# Ancestor Challenge 2019, Week 16, Elijah Out of Place

# Ancestor Challenge 2019, Week 16, Prompt: Out of Place

Leaving That Place

By the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Forde

Elijah and Martha Brooks McDonald left family and friends in Alabama after the War Between the States.  My second great grandparents were seeking a new life in Texas for themselves and their three children, Rebecca, Laura, and Caleb.  Martha had been ill following the death of a four-year-old, William J., in 1863, followed by two more births.  So they left that place, only to be devastated by Martha’s death en route.  They were forced to stop in Fort Smith, Arkansas, unable to continue their journey onto Texas. 

Elijah and Martha Brooks McDonald

K

The ‘out of place’ McDonald family found refuge and healing with William Tillman Johnston, and his younger sister, Martha Elizabeth Johnston, of Greenwood, Sebastian County, Arkansas.  Elijah married Martha Elizabeth and his daughter, my great grandmother, Rebecca Jarrett McDonald, married William Johnston.  This is the story of Elijah and his second wife, Martha Elizabeth Johnson, and their marriage in Rocky, Montgomery County, Arkansas. 

Martha Elizabeth Johnston 

In the Year of 1842 

•      John Tyler was the president of the United States.

•      Tennesseans were experiencing growth in commerce and wealth that was unprecedented.

•       The trees in east Tennessee whispered to the hills and valleys below, “James and Jane Johnston had a baby girl!” [1]

Martha Elizabeth Johnston was the tenth of eleven children born to James and Jane Tillman Johnston.[2]James, a native of South Carolina, was a veteran of the War of 1812.[3]The Johnstons migrated to Tennessee about 1830.

The state of Tennessee offered a bright future for the Johnstons. In and around the hillsides, in the shadows of the mountains, and along the fertile river valleys and forests of East Tennessee, large farms were producing dairy cattle, corn, cotton, and tobacco. The state was largely rural and experiencing unprecedented growth in commerce and farm wealth during the years before the War Between the States.[4]

The Johnstons were completely self-sufficient. Like most farmers, James worked to provide food, clothing, and necessities for the family’s consumption. Tobacco and cotton were commercial crops from the beginning. They were profitable and easily transported to market on the rivers that were the means of transportation by land-locked Tennesseans plagued by poor roads. Corn was another crop; some farmers turned it into whiskey or fed it to animals.

Martha’s family was deeply religious.[5]They may have been influenced by the camp meetings, the Methodist and Baptist revival movements that swept the Southern landscape early in the nineteenth century.[6]Undoubtedly, they sought refuge in their faith following the death of Martha’s mother, Jane Johnston, in February 1844 shortly after the birth of her eleventh child.

James married a second wife, Sarah Millburn, on 2 May 1847, but there is no record of any children born to them.[7]Sarah must have been an incredible woman to take on the role of stepmother to the nine children still living at home in 1850. Six years after their marriage, James and Sarah moved from Tennessee to Arkansas.[8]James had received bounty land in Bates, Sebastian County, Arkansas, for his military service in the War of 1812.

The move paralleled the anti-slavery movement and political upheaval in Tennessee in the decade before the War Between the States. No evidence exists to show that the Johnstons were slave owners. Instead, they may have opposed slavery. A “colored” woman, Mary Ann Lehre Johnston, was living in their home.[9]It is not known if she was a servant or was taken in as a runaway slave.

Mattie was twenty-two years old and unmarried when her father passed away in 1865. She went to live with her brother, William Tillman Johnston, who was described by family traditions as a wealthy man.[10]It is probable that Will was married to his first wife at that time. Most of Mattie’s other siblings were married and scattered throughout several states.

Mattie, a devout woman, small in stature, was still unmarried in 1872 at age twenty-nine. She may have been engaged to a soldier who was killed in the war. He wrote a love letter to Mattie that has survived to this day. No one knows the author’s name or circumstances. It is significant that she kept it.

About the time Mattie had made peace with spinsterhood, a life-changing event occurred. Sometime between 1872 and 1873, a family from Alabama knocked on the door needing assistance. The McDonald family may have been complete strangers traveling through Arkansas when circumstances caused them to stop. Or it is possible that they had mutual acquaintances.

Martha and Elijah 

Elijah McDonald[11]was migrating from Alabama with his wife, Martha, and their three children. His wife, who had been ill, passed away.[12]He needed help. Will and Mattie Johnston opened their home to the grieving McDonalds. Elijah and his daughter Becky stayed in the Johnston home. Laura Belle, a younger daughter, stayed with John Moad Sr. and his family. Mattie’s sister, Patience Johnston, took in Elijah’s son, Caleb.

In the course of events that followed, Will was widowed. Will married Elijah’s daughter, Becky, in January 1874. The following July, Elijah married Mattie.[13]Both families stayed in Greenwood for a few years.

Elijah and Mattie probably went to Indian Territory around 1880 when their son James was born. They returned to Arkansas before 1890 and lived out their days in Montgomery County.

Elijah and Mattie had three sons who survived to adulthood. The Bible record suggests that three other children did not survive. Linda McDonald Miller provided additional information:

Sam Pyler, a resident of Rocky, Montgomery County, Arkansas, told me that when he was three years old and orphaned, Elijah and Mattie took him in. Sam Pyler said that Elijah and Mattie were small people; Elijah had a war injury to his second knuckle that caused it to be bent forward and down. Elijah was good at prayers; he was a devout member of the Methodist Church. Elijah died in 1904 of tuberculosis. He is buried next to Mattie in Rocky Cemetery. A descendant of Mattie and Elijah, LaWanda Higgins, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has several items that belonged to them including clothing, a razor, and Mattie’s hymn book. She also has some of Elijah’s original documents from the War Between the States.

Mattie was known to suffer from skin cancer on her face. She died in 1920 and was buried next to her husband in Rocky Cemetery. The clothing she and Elijah wore on their wedding day has been preserved and photographed along with a photo of Elijah in his later years.

The following poignant story about Rocky Community illustrates a significant chapter in the lives of Mattie and Elijah McDonald. It was written in 1963 by their daughter-in-law, Mary Desmona Gibbs McDonald.

Martha Elizabeth Johnston McDonald

Elijah McDonald 

“The Light of Day Is Dim”[14]

By Mary Desmona Gibbs McDonald

There has been a lot of water passed down the old Ouachita River since September 28^th, 1879, at which date I first saw the light of a beautiful world. I was the first daughter and the third child born to William G. and Nancy Elizabeth Brewer Gibbs, in a little log house on the north side of the Ouachita River, eight miles north of Mount Ida, Arkansas.

I have lived in hopes that Uncle Lige or someone else would come out with a story in the Montgomery County News, of the early-day life of the original pioneer settlers and family life of those noble people who, with their bare hands, a trust in the all mighty God, their love for each other, welded and put together a community and way of life as independent and free from the outside world as it was possible for mankind to do, but for lack of proper record it has been passed up.

This community to which I refer was known as the Rocky Community, and was about as isolated from the outside world as any place could possibly be, and its seclusion seemed to be the attraction of those noble Civil War veterans who had seen their families and their homes in the Eastern States ravished and destroyed by the scourge of war, and they wished to get away from it all. They were veterans of both North and South, yet that seemed to have little effect in their relations with each other. There was, however, something in common with all those who cast their lot to build a home and raise a family in such an out-of-the-way place and that was that they were all of Protestant faith, and of Caucasian nationality extraction and of course, without money, this was their stock in trade and it seemed to work as we shall see.

The custom in establishing a home was to select a suitable site near a spring on government land, cut and assemble logs with borrowed oxen, then invite all the neighbors to a house-raising. The men would bring their axes, saws and broad-axes, the women their pots, pans, and food, and before the sun went down there would be a complete house, with a splendid dinner thrown in. It was a struggle for the first year, of course, as the land had to be cleared and oxen obtained to till the soil as well as the other things which went to make a home but he had good neighbors who were ever ready to lend a helping hand. So how could a fellow fail with such a good set-up? This was Social Security in its original form.

So it was in this manner that homes were established, children were born, and society established, churches were organized and meetings held under brush arbors. Then there must be schools that were first instituted on a subscription basis, i.e., each family could subscribe to send at least a part of the oldest children (sic). Teachers were selected for a term of two or three months during the summer and paid with bacon, hams, molasses, corn, and the like. It was during the year of 1885, I think that this community came under the Free School Act so the dads of the country threw in and built a small cabin-like house for the Free School, which was a three-month session during the summer months. Teachers were paid thirty dollars per month, who in turn roomed and boarded with one of the community families at six dollars per month.

Hospitals and undertakers were unknown, and doctors with only a smattering of the art of modern medical knowledge were few and far between. Childbirth was one of the major problems, but with the splendid knowledge of a number of the elder women, this was also taken care of and in good shape, without cost. This was a “Duty” and they seldom lost a baby. The death rate of the community was very low because the people were all young. My grandmother, Mrs. Leonard Danley, was the first to be buried in the Rocky Cemetery, sometime during the year 1878. Coffins were shaped and fashioned by the community men. They were then lined with cotton padding and lined with white satin and covered on the outside with black satin. They were nice coffins.

Misdemeanor or felony was unknown among those who established this part of the land of Arkansas. There were many years elapsed before a sheriff had occasion to visit that community on official business. The people were thoroughly self-supporting in nearly every detail, even to the making of the cloth that went into their wearing apparel and the children’s shoes were often made by the parents. Hot Springs was the nearest railroad market and the people had little occasion to go there except in the autumn to sell their cotton, animal hides, and tobacco. I had been to Hot Springs only twice before the year 1900, and once to Mena in that year. We younger people were not without our fun, as we began to get grown up. We had our dances and candy-breakings during the winter at the homes of the various neighbors, and the picnics in the various communities during the summer. By that time most families had good wagons and teams of good spirited horses with an occasional buggy or surrey, which enabled us to extend our acquaintance into other communities.

Scandals, illegitimate babies and divorces were unknown among them, because the environment was good and the home-teaching was properly administered; and besides to indulge in any kind of underworld practices would forever ostracize one, boy or girl, from the rest of the world. Yes, we had our fun, and funny things happened. We used McGuffey readers in school. So it was that one and Blue-back Spellers one day, when our class was reciting, each had to stand and read certain stanzas from the reader, when one of my friends who was very droll (and drawled out her words in long syllabic tones) came to the word interminable and pronounced it: “Enter-my-table.” This she could hardly live down, and I could never forget it.

Timepieces were scarce in the earlier days, and many had sundial markings set up on porches. There were markings at certain minutes and hours of the day on the various days of the year, by transit levels that the surveyors use in measuring land and running lines. Judy was sitting out on her grandpa’s log porch one day in the old rocking chair when a stranger passing by stopped his “nag” and said to Judy who was about seventeen, “Young lady, can you tell me what time it is?” Judy got up and went to the edge of the porch, looked carefully for a moment, then turned to the stranger and said: “Mister, it just lacks two puncheons being twelve.”

We children were taught to address our elder neighbors with the familiar “Uncle” and “Aunt,” instead of Mr. and Mrs. So I shall refer to them in just that manner.

Rocky Community covered an area about six miles in length and about four miles in width. The main road was curved around Uncle Berry Gibbs’s place, which was on the main road about a one-half mile west of the school. He was blinded in the Civil War and drew a sizable pension. He was a good businessman and his blindness seemed to make little difference in his business activity. Of course, he had to depend on his sons-in-law to do the physical work, but he did the thinking and did a splendid job of it. He established a sawmill, a grist mill for both cornmeal and for flour, a cotton-gin, and a blacksmith shop as well as a store with a limited stock of merchandise. He soon became a sort of a banker. He helped many out of financial difficulties, and everyone liked and respected him. He was a veteran of the Union Army and on the Fourth of July would have a dancing platform built, set the women folk to preparing huge copper kettles on outside furnaces preparing food, and invite all the whole community to a big two-day celebration. There was some liquor mixed into it, but he did not approve of it, but he appointed certain ones to see that everything went off proper, and seldom did anyone get out of line. By the time all this took place his family, as well as most of the other families, we're getting grown and several of his were married and had their own families.

This is not intended to be a genealogical record of these noble people who added so much to populate the earth but since we are now into the fifth generation from those brave souls who settled in the Rocky Community during the sixties and seventies, with nothing but their bare hands to work with and who asked no odds but looked up to the blue-sky and down to the glad Earth, and with a prayer in their hearts, and brought forth a people, endowed in a spirit second to none. These are the ones I hope will be able to read this humble account of their beginning. I am going to offer this to the Montgomery County News for publication and I hope that you will subscribe for that good newspaper and if it is never published, your newspaper is worth the money, because it is a newspaper that does not deal in “crime and scandal.” I do not know but a few of the offspring from these original Montgomery County settlers, but I do know that the original ones toiled and stinted themselves to educate their children that they might take a higher station in the world than they, and of such are the world’s greatest benefactors.[15]

---

[1]1850 U.S. Federal Census, Bradley, Tennessee, and Tombstones:

           Jane D. b 4 July 1802, died 6 Feb 1844

William Tillman b May 1825, South Carolina, d February 1885 Greenwood, Sebastian, Arkansas

Samuel Franklin b 6 September 1827, South Carolina, d 26 July 1867, Arkansas

Angeline b Abt 1829 South Carolina

Orena b Abt 1835 Tennessee

John b Abt 1837 Tennessee

Nancy Jane b 24 February 1839, Tennessee, d 24 February 1923, Greenwood, Sebastian, Arkansas

James Abner b 6 February 1841, Tennessee, d 18 April 1919, Sebastian ,Arkansas

Martha Elizabeth Johnson b 20 September 1842, Tennessee, d 29 Mar 1920, Montgomery, Arkansas (or Oklahoma)

Patience Johnston b Abt 1844, Tennessee

[2]Ibid.

[3]Obituary, James Tillman Johnston, Greenwood Press, Sebastian County, May 1865:

“James Tillman Johnston was born September 26, 1794. Buried the 29th of May, 1865. He was a native of South Carolina, for many years a citizen of Tennessee and for 13 years a citizen of Sebastian County, Arkansas. At the date of his decease, brother Johnston had passed the seventy first year of his age, having been born April 1794. He served honorably as a soldier in the war of 1812. He has left a wife and seven children. Two of them in Texas, two of them in Kansas, two of them in this state and one in Oregon.

“Mr Johnston was a worthy and exemplary Christian in the Methodist Church, a kind husband and father, true patriot, esteemed and…member of society and one of the oldest and most respected among the brethern of the Masonic Fraternity.

“He was buried with appropriate Masonic honor…and is the object of affection, remembrance on the part of numerous and appreciated friends.”

[4]http://www.History of East Tennessee.com.

[5]Linda Miller, “Martha’s Bible Record.”

[6]History of East Tennessee.

[7]Wayne McDonald, family history files, Christmas, 1999: “James Johnston’s 2nd wife was Sarah Milburn married 9 Mar 1847. I have no record of any children being born to them.”

[8]1860 U.S. Federal Census Bates Sebastian County, Arkansas: James Johnston was enumerated with Sarah, and children William, James, Martha, Patience, and John Perryman and his children, Sarah, Allie, and James. (John Perryman had married Angeline, so she could have died before 1860.)

[9]Ibid.

[10]Linda Miller, letter to The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde, 1999: “William T. Johnston was a wealthy man.”

[11]Wayne McDonald, letter to The Rev. Cynthia Vold Forde, 1999: “Elijah McDaniel (McDonald) was probably born in Talbot County, Georgia in 1834.” See the Martha Bankston Brooks timeline in this book. Elijah’s second marriage: Sebastian County Marriage Records 1873-1880, Sebastian County Courthouse, Greenwood, Arkansas shows: “This certifies that I, H. H. Peninger, an ordained minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, did duly join in marriage in Sebastian County Arkansas, on the 12th day of May, 1874, the following persons to wit: Elijah McDonald, aged 39 years and M.E. Johnston, aged 31 years, both of Sebastian County, Arkansas. My credentials were recorded in Sebastian County, Arkansas on November 15th, 1873. H. H. Peninger. The above and foregoing instrument of writing was filed for record in my office on the 29th day of August A.D. 1874.

[12]Retha Miller Looney, correspondence with The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde, 1974: “My mother, Becky, traveled with her parents from Alabama up the Arkansas River on a raft. They were taken in by William Johnston and his sister, Martha Elizabeth after her mother died. My mother married Mr. Johnston. And my grandfather, Elijah, married Martha Elizabeth.”

[13]Elijah’s Marriage Record, Sebastian Greenwood, Arkansas. See the marriages of Rebecca McDonald in this book.

[14]Mary Desmona Gibbs McDonald.

[15]Ibid.