John YORK, Jr. is the son of John YORK, Sr. and his wife Martha Jane WHITE of Randolph County, North Carolina.
When Illinois became the 21st state in 1818 that event opened this Indiana territory with new land for pioneer settlers and farmers. John York, Jr., age about 27, was attracted to the adventure of acquiring some of this new land. John YORK, Jr and others joined a covered wagon train leaving Randolph County traveling the long journey into the wilderness of Crawford County, Illinois looking for new land to claim and settle upon.
Most likely John YORK, Jr. arrived in Crawford County sometime after the 1820 U S Census by about 1824. It is suggested that as the wagon train traveled and camped for weeks in route to Illinois. Perhaps John became friends with the young Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM as they traveled, cooked and camped. Based upon the 1830 U S Census records of Crawford County it is proposed that John YORK, Jr. age 28, married Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM, age 18, in the spring on 27 June 1825 in Crawford County. This is confirmed by the 1830 US Census Records that support the gender structure and ages of the early John YORK, Jr. family.
While in Crawford County at least six children were born; however, one or more sons cannot be located or they he not survive. They were the parents to at least five identified surviving children in Crawford County, Illinois while they lived there for about eight years from about 1824 until 1832:
1. William Henry YORK, born 28 Sep 1826 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 15 Jul 1903 in Comanche County, Texas.
2. Richard Green YORK, born 04 May 1827 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 1912 in Riesel, McLennan County, Texas
3. John Smith YORK, Sr., born 1829 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 07 Feb 1924 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
4. Charlotte T. "Charlotty" YORK, born 1831 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died aft 1860 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
5. Nancy Jane YORK, born 1832 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 23 Apr 1907 in Redland, Nevada County, Arkansas.
=======================================================
The following remarks have been extracted from:
http://genealogytrails.com/ill/crawford/earlyhistory.html
"Interesting Incidents in Early Crawford County History"
Related by Pioneer Citizen
The Argus, June 6, 1940
by E. A. Wolfe; Transcribed by Cindy McCachern
https://crawford.illinoisgenweb.org/news/wolfe.php
Native Americans still populated this area of Illinois and were often a threat to the new settlers. Not only were they a physical danger to the women and children but stealing items, horses and live stock from these isolated log cabin farming households and corals.
The pioneer cabins were built of small logs and covered with clapboards, upon which were held by weighted poles to keep them in place, nails being out of the question. The chimney which occupied a large portion of one end of the house, was built on the outside, of sticks and clay and they had dirt floors. The size of the cabins can be determined from the fact that four bear skins cut square covered the floor and made a luxurious carpet. Window glass was unknown in the early cabins. A hole in the wall was left for light. social life at first was confined to house raising and weddings. That is, these succeeded the days of "forting." (Alternating between a secure fort and the construction of new log cabin home.) The fun at these events was boisterous and rough outdoor activities was cooperative community day long work.
Deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken and all smaller game were here in abundance. Bear meat was plentiful, some of the settlers killing four or five a week. Venison was not a rarity in a household where the head of the family has been known to kill 19 deer before breakfast. A saddle of venison (both hind quarters of a deer not cut apart) was worth 25 cents, but not much sale for it at that. Wolves, bear, panthers, and wild cats were here in great numbers.
Men and women both wore buckskin clothing. The young ladies of the period wore deerskin dresses. The hair was removed and the skins dressed with deer's brains so as to be soft and pliable, and when colored yellow with hickory bark and alum, or red with sassafras, made rather a stylish looking outfit. The men wore buckskin breeches and jackets.
The daily food of the pioneers was cornbread, hominy, bear meat, venison, honey and sassafras tea. The corn meal was made by pounding corn in a stump mortar. A stump mortar was made by cutting off a tree about three feet from the ground and burning or digging a hole a foot in diameter in top of the stump. Into this the corn was placed and a hard hickory pestle or an iron wedge attached to a spring pole was used to pound it fine, and was then sifted through a homemade sieve made by stretching a deer skin tanned with ashes over a hoop. The holes in the sieve were made with a small iron instrument heated hot. The smaller the iron the finer the meal. That portion which went through the sieve was called meal, that which remained was used as hominy. As civilization advanced homemade horse hair sieves came in fashion. The bread stuff for each day was pounded up before breakfast.
A kind of sympathy or brotherhood existed among the pioneers which has now almost faded away with other landmarks of the early period. When a covered wagon was spied coming over the prairie or through the forest, the cry would be, "There comes another settler," and all would start to meet the newcomer and give him a hearty welcome. They would take axes and help cut out a trail to his land and aid him in selecting a site for his cabin. In two or three days sufficient logs would be cut and his cabin erected, a hole cut in the side for a door and the family housed in their new home. This was pioneer friendship and hospitality and far more sincere than it is at the present day.
After the settlers got established in their new home, they would take the ax, the maul, and wedge and go to the timber, cut some trees that will split and make rails enough to fence six or eight acres of five foot log rails high.
Then they would commence on their clearing, cutting down trees and piling the brush from morning until night, day after day until they got the trees all cut down and the brush piled on the amount of ground they intended to clear.
Then they would cut the trees into lengths so they could be handled. Then before time to commence plowing they would invite their neighbors and some of them lived 10 or 15 miles away, to come at a specified time and they would pile the logs. That was called a log rolling.
Then after they got the log heaps burned and the brush piles (they usually burned the brush piles after night) they would plow the new or stump ground. If the person who did the plowing had any "cuss words" laid back and hidden away they would surely come out when his plow hits a stump or gets fastened under a root, and his horses don't stop quick enough and a trace chain or a singletree or the double-tree or perhaps the plow beam breaks, then is when the cuss words get used. All of the settlers who selected homes in the timber had to go through all of this hard work and a lot more before they got their farms cleared and fenced.
After the plowing was done, they harrowed the ground. Then leveled and smoothed the soil with a shed or rake typically pulled behind a team of two horses. When the ground was ready to plant, they would make the furrows for planting with a one horse single shovel plow and drop the corn by hand and cover with a hoe. Then when the corn was ready to cultivate, they would plow with a single or double shovel plow with one horse. It wasn't an easy job plowing corn among stumps, the plow getting snagged fast on stumps or roots and jerking the plow over or around the stumps. I know, for I have worked in stumpy ground. They would have to go over the field about two times during the season with an ax or a spouting hoe and cut sprouts off the stumps. I wonder what the young farmers today would do if they had to go into a 5 or 10 acres field of corn among stumps to cultivate? They should be thankful that the pioneers and their forefathers got the ground cleared so they can farm the easy way, all riding tools, and no horses to bother with.
At about this time, or after the days of buckskin clothing that everybody wore homespun clothing. The girls like the boys, had no idle hours for there was the carding of wool by hand into rolls, spinning them on a large wheel, walking to and fro through the long and weary days, turning the wheel with one hand and holding the thread with the other. Then the yarn was reeled into skeins, dyed and washed, then put upon the warping bars and then into the loom. Each thread of the warp must be through the "gears," and through the "reed," then the shuttle was thrown backward and forward and the thread beaten in with the "late."
There was the weaving of linen for sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths and underclothing or tow and wool, the making of "linsey-woolsey" for gowns or of all-wool cloth for men's garments. From early morning till the fire burned low on the hearth at night mother and daughter were at work wielding the hand-cards, throwing the shuttle, or whirling the wheel.
When the carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving are done, there was still more to do--the making of quilts, coverlets, and sheets, for no girl could think or being married till she had a bountiful supply of these things.
========================================================
By 1831-1832 the John YORK family concluded the warmer climate in Arkansas was a better choice without the cold windy weathers of bitter snowy winters in Crawford County, Illinois. Apparently by 1832 John York, Jr. and his young wife with their young family of five children joined a wagon train with their belongings with live stock to migrate south into the much warmer Hempstead County, Arkansas. Perhaps part of their journey included floating down the Ohio and Mississippi River as part of a wagon train to migrated south into Arkansas. Hempstead County was formed on December 15, 1818, from parts of Arkansas County and was named for Edward Hempstead, Missouri Territory's representative to Congress. Hempstead County was one of the first counties organized under the laws of the Territory of Missouri. The landscape is rolling hills with much agriculture and farming.
The economy is made up of food processing, poultry and egg production, along with beef cattle, soybeans and fruit. Each summer the Hope Watermelon Festival is held and draws not only local citizens but also hundreds of tourists.
The county has two Wildlife Management Areas, Bois D'Arc and Hope, along with Millwood Lake, which features camping, picnicking, and swimming as well as hunting and fishing.
The town of Washington, Arkansas includes the Old Washington State Park hold lots of history for the county. It was a well traveled route for settlers and a stopover for Sam Houston and Davy Crockett on their way to Texas and the Alamo. A Washington Arkansas Blacksmith made Jim Bowie's famous knife and such is still being crafted at the same site. The largest magnolia tree in Arkansas, planted in 1839, grows in Washington.
Hope, the county seat is also the hometown of President
William Jefferson Clinton where his boyhood home has been restored and is open to the public.
Soon after the John YORK family arrived in southwest Arkansas in 1832 their next five new children were born in Homestead County, before the next migration into the new State of Texas by about 1850.
The next identified children are:
6. Andrew Jackson YORK, born 02 Aug 1833, Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 1870, Navarro County, Texas. (This person is often confused by some researchers with another Andrew Jackson YORK born in North Carolina in 1835 and another born in Georgia in 1833)
7. Amanda Melvina "Manda" YORK, born 15 Aug 1838 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 16 Nov 1883 in Pursley, Navarro County, Texas.
8. Nathaniel A YORK, born 1840 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died aft 1870 in Navarro County, Texas.
9. Francis Marion YORK, born 29 Aug 1846 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 01 Jun 1898 in Point, Rains County, Texas.
10. Albert Louis YORK Sr., born 15 Jan 1848 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 18 Feb 1917 in Lakeview, Hall County, Texas.
There may be additional children that have not yet been confirmed.
****This site is UNDER CONSTRUCTION****
When Illinois became the 21st state in 1818 that event opened this Indiana territory with new land for pioneer settlers and farmers. John York, Jr., age about 27, was attracted to the adventure of acquiring some of this new land. John YORK, Jr and others joined a covered wagon train leaving Randolph County traveling the long journey into the wilderness of Crawford County, Illinois looking for new land to claim and settle upon.
Most likely John YORK, Jr. arrived in Crawford County sometime after the 1820 U S Census by about 1824. It is suggested that as the wagon train traveled and camped for weeks in route to Illinois. Perhaps John became friends with the young Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM as they traveled, cooked and camped. Based upon the 1830 U S Census records of Crawford County it is proposed that John YORK, Jr. age 28, married Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM, age 18, in the spring on 27 June 1825 in Crawford County. This is confirmed by the 1830 US Census Records that support the gender structure and ages of the early John YORK, Jr. family.
While in Crawford County at least six children were born; however, one or more sons cannot be located or they he not survive. They were the parents to at least five identified surviving children in Crawford County, Illinois while they lived there for about eight years from about 1824 until 1832:
1. William Henry YORK, born 28 Sep 1826 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 15 Jul 1903 in Comanche County, Texas.
2. Richard Green YORK, born 04 May 1827 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 1912 in Riesel, McLennan County, Texas
3. John Smith YORK, Sr., born 1829 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 07 Feb 1924 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
4. Charlotte T. "Charlotty" YORK, born 1831 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died aft 1860 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
5. Nancy Jane YORK, born 1832 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 23 Apr 1907 in Redland, Nevada County, Arkansas.
=======================================================
The following remarks have been extracted from:
http://genealogytrails.com/ill/crawford/earlyhistory.html
"Interesting Incidents in Early Crawford County History"
Related by Pioneer Citizen
The Argus, June 6, 1940
by E. A. Wolfe; Transcribed by Cindy McCachern
https://crawford.illinoisgenweb.org/news/wolfe.php
Native Americans still populated this area of Illinois and were often a threat to the new settlers. Not only were they a physical danger to the women and children but stealing items, horses and live stock from these isolated log cabin farming households and corals.
The pioneer cabins were built of small logs and covered with clapboards, upon which were held by weighted poles to keep them in place, nails being out of the question. The chimney which occupied a large portion of one end of the house, was built on the outside, of sticks and clay and they had dirt floors. The size of the cabins can be determined from the fact that four bear skins cut square covered the floor and made a luxurious carpet. Window glass was unknown in the early cabins. A hole in the wall was left for light. social life at first was confined to house raising and weddings. That is, these succeeded the days of "forting." (Alternating between a secure fort and the construction of new log cabin home.) The fun at these events was boisterous and rough outdoor activities was cooperative community day long work.
Deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken and all smaller game were here in abundance. Bear meat was plentiful, some of the settlers killing four or five a week. Venison was not a rarity in a household where the head of the family has been known to kill 19 deer before breakfast. A saddle of venison (both hind quarters of a deer not cut apart) was worth 25 cents, but not much sale for it at that. Wolves, bear, panthers, and wild cats were here in great numbers.
Men and women both wore buckskin clothing. The young ladies of the period wore deerskin dresses. The hair was removed and the skins dressed with deer's brains so as to be soft and pliable, and when colored yellow with hickory bark and alum, or red with sassafras, made rather a stylish looking outfit. The men wore buckskin breeches and jackets.
The daily food of the pioneers was cornbread, hominy, bear meat, venison, honey and sassafras tea. The corn meal was made by pounding corn in a stump mortar. A stump mortar was made by cutting off a tree about three feet from the ground and burning or digging a hole a foot in diameter in top of the stump. Into this the corn was placed and a hard hickory pestle or an iron wedge attached to a spring pole was used to pound it fine, and was then sifted through a homemade sieve made by stretching a deer skin tanned with ashes over a hoop. The holes in the sieve were made with a small iron instrument heated hot. The smaller the iron the finer the meal. That portion which went through the sieve was called meal, that which remained was used as hominy. As civilization advanced homemade horse hair sieves came in fashion. The bread stuff for each day was pounded up before breakfast.
A kind of sympathy or brotherhood existed among the pioneers which has now almost faded away with other landmarks of the early period. When a covered wagon was spied coming over the prairie or through the forest, the cry would be, "There comes another settler," and all would start to meet the newcomer and give him a hearty welcome. They would take axes and help cut out a trail to his land and aid him in selecting a site for his cabin. In two or three days sufficient logs would be cut and his cabin erected, a hole cut in the side for a door and the family housed in their new home. This was pioneer friendship and hospitality and far more sincere than it is at the present day.
After the settlers got established in their new home, they would take the ax, the maul, and wedge and go to the timber, cut some trees that will split and make rails enough to fence six or eight acres of five foot log rails high.
Then they would commence on their clearing, cutting down trees and piling the brush from morning until night, day after day until they got the trees all cut down and the brush piled on the amount of ground they intended to clear.
Then they would cut the trees into lengths so they could be handled. Then before time to commence plowing they would invite their neighbors and some of them lived 10 or 15 miles away, to come at a specified time and they would pile the logs. That was called a log rolling.
Then after they got the log heaps burned and the brush piles (they usually burned the brush piles after night) they would plow the new or stump ground. If the person who did the plowing had any "cuss words" laid back and hidden away they would surely come out when his plow hits a stump or gets fastened under a root, and his horses don't stop quick enough and a trace chain or a singletree or the double-tree or perhaps the plow beam breaks, then is when the cuss words get used. All of the settlers who selected homes in the timber had to go through all of this hard work and a lot more before they got their farms cleared and fenced.
After the plowing was done, they harrowed the ground. Then leveled and smoothed the soil with a shed or rake typically pulled behind a team of two horses. When the ground was ready to plant, they would make the furrows for planting with a one horse single shovel plow and drop the corn by hand and cover with a hoe. Then when the corn was ready to cultivate, they would plow with a single or double shovel plow with one horse. It wasn't an easy job plowing corn among stumps, the plow getting snagged fast on stumps or roots and jerking the plow over or around the stumps. I know, for I have worked in stumpy ground. They would have to go over the field about two times during the season with an ax or a spouting hoe and cut sprouts off the stumps. I wonder what the young farmers today would do if they had to go into a 5 or 10 acres field of corn among stumps to cultivate? They should be thankful that the pioneers and their forefathers got the ground cleared so they can farm the easy way, all riding tools, and no horses to bother with.
At about this time, or after the days of buckskin clothing that everybody wore homespun clothing. The girls like the boys, had no idle hours for there was the carding of wool by hand into rolls, spinning them on a large wheel, walking to and fro through the long and weary days, turning the wheel with one hand and holding the thread with the other. Then the yarn was reeled into skeins, dyed and washed, then put upon the warping bars and then into the loom. Each thread of the warp must be through the "gears," and through the "reed," then the shuttle was thrown backward and forward and the thread beaten in with the "late."
There was the weaving of linen for sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths and underclothing or tow and wool, the making of "linsey-woolsey" for gowns or of all-wool cloth for men's garments. From early morning till the fire burned low on the hearth at night mother and daughter were at work wielding the hand-cards, throwing the shuttle, or whirling the wheel.
When the carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving are done, there was still more to do--the making of quilts, coverlets, and sheets, for no girl could think or being married till she had a bountiful supply of these things.
========================================================
By 1831-1832 the John YORK family concluded the warmer climate in Arkansas was a better choice without the cold windy weathers of bitter snowy winters in Crawford County, Illinois. Apparently by 1832 John York, Jr. and his young wife with their young family of five children joined a wagon train with their belongings with live stock to migrate south into the much warmer Hempstead County, Arkansas. Perhaps part of their journey included floating down the Ohio and Mississippi River as part of a wagon train to migrated south into Arkansas. Hempstead County was formed on December 15, 1818, from parts of Arkansas County and was named for Edward Hempstead, Missouri Territory's representative to Congress. Hempstead County was one of the first counties organized under the laws of the Territory of Missouri. The landscape is rolling hills with much agriculture and farming.
The economy is made up of food processing, poultry and egg production, along with beef cattle, soybeans and fruit. Each summer the Hope Watermelon Festival is held and draws not only local citizens but also hundreds of tourists.
The county has two Wildlife Management Areas, Bois D'Arc and Hope, along with Millwood Lake, which features camping, picnicking, and swimming as well as hunting and fishing.
The town of Washington, Arkansas includes the Old Washington State Park hold lots of history for the county. It was a well traveled route for settlers and a stopover for Sam Houston and Davy Crockett on their way to Texas and the Alamo. A Washington Arkansas Blacksmith made Jim Bowie's famous knife and such is still being crafted at the same site. The largest magnolia tree in Arkansas, planted in 1839, grows in Washington.
Hope, the county seat is also the hometown of President
William Jefferson Clinton where his boyhood home has been restored and is open to the public.
Soon after the John YORK family arrived in southwest Arkansas in 1832 their next five new children were born in Homestead County, before the next migration into the new State of Texas by about 1850.
The next identified children are:
6. Andrew Jackson YORK, born 02 Aug 1833, Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 1870, Navarro County, Texas. (This person is often confused by some researchers with another Andrew Jackson YORK born in North Carolina in 1835 and another born in Georgia in 1833)
7. Amanda Melvina "Manda" YORK, born 15 Aug 1838 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 16 Nov 1883 in Pursley, Navarro County, Texas.
8. Nathaniel A YORK, born 1840 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died aft 1870 in Navarro County, Texas.
9. Francis Marion YORK, born 29 Aug 1846 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 01 Jun 1898 in Point, Rains County, Texas.
10. Albert Louis YORK Sr., born 15 Jan 1848 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 18 Feb 1917 in Lakeview, Hall County, Texas.
There may be additional children that have not yet been confirmed.
****This site is UNDER CONSTRUCTION****
John YORK, Jr. is the son of John YORK, Sr. and his wife Martha Jane WHITE of Randolph County, North Carolina.
When Illinois became the 21st state in 1818 that event opened this Indiana territory with new land for pioneer settlers and farmers. John York, Jr., age about 27, was attracted to the adventure of acquiring some of this new land. John YORK, Jr and others joined a covered wagon train leaving Randolph County traveling the long journey into the wilderness of Crawford County, Illinois looking for new land to claim and settle upon.
Most likely John YORK, Jr. arrived in Crawford County sometime after the 1820 U S Census by about 1824. It is suggested that as the wagon train traveled and camped for weeks in route to Illinois. Perhaps John became friends with the young Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM as they traveled, cooked and camped. Based upon the 1830 U S Census records of Crawford County it is proposed that John YORK, Jr. age 28, married Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM, age 18, in the spring on 27 June 1825 in Crawford County. This is confirmed by the 1830 US Census Records that support the gender structure and ages of the early John YORK, Jr. family.
While in Crawford County at least six children were born; however, one or more sons cannot be located or they he not survive. They were the parents to at least five identified surviving children in Crawford County, Illinois while they lived there for about eight years from about 1824 until 1832:
1. William Henry YORK, born 28 Sep 1826 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 15 Jul 1903 in Comanche County, Texas.
2. Richard Green YORK, born 04 May 1827 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 1912 in Riesel, McLennan County, Texas
3. John Smith YORK, Sr., born 1829 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 07 Feb 1924 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
4. Charlotte T. "Charlotty" YORK, born 1831 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died aft 1860 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
5. Nancy Jane YORK, born 1832 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 23 Apr 1907 in Redland, Nevada County, Arkansas.
=======================================================
The following remarks have been extracted from:
http://genealogytrails.com/ill/crawford/earlyhistory.html
"Interesting Incidents in Early Crawford County History"
Related by Pioneer Citizen
The Argus, June 6, 1940
by E. A. Wolfe; Transcribed by Cindy McCachern
https://crawford.illinoisgenweb.org/news/wolfe.php
Native Americans still populated this area of Illinois and were often a threat to the new settlers. Not only were they a physical danger to the women and children but stealing items, horses and live stock from these isolated log cabin farming households and corals.
The pioneer cabins were built of small logs and covered with clapboards, upon which were held by weighted poles to keep them in place, nails being out of the question. The chimney which occupied a large portion of one end of the house, was built on the outside, of sticks and clay and they had dirt floors. The size of the cabins can be determined from the fact that four bear skins cut square covered the floor and made a luxurious carpet. Window glass was unknown in the early cabins. A hole in the wall was left for light. social life at first was confined to house raising and weddings. That is, these succeeded the days of "forting." (Alternating between a secure fort and the construction of new log cabin home.) The fun at these events was boisterous and rough outdoor activities was cooperative community day long work.
Deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken and all smaller game were here in abundance. Bear meat was plentiful, some of the settlers killing four or five a week. Venison was not a rarity in a household where the head of the family has been known to kill 19 deer before breakfast. A saddle of venison (both hind quarters of a deer not cut apart) was worth 25 cents, but not much sale for it at that. Wolves, bear, panthers, and wild cats were here in great numbers.
Men and women both wore buckskin clothing. The young ladies of the period wore deerskin dresses. The hair was removed and the skins dressed with deer's brains so as to be soft and pliable, and when colored yellow with hickory bark and alum, or red with sassafras, made rather a stylish looking outfit. The men wore buckskin breeches and jackets.
The daily food of the pioneers was cornbread, hominy, bear meat, venison, honey and sassafras tea. The corn meal was made by pounding corn in a stump mortar. A stump mortar was made by cutting off a tree about three feet from the ground and burning or digging a hole a foot in diameter in top of the stump. Into this the corn was placed and a hard hickory pestle or an iron wedge attached to a spring pole was used to pound it fine, and was then sifted through a homemade sieve made by stretching a deer skin tanned with ashes over a hoop. The holes in the sieve were made with a small iron instrument heated hot. The smaller the iron the finer the meal. That portion which went through the sieve was called meal, that which remained was used as hominy. As civilization advanced homemade horse hair sieves came in fashion. The bread stuff for each day was pounded up before breakfast.
A kind of sympathy or brotherhood existed among the pioneers which has now almost faded away with other landmarks of the early period. When a covered wagon was spied coming over the prairie or through the forest, the cry would be, "There comes another settler," and all would start to meet the newcomer and give him a hearty welcome. They would take axes and help cut out a trail to his land and aid him in selecting a site for his cabin. In two or three days sufficient logs would be cut and his cabin erected, a hole cut in the side for a door and the family housed in their new home. This was pioneer friendship and hospitality and far more sincere than it is at the present day.
After the settlers got established in their new home, they would take the ax, the maul, and wedge and go to the timber, cut some trees that will split and make rails enough to fence six or eight acres of five foot log rails high.
Then they would commence on their clearing, cutting down trees and piling the brush from morning until night, day after day until they got the trees all cut down and the brush piled on the amount of ground they intended to clear.
Then they would cut the trees into lengths so they could be handled. Then before time to commence plowing they would invite their neighbors and some of them lived 10 or 15 miles away, to come at a specified time and they would pile the logs. That was called a log rolling.
Then after they got the log heaps burned and the brush piles (they usually burned the brush piles after night) they would plow the new or stump ground. If the person who did the plowing had any "cuss words" laid back and hidden away they would surely come out when his plow hits a stump or gets fastened under a root, and his horses don't stop quick enough and a trace chain or a singletree or the double-tree or perhaps the plow beam breaks, then is when the cuss words get used. All of the settlers who selected homes in the timber had to go through all of this hard work and a lot more before they got their farms cleared and fenced.
After the plowing was done, they harrowed the ground. Then leveled and smoothed the soil with a shed or rake typically pulled behind a team of two horses. When the ground was ready to plant, they would make the furrows for planting with a one horse single shovel plow and drop the corn by hand and cover with a hoe. Then when the corn was ready to cultivate, they would plow with a single or double shovel plow with one horse. It wasn't an easy job plowing corn among stumps, the plow getting snagged fast on stumps or roots and jerking the plow over or around the stumps. I know, for I have worked in stumpy ground. They would have to go over the field about two times during the season with an ax or a spouting hoe and cut sprouts off the stumps. I wonder what the young farmers today would do if they had to go into a 5 or 10 acres field of corn among stumps to cultivate? They should be thankful that the pioneers and their forefathers got the ground cleared so they can farm the easy way, all riding tools, and no horses to bother with.
At about this time, or after the days of buckskin clothing that everybody wore homespun clothing. The girls like the boys, had no idle hours for there was the carding of wool by hand into rolls, spinning them on a large wheel, walking to and fro through the long and weary days, turning the wheel with one hand and holding the thread with the other. Then the yarn was reeled into skeins, dyed and washed, then put upon the warping bars and then into the loom. Each thread of the warp must be through the "gears," and through the "reed," then the shuttle was thrown backward and forward and the thread beaten in with the "late."
There was the weaving of linen for sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths and underclothing or tow and wool, the making of "linsey-woolsey" for gowns or of all-wool cloth for men's garments. From early morning till the fire burned low on the hearth at night mother and daughter were at work wielding the hand-cards, throwing the shuttle, or whirling the wheel.
When the carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving are done, there was still more to do--the making of quilts, coverlets, and sheets, for no girl could think or being married till she had a bountiful supply of these things.
========================================================
By 1831-1832 the John YORK family concluded the warmer climate in Arkansas was a better choice without the cold windy weathers of bitter snowy winters in Crawford County, Illinois. Apparently by 1832 John York, Jr. and his young wife with their young family of five children joined a wagon train with their belongings with live stock to migrate south into the much warmer Hempstead County, Arkansas. Perhaps part of their journey included floating down the Ohio and Mississippi River as part of a wagon train to migrated south into Arkansas. Hempstead County was formed on December 15, 1818, from parts of Arkansas County and was named for Edward Hempstead, Missouri Territory's representative to Congress. Hempstead County was one of the first counties organized under the laws of the Territory of Missouri. The landscape is rolling hills with much agriculture and farming.
The economy is made up of food processing, poultry and egg production, along with beef cattle, soybeans and fruit. Each summer the Hope Watermelon Festival is held and draws not only local citizens but also hundreds of tourists.
The county has two Wildlife Management Areas, Bois D'Arc and Hope, along with Millwood Lake, which features camping, picnicking, and swimming as well as hunting and fishing.
The town of Washington, Arkansas includes the Old Washington State Park hold lots of history for the county. It was a well traveled route for settlers and a stopover for Sam Houston and Davy Crockett on their way to Texas and the Alamo. A Washington Arkansas Blacksmith made Jim Bowie's famous knife and such is still being crafted at the same site. The largest magnolia tree in Arkansas, planted in 1839, grows in Washington.
Hope, the county seat is also the hometown of President
William Jefferson Clinton where his boyhood home has been restored and is open to the public.
Soon after the John YORK family arrived in southwest Arkansas in 1832 their next five new children were born in Homestead County, before the next migration into the new State of Texas by about 1850.
The next identified children are:
6. Andrew Jackson YORK, born 02 Aug 1833, Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 1870, Navarro County, Texas. (This person is often confused by some researchers with another Andrew Jackson YORK born in North Carolina in 1835 and another born in Georgia in 1833)
7. Amanda Melvina "Manda" YORK, born 15 Aug 1838 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 16 Nov 1883 in Pursley, Navarro County, Texas.
8. Nathaniel A YORK, born 1840 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died aft 1870 in Navarro County, Texas.
9. Francis Marion YORK, born 29 Aug 1846 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 01 Jun 1898 in Point, Rains County, Texas.
10. Albert Louis YORK Sr., born 15 Jan 1848 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 18 Feb 1917 in Lakeview, Hall County, Texas.
There may be additional children that have not yet been confirmed.
****This site is UNDER CONSTRUCTION****
When Illinois became the 21st state in 1818 that event opened this Indiana territory with new land for pioneer settlers and farmers. John York, Jr., age about 27, was attracted to the adventure of acquiring some of this new land. John YORK, Jr and others joined a covered wagon train leaving Randolph County traveling the long journey into the wilderness of Crawford County, Illinois looking for new land to claim and settle upon.
Most likely John YORK, Jr. arrived in Crawford County sometime after the 1820 U S Census by about 1824. It is suggested that as the wagon train traveled and camped for weeks in route to Illinois. Perhaps John became friends with the young Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM as they traveled, cooked and camped. Based upon the 1830 U S Census records of Crawford County it is proposed that John YORK, Jr. age 28, married Sarah Kathrine "Sally" MANGRUM, age 18, in the spring on 27 June 1825 in Crawford County. This is confirmed by the 1830 US Census Records that support the gender structure and ages of the early John YORK, Jr. family.
While in Crawford County at least six children were born; however, one or more sons cannot be located or they he not survive. They were the parents to at least five identified surviving children in Crawford County, Illinois while they lived there for about eight years from about 1824 until 1832:
1. William Henry YORK, born 28 Sep 1826 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 15 Jul 1903 in Comanche County, Texas.
2. Richard Green YORK, born 04 May 1827 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 1912 in Riesel, McLennan County, Texas
3. John Smith YORK, Sr., born 1829 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 07 Feb 1924 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
4. Charlotte T. "Charlotty" YORK, born 1831 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died aft 1860 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.
5. Nancy Jane YORK, born 1832 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died 23 Apr 1907 in Redland, Nevada County, Arkansas.
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The following remarks have been extracted from:
http://genealogytrails.com/ill/crawford/earlyhistory.html
"Interesting Incidents in Early Crawford County History"
Related by Pioneer Citizen
The Argus, June 6, 1940
by E. A. Wolfe; Transcribed by Cindy McCachern
https://crawford.illinoisgenweb.org/news/wolfe.php
Native Americans still populated this area of Illinois and were often a threat to the new settlers. Not only were they a physical danger to the women and children but stealing items, horses and live stock from these isolated log cabin farming households and corals.
The pioneer cabins were built of small logs and covered with clapboards, upon which were held by weighted poles to keep them in place, nails being out of the question. The chimney which occupied a large portion of one end of the house, was built on the outside, of sticks and clay and they had dirt floors. The size of the cabins can be determined from the fact that four bear skins cut square covered the floor and made a luxurious carpet. Window glass was unknown in the early cabins. A hole in the wall was left for light. social life at first was confined to house raising and weddings. That is, these succeeded the days of "forting." (Alternating between a secure fort and the construction of new log cabin home.) The fun at these events was boisterous and rough outdoor activities was cooperative community day long work.
Deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken and all smaller game were here in abundance. Bear meat was plentiful, some of the settlers killing four or five a week. Venison was not a rarity in a household where the head of the family has been known to kill 19 deer before breakfast. A saddle of venison (both hind quarters of a deer not cut apart) was worth 25 cents, but not much sale for it at that. Wolves, bear, panthers, and wild cats were here in great numbers.
Men and women both wore buckskin clothing. The young ladies of the period wore deerskin dresses. The hair was removed and the skins dressed with deer's brains so as to be soft and pliable, and when colored yellow with hickory bark and alum, or red with sassafras, made rather a stylish looking outfit. The men wore buckskin breeches and jackets.
The daily food of the pioneers was cornbread, hominy, bear meat, venison, honey and sassafras tea. The corn meal was made by pounding corn in a stump mortar. A stump mortar was made by cutting off a tree about three feet from the ground and burning or digging a hole a foot in diameter in top of the stump. Into this the corn was placed and a hard hickory pestle or an iron wedge attached to a spring pole was used to pound it fine, and was then sifted through a homemade sieve made by stretching a deer skin tanned with ashes over a hoop. The holes in the sieve were made with a small iron instrument heated hot. The smaller the iron the finer the meal. That portion which went through the sieve was called meal, that which remained was used as hominy. As civilization advanced homemade horse hair sieves came in fashion. The bread stuff for each day was pounded up before breakfast.
A kind of sympathy or brotherhood existed among the pioneers which has now almost faded away with other landmarks of the early period. When a covered wagon was spied coming over the prairie or through the forest, the cry would be, "There comes another settler," and all would start to meet the newcomer and give him a hearty welcome. They would take axes and help cut out a trail to his land and aid him in selecting a site for his cabin. In two or three days sufficient logs would be cut and his cabin erected, a hole cut in the side for a door and the family housed in their new home. This was pioneer friendship and hospitality and far more sincere than it is at the present day.
After the settlers got established in their new home, they would take the ax, the maul, and wedge and go to the timber, cut some trees that will split and make rails enough to fence six or eight acres of five foot log rails high.
Then they would commence on their clearing, cutting down trees and piling the brush from morning until night, day after day until they got the trees all cut down and the brush piled on the amount of ground they intended to clear.
Then they would cut the trees into lengths so they could be handled. Then before time to commence plowing they would invite their neighbors and some of them lived 10 or 15 miles away, to come at a specified time and they would pile the logs. That was called a log rolling.
Then after they got the log heaps burned and the brush piles (they usually burned the brush piles after night) they would plow the new or stump ground. If the person who did the plowing had any "cuss words" laid back and hidden away they would surely come out when his plow hits a stump or gets fastened under a root, and his horses don't stop quick enough and a trace chain or a singletree or the double-tree or perhaps the plow beam breaks, then is when the cuss words get used. All of the settlers who selected homes in the timber had to go through all of this hard work and a lot more before they got their farms cleared and fenced.
After the plowing was done, they harrowed the ground. Then leveled and smoothed the soil with a shed or rake typically pulled behind a team of two horses. When the ground was ready to plant, they would make the furrows for planting with a one horse single shovel plow and drop the corn by hand and cover with a hoe. Then when the corn was ready to cultivate, they would plow with a single or double shovel plow with one horse. It wasn't an easy job plowing corn among stumps, the plow getting snagged fast on stumps or roots and jerking the plow over or around the stumps. I know, for I have worked in stumpy ground. They would have to go over the field about two times during the season with an ax or a spouting hoe and cut sprouts off the stumps. I wonder what the young farmers today would do if they had to go into a 5 or 10 acres field of corn among stumps to cultivate? They should be thankful that the pioneers and their forefathers got the ground cleared so they can farm the easy way, all riding tools, and no horses to bother with.
At about this time, or after the days of buckskin clothing that everybody wore homespun clothing. The girls like the boys, had no idle hours for there was the carding of wool by hand into rolls, spinning them on a large wheel, walking to and fro through the long and weary days, turning the wheel with one hand and holding the thread with the other. Then the yarn was reeled into skeins, dyed and washed, then put upon the warping bars and then into the loom. Each thread of the warp must be through the "gears," and through the "reed," then the shuttle was thrown backward and forward and the thread beaten in with the "late."
There was the weaving of linen for sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths and underclothing or tow and wool, the making of "linsey-woolsey" for gowns or of all-wool cloth for men's garments. From early morning till the fire burned low on the hearth at night mother and daughter were at work wielding the hand-cards, throwing the shuttle, or whirling the wheel.
When the carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving are done, there was still more to do--the making of quilts, coverlets, and sheets, for no girl could think or being married till she had a bountiful supply of these things.
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By 1831-1832 the John YORK family concluded the warmer climate in Arkansas was a better choice without the cold windy weathers of bitter snowy winters in Crawford County, Illinois. Apparently by 1832 John York, Jr. and his young wife with their young family of five children joined a wagon train with their belongings with live stock to migrate south into the much warmer Hempstead County, Arkansas. Perhaps part of their journey included floating down the Ohio and Mississippi River as part of a wagon train to migrated south into Arkansas. Hempstead County was formed on December 15, 1818, from parts of Arkansas County and was named for Edward Hempstead, Missouri Territory's representative to Congress. Hempstead County was one of the first counties organized under the laws of the Territory of Missouri. The landscape is rolling hills with much agriculture and farming.
The economy is made up of food processing, poultry and egg production, along with beef cattle, soybeans and fruit. Each summer the Hope Watermelon Festival is held and draws not only local citizens but also hundreds of tourists.
The county has two Wildlife Management Areas, Bois D'Arc and Hope, along with Millwood Lake, which features camping, picnicking, and swimming as well as hunting and fishing.
The town of Washington, Arkansas includes the Old Washington State Park hold lots of history for the county. It was a well traveled route for settlers and a stopover for Sam Houston and Davy Crockett on their way to Texas and the Alamo. A Washington Arkansas Blacksmith made Jim Bowie's famous knife and such is still being crafted at the same site. The largest magnolia tree in Arkansas, planted in 1839, grows in Washington.
Hope, the county seat is also the hometown of President
William Jefferson Clinton where his boyhood home has been restored and is open to the public.
Soon after the John YORK family arrived in southwest Arkansas in 1832 their next five new children were born in Homestead County, before the next migration into the new State of Texas by about 1850.
The next identified children are:
6. Andrew Jackson YORK, born 02 Aug 1833, Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 1870, Navarro County, Texas. (This person is often confused by some researchers with another Andrew Jackson YORK born in North Carolina in 1835 and another born in Georgia in 1833)
7. Amanda Melvina "Manda" YORK, born 15 Aug 1838 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 16 Nov 1883 in Pursley, Navarro County, Texas.
8. Nathaniel A YORK, born 1840 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died aft 1870 in Navarro County, Texas.
9. Francis Marion YORK, born 29 Aug 1846 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 01 Jun 1898 in Point, Rains County, Texas.
10. Albert Louis YORK Sr., born 15 Jan 1848 in Hempstead County, Arkansas; died 18 Feb 1917 in Lakeview, Hall County, Texas.
There may be additional children that have not yet been confirmed.
****This site is UNDER CONSTRUCTION****
Gravesite Details
No tombstone has yet to be located in this very old cemetery where a child is buried, but the high probability exists he is interred here at one of the rocks or unreadable markers.
Family Members
Siblings
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