Author: Hunter One-Name Study Info Blog

Where did our Hunter ancestors live?

Tools for Working with Maps & Land Records:

DeedMapper

GoogleEarth

HistoryPin – upload your own photos to show how it used to look

WhatWasThere- upload photos to show how a building or street used to look

United States Map Resources:

American Panorama – an interactive historical map website that is adding new statistical maps in on-going projects.

Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States

Bureau of Land Management Land Office Records – free, searchable database of land records beginning in 1820

USGS Maps, Imagery and Publications

Sites with information on U.S. migratory roads and trails:

Cyndi’s List – Migration Routes, Roads and Trails

FamilySearch Wiki – U.S. Migration Trails and Road

Sites that have large collections covering multiple, if not all, states:

Historic Aerials

Historical Topographic Maps

Library of Congress

OldMapsOnline – Here they have historical maps around the world

USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer

U.S. State Collections:

Pennsylvania – Historic Pittsburgh

Library of Virginia – including Civil War maps

Canadian Map Resources:

Library and Archives Canada

In Search of Your Canadian Past: The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project

European Map Resources:

British Library

World Map Resources:

Brigham Young University Library – Maps, Atlases and Gazetteers: Maps and Atlases Online

David Rumsey Map Collection

FamilySearch Wki – Maps

Wikimedia Commons – Old Maps of Cities

Saturday afternoon always brings Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge and here it is:

1. Where did your ancestral families reside in 1920? Do you know their addresses or locations? Have you visited the home? Who was enumerated in the 1920 in each family? Are any of your ancestral families missing from the 1920 U.S. Census even if they should be in the census?

Here are my ancestors:

1. Grandparents: John Wesley Hunter and wife, Honor (Herndon), my paternal grandparents had been married for eight years. Children were Naioma, Nira G, Narvard (my father) and Marshall. My grandfather owned his farm.

2. Paternal Great Grandparents: James Hunter and wife, Mary Jane (Meadows) were living on their farm on Elk Two Mile Road, Charleston, Kanawha, West Virginia. There were two children: Wilimina and Thomas. My great grandfather owned his own farm.

That’s it for my ancestors in 1920.

Frances Hunter Arbuckle and Captain Matthew Arbuckle had a son, Matthew. Born December 18, 1778 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, and died June 11, 1851 at Fort Smith, Sebastian County, Arkansas. He was buried in the Arbuckle Cemetery, Lavaca, Sebastian County, Arkansas.

United States Army Officer. He served as Colonel and commander of 7th United States Infantry Regiment, stationed at Fort Scott, Georgia. Assumed command of Ft. Smith, AR in 1822. First commander of Ft. Gibson, IT (OK) from 1824 to 1841. Last assigned to Ft. Smith, AR on March 14, 1851. He died there in June of 1851. The Arbuckle Mountains in Southern Oklahoma were named in his honor.

Frances was born at sea after her parents set sail for America. She was the daughter of John Henry and Frances Mortimer Hunter. She married three times. First to James Lawrence, Jr. who died shortly after the wedding, second to Captain Matthew Arbuckle and third to Alexander Welch. She married Captain Arbuckle on December 17, 1774 in Botentourt County, Virginia, and they had four children, James Harvey, General Matthew, Thomas and Samuel. Her marriage to Alexander came after Matthew’s death and they had four known children; Agnes, Frances and two unknown.

In a book written about Frances by Ann Royal on Greenbrier County Frances says:

 “I am now (1824) sitting on the site where this fort once stood, not the least vestige of it however remains. It is now the property of Mrs. Welch, whose house and garden stands within the limits once occupied by this fort. From Mrs. Welch, who is now in her seventieth year, I collected these particulars. She is now sitting by me and goes on to relate: ” That she was one of the earliest permanent settlers of Greenbrier and lived within a mile of the fort just mentioned, which was called Fort Savannah. She was then the wife of a Mr. Arbuckle who was in the famous battle of the Point, and spent all his life in guarding the settlements. There was, besides Fort Savannah, another about eight miles northeast of it called Donnallys Fort….”

Frances married Captain Matthew Arbuckle in 1774.

Captain Matthew Arbuckle, ‘‘large of stature and large of spirit,” was born about 1740/41 in Virginia or Scotland. He is listed as serving in the Augusta County, Virginia, militia in 1758–59, was a lieutenant in 1767, and commissioned captain of Botetourt County militia in 1770. He served as a gentleman justice of Botetourt County from its founding in 1769 until 1773.

A hunter and trapper, Arbuckle was probably the first white man to travel from Virginia to the Ohio other than as a prisoner of the Indians. In 1774 he built the stockade on Muddy Creek, Greenbrier County, now known as Arbuckle’s Old Fort.

Commanding a company of Botetourt County militia he served as guide and chief scout for Gen. Andrew Lewis’s 1774 march to Point Pleasant, contributing greatly to the defeat of the Indians led by Chief Cornstalk at the Battle of Point Pleasant. Later he built Fort Randolph at Point Pleasant. He was in command there when a mob of newly arrived and undisciplined militia, who had witnessed one of their number killed and scalped by the Indians, overcame their officers’ and Arbuckle’s attempts to maintain order and murdered the captive Cornstalk.

Soon after 1774, Arbuckle established his residence near Lewisburg, then known as Fort Savannah, and when the town was laid out in 1780 he was the first settler. In 1778 he was active in raising the siege of Fort Donnally, near Lewisburg. On retirement from active military service he farmed his extensive lands and served several public duties. In March of 1781 he was commissioned to lay out a route from Lewisburg to Warm Springs, Bath County. In June of that year, returning from the capital at Williamsburg, Arbuckle was caught in a violent storm near the banks of the Jackson River and killed by a falling tree. He left a widow and six strong sons.

Samuel was born about 1797 in Bruslee, Antrim, Northern Ireland.

He married Mary A Cameron 8 Dec 1826 in the Rosemary St Church in Belfast.

Children:

1. William (1829-1888)
2. John (1832-1917)
3. Elizabeth (1834-1882)
4. Leitia (1837-1900)
5. Samuel (1842-1885)
6. David (1845-1905)

Samuel died 6 Jan 1877 in Antrim, Northern Ireland.