Migrations

“There is no one that wanders but what wants to wander further”

This post is about ancestors and relatives of the descendants of Dessie Kimsey Anderson. I’ve been working on understanding their migrations. Over and over our ancestors moved from one place to another. The Anderson/Kimsey families’ American story begins in Virginia. From there they moved to Georgia or North Carolina or Kentucky or Tennessee. Then they went to Missouri. The early ones went to Howard County, on the Missouri River, about in the middle of the state. Then after the Platte Purchase (1836), to that part of Missouri, or Clay County would have been available for settling before that. Not our ancestors, but many of their relatives moved on to Oregon or California. Our ancestors and their relatives tended to be on the early wave of such migrations, often traveling and living in the dangerous frontier.

We do not have stories about our ancestors making any of these trips, but here is a story about a cousin of an ancestor of ours who migrated to similar places as our ancestors did.

We’ve already had one story about Samuel Crowley (b ca 1741) and his death in the Revolutionary War. His widow, Elizabeth Strong Crowley, and her children moved to Georgia where she died in 1798.

Our ancestor, Mary Elizabeth Crowley, daughter of Samuel Crowley and Elizabeth Strong, married James Kimsey in Virginia. Her husband died at the age of 46 in Georgia but she moved on with her family and died in Jackson County, Missouri. Our ancestor, her son Thomas Kimsey, migrated first to Howard County and then to Platte County, Missouri. Six of Mary Elizabeth Crowley Kimsey’s children died in Platte or Jackson Counties, Missouri, and two in Oregon.

The story in this post is about a grandson of the above Samuel Crowley. This Samuel Crowley was born in 1791 in Georgia to John Crowley and Elizabeth McClain. John Crowley was the sister of our Mary Elizabeth Crowley, so the Samuel Crowley of this story is a cousin to our Thomas Kimsey. It is not known exactly when the Kimseys went to Howard County – we only know some of them were there by 1820. So their journey is likely to have been very similar to the journey that I’m about to tell.

It was possible to go to Missouri from the old south using the rivers, but there were no steamboats on the Mississippi or Missouri at that time. This story explicitly says they went on horseback. Daniel Boone went to Missouri earlier than this and we read that some of his family went by a dugout canoe on the rivers and some by land. The trip our ancestors probably took follow in the footsteps of Daniel Boone. First, through the Cumberland Gap on the Wilderness Road, and then on the Buffalo Trace, and then on Boone’s Lick Road.

The trail through the Cumberland Gap called the Wilderness Road was originally an Indian trail. It was improved by Daniel Boone in 1775 for the Transylvania Company, which as trying to develop land on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains and needed a better road. The map below shows that the Wilderness Road would get our travelers to the Ohio River.

The Buffalo Trace, the route they probably took through Indiana and Illinois, was originally a route used by buffaloes migrating from north to south during the year, and also of course by Indians following their well-beaten path. This map only shows to Vincennes, but the Buffalo Trace continued to the Mississippi.

The last segment, from the St. Louis area to Howard County, was most likely on Boone’s Lick Road. This was originally an Indian trail running more or less along the Missouri River. Boone’s Lick was a salty spring developed by two of Daniel Boone’s sons as a salt factory. This segment would have been over 150 miles. The total distance from the Cumberland Gap to Howard County, Missouri, according google maps is about 650 miles. Of course our travelers would have to get to the Cumberland Gap from their homes first.

Here is a story about Samuel Crowley b 1791, grandson of Samuel Crowley b 1741.

Samuel Crowley was born on the old Crowley farm four miles southeast of Savannah in Ray county, Georgia 30 June 1791. He was one of ten children born to John Crowley and Elizabeth McClain. He moved with his family about 1800 to Powell Valley, Tennessee. He married there about 1810, Susanna McInnish. Samuel and Susanna had 6 sons and 6 daughters. The three oldest children, James, Louise and Matilda were born in Powell Valley, Tennessee.

In the month of October 1815, Samuel and Susanna and their three young children, Samuel’s brother Jeremiah and wife Polly and their three children, packed what they could carry on horseback and set out for Missouri. They had only a few cooking utensils and provisions, a large canvas which could be stretched over poles to form a tent for shelter when needed, a shovel, axe and hoe without handles and their guns.

They camped the first night at Cumberland Gap and from there traveled slowly each day, camping early at night. They had Johnnie cakes cooked in the campfire and quail, turkey and now and then a deer for food. At noon they took short rests and ate a cold lunch from the remains of their breakfast. Thus they traveled across Kentucky until they reached Illinois and for the first time saw the tall waving grass of the western prairies. It must have been very difficult for these young mothers, each traveling with children all under the age of 5.

In Illinois they joined a wagontrain from Tennessee and traveled the rest of the way with them to St. Louis, which they reached in the 6th week of their journey. They rested there a few days and then crossing the Mississippi river at St. Louis, they proceeded on to Howard county, Missouri. They arrived there 27 Dec 1815. They settled in Sugar Tree Bottom, Missouri, at that time a territory with but a few white settlers and the country was frequented by Indians.

Samuel remained in Howard county until 1819 when he and his family moved to Lillard (now Lafayette) county. From there he moved to Clay county in the vicinity of Excelsior Springs and then in 1837 he moved to Indian country which was later part of the Platte Purchase from the Indians and was established as Andrew county in 1841.
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In 1846 five of the children of Samuel and Susanna decided to take the immigrant train to Oregon. Samuel rigged out his sons John and George W. (called Wash) with 6 teams of Oxen to make the trip. The daughters who went to Oregon were Louise, wife of Willis Gaines, Matilda, wife of Elva Sloan, and Louisa, wife of William Hutson. John died of Mountain fever in Wyoming and was buried on the banks of the Green River. When Wash arrived in Oregon he took a donation claim at the mouth of the Roaring River, in the Willamette Valley but he later went to the Gold fields in California. He sold his land, stock and all he had in Oregon to his nephew, John W. Gaines, son of Willis Gaines. He then returned to Missouri.

A person who lived very close to some of our ancestors whose life is very well known is Daniel Boone, so for a taste of what life was like then it is interesting to read books about him. I just finished and recommend “Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier” by Bob Drury.