Wayne County IN Archives Biographies.....Macy, Henry L. May 10, 1806 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Glapha Cox rcoxfam@earthlink.net January 11, 2006, 10:58 am Author: History of Wayne County, Indiana;Volume II, (1884) Green Township p. 482 - 485 Henry L. Macy, the fourth child of Joseph and Mary (Way) Macy, was born in South Carolina, Marlborough District, May 10, 1806. His father died when he was about three years old, and in 1813 or 1814 his mother married Benjamin Beverly. In 1816 a company of four persons, consisting of Paul, Henry H. and William Way and William Diggs came from South Carolina to Randolph County, Ind., and entered land from two to four miles west of where Winchester now stands. In the fall of the year one of their number, Paul H. Way, returned to South Carolina for his family and friends, and on the 1st day of December, 1816, six families in one company bade a final farewell to their. Carolina homes, and started on a long overland journey to the paradise beyond the Ohio, to find their future homes and fortunes in Randolph County. This company consisted of John and Paul Way, (uncles of our subject), John Moorman, Geo. T. Wilson, Armsbee Diggs and Benjamin Beverly and their families. The route of this company lay across the Blue Ridge Mountains, over the Holsten and along the French Broad Rivers, over the Cumberland Mountains and on through Tennessee, Kentucky and across the Ohio River at Cincinnati. After the company had traveled some days and reached the eastern part of Tennessee, Mr. Macy’s sister, two years older than himself, was taken sick with a fever, and was not able to travel any further. It was decided that his mother and children should stop. His uncle had made the acquaintance of a tavern-keeper, Major McBride, a gentleman in every sense of the word, who took them in and cared for them until the next spring, when his grandfather and grandmother and aunt came by and brought them on to Green Township, Wayne Co., Ind. They arrived on the 3d day of July, 1817. At this date a great portion of Indiana was an unbroken wilderness. The red man of the forest, the bear, the deer and the wolf were frequently seen. The condition of the country, the wants of the pioneer, were such, that it behooved every man, woman and child to do his best to subdue the wild forest, so that the soil could be forced to yield the necessaries of life. At the date of his arrival in Wayne County our subject was eleven years old. The country a wilderness, the land to clear, rails to split, fences to build, cabins to raise, clapboards to make to cover the cabin, puncheons to split and hew for a floor, and no saw-mills. Steam-mills were hardly thought of, and at that date there were no mills of any kind in Green Township. When his grandparents, William and Abigail Way, his mother and child, his Uncle William Way, Aunt Abigail Way, two cousins, Moorman and Susannah Way, reached the neighborhood where Williamsburg now stands, they found his stepfather, Benjamin Beverly, his brother William, and Seth Way, at work on a cabin for a home. His stepfather had taken a lease of the land belonging to Seth Way, lying about a mile west of where Williamsburg now stands. He was to clear and fence ten acres and have it seven years. For three or four years this cabin was his home, and he helped to clear and fence the land. About this time his oldest sister, Phebe, married Henry W. Way, a son of Henry and Charlotte (Anthony) Way. After this he lived with his sister and her husband and his mother. Ruben Joy, the man who built the first saw-mill in the neighborhood, paid his hands 25 cents per day for digging his mill-race, and Mr. Macy worked four days in said mill-race for $1. In the fall of 1826 his brother-in-law, Henry W. Way, sold his farm near Williamsburg, and moved to Fayette County, some three miles south of Connersville. He lived with him there one year and then returned to the neighborhood of Williamsburg, where he made the acquaintance of Rachel Trotter, a daughter of Joseph and Ruth (Anthony) Trotter, and a granddaughter of Josiah and Jane Trotter. She came with her mother, sister and brother to Wayne County, Ind., in the fall of 1826, and on Dec. 24, 1829, they were married. The spring following they moved to Winchester, Randolph County, and lived there two years. There he made and laid bricks. They then moved back to Wayne County, four miles northeast of Williamsburg, to the farm of Wilson Horn. They lived on the Horn farm one year, when he and his wife's brother bought a lease of Seth Brock on the Widow Jay farm, and moved to it in the fall of 1834. Mr. Macy bought the farm on which he now lives and has followed farming for a livelihood ever since. Mr. and Mrs. Macy have had nine children---Ruth, born Dec. 29, 1830, wife of Benjamin Tharp, of Randolph County, Ind.; Mary, born Dec. 18, 1832, married Wyatt Green, and died March 7, 1861; William, born Sept. 24, 1834, and died Aug. 11, 1864; .Abigail, born Sept. 28, 1836, died Feb. 11, 1842; Louisa, born May 13, 1838, wife of Nathan T. Butts, of Randolph County; Thomas C., born Aug. 31, 1840, died Jan. 5, 1852; Margret J., born Feb. 21, 1842, wife of Wyatt Green; Sarah A., born March 20, 1844; Henry S., born Dec. 28, 1851. In politics, in his youth, Mr. Macy was an admirer of John Quincy Adams. Later in anti-slavery times he voted the liberty and Free-Soil ticket; voted with the Republican party until after the war, when he thought their legislation was calculated to make the poor poorer and the rich richer. Since then he has been with the Greenback labor party. Mr. Macy has been a member of the United Brethren church forty years. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/wayne/bios/macy77gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 6.1 Kb