James Daniel (JDC) Castleman, born in Frederick County (now Clarke County) Virginia married Mary Nancy Earhart also born in Virginia (exact date and place of her birth unknown) and they had 5 children; their first child Lewis, my great great grandfather, was born there in Virginia.
The Isaac LaRoux family were neighbors of the Castleman family in Virginia and the families evidently were fairly close socially. Isaac's second child John went to Kentucky where he somehow acquired a large parcel of land, about 1,300 acres or more, near the North Fork of the Nolynn (now Nolin) River. The sequence of event's are not clear but, John LaRue died there in Hardin Co., (now Larue Co.), KY in 1792 and about six years later, shortly after James Castleman and Nancy Earhart married, John LaRue's older brother Jacob moved his family from Virginia to the land in Hardin Co., KY.
Two years after their marriage and shortly after the birth of their first born, Lewis Lenard Castleman; James, Nancy and newborn son Lewis followed the John LaRue family to the "Frontier".
This was not a simple trip for these pioneers. In a covered wagon, usually draw by oxen or mules averaging 6 to 10 miles a day under excellent conditions, through territory possibly controlled by hostile indigenous natives, the roughly 300 miles of wagon trails through the Appalachian Mountains, thick woodsy areas with many streams to ford, could take a couple of months or longer. Many families never made it at all.
Happily for us who descend from James Daniel Castleman, they made it and settled near the Jacob LaRue (name change) family there in Hardin Co. (now Larue Co.), Kentucky.
James and Nancy's last four children, Stephen, Matilda, Mariah, and Nancy were born there in Kentucky. Mary Nancy Earhart-Castleman died there, probably giving birth to her daughter Nancy.
James married secondly to Elizabeth Walters and they had an additional ten or eleven children; Mary, David, Conrad, James, Grace, John, Margaret, Amos, Samuel, William and Sarah.
When son Lewis was 22 years old he married Sarah Jane LaRue, youngest daughter of Jacob LaRue and his second wife Jane Morgan, and daughter Mariah later married Josuah LaRue, a nephew of Sarah Jane.
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