Lawrence County Arkansas Genealogy Trails

Pioneers
To
Ol’ Lawrence County

Volume I:
The Northern Families



The John Milligan Family

Even though the particular focus of this chapter is John and Sarah Milligan’s son
John Milligan II who migrated to the Missouri Territory in 1816, we are going to take a
bit of time explaining the relationships between the families that were friends and
neighbors of John and Sarah Milligan and especially the previously mentioned Culp
family. Through our research, we have discovered that John Milligan II and Daniel and
Esther Culp’s son, Thomas B. Culp ended up in the Arkansas Territory together with
Tom Culp’s sister Mary and her husband, Abraham Ruddell. They were great friends in
the early years of John II Milligan’s arrival there and is mostly due to their parents
knowing each other so well in their own generation of these two families that their
friendship would jump into the next generation of their children. Not only that, but, our
research to establish John II’s travel route has lead us to these relationships.

John Milligan II’s father, John Milligan I, originally came from County Down,
Ireland. His sea voyage ended in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1771. He had said many
years later in 1835, on one of the drafts of a document that he would submit to the War
Department to secure a pension for his Revolutionary War service, that to the best of his
knowledge, he was 20 years old when he came to America and that his family Bible was
lost at sea during a storm.

He remained in Pennsylvania for two years and then moved to Berkeley County,
Virginia. It is speculated by many in the family that he was “Indentured” as a new
Immigrant from Ireland and there is evidence that this is true as he shows up in Berkeley
County already knowing the tanners trade and during the Revolutionary War his first
responsibilities were to mend and repair soldiers leather goods such as shoes, Coats and
other articles of leather clothing. If he were indentured as people think, I would offer that
his voyage to America was paid for by a tan yard business that would have been located
in or near New Castle, Pennsylvania.

He moved to Berkeley County, Virginia in 1773 where he remained for about one
and a half years. He then claims he enlisted in Capt. Hugh Stephenson’s Rifle Company
just after the Battle of Bunker’s Hill and marched with this company to Cambridge,
Mass. From there he marched northeast to Roxbury on the Boston Neck and was with this
company on the Dorchester Heights overlooking the Boston Harbor and the British Fleet.
His initial enlistment term was for one year ending in mid July of 1776. He said
he returned to Shepardstown, Berkeley County and eventually met a man name of
Charlters. Together he and Charlters, then civilians, wanted to establish themselves as
sutlers to the army. They had plans to be a kind of traveling PX for the soldiers.

They found Washington’s army on Long Island at the end of August and were
there for only a few days before Washington’s forces were over-run by the British with
Lord Sterling and General Sullivan being captured. John and Charlters manage to escape
across the Hudson River and made their way to Paulus Hook, which was then a river
front fort on the western shore of the Hudson (Jersey City today).

There John re-enlists for 5 months under a Capt. Smyzer and is attached to The
Pennsylvania Flying Camp. They march on to Fort Lee and cross back over the river to
Fort Washington. While he was on guard duty up river from Fort Washington, close to
the King’s Bridge, the British launch an attack and overwhelm the fort. John escaped
capture by being on guard duty up river and wasn’t at or in the fort when it was captured.

He made it back to the Fort Lee side of the river where he and the rest of Washington’s
army abandon Fort Lee, retreat to the Hackensack Bridge and continue on south to settle
into the woods across the Potomac River just opposite the City of Trenton, New Jersey.
They got to Trenton either on the 23rd or 24th of December 1776. Then on Christmas
Eve Night, during the foulest of weather conditions, General Washington decided to
launch an attack on the Hessians encamped in Trenton for Christmas. The surprise attack
proved successful and the Hessian Army was captured there.

John Milligan was discharged on 1 January 1777 and like Daniel Culp did after
his own military experience, went back to Berkeley County and we believe, the
Martinsville area. (Note: We have not researched deeply into where John Milligan’s
homestead in the Martinsburg area actually was. However, if we were looking for the
property that he and his wife Sarah Robinson settled on, I would probably start looking
around the Hedgesville area near a place that was called Robinson’s Gap.)

I have to wonder if word of possible British attacks from the “west” along the
Ohio River didn’t get heard by Washington’s soldiers east of the Blue Ridge that lead
allot of discharged men from Berkeley County back to their homesteads to protect them
just in case the attacks did happen east of the Allegany Mountains. So after a search of
the Trenton battle area, where he found a very nice German made leather makers tool kit,
John Milligan I heads home to Berkeley County, Virginia.

Soon after his return from the war in 1777 and most likely with the help of his
good friends and neighbors the Culps, the Robinsons, The Hedges Family and the
Chaplines, his homestead (which he must have started building before the war) and
house was getting ready for his new wife, Sarah Robinson. After a hard days work on the
house, they could all gather around a warm campfire, break out their flasks and relax for
the night.

It was during times like this that the men would reacquaint themselves with each
other over a few sips of whiskey or ale and John Milligan, newly returned from the war in
the east, was full of stories from his experiences that would give his friends a real peak
into what the war climate with General Washington’s troops was like.

He had to tell them, of course, how the idea of being sutlers to the army didn’t
work out because the British attacked on Long Island and over ran Sullivan’s and Lord
Sterling’s forces. He mentioned how he and Charlters escaped over the Hudson River to
Paulus Hook and that during the episode they lost all of the items they were going to sell
to Washington’s soldiers. So, in his Irish brogue and after the first few sips of ale, he had
to explain that it was this event that forced him to re-enlist in the Army and that he
wanted to come home with a little bit of money in his pocket so he could get married.

Then there was the story of how he escaped with his life after almost being
captured by the British at Fort Washington when the British attacked and both Forts
Washington and Lee were surrendered by the Americans. Who better to tell a story like
this then an Irishman with a few ales in him? There has been many an Irishman with a
story of how they almost died at the hands of a vicious enemy but managed to survive the
ordeal to tell the tale.

Then he would go on to tell them of the Battle of Trenton and how cold it was
there. I’ll bet at the end of this story he even brought out the German tanner’s kit he
snatched just before he was discharged so everyone could see the truth of his words;
funny as they may have been after the fact. I wonder if Sarah Robinson enjoyed his Irish
humor. She certainly liked him enough to marry him; humor and all.

John and Sarah were married most likely in 1778 or early 1779 and even though
Esther Chapline was preparing to move her family to Shepardstown, she and her
husband, Daniel Culp would still attend John and Sarah’s marriage along with many of
their local neighbors. Eventually Daniel Culp would let everyone know that he was
making plans to move on to Kentucky with his brothers and that he had purchased lot
number 29 in Shepardstown from Moses Caton Chapline (Esther’s brother) so Esther and
the children could live there while he was away in Kentucky setting up their new
homestead.

It was still the years from 1777 to 1783 however, that would mark the most
ferocious British lead Indian attacks yet in the “Eastern” Ohio River Valley with the
Mingo’s (another Confederated Indian Tribe) attack at Zane’s Fort Fincastle (later would
be renamed Fort Henry) in the Wheeling area and then the attacks continued southward
by other Indian Tribes along the western Allegany Mountains into the new settlements of
Kentucky by 1780.

Don’t forget that when the British arrived at Fort Fincastle and the Zane’s home
in Wheeling, the Zanes had to feed the British soldiers by virtue of the “Quartering Act”
which lead the British to actually see inside Fort Fincastle. Please read the “Caldwell
Notes” at: http://marhavenmiscellany.com/EbenezerZane_single.html.

There you will find a great story of when the British were filing thru the front
door of the Zane home to be fed, Mrs. Zane slipped out the back door and took all of their
horses to a neighbor’s home so the British couldn’t take them. Also there is something
else. With the “Caldwell Notes” on this site specifically mentioning these facts, I am
tending to believe that Moses Caton Chaplin was at Fort Fincastle and was indeed there
during the first Indian Attack in 1777. Later, after the attack and with his own homestead
secured in Wheeling, Moses Caton Chaplin would sell his Lot #29 in Shepardstown to his
sister Esther Chapline and her husband Daniel Culp and he and his wife Mary Caldwell
would move into the Wheeling area. It is getting easier to see why both Daniel Culp and
John Milligan I came home from fighting in the east with Washington’s Continentals in
1777. The British forces were threatening the eastern edges of the Ohio River Valley of
Wheeling and possibly as far east as the Berkeley County area from the West out of the
forts they won from the French after the French and Indian War in the early 1760’s.
Little did anyone realize then however, that the tide of war was turning and by the end of
1781 the Revolutionary War would be over in the East with Cornwallis’ defeat and
surrender at Yorktown. There was still a 2nd Indian attack on Fort Henry though; in 1783
that must have taken many of the inhabitants of Wheeling very much by surprise.

John Milligan would re-enlist in the army again in 1781 under Captain Evans to
guard Cornwallis’ captured troops then being held at Winchester.
John and Sarah’s first child, Mary Ann “Nancy” Milligan was born about 1780 in
Berkeley County; the year that Daniel Culp and his brothers left for Bourbon County,
Kentucky. John and Sarah Milligan would go on to live normal lives and birth the first 5
of their 10 children here. Then in 1793, well after the Indian attacks occurring to the
north of Wheeling were over, they would move further northwest themselves to
Triadelphia, Virginia just south of Wheeling and birth the last 5 of their 10 children at
their new 100 acre homestead on Peter’s Run.

It would be grand to see Moses Caton Chapline and his family again and
reacquaint with Mary (Caldwell) Chapline and her family. Now John Milligan could hear
the Revolutionary War stories of Fort Henry from Moses, someone who actually fought
in them. The Milligan Family would grow into the Wheeling community from their Roots
in the old Berkeley County days. They would attend the Old Stone Church which John
became, over time, a ruling Elder of. The Faris (Farris) Brothers, also a family that had
emigrated from County Down, Ireland, would settle here with their families as well and it
is a well known fact that John Milligan knew the Faris Family for many years prior to
1835. (See the Faris Brief’s posted with John Milligan’s Rev. War Pension Claim for
their details and their friendly relationship to John Milligan I.)

After the War, The Milligans and Culps maintained their friendship. I wouldn’t
be surprised to find out that John and Sarah help Dan Culp move Esther and her children
to Kentucky after their new home was finished there. I also wouldn’t be surprised to learn
that John Milligan went to visit Dan Culp and his brothers regularly to purchase buffalo
hides from them for his own tannery and leather making business in Triadelphia.

It was John and Sarah’s young son, John Milligan II though, one of the last 5 of
their 10 children, being born in Triadelphia between the years of 1795 – 1799 that would
get to know Dan and Esther Culp’s family much, much better in the years to come.

In late 1815 or early 1816, John Milligan II would strike out on his own and
traveling by horseback, would make it to visit most of Esther and Dan Culp’s children on
his way into the “Far West” and the Missouri Territory of 1816. I’ll bet that it was Esther
(Chapline) Culp that suggested that he look up her daughter Mary (Culp) Ruddell and her
youngest son, Thomas B. Culp, which he did.

How John Milligan II Came to the Missouri / Arkansas
Territory in 1816

As stated previously, the story of how John Milligan II got to Reeds Creek
(township) in the Missouri Territory of 1816 actually starts with his mother and father’s
early years in Berkeley County, Virginia and the relationships they had with their
neighbors and friends alike. John Milligan I, John II’s father, moved to Berkeley County
in 1773 to Martinsburg and close to the James Robinson homestead near Tomahawk Run
where James’s father, Israel Robinson had his original 400 acre Fairfax Grant homestead;
close to the place called Robinson’s Gap. James had built his homestead just up the
Valley from his boyhood home and his father’s homeplace.

Daniel Culp, originally born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1740 married Esther
Chapline when he was 30 years of age. Esther was the daughter of Moses and Janette
(Caton) Chapline. Esther’s brother, Moses Caton Chapline had married Mary Caldwell.
She was the sister of John Caldwell. Both Esther Chapline and Mary Caldwell had
become good friends to Sarah Robinson, also of Berkeley County, Virginia. In fact I
believe that Sarah Robinson, Esther Chaplin and Mary Caldwell grew to become great
friends in the early days of their youth in Berkeley County and grew to see each other
take their husbands. Sarah Robinson married John Milligan I of County Down, Ireland,
Esther Chaplin married Daniel Culp of Annapolis, Maryland and Mary Caldwell married
Esther’s brother, Moses Caton Chaplin. Their relationships to each other must have been
quite close as we have discovered John and Sarah Milligan’s son John II Milligan
befriending Thomas B. Culp, the son of Daniel Culp and Esther Chapline in the Arkansas
Territory in 1816. (John Milligan II learned this from his father by watching as John I
Milligan would befriend other immigrants from County Down, Ireland. So he too would
befriend the Pioneer families his parents knew. They were friends of the Milligans
anyway and knew of the Milligan Children). Gee. I’ll just bet anything that John I
Milligan knew the other Milligans that came from County Down. After all, he did find
the Faris Brothers who emigrated from County Down and it is a very well known fact
that they were great friends and remained so for many, many years. I’ll even make the
statement that John I Milligan probably knew David Milligan, also from County Down,
Ireland, who lived to the Northwest of Wheeling, W.V. in Ohio just the other side of the
Ohio River some 20 to 30 miles distant from the Milligan Family home in Triadelphia.

Well, as we researched, there it was, Tom Culp’s and John II Milligan’s
friendship, staring us all in the face and no one decided to find out where the Culp Family
originally came from.

Initially, we were researching the travel route taken by John II to the Missouri
Territory of 1816 and discovered that his route took him, as a young man, to the Daniel
Culp homestead in Bourbon County, Kentucky where Tom Culp was born. This event
tied us into the obvious relationship that Sarah Robinson must have had with Esther
Chapline in their youth and later after Esther married Daniel Culp and Sarah married
John Milligan in Berkeley County.

John I Milligan and Sarah Robinson, then living in Triadelphia, were
reacquainting themselves with Esther (Chapline) Culp again. She had traveled back to
Wheeling in 1812 to be at Moses Chapline’s funeral. Esther had to tell them of how her
daughter Mary had married Abraham Ruddell, the son of Capt. Isaac Ruddell who also
passed away in February of 1812 and how they were planning to move to the Missouri
Territory. Upon hearing this news, they must have asked her if their son, John II, could
come and visit her and that he had his mind set on going to the “Far West” so he could
start his own life, much like his father started off in life by coming to America in 1771. It
was Sarah Robinson Milligan that didn’t like the idea of letting her young son just take
off by himself on such a long journey but if he would travel along to visit old and trusted
friends of hers on the way, things wouldn’t seem so difficult and she wouldn’t have to
fear so much for his safety. John I Milligan too remembered the earlier years with Daniel
Culp. They knew each other from their early days in Berkeley County, Va. where they
were good friends and tanners just as we find in the Arkansas Territory history that John
II Milligan and Tom Culp owned a Tan Yard together as well. It was their common link.
They were Tanners by common trade. It must have softened his heart somewhat
remembering that Daniel had passed away in 1800.

The impact of there being tanners was significant in both families’ histories.
Even after Daniel Culp and his brothers, who were also tanners, moved to Kentucky in
1780 for the much sought after Buffalo hides and other pelts they found there in
abundance, these two families would continue to share their close relationship from one
family to the other.

John Milligan I and his family were probably at the funeral of Moses Caton
Chapline which took place at the Stone Church Cemetery in Elm Grove as John and
Sarah were old and good friends of Moses and Mary Caldwell and wanted to be there in
support of Esther Culp. John Milligan had also grown in his faith to become an Elder
there at the Stone Church.

He was of the Old Presbyterian ways, unlike his son John II Milligan who became
a Presbyterian Minister in the Reformed Presbytery of John Carnahan’s in the Arkansas
Territory. In Fact, John II Milligan and his wife Eda built and organized the first
Presbyterian Church in the Arkansas Territory in 1823. This John II Milligan didn’t really
fall too far away from his father’s teachings even though he fell into the new American
Frontier across the Mississippi River in the Far West.

John II learned all too well from his father and his father’s friends that a man
made his name by challenging the frontier for his livelihood. So when he was of good
age, he set out from Triadelphia, W. V. and traveled to Esther Culp’s place in Bourbon
County, Kentucky and to the Culp Family homestead. From there all he had to do was
travel to visit one Culp son to the other until he got to the Mississippi River in Memphis,
cross the river and travel up thru Jonesboro into the Batesville and Reeds Creek areas of
the Missouri Territory where he would find - Thomas B. Culp and his sister Mary (Culp)
Ruddell.

The documentation we have discovered of the Tom Culp / John II Milligan
relationship in Lawrence County, Arkansas is undeniable, some of which is presented
below and makes entirely too much sense.

Even John I and Sarah Robinson knew that their young son would be safe with
the frontier and Indian experienced Abraham Ruddell and his wife Mary and Tom Culp,
Mary’s brother. If anything would have happened to young John in the Missouri
Territory, word would eventually get back to John and Sarah via a letter or even a trip
back to Triadelphia to tell them of their son's news.

So why do I have the sneaking suspicion that all of these families lived close to
Martinsburg in Berkeley County? The early settlement of Martinsburg before it was
called Martinsburg officially was called Martinsburg Court and I am thinking that the
Culps, Daniel and Esther, always lived either in the Martinsburg Court settlement itself or
just outside the settlement to the northwest closer to the Hedges and Robinson Families
near Robinson’s Gap. We also feel that this same area is where John I Milligan and Sarah
Robinson had their original homestead.

The lots and land were relatively inexpensive in the Martinsburg area and newly
weds and someone like John Milligan I, who was an Irish immigrant with little money in
his pocket, could get a better start in life at a place where what little money he did have
seemed to go a bit further than in the settlement of Shepardstown. Besides, Shepardstown
wasn’t all that far away from Martinsburg if people had to go there for supplies. Even the
Robinson’s and Hedge’s homesteads really weren’t all that far out of Martinsburg Court
either; maybe 20 to 30 minutes away by automobile today and just a short carriage ride of
a few hours or so back in their day.

John Milligan went to Berkeley County in 1773 probably to the Martinsburg area.
He stayed here for almost a year and a half before he was enlisted by Lt. Scott . Was it
during this period of his life that he originally met Sarah Robinson? Did he start building
his own homestead as well? He did say in his pension claim, “We rendezvoused in
Shepardstown.”  Doesn’t that mean that he normally lived someplace else other than
Shepardstown?

He said he went back to Shepardstown after his first enlistment of 1 year was
over. He also says he met a man name of Charlters (can’t find evidence of anyone named
“Charlters” in Shepardstown but do find a “Chapline” which needs to be researched a bit
more) there and they came up with the idea of returning to Washington’s troops as
Sutlers (A traveling PX) to the Army and got themselves caught up in the Battle of Long
Island as civilians.

Well, I also think that when John Milligan initially went back to Shepardstown,
he also went to visit his own homestead near Martinsburg and also went to see Sarah
Robinson who lived in this area all of her life. Then when he returned to Berkeley County
after the battle of Trenton in 1777 (with his new German made leather working tools) he
and Sarah were married and set up their household on his homestead which must have
been near the James Robinson homestead; after all, Sarah Robinson came from the James
Robinson homestead just up the valley from his father’s (Israel Robinson) homeplace on
Tomahawk Run.

Moses Chapline, Esther’s father owned that big acreage just west of the of the
Potomac in the valley below just west of the Berkeley County line and Moses Caton
Chapline, Esther Chapline Culp’s brother and his family lived on lot 29 in Shepardstown.
The Daniel Culp / Esther Chapline Family we believe also lived in the Martinsburg area
up until 1779. All of these folks lived relatively close to each other and knew or were
related to each other. They all managed to see each other socially maybe by going to
church together or visiting each other for dinners and other social gatherings. Maybe it
was the Moses Chapline Family in the valley that hosted a yearly Christmas Celebration
in their home that was attended by many who lived up in the mountains.

Daniel moved Esther and their children to Moses’ old home in 1779 and by 1780
he and his brothers would be on their way to Kentucky. Esther would give birth to Mary
Culp while living here in Shepardstown. Daniel and his brothers originally settled into the
area called Cynthiana in Harrison County. Like many other early settlers, they found
themselves in the area of Kentucky that would see some of the fiercest Indian attacks
during the Revolutionary War years of 1780 and 1781 in and around the Hopewell
Settlement of Bourbon County.

After the Revolutionary War when the British lead Indian attacks stopped, the
Culps resumed building their homestead and their family by adding two more children to
their fold; James Culp and Thomas Culp would both born in Bourbon County, Kentucky
and it was Daniel and Esther’s children that would move the Culp name to other areas of
Kentucky and Tennessee and into the Missouri Territory in their own generation.

James Culp, who remained a single man all of his life and became a minister,
went to Gibson County, Tennessee to live and another of his brothers, Daniel Culp Jr.,
would go to Barren County, Kentucky and raise a fine family of his own. Tom Culp, the
youngest Culp child, moved on to Bowlingreen, Kentucky and got married there.
Unfortunately, he decided to leave his wife, Mary Gahegan and their two children,
Samuel and Rebecca early on in their marriage (about 1812) and moved to Maucopin
County, Illinois and after a brief stay in Maucopin County, Tom Culp, being visited by his
sister Mary Culp and her husband’s family, The Ruddells, all find their way to the
Missouri Territory; The Ruddells by 1814 and Tom Culp by 1815. They crossed the
Mississippi below St. Genevieve and took the old St. Louis and Washita road that turned
south along the river.

John II Milligan was young however and all the early years of his life he saw and
talked to many travelers using the new National Road through Triadelphia. He surely
heard some fascinating stories from the folks that passed over the Old Pike on their way
into the west and knew that it was also his direction too and thanks to the friendship that
his father and mother had with the Culp family, John II Milligan was going to get his
chance to move to the new American Frontier; The Far West.

So a few years after Esther’s return trip to Bourbon County after Moses’ death,
the very young John Milligan II would come to visit her in early 1816. It may have been
that his father and mother rode along with him on this first leg of his journey to visit
Esther Chapline Culp themselves. They spent a bit of time with Esther and John II, after
saying his “Good-bys”, heads out to Barren County, to the home of Daniel Culp Jr.

We can’t be sure how long John may have stayed on here because Daniel Jr. had
plenty of work to do. He had been given a piece of land and funds from the Barren
County Government to build the first “tan yard” in Barren County some 5 or 6 years
before. Even with Daniel’s tan yard finished with much daily work to do and with the
knowledge John Milligan II possessed of the trade from working with his father and
brothers, he may have stayed on a while to work for Daniel and pay his way for the
Culp’s hospitality.

Then he moved on into Tennessee to the home of James Culp. James was a
Minister at the local Presbyterian Church and was also very busy setting up Church
services, or writing a sermon for Sunday, which John Milligan II was also knowledgeable
of. So John Milligan knowing about the Presbyterian Church, fit right in with James
Culp’s lifestyle. Here too we wouldn’t really know how long he may have stayed with
James but after this, he travels on to Memphis where he crosses the Mississippi and by
mid 1816 is in The Missouri Territory, Batesville area looking for a man name of Tom
Culp or Abraham Ruddell who he finds in the Batesville area. He’s arrived.

Abraham Ruddell’s name is on an Early Property Tax List of Old Lawrence
County from 1814 and Tom Culp’s name is on the Tax list by 1816 which, by the way, is
the year we find John II Milligan arrives in the Batesville area looking for Tom Culp or
Abraham and Mary (Culp) Ruddell. Eventually he will make it to the Reeds Creek area of
the Territory only a few miles to the East of Batesville. John Milligan II also shows up on
the Ol’ Lawrence County Tax List by 1818.

It was Tom Culp that sold John Milligan II and his wife Eda (Jeffrey) Ragsdale,
their first piece of property (John and Eda had it paid for by 1829) which is the one they
built their church on.

Later on, in 1820, Tom Culp would go on to marry the sister of John Milligan’s
wife, Lavina (Jeffrey) Samms, also a daughter of Ol’ Jim and Jane (Mason) Jeffrey.
Then after Tom’s marriage to Lavina, the now brothers-in-law by marriage,
Tom Culp and John Milligan joined the Lawrence County Militia, much as their fathers
had joined the military in their own generation. John Milligan joins and is assigned the
Rank of Ensign, in July of 1820 and Tom Culp joins, with the rank of Major, on Oct 16,
1821. While these two were growing up back east, it was somewhat normal for the men
to have a military designation added to their names; especially during the 1770’s and
Revolutionary War years when many of them stood up to be counted with the defense of
their communities, their new States and their New Country.

As John Milligan II would grow into his faith and become a Presbyterian Minister
of the Gospel, so too would Tom Culp grow into becoming a Medical Doctor. His teacher
was probably his Mother-in-Law, the extremely intelligent, Jane Mason Jeffrey who had
received some medical training between the years of 1783-1789 and became a Mid-Wife.
She had always wanted to help other women bring new life into the world.

Tom Culp lived well until June 27, 1846 when he passes away in Izard County,
Arkansas. He left his wife, Lavina Jeffrey and their 8 children behind him when he
passed. They are: Jane Culp (named after Jane Mason), Josiah Chapline Culp (named
after his mother Esther Chapline), Daniel Culp (named after his father), Abraham Culp
(named after Abraham Ruddell), James Jeffrey Culp (named after Ol’ Jim Jeffrey),
Thomas B. Culp, Jr. (named after him), Ambrose Culp (named after Judge Ambrose C.
Jeffrey) and Letty Culp.

He also left his first two children by his first wife Mary Gahegan. They were
Samuel Culp and Rebecca Culp, who stayed with their mother in Bowling Green, Kentucky
when Tom decided to take himself to the Illinois Territory in 1812 before moving on to
the Missouri Territory in 1814 / 1815.



This new knowledge is a marvelous addition to the John Milligan II Family. We have
made some excellent discoveries here and finally know the circumstances surrounding
John Milligan II’s journey to the Missouri / Arkansas Territory in 1816.

Tom Culp and John Milligan both, compared to the lives of their fathers, drew
many parallels from them and it was in THEIR Spirit that these two early settlers to Ol’
Lawrence County were as successful and as well known as they were. They were God
Fearing Folk.

We have not said all. Along with the Ruddell, Culp and Milligan Families being
present in this part of the Missouri / Arkansas Territory, we have also found and seen
record of the Caldwell Family as well, along with the Kennedy Family and many other
families who have roots back east from Berkeley and Ohio Counties of Virginia. Maybe
the new generations of these families “all” wanted to live out what their environment was
during their childhoods of “Frontier Life” as their parents did when they forged their way
over the Blue Ridge and into the Eastern Ohio River Valley and Kentucky. The only
difference is that the new generation of these northeastern families, find themselves on a
“New Shore”; from here to the Rockies lays the “Far West."


DISCLAIMER: This document was written solely for its use in the Genealogical Study
of the families written of and is offered here, Free of Charge, to all who wish to study the
lives of these families.

Copyright applied for 2008.  Used here with permission of authors.


“Pioneers to Ol’ Lawrence County”
Continues in Volume II: The Southern Families.  
(Coming soon)



Return to Lawrence County Index

©2008 Arkansas Genealogy Trails