John Duncan (c1744-1818)

OVERVIEW


From Laughlin 1845. John Duncan (sometimes spelled Dunkin erroniously), my maternal grandfather, was a native of Chester Co., Pennsylvania, and married Eleanor, sister of the foregoing John Sharp, before the families emigrated to Virginia about 1764 or 1765. He and his family with many of their relatives removed to Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap and Crabb Orchard, and settled in the country around about where Lexington now stands, then, as I have often heard him describe it, one of the most beautiful and rich new countries the eye of man ever beheld. He located and settled on a little river called Kingston's Ford of Licking, I believe. In the year 1780-or between 1779 and 1781-Butler's and Marshall-s Histories of Kentucky will show the date, a statement in regard to which was communicated in 1842, and published at Cincinnati, Ohio, in the American Pioneer, by Benjamin Sharp, my grandfather's brother, in relation to the affair (see that work Vol. 1 page 359), my grandfather and his family, and all his friends, with all persons captured in Riddles and Martin's Station, old and young, black and white, were carried as prisoners by a party of British and Canadians, and a large number of Indians, and carried to Canada. They were carried down the Licking River to its mouth, between the two present Kentucky towns of Newport, where the United States have extensive barracks, and Covington, and opposite to the present site of the City of Cincinnati. From thence they were taken in boats and canoes down to the mouth of the great Miami, twelve miles, and thence up that river, and then by land and water to Detroit, now the Capitol of the new state of Michigan, and finally to Montreal. There, they were retained as prisoners until the close of the war when they were exchanged and returned to the United States through what is now northern and western New York, and through New Jersey to Philadelphia, where Congress was sitting, and thence to Western Virginia, from whence they had removed four or five years before. My grandfather on returning to Virginia, settled on the north bank of the south fork of Holson river, above the mouth of Spring Creek, just above an island where he died about the year 1818 his wife having died in 1816. By negligence in attending to his head-right or occupant claim for his land in Kentucky, it only requiring his personal attention to identify it which he never gave, he lost it. In fact, after his captivity, he never seems to have recovered his previous energy of character. He commanded one of the companies in Riddle's Station. After he was conveyed to Montreal, his eldest son, John, who afterwards married my father's sister, Polly, and in Kentucky about the year 1817, made his escape from Montreal in company with one or two young Americans, and made their way through the mountains and woods of western New York, and got in safely to Washington's army, having come very near starving on the way, having been driven to eat a polecat, and such wild winter berries and roots as they could find. From the time of this escape, my grandfather was thrown into close prison, being suspected for being the advisor of it, until he was exchanged. In truth, he knew nothing of it. His son, and one or two of this elder girls, who prepared provisions and clothes for their brother being the only persons of the family entrusted with the secret. They kept it secret so as to save their father from implication. John rejoined his family after their return to the United States.

The party of British who took these early Kentuckians prisoners, was commanded by a Col. Bird. Among the Indians were many renegade white men. The famous Simon Girty was among them. The white prisoners were retained by the British, but all negroes and slaves, and property of all descriptions was given up as plunder to the Indian allies. Thus, my grandfather lost a number of valuable slaves, and all his personal property. He afterwards, on her being restored after the treaty of Greenville, recovered possession of an African negro woman named Dinah, the mother of an old woman named, Easter, now in possession,of my uncle Joseph Duncan in Coffee County, Tennessee. Joseph was my grandfather's second son.

My mother, at the time of the captivity of the family, was about seven or eight years old and retained to her death a distinct recollection of the capture of the fort, given up by what was suspected to be Riddle's treachery, and of the voyage down Licking, down the Ohio, and up the Miami, and across the wilderness. She perfectly recollected the clear, limpid water of the lakes, and of the appearances of the Canadian population, their customs and manners, and much in regard to the shipping on the lakes, and of the surprise with which she passed through Philadelphia, and along Market Street on their return home, it appearing to her youthful and backwoods imagination that Philadelphia was surely the largest city in the world at that time. She lived afterwards, however, to be extensively read, even in her younger days, in history, geography, travels etc. and when I was a child, often recounted all the adventures of this captivity, with her fears, feelings, etc. on the various occurrencies of the scenes through which the family passed. Capt. Francis Berry, married to a sister of John and Benj. Sharp, was one of the captives. The Sharp family, John having married my grandfather Laughlin's sister, as before stated, consisted of three brothers as far as I remember, John, Thomas and Benjamin. A notice of John has been inserted. Thomas, who married a Maxwell-relation of Jesse Maxwell, Esq. who lives near Nashville-removed to Barren County Kentucky, and reared a numerous family. Col. Solomon P. Sharp, who was assassinated at Frankfort by Beauchamp, about the year 1823-4, who had been a member of Congress in 1814, and afterwards Atty. General of Kentucky and who was a member of the Kentucky Legislature when he was killed, was one of his sons. Fidelo Sharp, Esq. is another son. Dr. Maxwell Sharp, formerly of Bowlingreen was another, as is Dr. Leander Sharp of Ky. He had two daughters, one named Elleanor after my grandmother Duncan, her aunt, and another whose name I do not know. One of these was the mother of V.K.Stevenson, and Volney S. Stevenson, merchants of Nashville.

As Mr. V.K. Stevenson told me on the Ohio, in February, 1845, as we came to Washington City in the suite of President, on his way to his way to his Inauguration, that his father was a curious man in collecting old matters of family biography, I had a copy of old Benjamin Sharp's letter of the 4th of the preceding January made, and sent to him from Washington to Nashville, in March, 1845.

The daughters of my grandfather Duncan, the sisters of my mother, married as follows, as nearly as I can ascertain. Elizabeth, the eldest, who was nearly grown at the time of the Canadian captivity, after the return of the family, about the year 1787, married Thomas Laughlin, my father's elder brother. Polly, also older than my mother, married James Hignight, who died in Powell's Valley some years since, about 8 miles east of Cumberland Gap, in Lee County. He left a numerous family. Faithful, another sister, married Abram Locke, who in 1820 removed from Lee Co. Va. to Chariton, Missouri, where and his wife both died near the close of the year 1843 or early in 1844, leaving a large family and a handsome estate in lands. He, in his lifetime, and his son H. P. Locke, have been my correspondents. (see their letters in my letter books). Eleanor, another, and the youngest of my mother's sisters, married Samuel Campbell in Washington county, Va. about the year 1808-and removed to Chariton, Missouri, with my uncle Locke, and he and his wife, surrounded by numerous children, some married, still reside there. Anne, an older sister than the last mentioned, married William Martin in Washington, Va. some time before the year 1797, and in 1798 removed with my father from Virginia, and Uncle Thomas, to what was then Knox County, Ky. My father and Uncle Martin settled on Indian Creek, as is hereafter stated-then Martin moved to what was called "down on Laurel", about 8 miles above the mouth of Laurel River on the road from Barbourville in Knox County, to Somersett, in Pulaski Co. Ky. This was then a wild region, the great falls of Cumberland, and Spruce and Dogslaughter creeks (named by my father-the latter because of the number of dogs he had killed on it in bear hunting-all being in his vicinity. Certain Cherokee Indians, under a reserve of hunting grounds in their treaties of 1805-06, continued to camp in a large cave or rock house near Mr. Martin's in the years 1807, 1808, and 1809.  A Col. George, as he was called, was the principal man among them.   About the year 1804 or 1805, the Indians, two skulking fellows, murdered a man named Johnson for his gun a few miles north of where Martin afterwards settled.  About 1806, two others stole horses from my Uncle Thomas L. on Watts.  These marauders in both cases, on application at the Cherokee Agency, at South West Point, at the mouth of Clinch, where it empties into Tennessee, Col. R J. Meigs being Agent, were arrested by the Indians, given up, the property restored, and punished.

The place where Mr. Martin lived, being a poor, pinewoods country, high clifts of rocks, and overhanging precipices on the creeks and rivers, with immense thickets of laurel, both the ivey and the mountain Laurel, abounding for the time in endless wild game, wild deer and saltpetre caves, he became dissatisfied, and in 1807, removed to Tennessee to the three forks of Duck River, near where Davis Mills and I. L. Armstrong's bagging and rope factory now stands. From thence he removed to Missouri about 1820, and now lives with his wife, surrounded by many children, in Livingston Co. Missouri, near Nave's Store post office, at which place his son, Thomas I. Martin, is postmaster-both being my correspondents, as my letter books show. Wm. Martin is a man I have always greatly loved for his kind, affectionate and happy disposition.

My mother's elder brother, John, married my father's sister, Polly. He removed to Kentucky about the time my father died, and died in Whitley Co. near Williamsburg on his farm, now owned and occupied by Judge Tunstall Quarles, a number of years since, and his widow, and nearly all her children-all except one-now live in Missouri, not far from Wm. Martin. Joseph, my other uncle of my mother's brothers, as before stated, lives in Coffee County, Tennessee, where his wife (Ann a daughter of my grandfather's brother James Laughlin) died about 16 years since. His sons, Thomas, Alexander and Deane, all removed to Texas, and the two first died there about 1836-7. Deane, who had been to North Carolina, after a legacy of his wife, a Miss Scott who he married near Bolivar in Tennessee, died in East Tennessee on his return home, at Squire Eskridge's in Roane County, in 1838 or 1839, from the inflamation and mortification of an incission in his arm in letting blood. Alfred, Jos. Duncan's only surviving son, is married to his cousin, a daughter of his-uncle John and aunt Polly Duncan, and lives in Missouri, near W. Martin's. Mr. Jos. Duncan's eldest daughter, married to a man named Russell, lately living in Walker Co. Alabama, died in the fall of 1844-leaving children. His daughter, Eleanor, married to George E. Patton, who once lived at the ford of Elk River, on the north side, on the road from Winchester in Franklin Co. to Manchester, in Coffee Co. Tennessee, died in 1838 or 9, leaving several children. His only surviving daughter and youngest child, Henny, I think is her name, is married to James Lusk, who lives near the old man, two or three miles southeast of Hillsborough in Coffee County, who is a prosperous man.

The old man lives alone on a farm, well improved as to his lands, but when his wife died, he let a good house rot down which he was building, and still lives in his old cabins. He has ten or a dozen valuable slaves, who make him nothing in profit. He has spent more in building a framed tenement and stone monument over his late wife's grave, in a beautiful oak grove near his house, than in all his other improvements. Seeing the lonesomeness of his life, my father and mother spent the winter of 1838, and spring of the same year with him. His son, Alfred, is an intelligent man, and affectionate son, and urged him much in 1842-3, when he visited him to remove to Missouri, near him-or to rent out his farm, or get some person to take charge of it, and amuse himself by travelling about to see his children, grandchildren, and numerous kindred in Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, etc. but he refused to consent to leave home, although he had been all the way to see his sons in Texas the year before Alexander and Thomas died. He is an active old man-small in stature-but vigorous, and still for health and pleasure, and from old habit, works with his negroes on his farm, and rides all over the Cumberland Mountains (living at its base on the north side) attending to his live stock, having a large stock of horses, mules, cattle, sheep and hogs. His attachment to his present residence (he first lived on Stones River on the head of Brawly's fork when he removed from Watt's Creek, Whitley Co. Ky. to Tennessee and to Ky. he removed from Lee Co. Va. adjoining his brothers in law, Hignight and Locke, seems to arise from an unwillingness to leave the place where his wife's remains are interred. I have no doubt he wishes to be buried beside her.  My father, my mother in her lifetime, his only remaining son, and myself, have all entreated him to remove, and live among his old friends, but he will not listen to it.  Between his labors, and some reading, he seems to be contented.  His kindnesses, and obliging disposition have from time to time, for many years past, compelled him to pay large sums for persons for surety, many of whom have never been entitled to his confidence.  One Roddie, for whom he has paid large sums, and whose family he has mainly supported for years, is an ungrateful, drunken, mean man.

One of my mother's sister, Peggy, not mentioned before in connection with her marriage, removed to Ohio just before the late war, with her husband, John Laughlin, called Big John, who was a son of my grandfather's brother, James, and who was not herin mentioned in connection with his brothers, James and Alexander, whose deaths are mentioned at page 20 ante. This John Laughlin and his wife both died in Ohio before 1820 as I learn. Their eldest son, John D. Laughlin, five or six years older than myself, while his father lived in Kentucky, and while I went to school to one Jeremiah Aulgan, hereafter mentioned, was one of my earliest friends and advisers. He married a Miss Sally Gilless of Watts Creek, and emigrated with his family. He lived, when he died, in Indiana in what is now perhaps Johnson County, near a place since called Gregorie's Store Post Office. He has a brother, James, I think, and his widow, still living near the same place.

One of my father's sisters, Hannah, the youngest, married Wm. Easley, a worthy man, who died soon after the late war, in Whitley Co. Ky., leaving his widow, still living, and a number of children. His son, James Hervey Easley, was a member of the Kentucky legislature (of the H. of R.) from Whitley in 1855-45 (see letters from him in 1844-5 in my bound collections).

My father's sister, Jane, I think, married Maj. Samuel McGaughey, of North Alabama. A lame son of his named William visited me several times while I lived in Rutherford, Tenn. His son, Maj. McGaughey, lives in Greene Co. Tenn. and has often represented that county in the Assembly. In 1832-3, I drew up for him, which he introduced and had passed, perhaps it was 1831, strong resolutions against the United States Bank, and approving General Jackson's policy.

My father's sister, Sally, married a man named Robert Boyd, also of Blount Co. Tenn. She died early, perhaps childless, and I have never hear of what became of Boyd. I can just remember to have seen him at my grandfather's when I was an infant.

Martha, another sister of my father, married Maj. George Singleton, who removed at an early time from Sullivan Co. Tenn. to Wayne Co. Ky. He lived there many years, much esteemed, and represented the District in which Wayne County was included, one term of four years in the State Senate, at, or before the close of which, about the year 1809 or 1810, he removed to Louisiana, Parish of Oppeloosas or Attakapos. He succeeded well there, on the Lafourche I think as a sugar planter, but he and his wife both died soon after the late war. He was a Philadelphian by birth, and inherited from an uncle, a batchelor of Blountville, Tennessee, who was all his days a merchant's clerk, a good property and a fine library of the best old English standard works. The uncle's name was John Williams. From this library, in those day a rare thing in Western Virginia, East Tennessee, or Kentucky south of Green River, he became a cultivated and well informed man. He left several sons, with whom I have no acquaintance. One named George, I think is still in Louisana. Another, Owen I believe to be his name, came back to Wayne, and possibly still lives there. He married a daughter of John Laughlin, a son of my father's uncle Alexander L. who married a Miss Newton in Virginia or East Tennessee and removed to Knox Co. Ky. first, and then to Wayne, and finally perhaps to Red River, Louisana.

In this tedious, desultory, and confused way, I have gone through "the books of generations" of many, but not half, the numeous kindred of my family; a matter which may, possibly, some day to some of my children, or to myself in old age, be of some interest in taking a retrospect of old things. There is a good deal more to be added, for I have not come home to my own immediate family yet- nor to some of the Kings, Porters, Berrys, McFerrins etc. who will yet be in some way noticed according to the best recollections I have.

My father I have stated, was born on the 4th of November 1773, in the same state. They were married in Washington County Virginia, at the place where my grandfather lived and died after the Revolution, sometime in the year 1794. I was born of that marriage, on the 1st day of May, 1799, in the same state and county.

My father and mother had the following children that lived to years of discretion-myself, Nathan Montgomery, John Randolph, Henry Clinton, Sydney Nelson, Nelson Singleton, Washington Sharpe, and Laura Matilda. Of those, Nathan Montgomery married in Virginia, and removed with his uncle and cousin John D. Laughlin to Ohio, and then to Indiana, I think Johnson County, where he died in 1842, leaving a widow and numerous family, yet living there. John Randolph came to Tennessee, by my request in 1816, wrote in the clerk's office in Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, under Gen. Blackman Coleman, until he resigned the office in 1821 or 1822, when my brother was elected to his place as County Court Clerk, and held the office until the change of the Constitution in 1834-35, when he went out of office, and was not a candidate for re-election. With me he had studied law in 1817, 18 and 19, and obtained a license, and never practiced but a short time, but such were his habits and clearness and strength of mind, that with attention to his profession, he could have risen to its first honor. About 1821 or 1822, he married Nancy Ledbetter, sister of W. Ledbetter, long a member of the Tennessee Senate, and now cashier of the Bank of Tenn. The father of his wife was the late Isaac Ledbetter of Rutherford, formerly of Brunswick or Greenville Co. Va. By his marriage, my brother had two children, a daughter and a son. His daughter, Adriana, is now grown and is a lovely girl. His son, whose name is John, was born in the fall of 1837 or early in 1838, just after his father's death.

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