Redmans from London

At the same time William Thornton and his family were living in Clark County, Kentucky, about 80 miles to the west, in Hardin County, there was another farming family who would eventually cross paths with the Thornton family, not in Kentucky but in Missouri. Like the Thorntons, the Redman family also claimed their ancestors came from London, England.

When members of the Redman family traced their ancestors they began with Thomas Redman who was reported to be born in London and came to America to fight in the Revolutionary War for King George. There is no date for his birth or when he came to the Colonies. If we estimate that he was 18 during the War he would have been born around 1764. While fighting with the King’s army, it is reported that he met a young woman from Kentucky, Elizabeth Brown, and fell in love. The Redman family reports that Thomas had an estate in England that he chose to give it up for his new home in America and to marry his Colonial love. Was there really an estate or just dreams by a rural Missouri farming family?

There no record of when Thomas married Elizabeth but the 1795 census for Kentucky shows a Thomas Redman living in Hardin County. They do not appear in any future census reports but in the 1830 census for their grandson, Nathaniel, it shows a man and woman over 60 living with him in Hardin County, KY.

Thomas and Elizabeth’s son George is our connection. So far we have no records of other children and little information on George other than census records for Hardin County, KY. His wife’s name is not known but they appear in the 1810, 1820 and 1830 census. We also do not have the names of their children other than Nathaniel, born April 26, 1803. The last census show only George and his wife living alone when they were around 50 years old. Close by their home are the residences of Nathaniel, James and Agnes Redman.

Nathaniel and Anna Redman

Our relative, Nathaniel, married Anna Brown sometime around 1820. There is no record if Anna, who was born in 1802 in Virginia, was related to her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Brown. They had their first child Urrilla, in 1824, and then a child for almost every two years for 20 years: Miles Nathaniel in July 1826, Martha Lavina, in 1828, Mary Ann in 1830, Francis M. in 1832, John N. in 1835, Samuel Leonadus in 1837, Alta in 1840, and Thomas William, March 1843. Nathaniel and Elizabeth appear in the 1830 Kentucky census in Hardin County with 4 children and a man and woman both over 60 — who could be Nathaniel’s grandparents.

A few weeks after Thomas William was born in 1843, Nathaniel and Anna hooked an ox team to a covered wagon and left Hardin County Kentucky for Missouri. Anna was 41, Nathaniel was 42, and they had nine children. There is no record of the names of other families that made the migration with the Redmans but two families, Tabb and Bird, appear in the Kentucky census living close to the Redmans, and would also migrate to Missouri.

Soon after they arrived in what was called Clinton County, they settled in land just south of what is now know as the old Union Chapel. William Thornton and his family were already settled in Clinton County for four years. The Redman family bought 240 acres of land for 75¢ an acre in Adams Township and built a big house with hewn studding, split lath and rived-out boards for shingles. They lived in this house in now renamed DeKalb County, farmed and raised their children.

Their tenth child, Susanne, was born in 1850, seven years after they arrived in Missouri. She lived only three months. It was a late pregnancy for Anna who was 48 years old at the time of Susanne’s birth. All nine of Nathaniel and Anna’s children grew up in Missouri and married other early DeKalb settlers to help establish the founding of the County. Here is a brief history of their children:

Urrilla married Parley Ross a few years after arriving in Missouri. They had 5 children. Miles Nathaniel married Mahala Ann Parker, had 5 or 6 children and settled in Maysville as a farmer and blacksmith. When Martha Lavina married William Hudson in 1845 they were reported to be the first couple that became married in the newly named DeKalb County. Martha lived to be 95 years old. William was a Baptist minister. Mary Ann married Wm. Bradford Thompson from Tennessee and had 5 children in Maysville.
The fifth child, Francis M., [our connection with the Redman Family] married Nancy Emily Bird in 1862. Nancy was born March 15, 1847 in Nodaway County, Missouri but the Bird family was also from Hardin County, Kentucky. Her grandfather, on her mother's side, was Baily S. Tabb, a Baptist minister in Kentucky. Her father, Peter H. Bird, married Mary Catherine Tabb in Hardin County and Nancy Emily was one of their seven children. The Bird, Tabb and Redman family farms were essentially neighbors while they lived in Kentucky and they probably migrated together to Missouri. Soon after the families arrived in Missouri, Nancy's father, Peter H. Bird, caught the “gold fever” and left for California. It is recorded that he died of thirst in 1850 near Orange California while in the desert wilderness. Francis’ brother, John N. Redman, also married into the Bird family. He married Sarah Bird and they had 12 children, all born in DeKalb County.

Samuel L. Redman became a United Brethren preacher and married Lydia Ann Parker. They had 7 children, including their first, Marion, who was killed by a deer at age 1 year. Lydia, a local schoolteacher, died when she was 32 years old. Two years later Samuel Redman married Mary Emeline Searcy who raised the children. Alta Redman married Hickman Estes. Thomas William Redman married Mary Jane Scammahorn and had 9 children.

The patriarch of the family, Nathaniel Redman died at age 52, on March 6, 1855, and Anna lived an additional 31 years when she died April 12, 1886. They were buried in what is named the Redman Cemetery near their farm in DeKalb County. Eventually most of the Redman family was buried next to their parents.

In the DeKalb County Cemetery Census, 1845-1971, there is a story on the origin of the Redman Cemetery: The Redman farm was located near the Santa Fe Trail that led through DeKalb County. One evening during a driving rainstorm, a lone covered wagon stopped on the Trail when the rain and strong winds ripped the canvas from the wagon frame. Inside the wagon a young family with a sick baby were soaked to the skin. When the sky cleared they saw the Redman log cabin nearby and went there to dry out. The Redmans invited them stay a few days to wash clothes and repair the wagon. The sick baby became worse and died while the young family stayed in the Redman house. When they looked for a burial place, Nathaniel suggested a place on the hillside near where the family was camped during the storm. Returning to the spot, they dug up a huge clump of hazel brush, placed the small wooden box with the tiny body in the ground and replaced the bush to discourage wolves from digging up the body. After a simple ceremony, the family continued their journey westward on the Santa Fe Trail and never passed the site again.

Francis and Nancy Redman

We are most interested in following the lives of Francis Redman and his 15-year-old wife, Nancy Bird. She had her first child eight months after their marriage and continued to have 8 more children in the next sixteen years; Charles W., born in 1863; Alta, born in 1864, lived only a few days; Miles Nathaniel, born in 1866; Francis Marion, born in 1867; Anna Mary [our connection], born in 1870; Eurilla Elizabeth, born in 1872; John Robert, born in 1874, died in childhood; Samuel W., born in 1876; and Jesse Albert, born in 1879, lived to be 18 years old.

After being married for 17 years, Francis Redman was working in the hay field in their DeKalb County farm when a load of hay overturned and seriously injured him. He died in mid-December 1879, at 47 years old. At that time of his death, their children ages ranged from 16 years to 5 months. Nancy was 32 years old and took over the operation of the farm for ten years with her young family.

In 1889 she married a neighbor widower, Joseph H. Dalton, who had just lost his wife, Sarah Isabel [Thornton], less than a year earlier. Sarah Isabel was William Todd Thornton’s oldest child. When Sarah died at 50, they had already lost all three of their children when they were 1, 3, and 13 years old. Nancy and Joseph Dalton raised Nancy’s 4 children who still lived on the farm.

Almost all of Francis and Nancy Redman’s children remained in DeKalb County and married local people. The oldest, Charles, served as the caretaker of the Redman Cemetery, Miles Nathaniel married Martha Eudora Whitchurch and his younger brother, Francis Marion, married Lillie van Bibber, Eurilla Elizabeth married John Jefferson Hubble, and Samuel W. married Alice Belle Gibbins, farmed and worked in Jerry Thornton’s implement and hardware store.

Nancy Emily Bird Redman Dalton lived to be 64 years old and died February 7, 1911. Her second husband, Joseph Dalton died on January 16, 1918.

Our interest is in the fourth child of Francis and Nancy Redman, Anna Mary. She was born Jan. 21, 1870, educated at the same school, Sunny Side School in Adams Township, attended same church, Primitive Baptist, as the Thornton family. She married her childhood friend, James Calvin Thornton, my grandfather.

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