XV. Neal – Shake – Davis

It is to the Neal¹ family that we turn next, to see what surprises it may have in store for us. As we have seen, CHARLES M. NEAL, my grandfather, was born on April 13, 1878, probably at his parents' farm in Hamilton Township of Sullivan County, Indiana. He appears on the 1880 census (as "Charly," the name by which he would be known by friends and associates through most of his adult life as well) and then again on the 1900 census when he is a farm laborer, age 22 years, living with William J. Bledsoe in Haddon Township of Sullivan County, Indiana.² Bledsoe was a distant relative, but only by marriage: Charles Neal's grandfather, William Neal, married a second time after Charles's father (Thomas Neal) was born; William Neal's second wife was Charlotte G. {Moore} Bledsoe, a widow, and William Bledsoe was her son through her first marriage.³ Almira was a closer relative: she was the sister of Charles's mother, Mary Ellen {Shake} Neal.

Judging from my grandfather's records, by mid-1902 he (with help from his brother, Ed) was running a Golden Rule general store in Caledonia, Indiana. This was a small coal-mining settlement northeast of Sullivan, Indiana, that had a reputation as a rather rough town. Caledonia was eventually obliterated by the extensive strip mining that would begin in a few years.⁴

But my grandfather was on the verge of embarking on another career: the ministry. He had been baptized in Busseron Creek on August 7, 1896.⁵ One important early influence was a young school teacher and neighbor named Stanford Chambers, with whom my grandfather attended services at the Deckard school house. Chambers went on to become an eminent Fundamentalist preacher and editor, and he published many of my grandfather's early essays on religious issues and themes. By 1899 Charles Neal and his brother Ed were helping to lead church meetings all over southwestern Indiana, and my grandfather later recalled that he gave his first sermon in that year. His journal for 1899-1902 describes his preaching (sometimes in partnership with Chambers)and its results. In 1900 Charles Neal enrolled in the Correspondence Bible College, but at this point he was primarily self-taught.⁶

As we have also seen, Charles M. Neal married Glenn {Vanderpool} Neal in 1905, and my father was born in April of 1906. After my grandmother's death – perhaps, in part, because of it? – my grandfather sold the Golden Rule store for $5,000, left my father with his Vanderpool grandparents, chose a Bible school, and set off to become a full-fledged preacher. Exactly how he selected what was then called Potter Bible College in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is not known, but sometime in 1906 or 1907 he enrolled in its program of study for the ministry. He completed his studies by September of 1909. Potter Bible College was founded in 1901 and ceased operations in 1913.⁷ Despite having a rather small faculty, it had an ambitious curriculum of courses.

At about this time, my grandfather met and married his second wife, a woman named Anna Winifred{Bottorff} Neal.⁸ They may have met while they were both students at Potter Bible College in Bowling Green, but they may have known one another before then. The fact that she was born in Kansas makes one wonder if they had first met in that state, perhaps even in a different Bible college. Hers was an Indiana family, though, so an education in Kentucky would have made sense for her. She might have accompanied my grandfather to Bowling Green (and enrolled there) after they were married, and the fact that Anna is listed in the school records under her new married name strengthens this possibility. Family lore suggests that my grandfather met her at a revival meeting in Indiana, and perhaps Anna was visiting her family in Indiana when she met my grandfather at such a meeting. We just cannot say for sure.

However or wherever they met, Charles and Anna were married on September 6, 1908. The marriage presumably took place in her home state of Kansas, but that is only a supposition. My grandfather and his new wife went off to Bowling Green – where they lived, Anna liked to say, in a chicken house. With his second wife, my grandfather had six more children (one son and five daughters) between 1909 and 1929, so my father ultimately had a half-brother and five half-sisters. My father's reminiscences, which he wrote and then recorded on tape in 1976, furnish some interesting details about his family's life and his own experiences in Indiana and Maine as well as aspects of his life from the time he migrated to Michigan in the mid-1920s up to the point when he married my mother in 1927.⁹

On the 1910 census, my grandfather and his family are living in Linton, Indiana, which at that time was right in the middle of Indiana's coal-producing area.¹⁰ Charles M. Neal, 32 years old and a clergyman, is shown renting a residence at 589 Third Street N.W. in that town, and my father is living – none too happily, he tells us – with his father and stepmother. My grandfather was the pastor of the recently established (1906) Linton Church of Christ on Fourth Street, N.W., the only church of that denomination in Linton. On July 22, 1911, he became the minister of the Church of Christ in nearby Dugger, Indiana.¹¹

Dugger was another coal-mining town, but it was larger than Linton. The Neals' first house in Dugger is not identified in my father's reminiscences, but according to his and his half-brother Stanford's descriptions it was three streets further from downtown than the church was. In 1913, after two years as minister, my grandfather designed and helped to construct a new church building for the Dugger Church of Christ. This building and its adjacent parsonage (built in 1922) still stand at Third and Clark Streets in the town.¹² Interesting details about life and activities in Dugger can be found in issues of a regular newsletter, called The Sower, that the church published.¹³

At the end of August in 1916, my grandfather concluded his ministry in Dugger and moved the family to Portland, Maine, where he became minister of a Church of Christ congregation. A history of Dugger suggests that he might have arranged to remain – nominally, at least – the minister of the church in Dugger while he was in Portland, during which time two men served as substitutes for him back in Indiana, but his son Stanford does not remember such an arrangement. My grandfather's own account, in the minutes of the church in Dugger, states only that he was "absent from Dugger" between March 1917 and January 1922, which also hints that there might have been some understanding about his return there.

I have never heard how my grandfather came to the attention of the church in Portland, and vice versa, except that his hiring there was engineered by a prominent businessman and member of the church in that city named William Houston.¹⁴ My grandfather evidently had never preached there, or even visited Portland, because he did not know Houston by sight. It is possible that my grandfather's cousin, Claude Neal, who had been minister of a church in Westbrook, Maine (near Portland), played a role in bringing my grandfather to the attention of the church in Portland.

The Neals arrived in Portland following a train journey through Canada. They lived in a ground-floor flat in a new building across the railroad tracks from Deering Park¹⁵ for a month or so until my grandfather could find a house for the entire family, and the Portland city directory for 1917 lists my grandfather in a rooming house at 8 Surrenden Street.¹⁶ Soon the family was living in a house at 399 St. John Street, not far from the railroad station and my grandfather's modest little church at 867 Congress Street.¹⁷ The 1920 census shows my grandfather (41 years old) and his family renting at this St. John Street location, and the city directory lists him as a minister of the Church of Christ.¹⁸

Oddly, my father remembered his father's church being on Valley Street, a one-block street not far from St. John Street and the Church of Christ building at 867 Congress Street, but there was no such church on that street. According to the same city directory for Portland and to a detailed contemporary map of the city in the Library of Congress, Portland had just the one Church of Christ – at 867 Congress Street near the corner of Weymouth Street.¹⁹ None of the other churches on Congress Street seem to be plausible candidates to be my grandfather's church, especially since they were mainline denominations. Evidently my father's memory of the church's location a half-century later, the only inconsistent element in the entire picture, was faulty in this instance.

In order to supplement his growing family's meager income and get out of debt, my grandfather also managed a small A&P store in South Portland, a long trolley ride from home. Later, he took over the main A&P store on Bramhall Square (and close to his church) in downtown Portland.²⁰ My father was proud of the fact that his father was so good a manager that A&P offered him a career, which he refused. While the family lived in Portland, my father attended Nathan Clifford Grammar School and then the new Portland High School. He held a variety of jobs, including helping at a leather shop,²¹ working in a fish market, and toiling on a farm. My father genuinely enjoyed living in Maine and had many happy memories of his time there.²²

Sometime in 1921 my grandfather decided to return to the Church of Christ in Dugger; I do not know the circumstances of this decision any more than I do that of the one that took him to Portland. Early in January of 1922, the Neal family took the train back to Indiana, this time traveling by way of New York City and Washington, D.C.²³ In the latter city, they stayed for several days at the Senate Hotel at 101 D Street, N.E. (corner of First Street), between the Capitol and Union Station. While in the capital they saw many of its sights, including a whale suspended from the ceiling at a Smithsonian Institution museum. My grandfather's account, in the Dugger church's minutes, states that he became pastor there again on January 17, 1922, "at which time his second ministry with this church began."

During his second stay, my grandfather served another four years at the Dugger church. By November of 1925, though, he had become the minister of the Main Street Church of Christ in Winchester, Kentucky. His cousin Claude Neal had been the minister of this church, which was founded in January 1918, and recommended my grandfather as his successor, which strengthens our belief that Claude had played a role in the Portland position as well. My grandfather and his family seem to have lived in a succession of rental properties in Winchester during the next three decades. The first we know of from the e 1930 census: Charles M. Neal and family are shown renting (for $40 per month) at 126 Belmont Avenue in Winchester.²⁴

During his years in Winchester my grandfather, who had entered the ministry just as Fundamentalism was beginning to gain adherents among many Protestants, became increasingly active in promoting this point of view in opposition to what he saw as threats from liberal theology, science, and secularism. He engaged in public and printed debates with those wo held different points of view. According to one scholar, my grandfather was one of the first religious thinkers to develop a theological concept called Dispensationalism, which emphasizes the teaching of prophecy and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

After his retirement from Main Street Church of Christ (in 1940, it would appear), my grandfather and his second wife lived at least four different places in Winchester: 111 West Lexington Avenue (1935), Apartment 2 at 416 Lexington Avenue (1940), 214 South Burns Avenue (until the end of May 1946), 72 Fitch Avenue (for less than two months in 1946), 32 French Avenue (1946-1948), and then at 24 French Avenue in Winchester; all of these were within several blocks of one another. The last of them Charles M. Neal and two of his daughters purchased in February 1948; he sold his share to his son, Stanford, just two months later. It seems to have been his only experience with home ownership, and it was an unhappy one.²⁵

Charles M. Neal could never quite retire completely from preaching: during the 1940s, when he was without a regular church of his own, he traveled as an evangelist not only all over the midwest but even as far as Florida, often staying with members of the churches and accepting free-will offerings. (One church's account book, for instance, notes that in 1943 he received $7 for preaching a sermon.) During these years, he was affiliated with the Bible Truth Society and the Biblical Research Society. My grandfather thought deeply about the Scriptures, studied them intently all his life, and regularly published his views about them. Having heard him preach numerous times, I can say that he was also a powerful preacher.

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The parents of Charles M. Neal were THOMAS NEAL and MARY ELLEN {SHAKE} NEAL. Thomas was born in Paxton, Haddon Township, Sullivan County, Indiana, on September 1, 1832. Mary Ellen was born, probably also in Haddon Township, on January 11, 1835, assuming we accept as correct the statement on her grave marker that she was aged 44 years, 11 months, and 4 days when she died of cancer on December 15, 1879.²⁶ Thomas and Mary Ellen were married on December 7, 1854, probably by William C. McBride, a blacksmith who may have served as the pastor of Thomas Neal's church. She is buried in the Neal-Paxton Cemetery in Paxton, Indiana, where many of the early Neals and their spouses are buried.²⁷ My grandfather was the 13th and last of Thomas Neal's children with Mary Ellen {Shake} Neal.

After being listed on the 1850 census as a young male in his father's household in Haddon Township of Sullivan County (he is described as 17 years old and a "laborer" that year), Thomas Neal makes his first appearance as a head of household in 1860. In that year, and on the censuses for 1870, 1880, and 1900, he is shown as a farmer in Hamilton Township of Sullivan County, Indiana.²⁸ Mary Ellen, listed in her parents' household through 1850, is shown as his wife in 1860 and 1870. In one account, my grandfather described his father's farm as being four miles northeast of Paxton; in another, he said it was four miles southeast of Sullivan. Both descriptions are accurate for Thomas's farm, which straddled the boundary between Hamilton Township and Cass Township of Sullivan County.²⁹ The house where the family lived seems to have been in the eastern portion of Section 12 of Hamilton Township, for that is the township in which the census records them and in which they received their mail. The remainder of the farm was in the western portion of Section 7 of Cass Township.³⁰

Thomas Neal's first purchase, 40 acres in Section 7, came on August 18, 1856. Over the subsequent years, he steadily added additional property not only there and in Section 12 across the line separating Cass and Hamilton Townships but in three nearby sections as well. These acquisitions occurred on December 10, 1860; August 3, 1870; December 6, 1870; November 22, 1872; July 17, 1876; June 2, 1881; and June 3, 1892. Most of this land was later subjected to intensive strip mining, which saw the removal of all structures as well as the topsoil, but in its present "reclaimed" (and mostly uninhabited) condition it resembles parkland with numerous hills and small lakes regularly stocked with fish.³¹

After Mary Ellen's death, Thomas Neal married another woman bearing the same given name. She was Mary Ellen {Dunbar} Neal, with whom he had four more children. The date of their marriage, which took place in Sullivan County, Indiana, was October 16, 1881.³²

A newspaper account states that Thomas Neal died on February 3, 1905, but his grave marker in the Neal-Paxton Cemetery gives the date as February 4, 1905; the year listed on this marker appears to be a corrected one, presumably because of an error on the original carving, but there is no sign of a correction to the day of the month.³³ His death notice in the local newspaper says that he died at his farm near the Deckard Schoolhouse in Cass Township of Sullivan County.³⁴ The newspaper stated that his cause of death was "the diseases peculiar to old age and asthma" and observed that Thomas had been a life-long member of the Church of Christ. According to my grandfather, Thomas Neal's farm passed out of the family in 1905, so it seems likely that his children sold it following his death. I was unable to find for him either a will or a partition agreement, so the details are unknown.

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Mary Ellen {Shake} Neal was the daughter of DAVID SHAKE³⁵ and ARTEMISIA³⁶ {BLEVINS} SHAKE. Information contributed to the LDS IGI and other sources alike indicates that David was born in Kentucky on July 3, 1800. His grave marker in Snyder Cemetery in Haddon Township of Sullivan County, Indiana, states that he was 72 years, 1 month, and 7 days old when he died on August 6, 1872 (a date confirmed by IHS records), so either his reported birth date of July 3, 1800, or the marker is a few days in error.³⁷ Depending on whichever census one is willing to believe, Artemisia was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, in 1807 (the 1850 census), 1808 (the 1860 census), or 1810 (the 1870 census).³⁸ A history of the Shake family gives her birth date as June 7, 1810. Her grave marker in Snyder Cemetery states that she was 68 years, 8 months, and 4 days old when she died on February 14, 1878 (a date also confirmed by IHS records), which works out to a birthdate of June 10 of 1809, the one year that does not match any census information.³⁹ Measuring life spans for these two Shakes clearly is an inexact art.

Our first glimpse of David Shake is his appearance on the Jefferson County, Kentucky, tax roll in 1823. On September 24 of that same year, he purchased two 80-acre portions of public land in Owen County, Indiana, on September 24, 1823, for which he received his patents on April 15, 1824. (Meanwhile, in January 1824 he had sold to two brothers the 195 acres on Harrod Creek in Jefferson County he had inherited from their father.) David may have gone to Owen County in early 1824 to start his farm, returning to Jefferson County on May 8, 1825, in order to marry Artemisia, because he is not listed on the Jefferson County tax rolls in 1824 or 1825. The young couple evidently began married life up in Owen County, where David appears on that county's tax roll in 1827.⁴⁰

By 1830, however, David and Artemisia have moved back to Kentucky. The only David Shake listed in Indiana or Kentucky that year lives in Oldham County, Kentucky, on the Ohio River not far from Jefferson County (the Louisville area). Based on the states that two of their children later reported as their birthplaces, as well as the history of Sullivan County (which profiled David Shake) and other evidence, we can postulate a move from Owen County back to Kentucky in 1828 or 1829 and then a return to Indiana sometime after the 1830 census was taken.⁴¹ Why did they leave Owen County? Was it too far from family? Was the land or the area to their liking? Was it to care for Artemisia's father, Lemuel, at the time of his death, or for her mother afterwards? We do not know.

It is somewhat puzzling to see that David Shake is listed in the wrong age column in 1830 (he is described as being 15 to 20 years old when he is 20 to 30 years of age), but this is probably nothing more than a recording error: David's wife is shown, correctly, as 20 to 30 years old, and the person listed just above David Shake is Artemisia's mother. We can dismiss the notion that David might still be living with a Shake relative in 1830, for none of those in Kentucky has an extra male his age (30 years old). The preponderance of evidence, then, suggests that we have the right David Shake in our sights, whatever his recorded age says.

When the Shakes returned to Indiana, sometime after the 1830 census was completed, they moved to Sullivan County – probably so Artemisia could be near her mother.⁴² Here David purchased two adjoining half-quarters of public land (together, 160 acres) on August 16, 1831. During the next decade he patented another 80 acres. Like Thomas Neal, David Shake steadily added to his holdings with purchases from individuals and the Wabash and Erie Canal Company on October 1, 1852; March 9, 1863; December 13, 1865; and January 15, 1872. Artemisia made an additional, small purchase of 21 acres from their daughter on May 8, 1875, after her husband's death, presumably to augment Artemisia's adjoining widow's share of 49 acres. All of these properties, which together were almost equal to those of Thomas Neal, were located in Haddon Township. ⁴³

David and Artemisia are shown living in Sullivan County on the 1840 census, when, based on the sequence and ages of their children, Mary Ellen is one of the two daughters who is between 5 and 10 years old that year. Three more censuses, those for 1850 through 1870, show David and Artemisia Shake continuing to live near Carlisle in Haddon Township of Sullivan County – although in 1870 they are said to be receiving mail at Merom in Gill Township, many miles distant. Mary Ellen is listed on the first of these censuses, after which she leaves the household to marry Thomas Neal. (Unlike three of her younger siblings, Mary Ellen is not shown attending school in 1850, when she is 14 years of age.) David is an increasingly prosperous farmer during these three decades.⁴⁴ Both he and Artemisia died before the 1880 census was taken.

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David Shake's parents were CHRISTOPHER SHAKE and ELIZABETH {DAVIS} SHAKE.⁴⁵ A Shake family history states that Christopher was born in Germany in 1760, married Elizabeth there, and had three children before immigrating to America, but research into where the Davis family lived and when Elizabeth's known children were born indicates that she was born in Pennsylvania or Maryland between about 1758 and about 1763. Elizabeth evidently died in Jefferson County, Kentucky, sometime between the date of the 1820 census (when she is listed with her second husband, Philip Boyer) and 1824 (when she is not mentioned in his will).

Elizabeth's father was a man named HANOVER DAVIS. This we know because a petition to an Orphan's Court in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1811 and an 1820 deed there both show Elizabeth Shake to be one of the daughters of this man. In one case she is identified as the wife of Christopher Shake and in the other as the wife of Philip Boyers. Despite the name Davis, this is most likely a German family – originally Devis or Dewess, perhaps – whose name became anglicized in America, for the evidence indicates that Elizabeth's family was German in its orientation and heritage.

According to the 1800 census, Hanover Davis was born prior to 1755, but logically he must have been born by the mid-1730s or so in order to have had a daughter by about 1758. Hanover died sometime before December 22, 1809, when letters of administration for his estate were issued. In fact, since he was not listed on the 1810 census, he must have died prior to the official census year, which began on August 1, 1809; that Hanover is shown on Westmoreland County's 1809 tax rolls but not on those for 1810 would seem to support this conclusion. Hanover Davis is listed again on Hempfield Township's existing tax rolls through 1809, but in 1810 the rolls indicate that the tax on this land was due to another man – his son-in-law.⁴⁶

The name of Elizabeth's mother is entirely unknown to us, although there is speculation among Davis researchers that she might have been from the Marchant family with which the Davises were closely associated in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. This woman seems to have died well before her husband, since on the 1800 census Hanover is shown with a woman 26 to 45 years of age (born 1755-1774, that is) in his household, and this woman is identified as his widow on the petition referred to.

Our first sighting of Hanover Davis comes in 1757, at a time when his presumed father is known to have resided in the Conococheague Settlement in Peters Township, Cumberland (now Franklin) County, Pennsylvania (near Greencastle), and so it is possible that Hanover lived there as well – or else just over the border in Maryland. Since this area was disputed at this time by the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania, whose royal grants overlapped here, there was confusion over where the border fell and many residents can be found in the records of both colonies. The Davises are among them. There was even occasional armed conflict, primarily as Marylanders sought to drive out the German settlers filtering down from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We also do not know if the Davises were among them, but it seems possible. (The dispute was finally settled by an official survey, begun in 1750, that was conducted by men named Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon – who gave the final boundary line their names.)

Thus it is not so strange, whichever side of the border he lived on, Hanover Davis served twenty days in a Maryland militia unit during the French and Indian War, in 1757. This unit, led by Captain Moses Chapline, was drawn from the northern part of the Antietam Hundred. Between 1762 and 1768, moreover, Hanover was mentioned in four legal cases in Frederick County, Maryland, and in 1765, he administered a will in that same county, which then included the entire western part of that colony. No later than 1768, however, a "Honekill" Davis is listed in the tax rate books for Peters Township of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He has two horses, two head of cattle, and six sheep. He is taxed for 200 warranted acres, 40 of them cleared. He is in the book again in 1769 (though with just one head of cattle) and then not again. In addition, although he is shown owing a tax, Hanicle Davis is not listed among the freemen for the county. Could he be renting the land on which his family lives? And does the absence of a listing for Hanover Davis, with whom (as we shall presently see) Hanicle is closely associated in later years, suggest that Hanicle is his father?

By 1770, however, Hanover probably moved to the Brush Creek Settlement in what would become Hempfield Township of the new county of Westmoreland, in western Pennsylvania (just east and a bit south of Pittsburgh), once that county was organized in 1773. (The area was Cumberland County in 1770 and Bedford County between 1771 and 1773.) Hempfield Township was heavily populated by Germans from eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland, some of whom (from Northampton County) had been recruited as road builders by General John Forbes during his campaign in 1758 to capture Fort Duquesne from the French. A number of these men had evidently marked choice property in what would become Westmoreland County and returned there as soon as this became feasible; other settlers arrived as a result of the ineluctable westward movement through western Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Brush Creek settlement itself dates to 1769. A later history reports that Dr. David Marchand, related to the Davises, settled on Little Sewickley Creek in August 1770. The Davises are also mentioned among the early settlers of this area.⁴⁷

Both Hanover and Hanicle Davis are shown as taxables on this township's rolls in 1772 and 1773, although we have no evidence that Hanover owned property in that township at that time; it was not until March 1, 1774, when Hanover purchased 300 acres from Hanicle Davis, that he is shown owning property. The precise location of this 300 acres is not clear, but we know from evidence we will consider next that it was near Cribbs Station on West Newton Road, four miles west of Greensburg, in a small settlement called Millersdale along Little Sewickley Creek. This area, part of the Brush Creek settlement, was not far from Fort Walthour (a refuge during the French and Indian War), and, later, the Brush Creek Meeting House.⁴⁸

It was here, according to family tradition, that the Davis family in October 1773 became victims of an Indian attack on a number of settlements in Westmoreland County – one of numerous such attacks that occurred between 1769 (when 18 persons were killed or captured) and the 1780s. Several families were affected, including one in Millersdale whose "nearest neighbor," one source states, was the Hanover Davis family. According to the lore about this attack, while Hanover was out working in a potato field, Indian raiders captured his wife and three children at the family's farmhouse. They scalped the two youngest children – boys who were four and two years old – and took Hanover's wife and daughter, Barbara (age 9 years), away with them to Canada. Hanover, having escaped the raiders, returned to his home to find the older boy fatally wounded, the younger one having been killed instantly in the Indian manner by having his head smashed against a tree.

Meanwhile, Hanover's wife, having been forced to walk the entire distance to Canada, carried young Barbara most of the way to prevent her being abandoned. A posse of settlers from Westmoreland County chased the Indians but could not rescue the captives. Several years (some reports say two, others say six) passed before the Indians liberated Hanover's wife, but she would again not abandon her daughter, whom the tribe had adopted. She confided in a trader, who gave her some jewelry with which to purchase her daughter's freedom. The two Davis females then sailed down the St. Lawrence River and made their way to Philadelphia, where Hanover Davis was reunited with them.

How much of this story is accurate we cannot say for certain, but the lore passed down in several other families living near the Davises in Westmoreland County at this time contain similar accounts of this raid and its fatalities. Moreover, we know that Hanover described this incident to a visitor, Bishop Francis Asbury, some years later. Asbury, the first superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, stayed with the Davises on July 18, 1789, during one of his many missionary trips and afterwards recounted the events in his journal in substantially the same form as they are related here. (Asbury states that Davis's three sons were killed by the Indians.) Bishop Asbury observed that Davis was a man with "trouble and conviction."

No records confirm such an Indian raid in October 1773, but several other known attacks may match the events described in the Davis tradition. One is the raid in February 1769 mentioned earlier, when a group of Senecas passing through Westmoreland County attacked German settlers at Brush Creek and killed or captured 18 of them. Another incident occurred in 1781, when the Brush Creek church was burned, and a third attack came at Fort Walthour in April 1782. On July 13 of that same year, another group of Senecas (with several dozen Canadians) led by Guyasuta sacked and burned the Westmoreland county seat at Hannastown; a party of this group raided Miller's Station, where the Davises lived, that same day. Finally, in March 1783, several persons — including a man identified as James Davis — were slain or captured at Brush Creek.

Which of these events is the attack the Davis family remembered as occurring in October 1773 we cannot say, though it seems probable that the Davises did suffer the losses described in their family tradition at some time during this turbulent period. A transposition in lore passed down the generations from 1783 to 1773 can easily be accounted for, and imprisonment of captives in Canada from the early 1780s until peace was restored after the American Revolution seems more likely than one lasting a full decade longer. Furthermore, since we know (as shown below) that Hanover's father, Hanicle Davis, died between February 1782 and August 1783, it can be argued that he was killed by Indians either on July 13 or in March 1783 and, if it was the latter, that the report of the 1783 raid (written at Fort Pitt) simply got his given name wrong. I am of the opinion, therefore, that the raid remembered by the Davises actually occurred in 1783.

We should pause to note that it was during this period of frequent Indian attacks, in the spring of 1774, that Fort Allen was built in Hempfield Township. The location was in an area called "Good Purchase," a mile or so from the Brushy Creek settlement. To this fort, and to other forts and blockhouses like it (there was a blockhouse on the Marchand property), residents could flee for sanctuary. Here, too, Lutheran and Reformed congregations eventually built churches and a school – reportedly the first one in western Pennsylvania. The commander at Fort Allen was a man named Christopher Truby, whose unit included a man who would marry Hanover Davis's daughter – as we shall see in due course.

Sightings of Hanover Davis from 1772 onward place him in Hempfield Township until he died sometime in 1809.⁴⁹ In October 1779, Hanover and his father were parties in a felony case involving a relative, Frederick Marchant, who stood accused of stealing a shovel, a pot, and some pot hooks; it is noteworthy that David Marchant, perhaps his father, also signed the complaint. There is no record of what happened to the (young?) man, who may have fled the county, but he was involved in two later violations of the law.

In June 1782, Hanover Davis was among a number of Brush Creek residents who petitioned General William Irvine, commanding the United States Army based at Fort Pitt, asking for some of his soldiers to protect the area from the continuing Indian attacks. (These attacks were an Indian response to a campaign, led by Colonel William Crawford, into the Delaware country on the upper Sandusky River in what is now Ohio. The Indians had been particularly incensed by the butchery in March 1782 of Delaware men, women, and children, converts to Christianity, at a village called Gnadenhuetten.) Losses among the resident defenders from these attacks had been significant enough, it appears, that Continental troops stationed at Turtle Creek had to be sent to reinforce them. As we have seen, on July 13 of that year the county seat at Hannastown was burned and a smaller war party continued on a few miles to Miller's Station, home for Hanover Davis and his family, where a wedding celebration was in progress. The small fort there was burned, half a dozen persons were killed, and fifteen more were captured. Not long after, General Irvine responded to the petition by sending soldiers to the area.

Tax records in Hempfield Township in 1783 and 1786 show Hanover with 300 acres, three horses, five cattle, and five sheep. The latter list states that he lived in the South Portion of Hempfield Township, which includes the area near Millersdale. In 1787 Hanover Davis was listed as delinquent in his land taxes, but this might be a simple technicality: he was tax collector in South Huntington and Salem Townships in that year, and presumably he was short in the tax receipts he was obligated to produce under the system then in use; three years later, in 1790, a court order gave him credit for the uncollected funds. Also that year, Hanover was involved in a court case over a tract of land. A "caveat" to his patent ultimately reached Pennsylvania's Board of Property, which dismissed the case when Davis presented testimony that the challenger had obtained another tract of land instead. The 1790 census shows him in Hempfield Township with two males over 16 and one male under 16 years of age, along with three females.

In that same year, 1790, Hanover patented 424 acres south of Adamsburg, a short distance north of Millersdale, and tax records begin to show him with 400 acres instead of his previous 300; he had had these 400 acres surveyed on February 23, 1785.⁵⁰ These circumstances suggest that Hanover somehow surrendered his 300 acres through delinquency – he is never taxed on them again – and patented new land elsewhere, but this is only a supposition. The first available tax information is for 1798. That year's list, which includes details the United States government required for its new (and short-lived) direct tax, the so-called "window tax" because it was based on how many windows buildings possessed, reveals some facts that furnish us with an unusual and rare glimpse of Hanover Davis's residence. (These 1798 tax lists have not survived at all in most states and exist only as fragments in the others; Pennsylvania is the only state with a complete set of them.)

There are actually two lists in 1798. One is for houses of some value ($100), and the other is for property of more than two acres that is being farmed. On the first list, Hanover Davis is shown owning a wood house 30 by 27 feet. It has two stories and a cellar, twelve lights (ten with windows), and two acres of land. There is also a small satellite building that may be for storage of ham and grain. The total value is $200.50. On the second list, Hanover's 400 acres are reported, with a value of $1,200. But there are also three structures here. One is a cabin 24 by 20 feet (valued at $30) and the other is a cabin 18 by 16 feet (no value shown); the third is a large (50 by 30 feet) barn. One of these might have been the original log cabin and the other a later residence that was replaced by the house on the first list – we can only guess about this. The tax lists also show neighbors.

The circumstantial evidence we are considering in this section strongly suggests that Hanover's father was Hanicle Davis, who was married to a woman we know only as Elizabeth, and family tradition among Hanover's descendants confirms this. Hanicle was a kind of nickname for Hans Nicholas or Nicolaus, and as we shall see there are actually several references to this man that use the two names for him. We do not know Hanicle's date of birth, but he died after February 16, 1782, when he served as a witness, but prior to August 16, 1783, when letters of administration for his estate were issued. As we have seen, it is possible that he was killed in the Seneca Indian attack of July 13, 1782, or in the attack near Fort Walthour in April 1783.⁵¹ Elizabeth, whose date of birth is also a mystery, died in 1794.

Hanicle, too, was a member of the Conococheague Settlement, and he like Hanover may have been a member of the Maryland militia in 1757. (It seems possible this was the older man's son who was also named Hanicle, although a man did remain eligible for the militia until the age of 60 years.) A Hanicle Davis served under Captain Alexander Beall from October 9, 1757, to November 9, 1758 – possibly part of the Maryland force that was created in the buildup surrounding the capture of Fort Duquesne (but never paid by the colony!), but more likely a response to the Indian raids in the Conochocheague area that recurred sporadically from mid-1755 until mid-1757, and then again during 1763 and 1764. Many settlers in this part of Cumberland County abandoned their homes during both periods, but we have no evidence the Davises did so.

Hanicle is seen on tax lists in Peters Township of Cumberland (now Franklin) County, Pennsylvania, in 1768 and 1769. On the last day of 1770, though, he had 20 acres surveyed in Cumberland County; on April 1, 1773, he had an additional 50 acres surveyed there. (Actually, the area in question was no longer in Cumberland County, since it had passed to the new Bedford County in 1771 and then to the even newer Westmoreland County in 1773.) Presumably Hanicle Davis moved to southwestern Pennsylvania at about this time, as we believe Hanover did, but I can find no record – in deeds or otherwise – that Hanicle ever bought or sold property in Westmoreland County, except for the single sale of 300 acres to Hanover Davis in March 1774 mentioned earlier. How Hanicle obtained that 300 acres remains a mystery.⁵²

The mystery of the surveyed 70 acres, though, may be explained by references we find to "Hannaniah" Davis in the court record of Yohogania County, Virginia – an area that overlapped the new counties Pennsylvania was busy creating in what would become the southwest corner of the latter state once it and Virginia resolved their boundary dispute. These records show that Davis warranted 20 1/2 acres on December 31, 1770, and another 50 acres on the same date. Despite some inconsistencies in the dates shown in the records of the two counties, we are probably correct to think the Yohogania County records are reflecting the same transactions that we see in Cumberland County records.

This reasoning gains strength from the fact that "Annaniah" Davis was a witness to a deed in Ohio County, Virginia, in August 1775 and took an oath of allegiance there sometime in the period 1777 to 1779. Ohio County was west of Yohogania County, in what is now the West Virginia panhandle west of Pennsylvania. Significantly, perhaps, Hanicle Davis is not on the tax lists for Bedford, Somerset, or Westmoreland Counties during the early 1770s, except for the Westmoreland County tax list mentioned earlier – which could be an error.⁵³

What all this suggests to me is that Hanicle Davis pulled up stakes in Peters Township of Cumberland County during the early 1770s and probably resided in the largely uncharted western portion of the new county of Westmoreland for several years. Indeed, we discover that in late 1773 and early 1774 two deeds in Pitt Township of that county (a vast original township of Westmoreland County including not only what is now the northwestern portion of that county but most of present Allegheny, Beaver, Greene, and Washington Counties as well – an area, that is, overlapping the two Virginia counties of Yohogania and Ohio) mention the adjoining property of Hans Nicholas Davis. One of the deeds places this property near Turtle Creek, which is quite a distance from the Davis properties we have been discussing here. On the other hand, the two warranted or surveyed properties – 20 1/2 acres and 50 acres – can be placed today in the Georges Creek area of Georges and Springhill Townships of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, which after being formed in turn from Westmoreland County incorporated much of the former Yogohania County. Where Hanicle Davis actually lived during these years of the early 1770s is not exactly clear, therefore, and neither do we know whether Hanover was living with him or nearby.

It seems odd that Hanicle Davis disappears from the records after he sold the 300 acres to Hanover in 1774, except for that document in February 1782 when he was a witness and a deed in October of that year, when his property is mentioned as an adjoining the one being transferred. What is particularly striking is that from 1773 onward Hanicle Davis is not taxed for property. One possible explanation is that Hanicle sold the totality of his property near Millersdale to Hanover in 1774 and, perhaps, went to live with him. The fact that the Davis-to-Davis deed was signed in 1774 but not filed in the courthouse until early 1787 would seem to support this conclusion: the 1782 deed was written while Hanicle Davis was still the owner of record. It is also possible that Hanicle continued to live on land elsewhere that he owned but was exempted from property taxes on it due to age or disability.

Our only other definitive sighting of Hanicle Davis in Westmoreland COunty comes in the histories of that county, which state that the early German immigrants to Hempfield Township met for worship at "Davis's house." We can imagine that Hanicle served as a kind of elder spiritual leader for them in lieu of a regular pastor. (An itinerant minister began coming to the Sewickley Creek area in 1772, and a combined log schoolhouse and church was built before 1782, when it was burned by the Indians. A permanent church, Brush Creek Salem Church, was established a few years later.) Perhaps Hanicle Davis was not in good health during the 1770s and 1780s, which may explain why he would sell all of his property to Hanover in 1774.⁵⁴

Where did Hanicle originate, and who were his father and mother? These are still unknown. It is not possible to link him definitely to any of the Palatine arrivals in Philadelphia, so perhaps Hanicle or his father came to America before the Palatine immigrants to Philadelphia began to be recorded in 1727, or arrived at a different port. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the Davis or Devis family may have been among the Palatines who arrived in New York around 1710, and the descendants of Hanover Davis believe that Hans Nicholas DeWeiss was born in Germany in 1705 and came to New York with his parents in 1710. But until we can find an immigrant from Germany to whom we can link Hanover and Hanicle Davis or other documentary evidence to verify this information, we will have to guess about the origins of their family.

The fact that Hanover was given this unusual name may provide a clue to the family's early years in America, however. It could suggest that his parents had recently arrived from the Kingdom of Hanover and recalled their homeland with his name, which in turn might argue for their arrival in America during the 1730s. Or Hanover may indeed have been born to the Henderich Dewiss family that lived in Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania, as early as 1741 and 1742. On the other hand, the church the Davises attended at the time Hanover was born was served by pastors from a church in Hanover and maybe he was named after that town. To date, though, our search for Hanicle's origins have been inconclusive.

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We now turn to Christopher Shake. Unfortunately, we do not know for certain when and where Christopher Shake was born, nor when he came to America (if he was not born here), nor who his father was. At least through 1776, there is no definite sign in extant passenger arrival records of any Christopher Shake who is the right age to have fathered David Shake, although an immigrating boy named Christopher who was younger than 16 years old and who arrived with his parents in an earlier year would not have been mentioned by name in the records. The Shake family history states that Christopher arrived in Philadelphia aboard the Rosanna (James Reason, captain) from Rotterdam and Deal on September 26, 1743.

A man named Georg Christophf Schoch, age unstated but over 16 years, is indeed among the passengers on that ship – passengers the officials in Philadelphia described as coming from Württemberg and Durlach in Germany. Probably based on how he heard the name pronounced, Captain Reason recorded this man's name as Christaf Shake. He is worth a close look, even if he is too old to be David's father (he would be at least 70 years old when David was born in 1800) and obviously cannot be the man the Shake history says was born in 1760!

But might this passenger who arrived in 1743, Georg Christophf Schoch, actually be the father or grandfather of Christopher Shake whose son David was born in 1800? Some circumstantial evidence supports the idea that Christopher's father was named George, although he may well have been called by his middle name, Christophf, as was common among Germans. We know that Christopher Shake named his first son George – by German naming conventions a likely name for his own father.⁵⁵ In addition, when Christopher Shake's land in Kentucky was sold after his death in 1803, the indenture suggests that it might have been owned originally by a George C. Shake.

Circumstantial evidence also seems to connect this George C. Shake to the Georg Christophf Schoch who arrived in 1743, and through him to a Schoch family in Europe. At least one other man who migrated from eastern to western Pennsylvania at about the same time the Shakes evidently did can be traced back to an ancestor aboard the Rosanna and to a family from the same region of Germany that Georg Christophf Schoch was from. As a matter of fact, this ship had numerous passengers from several villages in that same region of Germany as Georg Christophf Schoch. It seems quite possible, therefore, that Christopher Shake's father (and David Shake's grandfather) was a man who migrated to America in 1743 aboard the Rosanna and later moved from Pennsylvania to Kentucky. Until more definite evidence turns up, this connection must remain conjectural, but certainly we should take a closer look at this man.⁵⁶

Georg Christophf Schoch was probably born in early 1704, as he was baptized in Gailsbach, Neckarkreis, Württemberg, on April 14 of that year. His wife, a woman named Anna Dorothea Knapp, apparently was born on January 26, 1705, to David Knapp and Eva Magdalena {Glueck} Schoch. David was the son of Johann Georg Knapp and Barbara {Kirchner} Knapp, who like the Schochs were from the Schwäbisch Hall area of the Neckarkreis region in Württemberg, northeast of Stuttgart in southern Germany, but there our knowledge of the Knapp line is extinguished.

For the Schochs we have considerably more information. Georg Christophf's father was Jacob Schoch, born on December 2, 1666, in Gailsbach. Jakob's wife was Catharina Müller, whom he married in Mainhardt, Neckarkreis, Württemberg on May 10, 1696; her father was Jacob Müller. Jacob Schoch's parents were Georg Schoch and Regina Stoecklin, whose father was Vitus Stoecklin. Georg's parents were another George Schoch and Margaretha Wolff. The Wolff line can be followed back through Margaretha's parents, Jacob Wolff and Barbara Walther, to the parents of both of them: Michael Wolff and Catharina Kimmerler for Jacob Wolff, and Georg Walther and a woman named Barbara for Barbara Walther.

Returning to the Schoch line, the elder Georg's parents were Gilg Schoch and Wandelbar Knapp. Gilg's father was yet another Georg Schoch, but we do not know the name of this man's wife. Wandelbar's parents were Hans Knapp and Genoveva Koppenhoeffer. The fathers of both of them bore the given name of Lienhardt (Knapp and Koppenhoeffer, respectively), but again the mothers' names are lost to us. Most of these people came from Gailsbach, but some lived in several other villages in the area: Schoenhardt, Jagstkreis (Schoch, Knapp, Koppenhoeffer); Buchhorn, Jagstkreis (Walther); Lachweiler, Jagstkreis (Stoecklin); Pfedelbach, Jagstkreis (Walther); and Buechelberg, Jagstkreis (Koppenhoeffer). The Wolff and Kimmerler families also lived in Ettenheim, Offenberg, in nearby Baden.

We thus seem to have a likely antecedent for Christopher Shake in the Georg Christophf Schoch who arrived in 1743. On the other hand, enough adult males named Shake (or some variant of that spelling) are present in America by 1760, including several Shockeys who live near the Davises in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, that we cannot consider our search for Christopher Shake's father closed.⁵⁷

More troublesome is whether Christopher Shake was born early enough to have been the son of Georg Christophf Schoch and his wife. We know that this couple had at least four children baptized in Germany between 1733 and 1740, which ties in nicely with emigration to America in 1743 but leaves one wondering if Georg and his wife could be the parents of Christopher Shake. Although we do not know Christopher's birth year, we can estimate that he was born during the 1750s, based on the birth of his oldest child in 1778, which makes it only barely likely that Anna Dorothea {Knapp} Schoch, born in January 1705, would be his mother.

It could be possible that Christopher was, instead, the child of one of the three sons of Georg Christophf and Anna Dorothea {Knapp} Schoch. Of these three sons, only Johann Jakob Schoch has a name, Jakob, that was used in the later generations of Christopher Shake, but he was born in 1737 – hardly early enough to have fathered Christopher during the 1750s.⁵⁸ A more likely solution to this conundrum is that Christopher too was born during the 1740s and was simply older than we imagined when he married Elizabeth Davis, who might even have been Christopher's second wife.

Taking everything that we know into account, I think the chances are significantly better than fifty-fifty that there is a link of some kind between our Christopher Shake and Georg Christophf Schoch, the immigrant, and I am inclined to think that they were father and son. Until we learn more, we can only accept this as a good hypothesis and see where it leads us.⁵⁹

Whenever and wherever the first Shakes came to America, they eventually made their way across Pennsylvania or perhaps Maryland, as the Davises, did before continuing on to Kentucky, probably during the 1780s. We find ourselves tantalized by various sightings. For instance, Pennsylvania church records in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1774 for another family intermarried with the Davises (Shrader) refer to a Christoph and Anna Marie Schack with a child, Samuel. From his age, he could be the Samuel Shake who lives in Kentucky and Indiana some years later, but this "Shake" more likely was the son of the actively researched Christopher Shockey who lived first in central Pennsylvania and western Maryland, then in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, after arriving in Philadelphia in 1737.

Especially tantalizing is the Christian Shake who served in the Westmoreland County rangers – under Captain Truby at Fort Allen, about a mile from the Davis family's residence and even closer to the church and school they may have attended – sometime during the period 1778-1783, again with members of the Shrader family with whom the Shakes seem closely associated. We know from first-hand testimony that these rangers were stationed near Fort Allen in 1778, and one can hardly help but underscore the fact that 1778 would seem to be exactly the time when Elizabeth Davis may have married her husband, Christopher Shake, after which the couple would migrate to Kentucky. Without a marriage record we cannot go further, but this circumstantial evidence is quite compelling.⁶⁰

Christian Shake (here Sheak) is listed in Hempfield Township of that county as early as 1775 (when a son, Samuel, was baptized there); his wife, however, is identified as Anna Maria. Shake is listed in that township again in 1783, when he has no land but has two horses, one cow, and one sheep. This man could be David Shake's father, the Christopher Shake we are seeking, as he would be about the right age for military service in those years and, probably, not very well established. Once again, though, he could be the Christopher Shockey we have already run into. (Some Shockey researchers believe that he is a member of that family.) It is also quite interesting that a Christopher Stakes is found in a militia unit in neighboring Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1782-85 – a time and place that might mark a step toward Kentucky, where we first find Christopher in 1789, but we must be aware that there was a Stakes family in York County to whom this Washington County militiaman may have belonged.

Our best hope is to look for evidence of a Shake, however, spelled, whose first name is George, as the Shockey family does not appear to have an adult male bearing that name during this time period. In western Pennsylvania we find a George Shake or Shackley in Bedford County, Pennsylvania (just east of Westmoreland County), in 1771 through 1780 and in 1783; this area, part of several townships in succession, later became part of Somerset County. Could this be Christopher's father? And could he be the Georg Schock who had purchased 100 acres in Hanover, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in January 1769? We can only wonder.⁶¹

(There is also the Georg Schack who with his wife Margaretha sponsored a baptism in September 1784 in western Loudoun County, Virginia – not so far from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.⁶² It is not out of the question that George Shackley is the George "Sharp" – whose name the transcriber had questions about – in Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1786.)

Looking further east, we spot several adult Shake males in Frederick County, Maryland, during the 1770s and 1780s, after the Shockeys have departed there for Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Conceivably they were the sons of Georg Schof, who with his wife Anna Maria (could this be a mistake for Dorothea?) lived in that county in 1759 – which was before the Shockeys lived in that county. The fact that one of these Shake males bears the same name (Lenhart) as did both of the maternal grandfathers of the Georg Christophf Schoch who came to America in 1743, makes us wonder if we have sighted our Shake group here in Frederick County. (An Adam Shate also found in Frederick County in 1780 is interesting because the name Adam, like Christopher and George, is a common given name in the Shake family we are researching. The Adam Shaak seen in Baltimore in 1768 may be the same man mentioned above.)⁶³

One cannot help but wonder, too, if the Shakes and the Shockeys (whose name is often written Shoke, Schaak, Schacke, Shaky, or something else like Shake) crossed paths in western Maryland and perhaps even Westmoreland County during the second half of the 1700s. It is even possible the two families were related somehow before coming to America, although the two names — which sound alike in English — appear to be distinct surnames in German. In any case, separating the two families with the evidence available is a formidable task, and we cannot be sure that some of the Shakes we have looked were not in fact Shockeys.

What we can be sure of is that David Shake's father Christopher must have married Elizabeth Davis during the 1770s, more than likely in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and that the couple migrated to Kentucky a few years later during the 1780s. Whether the Shakes and the Davises were associated before then cannot be determined with the information at hand, but there seems ample evidence that the two families were living in the same part of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, at about the same time.

One cannot help but wonder, too, if the Shakes and the Shockeys (whose name is often written Shoke, Schaak, Schacke, Shaky, or something else like Shake) crossed paths in western Maryland and perhaps even Westmoreland County during the second half of the 1700s. It is even possible the two families were related somehow before coming to America, although the two names – which sound alike in English – appear to be distinct surnames in German. In any case, separating the two families with the evidence available is a formidable task, and we cannot be sure that some of the Shakes we have looked were not in fact Shockeys.

What we can be sure of is that David Shake's father Christopher must have married Elizabeth Davis during the 1770s, more than likely in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and that the couple migrated to Kentucky a few years later during the 1780s. Whether the Shakes and the Davises were associated before then cannot be determined with the information at hand, but there seems ample evidence that the two families were living in the same part of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, at about the same time.

We turn now to Kentucky. Our first evidence of the Shakes there comes when we learn that in 1786 Christopher Shake and George Shake, Sr., volunteered to fight Indians. In the campaign that followed their enlistment, some 1,200 Kentucky militiamen led by Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark went off to attack Indian tribes on the upper Wabash River near Vincennes in what would later become Indiana. The campaign came to a dismal end in August of 1786 when about 300 of the militiamen mutinied in Vincennes and deserted back to Kentucky because they had inadequate provisions – and insufficient confidence in Clark as well. Since those who balked were principally the militiamen from Lincoln County, the Shakes evidently remained loyal to Clark. Indeed, the Shakes might have been part of a smaller, detached force of 800 men, led by Benjamin Logan, that attacked the Shawnees in Ohio at about the same time. It is also noteworthy that a Sergeant George Shake was a mounted Kentucky Volunteer in General Anthony Wayne's army from September to November, 1793.⁶⁴

We have much more to learn yet about the Shakes' time in Kentucky, but we do have some good leads to follow. The fact that a tributary in eastern Jefferson County was by the 1790s named Shake's Run (the run, off Long Run, part of Floyd's Fork, still bears that name) does indicate that the Shakes lived in this vicinity.⁶⁵ A George Shake is listed on the tax rolls in Jefferson County in 1789 – not far from Christopher Shake's name, in fact, and in 1793 and 1795 as well. In addition, we know that a George "Shrake," very likely a misspelling of this troublesome name, purchased a plot of land in the town of Jeffersontown, in Jefferson County. We have no date for this purchase, but it had to have occurred after 1797.⁶⁶

Although it is a man named George Shake, Sr., who is listed as a private among Clark's soldiers, we are right to doubt that George Shake the 1742 immigrant lived long enough to be the man in this and the other sightings in Kentucky we have just reviewed, and it is patently absurd to picture a man born in 1704 as a private in Clark's militia force. Who, then, is this George Shake, Sr.? In my opinion he is quite possibly another son of Georg Christophf Schoch the immigrant, born a year or two after he and Anna Dorothea arrived in America.⁶⁷ This would position him to be the older brother of the Christopher Shake we are researching.

Presumably it is this same George Shake we subsequently find in Clark County, Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Louisville. This man is observed in a deed in 1804 and then died intestate in 1811. When his land was sold by his heirs, the heirs mentioned were George Shake, Jr., Samuel, and Sarah {Shake} Owens. Some of the land had been awarded to the deceased George Shake in recognition of his service in the Illinois Regiment; the rest he had obtained from former colleagues who also received it for their service. We can only speculate about the relationship between this George Shake and Christopher Shake, but in my opinion the evidence suggests that the two were brothers. For now, this is as far as we can go on this aspect of the Shake family.

As we have seen, our first documentary evidence that Christopher Shake is in Kentucky is a tax record in Jefferson County, Kentucky, dated April 29, 1789. (He may have arrived in Kentucky considerably earlier, of course.) Although there are no censuses for Kentucky in 1790 and in 1800, Christopher Shake is listed in the (incomplete) Jefferson County tax records again from 1793 through 1801.⁶⁸ He has purchased 195 acres of land on the South Fork of Harrod's Creek in Jefferson County, Kentucky, in 1796, and these tax records consistently show him residing on this property. He is mentioned as a witness in 1795 and recorded his earmark for livestock in January 1801. Within two years Christopher had died, however – sometime between November 8, 1802, when he wrote his will, and October 3, 1803, when it was probated.⁶⁹

Christopher Shake's death makes it rather difficult to determine where his son David might be living in 1810 and 1820. In order to resolve this issue, we must take a look at the whereabouts of Christopher's widow, Elizabeth. In November 1804, about a year after his death, Elizabeth married Philip Boyers in Jefferson County, Kentucky. She is identified in the records as Mrs. Eliza Shake.⁷⁰ On the 1810 census for Jefferson County, a man called Philip Buyer is the only man in that county who might be the second husband of David's mother. Philip has a woman 45 years old or older in his household, and this is probably Elizabeth (who is about 47 years old that year). There are seven young males in Philip and Elizabeth's household, including three who are not yet 10 years old. David, just about to turn that age, is undoubtedly one of the three. This profile matches what we know from other sources about the children in this newly combined household.⁷¹

In 1820, when David Shake was about to turn 20 years of age, there is no one with that name listed in Kentucky or in Indiana, which suggests that he is living with another family member.⁷² The only Shake with an extra male the right age to be David is Samuel Shake of Clark County, Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Oldham County, Kentucky. This extra male could be David.⁷³ A better hypothesis is that David is still living in Jefferson County, Kentucky, with his mother and stepfather, who in 1820 is identified as Philip Boyar. This man has a female 45 years old or older in his household, and she must be his second wife – Elizabeth {Davis} Shake.⁷⁴ Philip and Elizabeth's household also includes one male between 16 and 26 years old. Judging from what we know about the children those two brought to their marriage from their first marriages this male is probably David, who is 19 years old when the census was taken in 1820. Since the male in question is not listed in the category for 16 to 18 years of age, we can narrow the range of his age to 18 to 26 years old. This has the effect of increasing the odds he is in fact David.

At this point we have finished with what we know, or think we know, about the line of David Shake, the father of Mary Ellen {Shake} Neal. Next we can train our detective skills on that of her mother, Artemisia {Blevins} Shake.

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rev. 4/13/10

Notes

¹This name is fairly consistently spelled Neal within the family after about 1800, but Edward Neal, the earliest of the Neals we can be positive is in this line, spelled his name Neel or Neil. His descendant William may have spelled it (if the census is any guide) both Neal and Neil. For the sake of conformity, I use Neal except when the alternate spelling is worth noting for substantive reasons.

²The 1899 land ownership atlas for Sullivan County, Indiana, clearly shows, on page 12, the Bledsoe property of 80 acres in Section 17 of Cass Township, but I cannot find William Bledsoe (who is not listed in the index of the atlas) living in adjacent Haddon Township; it is possible the census taker simply listed Bledsoe – and my grandfather – in the wrong township. Also see the USGS map for Dugger/Indiana. The Bledsoe property was very near the Shake residence, so there is no mystery about how my great-grandfather met Mary Ellen Shake.

³The 1860 census shows William J. Bledsoe living with William Neal and his second wife, Charlotte. She was the daughter of Robert Moore and Drucella {Miles} Moore. For a view of the property Bledsoe was farming, see slide 12006, taken in 2006. Return to text

⁴See the USGS map for Dugger/Indiana for the approximate location of Caledonia (sometimes spelled Calidonia). See also the photograph (page 17 of the album) of my grandfather and father, taken in front of the store; the date is difficult to read but seems to be June 1907. Return to text

⁵My grandfather was baptized in Busseron Creek about three miles southeast of Sullivan, Indiana. He recalled the location as follows: at an old flatboat boatyard and swimming hole near where the Dugger-to-Sullivan road entered the creek bottom and turned to the northwest. Away from the road, at an angle west of north, there was the stream and a large cleared area used for swimming parties and baptisms. The site was apparently just south of an Illinois Central railroad bridge. Because much of this area has been reworked for flood control and does not resemble what it did in 1896, it is not possible to reach this area. See the USGS maps for Dugger/Indiana and Sullivan/Indiana and slide 11997 (2006) for a view of Busseron Creek not far from the swimming hole.

⁶ See the album for my grandfather's journal, which includes a record of his travel, expenses, and income as well as his preaching, baptisms, and other activities from 1899 through 1902. Some of the places in which he preached still exist (as of 2006, when the following slides were taken): Taylor's Ridge Church and Koleen (USGS map for Koleen/Indiana and slide 12060 for the former); Pleasant Grove Church (USGS map for Sandborn/Indiana and slide 12054); Bethany Church (USGS map for Scotland/Indiana and slide 12058); Riverton (USGS map for Merom/Indiana); and Palestine, Illinois (also the USGS map for Merom/Indiana). I have also identified three of the school houses, two of which were in Cass Township: Deckard, at the junction of Sections 9, 10, 15, and 16; and Houk (actually, Houck), in the northwest corner of Section 32. The third school house was Brodie, in Section 13 in Hamilton Township. (For all, see the USGS map for Dugger/Indiana.) See slide 12005, taken in 2006, for a view of the site of Deckard School, lost to strip mining. I have not been able to locate specifically the other places my grandfather mentions: River Bottom, the "Little Brick" Church, Gravel Ridge Chapel (where he preached the most), Gray's Ridge School House, and Phelp's Ridge School House. My grandfather also preached at a place he called "Buel[l]," the early name of the village of Cass; it is located just northwest of Dugger, and in relatively distant Holton, in Ripley County. One of the places at which he also preached, but is not listed in the journal, was Berea Church, a church that my grandfather had helped to bring into existence on January 24, 1892. This was the church located in Cass Township of Sullivan County (see the USGS map for Dugger/Indiana and slide 11996, taken in 2006), where the Neal family worshiped. The Correspondence Bible College in which my grandfather enrolled was probably that of Ashley S. Johnson in Tennessee, since the "Cyclopedia" to which my grandfather refers in his journal was a Johnson publication. Return to text

⁷Potter Bible College later transformed itself into what is now called Potter Children's Home. The records of the former were lost in two fires in 1940, so we cannot determine exactly when Charles M. Neal was enrolled or exactly what he studied. The college did encourage my grandfather to study the Bible, and in his later years he wrote a number of extended essays based on his studies. It is likely that my grandfather worshipped at the 12th Street Church of Christ in Bowling Green, but the membership records of that church do not go back that far. See slide 12944, taken in 2008, which shows the site of the main building of Potter Bible College. Return to text

⁸A letter from my grandfather implies that Anna was born in Harper, Kansas, and information from her children confirms this. Her parents, Miles Leander Bottorff and Nancy Emma {Beckett} Bottorff, had been born in Indiana; the Bottorff family was German and had come to Indiana by way of Kentucky, Berks County, Pennsylvania, and the Hudson River area of New York. Anna was born on February 6, 1884. The 1900 census lists Anna with her parents in Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas. Wellington is not far from Wichita, where a school for aspiring ministers could well have been located. I was unable to find any record of my grandfather's second marriage in vital statistics in the IHS, so it is likely they were married in Kansas; one source gives the date as September 6, 1908, and the place as Harper. According to Stanford Neal, my grandfather (his father) spoke of having hunted deer in Oklahoma; since Sumner County is on the Oklahoma border, it may be that my grandfather did this hunting at the time he was in Kansas for his wedding in 1908. The fact the first child of Charles and Anna was born in Linton, Indiana, in September of 1909 seems to indicate that my grandfather had finished his studies in Bowling Green by then. Anna died in Ford, Kentucky, on October 29, 1975. Return to text

⁹My father had intended to continue the story but was unable to. Return to text

¹⁰See the USGS map for Linton/Indiana.

¹¹The Linton Church of Christ demolished its original building many years ago, and the building on this site in 2006 (see slide 12016) has now been replaced as well. For views of the site of the residence on Third Street, N.W., see slides 12014 and 12015.. The Dugger Church of Christ was founded in 1885. The original structure was on land donated by the Dugger and Neal Coal Company; the Neal who joined Dugger in founding this company was from an unrelated family. In fact, there were quite a few unrelated Neals in Dugger, most of them coal miners from England. Dugger was not an area where my Neal family had settled. Return to text

¹²The new church was built on the site of the original one. See slide 07159, taken in 1994, and slides 12037, 12039-40, and 12050-53, all taken in 2006. The brick on the parsonage was added after my grandfather and his family had left the town for good. For the parsonage, see slide 12038 (2006). My father was quite fond of Dugger, views of which in 2006 are in slides 12041 through 12049.

¹³I donated my father's collection of copies of the newsletter to the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville, Tennessee, so that they would be available for research purposes. A deed in Greene County suggests that my grandfather may have purchased two lots (93 and 94) there in August 1911, just before taking the position in Dugger (where the church had no manse). The family may have lived here – just a few miles east of Dugger – until they obtained the house in Dugger to which the text alludes. Return to text

¹⁴Houston operated a company that manufactured hats. He lived at 545 Cumberland Avenue. Return to text

¹⁵Later it became Deering Oaks Park, the name it continues to bear today.

¹⁶A 1914 city map of Portland in the Library of Congress shows just three houses on Surrenden Street, with empty lots where several more – including the one at 8 Surrenden Street – would soon be constructed. This matches my father's recollection that the rooming house was a new one. The Deering mansion was across an unoccupied square.

¹⁷I saw and photographed this house in 1953 (see page 27 in the album), but it has since been razed. Although the house itself was not significant, the railroad station was, and preservationists in Portland still complain about the fact that it was demolished and the entire area was "redeveloped." In 1953 the house displayed as its number 399 1/2, and so it probably had been divided into two flats.

¹⁸As noted earlier, the column on the 1920 census showing the birthplace of my father's mother gives Glenn {Vanderpool} Neal's birthplace as Kansas. It may be that the census taker was confused by the fact that Anna was born in Kansas. Or it may be that someone in the household – probably Anna – incorrectly assumed that Glenn was also born there because Samuel Vanderpool and his family were living in Kansas at about the time she was born. An interesting sidebar: when I was advancing the microfilm holding the 1920 census sheets for Portland and paused at a page to see what page I had reached, I suddenly realized that I was looking at my grandfather's (to me) distinctive handwriting. A little research confirmed that he served as an enumerator in that year, doubtless in order to pick up a little extra cash. He did not collect the information for the district in which he lived, however, so he is not responsible for the error noted above. The 1920 census shows Charles Glenn Neal attending school. Return to text

¹⁹I photographed this church in 1987, still in use that year though by 1996 it had become a residence. (See slide 02322, taken the former year.) Stanford Neal also remembered the church being at 867 Congress Street. The Neal Street that is nearby is not named after my family. Return to text

²⁰During the time my family lived in Portland, there were three A&P stores in South Portland – at 95 High Street, at 310 Sumner Street, and at 420 Preble Street. I cannot determine which one my grandfather managed. The 1914 map of Portland does not show any of these sites as A&P stores, so they must have been fairly new when the family arrived in town. This map also does not show exactly which structure on Bramhall Square the A&P store there then occupied. Information from the Maine Historical Society indicates that this store, which was actually closer to Longfellow Square, is now a pharmacy. Stanford Neal remembers that it had a basement-level door on the side street, which may help in identifying it.

²¹Run by a Jacob Slosberg, the leather shop was located at 220 Federal Street. This site was obliterated when the street was widened.

²²One of the happiest of these were his visits to a friend whose father was keeper of the Two Lights Lighthouse on Cape Elizabeth. The father is the subject of a recent biography. Return to text

²³My father says that the family lived in Portland five years, and the city directory for 1923-1924 says "moved from city" for my grandfather. William Houston died while my grandfather and his family were en route to Indiana (and my grandfather made the Houston family angry by refusing to leave his own family and return to Portland for the funeral). The Maine Historical Society helped me discover that Houston died on January 12, 1922, so we can date their return trip rather precisely. In addition, my father graduated from high school in Indiana in 1924, and his reminiscences show that he spent at least two years at that high school. Return to text

²⁴My first record of my grandfather's being in Winchester is dated April of 1927, but Stanford Neal remembers his arrival as November of 1925. See slides 12874-45, taken in 2008, for the house at 126 Belmont Avenue. Return to text

²⁵For these residences, see my 2008 slides 12984 (214 South Burns Avenue), 12985 (72 Fitch Avenue), 12877 (32 French Avenue), and 12876 and 12878 (24 French Avenue). It was at the last of these where I occasionally spent a week or so visiting my grandfather, without my parents, while I was in my teens. By the 1950s, three of his daughters and their husbands also lived in Winchester (one of them at 24 French) or in nearby Lexington. My grandfather certainly realized that the Neal family had passed through this part of Kentucky, but of course he had no idea how deep his (and his first wife's) roots in that area were. Stanford Neal, incidentally, lived in Schenectady, New York, another place close to some of my family's history – but not his own. My grandfather, having lived for so long on French Avenue, would have appreciated the fact that Glenn had a healthy percentage of French blood. The circumstances of my grandfather's departure from Main Street Church of Christ evidently were not harmonious, and it is not clear whether he left voluntarily because of opposition to his views or was forced to resign. Return to text

²⁶Many sources say that Mary Ellen was born on July 11 of 1835, but arithmetic produces the date of January 11. Neither date yields the 46 years given in the so-called mortality schedule of Indiana deaths for June 1, 1879, through May 31, 1880, in which she is listed, and so that age is probably incorrect. It should be possible to use the fact that the censuses from 1850 through 1870 were taken as of June 1 in order to determine whether she was born in January or July. Unfortunately, one of them supports January (1860, when she is shown as 25 years old), another July (1850, when she is said to be 14 years old), and the other is wildly off: in 1870 the census says she is 30 years of age. The 1860 census information was recorded in June of that year and the 1850 census information was recorded in August of that year, which may have complicated things. It is my belief that someone misread the numeral 1 for a 7 in some handwritten document that uses a number for the month, in effect turning what had been January into July. Matching the sequence of her parents' children with the ages shown on the 1840 census also supports a birth date in January 1835 for Mary Ellen.

²⁷See slide 07146 (1994), slide 12027 (2006) and the USGS map for Sullivan/Indiana. Return to text

²⁸The age for Thomas Neal is erroneous on the 1860 census: he is said to be 23 years old when he is actually 27. His ages in 1870 (36 years) and 1880 (48 years) are approximately correct. Oddly, there is a Thomas Neal registered for the Civil War draft in mid-1863, but he is listed as living in Vermillion County, Indiana, and as 26 years old when the man we are discussing is 30 years of age. This is likely another man with the same name.

²⁹The 1896 directory for Sullivan County lists Thomas Neal's farm as 197 acres in size. The censuses show the following values for Thomas Neal's real estate and personal property, respectively: $560 and $200 in 1860 and $2,000 and $200 in 1870. In 1900, the census notes that he owns his farm free and clear. The agricultural census for 1860 shows Thomas Neal with 74 acres, 25 of them improved. Cash values were $600 for the farm, $15 for implements, $190 for livestock, $12 for homemade manufacturing, and $28 for slaughtered animals. He owned 2 horses, 2 milch cows, 1 other cattle, 4 sheep, and 20 swine. The previous year, Thomas Neal had produced (presumably for sale, not home use) 15 bushels of wheat, 250 bushels of Indian corn, 6 pounds of wool, 12 bushels of Irish potatoes, 50 pounds of butter, and 2 tons of hay.

³⁰Section 12 is in Township 7 North, Range 9 West. Section 7 is in Township 7 North, Range 8 West. Return to text

³¹These properties mentioned in this paragraph were, in chronological order, as follows: the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 7, Township 7 North, Range 8 West (40 acres); the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 12, Township 7 North, Range 9 West (40 acres); the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 7, Township 7 North, Range 8 West (44.59 acres); the northwest corner of the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 7, Township 7 North, Range 8 West (four lots); the east quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 12, Township 7 North, Range 9 West (40 acres); the southeast and southwest quarters of the southeast quarter of Section 3, Township 7 North, Range 8 West (80 acres) and the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 10, Township 7 North, Range 8 West (40 acres); part of the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 12, Township 7 North, Range 9 West (11 acres); and the east half of the northeast quarter of Section 17, Township 7 North, Range 8 West (80 acres). In addition, Thomas Neal evidently purchased lots 62 and 63 in Dugger on November 29, 1892. The total was approximately 380 acres. A sampling of 2006 views of Thomas Neal's properties in Sections 12 and 7 can be seen, respectively, in slides 11998 through 12000 and 12001 through 12004. Return to text

³²Born in Ohio to Alexander Dunbar and Susannah {Wellington} Dunbar, she lived from January 18, 1847, to March 18, 1920. She died in Cass Township of Sullivan County, Indiana, and is buried in the Neal-Paxton Cemetery. The 1880 census confirms that Thomas Neal was a widower that year. The marriage in 1881 was performed by Elder John Willington. Return to text

³³See slide 07145, taken in 1994, and slides 12024-26 and 12035, taken in 2006. Thomas Neal actually has two stones, an original and a later one presumably erected after the death of his second wife in 1920. The latter stone erroneously gives his year of death as 1904.

³⁴The Neal family evidently attended church services at the Deckard school. The congregation there later developed into a church that took the name Berea, which was suggested by Charles M. Neal's stepmother. He remained a member of this congregation all through his life. Return to text

³⁵The name Shake may be an Americanization of the German name Schacke, although possibilities ranging from Schaick to Schiek are also possibilities. Most of the evidence indicates that the Shake family was from Germany, although one of the children of the first Shake we know for certain, David's father Christopher, stated that his father was born in the Netherlands. The best guess is that the Shakes, like so many other Germans in this account, originally came from southern Germany and made the same trip down the Rhine and through Rotterdam that the others we have examined did.

³⁶This given name is sometimes spelled Artimieia, Artimesia, or Artimecia, but because her name is written as Artemisia on her grave marker in Snyder Cemetery in Haddon Township of Sullivan County, Indiana, that is the spelling I have used throughout the narrative. See the USGS map for Sullivan/Indiana for the location of this cemetery.

³⁷The Shake family history mentioned in the text says that David died on September 6, 1872. David Shake's ages as reported by some of the later censuses do not clarify this discrepancy (indeed, they compound it): he is said to be 53 years old in 1850 and 72 years old in 1870. Only in 1860 is he described as what we think is the correct age, 60 years old. For David Shake's headstone in Snyder Cemetery, see slides 12010 and 12013, taken in 2006.

³⁸Her age in 1860 is difficult to read but is almost certainly 52. None of the information contributed to the LDS states her birth date. For views of Artemisia's headstone in Snyder Cemetery, see slides 12011 and 12012, taken in 2006.

³⁹Her birthday in mid-June might account for some of the variations in Artemisia's reported age: depending on when the census taker was in the neighborhood and how strictly he or she applied the official date of June 1, Artemisia might have been recorded as being one age or another. The Shake family history cited in this section gives a different day for her birth as well: February 11. Return to text

⁴⁰David Shake's properties in Owen County were the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 26, Township 12 North, Range 3 West (80 acres) and the west half of the adjoining southwest quarter of Section 25, also in Township 12 North, Range 3 West, for which he paid $100. (The evidence suggests that an agent named Robert M. Wooden made the purchase for the Shakes.) The line between Taylor Township and Harrison Township divided these two 80-acre portions, with the former being in Taylor and the latter in Harrison. See slides 12093 through 12096 (2006) for views of David Shake's properties. A history of Owen County states that David Shake was an early resident of both Taylor Township and Harrison Township. See Appendix II for a description of how public lands were surveyed and sold by the United States government. When David Shake returned to Kentucky after 1827, he must have lived in Oldham County: he is not on the tax rolls for Jefferson County there. Return to text

⁴¹The movements mentioned in the text are confirmed by a Kentucky document dated December 1819 and the 1824 patents, all of which describe David Shake as being "of Jefferson County, Kentucky." He is not listed on the 1820 Indiana census for Owen County, nor in 1830 either, which is consistent with his arrival and departure from Owen County between those years. We know that the couple was living in Sullivan County when they sold their land (both made marks) on August 1, 1832, because the deed was signed in Sullivan County and sent to Owen County, and it is likely that they had been absent from the county for several years. Return to text

⁴²One report says that David Shake lived in the Shaker Prairie section of Knox County when he first came to Indiana. This area is just below the Sullivan County line. There is no record of him here, however, but it is worth noting that his mother-in-law did live in Knox County and perhaps they all lived together for a time on the property she continued to inhabit.

⁴³David's initial patents (received on December 31, 1831) were for the west half of the northeast quarter of Section 36, Township 7 North, Range 9 West and the adjoining east half of the northwest quarter of the same section; this land had cost him and Artemisia $200. David Shake's later purchases were made on January 5, 1837, and July 16, 1839. These were two more parcels of Section 36, each another 40 acres: the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter (patent dated September 1, 1838) and the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter (patent dated May 25, 1841); these later two parcels cost $50 apiece. For a sampling of how these properties appeared in 2006, see slides 12007 through 12009. The other purchases referred to in the text were as follows, in chronological order: the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter and the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 25, Township 7 North, Range 9 West (80 acres); the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18 and the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 19, Township 6 North, Range 8 West (80 acres); a part of Section 19 in Township 6 North, Range 8 West (20 acres); the north half of the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18 (23 acres); and the southwest corner of the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 36, Township 7 North, Range 9 West (21 acres). See the USGS maps for Dugger/Indiana and Sullivan/Indiana. In the partition of David Shake's estate, dated December 3, 1872, his widow Artemisia received the southwest corner of the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 36 (slide 12009); her purchase in 1875 was the southwest corner of the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of that section. In the partition, Mary Ellen {Shake} Neal received 22 acres: the northeast corner of the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 36, Township 7 North, Range 9 West. (See slide 12007.) Artemisia's will, written on February 3, 1873, and proved on July 27, 1878, left her dower in land to her four unmarried daughters, $12 each to the other children, and any remainder to the daughters. Return to text

⁴⁴The 1850 census valued his real estate at $1,500. The agricultural census for 1850 shows David having 250 acres, 150 of them improved. Cash values were $800 for the farm, $80 for implements, $400 for livestock, $60 for homemade manufacturing, and $70 for slaughtered animals. He owned 8 horses, 5 milch cows, 10 other cattle, 28 sheep, and 50 swine. The previous year David Shake had produced 80 bushels of wheat, 600 bushels of Indian corn, 300 bushels of oats, 80 pounds of wool, 60 bushels of Irish potatoes, 300 pounds of butter, 9 tons of hay, 50 pounds of flax, and 2 bushels of flaxseed. The 1860 census valued his real estate at $4,800 and his personal property at $2,000. The agricultural census that year said he now had 350 acres, but still only 150 of them were improved. Cash values were $150 for implements, $726 for livestock, $60 for homemade manufacturing, and $400 for slaughtered animals. He now owned 10 horses, 6 milch cows, 16 other cattle, 35 sheep, and 50 swine. The previous year, David Shake had produced 223 bushels of wheat, 20 bushels of rye, 1,000 bushels of Indian corn, 100 pounds of wool, 2 bushels of peas and beans, 20 bushels of Irish potatoes, 25 bushels of sweet potatoes, $25 worth of orchard products, 150 pounds of butter, and 10 tons of hay. In 1870 David Shake's worth had increased to $6,000 (real estate) and $3,900 (personal property): relatively speaking, he was well off, and he was an economic success despite his inability to read and write. Artemisia could not read and write, either. Return to text

⁴⁵Some Shake family members believe that David was the son of Jacob Shake, a son of Christopher Shake, and Nancy {Donaldson} Shake, but Jacob was born in 1786 and married Nancy in 1806. Return to text

⁴⁶In addition, the 1797-99 account book of a Westmoreland County merchant shows that he purchased nails from this man's mercantile in 1798. A we shall see, Hanover's father had problems with his unusual name, but even Hanover suffered in this respect: on these tax rolls, for instance, he is listed as "Stanover," "Harmover," and "Hammer." Return to text

⁴⁷Other families who were attracted to this little settlement included the forebears of both Herbert Hoover and John J. Pershing. Return to text

⁴⁸See the USGS map for Irwin/Pennsylvania for Millersdale and the surrounding area and slides 10787-88 (taken in 2004) for views of the area where Hanover Davis owned property. The tax rolls for 1773 are actually part of the Bedford County assessment, which states that Hempfield Township would become part of the new Westmoreland County and directs payments to that county. Return to text

⁴⁹It should be noted that two deeds in neighboring Huntingdon (later North Huntingdon) Township mention Hanover Davis's adjoining property, one in 1778 and the other in 1796. It remains possible that Hanover owned property there before he purchased the 300 acres from Hanicle Davis in 1774 and continued to own it for years afterward. I have found no evidence in deeds that Hanover did own property in that township, but both of his known properties – the one near Millersdale and the other near Adamsburg – are not far from the boundary line separating Hempfield and Huntingdon (or North Huntingdon) Townships, and this might be the explanation for the apparent mystery. Return to text

⁵⁰The exact location of Hanover's patent is south of U.S. 30 near Shady Lane, west of Bucktown Road (T548), about one mile southwest of the location of the Brushy Creek Meeting House. West of Edna No. 1 (a mine), Bucktown Road runs north and south but then makes a 90-degree turn to the east. Hanover's patent was in the area west of the north-south portion of Bucktown Road. The Pennsylvania Turnpike passes through Hanover's land just south of the Irwin exit. See the USGS map for Irwin/Pennsylvania and slides 11651 and 11652 for views of this area in 2005. A deed in 1820 tells us that Hanover's property adjoined the area Pennsylvania granted for the town of Adamsburg. Return to text

⁵¹None of the court records make any reference to the Indian attacks, it should be noted. Return to text

⁵²We should note, though, that some of the county's earliest records were burned with Hanna's Town in 1782. Davis's 20-acre property almost abutted that of the young Albert Gallatin, who would later become Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Return to text

⁵³There is also an "Azariah" Davis who appears from about 1770 through about 1783 in court cases, on juries, and as a mill owner in Ohio County and elsewhere in the area to the south and west of Westmoreland County. Is this in actuality our Hanicle Davis? It is all the more interesting that this man does not seem to be found in the area in other years. A Pennsylvanian of that name did move to Kentucky during the mid-1770s, and it is possible that he left a father or son of the same name behind in Pennsylvania. Return to text

⁵⁴A Nicholas Davis is listed as a "court martial man" in David Marchant's company of the Second Battalion of the Westmoreland County militia in 1778, but we cannot be sure whether this is Hanicle Davis or (probably) his son Nicholas. Christopher Truby's company was also in this battalion. Return to text

⁵⁵There are other men who might be connected to, or progenitors of, the Shake family we are studying: Johannes Shaak in Pennsylvania in 1731; J. Georg and Vincents Schacke, who were 36 and 34 years old, respectively, in 1736; Christiper Shake in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, in 1737; Christiper Shakey in 1737; George Shaky in Pennsylvania in 1736; Vincent Shaky in Philadelphia County in 1736; and Michel, Jacob, and William Shaak or Schack in 1749. Undoubtedly some of the men listed were the same persons, judging from their given names, and others can be identified as someone other than the ancestor of Christopher Shake. (Christiper Shakey was the progenitor of a family that used the name Shockey.) Undoubtedly, too, there were many others whose names were even more garbled, or whose arrival is unknown to us, from whom this family might have come. In addition, some German immigrants arrived at ports other than Philadelphia – Annapolis and Baltimore, for instance. Return to text

⁵⁶A Christian Schreyack who arrived on the Harle in 1736 might have been Georg Schoch's brother, and he might also be the Christian Sheak found in Hempfield Township of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (home of the Davises at the time) in 1783. Return to text

⁵⁸The couple's other two sons were Johann Philipp Schoch and Thomas Schoch. Return to text

⁵⁶Information contributed to the LDS IGI is of little help. The only possible candidate is a Christopher Schuck born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1766. Return to text

⁶⁰Truby had moved to Hempfield County from Northampton County in 1772. Return to text

⁶¹Perhaps it is noteworthy that a Georg and Eva Scheck had a daughter baptized in Hempfield Township of Westmoreland County Pennsylvania, in March 1778. This man might have been a brother to Christoph. Another brother might have been Ludwig Schack, whose daughter was baptized there in 1775. Return to text

⁶²This couple's daughter married in Loudoun County in 1790, but it is not clear whether the parents were present at that time. A Benjamin Shake was also living in Loudoun County as early as 1777. Return to text

⁶³A George Shake was born in Maryland in 1760, but the evidence indicates that he remained in Maryland. This man may be the George Shakes who served from Kent County in the Maryland militia (Fifth Company, Thirteenth Battalion) during the American Revolution. There are indications this man remained in Maryland. Given his age in 1774, he is unlikely to be the George Shake who was a prisoner in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in 1774, when he petitioned the General Assembly of Maryland for relief – probably from debt. Nor is he likely to be the George Shakely who served in the militia during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774, as he would have again been too young that year. Shakely was on the lists of Major John Connolly and Captain George Astor. A lieutenant in this unit was the notorious Simon Girty, whom we will meet again later on. Return to text

⁶⁴Neither Shake is included in lists of the militia who fought for Clark from 1778 to 1784, but those recruited in 1786 were a different group than the former militia. Christian Shade was a private in the First U.S. Regiment (Harmar) in 1785 to 1790. Sergeant Shake served under Captain Robert Floyd and Lieutenant Colonel John Adair in Major General Charles Scott's command. He was mustered on September 23, 1793, and served until November 11 of that year. Shake saw service at Fort Washington (now Cincinnati), marched north with Wayne's forces, and helped to build Fort Greenville in what is now Ohio. Return to text

⁶⁵See the USGS map for Fisherville/Kentucky for Shake's Run. Shake's Run is just north of Floyd's Fork. For views of this area in 2008, see slides 12917-20.

⁶⁶In 1789 Christopher owned one horse and George Shake owned three. Four years later both father and son were doing better: George had two horses and thirteen cattle and Christopher had four houses and nineteen cattle. Christopher was on Francis Ransdale Slaughter's tax list (taken in mid-1789), which covered the area west of Floyd's Fork up to the main road to Louisville. Shake's Run is just north of Floyd's Fork. Men of several families related to the Shakes are also on Slaughter's list. The Jeffersontown property is now at 10320 Watterson Trail. Return to text

⁶⁷As a George, Sr., it is also possible that he could have had an adult son (perhaps a George, Jr.?) by 1786 who was also a soldier. Return to text

⁶⁸Nor, unfortunately, is there a Shake shown on the 1784 land ownership atlas for Jefferson County, Kentucky.

⁶⁹Christopher Shake wrote his will on November 8, 1802. He left all his land to his wife, Elizabeth, but it would appear she gave at least some of it to David (perhaps when she remarried), for in 1824 or 1828 he is said to have sold property he inherited from his father. Christopher asked that each of his minor children, a group that would include David, receive a horse. It is intriguing to see that there is a Michael Shaag in Fayette County, Kentucky, at about this time. Could the name Shake have derived from Shaag, or is that a misspelling of Shake? Return to text

⁷⁰He is listed as "Bowyer Philip," a simple transpositional error by the clerk because Philip Boyers is listed (under various spellings) in Kentucky from 1790 through 1820. The 1820 census shows Boyers owning a female slave between 20 and 45 years of age.

⁷¹The only Shake in Kentucky in 1810 is a William Shake in Casey County. He has two males under 10 years old and two more between 10 and 16 years of age. It is possible that one of them is David, but Casey County is a long distance from where we would expect David to be living. Alternatively, David might be living with a member of his father or mother's family who has already moved to Indiana, for which there is no census in 1810. I think it most likely, however, that he is living with his mother and her second husband, Philip Boyer. Return to text

⁷²As we have noted, David is not living in Owen County, Indiana, (the county where he would patent land in 1824) in 1820.

⁷⁵In fact, there are only males in this household, which suggests that it is a working farm that does not yet house any families. A Jacob Shake of Jefferson County, Kentucky, also has an extra male but he is too old to be David.

⁷⁴The fact that Christopher Shake's surviving children sold his tract of 4,000 acres on the south side of Harrod's Creek on December 30, 1819, could suggest that their mother had recently died, but to me the interpretation in the text seems more plausible. Return to text

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