CHAPTER II. SCOTCH-IRISH In IRELAND And In AMERICA by ANDREW PHELPS McCORMICK, 1897
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John Adams and Andrew McCormick

	The John Adams of whom this chapter treats was born in one of the provinces or 
states of the Republic of Holland.  The record or tradition of the exact date of his birth, of 
his emigration, of his marriage and of his death, is not preserved.  He was born about the 
year 1700, and came to America in the first year of his mature manhood.  His parents and 
their parents were Protestants of Calvinistic faith.  They had suffered much in their persons 
and in their estates from persecution by the Papists.  When our preserved reliable traditions 
first mention him his mother was a widow with two children, the other child being a 
daughter named Catherine -- whether younger or older than John we are not informed.  His 
mother owned, or permanently held, a small farm on which she had a vineyard and also 
grew flax.  In which one of the revolted Spanish provinces -- then become states of the 
Dutch Republic -- she lived, we do not know, but her home was situated about forty miles 
from a populous seaport.  The persecutors of the family had caused John to be seized and 
forced into the army, to which service he was not then legally liable.  During some 
movement of the troops in very hard weather in the winter, John escaped and made his way 
to his mother's cottage, where he remained in hiding until spring.  With the spring there 
came to the neighboring seaport a ship seeking a cargo of emigrants for America.  Tidings 
thereof reached the widow's cottage, was discussed in the family, and it was decided that 
John should go.  The time for sailing was approaching, and John, in the early morning hours 
and in the evening twilight, was dressing the vines and doing his last help on the little farm, 
carefully guarding against unfriendly observation, while preparation for his departure went 
quietly on in the home.  Being engaged very early in the morning in dressing some vines 
that were near to and in the rear of the house, his attention was attracted by his mother 
running towards him with a few pieces of his clothing in her hands which she had snatched 
up and was doing into a bundle, which she thrust into his hand with a small wallet of silver 
coins, saying: "Fly to the ship."  He took in the situation at a glance and stood not "on the 
order of his going."  He took a straight line across fields and fences for the City by the Sea 
and for the ark of safety.  The officer and his men were mounted; they saw the fugitive as he 
ran from his mother's vineyard; they knew his destination; they felt sure of cutting him off 
and capturing him before he reached the ship; but, as they followed the highway their route 
was longer and he outran them in the forty-mile race, reached the ship and closed his 
contract for passage with the master before the pursuers arrived.  As he had not been and 
was not subject to the involuntary military service, he was not legally liable to the attempted 
arrest.  However, that may have been, the master of the ship refused to surrender him; the 
pursuing posse courteously acquiesced, and took their leave with the customary military 
salute, which John joined the master in returning.  The ship had a successful passage, 
entered the Delaware River, discharged her passengers, and John Adams found his home 
among his countrymen and men of his own religious faith, in New Jersey.  Afterwards his 
sister joined him in New Jersey.  Our preserved traditions make no other mention of her.  In 
due time he married, taking to wife one born in his native land.  They reared a family of six 
children, three of whom were sons, named John, peter and Jacob, and three were daughters, 
named Mary, Hannah and Catherine.  In the beginnings of the disagreement between the 
colonies and the mother-country, he warmly espoused the American cause, and though past 
the age of three-score and ten when actual war began, he ardently advocated and supported 
the Declaration of Independence.  In the winter of 1776, when Lord Cornwallis overran 
New Jersey, John Adams moved his family into Pennsylvania, or into Virginia -- the 
tradition is not definite; probably first into Pennsylvania and the next spring into Virginia -- 
where they sojourned until the close of the year 1777, and arrived in Rowan County, North 
Carolina, the first of January, 1778.  Early in this year of sojourn, his daughter, Catherine, 
married my great-grandfather, Andrew McCormick.  He was born in the Province of Ulster, 
in Ireland.  His parents were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.

	When John Adams, with his family, settled in Rowan County in the fall of 1777, he 
was entering the fourth quarter of his century of life; his eye was dim, but otherwise his 
natural force was not abated.  He was an earnest Whig and continued to ardently espouse 
the cause of American Independence.  Rev. Richard Ellis Sherrill, born in Lincoln County, 
North Carolina, March 17, 1816 -- now (August 24, 1896) living in Haskell, Texas -- 
remembers to have personally known Jacob Adams, the youngest son of John Adams.  In 
Rowan, Iredell, and the counties that were once embraced in Lincoln County, there are now 
many families of the name Adams, but we have lost the trace of our connection with out 
collateral kindred of that name.  We have also lost trace of the descendants of Mary and 
Hannah, two of the daughters of John Adams.  Our written record shows only that Mary 
married a man named Groves, and Hannah married a man named Lowrance.  On November 
10, 1782, Andrew McCormick bought of John Lowrance and Abraham Lowrance, 
Executors of the Will of Joseph Lowrance, three and three acres of land situated on Lyles 
Creek, in Lincoln County, North Carolina, the same being a part of a tract granted to Joseph 
Lowrance by Earl Granville on August 28, 1762.  On this three hundred and three acres 
Andrew McCormick and his wife, Catherine, my great-grandparents, made their home and 
resided during the remainder of their joint lives.  On it he operated a farm and grew fine 
horses an milk cattle.  He also carried on an extensive workshop, making and repairing 
household furniture and implement s of wood and iron for farm and road uses.  His health 
being feeble, in January, 1795, he made his will, in which, after the formal clauses, he 
provides as follows:

	"After all of my just debts are discharged, I bequeath to my beloved wife, Catherine, one-third of 
my personal property, to her own proper use and behoof forever, together with the use of the real and 
personal estate during her widowhood, or the time of my two sons, viz: Joseph and Andrew, arriving at the 
age of twenty-one years, provided she supports and educates all the children out of said use of the real 
estate; provided, also, that if my beloved wife, Catherine, should continue a widow after my sons Joseph and 
Andrew come to years of maturity, that then, in that case, a decent support is to be provided for her out of 
the several dividends hereafter devised to my four sons, each to furnish an equal part.  I bequeath to my two 
sons, Joseph and Andrew, my real estate of land on which I now live, the dividing line of said land to be the 
main creek running through the same.  At the time of Joseph coming to the age twenty-one years, three 
freeholders indifferently chosen by Joseph and Andrew, or my executors in behalf of Andrew, shall value 
the land agreeable to said line.  The difference in valuation to be equally divided among my four sons.  With 
regards to my two sons, John and David, I direct that after they have received their education, as soon as 
convenient they be put to trades, the choice of which I leave to their mother and my executor.  At the time 
that each of them arrives at the age of twenty-one years, that then my two sons, Joseph and Andrew, shall 
pay my two sons, the aforesaid land bequeathed to them.  I likewise devise that the remaining two-thirds of 
my personal property be equally divided among my four sons, viz: Joseph, Andrew, John and David, and 
my three daughters, viz: Elizabeth, Mary and Catherine.

	I do hereby constitute and appoint William Sloan, Enos Sherrill and James Cowan the executors of 
this my last will and testament.

			(signed)	Andrew McCormick    	[seal]

	Signed, sealed and acknowledges in the presence of:
			John Alexander
			B.L. Miller
			John Fullbright."


	There is no file-mark on the testamentary writing to fix the date of its lodgment in 
the surrogates office.  The only minutes I could find touching the probate of the will, the 
appointment of executors and the conduct of the succession, are the following:  In the 
minutes of the January, 1798, session of the court, there is this entry:

	"The committee to whom was referred the settlement of the estate of Andrew McCormick, 
deceased, with Jas. Cowan, Executor, reports that they find there remains in the hands of the Executor upon 
settlement £368.16.1.
	July session, 1805.
		Signed by:
			Mich. Cline,   J.P
			Peter Settle.  J.P."

	On the third day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
seven, Andrew McCormick conveyed to Benjamin Sherrill:

	"All the tract or parcel of land, situated, lying and being in the county of Lincoln and State 
aforesaid, on Lyle's Creek, and bounded by the same on the North, and by land of Isaac Lowrance (Tanner) 
on the West and by land of said Sherrill on the South and East.  Beginning at a hickory near the Creek on 
Fullbright's line, then South with Abraham Goodwin's line nine chains and 50 links to facers in Lowrance's 
line; thence with his line East eight chains to a pine, Lowrance's corner, then with Lowrance's line South 25 
chains to black oak, Benjamin Sherrill's corner in said line; then East with Sherrill's old line sixty-nine 
chains to a black oak; Sherrill's old corner; then North to a stake on the Creek; then with the Creek, the 
various courses thereof to the Beginning, containing by calculation 162 acres laid off, by men, to said 
Andrew McCormick, agreeable to the direction of his father's will, said land being part of a tract of land 
originally granted by Thomas Childs on behalf, of John, Earl Granville, to Joseph Lowrance, and by him 
conveyed to Andrew McCormick, Senior. *  *  *  In witness whereof, the said Andrew McCormick hath 
hereunto set his hand and affixed his seal the day and year first above written.			
	Andrew McCormick	[seal]

	Sealed and deliver in presence of:
		Enos Sherrill
		Joseph McCormick

	State of North Carolina, Lincoln County} April Session, A.D. 1807.

	The within deed was proved in open court by the oath of Joseph McCormick, recorded and order to 
be registered.

	Witness: Lwn. Henderson, C.C."


	On "the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
eight," Joseph McCormick, "in virtue of his father's last will and testament, which may be 
seen upon the records," conveyed to Enos Sherrill the other portion of the 303-acre tract, 
being 141 acres "lying on the North side of Lyle's Creek."  "In witness hereof, the said 
Joseph McCormick hath hereto set his hand and seal the day and year above written, by and 
with the consent of his mother, Catherine McCormick, in witness whereof, she has also 
subscribed her name."

	John Adams survived until the first year of this century.  He was totally blind for 
several years preceding his death.  During these later years of helpless blindness, he lived 
with the family of his daughter, Catherine McCormick, and died in her house on Lyle's 
Creek; in which his son-in-law, Andrew McCormick, had died about three years earlier.  
The "beloved wife, Catherine," continued a widow as long as she lived.

	Catherine McCormick survived her husband twelve years.  He had been in feeble 
health for several years, and the active management of the family, the farm and the shops 
had devolved on his wife and their sons, Joseph and Andrew.  Upon the father's death, 
Joseph, then not quite twenty years of age, assumed the duties of the male head of the 
family, which he continued to discharge as long as his mother lived, remaining unmarried, 
and devoting these twelve years of his life to aiding her in rearing and educating her 
younger children.  The executor, James Cowan, duly qualified and continued to kindly act 
as such in all matters where the interest and disability of the minor children required that 
some one legally competent should take part, but it is manifest from the records that his 
office was as nominal as it was friendly.  The sum found to be in his hands in 1805 was the 
amount of the proceeds of sales of live stock and household furniture, and shop materials 
and farm implements, then recently made at public vendue, evidently for the purpose of 
distribution, nearly the whole of it being bought by the adult distributees, and probably no 
part of the proceeds was ever actually in the executor's hands, as it is certain that the things 
sold had been held and used, and most of the live stock raised, by the family.  Andrew had 
achieved his majority in 1801, and had married in 1803.  Between these dates the land had 
been measured and valued, and allotted as provided in the father's will, Joseph taking the 
lesser acreage on the side of the creek on which the dwelling and other home buildings were 
situated, and Andrew the other, on which he was about to plant his roof-tree.

	Not far from this McCormick farm, but probably across the Catawba River, in Iredell 
County, lived Mortimer Steele, who had commanded a company of Whigs in the War for 
Independence, and who was known far and near as Captain Steele.  He was a Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterian.  His wife was a native of Wales.  They had at least five children -- three sons 
and two daughters, of whom I have heard my parents make mention.  The sons were named 
John, William and Henry, and the daughters were named Sarah and Rebecca.  Of John and 
William I have been able to learn only their names, and that they lived to become men of 
family and moved from North Carolina to some point in the then West in the early years of 
this century.  Of Henry and Rebecca some further mention will be made as we proceed in 
this chapter.  Sarah Steele, who was born in North Carolina in 1774, became the wife of 
Andrew McCormick in 1803.  These are my grandparents.  After the fashion of these times 
(still observed in many Presbyterian families) they kept their family record on the suitable 
leaves inserted between the Old and New Testament, as the sacred scriptures were then 
bound for such family use.  By nearly a century's sue, and the accidents of weather incident 
to the migration of three generations, this record has become so marred that the writing 
showing the exact date of the birth and marriage of these grandparents has become illegible.  
The sister, Rebecca, married Robert Stevenson, who was my mother's uncle, and was a 
great uncle of Vice-President Adlai E. Stevenson.  Jane Stevenson, a sister of Robert, 
married William Sloan.

	About this time Mr. Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana began to thrill the pulses of 
aspiring young people throughout the South Atlantic States.  Long before Mr. Greeley had 
made himself noted by his oft repeated iteration of the advice, "Go west, young man, and 
grow up with the country," that thought had been acted on in all the Colonies and States, 
from Maine to Georgia.  The impulse now became epidemic in the Catawba Country.  In 
one year forty families of the Bethany Church and congregation moved across the 
mountains into Tennessee and further west.  Smaller colonies from neighboring 
congregations set their faces toward a new zion in the Occident with their wives and little 
ones, their domestic animals and other movables suitable for their migration and for their 
settlement on the frontier.  Like the great leader of Israel, they sent forward pioneers, not to 
spy out an enemy's country, but to seek and select situations eligible and ample for the 
accommodation and purposes of the respective colonies.  In promotion and pursuance of 
such a scheme, Andrew McCormick, Robert Stevenson and William Sloan, with their 
families and their domestic goods, and, accompanied by a suitable number of unmarried 
men, set out in the spring of 1807 on the necessary preliminary pioneer expedition to that 
portion of Mr. Jefferson's purchase now embraced in the State of Missouri.  They passed 
through Tennessee, and in July, 1808, the family of Andrew McCormick was in Christian 
County, Kentucky.  Whether the three families sojourned in Kentucky during that year, and 
the young men alone pushed across the Mississippi River and selected the virgin ground for 
the location of the colony, can not now be determined.  By the summer of 1808 they had 
selected for their permanent settlement a place on the left bank of Big River, afterwards 
embraced in the bounds of Washington County, and one mile west from the present town of 
Irondale, Missouri.  In September the main body of this colony was ready to set out on their 
journey to the West.  They started on the sixteenth day of that month.  The way had been 
carefully surveyed and well chosen, and the goodly company reached their destination 
without any casualty or detention.  They arrived about the first day of November.  The 
widow, Catherine McCormick, and all of her unmarried children, Joseph, John, David, 
Mary and Catherine, were of this company.  It also included Robert Sloan, a brother of the 
pioneer, William Sloan, with his wife, Martha, whose maiden name was Harris, and the 
widow Alexander with her two unmarried sons, Alexander Thompson Alexander and John 
Price Alexander.  Here we first meet among those nearly related to us, persons who bear 
two christian names.  Very many families in the Yadkin and Catawba country bore the 
name Alexander.  In Mecklenburg County they were more numerous than any other family 
connection.  The Harris family was next in number, and at the time of the Revolution these 
two families and their connection constituted one-third of the population of that country, 
"exhaustless as it seemed to be in men and patriotism."

	On arriving at their new home the pious company organized themselves into a 
church congregation, chose a site for a meeting-house and burying-ground, built the house 
for prayer, enclose its adjoining "God's Acre," and as soon as a minister could come with 
authority to ordain and install elders, the Bellevue Church was organized by Rev. Salmon 
Giddings August 3, 1816.  Here, in the first year of the new settlement, was deposited the 
dust of Catherine McCormick, and close by it now sleeps the dust of her two daughters, 
Mary and Catherine, and of their husbands, the brothers Alexander, and of her oldest son, 
the son and sons-in-law having been ruling elders of the Bellevue Church.

	JOSEPH.

	In 1809, Joseph McCormick married Elizabeth Sloan, a daughter of Robert and 
Martha Sloan.  On August 22, 1810 their first child was born.  He was named Fielding 
Lewis, and he still survives, an honored citizen of Monroe, Louisiana, in the midst of the 
children of his youth and of his grandchildren, some of whom are grown, and in the bosom 
of a large presbyterian congregation, which he still serves as an active ruling elder.  
Elizabeth McCormick died in 1812, at or soon after the birth of their second child, a 
daughter named Dorcas, who survived her mother only a few months.  In due time the 
bereaved survivor married Jane Robinson.  To them were born five sons, named, 
respectively, Andrew Guy, James Robinson, John Adams, Joseph Marion and Christopher 
Grider, and two daughters -- one named Harriet Newel and other named Nancy Sophia.  By 
this time double christian names have become the rule in our family.  The last named 
daughter was the second child of this marriage, and died in her second year.  The sixth 
child, Joseph Marion went to California in 1849, and died there in that of his early youth.  
The others of these children have all had prominent careers.  Andrew and Christopher went 
to California soon after its acquisition by the United States, and had early and growing 
success in business.  In 1857, Christopher came back to his native neighborhood and 
married Martha Elizabeth Sloan, a cousin of his brother Fielding, but no blood kin to 
Christopher.  He died August 12, 1874, from the kick of a horse.  His wife, Martha 
Elizabeth, and their seven children survived him.  She is still a widow and living with her 
children and grandchildren in California, in the enjoyment of ample means and in the active 
exercise of a large influence for good.  Andrew lived past the Psalmist's limit of the ordinary 
number of our years and died a few years ago, leaving no family.  James Robinson took his 
degrees as physician and surgeon and settled near his native home and engaged in the 
practice of his profession in connection with the business of druggist.  He is now, and has 
been for many years, one of the wealthiest men in Francois County.  He was a "war 
democrat," and has even been affiliated politically with the democratic party.  He served in 
the Union Army all through the Civil War, and rose to the rank of a brigadier-general.  
Twice has he been elected to the State Legislature and three times to the House of 
Representatives in Congress.  He is a ruling elder in the presbyterian church.  Two of his 
children survive.  They are half-brothers in blood, but full brothers in all other respects, 
dwelling together in unity, honoring their father and maintaining the credit of his name and 
character.  The eldest Emmett Curran, is a physician in good practice, is married, has a 
number of children and a sumptuous home on a block near his father's, in the town of 
Farmington.  The younger, James Edward, lives with his parents and assists his father in the 
conduct of his affairs.

	John Adams McCormick owns and occupies as his home the old homestead, 
dedicated by his father in November, 1808, and cultivated and enjoyed by him till his death, 
October 4, 1840.  John is a ruling elder in the Bellevue Church, as his father and uncles 
Alexander were before him.  He has served his fellow-citizens as their representative in the 
State Legislature, and has had commanding local influence during the whole period of his 
mature manhood.

	Harriet Newel, the only daughter in this family who survived early infancy, after her 
mother's death, October 23, 1843, and the dispersion and separate settlement of her brothers, 
lived for several years before her marriage in and near Columbia, Tennessee.  There, on 
February 8, 1855, she was united in marriage with John Simpson Frierson, a Presbyterian 
minister, who, from his youth, throughout a long life, labored abundantly as a preacher of 
the Word in that attractive and fruitful field.  Mr. Frierson died three years ago.  They had 
no children.  Since her husband's death the childless widow, now 74 years old, has become a 
member of the household of her brother, James, at Farmington.  Two incident connect 
themselves with her which may bear mention.  In 1855, her cousin, Richard Ellis Sherrill, 
was pastor of a church in Tennessee, about twenty miles distant from Columbia.  He had 
wooed and won, and was ready to wed, a daughter of Dr. Reed, who was a member of his 
congregation, and the time was set for the marriage ceremony, 8 P.M., February 7, 1855.  
He wrote to his brother-preacher, Frierson, advising him or these interesting facts, and 
requesting him to be present as officiating minister.  Brother Frierson replied the same day 
and hour had been set for him to wed Harriet McCormick, at Columbia, and that she desired 
that her cousin, Richard Ellis Sherrill, should officiate as minister at her marriage.  It was 
arranged that Mr. Sherrill and Miss Reed should hold their wedding on the same day, and 
that Mr. Frierson and Miss McCormick should wed the day following, and that each of the 
bridal parties should be present at both functions, and the respective clergymen should 
marry each the other to his chosen bride.

	A few years before Mr. Frierson's death, his wife set her heart on having her father's 
surviving children meet once more at the Old Homestead.  All of the children who had 
survived infancy were then living, except Joseph and Christopher.  She set her hand to work 
to bring to fruition this wish and hope of her heart.  Christopher's widow was residing at 
Easton, California, Andrew was settled at Benson, in Arizona; Fielding was in Monroe, 
Louisiana; John lived on the Old Homestead in Missouri; James was near at Farmington; 
and Harriet, the promoter, lived at that time in North Alabama.  She wrote to each, 
prompting and urging that they meet at the old homestead on the next anniversary of the 
birth of the oldest brother.  Martha, from the setting sun, wrote with loving regret that she 
could not leave her farms and her children to go so far and be away so long.  Andrew Guy, 
having lived to hear his three-score and ten years, was putting his house in order for a longer 
journey that could not make a fast promise to come, but would try.  The others said that, 
God willing, they would meet.  When the day came, September 16, 1884, that had been 
agreed on as more convenient to all than August 22, the oldest brother, Fielding Lewis, a 
widower from May 28, 1878, with his two unmarried daughters, Rebecca and Catherine, 
was there.  Harriet and her husband came from Alabama, James and his wife and his two 
sons came from Farmington.  John Adams and his family, except his oldest son, James 
Crittenden, who was in business in Arizona with his uncle Andrew, were there; and on the 
morning of the anniversary Andrew came.  When the feast was ready the reunited family 
took their proper places at the table.  Fielding Lewis presided, and Mr. Frierson said grace.  
The experience of each reader may give its color to this picture.

	ANDREW.

	We will now return to Andrew, the second child born to Andrew and Catherine 
McCormick, who has been mentioned as the first to marry and leave the parental roof, and 
the first to leave his native heath and seek a new Elysium and El Dorado in the West.  He 
and his helpmeet established their frontier home in Missouri as early as the fall of 1808.  
They filled it with abundance of good cheer and dispensed an unconventional hospitality 
that was attractive to all late comers, and made the host and hostess many friends.  The outer 
doors to their house did not have or need a lock.  The primitive wooden latch on the inside 
fastened the door against the weather and the "varmints."  One end of strong leather string 
was attached to this latch, and the other end passed through a hole in the door, hung on the 
outside to signal that whoever would could enter have entertainment.  There were no police 
subjects in that quarter and all men were brethren.  In the fall of 1812, Josiah H. Bell, a 
young man from Tennessee, just out of his time as an apprenticed learner of the hatter's 
trade, and just entered into the first year of his majority, received such welcome in this 
home that it led, as will appear in a subsequent chapter, to his becoming a great-grandfather 
to my children.  In this home Catherine, the youngest sister, was, in 1812, united in marriage 
with John Price Alexander.  The dwelling-house in which the marriage was celebrated was 
still standing in 1843.  At the close of the year 1813, Andrew McCormick moved his home 
to Christian County, Kentucky, where his family had sojourned during the summer of 1808.  
He bought a farm on Little River, and made his home on it, at a point near "Blue Water," 
about eight miles from Hopkinsville and five miles from the site of the present town of 
Lafayette, or "Flat Lick," as it and the settlement immediately surrounding it was then 
called.  The new home soon took on all the attractive features of the home which had been 
left in Missouri.  The mansion house on the Little River farm became the resort of sedate 
and pious elders and of frisky youth on all holiday occasions, such as neighborhood 
meetings for holding singing-school or prayer meetings, then the type and sum of ordinary 
social refreshment.  About this time a considerable colony from Iredell and adjoining 
counties in North Carolina began to come into Christian County, and a number of worthy 
people whom my grandparents had known from their childhood, settled within easy visiting 
distance from Blue Water.  At first, and for three years they had no organized presbyterian 
church in their immediate vicinage, but Mr. R. Cushman, a very able minister, was located 
at Hopkinsville in 1817, and in the fall of that year organized the Little River Church, with 
Mr. McCormick as it first ruling elder.  He (the elder) had a fine voice, knew all the songs 
of zion then and there in common use, was skilled to carry any of the parts of the favorite 
sacred airs, acted as "clerk" (pronounced "clärk"), standing up to line the hymn and lead the 
singing whenever the minister was present and the congregation was met to hear preaching.  
At all other times he conducted the services.  Mr. Cushman acted as pastor of this Little 
River Church for a number of years, but he had other like charges, at Hopkinsville and 
elsewhere, so that there was considerable intervals between his stated appointments to 
preach at this little country church.  The congregation, however, met on every "Lord's Day" 
for public worship conducted by the eldership.  Mr. Cushman was a man of apostolic spirit, 
then well advanced into middle life, rich in Christian experience, and having attained a high 
degree of growth in grace.  The people heard him gladly.  The children and youth venerated 
him and loved him.  My mother, who was admitted to the communion sacrament under his 
ministry, was fond of telling her children much about him, and never mentioned his name 
without tender emotion.  Sometimes when his required attendance on presbytery, or other 
adequate cause, kept him from meeting his Little River flock at one of his stated 
appointments, he would send to the elder a letter to be read to the congregation when it 
assembled in the meeting house for public worship.  I have now such a letter written by Mr. 
Cushman's own hand and sent by private carrier, to be read to the congregation at his 
appointment in April, 1822.  The letter of Mr. Cushman's is written on cap-paper, and 
covers the first three pages of the double sheet.  It is folded, as the custom then was, so that 
the central half of the fourth page, with the aid of a wafer or sealing wax, formed an 
envelope with the side opposite the seal, right to receive the address.  Folded and put 
together as just described, near one-half of the fourth page (one-fourth at top and bottom) is 
within the envelope and not exposed to view in ordinary handling.  These spaces were often 
used for postscripts.  The letter referred to above is to the congregation, and on these 
postscript spaces Mr. Cushman wrote what was meant for the Elder alone.  On the space at 
the top of the page is written: "Mr. McCormick, Sir: You would do well to read this several 
times before you read it to the people, that you may read it without hesitation.  Yours, R. 
Cushman."  Then, at the bottom, he adds: "I had once resolved not to attend presbytery and 
come down on Saturday next.  Accordingly, I wrote what you have perhaps received.  This, 
however, will counteract that.  I shall not visit you till next Saturday week.  R.C."  The letter 
to the people is interesting on account of that sacredness of the subject which can never lose 
its hold on the minds and hearts of dying immortal men, and as illustrative of the time and 
place in the tone and style of teaching and word of exhortation.  Therefore, it is here given 
in full:

	HOPKINSVILLE, April 9th, 1822.

My Dear Young Friends:

	So unwilling am I to leave you for any length of time, that I had once determined not to attend the 
presbytery, but spend next Saturday and Sabbath in among you.  But on second thought I must forego the 
pleasure of seeing you again till my return.  I hope to see you all again next Saturday week.  And O, shall I 
find you rejoicing in God!  Shall I find you humbling resigning yourselves into the hands of your Savior!  
Shall I find you firmly resolved to submit yourselves entirely to God; or, shall I find you still distressed, 
darkly groping and confusedly striving to find peace in things that cannot afford comfort:  Shall I find you 
still enquiring with deep solicitude, "What shall I do to be saved?"  Or, shall I find you returning to your 
former stupidity, and again seeking to satisfy you souls with earthly things?  O, my dear friends, this thought 
pierces my very soul.  I cannot endure the idea that you should again turn to the    service of Sin and Satan.  
O grieve not the Holy Spirit.  Let it be the object of your constant solicitude to cherish the strivings of the 
Spirit.  Spend much time in prayer, in reading the Scriptures and in examining your own hearts.  O let it be 
the grand business of every day to cherish the operations of the Divine Spirit.  I long to see you freed from 
distress, but not by becoming stupid.  I long to see you happy, but let it be on account of the peace and 
humility which pervade your souls.  O do not settle down in false security:  Do not think because you are 
convinced of your sins that you do thereby forsake and hate them.  I tremble every moment lest some 
precious soul should be deceived and fall into the condemnation of the devil.  Remember, the heart is 
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  It cannot be trusted.  But there is One whom you can 
safely trust -- Jesus Christ.  He taketh away the sins of the world.  O my dear friends, will you not, before I 
visit you again, give yourselves away to Christ?  Tell me are you not yet convinced that salvation is in Him 
and nowhere else?  O try him before you distrust him.  Look at his sufferings; mark his agony in the garden; 
see his tears; hear his groans, his dying groans.  Ah! behold, all nature hung in mourning when the victim of 
Calvary expired.  And it was for you and me that this was done.  O then do not distrust his mercy; do not 
mock his love.  Do not tread under your feet his precious blood.  Do not let it be said, when the inquiry is 
made, who have rejected the Savior; who have remained obstinate when eternal mercy condescended to 
entreat; that any who now listen to these hasty lines shall be compelled to say: Alas! this conduct is mine; I 
am at last detected in my folly and sin, and when too late I find my soul lost forever.  Forever! O, dreadful 
word.  Eternity hangs upon it.  Forever! Ah! who can comprehend it.  Eternal perdition.  Dreadful thought.  
Is it for you, and why will you perish at mercy's door.  O, be wise.  What will you tell me when I shall ask 
you:  Have you given yourself to Christ?  Have you resigned yourself to hi hands?  What will you say to 
your Savior when he says to you:  "Will you be my disciples?  Will you have your names written in my 
book of life?"  These questions are now sounding in your ears.  Your Savior stoops to entreat you to come to 
him and live.  Will you go?  Answer as in the presence of God.  Will you go?  This is a solemn question.  
Today you have your choice.  To-morrow it may be too late.  O, shall I see you again, and will you be again 
bathed in tears!  Rather be so than stupid.  Rather weep all the days of your life than become stupid.  But, 
better than all, come to Jesus Christ and find a balm for every wound.  In his hands I leave you.  My prayers 
shall accompany this, and although I shall be absent in body I shall be present in spirit.
					Affectionately, Your Friend,
								R. CUSHMAN."

	The double sheet was folded as indicated above, and sealed with a red wafer about 
the size and thickness of our ten-cent silver coin.  In 1822 manufactured letter envelopes 
were unknown to the stationer's trade in Kentucky, and had not come into common use in 
that State when this writer took his A.B. degree at Centre College, June 30, 1854.  Writing 
paper, cap or letter or note, was made and sold by ream or quire, or single sheet, only in full 
sheets of two leaves formed by folding so that the fold was at the right-hand from top to 
bottom of the first page.  The present styles of half-sheets or single leaves were so utterly 
unknown, that to see a writing on a single sheet was to know that thrift or need had torn off 
the unused part of the paper.  Good form required that letters should be written on a full 
sheet, and the whole sheet sent, however brief the writing and small the space it took, and 
that the seal should be wax.  In 1836, while Columbia was the capital of Texas and Squire 
Bell had General Houston, then the President as a guest, the hero of San Jacinto received a 
letter which appeared, evidently before it was opened, to be written on a half-sheet and to be 
sealed with a wafer.  He recognized the handwriting of the superscription to be that of one 
of his would-be political rivals.  Before opening the letter he held it up at arm's length, 
scanned it on all sides, and with indignant scorn blazing in his eye, hissed, "The niggard has 
even sent me some of his spittle."  Mr. Cushman's letter is addressed on the side opposite to 
the seal, "Mr. Andrew McCormick, Little River."

	The place of worship for the Little River Presbyterian Church was afterwards moved 
to Lafayette, and many years later was again moved to Bennetts Town, where the 
congregation now have a beautiful "House of Prayer," which bears the name of McKenzie 
Kirk, in honor of William Washington McKenzie, who was ordained and installed a ruling 
elder in this church in 1830, and continued in active service till his death, 19th March, 1894.  
In April, 1822, the senior elder of Little River Church was in the prime of mature manhood 
and in vigorous health that had never known interruption.  What is our life?  Like the flower 
of the field it groweth up and is cut down.  On December 22nd of that year, the Elder died.  
His illness was brief and painless.  Perfectly conscious to the last, neither he nor any 
member of his family had a though that this sickness was serious until a few hours before its 
fatal end.  The congregation wept when they met to deposit his dust.  The faithful pastor 
came to weep with those that wept, and point them to the source from whence cometh help.  
The text of his discourse was, "Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth."  My mother, then in 
her sixteenth year, heard the sermon, and many years afterwards often thrilled her children 
by her recitation of its language touching their grandfather's life on the earth, and the 
recompense of the reward to which he had looked and with which he was then crowned.  
The bereaved family was left in easy, independent circumstances.  They had a good farm 
and a few good servants, -- slaves by the local human law, but kindly regarded members of 
the household whom the master and mistress had led in all the work of the family.  The 
children had been trained to useful help.  The first-born, a daughter, then blooming into 
womanhood, was as bright as a ray of sunshine, lighting all the house and carrying cheer 
into all the relations of the family with their neighbors.  She was her brother's ideal of all 
that is lovely and charming in woman.  She loved a fine horse, and from her early childhood 
had owned and rode one.  She did not need a block, or stile or gallant's hand, or the aid of 
stirrup, to help her mount.  The widowed mother had helped her father rear his motherless 
children, and managed his household after they were all grown and married, before she 
married.  She had always shared with her husband at least equally the management of all of 
their interests.  Her oldest son, though only seventeen, was a good farmer.  The way of life 
went on in this stricken home.  The vacant chair became less and less noticed.  The badges 
of mourning disappeared.  The social feelings and exercises resumed their accustomed 
sway.  The widow was yet on the sunny side of life.  During the third year of her 
widowhood she married Major Hezekiah Howard, a gentleman of suitable age, of good 
presence and address, whose company was pleasing to her.  He was a man of wide 
experience in frontier life.  He had the observing faculty, and that quality of imagination 
which pictured truly to his own mind, at call, all the particulars of his experience and that 
enabled him to project the picture on the minds of others.  He had a lively humor, a kindly 
wit, infinite jest and an exhaustless fund of anecdote.  He lived only a few years after this 
marriage, and there was no offspring from it, but he endeared himself to his stepchildren, all 
of whom cherished his memory with filial veneration and tenderness.  Of the fruit of her 
first marriage six children survived the death of their father -- Eliza Adams, born April 24, 
1804; Joseph Manson, born January 9, 1806; Juliet Ann, born July 23, 1808; Rebecca 
Stevenson, born September 16, 1812; Zillah A., born July 7, 1814, and John, born 
September 11, 1819.  John died September 15, 1823.  In may, 1827, the oldest daughter 
married Joseph Causey.  On December 28, 1826, the second daughter married James H. 
Boyd.  In 1831, the only son living went to Texas, then a part of Mexico.  On December 27, 
1832, the youngest daughter married Alfred Boyd, a brother of James Hall Boyd, and on 
November 6, 1837, the third daughter, Rebecca Stevenson, married John Culberson Long.  
The twice widowed mother had no child in her home.  Her function as mother was ended.  
Mr. Long owned and resided on the farm adjoining that of his mother-in-law.  She sold her 
homestead and went to live with this son-in-law and her daughter, who was the last to leave 
the parental roof.  She lived with them till her death, which occurred August 24, 1855.  In 
this home I first saw her, and them in July, 1850.  I remained with them a few weeks and 
passed on to Danville, where I was to enter Centre College in September.  From the time I 
was first able to write I had corresponded occasionally with Grandma Howard.  At her 
request I now promised to write to her statedly, so she could look forward to the time when 
the letter would come.  I kept this promise substantially, and was richly rewarded.

	In the spring of 1853, I learned, through my letters from Texas, that my parents were 
thinking of visiting Kentucky in the summer of that year, to see my father's mother and their 
other kindred.  The trip from Texas to Blue Water, in Christian County, was a trying one, 
taking then two weeks' time each way -- instead of a little more than one day, in which time 
it can now be made.  During those years, in the summer and fall seasons, yellow fever was 
epidemic in New Orleans, through which city the only eligible route ran, and numerous 
other causes made it debatable whether the visit could, or at least would be made.  However, 
in one of my letters to Grandma, I mentioned the possibility.  She had given up the hope of 
ever again seeing her only son in the flesh, and almost feared to revive that hope so long 
cherished, so long deferred, and at last abandoned.  Thus she wrote with touching pathos, 
and after dwelling on her devout longing and patient waiting for the consolation of again 
embracing and blessing him, she said:  "If the Lord does vouchsafe to fill this desire of my 
heart, its voice will utter the grateful prayer of ancient Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou they 
servant depart in peace."  Of course, I sent this letter to my father.  It closed the debate.  It 
carried the question.  I received instruction to meet my parents at my Uncle Long's the first 
of July.  I arrived there from Danville on the appointed day, but unexpected delays on the 
route prevented the prompt arrival of those coming from Texas.  On July 3rd they arrived at 
the home of Squire McKenzie, who was my mother's brother, and who lived about three 
miles from Mr. Long's.  My mother stopped at her brother's and my father took a saddle-
horse and went on to his mother's alone.  For two days Expectation had been on tiptoe at her 
home.  A little before sundown the family was sitting in the yard, just in front of the 
dwelling, when my aunt Rebecca remarked, "There comes a gentleman up the road riding 
Squire McKenzie's saddle-horse."  I turned to look, and saying, "That's Pa," ran to greet 
him.  His mother and sister met him in the gate and embraced him; then, with their arms 
about him, and scanning him through their tears, each said, "Manson, is this you?"  Had the 
meeting been casual neither of them would have recognized him; nor would he have 
recognized either of them.  When, after staying with them three weeks, he had parted with 
them never to meet them again in this life, his mother and his sister continued to say, 
"Andrew is more like Manson to me."  The theme is familiar and has been in man's 
experience from the beginning, but to witness such illustrations of it as this was will ever 
thrill the soul.  His wife and his daughter came the next day, the anniversary of the immortal 
Declaration.  He had but two children, an only son and an only surviving daughter, both 
fully grown, the son, Andrew, in his twenty-first year, the daughter, Sarah, in her nineteenth.  
The friends and neighbors were called in to rejoice with the re-united families, and their joy 
was full.  The jubilee was not unduly prolonged.  My parents returned to our home in Texas.  
My sister and I remained till the end of August, the close of our summer vacation, and then 
went to our respective schools at Danville and Shelbyville, Kentucky.


	Grandma Howard continued to live in good health and happiness for the space of 
two years after our visit.  On August 24, 1855, the "Lord let his servant depart in peace."  
Born more than five years before the father of her children, she survived him more than 
thirty-three years.  Of their six children who survived him, five survived her many years.  
These five children had a numerous offspring.  To Eliza were born six sons and four 
daughters; to Manson, one son and two daughters; to Juliet, five sons and four daughters; to 
Zillah, eight sons and five daughters; to Rebecca, five sons and four daughters -- in all, forty 
four grandchildren, of whom twenty-five were sons and nineteen were daughters.  Of these 
grandchildren thirty-two were living on August 24, 1855, and twenty-five are believed to be 
still living.  The five children have their mother on the other shore, the grandchildren, with 
their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, form a host that, though widely 
dispersed, verifies in all its constituents the experience and observation of David, who from 
youth to age had not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.

	Mr. Causey moved to Illinois in 1835, and settled in Woodford County.  The 
brothers, James Hall Boyd and Alfred Boyd, moved to Illinois in 1839, and settled in 
Christian County.  On August 30, 1846, James Hall Boyd died, and on November 7, 1846, 
his widow (my aunt Juliet) married Rev. Joseph McCreary Bone.  I never saw my aunt 
Juliet or either of her husbands, nor her sister Zillah or her husband, nor any one of the 
descendants of these two sisters of my father.  I append to this sketch a letter of Mr. A.C. 
Boyd, of Lincoln, Illinois, that gives an interesting summary of facts touching their families.

	In September, 1876, I visited my Aunt Eliza Adams Causey at her farm in Woodford 
County, Illinois.  Seventy-two years, the bearing and rearing of ten children and the toil 
incident to the headship of a large household in a frontier settlement, had wrought their 
work on the springs of her physical being, but the force and flavor of her conversation 
showed the mature development of that brilliant intellect which had so impressed her 
brother in his youth.  Her youngest daughter, Cornelia Letitia, had married Mr. Jacob S. 
Cox, and they with their children, a son named Calvin and a daughter named Flora, lived 
with their mother, or she with them, on the "Old Homestead" farm.  Her youngest son, 
Calvin Emery Causey, lived near and cultivated a part of the farm.  Her son, Joseph Lucien 
Causey, lived in the nearest railroad station town, Secor, three miles away.  His wife and 
their one child, a bright daughter of about ten years of age, with himself, composed his 
family.  All of these I met on that visit.  The family of Calvin Emery Causey I afterwards 
came to know well in Texas, where he was for several years (1883 to 1888) my near 
neighbor in the town of Graham, in Young County.  The other descendants of my father's 
oldest sister, Eliza, I have not met.  Of the children of uncle Culberson and aunt Rebecca 
Long, only three remain, their sons, John Turner, now residing at Danville, Tennessee, and 
James Marion and Winston Leander, who reside at Morrisonville, Illinois.  In a letter which 
I append hereto, Miss Caroline Campnet Alexander writes: "I do not know how many 
brothers or sisters aunt Sally (Grandma Howard) had.  Her sister, Rebecca, who married 
Robert Stevenson, lived our nearest neighbor for a good many years.  Her younger children 
and my mother's were raised together, but they that part of Missouri long before we did.  I 
have not heard anything of them for a long time.  Uncle Roben, as we always called him, 
was the only school-teacher we ever had.  In my schooldays children did not have the 
advantages they now enjoy for getting an education.  Then, if they learned to read and write, 
and learned a little of arithmetic and of grammar, they were called pretty good scholars.  
Uncle Roben and aunt Beka, as we always called her, were everybody's friends.  In a letter 
dated December 25, 1893, and dictated by Judge William Washington McKenzie, he said:  
"I knew two of your grandmother's brothers, Henry and William Steel.  *  *  *  I knew 
Henry well, as he lived in this county (Christian County, Kentucky) several years."  This 
great uncle of mine, Henry Steele, is the grandfather of James Harvey Alexander, D.D., a 
minister in the Presbyterian Church and a member of the Synod of Mississippi.  In a letter 
dated Kosciusko, Mississippi, June 27, 1896, Dr. Alexander writes: "According to my 
recollection, the father of my grandfather, Henry Steele, was Mortimer Steele.  He must 
have died about 1810.  My mother, Margaret Amina Steele, was born in Iredell County, 
North Carolina in 1803, and had distinct recollections of him (Mortimer, her grandfather) 
and spoke of him as being very old at his death.  I do not know whether he came from 
Ireland or not.  I think he married a woman born in Wales.  *  *  *  My grandfather, Henry 
Steele, when he moved back from Missouri, settled on a farm six miles north of Pulaski, in 
Giles County, Tennessee.  Afterwards he moved to West Tennessee, and died about 1841, 
in Somerville.  He was about seventy-five years old."  Dr. James Harvey Alexander has a 
son, William A. Alexander, who is a presbyterian minister, who was a member of the Synod 
of Mississippi in 1893, and was elected moderator of that body when it met in New Orleans 
in November of that year.  He is a doctor of divinity and is one of the professors in the 
Theological Seminary in Clarksville,  I met both of these gentlemen in New Orleans in 
November, 1893.

	ELIZABETH.

	My grandfather's oldest sister, born June 7, 1782, married Enos Sherrill, September 
15, 1808, on the eve of the departure of her mother's family for the West.  Mr. Sherrill was 
one of the three Executors named in her father's will, and was one of the witnesses to the 
execution and delivery of her brother Andrew's deed conveying his part of the parental 
homestead to Benjamin Sherrill.  He and William Sloan had declined to qualify as 
Executors, probably because James Cowan, the other one named, was older and sufficient.  
The Sherrill connection was then numerous in Lincoln County.  The father of Mr. Enos 
Sherrill had at an early day bought a large tract of land from Earl Granville, situated on Lyle 
Creek, now embraced in Catawba County, which was afterwards divided among his sons, 
and ultimately the home place part come to Enos by inheritance or purchase from his co-
heirs.  In 1808 he was forty years of age, was a widower, and had five sons.  One of his 
nephews, Jacob Sherrill, become closely connected with my mother's family, first by his 
marriage to Martha Stevenson, a daughter of Moses Stevenson, who was my mother's uncle, 
and another of whose daughters, Caroline, became the first wife of my mother's eldest 
brother, William Washington McKenzie, and after he (Jacob Sherrill) had long been a 
widower, his children all grown and his daughters all married and gone from his home, he 
married my mother's sister, Lucinda, and thus became my uncle Jacob.  One of his sons 
married Mary McKenzie, daughter of Washington and Caroline McKenzie.  One of his 
daughters, Martha, married her cousin, William L. Stevenson, who was a cousin of my 
mother.  One of uncle Jacob's daughters, Elenora, married William E. Crews, who settled in 
Brazoria County, Texas, where their children and grandchildren still reside and exercise 
large local influence.  To Mr. Enos Sherrill and my greataunt, Elizabeth, his second wife, 
there were born six sons and two daughters, each of whom lived to adult years and became 
a head of a family.  Appended hereto is a table showing the descendants of my greataunt 
Elizabeth.  Her oldest son, Andrew Manson, visited Texas in 1860, and I met him at my 
father's house in June of that year.  The cousins had never met before, and never met again, 
but it was beautiful to see them together then and hear them exchange reminiscences.  Her 
fourth child, Rev. Richard Ellis Sherrill, was pastor for a number of years of the church in 
Graham, Young County, Texas, of which my family were members.  He is now nearing the 
completion of his eighty-first year, in the enjoyment of comfortable health, and was until a 
year ago in the active discharge of the duties of preacher and pastor.  He now resides in 
Haskell County, Texas.  His father and mother continued to reside in North Carolina, and in 
the original Sherrill home, until the father's death, March 31, 1841.  Richard Ellis, then 
twenty-four years of age, qualified as Executor of his father's will and estate.  A few years 
before the father's death he had acquired a large tract of land in West Tennessee in 
connection with his younger sons, some of whom had gone West and taken charge of the 
new purchase until the parents could follow.  As soon as the Executor could, he sold the 
North Carolina lands, and the widowed mother and those of her children who had not gone 
West earlier, removed to Tennessee.  Her eldest daughter, Dorcas Elvira, had married Josiah 
Q. Hall, June 2, 1831, and the other daughter, Catherine Euphemia, had married Fergus A. 
Hall, a brother of Josiah Q., August 16, 1836.  These sons-in-law also moved to Tennessee, 
where they reared large families.  After the Civil War both of these daughters moved to 
Northern Texas.

	MARY.

	In January, 1810, the second daughter married Alexander Thompson Alexander.  To 
them were born five daughters and three sons.  The oldest of these children, Caroline 
Campnet Alexander, born February 7, 1811, is now (December 21, 1896) living in Steel 
City, Nebraska.  She is still unmarried.  The second child, Sophia Adaline, was born April 
13, 1813, and died October 7, 1884.  She was never married.  Mary Celina, the fifth child, 
but the third daughter, was born March 17, 1820, married in 1845, and died in 1846, just 
one from the date of her marriage.  Catherine Adams, the fourth daughter, married a Mr. 
Walker.  I do not know his christian name.  She is now a widow.  She has one daughter, 
who resides in Marysville, Missouri, with whom Mrs. Walker makes her home.  She may 
have other children.  Miranda Rebecca, the fifth and youngest daughter, was born 
September 27, 1825, and died September 26, 1890.  She was a widow at the of her death.  I 
have not learned the name of her husband, or whether she left descendants.  John Adams 
Alexander, the youngest child, was born May 3, 1828.  He has been married.  His wife died 
in 1890.  He is a merchant engaged in the drug trade, and resides in Brantlay, Nebraska.  
Albert Lilbure, the middle one in age of the sons, was born February 17, 1818, and died in 
September, 1834.  Joseph Eusebeus Alexander, the oldest son, was born September 15, 
1815.  When he was twenty-three years old, he met, wooed and married a young lady raised 
in Vermont.   Very soon after their marriage they moved from the Iron Mountain district to 
Nodaway County, in Missouri.  It was a new country then, and that was the time of severest 
depression and struggle following the first great panic in the United States.  There was little 
money in circulation anywhere, and Nodaway County was on the extreme frontier, but he 
inherited the industry, energy and pluck of his mother, and had a most worthy helpmeet in 
his New England raised wife.  They were equal to the situation, lived happily, without a 
murmur of discontent, making a thrifty, persistent effort to better their fortunes.  Eight 
children were born to them, and were sent to private neighborhood schools, whenever there 
was such a school near them, and when there was none, a teacher was employed to instruct 
these children at home.  The times got better, the hand of the diligent maketh rich, their 
estates grew until they were able to leave their farm and reside in the town of Marysville, 
the county-seat, where opportunity for educating the children was better.  All of their 
children, except for the second daughter, are living.  The second daughter grew to maturity, 
married, and died at the birth of her first child.  He gave his youngest son and one of his 
grandsons a university education.  They are both mining engineers, and rank high in their 
profession.  The grandson is engaged in the work of his profession on the Yukon River, in 
Alaska.  The aged parents have now completed the fifty-eighth year of their wedded life, 
their children have all married, received a liberal portion of the goods that falleth to each, 
and gone to their own homes and work.  After thus dividing their living unto their children, 
the parents still have ample means.  They still reside in Marysville, Nodaway County, 
Missouri.

	JOHN.

	Whether the third son, John, was older or younger than his sister, Mary, I have not 
been able to learn.  His father by his will directed that as soon as he completed his (common 
school) education he should be put to a trade.  Whether this was done I have not learned.  
He did not follow what was then understood to be a trade.  On attaining his majority he 
acquired a farm and devoted a few years chiefly to farming.  In 1824 he went with some 
wagons and teams to transport some families to Hempstead County, Arkansas, to join a 
company of colonists there who were emigrating to Texas.  He expected to return to his 
farm in a month or two, but at the rendezvous in Arkansas he took the "Texas fever" and 
went on to that province of Mexico as a colonist under Austin's contract.  In December of 
that year, he obtained his headright grant in Brazoria County, Texas.  His younger brother, 
David, was already settled in Brazoria County.  John deposited his title deeds with his 
brother David for safekeeping while he went to Missouri to dispose of his land there and 
return to Texas.  On reaching his Missouri farm he found that he could do nothing with it as 
the condition it then was, having been unoccupied and unworked for two years, and he had 
to put it in order and raise a crop on it to put it in shape to sell or trade.  There was little 
hope of selling for money.  The popular talk was "There is no money."  This was not quite 
literally true in Missouri in 1826 and 1827, but it was sadly near the truth.  From the time 
that the abortive state of Frankland levied taxes payable tin peltries and proof spirits, and 
paid her judicial and executive officers in that currency, no sound circulating medium of 
exchange in adequate supply had reached that part of the Mississippi Valley.  Bills of 
different kinds that had for a time obtained circulation had become worthless and were 
contemptuously rejected as shinplasters.  The Colossal Bank, then in the zenith of its power, 
that made money abound at certain places, and banished it from others, according to the 
Bank's policy or whim, had never favored these rural districts where the people's wealth 
consisted almost wholly of live stock, realty and food products, not recognized then or yet 
as bankable collaterals.  Old Hickory, the Hercules destined to smite the hydra to its death, 
was striving to get hold of the only club potent for this one of his seven labors, but it had 
escaped his clutch in 1825, and after he got his grip on the efficient weapon in 1829, the 
venom of the bruised and dying monster poisoned all the springs of trade for many years 
then yet to come.  In the winter of 1826, John did succeed in bartering his Missouri lands for 
horses and mules, which he hoped to be able to convert into cash in the cotton-growing 
district of Louisiana.  He drove his stock down to the cotton plantations on the Ouachita, but 
there found he would have to take cotton instead of money.  This he did, and went with his 
cotton by boat to New Orleans, where he found that even cotton was not a spot cash product 
at any figure he could afford to take, or approaching its true commercial value.  He knew, or 
learned, that family groceries could be sold at retail for silver money at Galena, Illinois, 
where the lead mines were in active operation.  He therefore bartered his cotton for a 
carefully selected stock of family groceries, which he took up the river to Galena.  Here he 
opened a store to work off his goods and get the proceeds of the alienation, of his Missouri 
lands through the last transformation into money that would be good in Texas.  While still 
thus engaged he fell sick and died.  A local administrator took what estate if any, he left in 
Galena.  His brother in Texas had not heard from him since he left Austin's Colony in 1826.  
Another claimant denounced his Texas land, 1476 acres, and the Ayuntamiento found the 
that the grantee had abandoned the country, and declared his grant thereby forfeited and the 
land open to re-grant by the Government.  David died in May, 1836, not having heard from 
his brother, but strong in the belief that John had not abandoned the country, and that, if still 
living, he would yet return.  My father took possession of the land by a tenant.  The holder 
of the junior grant from the government brought suit to try the title.  The McCormick title 
prevailed in the trial court.  An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, where the question 
was held under advisement for many years, but finally decided adversely to the McCormick 
title.*

	* Marsh vs. Weir, 21 Texas Reports, pp. 97-111.
	Touching the scarcity of money, Mr. Fielding Lewis McCormick (born in 1810) 
informs me that in his boyhood and youth, a whole silver coin was substantially unknown in 
the rural districts of Missouri.  What little hard money did circulate, there and then, was cut 
money -- that is, a Spanish milled dollar cut into two equal halves, made two fifty-cent 
pieces.  These pieces cut in the same way made twenty-five cent pieces, which being again 
cut, made twelve and a half cent pieces, each of the value of the Spanish bit, which being 
again divided made a piece of money equal in value to the Spanish picayune, or six and one-
quarter cents.  In the same connection I remember to have hard my father relate that it was 
his father's custom to take his wagons and teams in the fall of the year and engage in public 
carrying to the different shipping-points on the rivers, to obtain such family supplies as he 
could not or did not make a home, and to get what little sound money he could to meet such 
wants as could not be supplied by other means, and that he remembered on one occasion, 
when his father had been gone several weeks with two wagons and teams driven by his own 
servants, he returned in the best of spirits on account of his success, and in evidence of his 
success, handed his wife a wallet containing silver pieces of different sizes, which she 
spread out, counted over several times; then having counted up in her mind the needs the 
family had for such money, said that if her husband could have got enough more to make 
two dollars additional, it would be all the money she would know what to do with.  The sum 
of the pieces she had found in the wallet was eleven dollars.  

DAVID.

	The youngest son of Andrew and Catherine McCormick was not quite five years old 
when his father died.  The oldest brother, Joseph, was in his father's place.  I think David 
was never regularly apprenticed to learn a trade, but he did learn the carpenter's trade and 
followed the business of house-building.  How long he remained in Missouri after attaining 
his majority in 1814, I do not know, but in the fall of 1821 he was in Hempstead County, 
Arkansas, and during the following winter he entered Texas among the first of the Original 
Three Hundred Families introduced by Col. Austin under his first colony contract with 
Mexico.  He then had a wife and one or two children, but these were left in Arkansas until 
he could select his colony lands, 4605 acres, get his title papers therefor and prepare a home 
for his family.  He got his land allotted to him surveyed and the title extended, and 
proceeded to build his home.  While thus engaged, his wife and their infant child or children 
fell sick and died.  My father was his oldest nephew.  The youngest uncle and the oldest 
nephew had been intimate when they were boys, and the difference in their ages had only 
served to draw them nearer together, the elder to give and the other to receive counsel and 
protection.  My father's mother had married Major Howard, and the oldest son was thus 
released from duty as the male head of his deceased father's family.  The son was moreover 
now of full age and ambitious to make his way in life.  The uncle therefore invited the 
nephew to join him in Texas and become his son by adoption.  In 1831 my father did join 
uncle David in Texas, and being satisfied with the situation and condition of affairs in the 
colony and with the arrangement proposed by uncle David, the nephew went back to 
Kentucky that winter, married my mother and brought her to uncle David's home as to their 
father's house -- the home that would be theirs by inheritance.  Uncle David was still young 
in years, but had become infirm in health and felt that he was in the evening of his life.  His 
league of land, 4426 acres, was located on the right or west bank of the San Bernard River, a 
little below the head of tide water and navigation on that stream, and about twenty-five 
miles from its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico.  The river is a short one.  It takes its rise 
near New Ulm in the sandy prairie hills and ridges between the Colorado and Brazos rivers, 
below or south of Cummins Creek, a tributary of the Colorado, and Mill Creek, a tributary 
of the Brazos, approximately on the direct line from the old town of San Felipe in Austin 
County, to Columbus, in Colorado County.  Even at high water it carries hardly any silt, and 
it makes little or no deposit on its shores in its lower course.  The shores, where not stripped 
by the ax or torn by the plow, do not wash or cave; they are nowhere abrupt or ragged.  The 
land rises to an elevation of about thirty feet above the level of ordinary tide, but the rise is 
by easy convex grades, or here and there by one or more terraces; the terraces are above 
ordinary high water, and being always most fertile and of considerable extent, are now 
cultivated, but occasionally in seasons of high water, are submerged.  Large forest trees and 
a dense undergrowth covered these shores to the line of ordinary tide water, the prevailing 
growth nearest the river being live oaks, interspersed with wild peach and the ordinary pipe 
stem or fish-pole bamboo cane, all evergreens, each carrying a thick foliage differing in 
figure and hue of leaf from the other.  The densest and most luxuriant growth was nearest 
the water line, and all inclined more or less toward the open space made by the river.  The 
live oaks sent out their limbs often twenty or more feet over the edges of the stream; the 
dipping outer branches of these limbs touched the water at each daily flood of the tide.

	The water was limpid, of an average depth in mid-channel of twenty feet (it is not so 
deep now), and of the average width of three hundred feet, its meander a line of beauty -- 
clear, smooth, motionless, or gently moving up and down, according to the stage of the tide, 
which on this coast has an ordinary daily rise and fall of about two feet, flowing in and 
receding with a maximum current of two miles an hour in that part of the river on which the 
McCormick league fronts.  Placed between the Brazos and the Colorado -- both long rivers, 
whose head streams drain lands similar to those which tinge the waters of Red River, and 
whose caving shores, torn with frequent and severe floods, are bluff and bare or shaggy with 
the debris of uprooted cottonwood trees -- the San Bernard River presented a picture to 
enchant the eye, with a charm which the ax and plow have somewhat married, but cannot 
wholly destroy.  The upper and lower lines of the McCormick league are parallel, and run 
the river S. 45 W. to their connection with the back line run at a right angle to their course, 
the middle thread of the channel of the river in front completes and closes the survey.  The 
course and meanders of the stream, from the upper to the lower line, are such that this 
league has fully five miles of river front.  Near the lower corner, on the river, of this league, 
there is a large creek or bayou, up and down which the tide then daily flowed and ebbed for 
the distance of one mile, which enters the river from the southwest on a line parallel with, 
and a few hundred yards above the lower line of the survey.  The upper line connects with 
the river at a point about one mile above the mouth of Bell's Creek, which enters the river 
on the opposite side.  Three-fourths of the tract was solid woodland, but it embraced the 
lower or southeast half of Chance's Prairie, which extends to within a little more than half a 
mile of the point on the river where uncle David  built his home.  At the mouth of Bell's 
Creek the fading edge of the great prairie between the Brazos and the Colorado comes to the 
brow of the top bank of the Bernard.  The point where the home was located was about 
eight miles from Bell's Landing (now Columbia) on the Brazos, and about the same distance 
from Brazoria, on the same river, then the county seat, situated eight miles below Bell's 
Landing.

	In 1832, uncle David had made only a small clearing and had not more than forty 
acres of land in cultivation.  His dwelling house was a single room log cabin, placed on the 
brow of the top bank of the river.  In that house I was born.  There were other inferior cabins 
on the place for lodging the help and for storing corn and curing and keeping meat.  Two 
much traveled roads crossed the river, and each other, at that point, and he was the licensed 
keeper of a public ferry there; then known as and named the McCormick Ferry on the San 
Bernard River.  He did not personally work the ground or tend the ferry or do the chores.  
He occupied his time chiefly in looking after his stock of hogs and of cattle, of which he had 
large numbers, under good control.  He had one of the best of saddle-horses, and a small 
pack of well-kept and well-trained dogs.  These and his trusty rifle were his constant 
companions.  He owned no slaves at this time.  He had owned at least one man-slave, whom 
he had trained to the trade of house carpenter, and had employed in building the town of San 
Felipe, the capital of Austin's Colony.  He kept always one or more unmarried white men as 
hired help, generally new-comers, who wished to make trail of the country and climate 
before deciding on a permanent location.  He also usually had a hired slave woman to do the 
cooking and other housework, and tend the ferry when only horseback-travelers were to 
pass over.  The heavy wagons and teams or movers or freighters required the use of a large 
boat and a stronger ferryman.  Cultivation of the land was easy.  It had not become seeded 
with grass and weeds to any great extent.  When properly tilled, its yield in Indian corn was 
fifty bushels to the are, or more, and 500 bushels of yams or sweet potatoes to the acres was 
not an unusual crop.  The minimum yield for cotton was a bale of 500 pounds of ginned 
cotton to the acre.  

	The second year after my parents became members of his family, uncle David built a 
new house, all the finer work about which he did or directed personally; the lumber in his 
house was gotten out of the woods by hand.  The walls and the upper and lower joists were 
hewed logs; the floors, window and door frames, facings and shutters, and the rafters, were 
whip-sawed hard ash lumber; the roof was of red cypress all heart split shingles; the sills 
were live oak, hewed to twelve inches square, the plates of Spanish oak hewed to ten inches 
square; the other logs were 22 feet long, twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, hewed down 
on two opposite sides so as to form a slab six inches thick; each end was so worked that in 
raising the walls, the ends of the logs or slabs would dove-tail together, forming a perfect 
joint and true perpendicular corner and reduce the space between the logs in the body of 
each wall, to a uniform size.  These spaces were chinked with short, thin split pieces of 
wood, worked in so as to set at an angle of forty-five degrees from the perpendicular.  These 
chink pieces were from six to eight inches long, three to four inches wide and about one-half 
inch thick, and were so set in and driven that the lower edge of the lower end would jam 
hard against the log below it, and the upper edge of the upper end would jam hard against 
the log above it, the several pieces at the same time touching each other lightly, as a single 
row of ordinary bricks hacked up on end and obliqued to an angle of forty-five degrees.  
These lines of chinked-in spaces were then plastered inside and out with good mortar made 
of oyster-shell lime and sharp sand.  The house was proof against all stress of weather, and 
was roomy, comfortable and sightly.  The outside chimney that opened into one end of the 
house with a fire-place that would receive a back log five feet long and two feet in diameter, 
when hard weather required heavy fires, was as carefully built as the rest of the house, of 
which it formed an important and not unsightly part.  The room, twenty one feet square in 
the clear, had, at the beginning of my recollection, a good, large double bed in each of three 
of its corners.  The two farthest from the fire-place were furnished with heavy curtains, 
hanging from the joists overhead (there was no ceiling) to the floor, drawn close or put 
back, as occasion prompted.  An oblong, dining-table made of hard ash whip-sawed lumber, 
of suitable size to seat six persons comfortably, and eight by a little crowding, occupied the 
fourth corner, except when meals were being served, when it was set in the center of the 
room.  This table was kept and used in my family until the 17th day of September, 1875, 
when it was lost in the storm that on that day swept to sea the Homesworth Hotel, which I 
was occupying with my family as our summer home, at the mouth of the Brazos.  This log 
house had large additions set to it, made of first-class, mill-sawed cypress lumber, a few 
years after uncle David's death, but the log room remained the best room in the larger 
dwelling house for twenty-five or thirty years.

	In 1835 came the war between the colonists and the mother country.  In the spring of 
1836, Santa Anna's army passed the Colorado.  That general, who called himself the 
Napoleon of the Western Hemisphere, proclaimed that he would not leave an American dog 
to bark in Texas.  All the men in the Colony who were able to bear arms enlisted as soldiers 
to oppose him.  Uncle David, on his fine grey saddle-horse, and carrying his trusted rifle, 
went to the recruiting station for orders, but the officer declined to let him enlist for active 
service.  The horse and gun were taken, but their owner was infirm in health and quite deaf.  
The army would have little organized equipment, and only strong men could be useful in 
the field.  There would be much to do in caring for the women and children, as the event 
proved, and, against his earnest, angry protest, he was ordered to remain to help take care of 
the families of those in the front.  The history of the campaign is attractive, but that is not 
my theme.  For strategic reasons, General Houston withdrew his army to the east side of the 
Brazos about the 1st of April.  Santa Anna pushed on to San Felipe; one of his lieutenants 
was at Matagorda.  All the settlements between the Colorado and Brazos rivers were 
uncovered and open to the advance marauding parties of the enemy and to the march of his 
heavy column.  Hasty flight of the non-combatants was a necessity which was promptly 
universally recognized and tumultuously obeyed.  Slaves were hurried towards the nearest 
points on the Louisiana line; women and children, as far and fast as could be, were put on 
boats and taken to Galveston Island, then wholly uninhabited.  This hegira like that of the 
Moslem prophet, July 16, 662, was the era in the Texas colloquial calendar until after 
Annexation.  Past dates were fixed with reference to it, and stated as at such a time before or 
after the "Runaway Scrape."  My mother, my sister and I were put on the steamer Yellow 
Stone, and carrier with my uncle Bell's family and many others to Galveston Island, where 
we camped until the battle of San Jacinto (April 21) opened the way for our return home.  
The exposure and excitement incident to this invasion hastened uncle David's end.  He 
steadily grew more and more feeble, and on May 30, 1836, expired, at the age of forty-two 
years.  His body was buried near his home.  In 1852, my father, with the assistance and 
sympathy of all the early settlers then living in that neighborhood, all of whom had known 
uncle David and held him in high esteem and honor while he was living, and venerated his 
memory, removed his remains to the then recently consecrated cemetery at West Columbia.  
The grave is marked and protected by enduring marble, on which is chiseled his name, date 
of his death, his age, and the words, "One of the Original Three Hundred."



CATHERINE.

	Catherine, the youngest child of Andrew and Catherine McCormick, was born in 
Lincoln County, North Carolina, on the 20th day of January, 1795, and went with her 
widowed mother and the mother's other unmarried children, to the Iron Mountain District of 
Missouri, in the fall of 1808.  After the mother's death, in 1809, and the marriage of her 
oldest brother and of her sister Mary, Catherine lived with her brother Andrew's family until 
her marriage.  In 1812 she married John Price Alexander, the husband of her sister Mary.  
To John Price and Catherine Alexander were born thirteen children.  All of them were born 
in Missouri.  A table of the names, dates of birth, of marriages and of deaths in this family 
appears in the appendix.  The parents died in Missouri and are buried at Belleview Church.  
Their oldest son, now in the eightieth year of his age, writes me that his oldest sister, his 
mother's first child, never married.  She did in the thirty-third year of her age.  The next in 
age, Catherine Emiline, lived in Illinois a number of years after her marriage, then moved 
with her only daughter to Kansas, where she died February 22, 1892; the daughter married a 
man named Hubbard, and they still live in Kansas.  Early in the fifties (1851) William 
Thompson Alexander went to California.  He was successful in the mining business, and 
soon became wealthy.  He was still living in San Francisco, December 20, 1893. He has 
always prospered.  He is a bachelor.  Andrew McCormick Alexander was still living in 
California, and unmarried, December 29, 1893.  Oscar Price died in Oregon.  He was never 
married.  Eliza Jane died in Missouri in the twenty-first year of her age.  She was never 
married.  Cynthia Elvira married James M. Billings, March 9, 1854.  Mary Ann, twin sister 
to Eliza Jane, married Alfred W. Billings, a brother to her sister Cynthia Elvira's husband, 
but is now a widow living in Watsonville, California.  Thomas Donnell is married and lives 
in Watsonville, California.  Lysander Pembroke is married, and is living in the town of 
Santa Clara, California.  Adala Hazeltine died in Missouri in the nineteenth year of her age, 
unmarried.  Charlotte Augusta is living in Vandalia, Illinois.  John Rufus, the oldest son, 
came to Texas in 1838.
Before his marriage he lived in Brazoria County, near my father's house.  He was farming 
near my father's in 1842, when General Vasquez and General Adrian Woll successively 
made their raids into Texas, captured the town of San Antonio, took prisoners all of the 
district and county officers found there, and many leading citizens, and sent a thrill of alarm 
through all of Texas west of the Trinity River.  Volunteer companies hurriedly organized 
and made forced marches to the front.  The Brazoria boys went at the first signal.  John 
Rufus Alexander went with them.  General Woll did not attempt to hold San Antonio, but 
fell back across the Nueces.  In November a small army under General Somerville was 
organized to prevent or punish similar demonstrations on the part of the enemy, and 
marched to Laredo on the Rio Grande.  The Alamo and Goliad were not forgotten, and the 
more recent massacre of Sawson rankled feverishly, and it was difficult to control the Texas 
volunteers.  In observance of the orders of the War Department, General Somerville 
refrained from crossing the Texas boundary, rigidly forbade any depredation on private 
property, satisfied himself that no invasion in force was imminent, and issued orders for the 
return of his forces to San Antonio to be disbanded.  This was heaping coals of fire on the 
heads of their enemies in a way and measure that many of the volunteers could not get their 
individual consent to do.  About two-fifths of the force reluctantly obeyed the orders and 
began the retrograde march; the others re-organized, crossed the border and fought a bloody 
battle at Mier.  The Texas riflemen would outfight Ampudia's soldiers, but he, with the aid 
of Dr. Sinnickson, outgeneraled Col. Fisher and induced him to surrender.  The brave men 
stacked their arms under the belief that they, officers and men, were to be kept on the Rio 
Grande and treated generously, until they could be exchanged.  Captain Charles Keller 
Reese, who had commanded one company of the prisoners, soon saw that they had been 
cheated; and as long as they were held on or near the Rio Grande, he insisted that they 
should overcome their guards, seize what arms they could, break across the river in a body 
and fight their way home.  Many agreed with Reese, but the certain hazards were great in 
that direction; many were hopeful that the terms of surrender, as they understood them, 
would be complied with, and sufficient concert could not be secured.  Finally the Mexican 
officials threw off the mask, and the Mier prisoners were put in the custody of a strong 
battalion of regular soldiers, order to conduct them promptly to the City of Mexico.  Starting 
at once, the battalion made rapid and long continued marches each day, for the double 
purpose of getting the prisoners away from their best chances of escape, and exhausting 
their power of endurance.  By the time the Texans had reached the Hacienda Salado, those 
who had been backward on the Rio Grande experienced a change of heart and piped a new 
song.  Then Captain Reese said: "You have sinned away your day of grace.  What was 
courage and wisdom on the Rio Grande would be madness and weakness here,"  and, with 
resolution equal to his discernment, he refused to join in the attempt then to escape.  Many 
agreed with him in judgment, but few, if any, stayed with him.  The first step the attempt 
was taken with admirable success, but the speedily disastrous result is familiar history.  
Nearly all were recaptured in a few days.  Then followed the decimation, the savagery of the 
march to the national capital, the refinement of cruelty there and at Perote, and all the 
horrors of which General Thomas Jefferson Greene writes in his history of the Mier 
Expedition. 

	A few however, were not recaptured, and among those who were not retaken were 
John Rufus Alexander and William Oldham.  They clambered over the mountains, where 
there were no roads or paths, or inhabitants or water or food.  They were many times nearly 
dead from hunger and thirst; their flesh was constantly torn and bleeding and fevered, by 
contact with the thorny brushwood of that arid, mountainous region.  They had to make 
many and wide detours to shun observation; they sometimes lost their reckoning, and lost 
much time and toil in regaining it.  They sometimes suffered from blistering heat by day and 
nipping chill air at night, but they stayed together, kept heart, and at last, after at least six 
hundred miles and a hundred days of such marching, exertion and suffering, which had 
brought them almost to the last extremity, they arrived at San Antonio.  Here they halted, 
nursed themselves back to their normal health and strength, and then parting, went each 
alone to his home, situated in widely separated parts of the Republic.

	There was joy and rejoicing at my father's house when we learned that "Cousin 
Rufus" had reached San Antonio.  He was the only blood relative my father had in Texas 
except his own children.  And outside my father's immediate family, cousin Rufus and his 
children were the only paternal blood relatives I had living in Texas after the death of uncle 
David, until long after my father's death in 1865, nor did I ever meet one, except Mr. 
Manson Sherrill, in Texas, or know of there being one in Texas, until in 1882 Calvin Emery 
Causey settled in Graham, and a year or two later Rev. Richard Ellis Sherrill came to 
Graham preaching the Word.  Our bond, therefore, to "Cousin Rufus" was very close.  My 
mother and father and their children never call him, or spoke to him or of him in their family 
or to familiar friends, my any other name than "Cousin Rufus."  We killed the fatted calf 
when he came, in 1843.  H was already well robed and shod; we offered to put no ring on 
his hand except the clasp of the right hand in token of fidelity in friendship and joyous 
welcome.  I was only ten years old.  I do not remember to have ever seen a roster of the 
company in which he had gone out, but J. Shelby McNeel was the captain, and Mordello S. 
Munson, John Sweeney, James C. Wilson, James H. Bell and Charles K. Reese -- all then 
and ever after well known to me -- were of the company -- young men then, of high 
promise, which was fully realized by all of them throughout all of their subsequent lives.  
Two of them still live in Brazoria County in an honored and green old age.  Keller Reese 
was still a prisoner in Mexico, but all the others gave "Alex," as they called him, a royal 
greeting.

	In the fall of that year (Nov. 30, 1843), he married and settled in Fayette County, 
near Round Top, where I visited him often in my bachelorhood days.  He farmed a little, 
and trade a good deal in a conservative, modest way, bought and sold horses, improved and 
sold his first home, bought and improve and sold another, and then another.  The children of 
his youth multiplied and grew up around him.  His many friends, and often needy strangers, 
enjoyed a generous hospitality at his house.  He was one of the recognized pillars of the 
church and community in which he lived.  Six sons and five daughters were born to him in 
Fayette County, Texas.  His second son, Thaddeus, was named for Thaddeus Bell, the 
grandfather of my children.  This son was for many years the clerk of the courts for his 
native county.  The father and mother of this large family have had their golden wedding, 
and now, in the golden evening of their lives, reside with, or near, their youngest child, Mr. 
Frank McCord Alexander, near Round Mountain, in McCulloch County, Texas.  I saw 
cousin Rufus last on the 10th day of April, 1879, in the Senate Chambers in the old Capitol 
Building at Austin.  He was then in perfect, vigorous health, except as to his eyesight.  He 
was always a man of distinctive appearance, gait and tone of speech.  On the 10th of April, 
1879, he appeared, walked and spoke much as he had during the whole forty-one years of 
our previous experience.  He was tall, broad-shouldered, heavy-limbed, sinewy, with a large 
head, crowned with an immense shock of very fine, curly hair, grey, of course, in 1879, but 
a light brown in his youth.  The infirmity that afflicted his greatgrandfather, John Adams, in 
his extreme old age, was growing on cousin Rufus in 1879.  The best specialists had not 
then, have not since, been able to arrest the failing of his sight.  He is not yet quite blind, but 
is almost so.  AS was said of John McNitt Alexander, one of the early members of the 
Hopewell congregation in North Carolina, who lived to extreme old age, retaining all of his 
mental force, but towards the end was for several years nearly deprived of sight, "In these 
last years the past and the future are more to him than the present.  In the one he has acted 
well his part; in the other he has hope; but the present has lost its beauty."