George Rogers Clark Floyd

My ancestor this week is another distant cousin, whose War of 1812 pension file was found and posted on Facebook, just like last week’s ancestor story was.  This ancestor from my Mom’s side of the family is George Rogers Clark Floyd who was born April 29, 1781 in Amherst County, Virginia.  George was the son of Col. John Floyd 1745-1783, and Sarah Jane Buchanan 1759-1812, and had two brothers and a half-sister from his father’s two marriages.  George’s brothers were William Preston Floyd, born August 1779-????, most records say he died without any children, and none mention a wife, so he may have died young, and John Floyd 1783-1837, married Letitia Preston, they had 12 children, and he was governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834.  George’s half-sister was Mourning Burford Floyd 1769-1847, married John Charles Stewart, her mother was Matilda Burford.  George’s mother, Sarah Jane Buchanan, remarried in 1784 to Alexander Breckinridge, 1752-1801.  She had several children with him according to different online sources, but the www.findagrave.com says there were no known children from this union.  I have not followed any of the Breckinridge’s, so I don’t know much information about any of them at this time.

Living in the dark and bloody grounds of Kentucky, George would have had to grow up quickly, especially without a father around.  His baby brother, John who became governor, was born near present day Louisville, just two weeks after their father, John Floyd, was murdered by Shawnee Indians.  I don’t know if Sarah Jane and her sons went back to Virginia or if they stayed in Kentucky for a while, but either way George and his brothers would have grown up learning to shoot, hunt, and farm, to help in their survival in the wilderness.  I know they went back and forth between Kentucky and Virginia a number of times, and George’s brother, John, was the only native Kentuckian to serve as governor of Virginia.  Governor, John Floyd’s son John Buchanan Floyd, also served as governor of Virginia from 1849 to 1852.

The following portrait paintings are supposed to be of George (black & white) and his brother John (in color), who became governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834, and are supposed to have been painted by Benjamin Trott in 1805 in Kentucky.   I found these pictures online on a number of different sites.  You can definitely tell they were related and painted by the same person.

Not sure how or when, but George met a young woman named Maria Maupin who had been born in Williamsburg, Virginia and they were soon married on September 21, 1806 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.  They had a son the following year, who they named John Gabriel Floyd, who was born July 7, 1807.  There is no death date for Maria, but different online trees have her dying around the time that the baby was born, if was the same day or shortly after I have not been able to find out yet.  John Gabriel Floyd married Ann Elizabeth Hager and they had at least nine known children and he died in Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa on March 4, 1868.

In 1807, when George was serving as a Captain in the town militia in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky he was recommended by William Clark for an appointment to be a Captain in the United States Army, on November 26, 1807.  Just a few months later, George entered the service of the United States Army, on May 3, 1808 as Captain of the 7th Infantry.   Sometime after his first wife’s death, he met Sarah T. ‘Sally’ Fontaine and they were married on April 16, 1810 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.   The following page showing George and Sally’s marriage, was from Sally’s widow’s pension files.

George fought at The Battle of Tippecanoe on November 11, 1811 near present day Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana where he was second in command.  Affidavits given for and by his widow in her pension papers, say that George enjoyed excellent health until Tippecanoe, when afterwards, he was sickly with consumption until his death.

George and Sally’s first child, a daughter, named Georgianna Maupin Floyd was born in 1812 and died in 1832, according to cemetery records.  Georgianna had married William Byers Carroll on July 1, 1830 in Louisville and they had one child, a daughter, named Georgianna Floyd Carroll, born in 1831 and died in 1907 in Manhattan, New York.  William Byers Carroll died in 1837 of yellow fever, but I don’t know what caused Georgianna’s death, it could be she never recovered from the birth of her daughter.

George was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the 4th Infantry on August 26, 1812 while serving in Louisiana.  However, George’s health had become so bad that on April 30, 1813 he resigned his commission to return home.  The pension record mentions that when George was on his way back from Natchez, Mississippi after resigning his commission that he took sick again by Nashville, and stayed with his uncle, Col. W. P. Anderson for several weeks before be able to resume his journey up to Louisville.  The record further states that George wanted his wife, Sally to come down to him to help in his recovery, but that she was unable to because of her own health and with an infant child she was unable to join him, so when he had recovered enough, his uncle brought him on up to Louisville.  I believe this child was their first child, Georgianna.

In part of the pension record it says something about George’s son from his first wife, and the children and grandchildren of Sally T. Floyd, but does not name any of them.   I know his son by his wife Maria was John Gabriel Floyd and his first known child by Sally was Georgianna.  I also know that George and Sally had a daughter named Jane Buchanan Floyd born in about 1822, married James Steptoe Penn on May, 21, 1840 in Louisville and they had three children, Lucy, Evelyn and George before Jane died around 1859 or early 1860 in Ponchatoula, Orleans Parish, Louisiana.   George and Sally may have also had two more daughters named Matilda Floyd, about 1816 and before 1858 and Evelyn Floyd, about 1819 and before 1858.  I cannot find anything out about these two girls and I found their names in different online family trees, but no sources were listed for either of them.  I have them both dying before 1858, because in part of Sally’s widow’s pension in 1858, it stated that she lived with her only living child, but again did not name the child.  I found Sally living with Jane and James Penn on the 1850 census in Jeffersonville, Clark County, Indiana so I know Jane was the only living child that Sally was talking about.  I also know that the Penn’s went down to Louisiana and that is where Sally was living in 1858 when she was writing for an update on her pension.

On November 1, 1850, Sally applied and received a 160 acre bounty land warrant for George’s military service during The Battle of Tippecanoe where he was second in command and for his time serving during the War of 1812.   She was living in Jeffersonville, Clark County, Indiana at the time she first applied.  Sally was listed on the pension rolls in Louisville, Kentucky on November 4, 1853 and on the rolls in Orleans Parish, Louisiana on November 4, 1858 but by September 7, 1861 this pension was being transferred back to Kentucky.   Sally stated the reason for her moving to Louisiana was the fact that her only living daughter had married and went with her husband to Louisiana and that she went with them.  Her reason for moving back to Kentucky from Louisiana, was because her daughter has since died, and she wanted to go back to her old home and live the rest of her days there among her old friends.  While in Louisiana she had lived in Orleans Parish in the town of Ponchatoula according to the pension papers.

I liked the following image from Sally’s pension file because it was a letter from Congress asking that she be granted her pension in 1851.

I have mentioned Sally and the widow’s pension she had filed for George’s service in the United States Army from the Battle of Tippecanoe to the War of 1812, but not when George died.  George did not live long enough to file for a pension himself.  The consumption and other ailments he contracted during his military service finally got the best of him and on June 5, 1823 at the age of 42, he died at their home near Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.  The Floyd family had been fairly wealthy, but Sally states in the papers that after George resigned his commission, that he did not have a business mind, and did not do well with investments and so lost most of the Floyd money and that was why she needed to ask for a pension from his service in the army. 

George is buried at the Floyd-Breckinridge Cemetery in Plymouth Village, Jefferson County, Kentucky as are his father, mother and his daughter Georgianna, as well as his mother’s second husband Alexander Breckinridge.  From pictures on www.findagrave.com it looks like there maybe a number of unmarked graves, which are probably other family members of George, Sally and the Breckinridge’s.   So far I have not located a death date for George’s wife Sally, nor is she listed in the same cemetery as George.  From her widow’s pension file she was still alive on September 7, 1861 but there are no records after that time period, which I have been able to find to date.

At www.findagrave.com it gives the following directions to the cemetery.  Located on the old property of General, Robert Breckinridge, off Breckinridge Lane, on property of Mr. Osie Lentz in the year 1928.  Take Breckenridge Lane to Hillsboro.  Bear left onto Prince William Street.  You will be on the street that runs behind Jamestown Apartments.  Go up approximately 3/10 mile.  The second left is Jamestown Court.  The cemetery is at the end of the cul-de-sac, surrounded by a stone wall.  The following are pictures from www.findagrave.com.

So many men have served in our military throughout the history of this great country, many died on the battlefields, but many more died from the diseases they contracted during their military service, living days or years after the battles had been fought.  George Rogers Clark Floyd was one of many, but he is a relative I am proud to say I am related too.

To see all I have collected on this family and my other Floyd family members in my Floyd Family Tree online you can click on the following link: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=williamfloyd