Lockridge, Hart, Chapin, Harlan
Our Great Great Great Grandfathers
williammorganhart.blogspot.com Blackhawk War Veteran\
lewisharlan.blogspot.com Civil War Veteran
davidlockridge.blogspot.com Civil War Veteran
Our Great Great Great Uncle
jameschapin.blogspot.com Died from wounds Civil War Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia 1864
jamesharlan.blogspot.com First Known Harlan English Ancestor
Georgeharlan.blogspot.com George Harlan was our first known immigrant to America
mosesharlan.blogspot.com Moses Served with Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois Legislature
williammorganhart.blogspot.com Blackhawk War Veteran
lewisharlan.blogspot.com GGGrandfather, Civil War Veteran
davidlockridge.blogspot.com GGGrandfather, Civil War Veteran
jameschapin.blogspot.com GGGGrand Uncle, Died from wounds Civil War Kensaw Mountain, Georgia 1864
harlanfamily.org For all Harlans
harlandna.blogspot.com Our DNA
harlangenealogy.blogspot.com Our genealogy
HARLAN HART LOCKRIDGE CHAPIN
jamesharlan.blogspot.com First Known English Ancestor
mosesharlan.blogspot.com Served with Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois Legislature
williammorganhart.blogspot.com Blackhawk War Veteran
lewisharlan.blogspot.com GGGrandfather, Civil War Veteran
davidlockridge.blogspot.com GGGrandfather, Civil War Veteran
jameschapin.blogspot.com GGGGrand Uncle, Died from wounds Civil War Kensaw Mountain, Georgia 1864
harlanfamily.org For all Harlans
harlandna.blogspot.com Our DNA
harlangenealogy.blogspot.com Our genealogy
Mary Philips Lockridge (born Meek), 1812 - 1895
Mary Philips Lockridge (born Meek) was born on month day 1812, at birth place , Virginia, to Thomas Meek and Catherine Meek (born Phillips) .
Thomas was born on December 18 1785, in Augusta, Virginia, United States.
Catherine was born in 1785, in Martinsburg, Brkly, Vrgn.
Mary married Samuel Jacob Lockridge in between 1840 and 1862, at age 27.
Samuel was born on October 11 1809, in Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia, United States.
They had 12 children: William Lockridge , Lucinda Khale Simmons (born Lockridge) and 10 other children .
Documents of Mary Philips Lockridge (born Meek)
And now we come to the Hart's, who were Pennsylvania Dutch, as were the Hullingers. After the Revolution they went to Buncombe County, North Carolina, and then on to Kentucky as soon as possible. There were Harts in Boonesboro with Daniel Boone, but as yet I cannot connect the Nathaniel Hart and Thomas Hart, who helped finance Daniel Boone's venture, with the John David Hart who is definitely my great great grandfather.
He was' born in 1779 in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and married Nancy Morgan. They came to Whitley County, Kentucky, about 1800. They had nine children: William Morgan (born 1804), Andrew, Peter (born 1808), Thomas, James (born 1815), Tempha (born 1820), Joseph, Hannah, and John Preston (born 1825).
The date is right so that William Morgan is surely my Grandma Missouri Hart Lockridge's father. He was a captain in the Black Hawk war and lived in Putnam County, Illinois. He was married to Elizabeth Hart. They had three children: Nancy (Neely), Hannah (Reeves), and John Morgan. I have heard of all these and think I have seen John Morgan, who would have been my grandmother's half brother.
After Elizabeth died, so the story goes, William Morgan Hart rode horseback to North Carolina and married her sister, Rebecca. They were daughters of Peter and Hannah (Poe) Hart. I never heard if she rode back with him on a horse but have always wondered. I think it likely as that was wild country in those days, and roads and Indians were not good.
They moved to Mercer County, Missouri, in 1839. Their first child is said to be the first white child born in that county, which joins the Iowa line. They were 25 years earlier than the Hullingers and about 25 miles south of where the Hullingers settled in Iowa. And so the Hart and Hullinger families came together again after leaving Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They are difficult to trace as both had outrageously large families and used the same names over and over.
Morgan and Rebecca also had nine children: James Elliott, born 1839 (married Anne Lockridge), Missouri America, born 1841 (married David Lockridge), Rebecca Kentucky, born 1843 (married William Moss), Franklin Benton, born 1845, Willard P. Hall, born 1847, Eliza Ann or Josie, born 1849 (married Joseph Moss), Virginia or Jennie, born 1851 (married McClaren), Hazeltine or Hazie, born 1853 (married Calvin Moss), William, born 18?, died 1861.
Two Little Girls, "Kainy" and "Zouri"
Here with the Harts, I am lucky again, as Grandmother Missouri America told me many tales. They called her Zouri and her sister, Rebecca Kentucky, was called Kainy. Wasn't that terrible for two pretty little girls to have such names? Grandma was ashamed of hers. I will call her Zouri after this. She said her father couldn't read or write but he could do arithmetic and figure interest in his head; also that he used to stake people who were going to California in the Gold Rush and it must have paid off for at one time he owned 1500 acres of land. During the Civil War, when there was trouble in Missouri she saw him take a pan (she showed me the size) heaped up with gold pieces and took it out to bury. She didn't know where, or if it was ever found again. She said they were "Secesh" which meant they were for the South, and that the boys and girls in the country rode white horses in "torchlight parades" at political rallies. If they ever owned slaves it was not very many, but she mentioned good horses. I have heard he had a race track on his own land and that they kept the horses hidden in the timber to keep them from the Yankee soldiers. I think from history they were not really soldiers in that part of Missouri, but outlaws posing as Army. They would come and stack their guns in the yard and order meals to be cooked. They caught her brother, James Elliott, and strung him up to a tree and threatened to hang him if he didn't tell where the horses were. They would pull him up on his toes and then let him down but still he did not tell, so I heard, and for some reason they let him go. If ever you go to that country you can see it was a good place to hide.
Grandma said that her father wouldn't allow the girls to wear hoops so they would make hoops out of hickory branches or whatever and hide them in the timber and after they left the house on the way to the party, they would don the hoops and he didn't know.
He hired a teacher for his girls, what they called a Dame school, but I don't know how long Zouri went. She could read and write, though not too well. They didn't believe in wasting time that way and looked down on people who did.
They had built a big house for its day with two stories and two balconies with walk-out doors upstairs. I have seen the house when part of the balconies were there and it was very impressive. Now the timber has grown so thick that the house can scarcely be seen. I imagine it was after the hanging episode took place 'that they decided to move north into Iowa in 1863 and the gold was buried. They located a mile or two from the Lockridges, just south of Des Moines, and stayed there until the war was over. Grandfather David was in the war, fighting for the North and was discharged in March, 1863, and they were married October 24, 1865, so they had not met before he went to war. The war was over in '65 and the Harts were getting ready to go back to Missouri. Grandma Zouri said her mother tried to talk her out of the marriage, saying she would be left up in Iowa alone and she answered, "We will probably be in Missouri before you are," and she knew they wouldn't. So she stayed in Iowa. It wasn't long until a railroad was built from Des Moines to Cainsville, a few miles from the Harts, and she told me how she took the little girls, Minnie and Josie, and went to visit her folks "all by herself." It was still exciting to her when she told me and I thought what a marvelous thing it would be for a woman to be able to do a thing like that in those days. A man "spoke" to her, but she answered coolly and with dignity, so it was all right.
When Minnie was 14, they visited another time, 1883, and we were privileged to take her back there in 1964 far the first time, 81 years later, when she was 95. She could remember being there and went into the old house, but said her memories were better than the reality.
I think David and Missouri had a real romance and a happy life. I lived there quite a lot and always felt that way. They had five living children: Lee, born 1866, Minnie (Harlan), born 1869, Josie (Leggett), born 1871, Villa (Wheeler), born 1880, and Jennie (Bland), born 1885. They had a comfortable home on the Iowa farm.
Milk, Honey and Fruit Trees
Grandpa David kept bees and harvested a lot of honey. He had many kinds of fruit trees and was always planting more and did some grafting of apples. I remember picking big pails of blackberries and there were strawberries and plums. He liked Jonathan apples and had quite an orchard of them and as I remember it, I have never tasted any as good as those. There were cows to milk and the milk was strained into crocks and put in a cave. The cream was skimmed every morning and then it had to be churned and the butter made ready to sell. That was the grocery money for things that had to be bought. They traded eggs, too, to the stores. All the farms of that day were like that and it was a very comfortable pleasant life in spite of the work.
Grandma was never very well, but she was a good supervisor and things always went smoothly. David was like a clock for dependability and I never remember hearing a cross word from him. I was a special grandchild, or so they made me feel, and when I went back to visit them on their 60th wedding day with Clifford and Maribee, Grandma came around and told me, "Now, let them have everything they want and do just as they please and you won't have a bit of trouble." And as I look back, I think that was the system they always used. My memories of them are so many, it is hard to stop. Ask me what you would like to know before it is too late.
Our GGGG Grandparents
Rebecca and William sold the property that William Morgan had been living on to Rebecca's father, Peter Hart, in 1838 and moved from Putnam County, Illinois farther west to the old Livingston County, Missouri. They are found on the Missouri census in 1840, with the three children from William Morgan's first marriage. Rebecca's parents, Peter and Hannah Poe Hart, as well as other members of Rebecca's family are found living in Livingston County, Missouri in 1840.
The area where the Hart families settled was Layfayette Township, Livingston County at the time they arrived in Missouri in 1839. This area in the northern part of the county was taken from Livingston County to form the new County of Grundy in 1841. Four years later, in 1845, a new county was again formed from Grundy County and the area where the Hart's were living became Harrison Township, Mercer County, Missouri, which it remains today.
William Morgan and Rebecca Hart's first child, James Elliiott Hart, was born in January 1840, in the northern part of old Livingston County, in an area known as the Goshen Prairie. We have been told that he was the first "white child" born in that sparsely settled area, close to the Iowa State line. Others have told us that he was not actually awarded that "distinction" locally, as his grandmother, Hannah Poe Hart, was full or part Cherokee Indian, making him part Indian and, thus, not considered to be wholly "white". This is not a story we have verified, but do find interesting. Perhaps local historians in Mercer County could furnish more information on what child is "officially" considered to be the first white child born in that county.
In a "History of Mercer and Harrison Counties", published in 1888, William Morgan Hart's son from his first marriage, Franklin Benton Hart, states that his father entered 100 acres in (present day) Mercer County in 1839, when he came to Missouri. He states that his father lived on that land the rest of his life. Land purchases taken from "U.S. Land Sales" Abstract of Sales (in Missouri) do not show a purchase of Federal Land by William Morgan Hart until 1846, when he entered 520 acres at the Plattsburg Land Office. This land was all located in Mercer County, Missouri. Perhaps William Morgan Hart's first land purchase was from a private sale. Franklin Benton Hart goes on to state that his father owned 1500 acres of land in Mercer County at one time, which would certainly have made him a respected land owner in Mercer County.
More children were soon born to Rebecca Hart and William Morgan Hart. They had a daughter, Missouri America, in 1841, Rebecca Kentucky in 1842 and a son, Franklin Benton, in 1844. These three children were born while the area where the family was living was Grundy County. Their last four children were born in Harrison Township, Mercer County, after that county was formed in 1845. Willard P. Hall was born in 1846, Eliza Ann Josephine in 1848, Virginia Lind in 1850 and Hazeltine Hall, their youngest daughter was born in 1852.
William Morgan's daughter Hannah Jane, born in 1834, relates in "Roger's History of Mercer County", published in 1911, that her husband's uncle, Johnny Reeves, and her father were the first settlers of what was referred to as the Goshen Prairie. She states that there were Indians living in that area at the time her family settled there, and Hannah recalls them visiting her stepmother, Rebecca Hart. They were fed and at times would stop for the night at the Hart home, where they slept, wrapped in blankets, before the fireplace.
William Morgan and Elizabeth Hart Hart's son, John Morgan Hart, is found living at home, at the age of 13 on the 1850 Mercer County, Missouri census. We have been told that he did not get along well with his stepmother and left home at age 16 to "live with relatives" in Bloomfield, Davis County, Iowa. We do not know of any "relatives" living in Davis County in this time period and do not know if this story is accurate. We have searched for John Morgan Hart on the 1860 Iowa, as well as later, Census both in Iowa and in other states. We have been unable to find him. He is listed in his father's estate settlement in 1876, with his residence given as "unknown". His family did not know where he was, and at one time we felt he might have died at a young age, in another state with no one knowing where his family lived, to notify them.
But, recently, we have obtained a copy of an undated letter that we feel was written in the 1950's or 1960's. This letter was written by Mrs. Grace Friede (now deceased) of Chinook, Montana. Mrs. Friede was trying to trace her Hart ancestors, and in talking to the local barber in Chinook, Clarence Hart, she discovered that he was the grandson of John Morgan Hart, and the great-grandson of William Morgan Hart. We have tried to find Clarence Hart, with no success. We are told that he and his family moved from Montana to California, many years ago. It has been a frustrating attempt to find the family of a man who left home in about 1853 and apparently was never again heard from by his family. Yet, he did marry and have children - and his grandson, Clarence Hart had been told that William Morgan Hart was his great-grandfather. Perhaps someone will be more successful than we have been, and will be able to find John Morgan Hart in census records and find his family.
We have located all eight of Rebecca's children. A record of their families is found here. Some of these accounts relate interesting stories of what the area, in northern Mercer County, was like when this family settled there over 150 years ago. Members of this family are still found living in Mercer and Harrison Counties today.
In an interesting joining of families, four sons of Joseph and Fanny Prichard Moss married three daughters and a stepgranddaughter of Rebecca Hart. Joseph Moss was born in 1812, York District South Carolina, the son of Joshua and Jennie Howser Moss. His family moved from South Carolina to Tennessee in 1815. In 1832, Joseph went north to Knox County, Kentucky, where he married Fanny Prichard, who was born in Knox County, Kentucky in 1813. Joseph Moss and his family moved from Kentucky to Mercer County, Missouri in 1840. This family, who was joined to the Hart family by four marriages, came from the same County in Kentucky where William Morgan Hart was born -- and the adjoining County to Whitley County, where William Morgan Hart's parents lived all of their lives.
Both families migrated by different routes to Missouri. They both arrived in Mercer County within a year of each other, with William Morgan Hart and his family arriving in 1839 and the Joseph Moss family in 1840. Joseph and Fanny Prichard Moss' son William P. Moss married Rebecca Kentucky Hart, their son Calvin married Eliza Ann Josephine Hart, and their son Joseph L. married Hazeltine Hill Hart. These three Hart wives were all the daughters of Rebecca Hart. Joshua Moss married Jennie E. Reeves, the daughter of Hannah Hart Reeves, William Morgan Hart's daughter by his first marriage to Elizabeth.
William Morgan Hart died October 17, 1876 at his home in Harrison Township, Mercer County, Missouri. Rebecca, with the help of her two sons, Franklin Benton Hart and Willard P. Hall Hart, continued to live on the farm where she had spent most of her life. Rebecca Hart Hart died there 15 years after her husband on March 21, 1891. Rebecca and William Morgan Hart are buried together in a family cemetery, which was then on their own property. This cemetery is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, and is fairly well taken care of today. It is close to where the town of Goshen was once located. This town, which was once well known in the area, cannot easily be recognized as a "town" today. But the local people can still tell you where it once was.
Updated October 1, 1997
Mary married Samuel Lockridge .
And now we come to the Hart's, who were Pennsylvania Dutch, as were the Hullingers. After the Revolution they went to Buncombe County, North Carolina, and then on to Kentucky as soon as possible. There were Harts in Boonesboro with Daniel Boone, but as yet I cannot connect the Nathaniel Hart and Thomas Hart, who helped finance Daniel Boone's venture, with the John David Hart who is definitely my great great grandfather.
He was' born in 1779 in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and married Nancy Morgan. They came to Whitley County, Kentucky, about 1800. They had nine children: William Morgan (born 1804), Andrew, Peter (born 1808), Thomas, James (born 1815), Tempha (born 1820), Joseph, Hannah, and John Preston (born 1825).
The date is right so that William Morgan is surely my Grandma Missouri Hart Lockridge's father. He was a captain in the Black Hawk war and lived in Putnam County, Illinois. He was married to Elizabeth Hart. They had three children: Nancy (Neely), Hannah (Reeves), and John Morgan. I have heard of all these and think I have seen John Morgan, who would have been my grandmother's half brother.
After Elizabeth died, so the story goes, William Morgan Hart rode horseback to North Carolina and married her sister, Rebecca. They were daughters of Peter and Hannah (Poe) Hart. I never heard if she rode back with him on a horse but have always wondered. I think it likely as that was wild country in those days, and roads and Indians were not good.
They moved to Mercer County, Missouri, in 1839. Their first child is said to be the first white child born in that county, which joins the Iowa line. They were 25 years earlier than the Hullingers and about 25 miles south of where the Hullingers settled in Iowa. And so the Hart and Hullinger families came together again after leaving Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They are difficult to trace as both had outrageously large families and used the same names over and over.
Morgan and Rebecca also had nine children: James Elliott, born 1839 (married Anne Lockridge), Missouri America, born 1841 (married David Lockridge), Rebecca Kentucky, born 1843 (married William Moss), Franklin Benton, born 1845, Willard P. Hall, born 1847, Eliza Ann or Josie, born 1849 (married Joseph Moss), Virginia or Jennie, born 1851 (married McClaren), Hazeltine or Hazie, born 1853 (married Calvin Moss), William, born 18?, died 1861.
Two Little Girls, "Kainy" and "Zouri"
Here with the Harts, I am lucky again, as Grandmother Missouri America told me many tales. They called her Zouri and her sister, Rebecca Kentucky, was called Kainy. Wasn't that terrible for two pretty little girls to have such names? Grandma was ashamed of hers. I will call her Zouri after this. She said her father couldn't read or write but he could do arithmetic and figure interest in his head; also that he used to stake people who were going to California in the Gold Rush and it must have paid off for at one time he owned 1500 acres of land. During the Civil War, when there was trouble in Missouri she saw him take a pan (she showed me the size) heaped up with gold pieces and took it out to bury. She didn't know where, or if it was ever found again. She said they were "Secesh" which meant they were for the South, and that the boys and girls in the country rode white horses in "torchlight parades" at political rallies. If they ever owned slaves it was not very many, but she mentioned good horses. I have heard he had a race track on his own land and that they kept the horses hidden in the timber to keep them from the Yankee soldiers. I think from history they were not really soldiers in that part of Missouri, but outlaws posing as Army. They would come and stack their guns in the yard and order meals to be cooked. They caught her brother, James Elliott, and strung him up to a tree and threatened to hang him if he didn't tell where the horses were. They would pull him up on his toes and then let him down but still he did not tell, so I heard, and for some reason they let him go. If ever you go to that country you can see it was a good place to hide.
Grandma said that her father wouldn't allow the girls to wear hoops so they would make hoops out of hickory branches or whatever and hide them in the timber and after they left the house on the way to the party, they would don the hoops and he didn't know.
He hired a teacher for his girls, what they called a Dame school, but I don't know how long Zouri went. She could read and write, though not too well. They didn't believe in wasting time that way and looked down on people who did.
They had built a big house for its day with two stories and two balconies with walk-out doors upstairs. I have seen the house when part of the balconies were there and it was very impressive. Now the timber has grown so thick that the house can scarcely be seen. I imagine it was after the hanging episode took place 'that they decided to move north into Iowa in 1863 and the gold was buried. They located a mile or two from the Lockridges, just south of Des Moines, and stayed there until the war was over. Grandfather David was in the war, fighting for the North and was discharged in March, 1863, and they were married October 24, 1865, so they had not met before he went to war. The war was over in '65 and the Harts were getting ready to go back to Missouri. Grandma Zouri said her mother tried to talk her out of the marriage, saying she would be left up in Iowa alone and she answered, "We will probably be in Missouri before you are," and she knew they wouldn't. So she stayed in Iowa. It wasn't long until a railroad was built from Des Moines to Cainsville, a few miles from the Harts, and she told me how she took the little girls, Minnie and Josie, and went to visit her folks "all by herself." It was still exciting to her when she told me and I thought what a marvelous thing it would be for a woman to be able to do a thing like that in those days. A man "spoke" to her, but she answered coolly and with dignity, so it was all right.
When Minnie was 14, they visited another time, 1883, and we were privileged to take her back there in 1964 far the first time, 81 years later, when she was 95. She could remember being there and went into the old house, but said her memories were better than the reality.
I think David and Missouri had a real romance and a happy life. I lived there quite a lot and always felt that way. They had five living children: Lee, born 1866, Minnie (Harlan), born 1869, Josie (Leggett), born 1871, Villa (Wheeler), born 1880, and Jennie (Bland), born 1885. They had a comfortable home on the Iowa farm.
Milk, Honey and Fruit Trees
Grandpa David kept bees and harvested a lot of honey. He had many kinds of fruit trees and was always planting more and did some grafting of apples. I remember picking big pails of blackberries and there were strawberries and plums. He liked Jonathan apples and had quite an orchard of them and as I remember it, I have never tasted any as good as those. There were cows to milk and the milk was strained into crocks and put in a cave. The cream was skimmed every morning and then it had to be churned and the butter made ready to sell. That was the grocery money for things that had to be bought. They traded eggs, too, to the stores. All the farms of that day were like that and it was a very comfortable pleasant life in spite of the work.
Grandma was never very well, but she was a good supervisor and things always went smoothly. David was like a clock for dependability and I never remember hearing a cross word from him. I was a special grandchild, or so they made me feel, and when I went back to visit them on their 60th wedding day with Clifford and Maribee, Grandma came around and told me, "Now, let them have everything they want and do just as they please and you won't have a bit of trouble." And as I look back, I think that was the system they always used. My memories of them are so many, it is hard to stop. Ask me what you would like to know before it is too late.
Our GGGG Grandparents
Iahannah Poe Hart
Rebecca Hart
Missouri America Hart
Minnie Lockridge Harlan
Pearl Harlan Hullinger
Rebecca Hart
Rebecca was born on December 25, 1816, in Prathers Creek, Ashe County, North Carolina, the daughter of Peter and Hannah (Iahannah) Poe Hart. On November 13, 1838, Rebecca Hart married her sister's widowed husband (and her first cousin), William Morgan Hart, in Putnam County, Illinois. She was nine years younger than her sister Elizabeth, William Morgan's first wife.Rebecca and William sold the property that William Morgan had been living on to Rebecca's father, Peter Hart, in 1838 and moved from Putnam County, Illinois farther west to the old Livingston County, Missouri. They are found on the Missouri census in 1840, with the three children from William Morgan's first marriage. Rebecca's parents, Peter and Hannah Poe Hart, as well as other members of Rebecca's family are found living in Livingston County, Missouri in 1840.
The area where the Hart families settled was Layfayette Township, Livingston County at the time they arrived in Missouri in 1839. This area in the northern part of the county was taken from Livingston County to form the new County of Grundy in 1841. Four years later, in 1845, a new county was again formed from Grundy County and the area where the Hart's were living became Harrison Township, Mercer County, Missouri, which it remains today.
William Morgan and Rebecca Hart's first child, James Elliiott Hart, was born in January 1840, in the northern part of old Livingston County, in an area known as the Goshen Prairie. We have been told that he was the first "white child" born in that sparsely settled area, close to the Iowa State line. Others have told us that he was not actually awarded that "distinction" locally, as his grandmother, Hannah Poe Hart, was full or part Cherokee Indian, making him part Indian and, thus, not considered to be wholly "white". This is not a story we have verified, but do find interesting. Perhaps local historians in Mercer County could furnish more information on what child is "officially" considered to be the first white child born in that county.
In a "History of Mercer and Harrison Counties", published in 1888, William Morgan Hart's son from his first marriage, Franklin Benton Hart, states that his father entered 100 acres in (present day) Mercer County in 1839, when he came to Missouri. He states that his father lived on that land the rest of his life. Land purchases taken from "U.S. Land Sales" Abstract of Sales (in Missouri) do not show a purchase of Federal Land by William Morgan Hart until 1846, when he entered 520 acres at the Plattsburg Land Office. This land was all located in Mercer County, Missouri. Perhaps William Morgan Hart's first land purchase was from a private sale. Franklin Benton Hart goes on to state that his father owned 1500 acres of land in Mercer County at one time, which would certainly have made him a respected land owner in Mercer County.
More children were soon born to Rebecca Hart and William Morgan Hart. They had a daughter, Missouri America, in 1841, Rebecca Kentucky in 1842 and a son, Franklin Benton, in 1844. These three children were born while the area where the family was living was Grundy County. Their last four children were born in Harrison Township, Mercer County, after that county was formed in 1845. Willard P. Hall was born in 1846, Eliza Ann Josephine in 1848, Virginia Lind in 1850 and Hazeltine Hall, their youngest daughter was born in 1852.
William Morgan's daughter Hannah Jane, born in 1834, relates in "Roger's History of Mercer County", published in 1911, that her husband's uncle, Johnny Reeves, and her father were the first settlers of what was referred to as the Goshen Prairie. She states that there were Indians living in that area at the time her family settled there, and Hannah recalls them visiting her stepmother, Rebecca Hart. They were fed and at times would stop for the night at the Hart home, where they slept, wrapped in blankets, before the fireplace.
William Morgan and Elizabeth Hart Hart's son, John Morgan Hart, is found living at home, at the age of 13 on the 1850 Mercer County, Missouri census. We have been told that he did not get along well with his stepmother and left home at age 16 to "live with relatives" in Bloomfield, Davis County, Iowa. We do not know of any "relatives" living in Davis County in this time period and do not know if this story is accurate. We have searched for John Morgan Hart on the 1860 Iowa, as well as later, Census both in Iowa and in other states. We have been unable to find him. He is listed in his father's estate settlement in 1876, with his residence given as "unknown". His family did not know where he was, and at one time we felt he might have died at a young age, in another state with no one knowing where his family lived, to notify them.
But, recently, we have obtained a copy of an undated letter that we feel was written in the 1950's or 1960's. This letter was written by Mrs. Grace Friede (now deceased) of Chinook, Montana. Mrs. Friede was trying to trace her Hart ancestors, and in talking to the local barber in Chinook, Clarence Hart, she discovered that he was the grandson of John Morgan Hart, and the great-grandson of William Morgan Hart. We have tried to find Clarence Hart, with no success. We are told that he and his family moved from Montana to California, many years ago. It has been a frustrating attempt to find the family of a man who left home in about 1853 and apparently was never again heard from by his family. Yet, he did marry and have children - and his grandson, Clarence Hart had been told that William Morgan Hart was his great-grandfather. Perhaps someone will be more successful than we have been, and will be able to find John Morgan Hart in census records and find his family.
We have located all eight of Rebecca's children. A record of their families is found here. Some of these accounts relate interesting stories of what the area, in northern Mercer County, was like when this family settled there over 150 years ago. Members of this family are still found living in Mercer and Harrison Counties today.
In an interesting joining of families, four sons of Joseph and Fanny Prichard Moss married three daughters and a stepgranddaughter of Rebecca Hart. Joseph Moss was born in 1812, York District South Carolina, the son of Joshua and Jennie Howser Moss. His family moved from South Carolina to Tennessee in 1815. In 1832, Joseph went north to Knox County, Kentucky, where he married Fanny Prichard, who was born in Knox County, Kentucky in 1813. Joseph Moss and his family moved from Kentucky to Mercer County, Missouri in 1840. This family, who was joined to the Hart family by four marriages, came from the same County in Kentucky where William Morgan Hart was born -- and the adjoining County to Whitley County, where William Morgan Hart's parents lived all of their lives.
Both families migrated by different routes to Missouri. They both arrived in Mercer County within a year of each other, with William Morgan Hart and his family arriving in 1839 and the Joseph Moss family in 1840. Joseph and Fanny Prichard Moss' son William P. Moss married Rebecca Kentucky Hart, their son Calvin married Eliza Ann Josephine Hart, and their son Joseph L. married Hazeltine Hill Hart. These three Hart wives were all the daughters of Rebecca Hart. Joshua Moss married Jennie E. Reeves, the daughter of Hannah Hart Reeves, William Morgan Hart's daughter by his first marriage to Elizabeth.
William Morgan Hart died October 17, 1876 at his home in Harrison Township, Mercer County, Missouri. Rebecca, with the help of her two sons, Franklin Benton Hart and Willard P. Hall Hart, continued to live on the farm where she had spent most of her life. Rebecca Hart Hart died there 15 years after her husband on March 21, 1891. Rebecca and William Morgan Hart are buried together in a family cemetery, which was then on their own property. This cemetery is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, and is fairly well taken care of today. It is close to where the town of Goshen was once located. This town, which was once well known in the area, cannot easily be recognized as a "town" today. But the local people can still tell you where it once was.
Updated October 1, 1997
Based on information from "Descendants of Peter and Dority Hart, 1740-1995, Virginia and North Carolina and Allied Families", by Ruth Gibbs Hart and Karen L. Cooper, 1996.
Information from the Internet
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