Footnotes for letters 71- 78: 1866

Footnotes for Letters 71 - 78: 1866 -1869

Keep this reference page open as you read letters 71 - 78.

1. Elizabeth Watts in Mariposa County, California
2. Frank Thomas was a former business partner of Upton Hays. His may have been Joel Franklin Thomas, Sr..
3. James Hornbuckle. The Alford Hornbuckle family lived next door to Linville Hays and Mariam Hays McMurtry in 1860. Richard Crump, Upton's nephew, married Eliza Hornbuckle.
4. John Nathan Hays, her son was born in 1854 so he was 12 years old.
5. 1000 acres this is probably a mistake, in the next letter she writes 9 or 10 acres .
6. Living in the little log cabin on the farm near Westport, Jackson County, Missouri. She had been living with Linville Hays family near Lees Summit, Jackson County.
7. The children were: John , age 12; Betty, age 9 , Elfleda, age 7; and Jennup, age 4.
8. Margaret Jane Watts Hays (1836-1923).
9. Jackson County, Missouri had almost continual skirmishes and several major battles between 1861 and 1865. The loss of property was in the millions of dollars from the looting and burning by the Kansas Abolitionists, the Kansas Volunteer Militia and foraging by Union troops. The loot was termed contraband and taken back to Kansas to be sold or used by Kansas settlers. The Confederate Guerilla companies also burned and looted property in retaliation although they only took what was needed to feed and clothe their men.
10. William Lobb Yager (1840-aft. 1870) a son of Rev. Cornelius Yager and Susan Frances Berry. He lived in California.
11. Judge James B. Yager (1809-1883). Cornelius Yager's brother, he was married to Mary Berry, Margaret's aunt. Another relative whose property was destroyed during the Civil War and whose only son, Capt. Richard Francis Dick Yager, a Quantrill's Guerilla, was killed in the War. Uncle Jemmy was 57.
12. Henry Harper (1835-?) married Judge Yager's daughter Rachel and owned a large farm near Westport. Jackson County.
13. Louisa Catherine Yager (1849-1933), Judge Yager's daughter.
14. Dr. Stone of Texas may be a relative of Richard Stone (1814-?) and his family who lived near Margaret and Upton Hays near Westport, Jackson County, Missouri in 1860.
15. Martha Moore Yocum Bane (1826-1905). The widow of Matthew Yocum, Margaret's half-brother now married to Clayton Bane. She lost a son, Travis T. Yocum, who joined the Confederate Army and was killed at the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi in 1862.
16. Susannah Gutherie Moore Bryant (1827-?). A daughter of the William Moore family who lived as neighbors to the Watts in Cass County, Missouri when Margaret was a child.
17. A Chapman Bryant (1827-?) of Cass County, Missouri, the husband of Sue Bryant.
18. Clayton Bane, Martha's husband. He joined the Confederate Army in about 1863. The Bane farm was in Mt. Pleasant Township, Cass Co., Missouri near the Jackson County line.
19. The area of northern Cass County where Cleat lived was devastated during the war. Almost no people were allowed to stay in their homes which left them unprotected, and few houses were left standing after the war ended.
20. George W. Rowland (1816-1872) and his wife, Letty S. Watts Rowland (1821-1910)who was Margaret's half-sister. Their son John Bunyan Rowland was in the Union Army. They had been forced to move from Cass Co. to Kansas because they were strong Union supporters and their lives were in danger.
21. Eliza C. Watts Dickerson (1813-after 1900) in Fayette, Howard Co., Missouri.
22. Nancy Watts Dickerson (1779-after 1866), Margaret's father's sister who lived in Washington Co., Kentucky.
23. William Russell Watts (1789-1872), Margaret's father's brother in Washington Co., Kentucky.
24. Eliza Jane Dickerson Kimberlin (1814-1895), the daughter of Nancy Watts and Beverly James Dickerson. She was the widow of Richard Samuel Kimberlin, a civilian, who had been killed by Kansas Jayhawkers during the Civil War. Several of their sons served in the Confederate Army. She had news from the Kentucky relatives and had been exiled by Order 11 in 1863 to Washington County, Kentucky or Fayette, Howard County, Missouri.
25. Blue Springs in southern Jackson County, Missouri.
26. Jane Bowlar Yocum Young (1827-before 1880) and William N. Young (1823-?). Jane was the widow of Margaret's half-brother Jesse Yocum. William Young served in the Confederate Army.
27. Lirrle Santa Fe or New Santa Fe, Jackson Co., Missouri . The town is partly in Missouri and partly in Kansas.
28. Nephew William Yocum, Jane's son. (1950-after 1917)
29. Jane Upton Hays (1862-1945)
30. Alfred Boone Hays (1846-1919)
31. Linville Hays (1821-before 1910), Margaret's brother-in-law. Linville had been exiled from the state in 1863. He lived in Nebraska until 1864 when he joined the Confederate Army under General Price. He was a wangomaster and freighter. Before the Civil War he had contracts with the United States to freight supplies to the military posts in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, so the wagon train was very likely carrying military equipment and herding cattle to feed the troops.
32. Robert M. Hays (1845-?)
33. David McMurtry , Upton's sister's husband had died in the 1850s.
34. Amazon Hays, Margaret's brother-in-law.
35. Probably James R. Hays (1843-?) Amazon's son by his first wife, Agnes McMurtry.
36. William B. Overstreet (1835-1916) probably the same man who became Margaret's second husband in 1877. He is reported to have been a member of Quantrill's Guerillas.
37. United State Cavalry troops.
38. In 1866 the Great Plains tribes of Native Americans were attacking settlers and people traveling through their lands. The Comanche, allied with the Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne and Kiowa, wanted to keep the whites out of their territory. The United States Army was sent in to subdue the Indians in the Comanche Campaign which lasted from 1866 to 1874. The Indians, who had been forced to leave their eastern lands, now depended on the large buffalo herds for their food . The buffalo were being exterminated by buffalo hunters, especially those of the Transcontinental Railroad which had been laying rails across the prairies since 1863.
39. The lawsuit apparently had to do with the settling of Upton Hays' estate.
40. Dower in 1952, when Margaret married Upton Hays, she was provided with a lifetime interest in a piece of land., probably a part of the Hays farm. This was a way of providing for women if their husbands died and left them and the children without a means of support.
41. 1868
42. Rocky Mountain Locusts This is probably one of the earliest accounts of the Grasshopper Plagues which caused tremendous crop losses in the 1870s. Jackson County, Missouri estimated agricultural losses from locusts in 1875 was 2.5 million dollars. (see Missouri State University, Agriculture History Series, Grasshopper Plagues. http://ag.missouristate.edu/hopper1.htm )
flour.
43. Radical Republicans who were in control of the Missouri government from 1865 to 1879. This group denied voting rights to Ex-Confederates and Confederate sympathizers until 1879. Their attitude toward Confederate sympathizers was retaliatory.
44. Matthew Berry Yocum, Margaret's nephew.
45. James Samuel Berry. (1842-1902) Margaret's nephew. He married Mary Rowden Foy 25 October 1866. He had served in the Confederate Army.
46. John Edward Berry (1842-1936), Margaret's nephew. He served in the Confederate Army and was taken prisoner in 1863 or 1864 and spent the remainder of the War in Alton Prison in Illinois. He was released May 4 1865 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
47. Jacob Self (1825-?), his wife Elizabeth and 7 children are listed in the Lees Summit 1870 Jackson County Census. One son, age 12, is named Upton.
48. James C. McMurtry (1847-1902), Upton Hays' nephew. This may be the son of David and Mariam McMurtry who was with Linville's wagon train in Letter 73. He married Elizabeth Watts' niece, Sarah Anna Berry in 1869 and they migrated to California in 1872. He lived in Callaway Co., Missouri at this time.
49. Probably 1868.
50. Laurinda W. Holloway Hays (1827-1890). Linville Hays' wife.
51. Meat.
52. Hog disease
53. Missouritown, St. Charles Co., MO.
54. Both John and Margaret were 32 years old.
55. A John Boone Hays (1836-1913) lived in Femme Osage Township which includes Morristown.. He was the son of Upton's uncle, Daniel Boone Hays and Mary Bryan and served in the Confederate Army. This letter implies that Margaret owned property in St. Charles County, although it was more likely it was in Callaway County where both she and Upton had many relatives and where she lived from late 1863 to 1865.
56. Jane Upton Hays
57. Possibly Frances A. Smart who had been married to Margaret's half-brother Cleon Bolivar Watts in 1867 in Mariposa, California.
58. Probably Jackson County, Missouri where he visited Elizabeth Watts' daughter, Margaret Hays, although it could have been Washington County, Kentucky where they both grew up.
59. This was probably Rev. Cornelius Yager (1811-1895) although it lacks the religious context of Rev. Yager's 1861 letter (Letter 28).