Transcribed by Timothy R. Meador, Jr.
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CAL’S COLUMN *
TEXAS LETTER
December 2, 1955
Elder Calvin Gregory,
Lafayette, Tenn.
Dear Mr. Gregory:
Although I do not know anyone mentioned in the Macon County Times, I will admit that I enjoy reading it, specially your Genealogy column. For the past several months I have been working on my genealogy on both sides of my family so as to join the Colonial Dames of America. I have all of the names now except my great-grandparents on my father’s side. My father was James Davis Hill, and his father and mother were Davis Bartlett Hill (1807-1836) and Elizabeth Causey Hill (1816-1836). They died on the same day and are buried in the same grave at Dixon, Ky.
It is the father and mother of Elizabeth Causey that I am trying to locate. In a letter from Rev. C. R. Hill, of Danville, Ky., he states that he saw an obituary of Mariah Tuck who was a sister of my grandmother, Elizabeth Causey, and that she (Mariah Tuck) was born in Smith County, Tenn., and was one of fourteen children, all of whom were dead at the time of her death except her sister, Sallie Moore. Mariah Tuck was born August 8, 1828 and died January 14, 1909.
In the November 24th edition of the Macon County Times on page three you state that Smith County, Tenn., included the greater part of Macon County in 1820. In the same article on page three you refer to Mrs. P. D. Smith, the former Miss Mattie Tuck, who resides at this time on Route 1, Pleasant Shade, Tenn. My father had a cousin whose last name was Tuck, and I am wondering if this could be the same family as Mariah Tuck who was a sister of Elizabeth Causey. Surely someone know something about Mr. and Mrs. Causey who had fourteen children. I have lived in Texas fifty years and all of my father’s immediate family are dead.
I have my mother’s family intact back to 1638, but I have to have three generations of my father’s family.
I sent the Genealogy out of one of your papers to the Public Library here. On the third floor, there are many books on every state in the Union. In fact, it was there that I found the record of where my mother’s mother and father got their marriage license and where they were married.
This last edition of the Times I am sending to Barry Rose, of Houston, whose father was John Rose and came from Tennessee.
Do hope you will have the time to help me out.
Sincerely,
(Mrs. R. W. ) Margaret Hill Jenkins.
(Editor’s note. The above letter is from the wife of a descendant of Noah Jenkins, who resided on Long Creek, this county, as early as 1804. It appears that Noah Jenkins was the son of William Jenkins and his wife, Nancy Jenkins, who became the administratrix of the Jenkins estate on the death of William Jenkins in 1807, when he died as an old man. He came to what is now Macon County from Buncomb County, North Carolina. We do not know whom he married except that she was named Nancy and that she could not sign her name as she became administratrix. I appears form our old records that she was the mother of four sons, Noah Jenkins, Roderick Jenkins, John Jenkins and Jacob Jenkins. The first two were residents of what is now this (Macon) County. The other two lived in Jackson county, Tenn., according to the census of 1820.
Mrs. Jenkins is related to the Jenkins family only by marriage and we are sorry that we have virtually no information on her mother’s or her father’s people. We failed to find a single Causey family in the Smith County census for 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850 or 1870.
We have found only one Causey mentioned in the thousands of names we have, that of William A. Causey, born in 1790 and died in 1842, married Elizabeth (Betsy) Gibson in 1812. Mrs. Jenkins might be able to learn something more of William A. Causey by writing to Mrs. W. J. Baird, Lebanon, Tenn., who is in possession of the records of Andrew Gibson, the father of Elizabeth Gibson. Andrew Gibson was born in Edinborough, Scotland in 1750 and arrived in America at the age of about 15. He married Miss Jane Freeland.
The Tuck family in Middle Tennessee is from Virginia and is related to the Governor Tuck, of Virginia. It is a rather numerous family in this section. They hold to a tradition that the first Tuck to come out of Virginia to Tennessee, married a young woman of one of the “First Families in Virginia,” and that her parents were bitterly opposed to the marriage and disowned their daughter, who had married Tuck for love and who clung to him in spite of all the objections of her parents.
The following information about the family is gleaned from the census records we have. There is no mention of a Tuck family in the Smith County Census for 1820 or for 1830. In 1840 we find John Tuck as the head of a family, consisting of: One male from five to 10, two from 10 to 15 and one from 30 to 40, John himself, no doubt. Females: Two under five, one from five to 10, one from 15 to 20, and one from 30 to 40, Mrs. John Tuck, we would judge. Near neighbors of the family 115 years ago were: William White, Jeremiah Wallis, John Henderson, William Owens, Richard Williams, Abner Owens, Jesse Kirby, P. G. Kirby and John Wakefield. We would judge that this John Tuck lived 115 years ago, some eight or ten miles directly east of the town of Lafayette.
From some other records we learn that Davis G. Tuck was born July 28, 1863, died Sept. 7, 1887 and is buried in Mt. Olive Cemetery at Nashville. Joseph Tuck, born May 1, 1831; died May 22, 1888, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery, McMinnville, Tenn. In the same cemetery is buried Laura Tuck, possibly the wife of Joseph Tuck. She was born June 20, 1845; died May 25, 1914. We have no way at this time of knowing if any of these were related to Mariah Tuck, mentioned in Mrs. Jenkins’ letter.
If any of our readers have information on the families Mrs. Jenkins mentions, please write to her and try to furnish her with the desired information. We hope to find additional data on the families of those she mentions in her letter.
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This
Article Appeared In The Times
But
Was Not Actually Titled Cal’s Column
311 Bryan Street,
Hopkinsville, Ky.,
Elder Calvin Gregory, Editor,
Macon County Times.
Dear Sir:
First I want to thank you for your paper sent to me Oct. 20th, which I appreciate so much, and thank you for the information in regard to my Smith relatives. You asked in your letter if my grandfather, Robert Smith, was a Baptist minister. I do not think so, although I am sure he was a Baptist, as older member so of the family have informed me. My grandfather had an older brother by the name of Jordan Smith who came to Kentucky about the same time my grandfather, and grandmother did, and lived near Paducah, Ky. However, I do not remember him. The date you gave of my grandfather’s birth is correct.
I would be so glad to visit the Mr. Allen Smith, at Westmoreland. I have written to Mrs. Coley on Route two, Lafayette.
Thanks again for everything.
As ever,
H. G. Faulkner.
P. S. I have enjoyed reading all the news in your paper. I think it is a wonderful paper.
(Editor’s note: We thank Mr. Faulkner for his commendatory words and assure him that they are appreciated. This man is the grandson of Robert Smith, born on Peyton’s Creek more than a hundred years ago, his mother having been Miss Mary Wilburn prior to her marriage to Allen Smith, Sr. William Henry Harrison Smith, known through here as “Tip” Smith, was a brother of Robert Smith. “Tip’s” widow, Mrs. Adeline Gammon Smith, is now nearing her 96th anniversary at her home in the Ebenezer section of this county, and is perhaps the oldest woman in Macon County. She is perhaps the only widow of a Civil War Union soldier still living in Macon. She is very feeble and perhaps cannot live through the winter. We are specially anxious that she may live long enough to see her grandson, Elder James Henry Smith, who is now on his way home from Japan, where he has labored for five years as a missionary. He is expected to arrive at San Francisco the fifth of December, and should reach home by Dec. 10th).
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