Biographies
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Beauchamp, Elizabeth Prettyman
Dunavan, Anderson
Hodge/Hodges, Henry G.
Hodge, William
McAfee, Charles
Mobley, Hezekiah Madison
Anderson Dunavan
From Portrait and Biographical Album of
Vermilion County, Illinois
pages 567-568, published in 1889
(Click tree to see Anderson & Elizabeth Dunavan family group. 
)
The labors of this
honest, upright and well-to-do citizen have resulted in the possession of a
well-regulated farm of 170 acres, on sections 1 and 6, in Georgetown Township.
The greater part of this the proprietor cleared from the forest, and labored
early and late for many years in order to bring it to its present condition. By
the exercise of great industry, frugality and good management, he has
accumulated sufficient means to protect him against want in his declining years,
while his career as a citizen has been such as to establish him in the esteem
and confidence of his neighbors.
The
native place of our subject was in Mason County, now West Virginia, eight miles
above Point Pleasant, on the Kanawha River. His parents were John and Frances
(Hughes) Dunavan, the former a native of Culpeper County, Va., and the latter of
the same place. The mother's people were of English stock, and early residents
of Pennsylvania. Her grandfather served in the Revolutionary War, and was shot
through the breast. He recovered, however, and lived to be nearly one hundred
years old. He was provided for during his old age by a pension from the
Government. He traced his ancestry to Ireland, where his forefathers were mostly
linen weavers by trade.
The
father of our subject, with the exception of the time spent as a soldier in the
War of 1812, occupied himself in agricultural pursuits. He and his wife spent
their last years in Indiana. They were the parents of eight children, seven of
whom grew to mature years--three sons and four daughters. Anderson, our subject,
was the eldest, and was born March 22, 1820. He lived in the Old Dominion until
a lad of thirteen years, then emigrated with his parents to Indiana, they
settling near the State line in Vermillion County, Ind. He remembers the time
when there but five houses between Eugene, Ind., and Danville, Ill. As soon as
old enough, he was required to make himself useful about the new farm, following
the breaking plow, learning to cut wheat with the cradle, and laboring in the
primitive style, both in sowing and reaping the harvest. Upon reaching man's
estate he was married, May 29, 1844, to Miss Elizabeth Beauchamp.
Mrs.
Dunavan was born in Ohio, and removed with her parents to Perryville, Ind., in
1830. The newly wedded pair settled on a farm in Vermillion County, Ind., and
Mr. Dunavan in due time purchased 166 acres of land. Later he sold this, and
crossed the State line into Illinois, purchasing, in 1855, the farm which he now
owns and occupies. Much of this was covered with timber, and he has cleared all
but fifteen acres.
The
eleven children born to Mr. and Mrs. Dunavan are recorded as follows: James H,
died when a promising youth of eighteen years; John A. married Miss Rebecca
Mossberger, is the father of four children, and resides in Douglas County; Mary
J. married Samuel Hines, and died leaving three children; Harriet J. died at
the age of two years; Charles W., who remains at the homestead, married Miss
Anna J. Howard, and is the father of one child; David A., also at home, married
Miss Mary Williams, and has three children; Anderson J. married Miss Caroline
Cravens, and is the father of three children; Edward H. married Miss Holder,
and lives at the homestead; Edmund H. died when three months old; Lottie
married Frank Breesley, and is the mother of two children, they live in this
township; Tilder E. is the wife of Tillman Wilcox.
James H. Dunavan during the Civil War enlisted in an Indiana Regiment, and died
of the measles at home. Mrs. Dunavan is a member in good standing of the
Christian Church, and a lady greatly respected in her community. Mr. Dunavan
votes the straight Democratic ticket, and has served as School Director in this
district several years. He may properly be classed as a representative citizen
of Georgetown Township--one who has assisted materially in maintaining its
reputation as a community of law-abiding and intelligent people.
Elizabeth Prettyman Beauchamp
from Pike County
Republican, Piketon, Ohio
May 18, 1871
(Click tree to see John & Elizabeth Beauchamp family group.
)
Died, in California, Pike County, Ohio, on Friday
morning, May 12, 1871, Mrs. Elizabeth Beauchamp, aged 90 years, 3 months and 21
days. Mrs. Beauchamp's maiden name was Prettyman. She was born in Sussex county,
near Lewiston, in the State of Delaware, on Saturday, at 7 o'clock A.M., the
27th of January 1781. She married John Beauchamp, September 20, 1797, and was,
consequently, in her sixteenth year. John Beauchamp, her husband, was born in
England, December 3, 1776. His parents emigrated to the county Kent, State of
Delaware, and put their son John to a seven years apprenticeship when very
young, to one John Collins, a tailor. After he served his time, John Beauchamp
carried on the business of tailoring in Delaware, till the spring of 1808, when
he and his wife left for Ohio. They came out in the cart, to which horses were
attached and as there was a whole team and a spare horse, John Beauchamp's
brother David rode it. David was about 20 years of age, and as he was coming to
Ohio with his brother, he married on the morning they left, Hannah Williams.
As
Mrs. Beauchamp's father was a slave-holder, she was brought up in accordance
with the usual customs which prevailed in slave abiding communities. She was
taught to do her own sewing, but little else that was really useful to one who
was to become a pioneer in a free state.
On
the occasion of her marriage she was well set up for general housekeeping and
consequently, had many more things to bring than their means of conveyance would
justify. As the roads were very bad, indeed not worthy to be called roads, they
were compelled to throw away from time to time, articles not very bulky in
themselves, but too heavy to be brought over the mountains. One morning they got
up and came on, leaving a carpet which they had used for a camp, and it was not
missed till they had traveled some miles. One would suppose that David would
have been sent back on the spare horse for so useful and article; but John said
no - no turning back. The two families came as far as Wheeling, Va., where they
remained some time; just how long we were unable to ascertain, but their
daughter, Sarah Shepherd, was born there on the 7th of September 1808. They soon
afterward came on, and made a stopping place at Pickaway Plains, with Risdon
Beauchamp, John and David's oldest brother, who had preceded them. David was a
carpenter,. They plied their respective trades at Wheeling. At Pickaway Plains,
John followed his trade, while his son David, a good sized boy 9 or 10 years of
age, raised a crop in 1809, to support the family. David, the brother, also
raised a crop.
After residing at Pickaway Plains about two years, they all removed to near
Portsmouth, on Big Scioto River, where John purchased eighty acres of land,
which he afterwards sold to Mr. Spalding. He lived there some six years, and
from thence removed to Pike county, in March 1816, on a farm near McGinnes's
woolen factory, which he cleared with his own hands. John Beauchamp died October
8, 1821. There was not a neighbor within three miles of his family. Samuel
McDowell on the east and Judah Mead on the south, were their nearest neighbors,
while Robert Bennett resided six miles away. Mrs. Beauchamp resided there till
about 1850, since which time she has lived with her children but made her home
more particularly with her daughter Eliza, wife of Rev. William Samson with whom
she was living when she died.
David, John's brother, died in Portsmouth in 1813, leaving two sons - John and
Marcy. John's father's name was John and he was a man of means, as is indicated
from the fact that he purchased 2,000 acres of land in Virginia he intended to
divide amoung his five sons - Risdon, John, David, Isaac and Marcy. John did not
like his heritage, but preferred to come to Ohio.
About 30 years ago Risdon came to Elizabeth Beauchamp's and obtained the five
patents of 2,000 acres, which, it is said, the town of Parkersburg, West
Virginia, is now on. Risdon sold his share, and wrote to Mrs. Beauchamp, that
the other patents were left in Parkersburg.
Here
our minutes, from which we have written out the above fail us, having been
abstracted from their resting place. But we can add, that the subject of our
notice was left a large family of children, some of whom were of tender years,
while others had grown up to manhood or womanhood and were doing for themselves.
Her descendants are numerous and respectable, numbering, if we rightly remember
about 260 scattered over a wide extend of their native country. Mrs. Beauchamp
had been a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church upwards of
seventy years, and her funeral was attended by Rev. J. Q. Laken, minister in
charge of Beaver Circuit, who preached a sermon on the occasion to a numerous
congregation, many of whom were her blood relations. We believe the world was
the better for her having lived in it, and that she has crossed the river and
has entered upon a new sphere of life which will continue to all eternity, for
blessed are the dead who died in the Lord.
Hezekiah Madison Mobley
From newspaper article, unknown date or source
(Click tree to see
Hezekiah and Sarah Mobley family group.
)
In Forty-First Georgia
Regiment.
Living in his own little home at McDade, Tex., Uncle Mack Mobley is passing in
peace and quietude the closing years of an honorable and useful life, loved and
trusted by all who know him.
Uncle Mack is now in his 87th year,having been born Nov. 26,
1832, in Coweta County, Georgia, where he grew to the years of manhood.
In 1854 he
became a member of the old Macedonia Baptist Church, near his home. Here, later
in the same year, he was married and lived till the coming of the great civil
war, when he, in August, 1862, enlisted in the confederate army, Forty-First
Georgia Regiment, Colonel Charley McDaniel.
This regiment
was assigned to the Tennessee Army and Uncle Mack saw service at Perryville,
Ky., and then at Vicksburg, Miss., where, with Pemberton's whole army, he became
a prisoner of war. After his parole he returned to his home. Having remained
with his family some four months, he again joined the army, or rather his
regiment, in time to take part in the great battles of Missionary Ridge and
Chattanooga.
Soon afterward he was, by his
own request, transferred to the Army of Virginia and came under the great Lee,
and was with him on through all the conflicts that marked the closing of the
war.
At Petersburg his regiment
was ordered to charge and clear the enemy from some forts directly in their
front. One of these forts was taken and some seventy or more, including Uncle
Mack, were assigned to occupy and man it. But the enemy in neighboring forts had
the range of this one, and for an hour and more these brave fellows were exposed
to a perfect rain of shells. Working their own guns to the best advantage
possible, they fought the enemy, awaiting the order to fall back, and Uncle Mack
says they did more than that--they prayed to God.
When the order at last came
it was few of them that were left to profit by it. Later under a flag of truce
Uncle Mack saw 200 of his brave regiment carried back across the line for
burial, while many others had been wounded.
Uncle Mack
was at Appomattox when the close came, saw Grant as he rode out to arrange the
terms of surrender, rejoiced with the others that the end had come, and with a
heart full of hope and of gladness started on the long, weary tramp to his
Georgia home.
In 1882 Uncle Mack came with
his family to Texas, joining here his brother, Joe Mobley, who had come on some
years earlier. Settling in Bastrop County, the family have made their home here
ever since.
Even during the trying
experiences of his war days, Uncle Mack maintained the integrity of his
religion, and among his neighbors and friends since his coming to Texas he has
so lived that all the people believe in him and in the religion with which he
has been sustained as he has come down through the trying scenes of life and the
battles he has met along the way.
Cheerful and happy, he awaits
the call to the reward of those who were Faithful. – J.H. Gillaspy, McDade, Tx
Charles McAfee
From History of
Sonoma County California, 1911
Pages 690-691
Fine and deserving traits of character have contributed to the success of
Charles McAfee, who came to California in 1867 and has been a resident of Sonoma
County since 1885. He came here with limited means, but by well directed energy
has accumulated a competence of which anyone might well be proud. Not only has
a productive property been brought to its highest state of development, a
refined and hospitable home established, but a family of nine children has been
reared primarily to industry and moral worth and to that superior intellectual
growth which insures its members an honored place in whatever community they
elect to reside.
Mr. McAfee has no personal knowledge
of his birthplace, Logan county, Ill., where he was born in 1845, for when he
was only one year old his parents removed to Iowa, and it is with the latter
state that his earliest experiences are associated. During the thirteen years
that the family remained there he attended school and became initiated into the
work incident to farm life, the father owning and maintaining a farm in the
various localities in which he lived. In 1859 another removal brought them to
Livingston county, Mo., and it was while working in the fields there that
Charles McAfee determined to offer is services on the altar of his country. He
was mustered in at Laclede, Mo., September 27, 1861, and served respectively
under Col. John Morgan and Col. Madison Miller, in the Eighteenth Missouri
Infantry, the latter being superseded by Colonel Sheldon after the battle of
Shiloh. Mr. McAfee was fortunate in escaping injury of any kind during the
first year of his service, but during the battle of Pittsburg Landing he
suffered what was perhaps even harder to bear, being taken a prisoner and
incarcerated in a loathsome prison for three months and twenty days. He was
then discharged from the service, in St. Louis, his term of enlistment having
expired, but in March, 1863, he again offered his services and was accepted in
the cavalry service. He served throughout the remainder of the war, and was
mustered out July 27, 1865, at New Orleans.
For a couple of years following his
return from the war Mr. McAfee resumed farming in Missouri, and then, in 1867,
came to California. From San Francisco, where he first located, he went to
Woodland, Yolo county, and was identified with that section of the state for the
following nine years. Coming to Sonoma county at the end of that time, he
continued ranching in this county, and finally, in 1885, purchased the beautiful
ranch of fourteen acres which has since been his home. The price paid for the
property is only a fraction of its present worth, $4000, and even at this price
Mr. McAfee could not be induced to part with it. His specialty is the raising
of chickens, besides which he has a thriving orchard of apples and other fruits,
and also raises hay and grain.
Mr. McAfee was married in 1876 to
Miss Rosa Emma Ogden, a native daughter of the state, her birth occurring in
Sacramento county in 1858. The eldest of the nine children born of this
marriage is James A., who is a practicing dentist in Sacramento; Albert Lincoln
is in business in Portland, Ore.; Sadie M. is the wife of Ernest Waymeyer, and
resides in Sacramento, Cal.; Georgia is the wife of Archibald Gale and the
mother of two children; Loren is in Sacramento, as is also the next son, Vern;
Ruth is at home with her parents; Leslie is employed in Sacramento; and Earl is
a pupil in the local schools. Politically Mr. McAfee is a Republican, and by
virtue of his service in the Civil war, is a member of the Grand Army of the
Republic. On the paternal side he is a descendant of southern ancestors, his
father being a native of Kentucky, while his mother was a native of Indiana.
