As our country remembers those who have founght and died for our freedom, I wanted to share stories of two of my family members who died while in service to our country. Revolutionary War – Isaac Vincent In 1772, the Vincent families and others had moved from Essex County, New Jersey, to current day Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. For several years, they lived peacefully near the local Indians. But, trouble started brewing in 1777. By 1779, about 13 families were living in a large, two-story house around which they had built a 12-foot high wall around. It enclosed a half acre...
Sarah E. McCage (~1812-1860), who married William Kennedy Dickson (1811-probably 1860s), was born in Tennessee and lived in Perry County, Tennessee by 1840 (if not before). I’d seen her maiden name, McCage, on other researchers’ trees, but last year is the first time I found it on a document. One of her children, Jacob Tipton Dickson, had written his mother’s name as Sarah McCage on a Civil War Questionnaire in 1920. Jacob Tipton’s Civil War Questionnaire (Question #8 lists “Maiden name in full of your mother: Salley McCage.) She was the daughter of “dont know” and his wife “dont know.”...
As you probably know, the War of 1812 Pension Files are free on Fold3 and they continue to add more names each month. I’m “patiently” waiting for the Ws for my direct ancestor, Thomas B. Whitwell. But, in the meantime, I was scrolling through the names in Tennessee where my grandmother’s maternal family lived. Under the letter D, I came across the fairly common surname, Dickson, which was my grandmother’s maiden name. As I clicked on each of these men, one name stood out to me: Joseph Dickson. I have four Joseph Dickson’s on my tree. Two were born after...
Elkanah Anderson and his brother-in-law, Thomas B Whitwel, were two of my 5 times great grandfathers. In December 1814, Elkanah and Thomas joined the West Tennessee Milita and were “part of a flotila that went down to New Orleans via the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.” Once there, they fought in the famous Battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson. During the bloody, one-sided battle which lasted only about 30 minutes on January 8th, the British suffered 2,000 casualties while the Americans only had about one hundred. Painting of Battle of New Orleans by Edward Percy Moran (image from Wikipedia)...
