GED4WEB version 4.41 Park John [Male] b. 16 FEB 1786 Hampshire County, Virginia - d. 1862 Union Township, Licking County, Ohio
John PARK was born February 16, 1786 in Hampshire County, Virginia where
he remained with his parents until his twenty third birthday, when he
married Miss Margaret MCBRIDE. John PARK;s mother, Nancy Ann EDWARDS
(married to a Mr. MCKEEVER at the time) was taken by the Wyandot Indians
from Greenbrier County, Virginia to Sandusky in the Northwest Territory.
(At this time Ohio was known as the Northwest Territory).
The parents of Margeret MCBRIDE, Alexander and Jane MCBRIDE, emigrat
America from the county Antrim, Ireland at the close of the Revolution
War in the States.
Story written by Julia H. Grace in the History of Ellis County, Oklahoma indicates that the wife of Archibald Boyles was Lydia Ann Stevens and not Elizabeth as shown on this family page.
LDS Pedigree Chart indicates that Edward's will was dated 25 Dec 1785.
Davis County, Kansas also listed as birth place.
Samuel PARK was an Englishman by descent, whose anestors were among the colonists of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607-8. His first wife, who bore him six children, was the sister of his second wife, Nancy Ann Edwards who also bore six children by him.
(LDS CD-ROM indicates that Samuel's name is PARKS.)
Extracted from History of Licking County:
"In the month of July 1779, a party of Wyandot Indians, from the Sandusky river, made their appearance in Greenbriar County, Virginia, and killed or took prisoners many of the white citizens, burning or destroying such property as they could not carry away with them. Among the sufferers was
a family by the name of McKeever. The husband and father was shot down in his own door-yard, and the mother and three small children, the youngest but an infant of six months, were taken prisoners. Their house was pillaged and burned, and the prisoners hurried away toward the Indian
headquarters on the Sandusky river. The woman could in after years give but little idea of their line of travel, further than this: that the Indians, fearing pursuit, took the most direct route to Upper Sandusky.
But in the year 1815, while moving to this state, when she reached the month of Licking river, she recognized that as the point where they crossed the Muskingum river, and whence they probably took the Indian trail up the valley north of Newark. Soon after reaching Upper Sandusky the youngest child died, and the other two, both girls, were taken from her to some place to her unknown. Here she remained a prisoner and a slave three years and nine months. Though the war had then closed, her
friends did not seek for her as they supposed her dead, and the Indians, her masters, refused to give her up and let her return to her friends.
In the spring of 1783, by the aid of as Indian trader by the name of Isaac Zane, she made her escape and got back to her friends, then in Hampshire county, Virginia. To sucessfully make her escape, she traveled for three sucessive nights on foot and alone, secreting herself in the wildness in the day time. She had previously received instructions from Mr. Zane as to her line of travel, and where she should stop and await his arrival. To avoid any suspicion resting upon him as an accomplice in
effecting her escape, the trader remained in the town the next day, until many of her pursuers had returned. He then started, but again stopped over night before reaching her hiding-place through the day. The Indains not being fully satisfied as to his innocence, secretly pursued him and watched him all night. He again started late in the morning, an traveled a less distance than it was agreed that she should travel the preceding night. One or two Indians again made their appearance, but now abandoned the pursuit, being satisfied of his innocence. The third day he reached the point that had been agreed upon as the place of their meeting. She had reached the place in safety the night before, but for fear the Indians might be still secretly pursuing them, she did not join the wagon of the trader until he was ready to start the next day. Mr. Zane, being on his way to the sea coast with a load of furs, aided her to the circle of her friends. During the whole time she remained a prisoner, she had
received as kind treatment as could have been expected from such an uncultivated race of people. Her mistresss was very fond of "fire water", and when drunk was a bloodthirsty tyrant; but her eldest son was a large and noble young chief, strickly temperate, religiously inclined, a warm and constant friend of the prisoner, whom he called his white mother, and from whom he aften seemed pleased to receive religious instruction. This noble young chief would sometimes aid her to secret herself, and supply her with food for two or three days at a time, during a drunken frolic of the Indians. Of this chief she would often speak in her old age, and would sometimes express a wish to see or know what
became of her big Indian son, as she would sometimes call him. There was another lady, a fellow prisoner with her, who had been a slave in Virginia, but was nearly white, who married an Indian chief by the name of Walker, soon after they were taken to Sandusky, and who became the mother of the learned, wealthy and celebrated Walker family among the WYANDOTS, at the time they left their reserve on the Sandusky, for their new home west of the Mississippi. Mrs. Walker lived to be nearly one hundred years old, and to enjoy the blessing of a Christian civilization, under the missionary instructions of James B. Finley and James Gillruth. Mrs. Walker was a warm friend and intimate associate of Mrs. McKeever as long as she remained a prisoner, and from her the history of the two lost daughters was obtained after the death of their mother. But the mother had passed through life without a knowledge of what had become of them, a and had mourned for them as being numbered with the dead."
"About two years after her return to the association of her friends, she married Samuel Park, the widowed husband of her deceased sister, with whom she lived until the eighteenth of February, 1815, when she was again left a widow. She had raised a family, by this last marriage, of six children of her own, besides six orphan children and one grandchild of her deceased sister. At the death of her husband, her eldest son, who had moved to the Licking valley in the year 1810, and settled on Auter
creek, in Union township, returned to Virginia and brought her to his home in this county, where she continued to live fourteen years, and until her death, on the fourteenth day of September, 1829, aged
seventy-five years, dying within less than one hundred miles of the Indian tribe and the place where she had been a prisoner and a slave fifty years before, and withnin about two hundred miles of the residence of her two lost daughters, then the wives of two civilized Indian chiefs, but both of whom died near Detroit about the time their mother died in Union township.
"This woman of suffering and sorrow was my grandmother, and her son, who provided for he wants the last fourteen years of her life, was my father. She often spent her time in relating her experience among the Indians, and in teaching me the Wyandot dialect. She and David Benjamin would often, though prisoners with different tribes, relate to each other their sufferings while among the Indians.
"Nancy A. Park was a woman of mild temper, and a patient sufferer, but communicative and pleasant. Shev was an ancient Briton descent, but American born. Her maiden name was Edwards. Her husband -my grandfather- was an Englishman by descent, whose ancestors were among the
colonists of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607-8. My maternal grandparents were from the country Antrim, in Ireland, and emigrated to this country at the close of the Revolution. From this you will see that I, in my humble person, represent the blood of different nations, but it will not be supposed that my European predilections are very strong, as I have an American lineage of more than two hundred and fifty years. I was born in Union township, November 21, 1810, and at four weeks old, in mid-winter,
was taken into a green beech cabin, without floor, door, or chimney, which, however, was soon made comfortable by the industry of my, then, young parents. Nor did I enjoy the luxury of a nice baby-crib set on rockers. I was cradled in a suger-trough, and often lulled to sleep by the notes of the owl and the howl of the wolf. But, even then, the sweeter songsters of the forest, such as the mocking bird, the
nightingale and the whip-poor-will, sang just as sweetly from our wild forest surroundings, as they do now from the fancy groves of our finest villas. The attempt to resurrect and place upon record the history of our pioneer fathers and mothers, has caused me to live much of my life over again. The scenes and associations of my youth have many of them been brought vividly before my mind, as in other years. The old-fashioned log cabin with puncheon floor, clapboard door, wooden chimney, warmed by a massive log fire at one end, and lighted by oiled paper windows; the chimney corners hung full of jerk; the rich, juicy, fresh vension, broiled on the end of a sharp stick; the noble wild
turkey, roasted for Thanksgiving and Christmas; the occasional feast upon a fat coon or opossum; the johnny-cake, baked on a board; the rich and healthy coffee and tea, the product of the garden, the field and the forest, and made doubly palatable by rich cream and maple sugar. The pleasant social gathering of our fathers and mothers around the cheerful log fire, relating the incidents and anecdotes of their lives; the hilarity sometimes produced by the exhilerating effects of egg-nog or warm toddy; the happy associations of the young folks; the tippings of the charming notes of the violin; the cabin-raisings, the log-rollings, the corn-huskings, the wood-choppings, flax-pullings, the sentimental
songs, the jumping, hopping, wrestling and foot racing exercises of the young men; the quilting parties of the ladies; the buzz of the spinning wheel in the cabin; the whack, whack of the flaxbreak at the barn; the guns, the dogs and the chase, -all of these have been brought freshly to our mind, and we are in a great degree permitted to live over again the happy days of our youth; and that, too, with the most happy reminiscences of those youthful associations. But amidst these pleasant reflectio
there are some sad thoughts. These revered fathers and mothers have all passed away; more than half of our youthful associations are numbered among the dead, and those that are left have lost the vigor and elasticity of youth and are blossoming for the grave. The school children of to-day greet us as grandparents, and we, too, must soon be numbered with the dead."
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