Family Tree Maker's Genealogy Site: Genealogy Report: Ancestors of John Franklin Bush, Sr.

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Ancestors of John Franklin Bush, Sr.

Generation No. 5

      16. John Bush¹⁷, born February 02, 1741/42 in Orange County, Virginia¹⁷; died in Clark County, Kentucky¹⁷. He was the son of 32. Philip Bush and 33. Mary Bryan. He married 17. Elizabeth Walton.

      17. Elizabeth Walton¹⁷, born Abt. 1747¹⁷; died Bef. 1781¹⁷. She was the daughter of 34. William Walton and 35. Susannah Cobb.

Notes for John Bush:
The following is from Clifton Bush at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cwbush/bushx.htm

" JOHN4 BUSH (PHILIP P.3, JOHN2, ABRAHAM1) was born 02 February 1742 in Orange County Virginia, and died 09 November 1790 in Clark County Ky. Death date taken from Lib. Va. Aronhime papers cd. #87. He married (1) ELIZABETH WALTON. She was born Aft. 1742 in Bedford County Virginia. He married (2) MARY POLLY TILLMAN 07 May 1782 in Amhurst County. She was born 08 October 1743 in Prince George Co. Virginia, and died Aft. 1792 in Clark Co. Kentucky."

The will of Philip Bush dated May 10, 1771, left 100 acres, the tract on which he was then living, to his son John Bush and his wife Elizabeth, with the remainder to John's eldest son, apparently not yet born. The will was probated Sept. 24, 1772. I have not found a record of any land purchase by John Bush in Orange county.

On Nov. 1, 1773, Henry Key of Amherst Co. sold several tracts of land there to John Bush of Buckingham Co. The land was located near John Harmer mainly on Rucker's run. This was about the time John's brother, William Bush, was beginning work with Daniel Boone to settle Kentucky. John may not have moved to Amherst Co. immediately, because he and his wife Elizabeth were still of Buckingham Co., VA., when he and his brother William Bush of KY sold their land in Orange Co. to Walker Murray on 10-22-1778. The document is recorded in Orange co.

Because there are no Waltons in Orange co. to which John's wife Elizabeth can be connected, I believe that John left home prior to 1771, and probably married her in Albemarle, Buckingham, or Amherst co. (I have found nothing to confirm that she was born in Bedford Co.) He may not have owned the land on which he lived in Buckingham co. The following information is found at:

http://www.rochester.edu/college/bio/bannister/PatentMaps/Cabell%20lands/TALK.TX

" But the big change was issuance of another huge tract (28,528 acres) to
Walter King in 1750. King was a Brit and forfeited this land during the
Revolution. Subsequently, the large tract was divided into smaller lots;
many grants are recorded."

A contemporary who also lived on land in Buckingham Co. belonging to Walter King about the same time John Bush did is Robert Page of Albemarle Co. who married Mary Jane Murrell ca. 1765. I have not been able to find any other connection between Bush and Page. It is possible that Robert Page is a grandson of the royal governor Mann Page, whose activities are described in Charles Royster's book, "The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company" (New York 1999).

According to Clifton Bush:

"John served in the Revolutionary War under Captain Joseph Spencer's Company, 7th Virginia Regiment, Commanded by Colonel Alexander McMlenachan. He enlisted January 27, 1777."

A, Goff Bedford, in his book "Land of Our Fathers," Vol. I, p. 62, makes a similar statement about John's military service. John is not named on militia lists for Amherst co., so it is possible that he actually was in the Continental line. Men from Amherst and Buckingham Cos. usually went into the 6th Virginia Regiment (later consolidated with the 2nd Virginia Regiment), but those from Orange Co. went into the 7th Virginia. In either case he would have served with the main army under General Washington until Dec. 4, 1779, when both regiments were transferred to the Southern Department. Both regiments were captured on May 12, 1780, when Charlestown, SC, was captured by the British army. Both units were disbanded Nov. 15, 1783. See Robert K. Wright, Jr., "The Continental Army," (Wash. DC 1989), pp. 283-288. This was when the British evacuated New York City two months after the peace treaty had been signed. If that is in fact what happened to him, the experience of being a British prisoner of war probably injured his health and may account at least in part for his shortened life. As many as 11,500 men died on British prison hulks at New York. See Thomas Fleming, "Liberty," (New York 1997), p. 296.

The following information is found at: http://earlyamerica.com/review/2002_summer_fall/pows.htm

"After the British Army captured Charleston in 1780, large numbers of men from South Carolina militia units were incarcerated in St. Augustine. The regular, Continental forces captured at Charleston were placed in prisons in and around the city. A special prison camp was set up outside Charleston at Haddrell's Point. [xxxi] A few of the soldiers but most of the American naval personnel were placed aboard prison ships anchored in Charleston harbor.
...
"In the south, where commanders could negotiate with fewer political intrusions, three important cartels treating prisoners by category released many men and proved that a general formula could have been found. [xxxvii]
...
"Not until the end of the war in 1783, were American prisoners released."

On the other hand, if he was in the Continental army there should be a bounty land warrant for him. Militia service for up to 90 days per year, if selected, was a public duty, so militiamen were not entitled to such warrants, but officers and enlisted men of the Continental line were.

In the end, we must conclude that John Bush of Clark co. was not the "John Bush" who served in the 7th Regiment of the Virginia Continental line. W.W. Scott in "A Hist. of Orange Co., Va (Richmond 1907), p. 248, says that this John Bush "died in Continental service." Furthermore, in R. & S. Sparacio, "Pamunkey Neighbors of Orange Co., Va." (Balt. 1985), p. 136, it states, "Ann Powell proved that she is the mother and heir of John Bush, who died a soldier in the Contl. Service in the 7th Virga. Regmt."

On the other hand, there is some evidence he did serve as a private, at least for a time, among the Kentucky troops raised by George Rogers Clark, along with Drury Bush. His brother William served as a private, receiving after the revolutionary war a 108 ac. land allotment in Indiana for his service, but John and Drury did not receive such allotments, the condition being that the soldier particpated in the campaign of 1779 to reduce the British garrisons at Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia. This probably means that he was part of the force left behind at the Falls of the Ohio, or that he did not serve until one of the later years. Of course, it is also possible that this was a different "John Bush." A useful site to find military records is http://www.lovitt-genealogy.com/~lovitt/military.htm

According to Clifton Bush, John married his second wife, Mary Tillman, in Amherst Co. on May 7, 1782, Elizabeth apparently having died prior to that. This makes it unlikely that he was a British prisoner of war, although I do not have any specific information about whether he might have been among prisoners who were exchanged or released from Charleston before the war ended. He was listed as a member of the Providence Baptist Church in Clark Co., KY, in 1785, along with his brothers and sister who had moved there. He may have moved there as early as 1783. Bedford, ibid., p. 85.

His Will is probated in Clark Co. Kentucky Will Book 21 p136.

Amherst Co., VA, records of 1800 show that the surviving spouse and children gave their power of attorney to Wyatt Bush, and the Amherst co. lands were sold to Elisha Estis (450 acres) and Chas. Watts (110 acres). Presumably the land was rented out while the family lived in KY.

More About John Bush:
Military service: Bet. 1778 - 1783, Pvt. in one or more campaigns of G.R. Clark ¹⁸

Notes for Elizabeth Walton:
The mystery of Elizabeth (Betsy) Walton's family of origin has finally been solved. She is a daughter of William Walton and Susannah Cobb. This is proved by a deed wherein John Mullins conveys property to his own brothers and sisters (or their survivors) including the heirs of his brother, Henry Mullins. Goochland County Deed Book 4, pp. 418-420, Dec. 14, 1798. In the document the brothers and sisters of the deceased wife of Henry Mullins, Frances Walton Mullins, are named as heirs of Henry Mullins. Among those named is Betsy Bush, represented by one of her sons, William Walton Bush. Transcriptions of the surname have mistranscribed it as "Burk." (The same thing happened in an index of the 1830 census in Howard County, Mo., where Robert Bush is transcribed incorrectly as Robert Burk.] Frances Walton Mullins had received (in the name of her husband) a grant of land from her mother, Susannah Cobb Walton Rice, who had married Claiborne Rice after the death of her father, William Walton. The land had been left to the wife for life, with a reversion in Frances. This information links Elizabeth Walton Bush to one generation earlier than I had supposed, which eliminates some of the problems I had encountered when I tried to show her descent from her brother, also called William Walton. Apparently the will of her father does not name Elizabeth or Betsy, only the older siblings, from which I infer that Elizabeth was the youngest, probably born about 1747, and in all likelihood posthumously. This birth year is a good match for John Bush, who was probably born a few years earlier, and closes the gap in their ages.

This discovery may eventually shed light on other relationships. For one thing, it makes it likely that John Bush was in Albemarle county as early as 1766, when one John Bush, along with Henry Mullins and Daniel Smith, witnessed a conveyance from John Morris to John Henderson, Jr. Albemarle Deed Book 4, pp. 280-81.


Child of John Bush and Elizabeth Walton is:

Jonathan Bush, born March 24, 1780 in Orange Co., VA; died March 06, 1857 in Clark Co., KY; married (1) Mary Stevens Rawlings March 29, 1801 in Clark Co., KY; married (2) Diana Sue Emerson June 02, 1814 in Clark Co., KY; married (3) Ann W. Stuart Aft. 1849.

      18. John Rawlings¹⁹, born April 08, 1747 in Spotsylvania Co., VA; died Aft. January 13, 1820 in Howard Co., MO¹⁹. He was the son of 36. James Rawlings and 37. Sarah Holladay. He married 19. Nancy Holladay.

      19. Nancy Holladay¹⁹, born October 22, 1762 in Spotsylvania Co., VA¹⁹; died January 13, 1800 in Clark Co., KY¹⁹. She was the daughter of 38. Benjamin Holladay and 39. Mary Stevens?.

Notes for John Rawlings:
In 1804, shortly after the Americans acquired the Louisiana Purchase from France, the Sauk and Fox, who claimed rights over the territory north of the Missouri River, ceded only a strip of land lying generally along the west bank of the Mississippi River, from the mouth of the Gasconade on the Missouri north to the Wisconsin (Ouisconsing) River. American settlement began generally in this strip, close to St. Louis, a city of ethnic French, some Spanish, Indians, and mixed-blood people, along with a few Americans like Daniel Boone, who had chosen to live under Spanish rule at Femme Osage along the Missouri River in what is now St. Charles county. In 1808 the Osage, although never defeated by the Americans in war, were persuaded by William Clark, the Indian agent, to move west and surrender their claims over most of the territory (save for a strip inside the future western state line, running south to the Arkansas River and open to the west to what is now Kansas and northern Oklahoma.] The Osage, who were tall and powerfully built, apparently very handsome people, frequently at war with neighboring tribes, were impressed by a visit to Washington City arranged for some of their leaders by William Clark, and chose to remain fairly well-disposed toward the Americans, one of the few western tribes to do so except under duress.

As far as I have been able to determine, John Rawlings was the first ancestor in any branch of my family to move across the Mississippi River. He had moved to what is now Missouri by Sept. 9, 1811, when he signed a petition requesting that the "territory of Louisiana," as Missouri and surrounding areas were then known, be advanced to the second grade of territorial government where it would be allowed a non-voting representative in Congress. He did not sign a similar petition in January, 1810, so he presumably moved into the Louisiana territory during the interim between those two petitions. Although there were a few brave souls who lived as far west as Boone's Lick (named after Daniel's son, Nathan) in what is now Howard county, most white people did not move outside the strip ceded by the Sauk and Fox in 1804 (who did not cede their claims to most of the rest of the territory north of the Missouri River until 1824). If John Rawlings moved that far west as early as 1810-11, he was truly on the leading edge of American migration.

The American teritory centered on St. Louis at the time of the War of 1812 was very insecure, threatened by various hostile Indian tribes, mainly to the north, supported by the British. Settlements that had moved as much as 80-90 miles north up the Mississippi and 120-130 miles west up the Missouri before the war, were pulled back to within 25-30 miles of St. Louis along the Mississippi and 120 miles west along the Missouri. The war in the old northwest did not go well. The British did to us what we had planned to do to them in Canada when we declared war. The British captured important fortified trade centers at Michilimackinac, Detroit, Ft. Dearborn (now Chicago), Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. At the end of the war the British and their Indian allies were planning to attack St. Louis itself. Invasion was deterred only because the Americans belatedly persuaded some of the plains Indian tribes, the Omaha and Nakota Sioux, to attack the Iowa and Dakota Sioux from the west, bleeding off some of the Indian forces that would otherwise have been available to the British for their intended attack. Shortly thereafter a peace treaty was signed in Ghent, Belgium. Pursuant to the peace treaty the British abandoned their territorial gains in the old northwest leaving the hostile Indians in a much weaker negotiating position.

By 1814 the area called Boone's Lick settlement was already thickly settled, although it was still recognized to be Indian land, according to a letter from William Russell to William Rector, Apr. 20, 1814. ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/mo/land/1814ltr.txt Howard county was organized in 1816, and originally included about a third of the state, including much land to which the Indian title was not yet extinguished.

John Rawlings was apparently unaware that his daughter Mary S. Rawlings Bush had died in February 1814, because his will, written and probated in Howard county in 1820, included a bequest to her rather than to her children, something he probably would have revised if he had been aware of her death. He appears to have owned 15 slaves when he died, enough to leave one to each of his children and three to his surviving spouse for her lifetime. Although the settlers generally supported slavery in the territory, only one in ten actually owned any slaves. Landon Y. Jones, "William Clark and the Shaping of the West" (New York 2004), p. 250.

By his first marriage John Rawlings is the father of Owen Rawlins, a powerful state senator of Missouri prior to the civil war, and through a son of his second marriage he is grand-father of civil war brigadier general John A. Rawlins, a lawyer who served as adjutant to U.S. Grant and as secretary of war during the first year of the first Grant administration before succumbing to tuberculosis. Therefore, Senator Rawlins is an uncle of Robert R. Bush, Sr., and General Rawlins is a first cousin of Robert R. Bush, Jr.

Although it appears that John Rawlings directly benefitted from the dispossession of the Indian title to land in Missouri, many of his descendants in Missouri took the Confederate side in the civil war, which no doubt set them back financially and perhaps in other ways as well.

Child of John Rawlings and Nancy Holladay is:

Mary Stevens Rawlings, born April 14, 1785 in Spotsylvania Co., VA; died February 02, 1814 in Clark Co., KY; married Jonathan Bush March 29, 1801 in Clark Co., KY.

      20. Markham Ware^20,²¹, born Abt. 1735 in Virginia ^22,²³; died January 1831 in Gosport, Owen County, Indiana ^24,²⁵. He was the son of 40. Henry Ware and 41. ? Markham. He married 21. Clary Lindsay.

      21. Clary Lindsay²⁵, born Bet. 1745 - 1755; died Bef. 1819 in Madison County, Kentucky²⁵. She was the daughter of 42. Joshua Lindsay and 43. Polly Nichols.

Notes for Markham Ware:
I have found a website that includes photos of his grave in Indiana, including a grave marker that describes him as a "soldier of the revolution," but I do not yet have any information about his military service.

Child of Markham Ware and Clary Lindsay is:

Caleb Ware, born Aft. 1775 in VA; died Abt. 1847 in Howard Co., MO; married Martha Emerson August 30, 1800 in Clark Co., KY.

      22. Tilley Emerson²⁵, born in Caroline Co., VA²⁵; died 1816 in Clark Co., KY²⁵. He was the son of 44. William Emerson and 45. Mary Tilley?. He married 23. Catharine Simpson.

      23. Catharine Simpson^26,²⁷, born Abt. 1747 ^28,²⁹; died Bef. 1806²⁹. She was the daughter of 46. Francis Simpson and 47. Mary.

Notes for Tilley Emerson:
The first name, Tilley, is probably a surname used as a first name. This is probably also true of Simpson Emerson, one of Tilley's sons. Tilley was not a common surname but there were at least one or two who immigrated to America.

Children of Tilley Emerson and Catharine Simpson are:

11	i.	Martha Emerson, born October 31, 1776; died 1836 in Howard Co., MO; married Caleb Ware August 30, 1800 in Clark Co., KY.
	ii.	Simpson Emerson, born February 27, 1777; married Peggy George November 25, 1800 in Clark Co., KY.
	iii.	Polley Emerson, born January 27, 1779; married Boling Clark July 14, 1815 in Clark Co., KY.
	iv.	Betsey Emerson, born October 20, 1782; married Pleasant Carney August 25, 1806 in Clark Co., KY.
	v.	Catey Emerson, born November 10, 1784; married (1) Eaton Emerson December 20, 1804; married (2) Hugh McCafarty September 14, 1812 in Clark Co., KY.
	vi.	William Emerson, born August 08, 1787; married Polly Tuggle May 28, 1811.
	vii.	James Emerson, born November 1789; married Nancy Tuggle August 08, 1815 in Clark Co., KY.
	viii.	Francis Emerson, born February 11, 1792; married Polly Tuggle November 13, 1823.
	ix.	Diana Sue Emerson, born February 07, 1794; died March 05, 1849 in Clark Co., KY; married Jonathan Bush June 02, 1814 in Clark Co., KY; born March 24, 1780 in Orange Co., VA²⁹; died March 06, 1857 in Clark Co., KY²⁹.

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