Sometime
after 1805 and before 1808, Matthew’s parents left Gates County, North Carolina
and moved west to Smith County, Tennessee to the Dismal Creek area of that
county. The first official record that I
have found so far, for his father, James Parker, states that James Parker
bought two sows and some pigs at an estate sale on Dismal Creek in 1813. Tennessee was still pretty much a wilderness
area at this time and so Matthew would have learned all the basics of living on
the frontier, things such as hunting, fishing, farming, blacksmithing, etc.,
basically everything you would need to know to stay alive and feed your family,
because there wasn’t a neighborhood market to go to. The following map shows Smith County,
Tennessee today and circled in purple is approximately the area where the
Dismal Creek and Smith Fork area was that the Parker family lived in and which
became part of DeKalb County in about 1837.
The next map shows where these counties are located in the state of
Tennessee.
Matthew’s known siblings were the following: Lewis/Louis
Parker, 1799-1848, married Elizabeth Yeargin; Ephraim Parker, 1803-1837;
Elizabeth Parker, 1805-1882, married Jonathan Fuson; William Parker, 1807-after
1860, married to Clarissa; Lemuel Parker, 1811-before 1870, married Catherine
and John Parker, 1816-after 1880, married Sarah Claybarn.
Matthew married fairly young in about 1819 when he was 18
years old, approximately. He married a
young woman named Cynthia or Catherine Ross, according to different
descendants. Unfortunately, although Smith County is not a
burned county and was formed in 1799, marriage records do not start until
1838. Cynthia or Catherine Ross, was my
4th great-grandmother and was born about 1799, maybe in Tennessee and died
before 1838, probably in Smith County, Tennessee.
Matthew and Cynthia became the parents of at
least eight known children, the last of these being twins and that maybe when
Cynthia died, but like I said I know hardly anything about her so I can’t say
with any certainty. These eight children
were: James Parker, 1820-after 1846, he went to Texas and may have fought in
the Mexican War according to family stories; Eliza Ann Parker, 1822-1917,
married Volentine Floyd in 1840, these were my 3rd
great-grandparents and they came to Crittenden County, Kentucky in 1873 and
this is the county I was born in; Nancy Ann Parker, 1824-after 1870, married
Robert Sandlin; Louis Jordan Parker, 1826-1895, married Marilda Warford;
William Smith ’Whig’ Parker, 1828-1903,
married Mary Ann Midgett, he may have fought in the Mexican War according to
family stories with his brother James and he also fought for the South during
the Civil War, although according to family stories he sympathized with the
North on the issue of slavery; Elizabeth A. Parker, 1830-1904, never married
and she helped her brother, William, raise his two children after his wife,
Mary died; Jasper Jackson Parker, 1832-1909, he married 3 times first to Mary
Elizabeth Willoughby, then to her sister, Martha Amanda Willoughby and finally
to Eliza Jane Talley and his twin was Newton Carroll Parker, 1832-1863, married
Louisa Midgett, sister to his brother William’s wife. Newton and his family went to Illinois with
his father, where he joined up and fought in the Union Army during the Civil
War and died of yellow jaundice and river complaint, on board the steamer
"West Wind" between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Helena, Arkansas on
the way to the army hospital in Helena, Arkansas according to his pension files.
Sometime after 1832 and before 1840, Matthew next married Levertious
Sarah Spence. Her maiden name has been
given as Spence, Spencher, Virch, Felton and McCernen. Also Bert ? (no last name), Forcus (as the
first name) Felton & Sarah Spencher.
All of these different names were given on her children's marriage or
death records throughout the years, so I just used the two first names and last
name that were used the most often in records talking about her. So far I have not located a marriage record
for Matthew and her, so I don’t know what name was listed at that time, but if
they were married before 1838 in Smith County, Tennessee I may never find one.
Matthew and Levertious became the parents of at least nine
known children and these were: Matthew Parker, Jr. 1842-after 1850; John M.
Parker, 1845-after 1880, married Susan F. Chapman; Sarah Parker, 1847-1918,
married William Carroll Morris; Mary Jane Parker, 1849-1925, married Charles
Harvey and John Yates; Aletha Parker, 1852-before 1920, married N. S. Richeson
and a Mr. McDonald; Elvira Lydia Parker, 1854-1933, married Andrew J. Durfee
then his brother Lewis Durfee; Ephraim Parker, 1856-after 1860; Zachary/Zachariah Taylor Parker, 1858-1936,
married Emily Jane Baker; Julia Carolyn Parker, 1862-1945, married Reuben Baker
in 1877, then they were divorced and she married her nephew William Parker in
1879, then they were divorced and she remarried Reuben Baker again in 1885. I don't know if she and Reuben were divorced
again are not, but in about 1909 she married John William Baker.
So as you can see Matthew became the father of at least 17 known
children. Three of these children may
have died as young children, but this would still leave at least 14 children to
feed and clothe. How families did that
back then I do not know, Matthew wasn’t a wealthy man. Maybe that is why at least two of his sons may
have gone off to Texas and ended up possibly fighting in the Mexican War.
According to another descendant, Matthew Parker grew
up in the Dismal Creek/Smith Fork area which became part of DeKalb County in
1837. He was elected the first local
Magistrate or Justice of the Peace for the First Civil District of the new
county of DeKalb when it was formed and served for at least eleven years. He would have been responsible for handling
minor civil and administrative affairs, administering oaths and performing
marriages in his district. His name
appears regularly on the marriage records up to 1849. Because Matthew sympathized with the north on
the question of slavery, he and his second wife and children moved to Southern Illinois,
probably around the spring or summer of 1861, since their last child was born
there in January of 1862. Matthew’s wife,
Levertious, died possibly in child birth with their last child and was buried
there in either Gallatin or Saline County, Illinois. The following map shows the counties in
Illinois circled in red where Matthew and his family lived.
The war ended in April of 1865, and sometime after that Matthew
and the children headed back to Tennessee by boat, but somewhere along the way
he contracted smallpox and he and the children were put off the boat. Matthew died in about 1866 and some stories
says he died in Cairo, Illinois and yet another account says he was put off the
boat and died somewhere in Kentucky and the children were sent back to
Illinois. Either way these young
children were left by themselves with no father or mother to care for
them. The baby, Julia, was only about 4
and the older of the second set of children was about 22 years old, if he was
still living that is. The next two girls
were married in 1865 and 1866 so maybe this is who the younger children were
living with, after being sent back to Illinois.
I don’t know a lot about this ancestor of mine, Matthew
Parker, but he left a lot of descendants all across this great country of ours,
I know of some today in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Colorado
and Washington. No matter how much or
how little we know about an ancestor, if we know them at all even if it is just
their name, we are remembering them and the sacrifices they made for us to be
here today.
Nicely done Vickie
ReplyDeleteVickie thank you so much for all this....
ReplyDeleteJames Parker of DeKalb County, TN is one of my brickwall ancestors. Our branch left Tennessee for southern Missouri. I am hoping to get a DNA test done in the next year or so (as soon as I can get some funds saved up). Perhaps our branches connect. :)
ReplyDeleteIf he is from DeKalb County then he ties into my Parker line.
DeleteHello, Ladies!
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in your Parker lines! My maternal side is also a Parker Y-DNA match to yours, and I need all your input I can get! Debbie Parker Wayne is the genetic genealogist for our Parker group #1, and needs to know all she can find to help us ID this Parker line in Family Group #1. Please get back to me ASAP, as she is trying to compile a genetic DNA chart for our Parkers. She is also from this Parker line.She doesn't know much on this line, and I don't either. I think you would both be interested in helping us find our immigrant Parker/s to the US. We have a match in Kirby Hill, North Yorkshire, England, but they don't know of any of their line who immigrated here. Please help us! A descendant for your Parker line matches ours. I have a facebook group so we can all work together. Please help us! Thanks! Kathy Jo Bryant
Yes, Vickie, as Kathy Jo said above, I am correlating the Parker Family Group 1 Y-DNA and autosomal DNA test results with our family trees. It would be great to have more info on your Parker line. I wrote a blog post on how autosomal DNA test-takers can join the project at http://debsdelvings.blogspot.com/2016/06/join-autosomal-dna-project-ancestrydna.html. And the Y-DNA project can be found at https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/parker/dna-results. My contact info is on my website at http://debbiewayne.com so you can share lineage or other information privately if you prefer.
ReplyDeleteDebbie, I am so new to this I'm not sure how to respond. I'm trying to find info on Lewis Parker in DeKalb co. 1799-1848 who married Elizabeth Yeargin/Yeargan. any help would be appreciated. Bettie Webb Mason
ReplyDelete