A Short History of the Clark, Maddux, McCarty, Morton, Caldwell, Warren, Stewart, Millar, Fowler, Adams, and Hughs Lines
Clark ancestors came to America as early as 1610. By the early 1700s, sixty-seven ancestors had arrived in the new world and ten served the patriot cause during the American Revolution. Names like Adams, Beckwith, Bullock, Caldwell, Clark, Hite, McCarty, Morton, Smith, Stewart, Warren, and many others immigrated principally from Wales, England, France, Ireland, Holland, Germany, and Scotland.
Edward Bolling, the youngest child of plantation owners Captain John C. and Mary Moore Clark, was born in Louisa County, Virginia on March 2, 1788. He married Margaret Horton Maddux in 1815. The Edward B. Clarks lived in Lynchburg, Virginia where Margaret gave birth to seven children before 1832. In 1835, the family attempted to relocate to Missouri but was waylaid by the cholera epidemic in Russellville, Kentucky; where Edward died on August 10. Margaret remained in Kentucky and raised her children there, the older boys working in various business endeavors while the younger continued to mature. All were born in Lynchburg and died in Kentucky. They were John Tucker, Mary Evaline, William Maddux, James Martin, Edward Granville, Thomas Craven, and Micajah Snowden.
Micajah Snowden Clark was born February 7, 1829. Micajah was six when his father succumbed to cholera. His only sister was seventeen at the time and was a great help to Micajah’s mother. As an adult, he owned his own grocery business, invested in various ventures with his brothers, successfully ran for state legislature, and served as Russellville’s postmaster for five years. He married Elizabeth Matilda McCarty on December 6, 1853. Elizabeth and Micajah raised three children in Russellville: Oswin Ashby; Myrtie Miller, who died before the age of two; and Lena Lee.
Oswin Ashby Clark was born May 3, 1856. He married Mary Stewart Morton in 1887. Mary was born January 1, 1865 in Russellville to Sophia Wesley Maria Warren and William Morton, III. Although the couple met in Kentucky, they were married in Colorado, where Mary had traveled to improve her health. She and her building contractor husband had one son, William Micajah Clark, in 1890. After a time in Kentucky, the family removed to Colorado, once again, where Mary succumbed to tuberculosis on October 16, 1892. Oswin and little William moved in with grandparents Micajah and Elizabeth Clark for eight years before Oswin, himself, died at a young forty-four years of age.
William Jordan Morton, 1753-1825, was born in Virginia and rode with the 6th Regiment of the Virginia Line during the Revolution. His marriage to Martha Pryor on March 16, 1779 proves that life goes on, even during times of war. The Mortons had twelve children, Peter, Sarah, Rebecca, Fannie, William, Margaret, Joseph, John, Elizabeth, Marmaduke, Henry, and Martha, between the years 1781 and 1800. Martha died shortly after giving birth to her youngest child. Marmaduke Beckwith Morton was born September 13, 1796 in Louisa County, Virginia. He was raised without a mother on the family’s property in Goochland County by his strict father and various slave help. At age nineteen, Marmaduke migrated with his father and at least two of his siblings to land about ten miles north of Russellville, Kentucky. At thirty-one, Marmaduke married Nancy Caldwell at her parent’s plantation near Russellville. Nancy was born September 8, 1809 to Andrew Caldwell and Frances Terrill Morton. Marmaduke and Nancy’s mother Frances were both great great grandchildren of John and Deborah Morton. Nancy is the great granddaughter of Captain Charles Smith and the great great granddaughter of Colonel John Hite. Marmaduke and Nancy had three children, together, before Nancy died at the age of twenty-five. Marmaduke married Nancy’s sister, Elizabeth Caldwell, who helped raise David, William N., and Daniel, in addition to giving birth to one child of her own.
William N. Morton was born on June 24, 1831 and grew up on his father Marmaduke Morton’s farm, “The Knob,” near Russellville, Kentucky. Unlike his father before him, William was formally educated at the Russellville Academy and studied law at the University of Louisville. He was a great reader and published many articles on local history for newspapers and historical societies. He developed “Mountain Home Plantation” and inherited a number of slaves from his father. In 1856, William Morton married Sophia W. M. Warren, born June 7, 1835 in Russellville. Sophia was the daughter of Sophia Wesley Stewart and William Elliott Warren. When Sophia was just week’s old, her mother was a victim of Russellville’s 1835 cholera epidemic. Mountain Home Plantation was a target for Union raiding parties and William was required to hide livestock in a deep valley, nearby, while the family took refuge in the “Hise House.” The Hise House was a former hotel built by Sophia’s grandfather for her aunt, who would eventually raise her, and her aunt’s husband. Sophia W. M. and William Morton had ten children. They were Hise, Marmaduke, William, Henry Pryor, Mary Stewart, Frances, Sophia, Elvira, Elizabeth, and David.
James Millar, Jr. was born in 1812 in Linlithgowshire, Lothian, Scotland to James Millar and Miss Muir. When he reached his teens, James became an apprentice to a merchant in London, England. At age twenty, he sailed for America and settled in Syracuse, New York. In 1834, he met and married Elizabeth Ann Fowler of Tompkins County, New York; daughter of Philip and Susan Field Fowler. James and Elizabeth removed to Lodi, New York where James ran a clothing manufacturing business. Susan gave birth to two sons in Lodi, John Sutton and William D. To improve the health of John, who was stricken with typhoid fever at three years of age, James Millar Jr. sold his business and moved his family to Savannah (Greenwich), Ohio. There, James entered the lumber business and operated a general store. Elizabeth gave birth to four daughters during the seven years they lived in Ohio. They were Marion, Helen, Virginia Louise, and Caroline. Whether motivated to move away from Ohio due to the political situation over abolition between the Democrats and the Whigs, or by a desire to live nearer his recently-immigrated brother and uncle in Illinois, James bought a tavern in Will County around 1847. They settled on a farm and converted the tavern into a home. Here the Millars had their last daughter, Anna.
John Sutton Millar, son of James and Susan, was born in Lodi, Seneca, New York on September 3, 1836. John studied medicine before attempting to enlist in the Union Army, only to be rejected due to a heart murmur. He abandoned medicine and transferred to business school in Chicago. Upon returning to Joliet, Illinois, he operated a furniture and import business as well as a real estate and insurance office. He married Sarah Elizabeth Adams, daughter of Ann Louise Hughes and Micajah Lane Adams, in 1864. Sarah was born in Joliet, Illinois on December 2, 1842. The John Millars had seven children but their family life was not free of heartache. Their son Crego lived less than a year. Frank suffered from brain damage but lived in their loving home until he passed at age thirty-eight. Elizabeth Isabelle died at age eighteen from typhoid fever. Their other children were Anna Louise, Walter Elmwood, George Adams, and William Douglas. John Sutton died in 1856 at just fifty years of age, leaving his widow to care for a three, ten, and eleven year-old at home.
Robert Edward Tayman was born in 1827 and raised on a farm along the Potomac River in Prince George County, Maryland. He married Sophie Marriott some time before 1855 in Baltimore County. In 1869, when Robert began to work for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the family settled in Cumberland, Maryland with their three children: Ida May, Sarah, and William. There they had another daughter, Emma Jane, and son, Charles Robert. In late 1861, Robert transferred employment to the Chicago-Alton Railroad and moved his family to Bloomington, Illinois. In Bloomington, three more children were born: Margaret, Clara, and Oliver. Eventually, Robert, Sophie, and the younger children moved to Topeka, Kansas where Robert worked in the Santa Fe Railroad office.
Charles Robert Tayman, born to Robert and Sophie Tayman on October 25, 1861, in Maryland, married Anna Louise Millar in 1892 in Joliet, Illinois. Anna is the daughter of John Sutton Millar and Sarah Elizabeth Adams and was born April 1, 1865 in Joliet. Like his father, Charles also worked for the railroad. The couple lived in Chicago where their first child was born during a typhoid epidemic. Anna became ill with the disease and was unable to care for her newborn daughter for four months. When her own sister died from the disease, Anna and Charles decided to name their new daughter Bessie Belle Millar Tayman. The Taymans had another child, Claire Louise, before moving to Birmingham, Alabama, where Charles worked for the Birmingham Railroad. After Anna’s death and Charles’ retirement, Charles moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to be near his married daughter, Bessie Belle. Later he moved to Corydon, Indiana to be near Claire, where he finally passed in 1927.
William (Bill) Micajah Clark, the only child of Oswin and Mary Morton Clark, dropped out of college in Bethel, Kentucky and went to Birmingham to work for the railroad. There, he met Bessie Belle Millar Tayman. The couple married November 14, 1914 and had three children, together: William Micajah, Jr.; Muriel Millar; and Betty Anne. Bill Sr.’s work took them to Knoxville, Nashville, and Knoxville, again, always trying to stay ahead of the depression and keep his family together. Just when Bill’s new business was taking off, he died of heart failure at the age of forty-six. Bessie and the children rallied and remained very close. Billy Jr. served as a captain in the Air Force and flew twenty bombing missions during WWII. He later settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee working for the Coca Cola Co. Bettty Anne married Richard A. Sharp and had two children. Muriel Millar Clark married Harold Thies Spoden on December 30, 1942, once again demonstrating that love and life continue during times of war.