SANDERS

Mary Jane Sanders was born in Johnson County, Illinois February 5, 1847 the daughter of John William Sanders and Nancy Harper.  Mary Jane married James Oliver Fowler June 21, 1865 Johnson County, Illinois.

Mary Jane's Father, John, came to Southern Illinois with his parents as a young boy in the Fall of 1838 from Tennessee where they had lived three years.  John and Nancy Harper knew each other as children in Tennessee and the two families made the trip from Tennessee to Illinois together.

John William Sanders was born May 30, 1825 in Caroline County, Virginia to James Sanders and Mary Ann Orrell.  John married Nancy Harper January 22, 1846 in Johnson County, Illinois.  Nancy was born in Tennessee to James Harper and Rhoda Cross.  John and Nancy purchased new land where they lived for three years.  They sold this land and later bought an improvement paying $175 for the clearing of ten acres, log cabin and barn.  John later purchased additional parcels of 80 acres and 103 acres.

John was a member of the Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry, Company H as a Private. He was later transferred to Company G.  He was discharged as a First Lieutenant and was in command of the company.  John replaced Captain William Perkins who had been wounded and discharged for disability.  John was wounded in the right leg by a gunshot breaking one bone at the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain.  His regiment took an active part in the Morgan Raid in 1863 and of the Stoneman Raid in Macon, Georgia.  He was mustered out July 31, 1865 at Pulaski, Tennessee and discharged at Nashville, Tennessee August 8.  He reached his home and family in Johnson County, Illinois August 18.

John served as Justice of the Peace one term of four years.  He was a member of the Masonic Fraternity, Secretary of Reynoldsburgh Lodge eleven and a half years and representative to the Grand Lodge in 1873.  John was a Democrat, previously a Whig.  He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for forty seven years and his wife, Nancy for forty nine years.  Nancy was the daughter of a Methodist Minister.

John's father, James Sanders, was born in Scotland 1790 and came to the United States 1810 with an elder brother.  He served in the War of 1812.  James married Mary Ann Orrell in 1815.  They lived in Virginia until 1835 when they  went to Middle Tennessee where they lived three years.  In October of 1838, they removed to Southern Illinois and settled near Reynoldsburgh, Johnson County Illinois.  Both trips were made in a covered wagon; six weeks from Virginia to Tennessee and one month from Tennessee to Southern Illinois.  The Sanders and Harper families traveled together from Tennessee to Southern Illinois in the company of the Cherokee Indians who were going to their home in Indian Territory.

James and Mary Ann lived two years on 80 acres of land near Reynoldsburgh. James sold his improvement and purchased 160 acres where the family lived six years.  He again sold and bought 126½ acres of improved land where they lived until his death in February 1847 when he was fifty six years of age.  His widow, Mary Ann, sold the farm and went to live with her only son, John William Sanders.

Source:

Some of the information rewritten from The Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope and Hardin Counties Illinois -1893.  John William Sanders probably provided the information to the author as he did not die until July 15, 1910.

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