The
Kenamore family
Randy has
generously shared these for publication with the Christian County Mogen Web
site. No data may be reproduced or published without permission of the author.
Many of the early pioneer families of north-central Christian Co. were
linked by the daughters of one couple – William Kenamore and Mary Johnson. The
Edwards, McCafferty, Gooch, McConnell, Nokes and dozens of other families all
became kin through the Kenamore network.
(John/Hans) William Kenamore (also spelled Cannimore, Kennemore,
Kennemer and Kinnamore in official records) was born in Fairfield Co., SC on
Feb. 12, 1787. He made his move to south-central TN while most of the rest of
his family settled in Jackson Co., AL. To date, however, no one has firmly
identified this relationship.
The family in general, however, originated in the Rhine valley of
Germany, tracing back to mayors of small villages who emigrated to Philadelphia
in 1732. The family initially settled in York, PA before working down the
coastal colonies to Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina.
William was the son of one of three Kennemer/Kennemore brothers in
Fairfield Co.: Hance/Hans, George or John.
Likely in Giles Co., TN about 1811, William married Mary
"Polly" Johnson Berry, who was born in 1784 in Rockingham Co., NC as
the first child of Revolutionary War veteran Abner (1757-Oct. 22, 1850) and
Nancy Brackett (1761/2-1853) Johnson. Giles Co. marriage records from this era
were destroyed.
The marriage was the second for Mary, who already had a young daughter.
In Nashville, Davidson Co., TN, Polly “Johnston” married Isaac Berry on Jan.
13, 1803. Mary’s daughter by that marriage, Anna, later named a son for her
father. Isaac was the son of Robert and Elizabeth C. Cates Berry of Orange Co.,
NC.
William Kenamore fought in the War of 1812 (simultaneous Creek War)
under Gen. Andrew Jackson, assigned to companies led by Capt. McNutt and Capt.
Bob McReynolds. His file contains the notation: “refused to march.”
William was found on the 1819 Giles Co., TN tax lists, but by 1823 he
appears on the Maury Co. tax rolls where he was assessed for poll taxes, but no
real estate.
Records show that the Kenamores and McConnells of Christian Co., MO
were acquaintances at least as far back as early Maury Co. On July 23, 1825,
William Kenamore bought at the estate sale of the late James Bell,
brother-in-law of Walter McConnell, the ancestor of the Christian Co. family;
William McConnell, Walter's brother, was another buyer.
The Kenamores lived during this time south of Bigbyville, a tiny
hamlet about eight miles south of the county seat of Columbia. The area was
dominated by the plantations of the Polk families and the Pillows, who were
cousins of Mary Johnson Kenamore.
Kenamore held no real property on the 1823 Maury Co. tax rolls, but by
1836, his holdings had grown to146.5 acres valued at $1,125. He had no slaves
or sons 16 or older in 1823.
In 1850, William Kenamore held real estate worth $2,500 in southern
Maury Co. But he appears to have been living on the farm of his widowed
daughter Matilda (Mrs. Andrew W.) McCaslin with his in-laws, the elderly Abner
and Nancy Johnson.
William visited the community of Cassidy (now Fremont Hills),
northwest of Ozark, MO, in October 1852 from Tennessee. On Nov. 4, 1852,
William Kenamore “of Greene Co.,” MO, bought 190 acres for $1,000 from John and
Sarah Simpson (SW 1/4 of Section 15, Township 27, Range 21 and SE 1/4 of NW 1/4
of the same section except for 10 acres) in what became Christian Co.
Despite the Greene Co. land record, the Goodspeed history of Dent
County and other sources say the elder Kenamores didn't move from Tennessee
until 1854; the permanent move did not come until after Mary’s mother, Nancy Brackett
Johnson, died in 1853. The 1854 wagon trained likely included son Grant Allen
and several daughters. Daughter Matilda, by family tradition, died during that
trip. The family’s other children had relocated to the Ozarks in 1852.
In January 1855, Grant bought land from his father, then almost 68.
The 230-acre Kenamore stake in 1856 was in the name of Grant Allen on
tax rolls, valued at $1,000. In that same year, however, Grant moved to Salem,
Dent Co., MO, and William became dependent on his sons-in-law like neighbors
Thomas T. Gooch and William Edwards in Finley Township and hired hands for
assistance.
By 1860, William Kenamore was farming 330 acres — one of the most
valuable properties in the new jurisdiction of Christian Co. Almost half the
land, 150 acres, was "improved," and the value had soared to $3,000.
He maintained few livestock, but raised 1,000 bushels of corn as well as wheat
and tended bees. County tax records show that as late as 1868, the heirs of
"John Kinamore, deceased" held taxable title to 220 acres of land in
Finley Township while daughter Margaret had 40 more acres adjacent to her
parents.
William Kenamore died on Feb. 10, 1862, just two days short of his
75th birthday. Christian Co. records show son-in-law James W. Edwards bought
William’s real estate for $1,200 (the war had undermined land values throughout
the Ozarks) in April 1866, allowing distribution of the proceeds to numerous
heirs.
By 1867, Mary Johnson Kenamore was living southwest of Nixa with
William G. and Nancy Kenamore McCafferty.
On Dec. 7, 1867, Mary wrote her will1 with
the Baptist Rev. Robert Smith Holderby and McCafferty neighbor Anderson
Hemphill as witnesses. Mary left $200, a vast sum in the post-Civil War Ozarks,
to her daughter Nancy McCafferty and a “bed and bedstead with all the (faded)”
to Nancy's daughter, Malinda Evaline. William G. McCafferty was to inherit the
rest of Mary's personal estate. The McCafferty bequests, no doubt, reflected Mary's
gratitude and affection for their care after her husband died.
One dollar each went to daughters Elizabeth Gooch, daughter Mary S.
McCafferty, daughter Margaret S. Craig; Ann O. Edwards; and son Grant A.
Kenamore.
The will does not mention the Rev. James Wright Edwards, who had
married daughter Martha H. "Patsy" Kenamore. James W. was a
relatively wealthy man, and by 1867, Patsy had died.
Mary Johnson Kenamore still was living at age 86 with William and
Nancy McCafferty on the 1870 census, but died in September.
A penciled notation on a 1986 manuscript says the Kenamores are buried
in Richwoods Cemetery north of Ozark, but their stones are not listed on the
indices. The Doran manuscript says they lie in a family plot on the so-called
(probably Mahlon) Stine property northeast of Ozark, which no one has located.
An 1871 deed conveying the original Kenamore family farm from
son-in-law James Wright Edwards to Isham W. Faught indicates William and wife
Mary Johnson Kenamore are buried in a 40-foot-square family plot there. That
plot, possibly on what became the Stine land, remains in the legal ownership of
the family heirs today.
The Kenamore daughters
William and Mary Johnson Kenamore raised at least eight daughters:
·
Anna O. or Q. Berry (1804, Nashville-after 1880). William Edwards, James W.’s
likely brother, married the half-sister of James W.’s wife Martha “Patsy”
Kenamore when he wed Anna O. or Q. Berry before 1826 in Giles Co.
Anna and William Edwards are found in Maury through 1840, but moved to
Giles Co. by 1850. William and Anna relocated in the 1854 wagon trains to
Christian Co., where their son had a child in February 1855.
Anna and William had at least three sons; William Jr. (1826), who may
have married Mahala Lovell in Giles Co; James Mordecai (Aug. 7, 1829, Maury
Co., TN-Feb. 18, 1885, Newton Co., AR) who married a member of the Johnson
family, Martha Lucinda Stubblefield2; and
Isaac Carroll (1843, Giles Co.), named for his grandfather They also had at
least three daughters: Nancy W. (1836, Maury), Caroline A. (1838, Maury) and
Narcissa M. (1846, Giles) who may have married before the 1865 fire destroyed
the Christian Co. records.
Ann and William moved from Finley Township to Searcy, AR by 1869, but
before 1880, William died. Ann was living in 1880 in Jefferson Township, Boone
Co., AR at the home of her granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth Edwards – daughter of
James Mordecai – with her husband, Samuel Henry Rose, and their two children.
Anna in censuses consistently reported her birth year was 1804 in
Tennessee, or about the same as her husband. That would leave an odd nine-year
gap between the first two Kenamore children – and place the marriage of William
Kenamore at the extremely young age of about 16, assuming his birth date has
been correctly recorded.
Anna instead was the daughter of Mary from her first marriage to Isaac
Berry in Nashville on Jan. 13, 1803 – which also explains Anna’s decision to
name a son Isaac in 1843.
In the most telling circumstance, Mary left a bequest for Anna in her
will with her other daughters, but Anna was not listed among the many heirs in
the division of the proceeds from the sale of William’s property in 1866 after
he died.
After Mary’s marriage to William, instead of Berry, Anna apparently
used the maiden name of Kenamore, which is how she is remembered by
descendants.
In another twist to this disordered family, the marriage of James
Mordecai Edwards and Martha Lucinda Stubblefield is reported to have occurred
Nov. 19, 1854 in Charleston, Mississippi Co., MO, which is along the
Mississippi River on the eastern edge of the state (three months before a
daughter’s birth).
The marriage indicates that their families participated in the 1854 trip
– or second stage – of the Johnson-Kenamore-Edwards family migrations to
Christian Co., MO. None of the family ever lived in Mississippi Co. or nearby.
• Martha "Patsy” H. (1813-1865) married the Rev. James
Wright Edwards (1807-1893) before 1830 in Giles Co. They were the parents of
Matilda D. Edwards McConnell, among others. (Separate section)
• Matilda (1814-1854) married her first cousin Andrew
McCaslin/McCasland on May 23, 1835 in Maury Co. Andrew McCaslin was the son of
Andrew McCaslin Sr. and Elizabeth Johnson, Mary Kenamore’s sister, who married
in Nashville in 1804.
Andrew died young in 1843, but left three children born in TN: Mary
Elizabeth (1836) who married Nathaniel F. Sink in 1855 in Greene Co. MO; John
(1837), who may have died in the Civil War; and Derinda (1838), who married
William M. Horn of Christian Co. and decades later sued unsuccessfully for a
share of her grandfather Kenamore’s estate.
By 1880, Mary Elizabeth’s husband had died, and she lived in Boone
Co., AR, where she remained in 1900. Derinda by 1860 had married Horn and lived
near her grandparents just west of Ozark.
Matilda, by family legend, died during the wagon train trek to
Missouri in 1854.
• Elizabeth Carolina (1816-1881) wed Thomas Threet or Thweatt
Gooch (1805-1871) of Rutherford and Maury Cos. Thweatt was a Gooch family name
that dated back to colonial Virginia.
Thomas was kin, a likely brother, to the Rev. William Spraggins Gooch
(May 4, 1800-June 24, 1851) of Bigbyville who married Alsie/Alice Jones, and
their parents may have been Gooch cousins who died young in Granville Co., NC.
William S. Gooch founded Bethel Christian Church in 1835 in Bigbyville, TN
where William C. McConnell also served as pastor.
Thomas had married first to Nancy Tennessee White July 27, 1827 in
Rutherford Co., TN, and they had a son James H. who came to Missouri.
In 1852, Thomas and Elizabeth moved from Maury or Giles Co. to a farm
north of Ozark in the once-thriving community of Cassidy. In 1860, the 327-acre
farm was even more valuable than the Kenamore place, although it wasn't
cultivated as extensively.
The Gooches are buried in Maple Park Cemetery in Springfield.
Among the Gooch children were: Amanda (1839, m. Nathaniel A. Hill
Murphy), Martha (1842, m. James Monroe McCafferty and then W.L. Thompson), John
Carroll (1846, m. Elizabeth McDaniel), Nancy Tennessee (1850, m. William Allen
Noblitt), Thomas (m. Elizabeth), Grant Allen (1854, m. Anna Bingham and Minnie
Murphy), Matilda Melissa, Jerome Bonaparte "Bone"3 (m.
Martha "Mattie" Bennett) and Mary Elizabeth "Molly" (Sept.
27, 1861-April 26, 1930, m. James Addison Doran).
Grant Allen Gooch, a civic leader in the Cassidy community north of
Ozark, was overseer of the North Finley Township road district at the turn of
the century. He also managed affairs of the Farmers Education and Cooperative
Union and directed installation of the rural telephone system.
John and Elizabeth McDaniel Gooch were prominent members of the Porter
Township community west of Nixa even though his parents were oriented to Ozark;
this line again would wed into McConnell-related families when son Elvert
"Pot" Gooch married Cora McConnell Wade, the daughter of James Wright
McConnell, and daughter Lucretia Gooch wed Seymore McConnell. (See separate
section.)
William Allen Noblitt and Nancy Tennessee Gooch moved to Springfield,
where he worked for the railroad. Their daughter married into the influential
Freeman family, and their granddaughter Mildred Lucille Freeman was a popular
Springfield News-Leader columnist in the mid-1900s.
James H., Thomas’ son by his first marriage, wed Orlena Elizabeth
Pruitt, daughter of Jacob and Paralee Ruyle Pruitt, in Missouri, but they later
divorced.
• Ursula Evaline married William Carroll Edwards, likely nephew
of James Wright Edwards, on March 6, 1839 before JP Andrew Scott in Maury Co.
There were no known children before her death about 1845. William C. Edwards
later married Ursula’s niece, Narcissa Evaline Johnson – the daughter of Abner
H. Jr. and Mary Mobley Johnson -- and moved to Christian Co. in October 1852.
• Nancy A. (1820) married William Green McCafferty
(1815-February 1873) of Maury Co., and they settled in Porter Township where
their families intermarried extensively with the McConnells. The area today is
known on official maps as McCafferty Hollow in old southern Porter Township.
When W.G. died, the couple owned 220 acres next to his sister Elizabeth, the
widow of George McKnight, and brother Jinkin McCafferty.
William G. was the son of James Green and Mary McCafferty. His father
was a justice of the peace in Giles Co., TN in the early 1820s, but died before
1850 in Maury Co. His mother moved with her children to Christian Co. in 1852.
The children of William McCafferty and Nancy Kenamore included:
Malinda (Jan. 1, 1848-Sept. 17, 1922, m. Samuel Pope), John Q. (March 24,
1851-Nov. 16, 1908, m. Callie Faught), Caledonia (May 1855-March 30, 1911, m.
Pete Bolt), Mary Frances (1858-1943, m. James Wright McConnell), Benjamin
Franklin (July 15, 1861-June 14, 1919, m. Francis Emma McConnell and Sara
Pope), Grace (m. Henry Oberlander), Osha (m. Claude Young), Emery, Jessie (m.
Jack Broadus), Mabel (m. William Jones) and Kermit (m. Linnie Bolin).
Sam and Malinda McCafferty Pope, Callie Bolt, Jim Wright and Mary
Frances McCafferty McConnell, Benjamin, Francis McConnell and Sara Pope
McCafferty and John Q. and Callie Faught McCafferty are buried in McConnell
Cemetery. Kermit and Linnie Bolin McCafferty are buried in McCoy Cemetery.
• Margaret T. (January 1822-after 1900) has been described in
family histories as a spinster who never married. Indeed, the MO census records
consistently show her through 1900 as Margaret Kenamore. Another family story
said one sister had married a Craig in TN. The 1867 will of Mary Kenamore sorts
out the mystery: she refers to daughter Margaret Craig, who must have suffered
through a rocky marriage and divorce. Two families of Craigs, one from KY and
the other from Orange Co., NC, were quite prominent in Maury Co, and a Robert
Craig lived near the Kenamores in 1836.
After her father's death, Margaret moved in with sister Mary S.
McCafferty, but eventually died at the home of her great-nephew, James Wright
McConnell, and her niece, Mary Frances McCafferty, after the year 1900.
Margaret's grave has not been rediscovered, but she may lie beside her parents
in the abandoned family cemetery.
• Mary S. "Polly" (1827-April 29, 1900) married William's
brother Jenkin McCafferty (May 20, 1823-August 1907) in Maury Co. in 1847, and
they settled in southern Porter Township. Jenkin in 1874 owned 100 acres in
McCafferty Hollow.
Her obituary says Polly joined the Christian Church at age 17, or in
1844, probably Bethel Christian Church near Bigbyville that William S. Gooch
organized and where William C. McConnell became the pastor.
Polly and Jenkin's offspring were: Amanda (m. Jacob Costlow), Emma (m.
William Elam), Julia (m. Marion Mensor and Robert H. Ramsay), Mary Alice (Nov.
2, 1858-May 27, 1929, m. Franklin Monroe "Mun" Faught), William,
Louis, Hurd (1867-1935, m. Bessie Griffith) and Grant Allen (1873-1910, m. Sallie
Walters).
Grant had a meteoric rise followed by tragic blows. Grant bought the
George W. Wood property in Ozark in December 1898, after he was elected
Christian Co. circuit clerk, and moved there from Porter Township. That year,
the Christian County Republican newspaper called him “a young and rising
attorney.”
But his wife Sallie died shortly after the turn of the century, and
her sister Emma Walters moved in to help raise the three children. Grant ran
for Christian Co. prosecutor in 1906 and 1908, but lost. In 1908, the local
newspapers reported that he had been stricken with a hemorrhage of the eye (or
brain); the newspaper copies are faded and marred. Grant recovered from his
ailment, only to die in late 1910, leaving orphans Hobart A. (1897), Eula L.
(1898) and Bertha M. (1900).
Jenkin and Polly McCafferty, Mun and Alice McCafferty Faught, Louis,
and Grant Allen and Sallie E. McCafferty are buried at McConnell Cemetery.
The Dent County Kenamores
William and Mary’s only son, Grant Allen Kenamore (Feb. 14, 1824-July
7, 1885), also came to Christian County in 1854, bought property from his
father and William J. McDaniel and for years owned a small Porter Township farm
that eventually passed into the ownership of William and Dora Ica Edwards Aven.
According to Goodspeed's History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas,
Webster, Wright, Texas, Pulaski and Dent Counties, Grant moved in 1856 to
Dent Co. and the Salem, MO area. There he became county surveyor for six years
and probate judge when the Civil War began; Grant later was elected the second
mayor of Salem.
Grant Allen married Emily Frances London, daughter of John and
Permelia Cheek London, in Maury Co. A court case in Giles Co., TN on the estate
of her uncle in 1860 indicates that her mother Permelia, the widow of John London,
had joined Grant's family in Dent Co. The suit also shows that Emily's brothers
John B. and George London moved to Salem, but George and his family returned to
Maury Co. James London, another brother, died in Missouri in 1855; his apparent
widow, Amanda, was living with James and Elizabeth Wilson near Ozark in 1860.
Dent County Historical Society narratives, supplied by former state
Rep. Ken Fiebelman, D-Salem, indicate that these Maury Countians also were
joined by Emily's sisters, Nancy S. (Mrs. John Bailey) Ginger and Martha (Mrs.
Trustan) Hubbard and their families in Salem.
Grant and Emily originally settled one mile north of Salem on a farm
now owned by the McGrath family. But in 1857, they moved into town.
A Southern sympathizer, Grant nevertheless served the Union by
enlisting in April 1863 in Company G of the Missouri State Militia, organizing
Kenamore's Volunteers and in 1864 taking over as a captain of the 48th Missouri
Infantry Volunteers' Company D. When Grant returned to Salem from service in
Chicago, Gov. Thomas C. Fletcher made him captain of the local militia guarding
the public order.
Grant and his family became well-to-do in Dent County. Grant opened
retail businesses in Salem in partnership with W.R. Love, traded stock and
speculated in real estate. He continued owning the small Porter Township farm
and livestock in Christian County until at least 1879 — 40 acres less than two
miles due west of Nixa near Faught School.
After Grant's wife Emily Frances London died on July 1, 1874 of pneumonia,
he remarried Oct. 31, 1875 to Elizabeth Jane "Lizzie" Lance Durham of
Salem, who previously had wed Richard V. Durham, the Douglas Co. clerk in
nearby Ava. By her, Grant became the stepfather to Emmett W. Durham, and
Lizzie's stepson, Adolphus G. (Richard's son by first wife Elizabeth
McSpadden.).
The 1875 Salem newspapers had several joking references to Grant and
his impending marriage.
Grant died July 7, 1885 and is buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Salem
with his two wives and two sons, George Rufus and William Bruce Kenamore (Oct.
10, 1848-Nov. 17, 1881). Lizzie Durham Kenamore died in January 1921 or Dec.
19, 1920 (depending on the source).
George Rufus was born Jan. 29, 1847 in Maury Co. and finished his
education in the common schools of Salem. At age 16, he enlisted in Company D
of the 48th Missouri Infantry under his father, the captain. By 1872, George
was employed at A.H. and H.B. Clark's general store in Salem, and he married
Mrs. Emma Craiger Henthorne, a native of Indiana, on Dec. 23, 1873.
The Clarks sent George to run a store in Eminence, but he eventually
bought out the Clarks and returned to Salem in 1885. George was made deputy
U.S. Internal Revenue collector in November 1887 under Freeman Barnum. In the
fall of 1890, George was elected to the state legislature to represent Dent
County. He had recently retired from his mercantile business and was farming
when elected to the legislature, but after service in the General Assembly,
George gained a patronage job as a state beer inspector. He eventually settled
in St. Louis and, in 1913, joined the Union Avenue Christian Church there.
George was a Democrat, the treasurer of neighboring Shannon Co. and a
Master Mason who joined Salem Lodge No. 225 A.F. & A.M. on May 18, 1867,
eventually becoming its eldest member.
He died April 6, 1928 at age 81 in St. Louis, but is buried in Cedar
Grove along with his wife Emma (Feb. 22, 1850-July 12, 1925), who died in
Webster Groves.
George and Emma had three sons: Rufus Clair, Charles B. and Don (d. age
18).
Charles B. married Etta Delozier and moved to St. Louis, where he
retired after a career as a cashier with the Post-Dispatch newspaper,
today the city's only daily. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in St. Louis.
His brother Rufus Clair, however, gained considerable fame in
journalism as a writer and artist. Born in Eminence on Oct. 22, 1875, Rufus
worked for the Salem Monitor as a young man before moving to Chicago and
then the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1907 to 1931 as a telegraph (wire
service) editor, feature writer, Sunday magazine editor and war correspondent,
who traveled extensively around the globe.
Rufus Clair married Marguerite Martyn in 1912; he died Nov. 3, 1935 in
Portland, OR, but is buried at Cedar Grove in Salem.
1 Christian Co.
Deed Book 4, p. 148
2 Martha Lucinda
Stubblefield was the daughter of Alvis “Ann” Johnson Stubblefield, the daughter
of Gideon Johnson and granddaughter of Abner Johnson Sr.
3 Several Jerome Bonapartes
are found in these families. They were named for Jerome Bonaparte Pillow of
Maury Co.