Emma & Jesse: Roots in Fulton County

On the middle day of our vacation, we set off in the opposite direction, to Fulton County, and Salem, the county seat. After a fruitful visit to the county library, where we found plat maps and other interesting items, we had some lunch and then approached the courthouse. The indexing situation, in contrast to the handy computer records we found in Randolph County, was primitive. Deeds from the years we were interested in were in books "G", "H" and on through "N". The books were Very Old, fragile, and on high shelves. The oldest one didn't even have an index in the front, and searching through 500 hand written pages for one deed seemed too daunting, so we pressed on until we found volumes with indexes in the front. Norm, bless him, lifted these 10+ pound weights overhead many times in the two days we rummaged around in the courthouses.

One note: unlike St. Louis County's courthouse, where you have to pass through metal detectors and submit your briefcase and purse to a search, we were just motioned to the back room by the circuit clerks and told to "holler if you need anything." Clearly that balance and weight work in our aerobics for over 50 class has paid off.

That deeds from the 1880s and early 1900s survive at all is a testament to the quality of the paper and ink used in those days. Handwriting is very clear and stylish; good penmanship was taught in the schools and apparently was a requirement for the job of court clerk. This one was a pivotal find; it records the sale of a land grant in Fulton County that Jesse's older brother TJ and his wife sold in January of 1908. TJ had already moved to Oklahoma and one of my theories is that the brothers and their families moved to Oklahoma Territory together. This helps advance the hypothesis. The land TJ owned was next to the partial section owned by their father, Albert A. McElyea. We didn't find that sale deed but think it would have been sold by the heirs after Albert's wife died in 1907. After a while, this kind of research is addictive, or else numbingly boring if it isn't your relative!

Researchers have to eat to keep going. We saw this bakery across from the courthouse, and thought we would get coffee and something to go with it at noon. They had just brought out their baked pepperoni and cheese sandwiches so we acquired them for lunch, which we ate on a shaded bench outside the courthouse. Salem isn't as large as Pocahontas, and the courthouse is very plain, having been built in 1890 and remodeled in the 1950s. Most of Fulton county is rocky brush and pasture, with lots of hay and cattle. The place has a no-nonsense feel to it. (Randolph County, in contrast, is part hilly, but traversed by 5 scenic rivers that bring tourists. And the eastern half of the county is in the Mississippi River delta, full of large farms devoted to rice, corn, soybeans and cotton.)


One building that caught my eye as being from the early days was this one on a corner. It seems to have been remodeled; the windows are new. It appears to be vacant, though. Perhaps it was a hotel in Salem's heyday.

While we were at the library, we asked for directions to the Old Burk Cemetery, where several records I have say that Jesse's father, A. A. McElyea, is buried. He died in 1898. I wasn't sure it would be accessible, after our fruitless search in Randolph County for Emma's parents' final resting place. But you know, you can count on libraries! A woman who was working there as a clerk helped us with the genealogy resources and said, "Oh, you mean Burk's Chapel. It's right down the road from where I live." And she gave us directions to follow county roads to the spot, and then to proceed by the section where Albert had lived as well. The McElyeas didn't live at Salem, but at a little village called Camp. (They say it is short for Indian Camp. Many Native Americans were displaced and their land sold by the government to settlers in the early 1800s.) Another nearby family was the Burks, and Albert and Mary's oldest daughter, Nancy, married one of them. And this lady in the library was related to the Burks as well. So we are practically kin.

If the directions hadn't been so good, I would never have had the courage to steer Gracie over some 6 or 7 miles of graded, dusty, red rock tracks through back country. (We still had Fulton County red dirt on the back window when we got home!) But lo, the chapel (above, built in the 1920s) did appear, and the cemetery beside it. We found the Burks and McElyeas, including some we didn't expect, near the road in one of the oldest sections. This photo shows the grouping of stones that mark the family burials. At left is the grave of Joseph, TJ and Jesse's older brother, who died in 1907. In the foreground is Albert's grave. The head stone has come off its base but someone has propped it up facing the opposite side. At the right is a monument to Nancy McElyea Burk and her baby, Lois, who both died in an epidemic in 1889. Albert's wife, Mary, isn't buried here. She lived with Jesse and TJ's younger sister, Geneva Bell, until her death in 1907. She is buried in Missouri--a trip for another day.

When I started the quest a couple of years ago to visit the graves of all four of my great grandmothers, I didn't really expect to go back any farther. But standing in that quiet country cemetery on a bright, warm August afternoon, I got goosebumps (and also chiggers) when I realized I was at the burial place of a great-great grandparent. One thing about the McElyeas is that a lot of research is online about them, and published family trees trace the line back to a Scotch-Irish ancestor who immigrated from Ireland around 1749. So I could look for Albert's father, Jesse P., in Tennesee, and his father, Hugh, in North Carolina, and his father, Laughlin, in North Carolina as well. Given the ravages of time on a stone erected in 1898, though, I'm not sure what if anything I would find. Albert (A.A. on the stone) was a Mason, and the Masonic emblem is visible on his headstone. The words carved at the top are "Come Ye Blessed" which is in keeping with his status as a ruling elder of the Cumberland Presbyterian congregation he helped to found. One day after this discovery, at Words & After Words, the book store in Hardy, I found and bought a very clear and helpful guide to genealogy research. It has checklists for everything, and on visiting cemeteries it says to bring lots of large plain sheets of paper and crayons or artist's charcoal to make rubbings. Duh! Too late, so I have the photo, and a written transcription. But I'll take the rubbing supplies if I go on any more cemetery trips. That, and I'll apply the insect repellent that is always in the car.

Back at the Hardy House, I had plenty to reflect on as I relaxed in the swing on the carport. Jesse and Emma, as well as their siblings and their parents, are coming alive to me as people instead of being names on a family tree. These two young folks, raised in adjoining counties, took off for Memphis, about 100 miles away, just before Christmas in 1891 to be married by a Justice of the Peace. I have always wondered why they left the state to get married, when there were churches and ministers at home. Census research has convinced me that they went to Tennessee because that state allowed cousins to marry and Arkansas did not. No one in the family ever talked about it, but Jesse's mother, Mary Tanner, and Emma's father, W.W. Tanner, were siblings. Jesse and Emma were first cousins. So that question is answered, but many more remain. I hope I will have more opportunities to trace their life story, a journey that began when I found a love letter Emma had written to Jesse in 1891 some 11 months before their marriage. When I get organized, I'll probably post more details about this great grandmother on my Thursday's Child blog. Goodness knows that if I think I have had far to go, well, it certainly runs in the family.