Post by cottonpicker on Sept 1, 2011 8:42:35 GMT -5
TRAGIC BEGINNINGS
Larry D. Davis
In the hills and hollows of Johnson County in eastern Kentucky, the area known
as Appalachia, in the 1880’s there lived a family whose roots had been established there
in the 1830’s when Thomas Short, my maternal great, great, great grandfather, a
frontiersman clad in his leather buckskins and armed with a flintlock rifle, first came
thru the Cumberland Gap from his home in Wythe County, southwest Virginia, and
discovered a new homesite. He was born in 1795 in Virginia and was a frontiersman
who made frequent hunting trips during good weather of summertime into Kentucky to
hunt, trap and sell the valuable animal hides and furs to support his family back in
Virginia.
During one of these hunting trips he discovered a choice piece of land and decided to
move there and settle since southwest Virginia was “becoming too crowded for him” and
he deemed Kentucky a lush and unspoiled land with plenty of wild game and freshwater
streams. He approached the landowner, a man named Montgomery, who earlier had
obtained a rather large Land Grant and had built a log fort (blockhouse) on the property
to protect his holdings against intruders and Indian attacks. Thomas struck a deal with
Montgomery and agreed to pay a certain sum of money along with some additional
flintlock hunting rifles and two of his highly prized bear hunting dogs in exchange for the
parcel of land which is now located in Johnson County, Kentucky. According to Lucy
Neal, a cousin of my grandmother and who was also a great granddaughter of Thomas
Short, told me back in the 1950’s that the original Bill of Sale from Mr. Montgomery was
written on a tanned animal hide and was handed down in the Short family for many years
before it was finally lost. That parcel of land is still known to this very day as the “Short
Branch” and is located near Meally, Kentucky. Thomas Short and his wife, Rachel, are
buried on that property and it is there on the “Short Branch” where Thomas’s great
granddaughter, Sarah Augusta Short, my maternal grandmother, was born in a log cabin
on January 30, 1886, the daughter of Silas James and IO Pandora (Lawrence) Short.
The family of Silas James Short, my great grandfather, resided in a two-story log
cabin on the parcel of land originally purchased by his grandfather, Thomas,
and inherited from his father, Granderson Short. Silas was a college educated minister of
the gospel for the Christian Church and was trained in the then renowned Lexington,
Kentucky “School of the Bible”. He made a living as a Circuit Riding preacher
throughout the mountains of eastern Kentucky and across the river in West Virginia
during the late 1870s, 80’s and 90’s while he traveled horseback holding gospel meetings
and residing with local families while spreading the gospel and baptizing souls. It was
called a “saddlebag ministry” in those days and was quite common in the very rural and
isolated areas of this young country during it’s frontier days.
In 1906, the Short’s two-story log cabin caught fire one cold wintry night and destroyed all their earthly belongings along with their comfortable home. Downstairs…everyone escaped unharmed, including my (future) grandmother, aged 20, but upstairs where the boys were sleeping, grandmother’s younger brother, Charles, made several attempts to get the two youngest boys, Milton and Paul, to safety but in terror they kept running away from him for fear of being tossed out the window and onto the ground 15 feet below…to safety. The stairway leading downstairs had already been destroyed and, at last, he had to abandon all rescue efforts and jump out of the window in order to save himself. The two small boys died in the flames as the log house was consumed and Charley’s hands were burned so badly that they required many weeks of medical attention to heal. I remember seeing his burn-scarred hands when I was a youngster but later as the years dimmed the scars they were barely noticeable. This “Uncle Charley”, many years later, was the same person who slipped me the “Last Chaw” of tobacco. The family, totally devastated by their losses from the fire, huddled together in the cold….but, without Milton and Paul, ages seven and nine.
Soon… struggling to recover from their tragic loss...the family decided to leave their Kentucky home place and “go West” where, hopefully, dimmed memories and brighter
prospects awaited them. They started their trek towards Oklahoma Territory which was rumored and destined to become a new state very soon. They already had old friends, the Trigg Music family, living there who had left Kentucky little more than a year earlier in 1905 and had settled in Washita County of the Oklahoma Territory.
The S.J. Short family and mother-in-law, Sarah Augusta Glover, arrived in Oklahoma Territory on my grandmother’s 21st birthday, January 30, 1907; in the midst of a heavy winter snowstorm. The details of this story were told to me by my grandmother
over 50 years ago when I began working on our family’s genealogy. She told me how their little family group, huddling together, made it’s way in the blinding blizzard to a two-story wooden hotel, the Elk Hotel, which was located in my hometown of Elk City, Oklahoma at the western terminus of the Choctaw Railroad line thru Oklahoma Territory. The old hotel stood there on 6th Street for many years until about 1976 when it was demolished under the guise of “urban renewal”.
After arriving in Oklahoma Territory, the family finally settled about 15 miles southeast of Elk City on two parcels of land close to their old Kentucky friends, Archibald & Sarah C. Music. One parcel was for my great grandfather, Silas Short, who bought the land outright for cash from a Mr. Abraham Cole and the other was “homeststeaded” on government-held land by Silas’s mother-in-law, Sarah Augusta Glover aged 64 years, who had accompanied the family to the Territory. They constructed a half-dugout on the land for her to live in and she worked the land, improved it and after the required five years was granted a Deed to the land according to the Federal Homestead Act of 1862. I have a copy of that document which was signed by the Secretary of the Interior under President Theodore Roosevelt. Thus, began their new life in a new land after such tragic beginnings.
The Short family sent letters back East telling about their new life and inviting others to join them in their exciting venture and two years later, a 29 year old Walter Bowen, a distant relative by marriage came to the same area from Wayne County, West Virginia, courted and married Sarah Augusta Short and they raised a family of seven children on their cotton farm. One of them--- Beatrice Marie Bowen, born on August 17, 1917 on their farm in Beckham County, Oklahoma was my mother.
©2009Larry D. Davis
Larry D. Davis
In the hills and hollows of Johnson County in eastern Kentucky, the area known
as Appalachia, in the 1880’s there lived a family whose roots had been established there
in the 1830’s when Thomas Short, my maternal great, great, great grandfather, a
frontiersman clad in his leather buckskins and armed with a flintlock rifle, first came
thru the Cumberland Gap from his home in Wythe County, southwest Virginia, and
discovered a new homesite. He was born in 1795 in Virginia and was a frontiersman
who made frequent hunting trips during good weather of summertime into Kentucky to
hunt, trap and sell the valuable animal hides and furs to support his family back in
Virginia.
During one of these hunting trips he discovered a choice piece of land and decided to
move there and settle since southwest Virginia was “becoming too crowded for him” and
he deemed Kentucky a lush and unspoiled land with plenty of wild game and freshwater
streams. He approached the landowner, a man named Montgomery, who earlier had
obtained a rather large Land Grant and had built a log fort (blockhouse) on the property
to protect his holdings against intruders and Indian attacks. Thomas struck a deal with
Montgomery and agreed to pay a certain sum of money along with some additional
flintlock hunting rifles and two of his highly prized bear hunting dogs in exchange for the
parcel of land which is now located in Johnson County, Kentucky. According to Lucy
Neal, a cousin of my grandmother and who was also a great granddaughter of Thomas
Short, told me back in the 1950’s that the original Bill of Sale from Mr. Montgomery was
written on a tanned animal hide and was handed down in the Short family for many years
before it was finally lost. That parcel of land is still known to this very day as the “Short
Branch” and is located near Meally, Kentucky. Thomas Short and his wife, Rachel, are
buried on that property and it is there on the “Short Branch” where Thomas’s great
granddaughter, Sarah Augusta Short, my maternal grandmother, was born in a log cabin
on January 30, 1886, the daughter of Silas James and IO Pandora (Lawrence) Short.
The family of Silas James Short, my great grandfather, resided in a two-story log
cabin on the parcel of land originally purchased by his grandfather, Thomas,
and inherited from his father, Granderson Short. Silas was a college educated minister of
the gospel for the Christian Church and was trained in the then renowned Lexington,
Kentucky “School of the Bible”. He made a living as a Circuit Riding preacher
throughout the mountains of eastern Kentucky and across the river in West Virginia
during the late 1870s, 80’s and 90’s while he traveled horseback holding gospel meetings
and residing with local families while spreading the gospel and baptizing souls. It was
called a “saddlebag ministry” in those days and was quite common in the very rural and
isolated areas of this young country during it’s frontier days.
In 1906, the Short’s two-story log cabin caught fire one cold wintry night and destroyed all their earthly belongings along with their comfortable home. Downstairs…everyone escaped unharmed, including my (future) grandmother, aged 20, but upstairs where the boys were sleeping, grandmother’s younger brother, Charles, made several attempts to get the two youngest boys, Milton and Paul, to safety but in terror they kept running away from him for fear of being tossed out the window and onto the ground 15 feet below…to safety. The stairway leading downstairs had already been destroyed and, at last, he had to abandon all rescue efforts and jump out of the window in order to save himself. The two small boys died in the flames as the log house was consumed and Charley’s hands were burned so badly that they required many weeks of medical attention to heal. I remember seeing his burn-scarred hands when I was a youngster but later as the years dimmed the scars they were barely noticeable. This “Uncle Charley”, many years later, was the same person who slipped me the “Last Chaw” of tobacco. The family, totally devastated by their losses from the fire, huddled together in the cold….but, without Milton and Paul, ages seven and nine.
Soon… struggling to recover from their tragic loss...the family decided to leave their Kentucky home place and “go West” where, hopefully, dimmed memories and brighter
prospects awaited them. They started their trek towards Oklahoma Territory which was rumored and destined to become a new state very soon. They already had old friends, the Trigg Music family, living there who had left Kentucky little more than a year earlier in 1905 and had settled in Washita County of the Oklahoma Territory.
The S.J. Short family and mother-in-law, Sarah Augusta Glover, arrived in Oklahoma Territory on my grandmother’s 21st birthday, January 30, 1907; in the midst of a heavy winter snowstorm. The details of this story were told to me by my grandmother
over 50 years ago when I began working on our family’s genealogy. She told me how their little family group, huddling together, made it’s way in the blinding blizzard to a two-story wooden hotel, the Elk Hotel, which was located in my hometown of Elk City, Oklahoma at the western terminus of the Choctaw Railroad line thru Oklahoma Territory. The old hotel stood there on 6th Street for many years until about 1976 when it was demolished under the guise of “urban renewal”.
After arriving in Oklahoma Territory, the family finally settled about 15 miles southeast of Elk City on two parcels of land close to their old Kentucky friends, Archibald & Sarah C. Music. One parcel was for my great grandfather, Silas Short, who bought the land outright for cash from a Mr. Abraham Cole and the other was “homeststeaded” on government-held land by Silas’s mother-in-law, Sarah Augusta Glover aged 64 years, who had accompanied the family to the Territory. They constructed a half-dugout on the land for her to live in and she worked the land, improved it and after the required five years was granted a Deed to the land according to the Federal Homestead Act of 1862. I have a copy of that document which was signed by the Secretary of the Interior under President Theodore Roosevelt. Thus, began their new life in a new land after such tragic beginnings.
The Short family sent letters back East telling about their new life and inviting others to join them in their exciting venture and two years later, a 29 year old Walter Bowen, a distant relative by marriage came to the same area from Wayne County, West Virginia, courted and married Sarah Augusta Short and they raised a family of seven children on their cotton farm. One of them--- Beatrice Marie Bowen, born on August 17, 1917 on their farm in Beckham County, Oklahoma was my mother.
©2009Larry D. Davis