Notes on James Bristow, Jr.,
and his wife, Jane Shelton Clarkson
by Neil Allen Bristow
Born 7 December 1770, James was the third of four sons of James Bristow, Sr. (1731?-1806), and Margaret Clopton (1729-1805?). His birthplace may have been in New Kent County, Virginia, where both his grandfather, Jedediah Bristow, and his mother's family had lived. However, it is more likely that he was born a hundred miles west of New Kent in the wooded hills of Buckingham County, where the Cloptons and the Pasleys and James Bristow were established by the 1770s.1
Although his daughter, Mary, later recalled having "so often in my early life heard him describe the scenes of his childhood, boyhood and youth in Culpeper," she was writing many decades later and musing over Civil War battles in northern Virginia.2 As there are no other links to that locale, I suspect that Mary's memory, usually so reliable, played her false, placing her father about eighty miles too far north along the Virginia Piedmont.
In his nineteenth year, James, together with his parents, three brothers, half-brother Thomas Clopton Pasley, his Pasley half-sisters, and all their dependents, joined the great migration across the Appalachians to Kentucky. Within two years his father had purchased from Nathaniel Gist (also a resident of Buckingham County) 200 acres on Stoners Fork of the Licking River.3
On 13 July 1793, Gist, who was preparing to move his family from Buckingham to the Bluegrass, made an agreement with James Bristow, Jr.,4
to take from stump, erect and complete on or before the first day of May next, in a neat and workmanlike manner a frame house of the following plan and dimensions, to wit:
The house to be two stories high, thirty eight feet in length by thirty feet in breadth, the lower story to be twelve and the upper nine feet pitch and divided as follows. The lower story to contain three rooms and an entry, one room eighteen feet by twenty, the other two eighteen feet by fifteen each, and the entry for the stair case to run in, twenty feet by twelve, the upper story to have a passage through the middle thirty feet by eight with two rooms on either side fifteen feet square each. The lower story to have twelve windows of eighteen lights, the upper fifteen lights, and the whole house to contain fourteen panel doors.
In consideration Nathaniel Gist agrees to pay James Bristow, Jr., the sum of thirty pounds current money of Virginia and also at the finishing of said work the further sum of one hundred twenty. . . Nathaniel Gist to furnish him in due time with the necessary imported articles for completion of the same.
Nath'l Gist
James Bristow
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| A typical mill with an overshot waterwheel |
The exact location of this property eluded me for years. It is described, using the old metes and bounds system, as on Green Creek and Wolf Creek. Green Creek survives on modern maps, a stream meandering easterly from the Fayette County line past Clintonville to its junction with Strodes Creek after a course of about nine miles. However, Wolf Creek was lost in the fog of history; neither modern maps nor inquiries among local residents yielded a location. One summer day in 1998, quite by chance I wandered into a room on the first floor of the Old Capitol Museum in Frankfort. There I found Luke Munsell's "Map of the State of Kentucky," dating from 1818, which showed Wolf Creek south of and parallel to Green Creek, north of Johnsons Fork; joining the latter just before it enters Strodes Creek. Unfortunately Munsell's sketch does not match modern topography.6 A more recent "Historical Map of Bourbon County, Kentucky" prepared in 1934 by Alice Rogers Clay Blanton, does show the "James Bristow Sawmill" located on the south side of Green Creek, west of the Paris-Winchester Pike and the rail line.7
At the age of 23 James married the 17-year-old Jane Shelton Clarkson, eldest daughter of Julius Clarkson and Elizabeth Sandidge Clarkson, on 9 September 1794. The Clarksons had come from Albemarle County (adjacent to Buckingham) to the Bluegrass in 1789. Julius was accompanied by two unmarried sisters, and some of his elder brothers also made their homes in the area. A little more than a year after his marriage, James bought land near his in-laws in southwestern Bourbon County.8 Early census data show James and his growing family surrounded by the familiar names of Clarkson, Ellis, Dickerson, and White.9
James' talents extended to surveying. An item in the Kentucky Gazette, 25 Jan 1802, noted that James Bristow, Jr., had "laid off land" with Col Benjamin Bedford for Green Clay.10
A few years later James turned his construction skills to providing a building for the use of the Stony Point Baptist Church. The arrangements were recorded in the "Monthly Register for the Baptist Church Situate at Green Creek in Bourbon County":11
June 22nd 1805.
The church met agreeable to appointment & after prayer to god for his Blessing proceeded to Business
Agreed. Br. Jas. Bristow Junr. Cut out the Doors and windows, and furnish planks, and make the Doors and windows shutt[er]s and hang them for the meeting house, as soon as Convenent and the Church pay him for the Same.
Adjourned L: Corbin, Mdr
A: Bristow, ClkAugust the 24th 1805.
The church met agreeable to appointment & after prayer to god for his Blessing proceeded to Business
Agreed. We received Br. Jas. Bristows Bill as it stands for the work he Done about the Meetinghouse, amounting to four Pounds seventeen Shillings and that the Church pay him for the same. — Equality.
Adjourned. L: Corbin, Mdr
Ar: Bristow, Clk
The entries above were made by James' brother, Archibald, who served as the congregation's clerk until 1813, when he moved to Todd County in south-central Kentucky. Their brother John Bristow then assumed the duties until 1829. Both Archibald and his parents, James and Margaret Bristow, were among the founders of Stony Point on 24 August 1803, and John joined a few years later, as shown by a surviving membership list.12
The family had been caught up in the great religious movement that swept the frontier. They may have attended the most famous gathering of the Great Revival, which was held at Cane Ridge in southern Bourbon County, only a few miles from the Bristow home. Barton W. Stone, a leader of the movement, then a Presbyterian minister, described the events:13
This memorable meeting came on Thursday and Friday before the third Lord's day in August, 1801. The roads were literally covered with wagons, carriages, horsemen and footmen, moving to the solemn camp. The sight was affecting. It was judged by military men on the ground that there were between twenty and thirty thousand collected. Four or five preachers were frequently speaking at the same time at different parts of the encampment, without confusion.
James Bristow and Jane had affiliated with the Baptist congregation at Bryants Station in eastern Fayette County, one of the earliest foundations in the Bluegrass, where her father, Julius Clarkson, had been one of the earliest members, along with her maiden aunts, Mary and Mourning Clarkson.14 Mary recorded her mother's decision to join the church. "Notwithstanding my Mother realized a hope in Christ so early in life, she did not join a Church until the Great Revival in eighteen hundred and one. She was baptized by Elder Ambrose Dudley at Bryants Station, remained a member of that Church for many years."15
Though he was not yet a member of the Stony Point congregation, James conveyed, on 20 April 1807, for the nominal sum of two dollars, "1 acre and 9 square poles to the trustees of Stony Point, Henry Wigginton & John Hedges, for the use of said church."16 The church survived at that location, just west of the Paris-Winchester Pike, for many years, and lent its name to the road leading east to Manson Seamands' mill, but it is not clear whether the building was the same one constructed by James Bristow. (Any trace of the structure is now hidden beneath the rich, green grass of a gently rolling pasture.)
Like all able-bodied free adult males, the Bristows were members of the local militia, and they along with many of their Bourbon County neighbors were called to duty in the War of 1812. James and Archibald played very minor parts in the conflict. James served as quartermaster in Col James Allen's 3rd Regiment of Kentucky Mounted Infantry, and Archibald was a private in Capt Joseph Clark's Company, 3rd Regiment of Kentucky Mounted Riflemen.17 James' eldest son, John Sandidge Bristow, though still a teenager, was a 2nd Corporal in Captain William Garrard's Light Dragoons, and his uncle, James M. Clarkson was 1st Sergeant. That unit, which boasted colorful uniforms with red vests and bearskin caps, did see action and suffered a score of casualties.18
The 1820 census found the James Bristow household numbering twelve — five girls from their twenties down and five younger boys.19 A decade later there were nine free males and five females as well.20 The larger numbers must have included some grandchildren and other relatives, since two of the older boys and the eldest daughter had their own households in other places.
The family's close connections (physical and spiritual) with the Stony Point congregation later turned sour. James' and Jane's daughter, Mary Beckley Bristow, herself an ardent Baptist, recounted her parents' experience at the church.21
Stoney Point being much nearer to them, my Parents (both of them at that time baptist) thought it best to take letters from Bryants and join at Stoney Point,22 a sad move for them, for after Elder Lewis Corban became old and infirm, another preacher, knowing it was a good, rich nest, was desirous to creep in, got a goodly number of the members on his side. My Father was devotedly attached to Elder Corban23 and would not agree to give him up. Therefore the members found it expedient to get my Father out of the way, followed him around, got him to talk, paid great deference to his opinions, watching all the time to catch him in their well laid schemes. He, not dreaming of evil, used some wrong expressions on the subject of Absolute Predestination for which he was excluded. The whole Church at the same time acknowledged him to be a model of piety. Old Father Corban was soon thrown aside for the younger preacher.
The minutes of Stony Point offer a different perspective:24
The 4th Saturday in August 1829. The Church met at Stony Point meeting house and after prayers &c. The Church proceeded to business. . . .
Brother John Hedges presented the following Charges against Jas Bristow. 1st I charge bro James Bristow with departing from the moral law of God as set forth in the 18th Chapter in Genesis and approved of by Jesus Christ in setting up his gospel Kingdom — In saying a woman has a right to leave her Husband without his consent or shewing any cause whatever. 2d I charge Bro Jas Bristow with departing from the morrel law of God and constitutional principals as set forth in the 15 [?] Chapter of the revised confession of faith as rec'd by this church as part of her cons[titu]tion — In repeating and saying from time to time that there is no law in the scriptures that will condemn a man for taking the life of his fellow man and the same being investigated & the Bro heard the question was put can the church justify bro James Bristow and decided on each charge that they cannot and the main question be considered on until the 7th of Sept.
Attest J. Bristow, Clk L. Corbin, M
On the 7th day of Sept. the church met agreeable to appointment and after prayers &c took up the charges against bro Rubin Clarkson. . . .
The charges brought against James Bristow by Jo Hedges is postponed untill our next meeting for final descion.
L. Corbin, M
J. Bristow, ClkThe 4th Saturday in Spt 1829. The church met at Stony Point Meeting House and after prayer proceeded to business. The charges a gainst James Bristow was taken up and he not giving satisfaction is therefore excluded from our fellowship. . . .
Joel Morehead, M
J. Bristow, Clk
The meeting where his brother was excluded was John's last as clerk, though members of both their families, including slaves, appear in later passages. Mrs Jane Bristow transferred her membership to Elizabeth Church, another Baptist congregation in western Bourbon County.25
James Bristow was not the only Baptist of the time to run afoul of the group's rigid views. Some Baptist congregations in Kentucky lost half their members, who in many cases were excluded, like Mary's father, for lack of orthodoxy. His questing mind found the more liberal doctrines of Thomas and Alexander Campbell more congenial, and he became a "reformer," as the followers of the Campbells were known. While the Campbellites aimed to end denominational splits, choosing to be known only as Christians, the Baptists seemed destined to fragment into ever smaller and more exclusive groupings. A passage from a church history recounts the effects of the schism in a northern Kentucky congregation.26
[I]n 1830, the peace and harmony of this Church was greatly interrupted by the introduction among them of the doctrine of Alexander Campbell, which like a storm was then sweeping over Kentucky, and rending churches, causing divisions, heart-burnings and sadness. They held those among them who had been so far influenced by this strange doctrine that they had invited, contrary to the will of a large majority of the Church, the proclaimers of said doctrine to preach in their house. To show the action of the Church, in relation to this matter we make some extracts from their records:
“We, the regular Baptist Church at Dry Creek, viewing with deep concern the great calamity that has recently fallen on the Baptist Churches of Kentucky and elsewhere, caused by the new-fangled systems and doctrines propagated by Alexander Campbell and his followers — doctrines which we believe to be unscriptural — nevertheless they have lately been introduced into this house without the knowledge and against the will of said Church; and which is no doubt intended by the principal movers to have the same effect in this Church as in others ; but, for the peace and harmony of this Church, we consider it to be our duty to take such steps as will tend to avert so great a calamity, and keep the divider of brethren from among us. For the last thirty years, this Church has stood unshaken upon the doctrine of free grace, and we are willing still to live and die upon it; therefore, recounts the effects of the schism.
Resolved, That we consider what is known among us as the Modern Reformation, to be of man and not of God; and as such from this day henceforth we turn our backs upon, and before God and man exclude its doctrines from this house.”
The Church having decided to make no compromise with error, they further resolved to mark those who “caused division,” and to treat them as wishing to destroy the peace of the Church.
How soon James Bristow identified himself with the Campbellites is not clear, but the stiff-necked, doctrinaire attitude of the Particular Baptists at Stony Point no doubt hastened the process.
His daughter Mary noted the resulting division in the family:27
My dear father, who from my infancy up had been my oracle, was a zealous reformer. My Mother was as equally staunch an old baptist. This division in sentiment caused to me sometime painful dissentions as I was but a child in spiritual things (if indeed a child at all). I was often at my wits end to know what was right. Sometimes I would think, "Can it be possible that my Father, who seems not to talk, read, nor think upon any other subject but religion, is wrong?" Then something would say, "Have you not tried that system?" "Yes, but maybe I was not sincere, did not persevere in the matter. . . ."
Some years before James' break with the Baptists, the family had been considering moving to new land. In the late twenties there began a major exodus from Bourbon, perhaps spurred by the depression of 1825-1826.28 The next decade or so saw the Bristows and their in-laws scattering to northern Kentucky, with some moving on to western Illinois and others to Missouri's Little Dixie.
James and Jane chose to remove to Boone County, as did her stepmother, Peggy Clarkson, and some of the Clarkson siblings. In July 1831, James purchased a farm of 106 acres, 1 rood, from the executors of Rawleigh Colston at the mouth of Dry Creek (also known as Anderson's Ferry).29 The land looked over the Ohio River, and his daughter Mary thought it a romantic site.30
Six years later, in April 1836, James gave the Dry Creek land to his son, Reuben.31 He purchased 100 acres on the Long Branch of Gunpowder Creek, near Union.32
Whether it was his advancing years (he was in his sixties) or his interest in religion, James seems to have turned away from his earlier work as a miller and builder. There are no records in Boone County to show him as other than a farmer, and I suspect he left most of the agricultural work to his sons. He was known as a "Campbellite preacher," but I have not been able to locate any Christian Church records that list him in that capacity.
By 1850, James Bristow had separated from his wife and was living with his son, Reuben.33 Jane S. Bristow maintained a household on rented land near Union with her children, Julius, Mary and Anselm.34 What role religious differences played in the breakup is conjectural, and the usually informative diarist, Mary, is silent.
Children
By the time James reached the age of sixty, in 1830, he and Jane had lost eight of their thirteen children. (Five died so young we don't even know their names.)
Their eldest child, Jack (John Sandidge Bristow), was a talented young physician, who had opened a practice in southeastern Bourbon County, not long before he joined his younger brother, Julius Clarkson Bristow, in a trip to the new state of Missouri in 1820.35 Jack did not return. His fate was noted in a Missouri paper.36
DIED
On Tuesday last, at the house of Col. Thomas Hickman, Warrington, near Franklin, Doctor John S. Bristow, of Middletown, Bourbon county, Kentucky. The deceased arrived here a short time since, from Kentucky, with a drove of cattle, &c. which he had just disposed of, and was on his return home, when his course was suddenly arrested by a fever, and [n]otwithstanding every medical advice and assistance rendered him he survived but a few days. The truth is exemplified in him, that "in the midst of life we are in death," and that neither youth nor age is exempt from the shafts of the fell destroyer. Ever guided by the principles of honor, morality, & integrity, with a mind cultivated and refined, and a disposition, affable and engaging, he was endeared to all who became acquainted with him. In the spring of his life and usefulness, he is suddenly hurried to that "bourne from whence no traveller returns." He has left an amiable wife, and a respectable circle of relatives and friends to mourn his untimely end.
Jack had married only three years before Louisa Metcalfe, daughter of John and Amelia Shackleford Metcalfe. He left his widow in Bourbon County with a two-year-old boy and an infant daughter. Louisa married in 1824 Charles B. Colcord, an enterprising Yankee immigrant and friend of the family.
Julius Clarkson Bristow, the second son, who had accompanied Jack on the ill-fated trip to Missouri, was named for his maternal grandfather. He married Polly Pugh, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Hunt Pugh of Bourbon County, in 1829. She died in the 1830s, perhaps in childbirth or from cholera, and he never remarried. He later resided with his unmarried sister and brother, and died in 1865, following a long illness.37
Another son, Benjamin Franklin Bristow, who had preceded his parents to Boone County, succumbed (along with two daughters) to the cholera epidemic in 1834.38 Before his death, he made arrangements to give one acre of land to the Bethel Meeting House.39 Ben's widow, Sarah Ann Trundle, who was the daughter of Basil and Hester Allen Trundle of Bourbon County, later remarried. His orphans (a boy named James and two girls, Catherine and Benjamin Ann), settled in Missouri when grown, as did their mother, who had been widowed a second time in 1854.
Reuben Lewis Bristow, named for a maternal uncle, Reuben Lewis Clarkson, came to Boone County with his parents and married a few years later Statira Bonaparte Stephens, daughter of Leonard and Catherine Sanford Stephens, and settled near General Stephens not far from Independence, where he joined his in-laws in local affairs.40
Another boy, James' teenage namesake, died in 1828. His sister Mary recalled the event.41
In my nineteenth year, it was the pleasure of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own Will to take from us our favorite brother in his fourteenth year. He had been sick for several days, but it was not thought to be dangerous. [He] still walked about the house. The day of his death, I stepped into his room very early in the morning. He had his arms around my Mother's neck, begging her to pray for him. [He] told her he was going to die and go to hell, he was such a sinner. She told him she had tried often to pray for him; he must try to pray for himself. He said he did not know how to pray. She said, "Ask the Lord to have mercy on you." He caught the words from her lips, and with clasped hands and eyes raised to heaven, repeated again and again, "Lord have mercy on me, a poor sinner!" Every feature expressed intense agony for two or three hours, but whilst all the family and many friends were standing around his bed with streaming eyes, we witnessed an instantaneous change from despair to real joy. "I am dying," said he, "and going to heaven with Jesus. Come, all of you, and go to heaven with me! How beautiful you all look!" calling each one of us by his name. "Everything is beautiful." A calm, sweet smile illumined his dying features, and though he had many hard spasms, that smile and the security of mind remained until he was relieved from suffering. The deathbed sense of this dearly beloved brother cured me in a great measure of Campbellism. I was convinced baptism alone would not do. Still I was an arminian, but concluded that if I would do the very best I could, the Lord would surely do the balance, and I should by this means be prepared to meet my brother in a better world.
Young James' death was recognized with a brief notice in the Paris paper.42
The youngest boy, Anselm Wadkin Bristow, born in 1816, was named in part for a maternal uncle, Anselm E. Clarkson. He seems to have led a quiet life, except for participating in an ill-advised effort to retrieve some runaway slaves from Michigan. He delayed marriage until his mid-forties, when he wed in 1860 Martha Jane Wilson, daughter of Thornton J. and Maria Kendrick Wilson, another Bourbon County family which had moved to northern Kentucky. Ance and Mat had five children in the brief span of eight years, and both lived on into the twentieth century on their farm near Union.
The eldest daughter, Jane Shelton Bristow (named for her mother), who had married the ex-POW Robert Ellis (son of John and Elizabeth Parrish Ellis) in 1815, died at about age 32 in 1829, leaving five children.43 The widower married twice again before he died in 1840.
A younger daughter, Sarah Clopton Bristow, did not long survive her husband, Thomas Roberts Benning, who was murdered in 1829.44 Tom Benning was a rising young journalist, the editor of the Lexington Kentucky Gazette. Charles Wickliffe, a political adversary of the Jacksonian Gazette, came to the newspaper office and following a brief argument shot the unarmed Benning, who lingered in agony for a day. Wickliffe, who was the son of Robert Wickliffe, one of the richest men in Kentucky, used his father's considerable influence to escape criminal penalties, but was himself killed in a duel by the man who succeeded Benning as editor of the Gazette, George J. Trotter. The story is recounted in J. Winston Coleman, Jr.'s Famous Kentucky Duels.45
The youngest daughter, Mary Beckley Bristow, was born in 1808. She never married, but kept in contact with her many cousins and nieces and nephews. Her letters and diaries are an invaluable source for family historians.46
The Bristows and the Clarksons were both slave-owning families, and court and census records show that James continued the practice. James' brothers John and Archibald Bristow provided in their wills for the emancipation of their slaves,47 and Gideon moved onto free soil north of the Ohio, but James remained in Kentucky and did not take any steps to free his servants, instead apparently conveying ownership to his children.
An entry in the Boone County Court Order Book for 7 Apr 1834 recorded, "He [James Bristow] is exempted from the payment of any county levies on his 2 old negroes, Tom & Jemima, on acct of their age & infirmity."48 Jane Bristow and her children were enumerated with 13 slaves in 1850 and 19 a decade later, figures well above average for the area.49
Death
James died in his eighty-fifth year, on 10 October 1855 in Western Illinois, where he had been visiting his granddaughter, Nancy (Ellis) Breckenridge, and her children.50 Nancy's husband, Oliver Hazard Perry Breckenridge, had died a year and a half before, when visiting his family in Kentucky.51 Although James Bristow was buried near Huntsville, the site of his grave was lost. However, the gravestones of one of Nannie and Perry's children, and a granddaughter, were found in 1974 along with a handful of other stones in a cemetery near Huntsville that had been abandoned and "used as a cattle pen and hog wallow" as early as the 1870s.52 The chances are high that James Bristow was buried in that now-derelict graveyard on the King farm, along with Nannie's younger brother, John B. Ellis, who was visiting from Missouri when he died two months later. Young John was buried next to his grandfather.
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| Jane Shelton Clarkson Bristow (1776-1863) with Mary Beckley Bristow (1808-1892) |
His widow Jane lived on until the winter of 1863, becoming increasingly enfeebled with age and infirmity, when she succumbed to tuberculosis in her eighty-seventh year. She was interred in the Stephens family burial ground at Beech Woods. General Stephens noted, "We had a burrying here on this day week ago. Old Aunt Ginny Bristow, Reuben's mother died, & they decided to burry her here. The old lady was quite old, being
about 86."54
Notes:
[Click on the footnote number to return to the text.]
1 See my notes on James Bristow, Sr. Unfortunately, Buckingham is one of Virginia's "Burned Counties" so very few records survive from the period.
2 Neil Allen Bristow, ed., Aunt Mary's Diary: The Writings of Mary Beckley Bristow (San Diego: editor, 1997), 119-120.
3 Bourbon Deeds B: 241. James Bristow's purchase was a small portion of the grants Col. Gist had received for his service in the Revolutionary War. When Bourbon County was divided, the land fell just over the line into the new Clark County.
4 Gist-Lee Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Quoted in Jean Muir Dorsey and Maxwell Jay Dorsey, Christopher Gist of Maryland and Some of His Descendants, 1679-1957 (Chicago: John S. Swift, 1958), 38. Gist named his new home Canewood. The land lies in Clark County on the Bourbon line, as does the land inherited by John Bristow from their father.
5 W. H. Perrin, History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Counties, Kentucky (Cincinnati, OH: Guild Reprints, 1968 [1882]), 138.
6 See DeLorme's Kentucky Atlas & Gazetteer and USGS Clintonville and Austerlitz 7.5-minute quadrangles.
7 The hand-drawn map can be viewed on Bob Francis' fine Bourbon County Webpage. Although Mrs Blanton's cartography (like Munsell's) is not to scale, the north bend of Green Creek can be readily seen on modern maps. She also identifies the watercourse passing by Austerlitz as the elusive Wolf Creek.
8 George Shortridge and James Bristow, Jr. bought 1050 acres on Wolf Creek and Green Creek for £1050 from Alexander Donaldson, heir of John Donaldson, on 24 Oct 1795. The transaction was witnessed by Julius Clarkson, James Bell, and Beletha Scott. Bourbon Deeds C: 560. (What became of George Shortridge is not known.)
9 Federal Census returns for Bourbon County for 1810, 1820, and 1830. Earlier returns are missing.
10 Karen Mauer Green, Kentucky Gazette: Genealogical & Historical Abstracts, 1801-1820, (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1985), 17. His descendant, Julius Lucien Bristow III, also knew his way around with transit and chain, working on survey crews with the Colorado Highway Department in the 1930s, laying out routes for roads through the Rocky Mountains.
11 June Baldwin Bork, Stony Point Baptist Church Monthly Register, 1802-1850. Photocopy of original, with introduction and index, 21, 22. FHL. Transcribed by Neil Allen Bristow, 1998.
12 No women were included among those designated as founders, but Margaret Bristow is sixth on the list of female members immediately following. Copy in Kentucky Historical Society files, s.v. Churches - Stony Point Baptist. After living for two decades in Todd County, Archibald returned to Bourbon in 1833 and rejoined the Stony Point congregation.
13 William Dudley Nowlin, Kentucky Baptist History 1790-1922, 83.
14 "Julious" Clarkson was twelfth on the list of men, headed by Ambrose Dudley. His sisters Mourning and Mary were listed 17 and 18 among the women. See "Bryan's Station Church Book" [Typescript by unknown hand of membership roster and minutes of meetings, 1786-1901], Kentucky Historical Society files, s.v. Churches - Bryants Station Baptist.
15 Bristow, Diary, 17 Dec 1859.
16 Bourbon Deeds 11: 505.
17 Adjutant General of Kentucky, Kentucky Soldiers of the War of 1812 [New title] (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1969 [1891], 248, 251.
18 G. Gordon Clift, Remember the Raisin! (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1964), 228-231. A future son-in-law, Robert Ellis, was among those captured at the Raisin.
19 1820 Census, Bourbon County, 110. Data were 4 1 0 0 0 1 - 2 1 2 1 0 - 0 - 12.
20 1830 Census, Bourbon County, 351. Data were 2 1 2 1 1 0 1 1 -----/ 0 1 1 0 2 0 0 1----/ --/ 22.
21 Bristow, Diary, 17 Dec 1859.
22 The move took place in October 1813. John Bristow accompanied his brother.
23 Lewis Corbin (1754-1840). Ordained in Virginia in 1786, he moved "over the Blue Ridge" and later to Kentucky, where he baptized 127 people during the Great Revival. He "took charge of Stony Point" about 1804, serving as pastor "till old age necessitated his resignation." (See Spencer, History of Kentucky Baptists, 2:25-26.)
24 Bork, Stony Point Register, 85, 86.
25 Bristow, Diary, 76.
26 History of Dry Creek Baptist Church, Kenton County, Kentucky, By S. P. Brady, Clerk of the Association, [1873]. This and other historical dcuments are available on Jim Duvall's excellent site. For an overview see Nowlin, Kentucky Baptist History, 45, 90.
27 Bristow, Diary, 55.
28 Encyclopedia of American History, 356.
29 Boone Deeds I: 6.
30 Bristow, Diary, 52.
31 The transfer was made in September. Boone Deeds K: 503.
32 Boone Deeds K: 205. Transfer to Reuben, Boone Deeds M: 479.
33 1850 Census, Kenton County, 129.
34 1850 Census, Boone County, 201.
35 Bristow, Diary, 64.
36 Missouri Intelligencer, Franklin, Missouri Territory, Saturday, July 29, 1820, (Vol 2, No 61).
37 See Bristow, Diary, 124-125.
38 Bristow, Diary, 93.
39 Boone Deeds L: 50.
40 For a sketch of his life, see my notes on Reuben.
41 Bristow, Diary, 50. His passing was noted in the Paris, Kentucky Weekly Advertiser of 9 Aug 1828, "on the 24th ult." at age 15.
42 James Bristow (1813-1828), Mary's second-youngest brother. His passing was noted in the Paris, Kentucky, Weekly Advertiser of 9 Aug 1828, on "the 24th ult." at age 15.
43 Bristow, Diary, 66.
44 Bristow, Diary, 66.
45 See Famous Kentucky Duels (Lexington: Henry Clay Press, 1969), Chapter VII. See also the full text of articles on the Benning killing from the Kentucky Gazette.
46 Read my edition of Mary's writings which is also posted on my family history site.
47 John Bristow in his will of 2 Nov 1835 freed his slaves Elijah and Thirsay and their families and Stephen and provided funds for the purchase of land and for their migration to "Libera." (Clark Wills 9: 437) Archibald Bristow on 2 Aug 1837 provided that his slave Judith was to be freed upon execution of the will and that two others, William and John, were to be free at age 35. He also stipulated that they receive $10 a year. (Clark Wills 11: 123.) The African Colonization movement is discussed in Coleman, Slavery Times, chapter 11.
48 Boone Orders C: 460.
49 1850 Census, Boone County Slave Schedule, 339; and 1860 Census, Boone County Slave Schedule, 13. For more detail, see Bristow, Diary, Introduction, 18-20.
50 Bristow, Diary, 36, 60-61.
51 See sketch of their son, James E. Breckenridge, in Portrait and Biographical Album of Henry County, Illinois (Chicago, Biographical Publishing Co., 1885), 626.
52 The Schuylerite 5: 110-111. (Fall 1976). The stones were those of "Perry Breckenridge / son of P & N / died Feb 6, 1854 / aged 8m 22d" and "Nannie Hattie Wilmott / daughter of W W & M J / died Jan 10, 186_ / age 1y 7m 20d". Whether the stones have survived another quarter-century is problematic. The location is given as in the SW ¼ of Sec 4, T 2 N - R 4 W, one-half mile south of Huntsville.
53 We know of 28 grandchildren in all, but Anselm had not yet married and sired his five, and Reuben's two youngest were not yet born. Four had predeceased their grandfather.
54 Leonard Stephens to William Stephens, 29 Jan 1863. Her remains were later reburied with those of her children in Highland Cemetery, Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.
