Our Search for the Graves of
Isham Gwin and his wife,
Mary Canterbury Gwin:

A Record From 1999 to 2015




Finding Isham:
the trail of information I have followed
that seems to me to indicate and/or prove that
Isham Gwin of Crowson's Cove is my gggg-grandfather

--John M. Gwin, 2005


 
Abstract:  Proven facts we know include that in 1807 an Isham Gwin did live in what was then called Crowson's Cove and today is called the Wear Valley, Sevier Co., TN. We know he had a large family and was active in Baptist churches there. We know he and many of his family moved to Crawford, Harrison, and Orange counties, Indiana, sometime before 1820. We know the names of most if not all of his dozen-or-so children, including a daughter named Polly Gwin who married a Thomas Walker of Tuckaleechee Cove, Blount Co., TN. And we know that the man who would become my ggg-grandfather, John Gwin, who later would tell his children and grandchildren that his father's name was Isham, was married on 8 Apr 1812 by Thomas Walker's brother Joseph, a Justice of the Peace, to their sister, Jane Walker, in Tuckaleechee Cove, about six miles west of where this Isham Gwin's land was.


1. In 1999 I became interested in my Gwin genealogy and collection I had inherited from my father's brother, Uncle James Gwin, who listed our farthest-back person in the Gwin line as a Richard Gwin who married Sarah Chesley, both of Jamestown, VA. Uncle James listed as his source The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, Vol. I, p. 706

2. Uncle James further listed Sarah and Richard's son as Isham Gwin who married a "Miss Cleveland". (I was somewhat surprised that the Compendium's source did not know John's mother's first name. I would later learn that she also did not even recall correctly her last name!)  In fact, Isham had married Mary Canterbury in Montgomery Co., VA, in 1783.


3. Uncle James listed Isham's son as John Gwin who married Jane Walker in Blount Co., TN, on 8 Apr 1812. I'd later find out that all nine of John's and Jane's known children had been born in and around Dallas Co., AL.

4. I finally found a copy of the complete set of this Compendium (mentioned in step one above). It became obvious to me that the Compendium's source for all the information on this Gwin line was a Champe McCulloch, husband of John and Jane Gwin's granddaughter, Emma Basset. Emma's mother and John's and Jane's daughter, Sarah Gwin Basset, lived with Emma and Champe for many years, and this seemed to me to give great credence to the Compendium's information.

5. John Gwin, my ggg-grandfather, told census takers in 1850, 1860, and 1870, that he himself was born in 1792 (his gravestone also lists his year of birth as 1792) in Tennessee. Yet some researchers listed him as having been born "in the Carolinas". When I learned that Tennessee did not become a state until 1796, having been part of North Carolina prior to that, it suddenly made sense to me that both were right. 

6. And so I set off for east Tennessee in the summer of 2003 to see what I could find that would confirm Isham's existence as John's dad. I started with John's and Jane's marriage license and certificate in the Blount Co. Courthouse at Maryville. It was right there, and I held it in my hands and had a copy made of it. This proved that they had indeed been married in this county on that date. It also showed that the person who performed the marriage was a Joseph Walker--brother of the bride and Justice of the Peace! (This raises a question which may be answered in no. 15 below.)  Further search that day turned up Jane's father, Thomas Walker, as living in Tuckaleechee Cove, Blount Co.

7. After two more days of searching, I came upon a publication by George and Juanita Fox which led me to a copy of the 1807 deed of an Isham Gwin to 249 acres "in Crowson's Cove on the waters of Walden's Creek" in Sevier Co., TN, which deed's microfilm was located at the Cox Museum and Archives in Greeneville (http://www.ggcpl.org/cox.htm).  Assuming this to be the same Isham Gwin mentioned in The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy and therefore my gggg-grandpa, I returned home to New Mexico and began to expand my research on Isham.

8. Collecting the deeds to as many residents of 1807 Crowson's Cove as I could find, with the help of Cousin Barb Ward and the abovementioned George Fox, I mapped out the plats of many of those neighbors' farms, thereby showing who lived next-door to whom. Two of these neighbors were a David Denton and a Kinsey Veatch.

9. Some of that research in church records confirmed that Isham Gwin and Kinsey Veatch of Crowson's Cove were very active in starting and serving as elders and preachers in the Wear's Cove--aka Crowson's Cove--Baptist Church and that Isham had been called to preach in a daughter church in Tuckaleechee Cove, Blount Co., some three miles west of and just across the county line from Crowson's Cove. Then Isham and Kinsey disappeared from church records just before 1820.

10. In July 2004, I went back to Seveir County and confirmed the location of Crowson's Cove with the help of Sam Maner and his staff at the Seveir County Genealogy Library in Seveirville. My plat maps lined up almost exactly with the topo map of Wears Cove, formerly Crowson's Cove. I stood on what, some 200 years before, had been Isham's land, and again returned home.

11. That's when Jim Wall contacted me concerning his family of Crawford, Harrison, and Orange counties, Indiana. He descends from an Isham Gwin and his daughter, Elizabeth Gwin, the latter of whom had married a David Denton, and their earliest children had been "born in Tennessee".

12. Jim Wall has sent me copies of scores of documents he has come across in his research, including Isham's will, almost all of which are posted either on this page or elsewhere in this site. Some of his research shows that his ancestor, Isham Gwin, and a neighbor, Kinsey Veatch, had helped start some Baptist churches in southern Indiana just before 1820. The Dentons were there, too.

13. Isham's will provides a list of his children, but my John Gwin is missing from it. Nevertheless, there is a seven-year gap between Isham's 2nd child, Elizabeth (b. 1788 and who married David Denton) and his "third", Virginia Jane, (b. 1795). That told me that my John Gwin, b. 1792, who claimed to be the son of Isham, could easily fit between Elizabeth and Virginia Jane.

14. Furthermore, there was one more person who turned out to be a brother of John: William Gwin, and another, Chesley R. Gwin, who perhaps was also. Both of these are in Dallas Co., AL, at the same time John was. So it could be that all three of these--William, John, and C. R.--fit into the above-mentioned seven-year period.

15. Church records in Tennessee showed that Isham may have had a temper, he once confessing to having struck a man in anger. We do know that he was a preacher and church planter, so it would stand to reason that he would want to preside at his own children's weddings.  But John and Jane were married, not in a church, but by a secular Justice of the Peace, who--perhaps as if to add insult to injury--was a brother of the bride! Then, when Isham, his ministry partner Kinsey Veatch, and his son-in-law David Denton and their families moved to Indiana a few short years later, John and Jane, William and Susanah, and Chesley and his wife all moved the other direction, to Alabama.  Were these moves deliberate attempts to get as far from each other as possible?  Was Isham holding a grudge in his anger against his son for not allowing him to preside at their wedding?  One document that seemed to support such a theory is the list of children of Isham and Mary that ended up on this webpage; when I first encountered this list, it completely omitted John, William, and Chesley! And yet there is a seven-year gap in the listed children's birth dates where John's and William's dates of birth seem to fit perfectly.

16. Aha. Now the real reason for their separation may have surfaced. Cousin Jim Wall has sent me a copy of a section of a history book of some of the citizens of Keokuk Co., IA, one of whom was William W. Gwin, one of Isham's and Mary's grandsons. In it the author says of this William's grandfather, Isham, that though he owned slaves himself, he came to hate slavery, eventually freeing his slaves and moving to Indiana, a free state, where he would no longer be around this institution.  We know that most of his family moved to Indiana with him, including the new families of all his married daughters, but that sons William and John (and maybe Chesley and Isham II) instead moved their families south to Alabama where they would be allowed to continue holding slaves, as we indeed know at least John and one of John's sons did. Slavery was a hot, divisive issue, and it appears that this was most likely the very reason for the parting of the ways of Isham's family.

17. Perhaps the most compelling data to me is the fact that this same history book states that Isham had TEN children--not just the seven who appear in his will.


18. In summary, we know that in 1807 an Isham Gwin did live in what was then called Crowson's Cove and today is called the Wear Valley, Sevier Co., TN.  We know he had a large family and was active in Baptist churches there. We know he and many of his family moved to Crawford, Harrison, and Orange counties, Indiana, sometime before 1820, and that the abovementioned book says the reason was to escape from the presence of the hated institution of slavery.  We know the names of most of Isham's children and grandchildren from church minutes in Tennessee and Indiana, Isham's will, and the probate documents that accompanied his will--and that the book states that Isham had TEN children. And we know that the man who would become my ggg-grandfather, John Gwin, who later would tell his children and grandchildren that his father's name was Isham, married Jane Walker in Tuckaleechee Cove, Blount Co., TN, about 5-8 miles west of where this Isham Gwin's land was and where Isham had preached before he left for Indiana.

Here are some more things we have learned:
--John M. Gwin, 2015

19.  Isham was called in Sep 1819 to be the first pastor of Providence Primitive Baptist Church of Orange Co., IN (which church has been functioning continuously ever since!), as page four of the church's first records book attests:

Saterday the 4 September [1819]
1. the Church met and after singing and prayer proceeded to Business
2nd chose Brother Pape as their moderator.
3rd the Church agree to call Brother Isom Gwin as their preacher and further agree to send a request to the El Bethel to give him up for that purpose and John Lee Senr to bare the same to their meeting on the fourth Saturday in September
4.  Brother James McMahan to Bare the request of the Church to Brother Gwin.

20.  In January of 1829, his tenth year there, the integrity of an Elizabeth Gwin (could Mary's full name be Mary Elizabeth Gwin?) is challenged by one of the parishioners, as recorded on pages 46-48 of the same Book One.  Isom is selected to be moderator but may have recused himself, as his name is lined out:


The Church met the third Saturday in January 1829 and opens meeting by singing and preare Bro Gwin moderator
1  The charge preferd aginst the two sisters Elizabeth Gwin and Jane Person cald for and submitted to committy and by the examation of the committy Brother Agin faild to support his charge and confesst that he had ronged Sister Jane Person
2  and the charge against sister Elizabeth Gwin he also
47
faild to establish and the judgement of the committy was that he also ronged hur
3  and the church recieved the reporte of the committy and acquited the sisters of the charge
4  the church opens hur dores for the rection of members and recieves Samuel Wellman Susanna his wife and Sary Wellman his daughter by letter
4 [5]   [ansuenabel?] to the request of Providence Church for help ordain her deacons, Brother Isom Gwin atended from Unity from Rock Spring Brother Aaron Vandever and the candidates being examined on ther faith and the work of a deacon was set apart to that office by praere and imposition of hands of the presbetery.

21.  In March of his tenth year there, his integrity is challenged by one of the parishioners, as recorded on pages 46-48 of the same Book One:


The Church met the third Saturday in January 1829 and opens meeting by singing and preare Bro Gwin moderator
1  The charge preferd aginst the two sisters Elizabeth Gwin and Jane Person cald for and submitted to committy and by the examation of the committy Brother Agin faild to support his charge and confesst that he had ronged Sister Jane Person
2  and the charge against sister Elizabeth Gwin he also
47
faild to establish and the judgement of the committy was that he also ronged hur
3  and the church recieved the reporte of the committy and acquited the sisters of the charge
4  the church opens hur dores for the rection of members and recieves Samuel Wellman Susanna his wife and Sary Wellman his daughter by letter
4 [5]   [ansuenabel?] to the request of Providence Church for help ordain her deacons, Brother Isom Gwin atended from Unity from Rock Spring Brother Aaron Vandever and the candidates being examined on ther faith and the work of a deacon was set apart to that office by praere and imposition of hands of the presbetery.

The Church met the third Saturday in March 1829 and opens meeting by singing and preare
p. 48
First Brother S. Dickins lays in a charge against Sister Agin For hard talk In-saying that Bro Isom Gwin had murderd the truth and she would as soon take Ben Balses word for any thing as old Gwins
2 and for useing hard langage against other members of the Church in saying she would as soon Fellowship the Devil in Hell as them
3 and throwing Contempt on the Church in saying that the Lye and the Lyar was in the Church and she being present and Faild to satisfaction is thearefore excluded from Church preveliges

22.  Isham served there some ten years--until at least Dec 1829, according to page 51 of the same Book One:


The Church met the third Sature day in December [1829]--opens meting by singing and prear
1  The refrence Concerning Martha Overland red and Laid over untel Next meting and appoints brethern S. Dickins and R Holstclaw to site hur to next meting
2  The Church makes Chois of Brother Shadrick Dickins to serve them as moderater in Case of Brother Gwins absence.

23.  Isham died a year later in Dec 1830 and in his will left everything to his wife, Mary, who was still living some twenty years later as recorded in the 1850 census:



Above is part of a page of the 1850 census of Orange Co., IN, comprising the names of 20 of my relatives, including Gggg-grandmother Mary Canterbury Gwin.  All four of the households listed are those of descendants of Isom and Mary Gwin.   My transcription of that page follows:
Res.#

Fam# NAME AGE SEX OCCUPATION REAL
EST.VAL.
POB John M. Gwin Comments
33 33
Manervy Right 39 f
$600 TN Minerva Wright is the widow of Elijah Wright
and Isom and Mary Gwin's 11th born.


Ruth Right 21 f

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Susan Right 19 f

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Benjamin Right 14 m

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Leander Right 10 m

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Elijah Wright 5 m

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Mary Gwyn 80 f

VA Mary Canterbury Gwin herself
34 34
Richard Wright 24 m

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Martha Right 22 f

IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild-in-law


Sarah Right 3 f

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild


Thomas Right 6/12 m

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild
35 35
David Denton 72 m farmer $50 VA Isom's and Mary's son-in-law


Elizabeth Denton 63 f

TN Isom's and Mary's second born
36 36
Thomas Denton 30 m farmer $200 IN Isom's and Mary's grandchild


Fanny M. Denton 30 f

UNK Isom's and Mary's grandchild-in-law


Rebecca Denton 9 f

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild


Joel Denton 7 m

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild


Isom Denton 5 m

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild


Cynthia Denton 3 f

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild


Liza Ann Denton 8/12 f

IN Isom's and Mary's great-grandchild

It is this very document that has led us to the following speculations.  First of all, we know that Isom and Mary sold their 249-acre plantation in Crowson's Cove (today's Wear's Cove), Sevier Co., TN, and moved to Indiana.  We have believed all along that he must have reinvested the money from the sale of his farm and bought land in Indiana.  We also know that Isom died in Dec of 1830, some 20 years before this census.  Because he left Providence Primitive Baptist (click here, scroll to page 46), the church he helped found and for which he served over ten years as its first pastor, and because we cannot find his or his wife's grave in the cemetery of that church, we speculate that they are buried on the land he bought.  We know that his wife Mary was listed in the 1850 census as "blind" and speculate that daughter Minerva, also a widow, moved "back home" sometime before this census to care for her aging mother, as shown here.  Because the land is listed as Minerva's and its value as $600, we also speculate that Mary must have given/sold the farm to Minerva.  We also speculate that David and Elizabeth Gwin Denton, whom we know moved to Indiana with Isom and Mary, must have bought their land abutting Isom's and Mary's, and now in their old age and living alone, have given/sold most of it to their son Thomas.  Finally, we speculate that if we can find Isom's and Mary's deed to this land and ascertain the land's location, we'll find their graves.  
--John M. Gwin     



24.  In 2010 we visited the courthouse in Paoli, Orange Co., IN, where we found several interesting records of land sales.  Of special interest were the following three records for the sale of the same 160-acre piece of land: the Southeast Quarter of Section 20, Township 1 South and Range 2 East. 

Today this land is still located in the southeast corner of the Southeast Township.  It is bordered on the west by South County road 750 East (Buffalo Trace Loop) and on the east by the county line with Crawford County; just north of it is East County road 950 South; and partially bordering it on the south is East Northridge Road (County Road 1000), which then bears away from and to the south of the land.


19 May 1831: from a Samuel McGhee to William Houston (Isham's son-in-law, husband of Sarah Gwin)

15 Mar 1842: from William and Sarah Houston to Elijah Wright (Isham's son-in-law, husband of Minerva Gwin)

15 Apr 1854: fr. Charles M. and Mary J. Stalcup to Isom Gwin Wright (Isham's grandson by his daughter Minerva Wright)

25.  In 2010 we also carefully searched the entire cemetery for Providence Church (see item 19 above) and found neither Isham's nor Mary's grave.  But the graves of the second pastor, Kinsey Veatch (see item 8 above) and his wife were there!

26.  Now, in Jun 2015, we are thinking that since (a) Isom "attended from Unity" [i.e., Unity Primitive Baptist Church--near Hardinsburg?] in Jan 1829--see item 20; and (b) neither Isham nor Mary are buried at Providence Cemetery--see item 25; and (c) Mary is living with Minerva in 1850 on that expensive ($600) piece of land in 1850 that HAS to be closer to Unity than Providence--see item 23; that therefore (d) Isham and Mary are probably buried either on their own land (perhaps that 160 acres Elijah and Minerva owned) OR in the Unity cemetery.






This is simply copied from the online Crawford Co., IN, webpage at http://in.gov/library/3094.htm, for my quick reference use when I'm on my trip.

Crawford County

This page is under development and is NOT a complete listing of all Crawford County family history resources available at the Indiana State Library at this time. As new Crawford County family history resources by county are added, this page will be updated.

Marriage Records

Marriage Affidavits, 1872-1915
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Marriage Records, 1818-1924
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Marriages, 1818-1900
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Noblitt, Ivan E. An index of marriages ... 1818-1955.
Microfilm, Second Floor

Records of Marriage, 1896-1906
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Leistner, Doris. Marriages, 1818-1860
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899Lei

Marriages, 1818-1835
The Hoosier Genealogist (Jan.-Feb., Mar.-Apr. 1970) vol. 10, nos. 1-2
Genealogy Division, 977.2 H789

Slevin, Ruth M. Marriages, 1818-1880: books A-D.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899sc

Slevin, Ruth M. Marriages, 1881-1896: books E & F. 1972. 47, 47 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899sL

Deed Records

Deed Indexes, 1819-1878
Microfilm, Second Floor

Deed Indexes, Grantee and Grantor, 1818-1878
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Deeds, 1818-1886
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Indenture Deeds, 1832-1873
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Probate Records

Probate Complete Records1848-1851
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Probate Indexes, 1851-1903
Microfilm, Second Floor

Probate Order Books, 1818-1918
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Probates, 1818-1851
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Records of Probate Reports, 1873-1875
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Davis, Wilma. Probate record I, Crawford County, Indiana. 1990. 118, x leaves.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899d

Will Records

Wills, 1818-1899
Microfilm, Second Floor

Wills, 1818-1946
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Leistner, Doris.  Abstracts of wills, 1818-1916
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899Lw

Slevin, Ruth M. Will records: books 1-2. 1974. 71 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899s

Cemetery and Church Records

Gilliatt, Katherine W. Eastridge Cemetery ... Patoka township. [1951]. 2 pp.
Genealogy Division, p. f. 977.201 C899 no. 2

[Incomplete listing of stones found in an old unmarked cemetery ... Union Township ... west of Sulfer]. 1 pp.
Genealogy Division, p. f. 977.201 Cuncat. no. 1

Indiana Historical Society. Old Leavenworth Cemetery. 1947. 1 pp.
Genealogy Division, p. f. 977.201 C899 no. 1

Enlow, Opal Jean. Cemeteries (Patoka and Sterling townships). 1975. 1 volume.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899e

Neighborhood Youth Corps. Marengo Cemetery. 1970. 33 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899n

Census Records

Leistner, Doris. 1850 census. 1980. 168 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899Le

Leistner, Doris. Crawford County, Indiana 1860 census. 1987. 219 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899Lc

Court Records

Index to Guardianships
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Partition Deeds, 1881-1936
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Partition Records, 1853-1876
Microfilm, Second Floor

Eastridge, Richard. Crawford County Commissioner's Record 1834-1845 [2006] 144pp
Genealogy Division 977.201 C899ea

Land Records

Tract Book, 1804-1853
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

University Land Certificate of Entry, 1860-1881
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Military Records

Crawford County veterans grave registrations.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899c

Mortuary and Obituary Records

Key, D. L. Funeral notices of residents of Orange--Crawford Counties, Indiana. 1979. 9, [4] leaves.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 O632k

Naturalization Records

Leistner, Doris. Naturalization records.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899L

Naturalizations, [1882-1896].
The Hoosier Genealogist (Mar. 1982) vol. 22, no. 1
Genealogy Division, 977.2 H789


School Records

Cook, Claud E. [School enumerations ...]. Part 1 (Whiskey Run township, 1884 & 1885). [2 pp.]
Genealogy Division, p. f. 977.201 C899 no. 3

DAR. Crawford County, Indiana, school records, 1917-1919. 1997. 226 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899cr

Miscellaneous

Negro register, 1853
MiCrofilm, Second Floor

Leistner, Doris. Crawford County, Indiana guardian bonds, 1848-1896. 2003. 113 pp.
Genealogy Division, 977.201 C899La

Many of the records identified on this page were initially selected by Carolynne L. Wendel Miller in her book, Indiana Sources for Genealogical Research in the Indiana State Library, published in 1984 by the Indiana Historical Society.

GEN DB 1-8-2013