MALINDA (MELINDA) HINTON

MALINDA (MELINDA) HINTON, wife of John C. Van Horne, was born in 1817 in Giles County, Tennessee and died on February 14, 1861. Malinda Hinton was full blood Sac and Fox. She was described as being "tall, slender, and sandy-haired." She married John C. Van Horn(e) in either 1839 in Jackson County, Missouri, or in 1842 in Butler County, Ohio.

Children of Malinda Hinton and John C. Van Horne were:

1. John Calvin Van Horn, b. July 13, 1843, d. February 3, 1921.

2. William Oliver Van Horn, b. January 22, 1844, d. February 12, 1918.

3. Joseph Lorenzo Van Horn, b. November 13, 1847, d. May 5, 1931.

4. Charles H. Van Horn, b. January 1849, d.?

5. George Lafayette "Fayette" Van Horn, b. April 16, 1850, d. December 5, 1926.

6. Jackson Henry Van Horn, b. August 15, 1852, d. ?

The 1860 Census for Osawatomie Township, Lykins County (Now called Miami County), Kansas, P. O. Indianapolis shows:

Malinda VAN HORN(E), 43, Farmer, born Tennessee
J.C.(son John Calvin), 17, Attending School, born Iowa
Wm. O., 15, Iowa or Ohio
Joseph L., 13, Iowa
Charles H., 11, Missouri
George Lafayette (Fayette), 10, Missouri
Jackson, 5, Missouri

By the time the 1860 Census was taken, John C. Van Horne had already died and had left Malinda widowed with these six children. She died the next year, leaving the minor children orphaned.

Malinda Hinton-Van Horn's body was ferried across the Marais des Cygnes River to be buried in Indianapolis Cemetery beside her husband.

Malinda Hinton met her husband, John C. Van Horne, while he was working as a blacksmith (or gunsmith) to the Sac and Fox nation out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

A brief history of the Sac and Fox Native American tribe: Compiled by Sarah Eileen "Sally" Mayo-Mason using information from the Internet.

Sac and Fox, closely related Native Americans of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock. Sac and Fox culture was of the Eastern Woodlands area with some Plains-area traits. For a long period they dwelt around Saginaw Bay in E Michigan, but in the early 17th century they were driven from this area by the allied Ottawa and Neutral groups. The Sac (also commonly written Sauk) and the Fox fled North across the Strait of Mackinac, then South into present Wisconsin. Thus in 1667, when visited by Father Claude Jean Allouez, they were settled around Green Bay in NE Wisconsin. They then numbered some 6,500. The Sac were enterprising farmers but spent much time in hunting and raiding, although they never developed a soldier society to the degree that the Fox did. The Fox were fierce warriors and constantly waged war with the Ojibwa. Together, the Sac and Fox fought wars against the Sioux and the Illinois, as well as the French. The French, harassed by the Fox, waged a war of extermination; by 1730 they had reduced the Fox to a mere handful. The remnants of the tribe incorporated with their long-standing allies, the Sac, and from that time the two tribes have been known collectively as the Sac and Fox.

After a war with the Illinois (c. 1765), the Sac and Fox moved into Illinois territory. In 1804 a fraudulent treaty was extracted from them, and they were told to move west of the Mississippi. Most of them refused to go, but by 1831 they were induced to cross the river into Iowa. By 1832, however, they were back east of the river, attacking frontier settlements. This started the Black Hawk War. After that war they moved west, eventually settling on reservations in Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma. In 1990 there were about 4,775 Sac and Fox in the United States.