My great-great-great-grandfather and grandmother, William Marion Millican and Rebecca Clonch Millican came to Missouri, Arkansas, and then Texas, from Tennessee after the Trail of Tears, in 1839. They had 2 living kids by then: Francis Marion and Samuel Swearingen. They were settled in Tennessee, but they left. I don't think they wanted to, I think they had to.
Cherokee society was a matrilineal. The women were the head of the household and their descendency was reckoned through the mother's family. When she died, Rebecca's estate was probated and she had about $1,400 worth of property in 1871. Was she the head of her family, or at least the one who arranged for passage across the country? The property was listed as hers on the probate records. Scottish men were not raised this way, that's for sure. That is pretty compelling evidence that she was practicing Cherokee customs.
The Swearingens were wagon masters and they moved across the country with William and Rebecca. They came from Pulaski County, Kentucky, where Rebecca was from. Eli Swearingen was from Jackson County, Kentucky. He was the actual guy that led wagon trains, and he led one to Missouri in 1839, when William and Rebecca Millican probably left Tennessee (we know they left between 1837 and 1840 from census records).
Here's the story for one of the Swearingen family lines:
http://fourkings.freeyellow.com/Swearingen.html.
I noted the following:
"SAMUEL SWEARINGEN JUNIOR
HUGH SWEARENGIN
I wonder if Hugh didn't get disowned because he married an Indian woman. I note that he had "at least two sons" and Elijah was born when Hugh was around 60! If he had left North Carolina and gone to Kentucky and married into the Cherokee, he could have had children starting around 1765. Those children could have had children starting around 1785, and one of those children could have had Rebecca in 1815. Someone in the lot born in the late 1700s would have been the one to marry a Clonch if Rebecca is indeed part of this Swearingen family.
So William and Rebecca named their second son Samuel Swearingen Millican. If you think about it, and put yourself in their place, why would they name their son that? It wasn't out of gratitude for a successful trek to Missouri - they hadn't left yet. I think it is because Rebecca may have been a Swearingen. Her father could have been mixed-blood Cherokee or her mother, a Swearingen, could have been part of the tribe through either one of her parents.
Marmaduke Van Swearingen was captured and adopted by the Shawnee Indians who became the War Chief Blue Jacket. Although he was a white man, he united almost all of the Indian Tribes east of the Mississippi, for the War of 1812. He was the great-grandson of Thomas Swearingen, who was born in Thomas County, Maryland in 1665, and who had a very large plantation. Marmaduke must have been a pretentious man to re-adopt the "Van," when Thomas had dropped it over 100 years earlier!
Anyway, someone related to the Shawnee Blue Jacket sent their 19-year-old daughter, who was Cherokee either by birth or by custom, away from Tennessee with a 24-year-old Millican man descended from the Overmountain Men, and his relatives, in a Swearingen wagon train, west to Missouri.
I read in a history of the Cherokee that there was a lot of land speculation going on at that time. The Millicans could have been investors or agents or scouts. There is strong evidence that the Sheltons were. Numbers of the Swearingens, Sheltons and Millicans eventually put down roots in Collin County, Texas. William, himself, was said to have died in Dallas "on a business trip."
I found a note about a Samuel Swearingen born in about 1796. "Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, Samuel Swearingen settled in what is now Hanover Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. His home was a stopping place for the Indian scouts." That would have been a contemporary of Rebecca's father.
But Rebecca and William struck out with 2 little boys. Mind you, they only had to go across the state of Tennessee, but she did leave her Clonch people. But that would not have been a big deal if she reckoned her family through the women because the Swearingens came with them. How Cherokee is that? And the Swearingens in their wagon train stayed at the end of the line and settled with the Millicans.
Two years after Rebecca died, William married again. He was 49 and his bride was 26. He snatched up a young widow with 2 kids of her own. By that time, his kids were grown but he wanted to start another family, for some reason, or he just wanted a cute young thang to take care of him.
There is a deed in the Collin County records from William and Rebecca to John W. for 73.5 acres, and 3 months later he deeded it back to them. It looks like a loan that they demanded collateral for. It looks like John borrowed the money from his mom. Rebecca's name is on the deed and her name is listed first. This is very strong evidence that the land was hers, as it would be in a Cherokee family. William wouldn't put her on the record with all those other dudes to be nice. Later, they sell the 73.5 acres to someone else. I think John used the money to speculate on a deal that his in-laws put together.
The Cherokee began leaving southeastern Tennessee in 1815, the year Rebecca was born and William was 5. Rebecca was from Pulaski County, Kentucky (Pulaski was a Polish-born Revolutionary War general). While I have no proof, I have to wonder if she was born there because (1) there are many, many Clonch and Claunch people there, and (2) the county she and William first went to was called Pulaski County, Missouri. Their wagon train must have contained others from her homeland, but there were many Millicans in Arkansas, where William and Rebecca moved between 1840 and 1842.
In fact, it looks like a large percentage, if not ALL of William's siblings and extended family left Tennessee. Most ended up in Collin County, Texas. I think William's sister, Celia, stayed in Arkansas. His brother or cousin, Moses, and Moses' father, Moses Scott and his wife Sinthia Ann Scarborough, came with their kids, William E. and others. They also had a cousin Jonathan, who brokered land deals and was an attorney. William E. bought over 1,500 acres, as well as a couple of bridges.
In Collin County, they settled the land, had large families, provided funds for infrastructure, donated land for cemeteries, and created a social structure consisting of mixed-blooded people. Clonch, Millican, Shelton, Swearingen, Watts, and Williams families all lived near each other and intermarried in Collin County.
On the Millican side, my ggg-grandparents named their first son after the Revolutionary War hero, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. My ggg-grandfather's middle name is Marion, so clearly his father admired Francis Marion. His father would have been born after the Revolutionary War, so his father would also have been an admirer of the Swamp Fox. This means that William's grandfather lived in the South when William's father was born. He may have fought in the Revolutionary War. There were several Milikens, two named James and one named Arthur. William's father could have been named Francis Marion or some variation of that name. We know they were in the South because there were many other heroes in the North to name your kids after.
Interestingly, the Cherokee fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War because they wanted the white settlers to go back home to Europe. So this would tell me that William probably wasn't Cherokee. He was likely the grandson of an Overmountain Man, the militia that came from the Tennessee mountains and fought in the Battle of Cowpens. When the battle was over, they went home to the harvest. This denotes a certain detachment from the outcome of the war. They lived apart from society and were self-sufficient descendents of Scottish traders and trappers.
I found a court record for a Hugh Miliken in the very earl 1700s showing he got arrested for providing comfort to the enemy Indians. Rock on, Hugh!
The son of William and Rebecca Millican, John W., married Mary Shelton in 1864, which was right after the Civil War. Two of John's brothers fought with the Brush Battalion on the Confederate side of the Civil War. The oldest son of Moses, who was named Francis Marion, died in Andersonville Prison. William and Rebecca Millican had over 10 children. None of the female children survived to adulthood. Rebecca died at 47. Wonder why?
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Francis Marion and Lucy Millican's youngest daughter, Dovie. She died of appendicitis.
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My dad, Everett Burl Millican, and his sister, Lillian
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Nancy Isabel Robinson Reed Hawkins My great-great-grandmother. She was half Cherokee or Choctaw. We don't know because she was an orphan.
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My dad and Lillian
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Claud Millican, my grandfather
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Claud Millican. Nice suit.
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Grannie Young and Uncle Dan at the River in 1969
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Albert Young and his pet spotted fawn. My great-grandfather
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Bonnie Millican and her friend or cousin My great-great-aunt
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Bonnie Millican as a girl. I look just like her.
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Ruth Young Millican
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Albert Young and Mary Eunice Reed Young
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Mary Eunice Reed Young
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William Curtis, Jessie Young Curtis, Mary Eunice Reed Young, Nancy Isabel Robinson Reed Hawkins
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Mary Eunice Reed Young and 2 kids
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large party in Texas, with Albert Young in the middle somewhere
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Don't know who these people are but it's a cool picture
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This is Francis Marion Millican, Lucy Tennessee Oakley, and their kids. My grandfather, Claud, is farthest to the left.
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Evelyn was Claud's sister. They said she was "slow" but she did get married. She died from picking a pimple behind her ear and getting sepsis.
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My great-grandparents' graves in Texas
Following the death of his grandmother in 1727, Samuel Jr., who is the eldest son, moved with his parents as a small lad to Bertie County, North Carolina. He was married to Mary Bolling in 1743, in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. A second marriage for Samuel was later recorded in Lincoln County.
In 1768 Samuel Swearingen Jr., along with his brothers, Thomas and Van, were members of the "Regulars" in Anson County. The people of Anson County suffered from excessive taxes, dishonest officials and exorbitant fees. The "Regulars" sought vainly to obtain reforms and could possibly be considered as early revolutionaries.
Sometime prior to 1790, Samuel Swearingen Jr. and his wife Mary migrated to Burke County, North Carolina and are listed on the 1790 census. They are listed as having just one white female and one white male over 16 years of age. This son was Hugh Swearingen, born in 1745. On the 1800 census for Lincoln County, North Carolina, Samuel and Mary are listed as being over 45 years of age.
Soon after that, Mary passed away and Samuel married Eleanor Hunt on May 20, 1805 (he was over 80 years old!) in Lincoln County, North Carolina. She finished raising his family. He must have continued to have kids well into his 70's for him to need someone to finish raising them. A hand-written will was left and probated for him in January 1819. He was nearly 100. In the will he bequests two Shillings to each of the ten children he mentions in the will. He did not include Hugh.
HUGH SWEARENGIN
On a 1830 U.S. census in Tennessee, Hugh lists his place of birth as North Carolina. Not much is known about Hugh Swearengin but we do know he had at least two sons. One he named Wade but the other was Elijah Hugh Swearingen.
I wonder if Hugh didn't get disowned because he married an Indian woman. I note that he had "at least two sons" and Elijah was born when Hugh was around 60! If he had left North Carolina and gone to Kentucky and married into the Cherokee, he could have had children starting around 1765. Those children could have had children starting around 1785, and one of those children could have had Rebecca in 1815. Someone in the lot born in the late 1700s would have been the one to marry a Clonch if Rebecca is indeed part of this Swearingen family.
So William and Rebecca named their second son Samuel Swearingen Millican. If you think about it, and put yourself in their place, why would they name their son that? It wasn't out of gratitude for a successful trek to Missouri - they hadn't left yet. I think it is because Rebecca may have been a Swearingen. Her father could have been mixed-blood Cherokee or her mother, a Swearingen, could have been part of the tribe through either one of her parents.
Marmaduke Van Swearingen was captured and adopted by the Shawnee Indians who became the War Chief Blue Jacket. Although he was a white man, he united almost all of the Indian Tribes east of the Mississippi, for the War of 1812. He was the great-grandson of Thomas Swearingen, who was born in Thomas County, Maryland in 1665, and who had a very large plantation. Marmaduke must have been a pretentious man to re-adopt the "Van," when Thomas had dropped it over 100 years earlier!
Anyway, someone related to the Shawnee Blue Jacket sent their 19-year-old daughter, who was Cherokee either by birth or by custom, away from Tennessee with a 24-year-old Millican man descended from the Overmountain Men, and his relatives, in a Swearingen wagon train, west to Missouri.
I read in a history of the Cherokee that there was a lot of land speculation going on at that time. The Millicans could have been investors or agents or scouts. There is strong evidence that the Sheltons were. Numbers of the Swearingens, Sheltons and Millicans eventually put down roots in Collin County, Texas. William, himself, was said to have died in Dallas "on a business trip."
I found a note about a Samuel Swearingen born in about 1796. "Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, Samuel Swearingen settled in what is now Hanover Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. His home was a stopping place for the Indian scouts." That would have been a contemporary of Rebecca's father.
But Rebecca and William struck out with 2 little boys. Mind you, they only had to go across the state of Tennessee, but she did leave her Clonch people. But that would not have been a big deal if she reckoned her family through the women because the Swearingens came with them. How Cherokee is that? And the Swearingens in their wagon train stayed at the end of the line and settled with the Millicans.
Two years after Rebecca died, William married again. He was 49 and his bride was 26. He snatched up a young widow with 2 kids of her own. By that time, his kids were grown but he wanted to start another family, for some reason, or he just wanted a cute young thang to take care of him.
There is a deed in the Collin County records from William and Rebecca to John W. for 73.5 acres, and 3 months later he deeded it back to them. It looks like a loan that they demanded collateral for. It looks like John borrowed the money from his mom. Rebecca's name is on the deed and her name is listed first. This is very strong evidence that the land was hers, as it would be in a Cherokee family. William wouldn't put her on the record with all those other dudes to be nice. Later, they sell the 73.5 acres to someone else. I think John used the money to speculate on a deal that his in-laws put together.
The Cherokee began leaving southeastern Tennessee in 1815, the year Rebecca was born and William was 5. Rebecca was from Pulaski County, Kentucky (Pulaski was a Polish-born Revolutionary War general). While I have no proof, I have to wonder if she was born there because (1) there are many, many Clonch and Claunch people there, and (2) the county she and William first went to was called Pulaski County, Missouri. Their wagon train must have contained others from her homeland, but there were many Millicans in Arkansas, where William and Rebecca moved between 1840 and 1842.
In fact, it looks like a large percentage, if not ALL of William's siblings and extended family left Tennessee. Most ended up in Collin County, Texas. I think William's sister, Celia, stayed in Arkansas. His brother or cousin, Moses, and Moses' father, Moses Scott and his wife Sinthia Ann Scarborough, came with their kids, William E. and others. They also had a cousin Jonathan, who brokered land deals and was an attorney. William E. bought over 1,500 acres, as well as a couple of bridges.
In Collin County, they settled the land, had large families, provided funds for infrastructure, donated land for cemeteries, and created a social structure consisting of mixed-blooded people. Clonch, Millican, Shelton, Swearingen, Watts, and Williams families all lived near each other and intermarried in Collin County.
On the Millican side, my ggg-grandparents named their first son after the Revolutionary War hero, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. My ggg-grandfather's middle name is Marion, so clearly his father admired Francis Marion. His father would have been born after the Revolutionary War, so his father would also have been an admirer of the Swamp Fox. This means that William's grandfather lived in the South when William's father was born. He may have fought in the Revolutionary War. There were several Milikens, two named James and one named Arthur. William's father could have been named Francis Marion or some variation of that name. We know they were in the South because there were many other heroes in the North to name your kids after.
Interestingly, the Cherokee fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War because they wanted the white settlers to go back home to Europe. So this would tell me that William probably wasn't Cherokee. He was likely the grandson of an Overmountain Man, the militia that came from the Tennessee mountains and fought in the Battle of Cowpens. When the battle was over, they went home to the harvest. This denotes a certain detachment from the outcome of the war. They lived apart from society and were self-sufficient descendents of Scottish traders and trappers.
I found a court record for a Hugh Miliken in the very earl 1700s showing he got arrested for providing comfort to the enemy Indians. Rock on, Hugh!
The son of William and Rebecca Millican, John W., married Mary Shelton in 1864, which was right after the Civil War. Two of John's brothers fought with the Brush Battalion on the Confederate side of the Civil War. The oldest son of Moses, who was named Francis Marion, died in Andersonville Prison. William and Rebecca Millican had over 10 children. None of the female children survived to adulthood. Rebecca died at 47. Wonder why?
Sheltons came out West, sons sent by their father to speculate in the new lands on behalf of the London Company out of Jamestown or South Carolina. Mary Shelton was 14 and John W. was 18 when they got married. Yuck! I can't handle that.
In the 1830 Anderson County census, a Jesse and Lucinda Shelton lived next door to Mary Milican, who was a widow and probably related to Julius Milican. Mary Milican might be Lucinda Shelton's mother. I have been told that my Millicans were from Anderson County, but that is only because the other lines have been ruled out.
And a Judith Ballew Shelton married George Marshall Watts. Clarence Edward Millican married a Watts. George and Judith Watts came to Collin County after the Civil War as well. They came from Sumner County, Tennessee.
For John W. Millican to marry Mary Shelton, he must have been fairly well-placed in society. She probably came from a family of successful land speculators. His family must have been able to hold their own against the Sheltons. However, three of his brothers married Williams sisters, who were purported to be Indian. John W. and his brothers were probably mixed-blood to end up with 3 Indian wives. I am lucky to have a photograph of their son, Francis Marion, who is my g-grandfather, and his family (below). You can clearly see the Native features on their sons.
John W. and Mary had 6 or 7 kids. My g-grandfather, Francis Marion, left town when he was 28 and he went to work for Simeon Oakley in Conroe, Texas. When he got married to Simeon's 14-year-old daughter (yuck!), Lucy (whose mother had died in childbirth) , they were married in a church in Conroe.
And my direct ancestor, Claud, who was John W.'s grandson, married into the Young family, which is peppered with Indians all over the tree. Claud himself looks like a Choctaw and my father's hair was blue-black, a significant genetic marker for Native blood. My brother looks so Native, his family nickname when he was growing up was "Choctaw."
Clonches are still in Kentucky and eastern Tennessee to this day.
Panther's Lodge - Website of Donald Yates, Ph.D. Dr. Yates has done extensive research on the Black Dutch and Melungeon peoples of Tennessee.
Here is one of the definitive works on the Millican name.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alanmilliken/regarde_bien/1.html
Here is a gallery of photos of my ancestors (in no particular order). If you want to see a more complete gallery, please visit the family FB page: The Amazing Millicans. I also have a GEDCOM of what I knew a few years ago called The Millicans of Los Angeles.
In the 1830 Anderson County census, a Jesse and Lucinda Shelton lived next door to Mary Milican, who was a widow and probably related to Julius Milican. Mary Milican might be Lucinda Shelton's mother. I have been told that my Millicans were from Anderson County, but that is only because the other lines have been ruled out.
And a Judith Ballew Shelton married George Marshall Watts. Clarence Edward Millican married a Watts. George and Judith Watts came to Collin County after the Civil War as well. They came from Sumner County, Tennessee.
For John W. Millican to marry Mary Shelton, he must have been fairly well-placed in society. She probably came from a family of successful land speculators. His family must have been able to hold their own against the Sheltons. However, three of his brothers married Williams sisters, who were purported to be Indian. John W. and his brothers were probably mixed-blood to end up with 3 Indian wives. I am lucky to have a photograph of their son, Francis Marion, who is my g-grandfather, and his family (below). You can clearly see the Native features on their sons.
John W. and Mary had 6 or 7 kids. My g-grandfather, Francis Marion, left town when he was 28 and he went to work for Simeon Oakley in Conroe, Texas. When he got married to Simeon's 14-year-old daughter (yuck!), Lucy (whose mother had died in childbirth) , they were married in a church in Conroe.
And my direct ancestor, Claud, who was John W.'s grandson, married into the Young family, which is peppered with Indians all over the tree. Claud himself looks like a Choctaw and my father's hair was blue-black, a significant genetic marker for Native blood. My brother looks so Native, his family nickname when he was growing up was "Choctaw."
Clonches are still in Kentucky and eastern Tennessee to this day.
Panther's Lodge - Website of Donald Yates, Ph.D. Dr. Yates has done extensive research on the Black Dutch and Melungeon peoples of Tennessee.
Here is one of the definitive works on the Millican name.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alanmilliken/regarde_bien/1.html
Here is a gallery of photos of my ancestors (in no particular order). If you want to see a more complete gallery, please visit the family FB page: The Amazing Millicans. I also have a GEDCOM of what I knew a few years ago called The Millicans of Los Angeles.
You do look just like Bonnie!
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