Caldwell County MO Archives History .....ELISHA EDWARDS FAMILY IN NEW YORK TOWNSHIP 
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 4:27 pm

THE ELISHA EDWARDS FAMILY IN NEW YORK TOWNSHIP
	Narrators:  Ebenezer Jones and James Puckett

     The Elisha Edwards family is another "before the Civil War" family in 
Caldwell county.  The family came from Carroll co. Va., and on the way here, 
lived a short time in Daviess county.  They are not supposed to be kin to the 
Isaac Edwards family of N.Y. township, yet because of the fact that both came 
from Carroll county and both came before the war, it is possible that they are 
distant relatives.
     In New York township, they had as neighbors the Pucketts, Elizabeth 
Edwards (daughter [sister] of Elisha) married Constant Puckett.  They had the 
numerous Cox families.  The Jones family also were later neighbors.  This 
neighborhood originally started out as a Virginian settlement, but after the 
war, an influx of people from New York was so great that in the realignment of 
township lines the township became called New York township.  In time, however 
the Missourians (as the New Yorkers called the earlier Virginia settlers) 
mixed on friendly terms with the Yankees.
     Elisha Edwards grew discontented with things in Caldwell county and 
decided to go back to Carroll Co, Va.  He loaded his farm wagon and started 
out.  Ebenezer Jones tells a story about that moving.  It must have been in 
the early seventies.
     Mr. Jones is now about 76 and he came here with his parents in the early 
60s.  As a young fellow, he knew Elisha Edwards well.  One morning, he was out 
hunting and he met Edwards in a mover wagon headed east.  He told Jones that 
he was going to Virginia, that there was nothing here for him.  Mr. Jones told 
him he would be back within a year.  Edwards got out his little brown jug and 
they had a parting drink together - a common custom those days.  About a year 
later, Jones was again out hunting on about the same spot when he met Edwards 
in a mover wagon on the road headed west.  He said there was nothing in 
Virginia for him, and again he got out the little brown jug and they had a 
drink together.  He had come back to Caldwell county for good and all, to 
settle down for life, which he did.
     In the possession of descendants of this Elisha Edwards are some very 
interesting letters of early days reflecting the ways of those times.  Some of 
the letters have been sent through the mails without an envelope, the address 
simply written on the outside fold of the letter.  One of these early letters 
says that he sent seventy dollars in currency to one George Harris of Hannibal 
through the American Express, which was the way money transactions were 
managed before the days of back checks and drafts.  The receipt said that the 
package carried "currency" valued at $70.  This was dated Nov 11, 1867, when 
Elisha Edwards was living in Caldwell county.
     The old Elisha Edwards place in the Bonanza neighborhood in N.Y. Twp. is 
still in the family, being the home of his daughter, Mrs. McFee.  His 
grandson, James Puckett, lives in Hamilton, being a retired farmer of nearly 
80.  Elisha Edwards died 1905 and his wife Margaret died 1890 aged 65 and both 
are buried in the near by old Cox cemetery.
     Interviews  1934.


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