George Graham "G. G." Kuykendall

Notes:

Linda Kuykendall, whose grandfather Aaron Egbert Kuykendall was a first cousin of George Graham wrote that:

"George Graham or G.G. as we called him was a small man, sometimes referred to as sickly. After Alfred's first wife died he wed Susan Britton Stinnett the widow with a child of Dabney K. Stinnett and his son Elvis Stinnett.

G.G. and Elvis became close When Elvis died of such a simple accident with a dog (fractured skull) G.G. began carrying a small gun when going into town and elimating loose dogs on the streets as told to me by my father. This can be backed up by the fines he paid off at the courthouse. He also had a habit of carrying quite a bit of money which I think probably also had something to do with the gun also since Elvis was gone.

After church G.G. would invite the different Kuykendall's to his house for dinner and would always enjoy the children. Dad said he would carve fish lures and give them to the boys for fishing.

In later years Dad's Aunt and Uncle were hired to stayed with him she taking care of the house and he taking care of the farm work."

A photo of his grave marker, on his FindAGrave memorial page created by Carmian, show that along with his name and years of birth and death, the marker was further engraved "In Memory of George G. Kuykendall who donated this ground for the original cemetery on or berfore the recorded date of 1/27/1891 and the first addition recorded date of 4/17/1911."

Notes:

After his parents died, Alfred headed up the family, as can be seen from the 1850 census, in which three of his younger siblings lived with he and his wife.

This is confirmed in "...a matter of history..." Old Times, Old People and Old Buildings: Newspaper Accounts of Nineteenth Century Life in Carmi and White County, Illinois (The White County Historical Society, P.O. Box 121, Carmi, Illinois 62821: 1996). In an article reprinted from the White County Democrat Centennial Edition published on July 30, 1914 by William D. Hay, it is noted that "Alfred Kuykendall succeeded his father, Noah, and married a Miss Graham, daughter of George Graham, the cooper. To Alfred and his wife were born several children, none of whom grew to man or womanhood except George G., and I do not see much prospects of the family going any further, though you cannot tell---there is always room for hope.

Mr. Kuykendall's home being the largest in the settlement was for many years the meeting place for all gatherings. Religious services were held there, and many of the more or less and some of powerful preachers held their hearers in fear and trembling while they explained the love and teachings of the Lowely Nazarene. Not forgetting to tell something of the other fellow, hence the fear and trembling. All of Alfred's children were born in the three-story log house described above and he continued to occupy it until 1862. He then moved into his new frame home where he spent his last days, rounding out a long, useful and blameless life."

(Research):

Census Listings:

1850 Census
Illinois, White County, District 13
Enumerated 26 Aug 1850
107-107
Alfred Kuykendall 32 M Farmer 200 Ill
Clarissa " 27 F Ill
George G " 5 N Ill
Samuel " 22 N Farmer 50 Ill
Mary " 19 F 10 Ill
Franklin " 15 M Farmer 100 Ill

1860 Census
Illinois, White County, Town 5 S Range 10E
Enumerated 23 Aug 1860
P O Carmi
1498-1498
A Kuykendall 42 M Farmer 3000 3000 Ill
Susan Kuykendall 34 F Kentucky
Elvis " (sic) 17 M Kentucky
George " 15 N Ill
Lewisa " 9 F Ill

Alfred married Clarissa Graham on 12 Nov 1843 in White County, Illinois. Clarissa was born in Apr 1822 in Illinois; died on 26 Dec 1853; was buried in Kuykendall Cemetery, Carmi, White County, Illinois. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Charter members of the First Presbyterian Church of Carmi, founded 25 November 1827, included Richard Graham, Sarah Graham...(relationship unknown). CARMI TIMES SESQUICENTENNIAL EDITION 8 Feb 1966

Notes:

In ' "...a matter of history..." Old Times, Old People and Old Buildings: Newspaper Accounts of Nineteenth Century Life in Carmi and White County, Illinois' (The White County Historical Society, P.O. Box 121, Carmi, Illinois 62821: 1996). An article was reprinted from the White County Democrat Centennial Edition, published on July 30, 1914 by William D. Hay, it was noted that "Noah Kuykendall....had not inherited his father's love for moving and hunting a new and unsettled country, selected a location in the north edge of the Prarie and in 1809 built a log cabin about one hundred yards west of the present home of George G. Kuykendall, his grandson. He married and brought to his cabin home a Miss Jones, sister of Dan and John, prominent men in their day. The only descendant of the Jones family now living in the county so far as I know is our fellow townsman, John R.

In that cabin, one of the first to be built in that section or in the county, Alfred Kuykendall and other members of Noah's family were born. About 1825, Mr. Kuykendall built on the site of his little cabin a three-story log house. A large roomy, and for that day, an extra fine residence. Built of nicely hewn logs. Some of the logs of that house are still in use, being a part of the barn near where the the old house stood. They are still sound and you can scarely see an ax mark. This shows that the man who got out the logs for that house could hew the line. And that was considered quite an accomplishment at that day...I do not want to leave Mr. Kuykendall's home without saying more about the three story log house. The finishing lumber was all sawed with a whip saw. That is, a log was gotten into a scaffold, after being squared, high enough for one man to stand under it. Another man stood on top of the timber and with a whip saw (a kind of a rip saw made for the purpose) sawed it into the lumber faster than we would suppose. Though I have been told that making lumber that way was at least a first cousin to work. After the lumber came from the saw, it was planed, and the flooring tongue and grooved all by hand."

There is a Noah Kuykendall indexed in the 1818 White County, Illinois census.

1820 State: Illinois County: White
Page No: 189 Reel No: M33-11
Division: Prairie Township
Enumerated by: Jesse C. Lockwood
Enumerated on: November 22, 1820
Transcribed by John C. Jacoby and Proofread by Cindy Birk Conley for USGenWeb.
Copyright: 2001 Page 189
15
Kirkindall, Noah 3-0-0-0-1,2-0-0-1-0

1830 Census, White County, Illinois p 11 Noah Kuykendall 2-1-2-1-0-0-1;0-1-2-0-0-1-0


1840 Census, White County, Illinois, p 285 Noah Kuykendall 0-3-2-2-1-0-0-1; 0-2-0-0-2

Abraham Lincoln came to Carmi on September 1, 1840 in a political rally as part of his campaign for William Henry Harrison for President. Despite the rain, the rally was a great success. Lincoln stood before the huge throng and spoke for more than an hour. That night he lodged at the Ratliff Inn, where he visited with his many friends. Noah, age 53, and his family may well have been at the rally. (Source: Carmi Illinois 1816-1966 Sesquicentennial: Carmi Sesquicentennial Commission, Inc.).

Noah married Elizabeth "Betsy" Jones about 1814. Elizabeth was born about 1798; died after 1834. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:
In the book by Kuykendall, George Benson "History of The Kuykendall Family Since Its Settlement in Dutch New York in 1646 With Genealogy,etc" (Portland, OR, 1919), E. G. Kuykendall cites eight sons of Noah Kuykendall: Henry, Peter, Alfred, Daniel, Samuel, James, Franklin, and Aaron (p 240). John Kuykendall cites Noah with only six sons, Alfred, Daniel, Peter, Samuel, Frank and Henry (p 241). (Note: Neither list a son John (1822-1842), shown by Velma Winn).

The daughters of the family are based on census and marriage records, and the list prepared by Velma Winn.

Keith McGuire lists one additional daughter, that I was unable to find on either census or marriage records of the county, Jane born ca 1832 who married a William Randolph. He could be confusing her with daughter Louisa, who married Andrew Rudolph.

Notes:

George Benson Kuykendall, author of HISTORY OF THE KUYKENDALL FAMILY SINCE ITS SETTLEMENT IN DUTCH NEW YORK IN 1646, featured a section in his book featuring some of those Kuykendall's whose membership is quite large and widely scattered over the country, but who had not yet been able to trace their lineage back to earlier Kuykendall families. He listed Peter Kuykendall in this section at the time of the books publication in 1919.

The HISTORY OF THE KUYKENDALL FAMILY quotes E.G. Kuykendall, a veterinarian of Carmi, Illinois, "My great grandfather, Peter, came to this county from near Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1807 or 1808. He came to Kentucky from farther east, supposedly Virginia. He stayed here a few years and went to Northern Missouri. His two sons, James and Noah, stayed here, and later James moved to Southeast Indiana, where some of his descendants still live, one or two in New Harmony."

In the winter of 1912-1913, George Benson Kuykendall received a letter from an old veteran of the Union Army, John Kuykendall, at the Soldier's Home, Los Angeles, California "There were two Kuykendalls settled in White county, Illinois, in an early day; there names were Noah and Peter. Peter was my grandfather; my father's name was James."

In the book, the author notes that "There are a lot of Kuykendalls whose ancestors came into White county, Illinois, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and since then have scattered...Carmi, the county seat of White county, is yet the location of a considerable sized settlement of Kuykendalls. These people with all their known relatives have been classified by me as the "Carmi Branch." By consulting a map of the country surrounding Carmi, in the White county, White river regions, it will be seen that Carmi is only about ten miles from the Wabash river, and that the White river empties into the Wabash only about twenty miles distant by straight line. The Ohio is the line between Kentucky and Indiana, and between the lower part of Illinois and Kentucky. In early times it was very common for the emigrants from Kentucky to go down the Ohio in barges or pirogues and to land at such points as suited their destination. It appears very likely that a good many of these Kuykendalls ....took the water lines of travel...(being) much more convenient to travel this way, after the Indians had been subdued by Wayne and Harrison. It was easier to float down the rivers than to go through the vast forests of Kentucky and Indiana."

This theory is confirmed in "...a matter of history..." Old Times, Old People and Old Buildings: Newspaper Accounts of Nineteenth Century Life in Carmi and White County, Illinois (The White County Historical Society, P.O. Box 121, Carmi, Illinois 62821: 1996), an article reprinted from the White County Democrat Centennial Edition published on July 30, 1914 by William D. Hay: " It has been stated that the first name to become of record in the new county of White was Kuykendall. That being true, a few lines regarding him and his family will likely be of interest. James (sic) Kuykendall came from Tennessee in the winter of 1807, crossing the Ohio river at Shawneetown. There he camped to rest himself and family and take a look around. It appears that he tarried too long, for before he was aware of it, he was water bound. The river had backed up and he found himself on an island with no way of getting off. He had more than the usual amount of stock for a mover at that time, and he lost the greater part of it getting it out of the backwater. After getting to dry land with his family and such of his stock and household goods as he was able to save from the water, he felt he had all of Shawneetown that he wanted. So he came to Big Prarie and settled near where Georgia school house now stands. There he raised one if not two crops of sod corn. Enough of it to be able to loan a load to Robert Land when he came in the fall of 1809. So far as I can learn James (sic) Kuykendall made no effort to enter land and about 1820, maybe before, he complained that the country was getting too thickly settled to suit him, so he moved on. Going to northeast Missouri and settled near Chillicothe, where he died. Noah Kuykendall, a son of James, who had not inheritied his father's love for moving and hunting a new and unsettled country, selected a location in the north edge of the Prarie and in 1809 built a log cabin about one hundred yards west of the present home of George G. Kuykendall, his grandson. He married and brought to his cabin home a Miss Jones, sister of Dan and John, prominent men in their day. The only descendant of the Jones family now living in the county so far as I know is our fellow townsman, John R.

The Carmi Illinois 1816-1966 Sesquicentennial booklet also mentions the earliest settlers of Carmi: first the trappers and hunters, seeking fur and game. Then the land-lookers, wanting to settle. Daniel Bain, a Revolutionary War soldier from Virginia, pushed into this area in 1806. He sired 18 children; was step-father of six more. Others built on the Big Prarie---Peter Kuykendall in 1808; Robert Land, Thomas Miller, Henry Jones, James Garrison, Thomas Gray and the Rev. Daniel McHenry in 1809.

The year 1811 was one of trouble and terror. Indians were killing and scalping. Tecumseh was trying to unite all tribes for war. "This is our land," he told General William Henry Harrison at Vincennes.

Then came that terrifying December 16. It was 2 a.m. Monday. Settlers slept. Suddenly the earth shook. Cabins shuddered. Logs creaked. Cradles rocked. Chimneys cracked. Bells rang. Clocks stopped. Dishes crashed. Cattle bawled. Dogs howled. Horses panicked. People fled their cabins; huddled in the cold. Parents prayed. Children cried. The ground rolled up in waves. Trees blew up, cracked, split, fell by the thousands. When earth waves hit the tall timber, forest giants weaved their tops together, interlocked their branches, sprang back and cracked like whip lashes. The earth rumbled, roared, split open, raised in some places, sank in others. On the prairie, snow white sand shot up like geysers. Along the Wabash and little Wabash Rivers banks caved in. Trees toppled into the water. Mrs. Edward McCallister hurried her children into a dugout canoe, pushed it into the Wabash River. Violent waves forced her to struggle back to the heaving land.

The earth shook all night and the following day. Tremors continued for three months, with massive shocks January 23 and February 7. The praying pioneers didn't know it, but they had experienced the heaviest earthquake ever to shake the American continent. It shook 1,000,000 square miles.

The following biography, not entirely accurate, was published in the "HISTORY OF NEW LEBANON, COOPER COUNTY, MO":

Peter Kuykendall went from KY to IL at an early date; he was dealing in land there at least in 1814-15. By his first wife (name unknown) he had the following children: Benjamin (R AR Terr.); Catherine (married Mar. 8, 1818 Howard Co., MO Benjamin Mathews) (R AR Terr.); Sarah (R AR Terr.); Moses (R Howard Co, MO); Hannah (married a Gage, R Howard Co, MO); Jesse (R IL); Polly (married a Taylor, R IL); and Noah Kuykendall (R IL); the geographic placements are as of 1826. While in Illinois, Peter Kuykendall married his second wife, Ruth Wyatt, and had seven more children: Wyatt, b Sept 28, 1810 IL; William Grant b Nov. 18, 1811 IL d 27 July 1892 buried Otterville, MO; Josiah A. b Feb 19, 1815 d Jan. 20, 1853, buried Brush Creek Cemetery, Williamson Co, TX; Peter b ca 1817 d before 1846; Mary d 1892; Narcissa; and Janette Kuykendall (married William Adams).

Wyatt, Josiah, and William Grant all entered land inthe 1830's northwest of Otterville Isee DVKM). Ruth (Wyatt) Kuykendall and her sons, Peter and Josiah entered land northwest of Otterville (see DVKM). Just when Peter Sr. and Ruth Kuykendall moved to Cooper County, Missouri from IL is not known, but Peter died there in Dec. 1826. Ruth died in 1858 and is buried in Llano County, Texas. **Taken from the probate papers for the Estate of Peter Kuykendall. R=resides

In Gifford White's unpublished paper titled "William and Mary Kuykendall Perry of Llano County, TX", he quotes Lania and Mattie Perry as saying "Mary Kuykendall Perry said that her father was in the Revolution, and was an old man when he married Ruth Wyatt, with a first family. She said he died of TB because of exposure in the war...the Kuykendall family lived near Boonville in MO because they used to hitch up and go into town."

There were 17 KNOWN living children of the two marriages of Peter Kuykendall at the time his estate was probated.

Peter married Unknown Wife Of Peter Kuykendall before 1780. Unknown was born after 1748; died before 1810. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]