Harrison Genealogy Repository

Notes

[WILLSON.ged] [Guenzler.ged] Sources: Family Memoirs compiled by Jonathan Binkley. Letters from Jonathan Binkley and Scott VanDelinder. General Affidavits offered by his widow, Catharine E. DeLauney Wilson Harrison. Certificate of Record of Marriage: filed on 20 Nov. 1893. Affidavit dictated by Rachel (Rachael) Tomlinson when she was 75 yrs. old. Rachel lived in Lanark, Carroll Co., IL at the time (23 Nov 1893)> The document states that she, Rachel, was living with her Uncle Thomas in 1837 when Tom's wife, Ann Bond died. The document says she, Rachel, is one Thomas's brothers daughter. The problem being that Rachel never mentions which brother. Tom's brother Vincent Harrison married Rebecca Tomlinson but that child would have been "Harrison" not "Tomlinson". Another brother, George, had a daughter Rachel Harrison but she married William Beard. Could "Rachel" be this one and she married a "Tomlinson" after the death of William Beard? Capt. Thomas Harrison was under Commander E. G ( or S.). Morgan who was also under General Samuel Whitesides, in the regiment of "Odd Battalion Cavalry" and/or the "Capt. Thomas Harrison Co.". I'n not sure what the distinction is between the two appellations. [Hodge.ged] Sources: Family Memoirs compiled by Jonathan Binkley. Letters from Jonathan Binkley and Scott VanDelinder. General Affidavits offered by his widow, Catharine E. DeLauney Wilson Harrison. Certificate of Record of Marriage: filed on 20 Nov. 1893. Affidavit dictated by Rachel (Rachael) Tomlinson when she was 75 yrs. old. Rachel lived in Lanark, Carroll Co., IL at the time (23 Nov 1893)> The document states that she, Rachel, was living with her Uncle Thomas in 1837 when Tom's wife, Ann Bond died. The document says she, Rachel, is one Thomas's brothers daughter. The problem being that Rachel never mentions which brother. Tom's brother Vincent Harrison married Rebecca Tomlinson but that child would have been "Harrison" not "Tomlinson". Another brother, George, had a daughter Rachel Harrison but she married William Beard. Could "Rachel" be this one and she married a "Tomlinson" after the death of William Beard? Capt. Thomas Harrison was under Commander E. G ( or S.). Morgan who was also under General Samuel Whitesides, in the regiment of "Odd Battalion Cavalry" and/or the "Capt. Thomas Harrison Co.". I'n not sure what the distinction is between the two appellations.

_MIL: Date: 10 APR 1832 Place: Enlisted as Capt. in Calvary: his unit named for himself.

_MIL: Date: 10 JUN 1832 Place: Mustered out of Calvary in St. Louis, MO(?)

The following was submitted by Lee Armstrong These are excerpts from "Some memoirs of the Harrisons" by Joseph William Willson (II) {as told me when a child by grandmother Harrison, known as "Aunt Katy"}" Note: (Joseph is my greatgrandfather (whom I met as a small child) and "Aunt Katy" is Elizabeth Catherine (or Catherine Elizabeth) DeLauney and a widow when she married Thomas Harrison, Capt.)

"Indian Fighting In The "Old Plum Rivers" Country"

"This was a very wet country then. Plum River was a vast swamp with a small stream of water winding through it and plum thickets on either bank where the ground was high and dry enough for them to live...One can easily see why they hunted all through this country for Indians and did not see any. The Indians could see them, though, and if any got far from the main band the Indians sniped them off. Two were killed in this way about a mile and a half from where the old Captain later settled (Thomas Harrison) and where I now live. On a little ridge stood two trees about the size of a mans body. They were perhaps thirty feet apart, each had scars where the white soldiers had scored them to mark the place where their comrades had been shot. These two trees were mere saplings then and too small for much of a shield. they are grubbed out and field is there now, and I alone in all this country can tell you the exact spot where SCOTT and McDONALD were killed one hundred years ago....the fleeing Indians cut off SCOTT'S head and carried it away with them. Years later, William GREEN plowed out a skull in a new field, about a quarter of a mile south of George BRUNNER's house, (the old GREEN homestead). Grandpa (Thomas HARRISON) and Mr. GREEN buried the skull where the two soldiers were buried. I don't know where their grave is but if some of you will help me dig, we can no doubt verify the story as they usually buried them where they fell.'

Note: Joseph William WILLSON (II) was born: June 10, 1873 in Pleasant Valley Twnshp, Jo Daviess, IL and died: Oct. 1, 1963 in Freeport, Carroll, IL.

His "Grandpa" in the above story was Thomas Harrison, Capt. as stated at the beginning who was born: Dec. 26, 1798 in Hampshire, VA and died July 4, 1873 in Pleasant Valley Twnshp, Jo Daviess, IL.

"The Black Hawk War Begins"

"Old General WHITESIDE led the army; as he plunged through the swamps on his large dappled greay horse the half-trained troops, who as yet knew no discipline, would call out derisive advice to him... The old general would glare around at them---nothing worse.

Sometimes the sharp eyes of a trooper would spy a disturbed piece of sod. This was a cache, a place where the Indians had buried a large kettle filled with dried corn and other eatables---a great treat to the soldiers, who would carry it in front of their saddles until camping time. Once a soldier climbed a tree to find that the cache contained a dead Indian.

The soldiers grew very tired of this hide and seek game with the Indians and begged General WHITESIDE to let a small party separate themselves and see if they could not scare up a fight with Indians and get some "Indian hair" to take back home as a souvenir. This continual pleading at last gained the consent. A party with Capt. STILLMAN started out. Grandpa's company was ordered to the rear to bury the dead after this tragic episode."

"Capt. HARRISON's Version of STILLMAN's Defeat"

"I scarcely know whether or not to give Grandpa's version of STILLMAN's Defeat. I have never read history on it but have no idea if it agrees with the story of one who was in a position to know the truth...

After General WHITESIDE had given his consent to the "Indian Hair"expedition, he remarked to Grandpa that it was a mistake. "These fellows do not know the Indian way of fighting. They will likely be taken by surprise and wiped out, then there will be more settlers massacred."

That is just what happened. In a day or two, stragglers from the band began to arrive. One had escaped by hiding in a clump of willows. He had counted the Indians as they went back from the pursuit of the "Indian Hair" hunters. He said he believed there were one hundred warriors. I think STILLMAN had about three hundred men. Some of grandpa's men were among them. There were men from all the different companies as it was a kind of lark or vacation party....They camped at the bottom of a steep hill, opened a keg of whiskey and proceeded to celebrate and enjoy the occasion. With a warwhoop, over the hill came the Indians. There was a stampede and slaughter. A Captain, ADAMS, managed to rally a few men around him and made a gallant fight but was outnumbered and his few men all killed. The man in the willows saw Capt. ADAMS, the last of the gallant few, cut down one Indian, run his sword through another, and then went down covered by Indians. His body was found with the dead Indians described, but the retreating savages had carried Capt. ADAM's gallant heart away with them.....

One of the stragglers who came back, asked an officer who was getting his men ready for the pursuit, how he should fight as he had lost his gun...."Fight with your fists, sir," was the answer. STILLMAN said, "I haave lost my sword, General, but you will find two dead Indians with it."

They (the Indians) were never found. The camp and wagons were burned, and the nearest settlers massacred. So you see, General WHITESIDE's premonition came true...."

"Final Days of the Black Hawk War"

A large band of Indians approached the army one day with a flag of truce. They were a tribe called the Winnebagoes. The had an interpreter along who introduced their chief, the Gray Eagle....If the white man's cause was just, the Gray Eagle was ready to help them whip the Sacs and Foxes.

General WHITESIDE listened very attentively to the interpreter, then removed his hat and stroked his bald head. He said, "Tell the Gray Eagle that I am the Bald Eagle, the king of all birds. I can whip all the Indians between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; I don't need any help."........"

"Future President William Henry Harrison Visits the Captain"

"Old General HARRISON or "Tippecanoe" as he was called during his campaign...visited Grandpa and they talked over their Indian war days. The old general told Grandpa that neither he nor General JOHNSON killed Tecumseh, as their admirers were giving them credit in story and song. He said he saw a boy about fifteen years old, presumably a civilian, come into the fight and shoot Tecumseh from behind a tree, then he ran way. He never saw the boy again and did not know his name."

"Grandpa was a Democrat and in the political talk they had, "Tippecanoe" said: "Tommie, I don't dee how you ever got so far wrong."

"They talked of a new breed of cattle which was imported. He (Tippecanoe) had imported a make from England. They were called Durhams. He said, "I shall send you a male calf when I go home."

"He kept his promise, and William BEARD, a young neighbor (of Thomas's), returning from a curting trip near North Bend, OH, where he had gone to see his future wife, Rachel HARRISON, a doughter of Grandpa's brother George, brought him (bull) down on a steamboat...a strawberry roan with a brisket very close to the ground. William BEARD told Grandpa a passenger...offered him $300 for the calf."

"They talked of when they used to drive their cattle to market. It seems they drove them a long distance, both hogs and cattle. They had wagons along to load any pigs that might give out. One day, a hog gave out near a "squatters" cabin, and they offered it to the squatter for pork. He (the squatter) wanted salt to salt it....they gave him some. Then he said that they would have to help him dress it as he had never dressed a hog...."Old Tippecanoe" said, "Load him up, Tommie! Load him up!"

"The general complimented them on their beautiful fertile farming land, but said, "You remind me of the man described in the Bible who built his house on the sand. You will be washed away sometime!" [this was located below St. Louis, MO on an island landing area in the Mississippi River near Waterloo, IL....known as Harrison's Landing].

"The Great Flood of 1844"

Shortly after this, the old general's prophecy came true. The rain descended, the flood came, and great was the fall of the HARRISONS. Grandma (Elizabeth Catherine DELAUNEY HARRISON) said it rained steadily for over a month. The river rose higher and higher. There was a big bend in the Mississippi northwest of their house and a large tract of timber where they had a landing for steamboats, a woodyard, and sold wood to the steamboats (HARRISON's Landing). In winter, Grandpa hired many wood choppers. As the river rose, the bank began to cave in. All night and all day they could hear the timber falling into the river. The whole tract of timber was soon destroyed, wood choppers cabins and all. Grandma had some steps cut in the bank where she went to get water for washing. One day when she went for water, she found the steps gone and a whirpool instead. The cave-in was advancing so fast on the house that they moved out and into the farm house of the HARRISON Prairie. One morning they opened the door and the Mississippi came in! They moved upstairs. Grandma wanted to move ut to the hills but grandpa said it would soon quit and the water go down."

"Soon they were surrounded by water and they culd see herds of their cattle gathered on the knolls. They chose the higher ground to escape the water....Grandpa and neighbors were organized and boated out (two cows for each neighbor) to the hills, seven miles away...the whole American Bottoms were under water from Alton to Cairo."

"Grandma said she put things into the boat until Grandpa said, "Katy, are you going to take the grindstone, too?"

"After they had pulled away from the house, Grandma thought of something which she had forgotten and requested the boatman to turn back. Grandpa said, "Yes, you'll have to go back; Katie has forgotten the ash hopper!".....(she was a famous and chronic soap-maker!)

"At last they reached the hills....with their two cows. Just as they landed, up out of the water, wading and bawling as only such animals can, came the roan bull old General HARRISON had given grandpa! He had swum all that distance and outlived the flood....the first Durham on Plum River....."

"Grandma said that after the rain ceased and the water went down, there was such a change in the appearance of what had once been the Harrison Prairie, by cave-ins and the river changing its couurse, and sandbars thrown on what had once been fertile land, buildings all gone, that it would have been next to impossible to locate their land, had they wanted to--which they did not."

"Grandpa (Captain) HARRISON's Background"

"Grandpa was pioneer-bred and born. He was carried over the Allegheny Mountains in a basket slung over the back of a pack mule. His twin brothers were on the other side to balance him. Their names were Obed and Vin...."

"The Family Musket From the War of 1812"

"We all learned to shoot with an old gun that descended clear down to me from Grandpa's (Capt. Harrison) father, who carried it in the War of 1812. I don't know if it spike at New Orleans or not, but it was that kind of gun; then a long rifle with a flintlock. When I (Joseph William WILLSON II) got it, it was rebored as a shotgun that had nearly as much force in the breech as the barrel, but we all revered the old gun and made allowances for its great age."

"I think sister Grace (Grace Mable WILLSON) saw me fire it the first time. I wasnot as tall as the length of the gun, and I measured my length on the ground when the old gun kicked!"

..."I was proudly carrying this old gun down the streets of Mt. Carroll one day, when a small boy, having taken it to town to get a new tube attached. A group of men were laughing, no doubt at the contrast between the short boy and the long gun and one said, "Stop, kid! I want to measure the barrel of that gun." He did so, and it just lacked an inch of five feet."

That's about all, just the same basic stories told by other descendents who either heard the stories first-hand (all now deceased, obviously) or heard them second-hand as children from Joseph or the other older relations. As I mentioned at the beginning, I met Joseph William WILLSON II, my great-grandfather, several times until his death in 1963. He walked with two canes and was a cantankerous old man that we all loved but feared alittle. We lived in Washington State and he in Illinois so we weren't as familiar with him as my cousins were. Although, my grandmother, Grace Laura WILLSON, told us these stories and more so we knew who he was and all. ^{[S840] [S841] [S839] [S840] [S841] [S839] [S837]}