Cedar Creek Branch Records

I love that we are a record keeping church. In the day and age before our lives were meticulously recorded on every computer, we kept meticulopus records on paper, sometime in very good handwriting too.

The record I am looking at spans seven years until 1888. And the same clean handwriting is used until March of 1884. More important than the handwriting is the wealth of information. Nearly every name has a note next to it indicating their disposition. Notice this branch emmigrated itself nearly out of existance.
You might think you know why so many left in 1884, but actually most of them that left in 1884, did so in March of that year, well before the August 1884 unpleasantness.
The names without notes I can fill in some of the details. The Inman family remained in the Church, and stayed put in Tennessee, but were mostly active members for as far as I can trace them. Only part of the Keeling family joined the Church in the first place, so they stayed put too. At least some of the next generation joined the church as well. Today Cedar Creek is part of the Linden Ward.

Member's Name	Baptized	Notes
Samuel Inmon	1881	To Colorado 1884
Elijah C. Denton	1881	To Colorado 1883
George C. Keeling	1881
David A Rainbolt	1881	To Colorado 1884
Hannah S. Kinkade	1881
Georgiana Kinkade	1881
Sarah L Balcomb	1881
Betsy A Rainbolt	1881	To Colorado 1884
Sarah B Miller	1882	To Colorado 1884
Mary B Miller	1882	To Colorado 1884
John F Miller	1882	To Colorado 1884
Martha F. L. M. Woods	1882	To Colorado 1883
Jones S. Balcomb	1882	To Utah 1883
Eliza J. Stanfield	1882	To Utah 1883
Merry S. G. Clark	1882	To Colorado 1884
Phillip Miller	1882	To Colorado 1884
Jesse M. Denton	1882	To Colorado 1883
Mary Inmon	1882
Maxwell Keeling	1882	Died 1884
Permelia A. Inmon	1882
Argant Detrich	1882	To Colorado 1884
Permetia A. Keeling	1882
Mary A. Denton	1882	To Colorado 1883
John W. Denton	1882	To Colorado 1884
Rebecca J. Denton	1882	To Colorado 1884
Francis M. Detrich	1882	To Utah 1882
Sam E. Denton	1882	To Colorado 1882
Rachel L. Treadwell	1882
Geo T. Denton	1882	To Colorado 1882
Rhoda J. Inmon	1882
Louisa Pig	1882
Annie De Priest	1883
John Williamson	1883
Nicholas Wm Miller	1883	To Colorado 1883
Mary C. Inman	1884	Excommunicated 1887
Wm A. Inmon	1884
Sarah E. Rainbolt	1884	To Colorado 1884
Virginia Miller	1884	To Colorado 1884
Elizabeth F. Miller	1884	To Colorado 1884
Emma Evans	1886	To Utah 1889
Geo Washington Shipman	1884	To Missouri 1884
Mary Jane Shipman	1884	To Missouri 1884

The Shipman family "just picked up and left the country."

Another exceprt from the autobiography of Mary Jane Miller. She writes that immediately after the massacre at Cane Creek, residents of Cedar Creek in neighboring Perry County were understandably concerned for their safety.

The people were so wrought up that none of us were at ease of mind. I remember my brother [John] and me went to those people, Shipmans, the people that he came to when he came home. They were old friends of ours, but they had just recently joined the Church, and her people were very much opposed to the Church. It was her brother Howard Bunch, whose mask Mother snatched off at our place. That night, after we had gone to bed and been asleep, she came and woke us up and said they were afraid someone was coming to mob us, and we had better go out in the woods. We all took our quilts and went to the woods. This was my first experience sleeping with the skies as my only cover. I didn’t know then that it was her brother that came to our house but supposed she did, for I believe it was her own folks she was afraid of. They got so worked up they just picked up and left the country. Where they went or what became of them we never heard of more.

Mary Jane may not have known what happened to them, but historical records abound. A little digging turned up their names: George Washington Shipman (1844-) and Mary Jane Bunch (1850-). Both were baptize on 28 May 1884 in to the Cedar Creek Branch. A little more digging and I found them on the 1900 Census (and the 1910 and 1920 as well). They are living in Johnson, Oregon County, Missouri. Their married chilldren are living nearby and one grandchild was born there in 1894. I wonder about about what made them choose Missouri, and so I looked for evidence of others from Tennessee there. I also looked for evidence of non-LDS Mormon groups her. I found none on both counts.  Whether they stayed in contact with the church or just quietly kept the faith, they found a place they could call home in peace.

Special thanks to Patricia R. Major Miller for sending the excerpt from Mary Janes' autobiography

"Lost while traveling to Zion" or "Have you seen this child?" 1883 Edition

[I have heard of stories where parents in Mormon Pioneer companies whose children had wandered off and had to be left behind. To me this is the Tennessee equivalent. It comes frm the autobiography of Mary Jane Miller Bailey. She and her family joined the LDS Church in Tennessee]

So in the fall of 1882 my father started to the West with his family. Having a sister [Applane Steffon] whom I have mentioned before in Evansville, Indiana, he figured on staying there for a while, then selling his stock that he was bringing with him and coming on West.

[The family stayed in Indiana for a couple months to earn more money to go west. Besides, winter was no time to travel]

My brother John was 14 in January [1883]. He was working at a plow factory at $2.50 a week. One Sunday he went out, and when evening came he never came home. We were uneasy, so next day we went to both of Emiline and Uncle William DePriest [who] had moved to Evansville, but none of them had heard or seen him. Father appealed to the police for help in locating him, but to no avail. Imagine the sorrow, grief and pain that brought to the family--more especially my mother who gave birth to my sister Lottie [Charlotte Angeline] the following March 3, [1883]. We never knew whether he was drowned in the big Ohio River which people always went down to for their sports, watching the boats and going out in small boats for rides. That was a terrible blow, so we decided to go back to Tennessee instead of coming West. ...We went back hoping and praying our brother and son would come back to us or that we would hear from him. I don’t think I ever failed to pray every night and ask God to send him home or care for him if he was alive

[In July 1883 Mary''s older brother Nicholas went to Colorado, and then in the following March 1884, Mary's father Philip took three of the children to Colorado to prepare a place for the rest of the family.]

In July [1884] one Saturday evening I had gone to the neighbors to take home a mule I had borrowed. I hadn’t been there long ‘til a neighbor boy, Jimmy Shipman, said, “I came after you.” “What for?” He said, “John's come home.” I believe I went up that big hill at two jumps. He had come to those neighbors [Shipman’s], and she sent her two boys home with him and told one of them to go ahead and let Mother know he was coming. We were so happy that the prodigal son had returned. [John was just a couple of years younger than Mary Jane.] He had worked on farms and stayed around and had never heard of the family--supposed we had gone on West. He came back to our grandmother [Mary Ann DePriest Davidson] and found out about the family and came home.

[Mary didn't explain exactly what happened to John that Sunday he went missing. Maybe they never asked. Special thanks to Patricia R. Major Miller who sent me this story.]

The Brave Sarah Bird Davidson

Patricia R. Major Miller sent me this story from an autobiography of Mary Jane Miller. Mary Jane and her parents joined the Church in Tennessee in the 1880's. She tells one story of her mother Sarah Bird Davidson Miller and about how "friends" and neighbors behaved when it came to Mormonism.

Before we even joined the Church but were keeping the elders, the Kuklies as they called themselves in those days, came to our place one night hunting for the Mormon elders. Me and my older brother Nicholas were away from home that night, and Mother had always said that if they ever came to our house, she would find out who some of them were. She told them there were no Mormon elders there. They threw a large rock against the door and knocked it open. Then they came around to the other door and wanted to come in to see if there were any elders there. Mother [Sarah Bird Davidson Miller, pictured here] told them to wait ‘til she got her lights fixed; then they could come in. So she got them fixed so they couldn’t put them out. She opened the door and the leader came in. Then another one came in slinging his head. She stood at the door and snatched his false face off, and she knew him. He looked at her and said, “You hadn’t ought to have done that.” Then they jumped back out and said, “Kill her. Kill her.” They snapped the pistol in her face three times, but it didn’t fire. That was the old cap and ball or six shooter pistol. They didn’t want us to keep the Mormons around us. My mother never told me who that fellow was, nor I never had any idea until we came to Colorado. Then she told me, and he was the young fellow that me and my brother with others ran together with as good friends.

Sarah, her husband Philip, and their children eventually left Cedar Creek, Tennessee for Colorado in order to worship as they wished.