester on the Canadian river five miles from Tom Starr’s home, and this aged man became very friendly with me and told me what Tom Starr had imparted to him.


Tom Starr. Courtesy of The James Scrolls blog. 

Old Tom told him he had never killed many Choctaws, only 50, but he had killed an enormous number of Creeks, Seminoles, and other wild tribesmen. He said he never kept count of the number but that he had of the Choctaws.

I think Tom must have been born in the early ‘40’s [Note: Actually born about 1813] as he had a house full of grown boys when I first saw him.

He told my old friend, Martin Crowder, that he had been able to avoid suspicion through his ability to walk fast. He said he would go out early at night and kill someone that he did not like. Authorities would search the country for 40 miles around but by morning he was 75 or 80 miles away. He was half white and half Cherokee. I don’t know what white race he sprang from but I would venture to say he was Irish because of his great endurance. He could walk faster than a horse and was long-winded.

Tom Starr had quite a lot of land, and fine land, too. His son, Sam Starr, was the husband of the famous bandit queen, Belle Starr. His other sons were Frost, Tom, Tuxie, and Charley. Tom Stair, when I knew him, said he had never known but one honest white man. He said that man would gather corn and put it in three piles in the field and then call him and say, take your pile. He declared that was an honest man.

One time, Tom was in the heavy bottoms, playing cards, when his horse snorted. He told the 10 or 15 men with whom he was playing that the enemy was getting close and he was getting out. They made fun of him and he said: ‘All right, boys, I am going, and you can stay if you want to.’ He straddled his horse and let the steed choose the direction to go. He hadn’t gone 200 yards before officers, who were advancing, opened fire and they killed every last man except Tom Starr, who escaped.

Tom and another man became hungry one day and went to a house and asked for something to eat. Refused, Tom told his partner to watch the woman, who was alone with a baby, while he went to the kitchen. When he returned, he killed his partner, the woman, and the baby and left all the bodies on the porch. He told Martin Crowder he didn’t know what the people would think when they came home and found them all dead on the porch.

The name of Tom’s wife was Lucy. One time he was coming home and he crossed the farm of Bill Gibbens who was at work. He said: ‘Bill, I am going to see Lucy and the children and don’t you tell I am here or I will kill you, as sure as you are a white man.’ ‘I would not tell on you for anything, Uncle Tom,’ was the reply. But Tom did not tryst him. He slipped around between [Bill] and his house and waited. Not long afterward, he heard Bill coming on a little gray pony, tippity tip, tippity tap, and he stepped out, saying: ‘You know what I told you.’ Bill declared he was not going to tell, saying he had broken a singletree and was going for repairs. ‘You know what I told you,’ said Tom, and he made him get off the pony. He shot him and rolled his body off a bluff. Then he shot the pony and rolled it off the bluff, too.

For some time, Tom Starr was on the warpath, the objects of his hatred being the Cherokees. At the start, he would take a few men with him. He took a notion to kill the chief of the Cherokees. The chief was afraid of him and he took a guard of 50 men whenever he went to court. Tom Starr took his brother, Jim Starr, and a little fullblood, whose name I have forgotten, and slipped up on the court house. The little fullblood went to the door and the other two went around to a window and shot and killed the chief. The guards rushed out and began firing on the two brothers. There was a patch of two or three acres between the court house and the brush where they had hid their horses. They walked backwards, fighting all the time, towards the brush. Tom had a big shotgun and he had put a handful of blue whistlers in each barrel. One shot killed six guards. The guards poured the lead around them so that Jim Starr proposed they run and then declared he was going to run by himself. Tom told him he was saving a shot for him if he did run. They fought all the way and got to their horses and fled to safety.

The Cherokees waylaid Tom later on and fired into him, killing his horse. The animal fell on his leg, spraining Tom’s ankle. He managed to get from under. He could no run, so he crawled. Picking up a stone that weighed two or three pounds, he hurled it into the bushes with terrific power. The Indians thought it was Tom running, and went in that direction while Tom crawled farther away. Then he threw another rock or two to carry them on in another direction while he made his escape. The Indians offered to make a treaty with him but he would not quit, saying he would not trust them, but he said he would observe a treaty if it was signed by authorities of the United States government. The treaty was made and he settled down and lived peaceably.

One time after all this happened, I remember Jeff Serrett, an Indian officer in federal uniform, went to arrest Tom Starr. He told him it would be an impossibility to effect an arrest, saying he never had been arrested, and he never would be. He finally told him he would ride with him to the place where he was wanted but he would never consider himself under arrest.

When Uncle Tom was about to die, his boys gathered around his bed and he covered his face with his hands and said he did not want his boys to see him die; that he did not want them to think that a man as brave as he was had to die. I am satisfied that he was the greatest man killer Oklahoma ever had.


Belle Starr. Courtesy of Wikipedia. 

Belle Starr was born at Carthage, Mo., the daughter of a man named Shirley, a hotel man. She started out on her bandit career because federal army officers killed her twin brother, Ed Shirley. I always thought she named her son, Ed, in honor of her twin brother. She married a man named Reed, not Jim Reed, who is often referred to as her husband. Her husband was killed in Texas. Belle lay out in the woods with the body all night, and afterwards drifted to the Starr settlement and to the home of Tom Starr. After she and Sam Starr were married, they removed across the South Canadian river to Younger Bend. The only children Belle ever had were Ed Reed and Pearl Reed. At her death she did not look to be over 35. She was older than she looked. I lived there on the Crowder place and I heard the shot that killed Sam Starr. I was within a mile of the spot where he met death.

Frank West, who killed him, was a Cherokee officer. The Wests and the Starrs did not get along well together. The Wests were officers. They had a dance at Aunt Lucy Sterrett’s house, on Macharr creek, a mile west of Whitefield. [Note: John’s younger brother Stephen, who died in 1885, is buried at Whitefield.] West was living in the Briar settlement. Frank fixed up to go to the dance and his wife, a fine-looking, bright, yellow-haired Cherokee woman, said: ‘Don’t go, Frank. You know there is liable to be some shooting.’ Frank replied: ‘You don’t need to worry about me. I can shoot as fast as any man.’ He went on to the dance. There was a big fire out in the yard. Frank was standing near the fire and Sam Starr walked up, saying, ‘Frank, what did you shoot my horse for?’ At the same instant, he cut West’s [jugular] vein with a bullet. Before a person could blink an eye, West shot Sam Starr in the breast with a .45. As Frank West was falling, he saw Daniel Fulsom, a 14-year old Indian boy, running and, mistaking him for Sam Starr, put a bullet through his head. The bullet penetrated his jaw, coming out on the left cheek. Dan had been my playmate at times and I went to see him. He suffered terribly but he recovered and for four years was the best sheriff Haskell County ever had.


Sam Starr on left, John Lafayette Vaughan on right. Courtesy of Jerry White.

Frank West and Sam Starr were carried into the house and laid down together. There was a little jackleg doctor there; I forget his name. Frank West said to the doctor: ‘I am killed and Sam Starr done it.’ The doctor replied: ‘Well, Frank, you killed Sam.’ ‘How do you know?’ Frank asked. ‘He is dying now,’ said the doctor. ‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ said Frank, and he died peacefully.

Belle Starr, after this, fell in with another long-haired Cherokee Indian whose real name was Bill July but he called himself John Starr. I lived close by where they were living. Belle was a fine looking woman. There were no charges against her in the courts at that time. I went to her place lots of times and carried her and her daughter, Pearl, to dance. I carried Pearl to a good many. At one time, Belle made a contract with a man on my side of the river to come over there and clear some land and live on her place. They had some differences. Belle had such a bad name and Young Bend was a place to be shunned, so hardly anyone dared go in there. They asked for someone to go in and see her and try to effect a compromise. They wanted me to go and I said I would not care to go in by myself in a case like that but if Lige Fain would go with me, I would undertake it. Fain and I went and fixed u the trouble without any difficulty. Belle invited us to come back and go with her New Year’s night to Briartown and take in the Cherokee dance. That suited me all right, I did not want any trouble but was out just for fun. My partner, Fain, had a wife and could not go. I ran my saddle across the river in a skiff and walked about two miles up to Belle’s. Pearl and I caught a couple of horses and put them in a corral. When we went to get them, it was pretty dark—only starlight, and the horses were shy. John Starr (Bill July) roped five head and never missed a throw. Although it was night, he never failed to catch each one by the left front foot. Some roping, I say. Five of us—Lula Cobb, John Starr, Belle Starr, Charles Acton, and I—went to the dance. Pearl did not go.



Pearl Starr. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.


When we were riding seven miles through the mountains, Belle said to me, knowing I was young and unsophisticated: ‘No man ever rides this trail but once.’ I think she just wanted to scare me. I replied, ‘Well, this trail doesn’t look very bad to me.’ It was fashionable then for everybody to wear a gun that wanted to. There was no law against it. A gun was nice and handy. There was lots of game. I liked to carry one. Belle said: ‘Let’s slip up on the porch, knock the door open and all go in at one time.’ We did. They looked pretty wild and shy when they saw who was in the party. I took the girl I had carried there and John Starr took Belle out on the floor and want to dancing. Later, when Belle was dancing with Ike Reynolds, a brown curly-headed fellow with a six-shooter, my partner and I walked out and the floor was full. Belle said to me: ‘Fate, you take this fellow’s place.’ My name is Lafayette and she called me Fate. I was afraid that would stir up trouble. I did not approve of it but they gave back and gave us the floor. The man that Belle pushed back, however, sat in the corner and kept growling, saying something about it might be all right one time, etc. I was told he had killed seven men. Belle dashed up to him and gave him a round of good cussing and said she did not mean to take his place—that he could dance with us. I looked for a shooting every minute but I had some with her and I had to stand hitched. John Starr presented himself with a fun mighty quick and it sure looked dangerous.



Belle Starr. Courtesy of Biography.com.

Someone stole give red double blankets, that cost $5 apiece, from our saddles. Charles Acton started a search and found them 200 yards from the house in a crack in the fence, brought them back and put them under our saddles. When we started home the second time, they were gone again and we had to ride without them. John Starr took a six-shooter and went in the house and told them he knew who stole the blankets and cussed around. They said if they ever did catch one of us to ourselves they’d sure wait on us. Belle told me like this: ‘I have quit all my meanness and I don’t intend to do any more dirt if I am left alone, but the old lion is still there, asleep.’ Things went on very peacefully, until Edgar Watson came into the picture. He was an out-law and his wife told the wife of Jack Roe, who lived two miles from Belle’s house, that he had killed seven men with the gun he had then. She said he would go and plot and leave the team in the field and kill someone he was mad at and return to his plowing, with never a suspicion.

Some horses were stolen somewhere by Edgar Watson, John Starr and Belle’s son, Edgar Reed. Officers crowded them and [John] Starr held them back with a large rifle while Edgar Watson and Ed Reed pushed the horses on. They got separated and Ed Reed wrote a letter to Watson. Jack Roe got the letter and Watson, being on his place, he carried it to the house and put it in a crack on the porch. Belle Starr came along, recognized the handwriting as that of her son and took the letter to the fire and opened it with a pencil, read it and sealed it and put it back. She said she did not want her boy stealing horses and that she was going to prosecute Watson for getting her boy into it. Jack Roe told Edgar Watson what Belle said and he exclaimed with an oath: ‘I’ll kill her!’

The afternoon she was killed, February 3, 1890, the folks where I lived heard the shot. I was in Brooken, eight miles away. She was killed about 2 o’clock. When I reached home, I heard about it, grabbed a bit to eat and got to the scene just after the crowd there had lifted her body into a wagon. It was getting dark. Pearl, her daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Newt Pearson, neighbors, had stayed with the body all afternoon. They were just ready to drive away when I arrived. I saw her body washed and laid out. She had fallen into a mudhole when she was shot. She had as beautiful a smile as I ever saw her wear when she was alive. She looked natural as life. I was staying with Turner G. England at the time and he and Jack Roe followed the tracks from where she was killed to the fence, as I did afterward.


Belle sitting side-saddle on her horse. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Belle’s horse was hitched to Roe’s fence a short time before the murder and Roe’s folks saw Edgar Watson ride up close enough to see the horse and recognize it. Then he wheeled about and went back toward his farm. Everyone in that country heard the report of the fun. They said it was the most alarming gun ever heard in that bottom. He had a double-barreled muzzle loading shotgun. The road there comes up through the timber from the bottom. There was brush along the fence for quite a ways and there was an open place in the rail fence. Where the brush stopped there was a small walnut tree on the inside of the fence. That is where Watson hid. He let her pass him and then fired on her. I could see the place where she was shot as the horse stove his feet into the ground there. Three buckshot ranged from her shoulder to her heart. She stuck to the horse about 30 or 40 feet. Then there were the tracks. I could see where he had jumped the fence. She rode sideways all the time. I never saw her without a nice dress. She fell on her right shoulder and arm. There were the tracks where he ran up and shot her in the side of the face with a load of fine shot. She was not dead then, for she had raised her hand to protect her face. He shot the ring from her left ear and we never could find it.

We sat up with the body that night. In the morning, when it was good and light, I looked over the ground. There was shotgun paper all over the tracks of the horse where they stove in.

Bill July, Belle’s husband, was in Fort Smith that night and we sent to Eufaula and telegraphed. The Fort Smith elevator people said he left Fort Smith at daybreak, crossing Poteau river on a little brown horse, and had a quart of whiskey, headed for Younger Bend and swearing vengeance. I was there at his place and at 2 o’clock he rode up on a lope. He had covered the distance, at least 78 miles, between dawn and 2 p.m., and the horse didn’t weigh over 850 pounds. This was a wonderful horse. It belonged to Morris Craft and he got it from Mark [Kuykendall].



Belle’s mother came from Texas. She was a fine, intelligent appearing woman. Another man and I dug the grave, three feet, and then others came and helped finish it. She was buried in a nice wooden coffin and a walnut box to set it in. The lumber was taken from the house in which I lived. Edgar Watson had the nerve to attend the funeral and help throw dirt on the coffin. He went in the house and came out with a coat and I thought he had an ashen color to his face. I saw the arrest of Edgar Watson after the funeral. I thought they were going to shoot him. Judge Parker asked T. G. England why he didn’t track Edgar Watson to his house and his reply was a question: ‘If you tracked a lion to his den, would you go in on him?’ His opinion was that Watson was a dangerous man and he did not care to risk his life.


Cole Younger. Courtesy of True West Magazine.


Judge Parker telegraphed Cole Younger, who was serving time in the Minnesota penitentiary, and he declared she wasn’t his wife and that he had never been married. He said he might have seen Belle Starr but had no recollection of it. He was sure that he would have known of it if she had married his brother, Bruce Younger.”

(To Be Continued)


McAlester News-Capital – 5 Jun 1933 – Page 6
Name Omitted By Error
The pioneer, who was quoted in the News-Capital Sunday in regard to Tom Starr, the giant outlaw of half a century ago, and his daughter-in-law, the famous bandit queen, Belle Starr, is J. L. Vaughan of Ulan, who has lived in these parts 52 years. His name was inadvertently omitted.


John Lafayette Vaughan in his middle age.


John Lafayette Vaughan in the late 30s or early 40s. 

McAlester News-Capital – 15 Jun 1933 – Page 6
Today and Yesterday
By C. H. C. [Charles H. Cowles]

“Here you are, now make the best of it.” This is the way J. L. Vaughan of Ulan says he was turned loose in Indian Territory in 1881 at the age of 15. “I could be a good boy. I could steal. I could kill. I had no school; no education. Instead of trying to study mathematics and penmanship, I studied horsemanship and gunmanship. But I always managed to keep the good will of the good people. I was born in National park in the Ozark Mountains July 19, 1866. My father was a soldier four years in the Union army and my uncle, Capt. [Napier], also. After the Civil War, my uncle was killed from the brush by a mob while he was sheriff. My father was dead. I was brought here by my widowed mother and older brothers. I rode horseback quite a bit and I practiced shooting and got to be pretty good at it. I have killed many a deer, turkey, and squirrel with a six-shooter.
-----*-----
One time, when I was riding around in this thinly settled country, I came onto a dead Indian on the edge of a prairie. My horse was afraid and I was proud that I had a steed that could make fast time in going away from there. When I hit the Big San Bois bottoms at the north end of Cougar Mountain, near where Blaine is now, I heard the most terrible moaning and groaning any man ever listened to. It came from under some heavy underbrush and some large trees. That made me saddle a little faster. After I crossed the creek, I ran onto about 10 armed me, huddled together in the road. I did not know if they were going to do to me what they had done to the others or not. But I gamed up and rode right up to them and spoke as I passed. Some of them just grunted as I went by. A day or so later I heard they had killed a lot of horse thieves in there that day. I was told they killed 10 about two miles from Hoyt.
-----*-----
The Indians didn’t think they could have a good ball game without killing someone. I didn’t go to these games on that account. Just previous to one game, Sheriff Lucas had given his deputy a bat in the head during some trouble. It was a day or two before the game. He was still sore. He walked up to the sheriff and severed his jugular vein with a piece of hot lead. Sheriff Lucas leaped on his horse and the deputy jumped on his to follow the sheriff. But a half Choctaw and half negro shot the deputy off his horse with a Winchester. The half-breed jumped on a horse to leave when the son of the deputy, Nicholas Willards, picked up a gun and shot him down.
-----*-----
Near where Stigler now stands, there was a nine mile stretch in the ‘80’s on which a man named Sweden lived in the only house. Sweden claimed to be a deputy United States marshal. A man by the name of Willard married his niece and they were living here with Sweden and his wife. One day Willard and Sweden’s niece got into a quarrel. Mrs. Sweden went to the field saying she would send her husband, Louis, to settle the trouble. Willard procured Sweden’s rifle. Sweden was a powerful man and Willard knew he would be nothing in his hands. Sweden rushed into the yard. Willard stepped to the door and shot him through, just below the arms. I saw his body. Willard started to the friend where John Sweden, a son, was working, and gave him a chase. He shot at him but the young man got away. Then Willard hunted the woman. She knew what would happen and ran. He fired on her, shooting her through the back, the bullet coming out at the left breast. I saw the bodies of these people.
-----*-----


Jim Reed. Courtesy of Wikipedia. 

I remember well the outlaw, Jim Reed. He was not Belle Starr’s husband although many say he was. They just get confused. He was a fine marksman. He could hit a man’s hand with a six-shooter at 100 yards. He was always keeping a lookout for U. S. Marshal [Bass] Reeves. One day Jim Reed came to the Canadian Rive at Whitefield with a man named Spooney. He told Spooney he would not go to the store as there might be some laws there. Spooney heard a shot and looked back and saw Reed throw up his hands. Then he heard another shotgun crack and Reed crumpled to the ground. I saw him after he was killed. It was supposed Sam Starr shot him with a shotgun. At one time, [Bass] Reeves killed a cook and Judge Parker let him go on account of his great usefulness as a marshal. Reeves promised the judge he would go anywhere he wanted papers served. A story is told about Reeves and a posse being after a terrible man who was roaming among the Indians. These marshals gathered up posses and arrested bad characters and hauled them to Fort Smith. In this instance, [Bass] Reeves sneaked around after this awful bad fellow, suspecting he was asleep. And he was. He handcuffed him without firing a gun.
-----*-----


Bass Reeves. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

A couple Seminole Indians took [Bass] Reeves as a prisoner. They did not relieve him of his guns. They started to take him to a heavy bottom trail. [Bass] thought, ‘Now is the time.’ There was a big Indian ahead and a small one behind. [Bass] thought that was the last chance. He whipped out his six-shooter and shot the Indian behind and, in a split second, threw it on the Indian ahead and he went down. On one occasion, [Bass] Reeves, Tine Hughes, and Charles Barnhill and others, all United States officers, went out for a very bad Creek Indian. He killed everyone who attempted to arrest him. They established a camp close to his place. [Bass] told them he was going to [indecipherable] man and they all told him he would be shot. He unbuckled his six-shooter and laid it down and they were all saying: ‘Yes, we know what you’ll get.’ [Bass] went to the Indian’s house and called him out and looked into a double-barreled shotgun. ‘You would not shoot a man without arms, said [Bass], in his nicest way. ‘I am not after you. I want you to help me. I am after a man on your place.’ [Bass] kept getting closer despite warnings to keep back. All the time looking through his writs, he kept edging up. ‘Don’t come any closer’ was a warning which the Indian kept repeating. But [Bass] got up close just the same and he made a leap under the fun and caught the Indian. They scuffled for some time and [Bass] said afterward that he began to think he would be out-muscled and outwinded, but he finally overpowered him and handcuffed him and led him to his astonished officer.”
-----*-----
Mrs. [Vaughan] says she was happier in those old days than she is now. Although most everyone carried guns, they would hang them up like they do their hats nowadays. She is afraid of the automobiles today and says there is more drunkenness than there was then. She cannot forget the kindly spirit with which neighbors treated each other in the old days. They would pitch in and help those who suffered from storm or sickness and she spoke of what they called “log rollings” when the women would prepare a meal for the workers.
-----*-----


John and Florence Vaughan in the 1930s. 

Cowles’s interviews with the Vaughans end here. He does make an additional note on Jim Reed, stating that “he was not killed in Texas, as has been stated, but was drowned in the Poteau river at Page’s ferry, six miles east of Spiro in 1883, according to Dr. G. L. Hartshorne.

According to modern sources online, Reed was supposedly killed in Texas by a member of his own gang, but in 1874. John would have only been 8 years old and living in Arkansas in 1874. So either John was telling a tall tale or confusing individuals. Since Belle and Sam Starr apparently never legally married, it is plausible but unlikely that if Reed was killed a few years later than believed (but still earlier than Hartshorne’s report stating 1883), John could have been around for some of these events.

It’s more likely that John was stretching the truth or perhaps confusing Reed with another of Belle Starr’s lovers before she paired with Sam Starr; that list is said to include Cole Younger, who steadfastly denied this claim.

I really wish the second half of John's interview about Belle Starr, Judge Parker, and Edgar Watson had been published, but for whatever reason it never was. Still, having this biographical information on John in his own words is nothing short of incredible. I also think is insight into some of these events should be helpful to historians of early Oklahoma and its outlaws, especially Belle Starr. 

Monday, March 16, 2020

Obituaries for Tom Martin, Robert Moose, and Clyde Marks Jr.

In the past nine months I have lost three family members in my close family. None of them had obituaries that are available online and I wanted them to be available outside of Find A Grave.

The first was my great uncle, Tom Martin, who passed in June. My family in Del City had a small memorial service, but no formal obituary was written or published, so I wrote one myself. It will be available here and on Find A Grave.


Tom Lynn Martin was born May 7th, 1953 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Thomas William and Pauline (Clements) Martin. He passed away June 6th, 2019 in Oklahoma City.

He grew up in Del City, Oklahoma, where he graduated high school in 1971. He then attended Oklahoma Baptist University, where he graduated with a degree in Business. He then worked for the Oklahoma Tax Commission as an auditor for many years. He later traded commodities independently, and held various salesman positions. He got to travel for his work a lot, and his favorite place to visit was Chicago. He was a hard worker and a gifted salesman due to his genuine interest in and care for his customers.

He was passionate about music from a young age. He was a gifted clarinetist in school, and later learned to play the drums and guitar. He enjoyed jamming with his friends and nephews as often as he could.

Tom helped in taking great care of his parents during their lifetimes, and was always a generous, unselfish person to friends and family alike.

He married the love of his life, Nila Smith, in 1999. He was a deeply devoted, faithful, and loving husband, and considered his marriage to her the greatest thing that ever happened to him. He loved to travel with her and listen to her sing.

Tom was strong in his Christian faith, growing up in the First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, and later being active with the Church of the First Born and the Del City Church of Christ. He enjoyed researching his family history and athletics, playing baseball when he was young and watching OU football and softball as often as he could. One of his favorite rituals was watching the Softball College World Series with his sister Gerri every year.

He will be remembered for his big heart, compassionate demeanor, and wonderful sense of humor.

Tom is survived by his loving wife Nila of Del City, sisters Gerri Day and Mary Osborne of Del City, nephews Edward Osborne Jr., Tom Osborne, Marty Marks, and Geary Marks, nieces Gerri Ford and Tina Haider, and numerous great and great great nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents and brothers-in-law, Charles Day and Eugene Osborne. He was cremated and his ashes were retained by the family.

Written by his great nephew Nathan Marks.


Tom Martin

Next was my grandfather Clyde Earl Marks Jr. on December. I did not write his obituary and it was not published online as no funeral service has been held; a memorial will be held this summer when his military headstone is ready. His obituary was published in the Johnston County Sentinel on 19 Dec 2019.

Clyde Earl Marks, Jr. was born June 9, 1938, to Clyde Marks St. and Marie (Barnett) Marks in Oklahoma City, Okla. He passed away on Dec. 5, 2019, at his home in East Tawakoni, Texas, after a recent illness.

Clyde moved to Wapanucka, Okla. when he was 7 and graduated from Wapanucka School in 1956. A year after graduation, he joined the Air Force and worked in aircraft maintenance. Clyde served during the Vietnam War, and was awarded the Bronze Star. He achieved the rank of Master Sergeant and spent 20 years serving.

He retired and moved back to Wapanucka and earned an associate degree from Murray State College. He later obtained his Bachelor’s Degree from Oklahoma State University.

He married Karen Baumert in August, 1981. They lived in Wapanucka, then moved to East Tawakoni when he went to work for E Systems out of Greenville, Texas. While working for the company he also worked in North Carolina and Florida. Clyde retired in 2003 and they returned to their home in East Tawakoni.

He was a member of the American Legion in West Tawakoni, Texas. He also was a member of the Woodturner’s Club near his home. He loved spending time with his children and grandchildren, and showing them how to make things in his wood shop. He loved watching westerns and reading Louis L’Amour.

Clyde was preceded in death by his parents, Clyde Marks Sr. and Marie Barnett Marks; as well as a grandson, Carson Edwin Reed.

He is survived by his wife, Karen, of East Tawakoni; his children, Teriki Barnes and husband James of Durant, Okla., Mariki Scott of Owasso, Okla., Chiyaki Marks of Claremore, Okla., Miyuki Boone of Deerpark, Texas, Haruki Marks of Oklahoma City, Masaki Marks and wife Jodi of Tishomingo, Okla., Geary Marks and wife Carrie of Williamsburg, Va., Martin Marks and wife Melissa of Onsted, Mich., Deborah Blankenship of Quinlan, Texas, Sherry Yochum and husband Marvin of Tishomingo, Marlene Barnes and husband Allan of Granbury, Texas, Harland Smith and wife Michelle of Lakeland, Fla., Kari Reed of East Tawakoni, Phillip Smith and wife Kimi of Searchlight, Nev., and Lisa Smith of Quinlan, Texas; a brother, Bob Marks of Mad River, Calif.; and a sister, Deloris Bates of Wapanucka.

He is also survived by 38 grandchildren, 39 great-grandchildren and four great-great grandchildren.
At his request, there are no services planned at this time. Arrangements are being handled by Ingram Funeral Home in Quinlan, Texas. The family will hold a memorial service at a later time.



Clyde Marks

Most recently, in January my cousin Robert Moose died. He was my mother's only maternal first cousin and though we never met in person except perhaps when I was a very small child, we communicated via social media relatively often and he was a person I really enjoyed and admired. He did not have a formal obituary published, so I wrote one for him as well with help from his mother.

Robert Patrick Moose passed away unexpectedly from an undiagnosed medical condition at his home in Oklahoma City on January 12th, 2020.

Robert was born February 11th, 1977 in Oklahoma City to Dr. Robert "Ronnie" and Patti (Haggerty) Moose. He graduated from Putnam North High School in 1995 and went on to attend the University of Central Oklahoma.

Robert acquired his ham radio license at the age of 14. He worked for the State of Oklahoma with the Employment Security Commission. He also worked in assisting meteorological staff at Channel 4 news in Oklahoma City when needed during severe weather events.

Robert was a local celebrity of sorts with his reporting on local news events via Twitter, where he amassed a following of nearly 5000 and was regularly recognized for wit, humor, and insight into the happenings of the Oklahoma City Metro area. The significance of his contributions have been acknowledged by numerous local figures including Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, as well as local police and fire departments.

Robert is survived by his parents of Oklahoma City and numerous cousins, friends, and admirers. He was preceded in death by a sister, Nikki, and his grandparents. Services took place January 17th and burial was at Rose Hill Burial Park in Oklahoma City.

Written by his cousin, Nathan Marks. 



Robert Moose

I will miss them all more than I can say. Tom and my Grandpa Clyde were huge genealogical resources for me. Both researched our family histories themselves and were treasure troves of information. Robert too did some research in the early 2000s that was my jumping off point for my research on our Moose family. They were all three very kind individuals and I think of them often.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Part II: The Taylor & Riley Families of Daviess County, Kentucky & Their Respective Final Resting Places

What started as a relatively simple post outlining my theories and research regarding the final resting places of my Taylor and Riley forebears in Daviess County, Kentucky has evolved into something else entirely. This post on their places of burial has been pushed into a Part II due to the breaking down of a major brick wall in the Taylor lineage and my decision that it was time to finally share all I had collected on the family, which became Part 1, which can be found here: https://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2019/10/part-i-ancestry-of-howard-t-taylor-of.html. So here is Part II of that research which focuses on where the family rests today.

On and off for several years I have set about trying to locate what I thought may be a single burial location for a large chunk of my family based in Daviess County, Kentucky. After further research, rather than one cemetery I now believe I am looking for two or more separate cemeteries. As I discussed in a post earlier this summer (http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2019/09/2019-genealogy-road-trip-kin-tucky.html), I may have finally found one of them. The others may be all but gone for good, but it is one of my (many) genealogical missions to try to find them. I have decided compile the information I have gathered and the theories I have devised in hopes that it will help me link me with others interested in this cause or those that can help further it.

My 4th great grandparents Amos and Susannah Phillips Riley resided in Daviess County from sometime between 1811-1814 until their deaths (Amos in 1838, Susan in 1843). They reared a large family, and came from large families themselves. Many of Susannah's Phillips relatives also resided in Daviess County. Amos Riley has been a rather renowned figure in the area--in his day for his wealth, and today for his association with Josiah Henson, AKA "The Real Uncle Tom". I have written previously on the family's connections to Henson, including here: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/11/amos-riley-jr-and-josiah-henson-real.html.

As wealthy and renowned as they were--and as well-off as many of their progeny were--I am certain that at one point Amos, Susanna, and their close family members had graves marked with headstones. Today, almost no graves for their immediate descendants can be located. Their son Camden Riley's stone in the Rosehill-Elmwood Cemetery in Owensboro is pretty much the lone exception. I believe there was a Riley family burial ground at one point, and as I said in my above-linked post from this previous summer, I believe it may have been located.

I descend from a daughter of Amos Riley named Elton Riley. She married Howard Taylor in 1833 in Daviess County. Like her family growing up, the Taylor family had plenty of money, but again, marked graves for the majority of this family have been elusive. The lone exception is their son Amos Riley Taylor who is buried in St. Louis. I originally believed that the Taylors were likely buried wherever the Rileys were, but when I realized that the Taylors lived in another part of Daviess County, it seemed unlikely their remains would have been taken that far for burial. It is far more likely that there is a Taylor family burial ground near where they resided.

As I discovered in compiling information for my above-linked blog about my trip to Kentucky this summer, it turns out the Taylor family lived near Sorgho, Kentucky rather than near the Yelvington (now called Maceo) area where the Riley family resided. When the aforementioned Amos Riley Taylor returned to his home county to give a speech, the newspaper stated he was born and reared near Sorgho. I was not familiar with this information or that town name, so I decided to look further into that area.


From the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Kentucky), 23 Jun 1908, Page 5. Courtesy of Newspapers.com.

By far the best resource I have for narrowing down the area where the Taylors resided is an 1876 atlas of Daviess County, Kentucky. It can be viewed in its entirety and in high resolution thanks to the David Rumsey Map Collection, here: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/view/all/what/County%20Atlas/where/Daviess%20County%20(Ky.)/when/1876/. This same atlas also comes in handy for locating the Riley cemetery later on.

On page 46 of this atlas we can view the "Lower Town" district, which is the area southwest of Owensboro. It was largely considered to be a part of the Owensboro area, as most of the people and businesses in the area still had Owensboro as their post office (per the 1870 Census), but it was not in the city itself and so was put together as its own district. This area includes the Sorgho community. A plot for Levi Taylor is shown to be nearby a plot belonging to Camden Riley (brother of Elton, son of Amos) as well as James Rudd whose daughter Anna married Amos Riley Taylor.


Portion of Lower Town map from 1876 Daviess County atlas. Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection. Levi Taylor marked red; Camden Riley in blue; James Rudd in green; Sorgho/Sorgho Town in purple. Households marked with white stars will be mentioned in forthcoming paragraphs in reference to Census records and households in the vicinity of the Taylor homestead. The church marked near the C. Riley property is Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, established 1835, with church building built in 1867; that is the point of reference for locating these properties in modern times. Source: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~221896~5505652

At first glance, this would appear to pretty clearly be the area in which Amos Riley Taylor grew up. His brother's, uncle's, and father-in-law's farms are all within a short distance of one another. The Rudd farm is doubly relevant, because Nancy Rudd was not only Amos's wife, but his cousin. Nancy's mother was Nancy Ann Phillips, a daughter of Thomas Phillips, who was a brother of Susanna Phillips Riley. So Amos and Nancy were 2nd cousins.

When I first started analyzing the location of the Taylor farm, I utilized Census records to show whether or not they stayed put in the same area from the time of Howard's death until the 1876 atlas was published. Now that I have examined deed records proving they did in fact stay in the same place during that timeframe, the information on the census records are pretty much moot. But they do contain some mildly helpful supplemental information so I am leaving them in place.

1850 Census Notes:

- The Howard Taylor family resides next to a James McAllister. They are on page 116 of this Census.

- No other noteworthy immediate neighbors, but on the same page of their Census record is the family of Colston (spelled Colson) Crabtree.

- Colston's mother and siblings are on page 120. His mother was Sarah, widow of Isaac Crabtree, and among the children in her household is Eldred Crabtree.

- Other noteworthy families on pages 116-120 include multiple Winstead families and a Calhoon/Calhoun household. You can see from the above map that those families are still in this vicinity by 1876.

- Worth noting that Elton Riley's sister Myra Riley Windsor (widowed at this time) is also nearby.

1860 Census Notes:

- By this year, the household enumerated adjacent to the Elton Riley household is that of Sarah Crabtree, widow of Isaac.

- Myra Riley Windsor has passed away by this time, and her two children by her first husband are residing with the Taylors.

- William Harrell is nearby as well with two more Crabtrees in his household. You'll see the J. Harrell household with a white star above; it is shown next to the Levi Taylor farm.

- On the next page from the Taylor household, you'll find the eldest daughter of the family, Susan, now married to her cousin Thomas Phillips and with several children.

- Next door to Susan is a John McAllister, who may or may not be a relative of the James McAllister who was enumerated just before the Taylors in 1850. That same James McAllister is now two pages over (p. 51) from Susan (p. 49) and one from Elton (p. 50).

- Homes were enumerated by census takers going door to door. They did not always go in the same order as the census taker did the decade previous, or there could be new homes or roads between neighbors that weren't there 10 years ago. The Taylors' continued proximity to the Crabtree and McAllister families, among others, indicates they remained on their same farm during this time.

- By this time, Levi Taylor had purchased two plots of land from his mother near Yelvington that she had inherited from her father, Amos Riley. Census records showing him in the proximity of his uncle Camden, who lived in that area, indicate that he was living in the Yelvington area at this time. Once his mother passed, he returned to the Sorgho area and sold the land around Yelvington.

- Lastly, on page 48, you will find Jonathan Gibson Taylor. I only note this because it is important to emphasize that despite the assumption of multiple generations of researchers in this area, there have been NO ties established between Jonathan Gibson Taylor and the family of Howard Taylor. Many have them listed as brothers, but as their records plainly show, Jonathan and his family were of Kentucky, and Howard and his family were from Virginia (now West Virginia). Howard was one of five brothers: John, Charles, Rawleigh, and Allen, all sons of Levi Taylor. This is bore out in numerous documents. Just because their surnames were both Taylor and they clearly lived very near one another does NOT mean they are related. You wouldn't automatically assume two Smith or Johnson neighbors were related; don't assume these two were either.

1870 Census Notes:

- Levi Taylor now has control of the family farm, and the family enumerated immediately after him is of the same family from the year before. Rather than Sally Crabtree and her daughter Lydia, the Crabtree farm now belongs to Eldred Crabtree, Sally's aforementioned son. You'll see that E. Crabtree's property is immediately adjacent to Levi Taylor in the 1876 atlas.

- You will also find William and Samuel Calhoun/Calhoon enumerated nearby the Taylor farm, and the Calhoons appear several times near Levi Taylor in the 1876 atlas.

In order to further determine that the land Levi Taylor resided on was the land his parents farmed before him, I examined as many Daviess County deeds involving Howard and Elton Taylor and their children as I could locate with the incredibly helpful staff at the Daviess County Library. I cannot sing their praises enough. Christina Clary, Savannah Warren, and Ryan Tooley are all librarians in the Kentucky Room at the library and all have helped me immensely in gathering the resources I have needed and I am forever indebted to them.

 The records found yielded a number of transactions showing Howard's estate and later Elton's estate dividing property among their children, and later corresponding deeds where those heirs sold their portions to neighbors surrounding Levi Taylor in the 1876 atlas. Not all the numbers line up exactly with what the atlas shows. I think the atlas was likely incomplete or imperfect based on the information I collected, but it still gives a good general idea. I located enough land records that when combined with the Census records and the 1876 map, we can get a good picture of where Howard Taylor resided in Daviess County, both as a minor and as an adult until his death.

Here is a summary of the noteworthy transactions involving Howard Taylor and his heirs.

1834 - Howard T. Taylor and Allen G. Taylor deed 300 acres from James Madison.
1840 - Howard T. Taylor deeds 74 acres from Anna Tennant and her children.
1841 - Howard T. Taylor is granted ownership of Allen's half of their co-owned 300 acres after Allen's death. This brings the family land holdings around the main family farm to 374 acres.
1855 - Elton Taylor is granted 125 acres from Howard's estate as her dower tract.
1856 - Susan Phillips receives 33 acres from her father's estate.
1856 - Elton Taylor deeds 59 acres from her niece Prudence Price and her husband, Robert. This land bordered the main Taylor farm and brings the Taylor land holdings around the main farm to 433 acres minus the 33 granted to Susan.
1857 - Elton Taylor deeds tracts of 87.5 and 104 acres which she inherited from her father Amos Riley to Levi Taylor. Those lands are near Yelvington.
1862 - Susan Phillips deeds the 33 acres she inherited from her father's estate to her brother-in-law, Clark S. Phillips, and his wife, Thetis Jones Phillips.
1863 - Howard Taylor's estate is further divided. Levi received 38 acres. Alice Clements receives 37 acres. The remaining land is being held until Amos and John return from the Civil War and Richard and Howard come of age.
1864 - Elton Taylor deeds 4 7/8 acres from Clark and Thetis Phillips, being a portion of the 33 acres they bought from Susan.
1866 - Thomas Jones deeds four adjoining land plots from Clark and Thetis Phillips totaling 194 acres. This includes the remaining 28 1/8 acres of the 33 acres the Phillipses bought from Susan.
1866 - Howard Taylor's estate is further divided. Amos receives 37 acres. John has died in the war, but his heirs are entitled to 50 acres.
1866 - Susan Phillips sells her rights to a portion of Elton's dower lands to her brother Amos.
1866 - Alice Clements and her husband W. H. Clements deed 38 acres from Levi Taylor, that land being the portion of his father's estate he inherited.
1866 - Alice Clements and her husband W. H. Clements deed 37 acres from Amos Taylor, that land being the portion of his father's estate he inherited.
1866 - Elton Taylor's will is probated. Richard and Howard receive 70 acres together. Amos receives 57 3/4, including her sister Susan's portion. Alice receives 50 acres. Levi receives 47 acres. Susan receives 10 acres, being her portion of her brother John's allotment of their father's estate. Each of the siblings' portions includes 10 acres apiece from John's allotment.

Note: Mathematically, all but 59.125 acres of the Taylors' 433 total acres have been divided amongst the Taylor heirs at this point. The plot for Richard and Howard would turn out to be 69.5 acres meaning the total left is 59.625. I have not found a recording of the transaction, but at some point in subsequent years, those roughly 60 acres were deeded to Howard, with Richard retaining sole ownership of the 69.5 acres they had held jointly.

1869 - Mathias Gough deeds 47 acres from Levi Taylor, being the land he inherited from his mother's estate. The 47 acres of M. Gough can be found in the 1876 atlas southwest of the Levi Taylor plot.
1870 - Amos Riley Hathaway and James Alsop deed 60 acres from W. H. and Alice Clements, being a portion of the land divided from Howard Taylor's estate. Alice had inherited 87 acres from her parents and bought another 75 from her brothers, so she still held 102 acres of her parents' land after this sale.
1871 - Joseph Carlin and T. Clark deed 10 acres from the heirs of Susan Phillips, deceased, being the 10 acres she received as her portion of John's allotment of their parents' estate.
1873 - Jesse Gregory deeds 102.5 acres from W. H. & Alice Clements, being the remaining Taylor lands they held. Notice the discrepancy of a 1/2 acre between what the deeds say she should own (102) and he amount of land she sold (102.5). Gregory's 102.5 acres can be located southwest of the Levi Taylor farm on the 1876 atlas.
1873 - Levi Taylor deeds 57 3/4 acres from Amos Taylor, being the land he inherited from his mother's estate. Levi also bought Amos's claim to 1/5 portion of their brother Richard's estate.
1873 - Levi Taylor deeds 60 acres from Howard V. Taylor, being the land he received from his parents' estate. Again, I could not locate the deed where ownership of this roughly 60 acre plot passed to Howard, but the deed states it is land he received from the Howard [T.] Taylor estate. Levi now holds 117 3/4 acres of Taylor land. Levi also bought Howard's claim to 1/5 portion of their brother Richard's estate.
1875 - Division of Richard Taylor's state. Levi having bought his brothers' portions received 37 acres. Alice got 15.75. The children of Susan Phillips received 16.75.
1875 - Levi Taylor deeds 15.75 acres from W. H. and Alice Clements, being the land Alice received from the division of Richard's estate. Levi now holds a total of 170 1/2 acres of Taylor land.

Only two of the deeds showing the division of Taylor lands included maps. These are the two:


1866 division of Taylor lands. Not all of the lands were being divided at this time, only the labelled portions. 


1875 division of J. Richard Taylor's lands. Levi received No. 3, Alice received No. 2 (and sold it to Levi), and No. 1 belonged to the Phillips heirs. 

Later, the Phillips heirs would sell their 16.75 acres from Richard Taylor but I'm only going up to 1876 for the purposes of tying these transactions to the 1876 Atlas of Daviess County.

So by 1876, the owners of the divided Taylor lands (433 acres) are as follows, based on the above-referenced deeds:

Levi Taylor - 170.5 acres
Jesse Gregory - 102.5 acres
Mathias Gough - 47 acres
Phillips heirs - 16.75 acres
Carlin & Clark - 10 acres

That leaves the 60 acres sold from Alice to Hathaway and Alsop and the 28+ acres from Susan to the Phillipses to Thomas Jones. Hathaway and Alsop apparently sold the 60 acres to Jesse Moore (I do not have this record) who subsequently sold it to John Heightman (I have the deed index showing this transaction) in 1875. By 1876, Heightman only owns 32 of those acres, so he must have sold the other 28 to the neighboring P. Jacob who had to have acquired some additional land separately.

The acreage sold to Thomas Jones is a mystery. Nothing in the deed index indicates a transaction to J. Williams for the acreage he has in 1876. However, J. Williams is almost certainly James Williams, the husband of Lucy Huston, who was a half-sibling to Thomas Jones. This family is tied to our's via the marriage of George Riley and Susannah Huston. All of their children died without heirs, and upon the death of their last child, the aforementioned Prudence Price(who was Prudence Duke at the time of her death), who sold 59 acres to Elton Taylor in 1856, a portion of her estate was divided amongst her parents' siblings and their heirs. Thomas Jones and Lucy Williams were among those heirs, as were Amos Taylor, Alice Clements, and nearly a score of others. So it would appears Susan's 28+ acres that eventually went to Thomas Jones is among the acreage held by J. Williams directly north of Levi in 1876.

Some additional noteworthy findings:

1. Even though records indicate the Phillips heirs still owed their 16.75 acres in 1876, their plot does not appear on the 1876 atlas.

2. Records show Levi now owns 170.5 combined acres, but the atlas only shows 159.

3. If you combine all of the amounts of land the Taylor heirs inherited it actually adds up to slightly more than 433.

Susan - 33 + 10 = 43
Levi - 38 + 47 = 85
Amos - 37 + 57.75 = 94.75
Alice - 37 + 50 = 87
Richard - 69.5
Howard - 60

439.25 - 4.875 (Given to Susan but then re-purchased by Elton and re-distributed) = 434.375

As indicated above, Howard's 60 acres was closer to 59.625, which brings the total to an even 434. But somewhere in there an extra acre seems to have gotten lumped in with the rest, or possibly some of the other numbers were rounded up slightly in the way that Howard's was rounded up to an even 60.

4. Elton's will states that she has given a house to each of her children except Richard and Howard. They received the family home plus an additional $125 each for not having received a home apiece as their siblings did. Levi's could have been either the house on M. Gough's plot, or could be a house on the land she sold him near Yelvington. The houses on J. Heightman's and J. R. Gregory's plots were likely Alice's and Amos's. And one of the three houses on the J. Williams plot was likely Susan's, with one of the closer ones to the Levi Taylor plot being most likely. It is worth noting that in 1876--after the publishing of the atlas--Levi's home burned down. That would have been the Taylor family home he purchased from Richard who inherited from Elton. So all trace of that home is now long gone.

So returning to the family's farm, of the 433/434 acres held by Howard and Elton Taylor, I wanted to determine which were the portions bought from Ann Tennant and Prudence Price, and which were the original 300 purchased from James Madison. It is difficult to say definitively, but I believe we can get a general idea using some basically logic.

The 74 acres purchased from the Tennant heirs bordered George Riley and Isaac Crabtree at the time of purchase. In the 1876 atlas, northwest of the Taylor area you'll find the land belonging to P. H. Price, which is the aforementioned Prudence Price, wife of Robert and daughter of George Riley. The 59 acres Elton bought from Prudence bordered the lands of Milo Riley and Ben Riley, sons of George.

So my conclusion is that at one point George Riley's lands extended from where they are in 1876 down to where they would be adjacent to the Taylor area. In 1840, Howard Taylor bought land that was between his and George Riley's portions, with it bordering the Crabtree land to the north. You'll see that in 1876, the Crabtrees still hold land adjacent to the Prudence Price land and north of the Taylor area. Later, Elton bought 59 acres of George Riley's southernmost land that bordered the lands Taylor bought from Tennant. So most of the land on the west part of the Taylor's land, including the portion Carlin and Gough hold in 1876 and parts of the Gregory, Heightman, and possibly Jacob portions were the lands purchased by the Taylors after their initial 300 acre purchase from Madison.

Why does that matter? Because that is what ties my big theory all together. Considering how wealthy these families were, I do not believe they were all buried in unmarked graves. Even, as discussed in Part I of this study, the Bells and Tapscotts had at least some wealth despite not paying their debts to Madison. I believe once the Taylors and Tapscotts began dying off that the family established a burial ground.

When Madison reclaimed his land that hadn't been paid for, as part of his settlement he gave 100 acres each to Frances Bell and Nancy Tapscott. I doubt they had any say in what lands they received, though perhaps they received a portion of the lands on which they were actively residing at the time. It's impossible to say for sure. A few years later, Frances Bell's sons bought 300 acres of that land his family had forfeited back from Madison. So my theory is this:

Either the family cemetery lies in the 200 acres Madison gave back to Bell and Tapscott, or when Howard and Allen got their pick of 300 acres to buy jointly, they bought the land that included the cemetery where their brothers were buried. If that land did include the cemetery, where is that land now? As mentioned in Part I, Frances and Nancy both sold their 100 acres to Simpson Stout. Land records show that that land passed to Simpson's son Benjamin, who sold 160/200 of those acres to George L. Calhoun. That puts those 200 acres right across the road from the Taylor farm. So if the Taylor burial ground was there, the family did not have to go very far off their own property to bury their kin.



From the 1876 Daviess County atlas. In red you'll see Prudence Price's land; her father's land once stretched down to border the Taylor land. The purple circle indicates most of the land Elton Taylor bought from Prudence. The blue circle shows most of the remainder of the Taylor estate. The black circle is a modern point of reference as it shows the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church which still stands there today. The green circle was land that Camden Riley bought near the Taylor plantation. The orange circle is the land of George Calhoun who bought most of the property that Frances Bell and Nancy Tapscott received from James Madison. 

If the land Frances and Nancy got from Madison didn't include the cemetery, I find it hard to believe that Howard and Allen would overlook that land and buy something else. I believe they would have wanted control over the property where their kin rested. Unfortunately, no record of a Taylor burial ground has been uncovered. But in the decades after the Taylors bought their 300 acres from Madison, the family continued to die off and NONE of their graves have been found. I believe they would have continued using their established family burial ground and that it would lie either on their property or in the property's immediate vicinity.

Here is a list of the Taylors and their relatives whose graves have not been accounted for in chronological order of their deaths or assumed deaths:

John Marshall Taylor, d. circa 1826
William Tapscott, d. circa 1828
Benjamin Bell, d. Jul 1829
Rawleigh Colston Taylor, d. between 1830-1840
Catherine Winstead Taylor, wife of Rawleigh, d. 23 May 1833
Allen Griffen Taylor, d. circa Sep 1834
Charles William Taylor, d. 31 Dec 1834
John Taylor, son of Charles, d. before 1840
Charles Taylor, son of Charles, d. before 1840
Frances Taylor, daughter of Rawleigh, d. before 1840
Unknown Son Taylor, d. between 1840-1850, son of Howard T. Taylor
Frances Graham Taylor Bell, d. circa May 1845
Howard Taylor, d. 16 Aug 1851
Thomas L. Phillips Jr., son of Susan, d. between 1860-1870
John H. Taylor, d. 26 Jun 1864 in Georgia; unknown whether or not family came to claim his remains
Elton Riley, d. 1866
Susan F. Taylor Phillips, d. circa 1867
James Richard Taylor, d. circa 1875
Howard Victor Taylor, d. Aug 1876
Levi G. Taylor, d. Oct 1877

This list does not include Frances's sister Nancy Graham Tapscott and her three children who are unaccounted for as it is not clear whether or not they remained in Daviess County after they sold their 100 acres in 1833. Also not included are Susan Phillips's sons John and Robert who died after 1880 but likely before 1900, and it is not clear if they were residing in Daviess County when they died or if they died elsewhere, perhaps in Louisville like their father in 1901.

That's 15 people I am reasonably sure would be buried in this family plot. I am less sure but fairly confident about Benjamin Bell, Catherine Winstead, and Mary C. Taylor. And it's possible as many as four or more additional Tapscotts and two or more additional Phillipses could be buried here as well.

There were two additional families I considered may also be buried there. The first was Myra Riley Windsor and her husband, Richard. They died between 1850-1860 and in the 1860 Census their daughters are residing with the Taylors. The second is the George Riley family. As we have discussed, it would appear that the boundaries of George Riley's farm once stretched far enough to border the Taylor farm, though it would appear his actual residence was a little ways north. But because the Riley burial ground was on the other side of the county near Yelvington, when the Rileys in the western half of the county started dying off, would they have had their own family burial ground, or been buried with kin in one nearby that had already been established?

The list of missing burials among these two families includes:

Myra Riley Windsor, d. between 1850-1860
Richard Windsor, d. between 1840-1850
Susan Frances Windsor Patterson, d. between 1880-1900
George Riley, d. about 1844 [note that numerous family trees refer to him as George Washington Riley but no records have been found indicating a middle initial or proving a middle name]
Susannah Huston Riley, d. between 1850-1860
Prudence H. Riley Price Duke, d. 2 Sep 1880
Robert S. Price, d. 15 Mar 1877
Amos Riley, d. between 1850-1860
Milo Riley, d. between 1860-1870
Cynthia Riley, d. between 1850-1880
Benjamin Riley, d. between 1850-1880
George Riley [Jr.], d. between 1850-1880

This does not include grandchildren of Myra. George had no grandchildren. All of his children died without issue. Prudence was the last of his children to die (also without issue) and part of her estate was divided among her parents' siblings and their heirs. Cynthia, Benjamin, and George Jr. are never located in Census records, but Ben is found in land records. Amos is living with his uncle Camden in 1850, and Milo with his uncle William. Milo is found again in 1860 living with the Morris family and then is not found in Census records again. It appears that all or most of the George Riley property eventually came to Prudence.

After sending my suspicions to Christina at the Daviess County Library in Owensboro, she found information on a Windsor burial ground. In 2014, a man named Isaac Settle found the cemetery on the land the Windsors once resided on. Only one grave was still legible--that of Myra Riley's husband, Richard Windsor, b. 8 Jan 1787, d. 18 Jul 1849.


1876 Daviess County Atlas - Little Flock Church is the blue circle for modern point of reference. The red circle on the land of Kate Higgins (daughter of Myra Riley) shows the location of the Windsor Burial Ground. 


Red circle indicates modern location of Windsor Burial Ground, per Isaac Settle. Blue circle is the Little Flock Church. 

Christina found 3 death announcements for grandchildren of Richard and Myra Windsor indicating they were also buried there:

Susan Frances Patterson, age 20, d. Feb 1902. Daughter of Susan Frances Windsor.
Dillard Patterson, age 26, d. Aug 1899. Son of Susan Frances Windsor.
James Nolan Patterson Jr., age 23, d. Jan 1897. Son of Susan Frances Windsor.

Susan Frances Windsor died between 1880-1900 and we can presume she was also likely buried there. Myra Riley Windsor is also a safe bet for being buried there. Myra's other children Katherine "Kate" Windsor Higgins and William Taylor McAtee are buried at Mater Dolorosa Cemetery (Owensboro) and Calvary Cemetery (Louisville), respectively. It is possible other grandchildren and relatives of Richard and Myra are buried there.

As far as the George Riley family is concerned, his farm was closer to the Taylors than the Windsors, but it's still impossible to say which they would have been buried at or if they might have had their own separate burial ground as well. I am not comfortable asserting one way or the other what direction his family may have gone, but one day I would like to find where they ended up as well.


1876 Daviess County atlas showing the distance from the George Riley farm to the Taylor and Windsor farms. 

Before reaching the conclusion that there must have been a Taylor family burial ground, I tried to find other cemeteries in the vicinity where the Taylors could be buried. There was no indication they were buried at the Sorgho cemetery, nor record of them at Rosehill-Elmwood Cemetery. Both would have been a few miles in opposite directions from the Taylor farm, and neither were established when the earliest family members--John Taylor and William Tapscott--perished. I did end up finding record of one cemetery in their immediate vicinity that was abandoned and seemed promising until I did further research.

I assumed for a long time that the Rileys and Taylors were Catholic. After all, I could document that Mary Alice Taylor Clements and her brother Amos Riley Taylor were Catholic. But I never assumed that both could have been converted to Catholicism rather than becoming Catholic through their family's traditions, but that appears to have been the case. The families of Alice's and Amos's spouses--the Clements and Rudd families, respectively--are well-documented Catholic families. Since I thought that meant the Taylors at least would have been Catholic too, I reached out to the Diocese of Owensboro for any information.

They could not find the Taylors in any of their early records nor in any burial records from area Catholic cemeteries. But I learned of an early Catholic church just 5 miles south of the Taylor farm that seemed promising. St. Raphael Catholic Church was established in 1844 and included a cemetery. (http://wiki.historyofowensboro.com/index.php?title=St._Raphael_Church) The original site and cemetery are about 600 yards southeast of where the church stands today. The original cemetery ceased being used in 1872-73 other than an occasional burial and the cemetery was eventually razed. No record of the burials there was kept. There was a survey of the surviving headstones, but they did not include any Taylors.


Reference from Google Maps showing the distance from the Taylor farm to St. Raphael Church.



History of St. Raphael Church


History of St. Raphael Church

I felt strongly that this was a promising lead as a place where the Taylors could have been--since all the stones were lost, it would be no wonder we never found record of them. But upon examining some other records, I came to a new conclusion. I wondered if I could tie the Taylors to St. Raphael or another church by looking at their marriage records to see the minister(s) performing their marriage ceremonies. As it happened, the man who married Howard and Elton also performed marriages for two of their siblings each. The marriages of John Taylor (1823), Martha Riley (1825), Rawleigh Taylor (1827), Howard Taylor to Elton Riley (1833), and Lydia Riley (1835) were all conducted by a Reverend John Pinkston.

Per the History of Daviess County, Kentucky (1883) [https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Daviess_County_Kentucky_Toget.html?id=_xxEAQAAMAAJ], "John Pinkston was an old-fashioned pioneer Methodist local preacher, earnest, zealous and efficient, and the early builder up of the Methodist church in this county. He lived, 1818-'34 and after, two or three miles from Owensboro, on the Litchfield road." Neighboring Ohio County also lists him among the early pioneering preachers for their area, indicating he made his way around the area rather than being relegated to a single location. This makes sense since the Taylors and Rileys lived on opposite ends of Daviess County, so either one or the other or both would have to go quite a ways out of their way to be married by the preacher. It makes more sense that he probably rotated around locations in the region.

This led to my conclusion that the Taylors and Rileys were actually Methodist and I looked into early Methodist cemeteries in the area. Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church (not related to the Pleasant Grove Baptist church in the immediate vicinity of the Taylor farm) looks to have been the earliest. Marked graves in their cemetery date back to the 1830s. This cemetery appears to have remained largely intact and there are no marked Taylors buried there. The church itself is about 15 miles by modern roads from the Taylor farm, which was likely longer with more-limited older routes, making it unlikely that the Taylors attended there.

At this point, I feel I have exhausted all but one possibility for where the Taylors could be buried. The Rosehill-Elmwood Cemetery experienced a fire many years ago that destroyed its records. The old part of the cemetery has never been fully surveyed. As the cemetery had not been established by the time our earliest family members died, I don't think they would have been buried there. And the cemetery was far enough from the Taylor farm that I don't think my more immediate Taylors would have originally been buried there either when the cemetery had been established and they were dying off between 1851-1877. That said, this family has a habit of moving burials, and it is possible that the Taylor graves were moved to Rosehill-Elmwood at some point but their memorials have not been recorded in modern records yet.

This is a long shot, to be fair. I think there would have been some evidence come up or some of their stones would have been come across by now if they had been moved, but it is not out of the realm of possibility. I have found two instances where their family members have been moved from one plot to another. In 1920, an aunt, uncle, and cousins of the family were moved from a small burial ground outside Louisville to Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.


Maas Funeral Home (Louisville) record of Phillips family burial removals. Courtesy of Filson Historical Society.  

Later, in 1947, the grave of Amos Riley Taylor was moved from its original plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis to Calvary Cemetery within the same city. The family reports this was because his daughter Sarah Alexandrine wanted her parents in a Catholic cemetery. She would later be buried in the same plot along with her sister Nannie. Their brother Francis Howard Taylor remains in the original plot at Bellefontaine.

So it is not without precedent that the family could have been moved from a family burial ground, but I have no indication that that occurred. What I do have is a suspicion that the burial ground was destroyed some time ago, and that is based on the aforementioned second grave of Amos Riley Taylor at Calvary Cemetery. The Taylor family stone there is large and has the names of all four persons buried in the plot. Additionally, the stone is a cenotaph for two other family members--none other than Howard and Elton Taylor.


Courtesy of Find A Grave user Kathie (ID # 46970958)

Firstly, documentation proves that Howard died in 1851 and Elton's will was probated in 1866, so the years of death are off. But I find it odd that Sarah would have had these names etched onto the family stone just because. She didn't know either of her paternal grandparents, with both of them dying before she was born. And she did not have her maternal grandparents the Rudd's names etched onto the stone. I think she was aware that the family cemetery had been lost/destroyed and this was a way of preserving these names in memorial form. Perhaps I am reading too much into it--I honestly hope that I am, because it would be a thrill to find Howard's and Elton's marked graves some day. But I think this cenotaph was put into place because their original burial place was no longer marked.

In hopes that perhaps remains of this cemetery could be seen earlier, I contacted the Daviess County PVA about their earliest aerial photos of the county and was sent the earliest one of the area around the Taylor farm from 1950.


1950 aerial view of Taylor farm - Courtesy of Daviess County PVA

Unfortunately, as you can see, there are no signs of the former Taylor home or cemetery on from this view. 

I am still planning to write to some of the current owners of the Taylor's former property in hopes one of them will know of a cemetery having been on the grounds at some point, but I'm not holding my breath. And it's even possible that the former Howard Taylor farm is NOT where the Taylor burial ground is. Remember, Bell and Tapscott held a total of 2,000 acres. The 200 their widows received and the 400+ Howard and Elton later owned is only a quarter of that total. My assumption that Howard and Allen would have wanted to buy the land their brothers and other relatives were buried on could be off. The cemetery could be miles away from the land they bought. All I can do at this point is use my best judgement and guess as well as I can, but this is not a precise science. 

Fortunately, the final burial ground I want to write about has actually been located, so that takes a lot of guesswork out of it. For that we go all the way to the other end of Daviess County where the Amos Riley family once resided. 

A Riley family cemetery came to my attention a few years ago when corresponding with various descendants of Amos Riley Jr., who removed from Daviess County to New Madrid, MO. One cousin reported having visited the cemetery in the 1970s or 1980s and said that cattle had knocked all the stones over and they had been stacked together near the fence. I worked with the Daviess County library to narrow down the location of that cemetery. Thanks to the family's connection to Josiah Henson, AKA "The Real Uncle Tom" [http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/11/amos-riley-jr-and-josiah-henson-real.html], a historical survey of the area had been conducted years ago when researchers tried to narrow the location of the Riley plantation in preparation for a historical marker for Henson to be placed in the area.

They contacted descendants and poured over land records until they found what appeared to the Riley homeplace. Near the remains of the Riley home was the old family cemetery--the same one my cousins in New Madrid told me about. They were confident they had found the correct location of the farm as it corresponded with Henson's description in his autobiography. Robert M. Polsgrove conducted the survey and wrote: "In his written account of his life experiences, Henson stated that the Riley farm was situated five miles south of the Ohio River and fifteen miles above the Yellow Banks which correspond with the actual distance to these points. ... The family cemetery is located in the northeast corner of the garden. The two surviving markers are marble obelisks: John Hathway, b. May 28, 1786, d. June 25, 1866. Martha, wife of J. H., b. Oct 5 1804, d. July 29, 1861." 



Topographical map from the historical survey of Riley property showing locations of various Riley family sites, including the cemetery. 

The land today is owned by the Hawes family, as it was when the survey was conducted in 1979. The land originally passed from Amos Riley to his son, William, and later to his wives. The Riley estate as a whole was expansive, as the report states: "[In] 1814* Amos Riley left Maryland and journeyed to Kentucky in search of new land. The same year he purchased one thousand acres of land along Blackford Creek, situated in then Ohio Couny, from Norborne B. Beale for one thousand dollars. A year later Daviess County was formed from Ohio County. ... Amos Riley was one of the first settlers in the newly created county. The first Tax Assessment Record of Daviess County in 1815 contained an entry for Riley for one thousand acres on Blackford Creek valued at $4,730, and the owner of sixteen slaves. 

During his lifetime Riley acquired 3,746 acres of land, making him one of the largest landowners in the county. By 1825 he owned 1,545 acres of land on Blackford Creek. He bought the majority of his land holdings from 1830 until his death in 1838."

*Note: Amos Riley is enumerated in the 1810 Census in Jefferson County, Kentucky, indicating he was already in Kentucky well before 1814. Amos Riley Jr. and Elton Riley self-reported their states of birth in 1810 and 1811, respectively, as Kentucky.

By his death, Riley still held large expanses of land that were divided among his children and further divided upon the death of his wife. But the focus here remains on the land devised to his son William. I was fortunate enough last summer to get to visit the farm in person and walk the cemetery, though only the aforementioned Hathaway stones were visible, and they were on the ground. I could not find the stack of stones mentioned by the New Madrid cousins, but they may not have been visible among the very tall grass and cows I was standing among. I am hopeful one day I can return and do a deeper look. Pictures from my trip to Owensboro and Maceo can be found in a post about all my Kentuck adventures last summer: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2019/09/2019-genealogy-road-trip-kin-tucky.html

Family testimony reported from various descendants of William Riley indicates the cemetery was still relatively intact until around the 1960s and is said to have included at least a dozen and possibly as many as two dozen stones. I have not found any relatives who have a picture of the cemetery, but I have compiled a list of names of Riley relatives that lived in this area of the county and whose burial places remain unaccounted for:

Amos Riley (d. about 1838)
Susanna Phillips Riley (d. about 1843)
William Riley Hathway (d. before 1870)
John C. Hathway (d. 1881)
Cynthia Riley (d. 1846)
Sue Riley (d. between 1855-1860) (Daughter of Camden Riley; born 1855, died pre-1860 Census. Child could also potentially be buried in maternal grandparents' family cemetery, the Enoch Kendall Cemetery near Yelvington)
William Riley (d. before 1870)
Unknown daughter Riley I (d. before 1830)**
Unknown daughter Riley II (d. before 1840)**

**It is believed based on Census records that the Rileys may have lost children who predeceased them and whose names we do not know. The 1810 Census reports the family having 3 female children under age 10; the only one we are aware of is Martha, b. 1804. Amos Jr. was born in Jun 1810 and it is not clear what date in 1810 the Census was conducted so while he is most likely one of the two males under 10 that is not a certainty.

In 1820, all known children are enumerated in their correct age groups. However, further evidence that the Rileys had two daughters who we do not know is present in that two females ages 10-15 are enumerated. The female 16-25 would be Martha again and the three under 10 would be Elton, Cynthia, and Lydia, but the other two are not known. One of those females is again in the household in 1830 as a 20-29 year old. To be fair, my estimate for Cynthia's age is about 1812-1815, though she could be older. Regardless, there is still an extra female we cannot identify in the 1830 household.

Further, due to the six-year age gap between Camden (1816) and probable twins Myra and William (1822) indicates the possibility that children were born and died in that six-year period, though there is no proof of this.

This gives us 11 confirmed (the eldest Hathaways) and suspected burials which matches the approximate number furnished by relatives who remember seeing the cemetery when they were young.

In an attempt to get a look at how large the cemetery looked before being razed, I contacted the Daviess County PVA again. Chris Flener of that office sent me the earliest aerial shot of that area he had which was taken in 1950. Unfortunately, the photo is not high enough resolution to gain additional details on the cemetery.


1950 aerial view of Riley farm. Red circle is where the cemetery is. Courtesy of Daviess County PVA.


Google Earth view of Riley farm today. Red circle is cemetery location.


Riley Cemetery zoomed in on Google Earth. 


Riley Cemetery in Sep, 2019. 


Riley Cemetery in Sep, 2019.

Unfortunately, that is just about all the information I have on these cemeteries at this time. I do have a couple of pending leads with some current and former Daviess County locals, so my hope is that down the road I will be able to update this post with additional information. One is a Riley cousin whose mother remembers the old cemetery and who may have a lead on a second cemetery connected to the Rileys.

The other is the aforementioned Isaac Settle, a Sorgho-area native with a great deal of knowledge on the county's old and forgotten cemeteries. he has already made me aware of a promising cemetery called the Crabtree Cemetery that was on the farm of the aforementioned Crabtree family; you can see the farm in the 1876 atlas due eat of the Taylor farm and north of the Calhoun plot. So far only Crabtree burials have been found there but there is said to be dozens of stones below the surface. Hopefully more information will emerge over time.

When I have more to share, I will update this post.