This is a portrait of John R. Wilson who is Prince's Great Great Grandfather.
I thought I would try to give a little Memorial Day Tribute to him therefore, if anyone can help me locate his grave I would be very thankful.
William Wilson along with his brothers belonged to Sumpter's Command during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he settled near Milton in Ruterford County, Tennessee around 1800. He had and six children. They are as follows: John Robertson, born April 4, 1799. Died Cottage Home later known as Waveland August 8, 1854; William died before reaching maturity; James went to Alabama when grown and was never heard from again; Thomas settled on a farm near his father's and raised a large family; Sallie married John Farr and had several children one of whom was John Farr, Jr. who lost a leg in the Great Conflict and later he was the Register of Rutherford County.
John Robertson Wilson had to study and teach school alternately to get an education. In 1815 or there abouts he attended Samuel P. Black's school in Murfreesboro. This is where he met his future bride, Eliza Pitts Black.
In or around 1821 he studied medicine under Dr. Wilson Yandell (Eliza's Uncle) in Rutherford County.
He attended Medical School at Transylvania College in Kentucky, being a special pupil of Dr. Dudley and Dr. Drake. In 1825 he graduated and also married Eliza. He commenced practising medicine in McMinnville with Thomas C. Black (Eliza's brother). They made $2,000.00 the first year which was considered really good at that time.
John and Eliza moved sometime between 1826-1833 to Murfreesboro. They bought a farm on Stewart's Creek and there their sons John and Samuel were born. Both children died in infancy.
In 1833 they sold the farm in Murfreesboro and moved to Mississippi. Another farm was bought near Lexington, Mississippi in Holmes County.
Since the atmosphere in Mississippi did not agree with Eliza they sold out and in 1836 moved back to Tennessee. In Tennessee they bought Cottage Home (Waveland). Remember in previous post of Cuden Will and Cuden Mary Lu, I mentioned Waveland was torn down and the Nashville Airport built a much needed runway for the airport. What a shame that they did not put that runway somewhere else. At the same time, they also bought a place twelve miles south of Yazoo City on the Yazoo River. This would play a major part in their future lives.
From 1837-1846 John practiced medicine extensively with his partners (I need to be sure before I type just who they were) . In 1847, John decided to open up and cultivate the "Yazoo Swamp", going down there on the Natchez Trace every winter until his death.
During his medical career on November 20, 1831 he performed a famous operation ( gastronomy to relieve intussception of the bowel) later to be written about in February 1949 by his grandson, Dr. Owen H. Wilson .
Dr. John Robertson Wilson died at his home in Nashville on August 8, 1854. He by all accounts was buried there. So what happen to the grave when the Airport tore down Waveland. Did they just pave over him like was done in San Diego old town? If they moved the grave, I have yet to find out where.
Mimi said she remembers going to the grave site and it was one of those old time ones where the entire grave is covered with concrete. One Sunday, we road around trying to see if anything was familiar to her but alas, there was nothing the same as she said "everything is different."
The Kitty Justice is his grave will not have any flowers this weekend as we cannot locate him. My questions, should not the Nashville Metropolitan Airport have a record of where JR was moved?
Comments
An interesting piece of family history. I truly enjoyed reading it. I'm always interested in the lives of our ancestors.
I remember in my childhood they moved a cemetery in order to widen a road. They had to move all the bones and the tombstones and make sure that all was placed where they should be. I'm not sure about the laws today, but it would be interesting to find out.
Thanks for a truly intriguing post.
I enjoy your family history.
Blessings,
Mary
P.S. The wool is for insulation and will hold up to our wet weather.
Over the next year let's see where paths lead and maybe Puppy could have a summer job here in Sitka if he was interested.
know their where-abouts. I loved the beautiful flowers in the last post.
I hope all is well at your home. And you are a lovely daughter0in-law to Mimi.
Take care, dear friend, Love, Merle.
I am happy you enjoyed the history. As I stated before I always loved history in school so I fell into the right family. My Cousin when we visited in San Diego told me the story of the street where they paved over the graves. I was horrified and as the cars passed by, I had a chill run up my spine. I think if I dig (how you like my play on words) a little deeper I can locate the grave. It is just taking the time which is in precious demand to do it. Thanks for the visit and I hope you have a good weekend too. Peace
Thanks and I hope your weekend is great too. Puppy is TOO LAID BACK. I am more aggressive so he did not get that from me. He seems to enjoy working with Mr. Fraley but he would not have that job if not for me. Maybe Puppy will work for him again next summer. David Lipscomb where he goes to college
has interships and one was in Alaska and I tried to get him to apply but he procrastinates. However, once he gets into something he gives it 100 percent. His Football Coaches still use him as the standard to measure Team Manager. He took that position while his knee injury healed and kept it due to the fact he was running a year behind in physcial training.I am just trying to have some options open for him to consider. Peace be with you.
More than likely the grave was moved but somehow the wereabouts has been lost to the family. It would be a fun thing to find and take Mimi to see. Thanks for the compliment. I am just treating her the way I would like to be treated. That was what Mother always told us to do. So I am honoring Mother's teachings at the same time.
Glad you enjoyed the flowers.
Peace
great info on the family history. I wish I knew as much about my family. Maybe i do and don't know it. I would imagine the airpot commission would have archives somewhere showing what happened to the cemetary. (you would think ha) MB
By the way i loved your comment over at mine about the Tenn busies never heard that expression before LOL
You probably do know more and just start researching. Prince's sister had never seen a picture of her Grandfather on the Wilson side until, I came along. I found a photo tucked away and made each sibling an enlargement for a Xmas gift. If someone in the family does not have the history bug then it gets lost. I have ariel views of Waveland and I could take them with me to show them that yes indeed there was a house and grave at the runway site. Thanks for the hint.
Lilli
Glad you enjoyed my terminlogy. It is gonna rain again today and we have cherries that need pickin and weeds to be pulled. I might could pick a couple of quarts if I get busy.
Nick
I wish you were here to help me find out. Historical nuts go better in twos. I really miss Cousin Beth as she was really into history. She was the President of the Perservation Society in San Diego before her EARLY death. Even with our age difference as I was twenty years her senior, we were bonded with the love of history.
Peace to All
The Tennessee Busies are about to jump me. Yikes!!!!
"My father's mother was named Agnes Robertson. My Father was named John Robertson Wilson and he was born in the York District, South Carolina and came with his parents to Rutherford County when quite young. My father had three brothers: Thomas, James and William and one sister, named Sarah.
William died when a young man and had been appointed a Cadet at West Point but died before his examination."
Source: Genealogy of William Lunsford Wilson, Accessed from Microfiche from the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
familyhistorycrw@aol.com
"My father's mother was named Agnes Robertson. My Father was named John Robertson Wilson and he was born in the York District, South Carolina and came with his parents to Rutherford County when quite young. My father had three brothers: Thomas, James and William and one sister, named Sarah.
William died when a young man and had been appointed a Cadet at West Point but died before his examination."
Source: Genealogy of William Lunsford Wilson, Accessed from Microfiche from the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
familyhistorycrw@aol.com
"My father's mother was named Agnes Robertson. My Father was named John Robertson Wilson and he was born in the York District, South Carolina and came with his parents to Rutherford County when quite young. My father had three brothers: Thomas, James and William and one sister, named Sarah.
Thomas married and settled on a farm near Milton and raised a large family of children. The names of the oldest one Morgan, Thomas, and Elizabeth, and others--I don't recollect.
Source: Genealogy of William Lunsford Wilson, Accessed from Microfiche from the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
"My father's mother was named Agnes Robertson. My Father was named John Robertson Wilson and he was born in the York District, South Carolina and came with his parents to Rutherford County when quite young. My father had three brothers: Thoimas, James and William and one sister, named Sarah.
My father's sister, Sarah, married William Farr and lived and died on a farm on Bradley's Creek near Milton. She had several children; one of whom, John Farr, made a good Confederate Soldier and lost a leg in the war and afterwards was elected Registrar of Rutherford County for several terms and died a short time ago."
Source: Genealogy of William Lunsford Wilson, Accessed from Microfiche from the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
"My father was named John Robertson Wilson and he was born in York District, South Carolina and came with his parents to Rutherford County when quite young. My father had three brothers:Thomas, James, and Wilson and one sister named Sarah.
My father had to teach school and study alternately and get his education in that way and managed to get a good one. He attended my grandfather Black's school at Pebble Hill six miles north of Murfreesboro on the Lebanon Road (a farm purchased and lived on by grandfather Black) where he first met my mother. He studied medicine under Dr. Wilson Yandell, my mother's uncle and a doctor of wide reputation. I have heard him say that he taught school during the day and studied and read by the light of a fine troch until after midnight, frequently. He attended medical lectures and graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. in 1824.
He married and commenced practice of medicine at McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee with Uncle Dr. Thomas C. Black and was very successful. He afterwards moved to Murfreesboro and practiced with Dr. Maney and during this time performed the operation for the relief of intersuception of t he bowel on the person of a negro man, the first operation of the kind ever perfomed in this county, the patient recovering.
My father afterward bought a farm near old Jefferson in Rutherford County, Tennessee. I was born on this farm on November 15,1833, also my two brothers, older than I, John and Samuel, both died before I was born.
After living on this farm for several years, my father sold it to Dr.Gooch and bought a farm near Franklin, Holmes County, Mississippi, but only lived there a short while on account of the health of my mother. He moved back to Tennessee and bought a farm 5 1/2 miles South East of Nashville on the Murfreesboro PIke and called it 'Cottage Home'. Here I spent most of my boyhood and early manhood. Here my brother Thomas and my sister were born and raised. During the time he lived in Mississippi, my father bought a large body of land in the Yazoo Delta and several years after cleared a portion of it and put in cultivation. He purchased a few negros every year and put them on the place and cleared and cultivated a little more every year until he had som six hundred acres in cultivation and calledit Gandercleugh(?) which after my mother's death fell to my brother and I.
After my father and mother moved back to Tennessee and settled at Cottage Home, his practice was very extensive, embracing davidson, Williamson, and Rutherford Counties, and it was a very laborous one as it was performed mostly on horseback, and it required several horses as he rode night and day and carried his medicine and instruments with him in a pair of saddle bags. He had a favorite mare he called Benefactors, a beautiful dappled bay, above the mediuum prize. Her principal gait was a short gallop which he could keep up nearly all day. A tall gatekeeper on the Mufreesboro Road used to say that he had frequently waked uplate in the night and heard the sound of a horses feet on the pike and it seemed to say, 'what a pity, what a pitty' and he knew that it was my father coming and would get up and open the gate before he got there."
Source: Genealogy of William Lunsford Wilson, Accessed from Microfiche from the Tennessee State Library and Archives.