Jesse and Anna Nelson Migrate to Missouri

Around 1820 Jesse Nelson with Anna and their children — Nancy, age 30, with her husband Benjamin Majors, John age 28, Josiah age 27, Sarah age 23 with her husband Enoch Fox, Rebecca age 21, George age 19, Thomas age 17 and Mary age 10 — migrated from Kentucky to Lafayette County in central Missouri. They must have been in route when the census taker came around in 1820. Jesse and John are listed as living in Monroe County, Kentucky. Monroe County is just over the line from Tennessee.

Their route could have been similar to William Thornton and his family as they migrated from Clark County, Kentucky, about the same time. Both families could have taken the Ohio River down to the Mississippi and traversed up to St. Charles and taken the Missouri River up river to the center of Missouri. William Thornton and family went about half way up the river to Montgomery County and Jesse Nelson and family continued 150 miles further up river to Lafayette County where they bought land to farm. The Nelson family memories are that John and Jane settled near Lexington Missouri before it was laid out in 1820.

As soon as they arrived in Lafayette County Jesse died. At this time there is not a record of his will. His wife, Anna, apparently lived with her oldest son, John, who is listed in the 1830 Lafayette County census. Anna would live until 1860 when she died at age 96. Several of her children, even Mary at 15, married Tennessee acquaintances who migrated with Jesse and Anna.

Once the Nelson families arrived in Missouri much of the records become part of the Nelson history that my mother passed to us. John, our connection, married Jane (no last name at this time) before they left Tennessee. Their first-child was Emily Caroline, born after they arrived in Missouri, around 1822. Their other children, Jesse (1824), William Walker (October 29, 1825), Mary Elizabeth (1830), and John B. (1833) were all born in Lafayette County. Our connection is William Walker, who was my mother’s grandfather.

Early records of John appear in 1822 when he and four other residents were ordered to lay out a road from Lexington to Jack’s Ferry. John is listed as an original member of the first Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Lafayette County when it was organized in 1821 or 1822. John and his family are in the 1830 census but there is an error that caused some confusion in family research. When the census taker checked about the two youngest children under 5 and heard their names, “Elizabeth and Jessie,” he assumed that both were girls and recorded that in his report. I wonder if Jesse ever knew of the error. It was corrected in the next census record.

Two of Jesse’s sons were ministers. Josiah followed the Methodist religion, preaching in Missouri and leading revivals in Arkansas. Thomas was a Presbyterian minister in Jackson County Missouri. Josiah’s son, James T., born about 1839, was a Presbyterian minister in Arkansas but he got into trouble with the church. In 1880 they charged him with “preaching Adventist doctrines” and he was disposed from his ministry. He became a Jehovah’s Witness.

Some Nelsons Take the Oregon Trail

Like many of Missouri residents, including some in the Thornton family, John Nelson’s younger brother, George, decided to try his luck with free land available in Oregon. In 1838 George Stephens Nelson and his wife Margaret Crawford and their five children traveled to St. Joseph Missouri with plans to connect with a wagon train that was being organized to take the Oregon Trail. When they arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri, Anna gave birth to their last child Thomas Benton in St. Joseph just before the wagon trail left town.
By 1844 forty-eight families or 323 persons, 410 oxen, 160 cows, 143 young cattle, 54 horses, 11 mules, and 72 wagons were in St. Joseph preparing for the trip west. The members of the wagon train voted to call itself the "Independent Colony", and following military guidelines. They elected Cornelius Gilliam as General and Michael Simmons as Colonel. The train was then divided into 4 parties, each led by its own Captain.

As in other years, the total numbers involved in the wagon train of 1844 vary from source to source. The true number will probably never be attained. In addition to the rigors of travel by wagon and uncertainty of the friendliness of the Indians, the winter of 1843 had been exceptionally rainy and the group encountered considerable flooding. James Clyman, one of the participants, wrote in his diary on May 14th: "Roads extremely bad owing to the late great rains." The next day he wrote "This morning the whole prairie covered in water Shoe mouth deep..." All the rivers that needed to be crossed were at or approached flood stage.

Just as they arrived near their destination in November 1844 George’s 15-year-old son William died in Fort Vancouver, Washington. They continued to the Tualatin Plains near Hillsboro, Oregon and the following spring to about 5 miles NW of Newberg where they took a claim of 645 acres. There were only 8 families in the valley, and six of the wives were Indians or half-breeds.

In 1868 George retired and settled in Lafayette Oregon, a very small town near McMinnville, where he died in 1884 at 83. His wife Margaret died two years later. One of his sons, Josiah Conley “Cy,” owned a general merchandise business in Lafayette and was elected to the first Oregon State Legislature. He served in 1882, 1884 and 1885.

It is interesting that this location in Oregon was also the destination for some of the Thornton and Agee families who took the Oregon Trail in 1847, 1854 and 1865. See that section in the Thornton family history.

Back in Missouri, the other six of John and Jane’s children married and lived near their parents. The oldest Emily Caroline had four husbands. She first married at age 23 and her husband lived 15 years. When she was 37 she married again and her husband only lived 4 years. Emily married again at age 50 and when her husband died or left, Emily married again at age 65. Jesse, the second child, lived to be 85 and had six children. Since William Walker is our connection his history follows in the next section. I don’t have much information on Mary Elizabeth and her husband John Taylor. The youngest child, John B., died of heart disease when he was 56 in 1889.

John and Jane are listed in the 1850 and 1860 census for Lexington Township in Lafayette County, Missouri. John’s land value in 1850 was $4,000. In the 1860 census living with them is their niece Nancy Majors, age 23, and two grandchildren, Ony Ann Jackson and Willet Jackson. John wrote his will in 1874 where his bequeath his “daughter Emily C. Snediger Ten acres of land...beloved wife Jane Nelson..containing One hundred acres more or les, on which Land my house and improvements are situated, together with my household and kitchen furniture. At her death to descend to my son John B. Nelson with whom I appoint my executor. He also gets forty four acres. ...my son William W. Nelson real estate in Johnson County. ..to my daughter Mary E. Taylor (wife of John A. Taylor) forty acres of land in Johnson County. ..also to my daughter Emily C. Snediger one note executed to me for twenty dollars and dated February 11, 1860.” Jesse died in 1876 at age 84. There is no record when his wife Jane died.

William Walker Nelson

Our direct connection, William Walker, was about 5 years old when his family arrived in Lafayette County from their migration up the Missouri River from St. Louis. He grew up on the farm and attended the rural schools in the area. When he was 21 he enlisted to fight in the War in Mexico. Skirmishes with the Mexicans have been occurring for several years. Davy Crocket defended the Alamo from the Mexicans in 1835 but actual war between the countries did not break out until the spring of 1846. The outward purpose of the war was for the States to gain the territories of California and New Mexico but there were many sub agendas, including the conquest of Mexico and extending slavery to the west. The Mexican War provided training for future generals in the Civil War fifteen years later. Leading the American troops were: Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Sterling Price, Joseph Hooker, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson; familiar names of military men who would meet again on the battlefield but on opposing sides.

At 21 years old, William Walker joined many adventurous men in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas during spring 1846. He was attached to Company B, part of the regiment commanded by the famous Colonel Alexander Doniphan, who was a resident of Ray County since the 1830s. At the age of 30, Doniphan held the rank of brigadier general in the State Militia and was a Missouri Senator from 1843 to 1855. When the Mexican War began in 1846 Doniphan was asked to raise troops for volunteer service. He organized the First Regiment of Missouri Volunteers and was chosen as its colonel and commander. An inspirational leader in Ray County, Doniphan probably was personally influential in recruiting many local young men like William Nelson. After a few weeks of drilling his men left Fort Leavenworth on what was to be 6,000 miles travel by horseback through Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, through central Mexico to Louisiana and back to Missouri.

After quelling raids by the Navaho Indians in New Mexico he continued south toward Mexico. When Doniphan and his men reached the edge of Texas and Mexico in mid-December, it was bitter cold and they did not have fuel for warmth or tents for protection. The troops continued about 30 miles from El Paso and were ambushed by a large number of Mexican troops at El Brazito, which is now part of Texas. The Mexicans sent word that the Americans must surrender or the Mexicans would charge. Doniphan responded with his famous phrase “Charge and be damned!” After the battle the Americans had seven men hurt but the Mexicans had about 100 killed and wounded. Doniphan continued his march to El Paso with more confidence and rested there until January 1847.

The next battle William Walker participated in was further south into Mexico on the Sacramento River. This occurred on February 27 and 28, 1847. When the gunfire stopped there were exactly six American casualties and reportedly 600 dead for the Mexicans. The men continued marching without incident to the Gulf of Mexico. With no quartermaster nor army chest and on half-rations, they had to live exclusively on the country through which they passed, supplying themselves with power and ammunition captured from the enemy. Traveling up the Gulf, William Walker was paid and given an honorable discharged at New Orleans on July 1, 1847 and, at age 22, he returned to his home in Missouri.

His experience in Mexico and the West must have sparked an interest to continue his travels. After another visit to Mexico in 1848 he heard about the discovery of gold in the new California territory. The promise of riches and another adventure prompted him to try his luck. In August 1849 he traveled to California by the southern route and reached his destination just east of Sacramento near Sutter’s Mill on January 22, 1850. It is not known where he panned for gold but when he was visited by the census official on November 2, 1850 he was in a Placerville hotel filled with miners.

His occupation was listed in the census form as a miner with no real estate. One of the columns in the form had a special notation for “Average product of each miner’s labor per day.” William was listed for $8.00 per day; higher than most whose income ranged from $0 to $5. Placerville’s original name was “Old Dry Diggins” during the beginnings of the gold rush and then renamed “Hangman” for the incident when three robbers stole the inn keeper’s gold dust and were hung by the locals. By 1850 the name was changed to Placerville. William Walker panned for gold there for almost four years.

In 1855 William Walker returned to Missouri with money from his mining and purchased 260 acres of land in Ray County. In the 1860 census his land was worth $2,850 and he had a personal worth of $2,500. A year after he returned from California he married Kissiah Sanosah Grant in June 1856.

Next page: William & Kissah Grant