~1778 - aft 1850
Bedford County, Virginia - Carter County, Kentucky
All the quotations are from David E Johnston, A History of the Middle New River Settlements and Contiguous Territory, (Facsimile Reprint 1988 by Heritage Books, Inc, Bowie, Maryland. [1906 Standard Ptg. & Pub. Co., Huntington, W. Va.]), so I have simply put page numbers by the quotes.
There isn't much information available about Sarah herself - you see her only in connection with her male relatives, which I suppose is typical.
She was born in about 1778 - the date comes from her age (72) on the 1850 census. Some researchers give her a birthdate of 1775, some as late as 1785. At that time her father Richard was still living in Bedford County, Virginia. She was one of 10 children, 8 boys and 2 girls - although researchers disagree about that too (some include another brother, some another two sisters). Her father was a carpenter, and was fairly well-off - he was always accumulating more land. Her mother was Elizabeth Ann Belcher.
She may have been known as Sally: [Tazewell County Court Order Book I records: "1808 June 29 Deed from Samuel Lusk & Sally, his wife to John Maccon was acknowledged." This is the only intimation I have found that she was known as Sally. Interesting, no? It makes her a slightly different person.]
In 1780 - or (again the lack of agreement) between 1782-4 - Sarah's family moved west, to what was then Montgomery County.
The life of these people was a long and dangerous struggle, they had to fell the forests, encounter the forest fires, deep snows and freshets. Swarms of deer flies and midges rendered life a torment in warm weather. Rattlesnakes and copperheads were plentiful and constant sources of danger and death. For an antidote for the bite of a poisonous serpent bear's oil was freshly applied, and some times salt, when they had it. Wolves and bears were inveterate foes of the live stock, and the panther occasionally attacked a man. [Johnston, p. 119]
There were no schools in that day, and but few boys learned even to read or write. . . .
Each family was largely a little independent colony of itself. The father and sons worked with mattock, axe, hoe and sickle. A loom in every house was a necessity, and almost every woman was a weaver, and wove the linsey-woolsey made from flax cultivated by her own hands, and from the wool of sheep - when they had any. The man tanned or dressed the buck skin, the woman was the tailor and shoemaker . . . . For the table ware generally wooden trenchers, platters, noggins, and bowls. The cradle of pealed hickory bark or a sugar trough, and plowshares were made of wood . . . . Then there was the hand mill, and the hominy block with a hole burned in the top as a mortar where the pestle was worked. . . . For sugar resort was had by tapping the sugar maple trees. . . Salt and iron could not be had in the backwoods, and each family gathered up its furs and peltries, and later ginseng, which were carried out on horses to some coast town, and exchanged for salt and iron. Some . . . raised a considerable number of horses, which they drove to the markets east of the Alleghanies. [Johnston, p. 118]When these people left their homes for the new ones in the wilderness, they took with them the manners and customs of the people among whom they had lived, and upon their settling down in their adopted abode made such changes in these manners and customs as their new situation, surroundings and necessities required. It often happened that the new emigrant on selecting his
proposed future home, found himself very far removed from any one he called neighbor. From whence he removed, he was occasionally honored with a visit of his friends and neighbors, who could come and go without hindrance or fear of molestation. In this wilderness country he must travel with his trusted rifle, even as against wild beast that filled the forest. Later on, after the country had began to settle up, new comers were joyfully received, and the young people on hearing of the approach of the new people coming to the neighborhood, would often go a day's journey in order to meet and welcome them. The young women would make this trip barefoot, with their dresses so short they reached but little below their knees. [Johnston, p. 116-7]
They lived about where West Virginia dips down furthest into Virginia. I think it is likely that a couple of her uncles and older brothers moved there first, and that her father joined them after 1782. Certainly her uncle Mitchell Clay was there by 1775 or so. The area was still being contested with the Indians - and in fact it was being contested by the Indians amongst themselves:
The territory of Tazewell, very much like that of Kentucky, was a kind of middle ground between the northern and southern Indian tribes, between whom a war was waging in 1766, and which was not finally ended until about the beginning of 1774. [Johnston, p. 139]
This possibly explains why the area seemed to be uninhabited when the first white men saw it. I am assuming that the northern Indians won this particular contest, because it seems to be the northern Shawnees who caused most of the trouble for the white settlers. They had villages across the Ohio River, and at the time Mitchell Clay settled, were using the area mostly as a summer hunting ground.
In 1783, shortly after Sarah's family arrived, three of Mitchell Clay's children were killed by the Indians.
The Baileys and Clays and others of their neighbors built a fort (The Davidson-Bailey Fort, at the Beaver Pond Spring, a branch of the Bluestone River), and it is possible that that is where Sarah's family lived, at least for a while. The young men of the area - including a couple of Sarah's brothers, and her future husband and brother-in-law - were stationed at this and other forts in the general area, so that the settlers could go about their business of settling.
Every man from his childhood was accustomed to the use of the rifle, and even a boy at twelve years was regarded old enough to have a gun, and was soon taught how to use it. He at least could make a good fort soldier. The war was never ending, for even the times of so-called peace were broken by forays and murders. . . .
When a group of families moved out into the wilderness, for protection they would build for themselves a block house or stockade, a square palisade of upright logs, and looped it with port holes, with a large gate that could be strongly barred in case of necessity. This fort or stockade was generally safe from any attack the savages might make upon it unless they could take it by surprise. [Johnston, p. 120]
Here is a possible glimpse of her in 1791 (age 13):
On the fateful morning on which Mrs. Davidson and her children were captured, John Bailey being at the fort informed his people that he must go over and look after Andrew Davidson's family, whereupon one of his sisters, (he had but two,) told him to get her a horse and that she would go with him, to which he assented and secured the horse for her. They set out on the journey . . . . On reaching this gap Mr. Bailey discovered a heavy smoke from the direction of the Davidson house, and thereupon told his sister to remain on her horse in the gap and watch while he went forward to a piece of ground in the valley. . . . Her hurriedly returned, reporting the house on fire, and that evidently the Indians had been there and taken the people, as no one could be seen about the house. Mr. Bailey and his sister rode rapidly to the fort, gave the alarm to the neighborhood, and a party gathered as quickly as possible and pursued the Indians . . . .[Johnston p. 100-101]
That's it. But I think of her sitting on that horse, waiting for her brother, with Indians possibly in the woods all around her. It's a little snapshot in time.
I do, incidentally, think it was Sarah there. It could have been Chloe - she was older (24) - but she had been married in 1787, so I think it less likely that she would have been at the fort at this time.
The last Indian attack occurred in 1793. In 1794, Mad Anthony Wayne defeated the United Indians under Tecumseh at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and that was the end of the Indian threat in this area.
The Baileys seem to have been quite wealthy, although I am not sure what wealth meant to
people living in the wilderness. Sarah's father had a lot of land (again) and he apparently
also operated a mill (although that might have been his on Richard). Several members of
the Bailey family had slaves, even in the wilderness, but I am not sure whether Sarah's
father did or not.
Johnston [p. 153] says, "the people of this county held but few slaves . . . ," but there are
records showing brother James, at least, with slaves - and Mitchell Clay obtained his land
by trading a negro woman (actually an Indian) and her children for it.
In 1804, Sarah married Samuel Lusk. She would have been 26, which seems a little old - so that might be why other researchers want to make her birth date 1785. They got married on January 5, 1804; John Tollet performed the ceremony
. A wedding was always a time of high glee. Usually the groom and his friends rode horseback to the house of the bride's father, where there was generally plenty of applejack, and every body would take a drink, even the ministers of that day thought it nothing a miss for them to take a toddy. At the bride's house and ceremony performed, came the dinner, after which the fiddling and the dancing, the songs and plays among the young folks of "Old Sister Phoebe," would begin.
"I'll put this hat on your head to keep your head warm,
I'll give you a sweet kiss, ‘twill do you no harm."
The neighbors soon gathered, chopped logs and erected a house for the young couple. At a log rolling and house raising there was generally a quilting, and at night a dance. It was no easy matter for the young people, who wished to get married to procure the license, for as a rule they lived a long distance from the clerk's office. For many years after the formation of Giles County [1806], it was the habit of Captain John McClaugherty, who was both deputy clerk and deputy sheriff of that county, to go once, and occasionally twice a year down on to the waters of the Coal and Guyandotte, . . . and he made it a rule to fill his pockets with blank licenses, in order to accommodate the young people, who had always to put off their weddings until the Captain put in his appearance. . . . [Johnston, p. 117]. . . The early preachers who came across the Alleghanies, were Dissenters, and not authorized by law to celebrate marriages, and therefore all marriages solemnized by these Ministers were by law illegal, but by subsequent acts of the Legislature such marriages were not only legalized, but certain acts were passed authorizing a limited number of these Dissenters to celebrate the rites of matrimony. [Johnston, p. 132]
Samuel Lusk was born about 1775, and had been an Indian scout when still quite young. In 1792, he was captured by the Indians, but managed to escape and make his way home. His father and three of his brothers were killed by the Indians in (probably) the same year. His mother remarried and moved west with her new husband Thomas Godfrey. His one surviving brother, David, married Sarah Bailey's sister Chloe, although it may have been just a common-law marriage - there was a bit of a scandal connected with it.
Sarah and Samuel had 14 or 15 children. The first was born in, probably, late 1804. It is difficult to be sure of the exact order of the children and of their exact birth dates. In fact, I don't even know how the names of the children are known - I assume someone has clearer family memories than we do - or perhaps a family Bible. I found them on the Internet; several sources agree on the names (although not on the dates), so. Some of the names and dates can be more or less confirmed by censuses starting in 1850, but some of the children had died - or disappeared - before them.
The children and their birthdates:
John 1804,1806
I am not entirely convinced that he was Sarah's son.
Andrew 1803, 1819
One source makes Andrew the eldest son, and gives him a birthdate of 1803 (before his parents were married). The best guess I can make is sometime between 1804-1810. He married in 1830, so 1819 is almost surely too late.
Polly 1808
Elizabeth 1809/10
Most people now make Polly and Elizabeth one person, so I am not counting her really. I'm putting her in just in case. Some people now have added a Linda, to make up for Polly and Elizabeth being one person. I don't know any reason to do that.
Martha 1811
Harrison- Feb 28, 1813
Such an exact date must have some documentation, no? On the censuses I have seen, his birth year wavers from 1822 to 1827!
Russell 1815
His birth year on censuses: 1815-1819
James 1817
Chloe 1815,1819
Whitten 1821
some people have Whitten born 1805, some 1821; in 1860, he was supposedly 36 years old, which would give him a date of 1824.
Lydia 1820,1822
Susan - March 22, 1825
William 1823, 1826
The 1850 census agrees with the year 1826
Samuel 1827, 1828
Census gives 1828, 1830
Emily 1830 Carter Co, Ky
Before he got married, Samuel started amassing property. His mother and stepfather deeded him 87 acres in 1802; he shared two grants with Elias Harmon in 1803, one of 124, one of 148 acres. After his marriage, he continued to amass property, both livestock and land.
1806 Personal property tax list - Tazewell Co, Va - 1 wm 16+, 3 horses etc.
land tax on 124 acres, and on 148 acres shared with Elias Harmon
1814, Land Tax, for 124 acres on Big Rock,Bluestone
1815 tax list Tazewell 2 wm 16+, 6 horses, 12 cattle
land Samuel Lusk - Clear Fork of Wolf Creek from Thomas Godfrey 1801
ditto - Flat Top Mountain
1819 - Oct 23: Samuel received 1000 acre Land Warrant #6670 located on Dividing Ridge near Cabin Creek on Bluestone River
1820 Personal property Tax 1m 16+, 6 horses etc
1822, Oct 18: Samuel obtained 2 additional Land Warrants totalling 550 acres located on Branch Creek and on the Mill Branch near Black Lick Mountain and Lusk Branch
Samuel also continued his military service. (I am not sure what duties were involved in being a member of the militia.)
1807 June 25 Samuel Lusk recommended as Lieut. in Capt Andrew Peery's Company of Militia in room of Thomas Cartmill, removed.
1808 Apr 27 Samuel Lusk is appointed Lieut. in 112th Regt.
1810 Apr 25 Samuel Lusk appointed Capt in room of Andrew Peery, removed.
1812 Sep 1 Private in the 3rd Regiment, Kentucky Detached Militia serving in Captain Soloman Brandenburg's Infantry Company - He was not a resident of Kentucky, but he served in this outfit and is listed in the Kentucky Adjutant General's report. His job was simply to transport supply wagons to Kentucky. These wagons were transported to Hardinsburg, Breckenridge County, Kentucky. Once the wagons were delivered Samuel was discharged on Christmas Day, December 25, 1812, receiving pay of $25.33 for his 4 months, and 24 days of service. (James F. Carver)
Sarah and Samuel stayed in Tazewell County (as it was now called, after several name changes - from Montgomery, to Wythe, to Tazewell) until 1828, when they moved, bag and baggage to Kentucky, first to Lawrence County, and the next year a little further north, to Greenup County. If you look on the map, the river which divides Kentucky and West Virginia goes down to the area the Lusks lived in Virginia, so they possibly followed the river north.
Sarah had her last child, Emily, in 1830 in Kentucky. By this time, her three oldest children were already married - her oldest daughter in fact already had three children of her own.
In 1838, the part of Greenup County in which they lived became Carter County. In 1839, they bought a farm (187 acres) on Rush Creek off Williams Creek (they might have bought it earlier, and received the deed in 1839?). This was sold in 1844, just shortly before Samuel died. He died in about 1845. Sarah lived until at least 1850 - she is on the census for that year, but no one knows when she died or where she is buried.
Timeline/Documentation
b. ~ 1778
1804 m. Samuel Lusk 5 Jan 1804
1804 son John born I am not entirely convinced that John was the son of Sarah and
Samuel - I think it more likely that he was Chloe and David Lusk's son
1804-10 son Andrew born
1806 Personal Property Tax List for Tazewell County
Apr 19 - Samuel Lusk 1003
1806 Land Tax for Tazewell County
Samuel Lusk 124 acres
1808 daughter Elizabeth Polly born
1811 daughter Martha born
1813 son Harrison born
1814 Land Tax for Tazewell County
Lusk, Samuel 124 - Big Rock, Bluestone
1815 son Russell born
1817 son James born
1819 son? John married Polly Corder
1819 daughter Chloe born
1820 daughter Lydia born
1820 Personal Property Tax Lists of Tazewell County
white males 16+ / blacks 12+ / blacks 16+ / horses etc
May 1 - Samuel Lusk 1006
1820 Virginia Tazewell p. 850/562
Lusk, Samuel 311110 31010
1821 son Whitten born
1824 daughter Elizabeth Polly marries Isaac Adkins
1825 daughter Susan born
1826 son William born
1828 son Samuel born
1828 family moves to Lawrence County, Kentucky
1829 family moves to Greenup County, Kentucky (John Lusk & Polly Adkins stay in
Virginia)
1830 Kentucky Greenup - Lusk, Samuel 085
Samuel Lusk 12311001 2100001
1830 daughter Emily born
1830 son Andrew marries Charlotte Hull
1831 daughter Martha marries Robert Gorman
1833 daughter Chloe marries Claiborne Smith
~1835 son? John moves to Auglaize County, Ohio
1838 Carter County formed from Greenup
1840 Kentucky Carter - Lusk, Samuel 255
255 Samuel Lusk 011020001 01100001
~1840 son? John moves to Missouri
1840 daughter Polly Adkins now in Greenup County, Kentucky
1842 son James marries Elizabeth Hall
~1842 son Andrew moves to Warrick County, Indiana
1843 son Susan marries James Hall
~1845 husband Samuel Lusk dies
1850 Carter Co Ky census p. 225a 142-142
Lusk, Sarah 72 f b. Virginia
Russell 25 m farmer Virginia
William 24 m laborer Virginia
Samuel 22 m laborer Virginia
Emily 19 f Kentucky
d. aft 1850
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page last updated 11 Aug 2004