The Montfort Family 1624: A Narrative

Six Children, Twenty Four Grandchildren and Eleven Great Grandchildren
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Generation Nine

Mary Cook Montfort
marycookmontfort.jpg
great grandniece of Daniel Boone

The obituary for Mary Cook Montfort lists her as having 6 children, 24 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.  The youngest of the great grandchildren was my grandmother, Jennie Gertrude Taylor, born in Sept of 1889. 
 
David, being the son of Shaker parents, grandparents and himself born a Shaker until 1828, this is his legacy.  For if he had not decided to leave the austere life of the Shakers, there would be no descendants to marvel at the family history.
 
This will be a brief summary of their 6 children:
 
A. James Francis, was born in June of 1833, served in the Confederate Army from Kentucky and married twice.  His first wife was Nancy Elizabeth Rachford whom he married in Larue County, KY on January 1, 1857.  They would have three daughters, Mary/Mollie born about 1860 in Kentucky; Annie born in Kentucky in 1862; and Lula born aboaut 1865 in Kentucky.  By 1900, he and his wife were in Weatherford, Texas [Parker County], where they ran a hotel.  All three of their daughters are still living at this time but it is not known if they had married, when or to whom.    Lula was a music teacher for a time, in Young County, Texas, living in the town of Graham.  She was there in 1890 and after that, nothing is known.   Nancy Elizabeth Rachford Montfort, died February 8, 1908 and is buried in the City of Greenwood Cemetery, Weatherford, Texas.   On June 9, 1909, James married Miss Roberta White in Parker County, Texas.  They had no known children.  James died in Bexar County, TX on November 25, 1920.  His wife survived till at least 1930, but nothing further is known about her.
 
B. Laura Montfort was born April 25, 1835 in Shelby County, Kentucky according to her marriage license.  She married Judge James M. Posey in Lawrenceburg, Anderson County, Kentucky on the 11th of Sept, 1855 and would give birth to 9 children, of whom 8 would survive to adulthood.  Her children were: 
 
1. Mary W. born in 1856 and marry Antone Reiss.  They would move to Fresno, California about 1907 and have 6 children;  James Horace married to Marie Crim, William Albert married to FLorence Ellinor Hoffman, Joseph A. married to Marguerite M. Faucher, Fred P married to Leona May Allen, Mary Eloise who married Joseph R. Benedict and Thomas Hubert who married Grace M. Adams.  There are several grandchildren from these 6 children and all have descendants in California. 
 
2.  William Horace who was born about 1860 in Anderson County, KY at Lawrenceburg.  He would marry Annie Berryman and have 2 daughters, Genevieve born about 1886 and married to George Macklin Gayles; and Edith M. born aboaut 1891 in Frankfort, Kentucky and marry businessman, James W. Montgomery.  His occupation was lawyer and he had a practice in Frankfort, KY, Franklin County.   There are descendants in the Frankfort, KY area.
 
3.  Lucretia born Sept 29, 1862 in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky and called Lulie, would marry Stephen B. Ross and move to Fresno, Ca by 1907.  There were possibly 4 children:  Emma L, who married Ira Temple and lived in Sanger, CA;  Charles Howard who married Alice Nichols and lived in Fresno, CA; James Albert, no known marriage or children; and  Florence who had one daughter also named Florence [this daughter was raised by her uncle Charles Howard Ross.] Their are descendants still in California from this line.
 
4. James Albert who was born Sept 6, 1865 and possibly married a Willy K. ?? first,  then Addie Neal second.  He was a dentist with offices in Frankfort, Kentucky.  Possibly a son, James. 
 
5.  Laura Eloise [Eloise P.] was born May 21, 1868 and married to Frank H. Connelly.  They also moved to Fresno, CA about 1907 or earlier.  There are no known children.
 
6.  Charles Rowland who was born Dec 19, 1874 in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky and married to Eloise ??  He was an insurance man and had moved from Kentucky to Baltimore, Maryland.
 
7, Thomas Hubert was born February 9, 1874 and was a practicing dentist in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.  He married Olive Tanner and had 2 sons, Thomas H. Jr who was an electrical engineer with Commonwealth Ed of Chicago and Robert P. who was last known to be in Jacksonville, FL.
8. Edward M was born ???? and probably married at  twice, Evelyn D. and then Elizabeth Griffey.  He was a stockbroker and was known to have lived in Cincinnati, Ohio and Chicago, Il.  There are descendants.
 
9.  Owen Breckinridge died as an infant.
 
C. Israel Christopher was born in  Aug of 1838 at Bagdad, Shelby County, KY and served in the 2nd Regt Kentucky Infantry of the Confederate Army.  He was married to Kate ??? and had three children, Frank C. born in May of 1865, Mattie born 1868 and Stella born in 1879, all in Kentucky,  Nothing is known about the girls, but Frank C. would marry and have 3 children, Russell, Frank C. Jr who would marry Edwitha Funk and have 5 children, and Stanley who married and had one daughter.[lived in the Dayton,Ohio area, and no descendants from the daughter are known. ]  Israel Christopher, called Chris by many of the family, was a teacher, newspaper editor [in Lexington, KY] and grocer [Louisville, KY] and by April 1923, was living in Cole, OK where he died sometime after 1924.  No grave has been found but letters written to his brother Billy, give information on his whereabouts the last few months of his life.  Kate Montfort had died by 1900, according to the census in KY.  There are descendants living in Louisville, Kentucky.
 
D.  Martha Jane was born in Consolation, Shelby County, KY on May 3, 1844.  She married twice, first to Jordan Satterwhite in January 1865.  They had one son,John and both son and father would die young.  She then married Soren Jensen, a native of Denmark and raised his two daughters, Jennie Rosine Jensen Roach and Loella Jensen McBrayer.  Jennie and Soren would have a son, Alfred Soren born in 1884.  He would have three marriages, but no children from any of them.  Jennie was a schoolteacher in both Shelby and Anderson County, KY.  She lived in the town of Alton, Ky.  Jennie died in 1927, having served as a surrogate mother to her niece and namesake, Jennie Taylor, daughter of Nancy Montfort Taylor.
 
E.  William Berry Montfort was born Oct. 17, 1846 in Ohio County, KY.  and died in Oklahoma on Oct 31, 1930.   Records show his father owned land in Ohio County, KY and the family lived there for a short time.  By 1850, they were back in Anderson County, KY.  Billy was married first to Dorah Munday on April 13, 1879 in Anderson County, Ky.  There is little else known about Dorah, no known children, nor if she died or they divorced.  He next married Affair Allen Collins, known as Fida, on Feb 28, 1875 in Shelby County, KY.  They would have 8 children, three did not survive infancy, five were born in Clark County, IN at Jeffersonville and the last would be born in Dodge City, Kansas, as they followed the OK Land Rush.  To his family he was known as Billy, to the people who knew him in Oklahoma, he was Kentuck.  His occupation was barber, both in Indiana and in Oklahoma.  The children were:
 
1. David born and died in 1876;
 
2.  a daughter also born and died in 1876.  [note. the son was born in early Jan of that year and the little girl was born in late Dec of the same year.]
 
3. William Talbert  born in Nov of 1878 and who married Maggie May Mingle and has descendants in Califonia, including Paula Montfort who has provided pictures and letters of the family. There are descendants in this line, living in California.
 
4. Wade Hampton born in Aug of 1880 and married to Lenora Agnes Gemmaka with descendants in OK, VA and elsewhere, including my good cousin, Diana Montfort-Rhoton Davis who has been working on this family history too.  There are descendants in this line.
 
5.  Jeannie who was born  and died in 1882.
 
6. Maria/Ria who was born in Oct of 1883, married to William Arthur Ritter and had one daughter; 
 
7. Eliza Susan "Liddie" who was born in April of 1885 and married to Lee Florence, with descendants in OK, including Melanie Schuler who has provided a wealth of photos of the family that my family had lost in the 1937 Ohio River flood.
8. Myrtle Allen born in 1888 and married twice, to Amos Casebolt and then to Lee Haas but no children from either marriage.
 
F.  Nancy Elizabeth Montfort, born November 16, 1852 and died Februry 10, 1901 of consumption.  She was married to Zachariah W. Taylor, called Zack, at the home of her parents in Anderson County, KY on Oct. 15, 1872.  They would have 6 children....
 
1.  Laura D. who was born Dec 5, 1873 and died on Nov 3, 1892 of consumption.
 
2.  Jesse Ellsworth born Oct 9, 1876 and died Oct 26, 1952...he married Margaret Abie Spears in 1902 and had Nola May [1903-1989 married to Earl Sorrels and then Arnold Moore with 5 children by Earl], Clara Jessie [1905-1952, married to Chester Reed with no known children; Raymond I [1906-1934 married to Lucille Mahoney and died a few months after the marriage, no known children]; Lawrence Emmett [1908-1978, married to Ann Whisman with no known children], Albert E. [1911-1979 married to Lucille Ray with no known children]
3.  Charles Edward [1877-1941 married to Elizabeth "Lizzie" Turner in a double wedding with his sister Jennie and Ancil Logan Adams on May 29, 1907]  He and Lizzie had a daughter, Cassie who died young and Lillie Mae who married Sam Ritchie and lived in Louisville, KY till Sam retired.  They moved to Tennessee where both died.  Sam and Lillie Mae had one daughter, Barbara who married Greg Smith and had two children.  There are descendants in this line.
 
4.  Clarence E. [1883-1963 married to Valeria Frances Satterwhite and moved to St Louis, MO where both are buried.]  They had two sons, Gilmer and VIrgil.  Only Gil had children, a son Roy, and two daughters, Sylvia and Donna.  There are descendants.
 
5. Elzora, called  Ella, born Dec of 1886 and died of consumption in Oct 1903.  She is buried in the Clayvillage Baptist Church Cemetery, as is both her parents and her maternal grandparents.
 
6. Jennie Gertrude, born Sept 14, 1889 in Clayvillage, KY [Shelby County] and died January 13, 1975 in New Albany, Floyd County, IN.  She is buried in the Kraft-Graceland Cemetery in New Albany in a plot with her youngest daughter, Marietta and her husband Gordon Butler.  Jennie attended school in Clayvillage, KY and after her mothers death, moved to Lawrenceburg, KY to live with her Aunt Laura.  When Laura died, Jennie moved among relatives and friends, probably spending some time at her Aunt Jennie Jensens home.  At some point, she moved into Shelbyville, KY with her brothers, Charles and Clarence, keeping house while they worked as carpenters and cabinet makers.  She met Ancil Logan Adams at a band concert in Shelbyville, laughing as she recalled seeing the lanky redhead, sitting on the edge of the bandshell with a blue sock and red sock showing above his shoes.
They married in a double wedding with her brother, Charles, who was marrying her best friend, Lizzie Turner.  Ancil worked for the Southern Railroad, and the job eventually moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky and then to New Albany, Indiana, a short trip across the Ohio River from Louisville.  He was the first of his family born in Kentucky.  His mother was reportedly pregnant with him when the family moved from Jefferson County, FL to Shelby County, Kentucky.  A grade school classmate of Jennie Taylor,   Wallace McConnell would later marry Ancil's sister, Angie.  Jennie and Ancil would have 7 children, only one not surviving to adulthood.
 
1. Edith Gertrude [1908-1965 married to John Dudley.  They would have 3 children, Thedie, Rosie and Johnny.  There are descendants in KY, TX, IN.   Thedie is good at answering my questions and confirming stories passed down.]
 
2. Ancil Logan Jr [1911-1975 and married three times,with only children from the first marriage to Lillian Eiler.  They divorced and he married Alva Newsom, then the third marriage was to Margaret Gaddy.  His children were Ronald and Lola Jean.  There are descendants in CA]
 
3.  Emily Jensen [1913-1996, married twice, first to Vic Cooper and two sons born, Jerry and a son Louis, who died young.  Jerry had a son who died in his twenties with no children.  She married Johnny Callahan during WW2 and there are no children of this marriage.
 
4.  Clarence William [1915-1919 died of spinal meningitis]complications]
 
5. Charles Perry [1919-1997 married to Marge Correl in 1945 while serving in the US Navy.  He was at the D-Day landings on a ship carrying supplies into the beach and carrying back the dead and wounded.]  He had two sons, Mark Wayne who died at age 25 with no children and Danny Phillip who never married.
 
5.  Frank Williams [1921-1988 married to Jean Adams.]  They had three children, Barbara [married with two daughters and 5 grandchildren as of 2005; Ted [married twice, a daughter from the first marriage, a son and daugter from the second marriage, no grandchildren] and Todd [1968-1989 never married]  Frank served in the Arny Air Corps in the South Pacific [New Guinea at Nadzab Air Base] and left home when his daughter was 2 days old returning the month before her third birthday.  On his return he worked as a crane operator at the Quartermaster Depot in Jeffersonville, IN, then went back to the racetrack where he worked before he joined the service.  He was a jockey and trainer, riding till he was in his early 60's and training horses for a doctor in New Albany, IN when he died, as he wanted, in the saddle.  At times he worked as a distributor for a hobby company in Louisville and owned his own hobby shop in New Albany for about 2 years.  For a number of years he belonged to the New Albany Exchange Club and was active in model plane flying and competitions around the midwest.  He won the Rickenbacker trophy at the Nationals in California in the mid '50's.  In the mid 1930's he had already become interested in model planes and was building and flying radio control before switching to control line,
after tje war,  competing in stunt flying and dogfighting.  In early 1952, he built a model of a Navy Corsair for scale model competition, which is now owned by his oldest gt grandson, Curry.  Todd would not marry, Ted married twice and has three children.  Barbara married and has two daughters and 5 grandchildren.
 
6.  Marietta [1925-1996, the last born of the children of Ancil and Jennie.]  She married three times, first to Cyril D. Lyons, then to Alva Edison Jones, and finally to Gordon Butler.  There were no children.  Marietta had a near fatal illness when she was young.  She became ill with German measles and had to relearn all the childhood activities, walking, talking, feeding herself.  At one time she was in a hospital in Indianapolis.   As a result she could not have children.  She was an avid solitaire player, and loved coca cola [a memory of a cousin], and was a talented skater, giving demonstrations and teaching roller skating and dancing on skates in various New Albany skating rinks.

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