Author: Dennis Ayers

January 13, 2018 Dennis Ayers

Before there was slavery in America, there was indentured servitude. The rapid growth of the colonies before 1700 created a tremendous need for labor. Without the aid of modern machinery, human sweat and blood was necessary for the planting, cultivation, and harvesting of tobacco and other cash crops. It is estimated that up to two-thirds of the European immigrants during this time were indentured servants. Gradually, however, by the late 1600s, slavery became the preferred method of obtaining cheap labor.

 

Against this backdrop, William JACKSON, arrived in Surry County, of the Virginia colony in 1679 as a 25 yr old indentured servant. Whether he came willingly or unwillingly to escape poverty or some other condition is unknown, but evidently he could not afford to pay his own passage. Instead he agreed to a 7 year contract to bind his labor in America in exchange for his passage as was customary in such cases. From lists of Tithables (taxable persons), he is listed in three different households between 1679 and 1686, so his contract was apparently sold or traded around. He was a husbandman, someone who cares after livestock. Beginning in 1687 he is listed as head of his own household, no doubt, after fulfilling his servitude contract. He is also on the roster of Surry County Militia of 1687.

 

Subsequently, William became a successful planter in Surry County, which is on the south side of the James River about halfway between the mouth of the river on the lower Chesapeake Bay, and the town that would later become Richmond, VA. It is believed his wife was Elizabeth O’hara.

 

William Jackson was born around 1654 in Hertfordshire, England, and was christened in the Anglican Church of England. This Church of England also became the religion of the Virginia colony. All colonists were to go to church twice every Sunday. William died in Jan 1710 in Surry County, VA. His will proven in Feb 1710 divides his estate between his wife and his children.

December 29, 2017 Dennis Ayers

Alias is a term used to connect alternate names of a person who has been known to use more than one for some reason, often in legal proceedings. Generally the presumption seems to be that an alias name is primarily used to conceal or disguise an identity. Quite the opposite was true in earlier times, however, when the intention was purely to identify one individual from another, before the use of surnames became commonplace.

 

The period during which aliases were most used in England coincided with the gradual development of surnames, approximately 1460 to 1650, and continued to be used even into the 1800s. The practice seemed to originate in the southern areas and slowly moved northward.

December 29, 2017 Dennis Ayers

Our first Jackson ancestor who adventured to America was William Jackson in 1679. With Jackson being a very common name, tracing his line further back in England is not simple. However, researchers in England and others have successfully traced back several generations to Thomas Jackson born about 1550 in Nottinghamshire, England. (Note this is around the time and place where Robin Hood, the heroic outlaw of Sherwood Forest in English folklore, became legendary.) Tracing further back from Thomas becomes even more difficult.

That being said, there is good reason to believe the Jacksons were actually descendants of the ancient Lascelles family from France. I’ll explain. Picot de Lascelles was a Baron who apparently come over from northern France in 1066 with a contingent of William the Conqueror’s army. He helped secure a strategic part of England around Cambridge by building a castle on a hill overlooking the river, and became the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire. His son, Roger, was his successor. After that, history mentions several generations of de Lascelles mostly in the Yorkshire area.  Then around the late 13th century, Sir John de Lascelles began using the alias of “Jackson”. This apparently continued until eventually their descendants simply became known only by the name, Jackson. Since these Jacksons came from the same general area of Northeast England as our line  is highly likely that they are our forebears.

 

 

December 29, 2017 Dennis Ayers

Myrtle JACKSON was Helen Derrie’s mother. So, the JACKSON branch of our tree follows her line of male Ancestors. JACKSON is a famous English surname, and throughout history has had various spellings such as Jacson, Jagson and Jaxon.  It is a patronymic surname formed from the personal names Jaques or John, both originating from the ancient Hebrew “Yochanan”. The name was first introduced by returning Crusaders from the Holy Land in the 12th century, and quickly gained  popularity in England.

Now, JACKSON is also a very common surname in the United States. As of the 2010 census there were slightly over 700,000 people with the name ranking it 19th of all surnames in the US.  The name is most common in the Southeastern states, as well as being especially popular in the District of Columbia. It is least common in the midwestern states. There are actually more African-Americans named Jackson than Caucasians in the US.

Amongst the many interesting name bearers was Andrew Jackson (1767 – 1845). He was the seventh president of the United States of America, from 1828 – 1836, but earlier he became a national hero when he successfully defended New Orleans against the British in 1815. Even though he lived in Tennessee, our family has no relationship to Andrew Jackson.  However, we do have a very distant relationship to another famous Jackson, entertainer Michael Jackson.

Our branch of Jacksons in America is an interesting story which begins with the arrival of our immigrant Jackson ancestor from England as an indentured servant in the late 1600s. Over the next two hundred years his descendants became prosperous land and slave owners in the South before losing all their prosperity again by the time of the Civil War. Read on to discover how their story unfolded.

 

April 22, 2016 Dennis Ayers

 

An interesting bit of information is worth noting about the complicated relationship between Ira Ayers and Florence Depew. On his father’s side, Florence was Ira’s Aunt since she was his father Martin’s sister. However, on his mother’s side, Florence was also Ira’s Step-Grandmother after she married Will Depew, who was Ira’s mother’s father.

 

Nothing irregular here, but it kind of makes you think of the humorous country song “I am my own Grandpa”.

 

March 29, 2016 Dennis Ayers
Hannah, Charlie, Nola Depew
Hannah, Charlie, Nola Depew

Hannah Mae Depew was the oldest daughter of William Depew. Tragically, like her mother, Tilda, Hannah did not have a very long life. None of her grandchildren ever had an opportunity to know her, and even her own children had few memories of her. As a result not much is known about Hannah.

 

When Hannah Mae was born on April 6, 1894, in Hancock County, Tennessee, her father, William, was 20 and her mother, Tilda, was 18.  Three younger siblings followed her. Old pictures show that she looked very much like her mother as she was a little woman (120 lbs) with brown hair. Her son, Addison, remembered her hair color as being slightly reddish or auburn. She was called Hannie. After moving with her family to Campbell County, she lost her own mother when she was just 10 years old. Then, when Bill Depew married Florence Ayers and started a second family, Hannie and the other children from the first marriage continued to live with them.

 

Hannah Ayers (L) & Dorothy Ayers
Hannie Ayers on the Left

As previously mentioned, by 1910 the family moved next to the farm of Florence’s father, William Riley Ayers, on Hickory Creek.  Like most mountain families, both had a bunch of offspring, and of course there had to be some romance. William Riley’s oldest son, Martin Van Buren Ayers, took a fancy to Hannie and they were married on November 10, 1912.  They had four children by the time she was 25: Two boys, Ira and Addison, and two girls, Rose and Mary.  Hannie and her family lived a very simple, hard working life in the mountains with no conveniences. Their contact with the outside world was sparse. She probably didn’t even know that women had won the right to vote in 1920.  Somehow Hannie contracted Tuberculosis and died as a young mother on March 18, 1926, one month short of her 32nd birthday. She is buried in Hall Cemetery in the Stinking Creek area.

 

Hannie with Ira and Rose about 1917

There was a striking similarity to Hannie’s life and that of her mother, Tilda. Both were married when they were 18 years old, and they looked very similar. Both had two boys and two girls. Both of them died as young mothers with Hannie being 31 and Tilda being just 29.  At their time of death, Hannie’s oldest child, Ira, was 12, and Tilda’s oldest child, Hannie was 10. Tragically, both left 4 young children behind to be raised by single fathers living in a remote area. It was a hard life in the mountains.

 

I wish we had known grandmother, Hannie.

 

April 19, 2013 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

As mentioned earlier, Isaac Newton Depew and his wife, Betsy, had a total of 16 children.Eli Henry Depew With so many names to hand out they became quite creative with some. For example they named two sons George Washington Depew and Thomas Jefferson Depew after famous presidents. Their fourth son was Henry Eli Depew born in 1848 in Harlan County, Kentucky. Some records show his name as Eli Henry while some other records show his name as Henry Eli. So, what was his true name?  Unfortunately, without a birth certificate we will never know for sure. However, in the end his headstone shows the name as Henry Eli, giving whoever provided the headstone the last word in the matter.  Besides, everyone just called him “Hen”.

 

By 1860 when he was 12 years of age, Hen had moved with his family to Hancock County, Tennessee, near Sneedville which is where he remained for most of his life. When the Civil War brokeout, he was too young to join the fighting like his two older brothers, William and Joseph. This no doubt was fortunate for us descendants since we would not be here if he had fought and perished like so many did. Hen became a farmer like most everyone else in the county, and he grew everything possible to make a go of it. According to his granddaughter, Elizabeth Suckel, he also raised sheep to sell wool.

 

Sarah Ellen McCollumHenry Depew married a number of times. At age 23 his first wife was Sarah Ellen McCollum whom he married in 1871. As an interesting side note, Sarah’s father James McCollum had left home in the 1860s to venture to northern California to try his hand at gold mining. When that didn’t work out so well he still remained there as a farmer for a few years. Finally, he returned to Hancock County, Tennessee after being away some 20 years. Together, Henry and Sarah raised ten children. Unfortunately, Sarah died in 1909, but by then all their children were grown with the youngest being 15.

 

According to an article published in a Hancock County newspaper in 1999, Hen soon married a second time to Myrtle Johnson who was 47 years younger. This marriage did not go well for reasons unknown today, and it was not long before Hen fell in love with Virginia (Vergie) Rhea who was also very young, but 4 years older than Myrtle. However, when he asked Myrtle for a divorce she did not want to easily give up her new home and refused. Following some poor advice from his brother Thomas, Henry thought he could avoid legal complications by going to another state to get married. So, in 1910 Henry went just across the border to Lee County Virginia with Vergie, and apparently got married under the name of Henry D. Pugh. When he returned to Hancock County, Hen learned that the Sheriff was soon coming to arrest him. Since he and Thomas had heard from others about the good life in Texas and the fortune they could make growing cotton there, they decided it was a good day to depart for Texas. The trip took them six weeks.

 

Myrtle got everything Henry owned but his land.  Somehow Henry’s son James was able to save the Henry E. Depew HSland from Myrtle. According to letters he wrote back to his son, Henry did not fare well in Texas being sick most of the time. Eventually, he and Virgie were able to move back to Hancock County, Tennessee, and they were officially married in 1912 in nearby Grainger County. Hen had three more daughters with Virgie before he died in 1925 at the age of 76. He is buried in the Depew Cemetery in Sneedville where his first wife, Sarah is also buried.  Vergie lived for over 50 years longer and died at the age of 88. She is buried in the Burke Cemetery.

 

April 1, 2013 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

Isaac Newton Depew was born in 1818 in Hawkins County, TN, according to records. He was apparently named after the English Physicist and Mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton who lived 1642-1727.  He also had one brother named George Washington Depew and another named John Wilson Depew. As you will see going forward, the Depew line of men were often named after famous people before them. At the age of 22, Isaac married Mariah Elizabeth Setzer, born 1822 in North Carolina. Over the next 30 years, they had a huge family of 16 children with about half of them being male and half female. They lived in Hancock and Hawkins counties in Northeast TN and Harlan and Clay counties Southeast KY.  Perhaps so much moving around was because in addition to being a farmer, Isaac was a Circuit Riding Preacher.

 

In the earlier frontier times, Circuit Riders were clergy in the Methodist Episcopal Church who were assigned to travel around specific territories to minister to settlers and to organize congregations. Because of the distance between churches, these preachers rode on horseback. Popularly called Circuit Riders or Saddlebag Preachers, they were officially called Traveling Clergy. Always on the move, they traveled with few possessions, carrying only what could fit in their saddlebags. They traveled through wilderness and villages, preaching every day at any place available. Typically they traveled the same circuit for a year before being reassigned to a different territory. There is some evidence also that Isaac served as a contract mail carrier for at least part of the time, perhaps along with his circuit riding.

 

There is an amusing story provided by Bruce Johnson which has passed down through the generations about when Isaac was a preacher. Once when he was away on one of his trips, a man came to his log cabin during the night. Mariah and the children heard the man walking outside and were afraid to go out. It was customary for visiting neighbors to call out their name when approaching someone’s house in the dark, but this person did not do that and they knew he was up to something. The man stuck his bare feet between the logs to climb the side of the house to get at their corn stored above the ceiling. The house had eves under the roof left open for ventilation and it was easy for the man to reach in and get the corn. Also, the mud chinking had been removed between some of the logs to allow the flow of air in to relieve them from the summer heat. They heard the man filling his sack with corn and he left when it was full.

 

Isaac came home after a few days and was told about the incident.  Apparently the man did not know that Isaac had come home and he returned the next night for more corn. As he stuck his toes between the logs to climb up the wall, Isaac gave both feet a good whack with a hammer. The family heard a scream followed by a thud as the man hit the ground.Methodist Circuit Rider The thief left in a hurry. Isaac suspected the person who did it, and a few days later Isaac was at a local store when he saw this man hobbling around with both feet bandaged up. He asked him what happened to his feet and the man replied, “A cow stepped on them.” Isaac said, “Yes, and I know exactly which cow it was too.”

 

Isaac died in Clay County, KY in 1890 at the age of 72.  His wife, Mariah Elizabeth, called Betsy who had bore him sixteen children died the following year.

 

March 29, 2013 Dennis Ayers

Note: This is a new post inserted in January 2021

Isaac Newton Depew (IND) was born out of wedlock to Edward H Depew and Abigail Cupp. Without records, this parentage cannot be proven. However, it is highly probable based on DNA Forensic Analysis. Capt Isaac Depew was an uncle and William G. Depew was his cousin. Many researchers had previously thought William G. was his likely father, but the DNA, plus time and place strongly points to Edward.

Born around 1800 in Botetourt County, VA, Edward was the only son of John Depew Jr., and Mary “Polly” Seagraves. When John’s family migrated to Illinois, the first leg of their long journey followed the Wilderness Road through Southwest Virginia. There were encampments and resting stops along the way, as they traveled by wagon.

One regular resting stop was the settlement where the Wilderness Trail passed over Clinch Mountain through Moccasin Gap in Scott County. Today that settlement is called Gate City.

Abby Cupp was born about 1800 probably in Grayson County, Virginia. She was the daughter of Jacob S. Cupp and Sibitha “Sibby” Breeding. As a young woman, Abby lived as a single mother in Scott County, VA, through which the Wilderness Road passed. She apparently never married since she is found in every census from 1820 through 1850 as a single person. Although unmarried, Abby had a least six children by various partners.

One of her first partners around 1818 was evidently Edward Depew. Both still in their teens at the time, Edward and Abby would have had the opportunity to meet and interact during the Depew’s journey though Scott County. Whether this was a short romance between two young people, or just a transaction is up for conjecture. Their circumstances at the time are totally unknown. Regardless, Edward eventually continued on his way to Illinois, probably not realizing he had fathered a child, which would take the Depew name. This coupling scenario aligns very will with a story passed down through various Depew families that IND’s mother was a cook in a Virginia logging camp, and had a child with a man named Depew who subsequently left her.

Edward ultimately settled in Fayette County, IL. He married Priscilla Williams there in 1828 and had eight children with her before dying in 1848. The 1820 census for Scott County shows Abby living as a single mother with no young male in her household. However, her parent’s nearby household shows a very young male living with them. So, it is quite possible that IND spent part of his life living with his Cupp grandparents.

By 1830, the Jacob Cupp family along with many of their offspring, including Abby, had relocated to Claiborne County, TN, in an area which came to be known as Cupp Ridge. However, Abby still lived unmarried in a separate household up until she died before 1860. It appears that IND may have spent most of his early life in Claiborne County.