Never know where a search may lead. Trying to trace some names found this when I was looking for Presbyterian ministers. I've lost so much on FTM I was really tickled to find this one. Some how I know he will be related to my GM - Nettie Lee Milligan Montgomery.  Her line thought every John should have a father, brother and son named John. LOL Marsha John Milligan was ordained by Arkansas Presbytery in 1830. "About the year 1818 John Milligan, a young beardless boy, about 18 years old, wandered west from Wheeling, Virginia, and took up in the Valley of White River. He had been brought up to the tanner's trade and was a fair English scholar. He stopped in Lawrence County and married Eda Ragsdell, a young lady of the Jeffery family. Young Milligan started drinking and the young couple were soon disagreeing and they parted. He acted badly and strolled away, but after sometime he took sick high up on White River and almost died. As soon as he could travel he started back to the "girl he left behind him." He got as far as Jehoida Jeffery's on White River and tried to borrow a horse to go home on. He received a severe rebuke for his conduct, but failed to get a horse. So Milligan started on foot, sick and blinded with tears. He was scorched with fever so he lay down by the side of a dim path, at the head of what is known as the Two-mile branch, in a thick cedar brake to die. In this forlorn condition he made vows to his God, which we have heard him assert in his old days he never allowed himself to depart from. He went back to his wife, set him up a tan yard, and went to work. He joined the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and went to preaching. In his old age, he was a rich man, with a large household and one of the ablest ministers in White River Valley. The late rebellion found him a very old man, his wife and one half grown boy at home, and a host of grown sons out battling for their country under Dixie's flag. Early in the year 1864, while the demon's hell seemed to reign in great triumph all over this country, this old man and woman and their boy sat round their winter fire at night, when four young men abruptly thrust themselves into the room with cocked pistols presented in his face. Showing no alarm at all, the old man remonstrated with such logic that they turned from him to the boy, threw a skillet in the fire; as soon as it was red hot they stripped the boy's feet and swore they would burn them off to the knees if he didn't show the money. The old man bore it until he saw his boy's feet almost in the sparkling vessel and heard his screams, when he told them to hold. He then took a light and showed them where to dig in a stable. They dug up a vessel of gold and silver money. The old man asked them what kind of an excuse they would render at the bar of God when they got there. They snatched the bucket, blew out the light, and ran away in the dark. The old man died soon after, believing he recognized the four of the robbers, and communicated his belief to his friends. John Milligan has served as member of the Legislature from his county. He was an exemplary citizen and his life teaches the great impropriety of wholly discarding youth, although they be in error. [Source: Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Early Settlement of the Valley of White River Together with a History of Izard County.. Reprint of A Series of Newspaper Accounts of the People and the Times in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas from 1800-1877 by A. C. Jeffery. Edited by Dale Hanks. The Jeffery Historical Society. Richmond, Virginia. April, 1973, pages 36-37]