This is one of the koolest post in a while! "Anky Jane" has been mentioned numerous  times on the list. >From what I read now - "Anky" seems to mean "daughter of father" in Blackfoot Indian dialect.  I knew there was a general rule with Indian genealogy, children usually took mother's surname. If every tribe has different rules, sure makes things complicated. =  =  = Pregnant Indian women - keep an ax under the bed. Customs like this fascinating.  So often there is practical rationale in these customs. Also, wonder if this is something Indian witches do or all Blackfoot Indian ladies do. =  =  = Don't expect to ever attach a tribe to my GGP. But, if I do - - - I would really rather learn that language than Spanish. Marsha Getting kinda chilly!  Anybody build a fire last night? I was kicking around in the yard late last night and couldn't smell a single fireplace. --- On Fri, 10/29/10, gc-gateway@rootsweb.com <gc-gateway@rootsweb.com> wrote: From: gc-gateway@rootsweb.com <gc-gateway@rootsweb.com> Subject: [ARIZARD] Lots of Info on Blankenship and Goodrich To: ARIZARD-L@rootsweb.com Date: Friday, October 29, 2010, 1:30 PM This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: johnbey2177 Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.arkansas.counties.izard/3288/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Collection of previous posts and new findings regarding the Blankenship's and Goodrich's of Izard County.  If you have info to share...PLEASE Email kathybusbey@gmail.com Previous Posts Source:  Ancestry.Com/Posted by Mike Walker/19 November 2006 Sarah Goodrich Blankenship killed Elijah Blankenship with an Ax near what is now Brockwell in the 1880s.  The murder occurred at their home near the spectacular Blankenship Rocks . These rocks would be a major tourist attraction if they were discovered by someone who can do something about it. Blanchard Springs Caverns barely holds a light to their magnificence. Anyway, these rocks are located just off Hwy 56 west of Brockwell across the highway and field from the Kate Clark house just about 1/2 mile or more from the intersection at Brockwell. They are so high and huge that is hard to behold with the naked eye. They are now located on land owned by Jerry Blankenship. I do not know why they were named Blankenship Rocks unless this is the very area in which Elijah and Sarah Jane Blankenship and their five small children lived. They lived very near them on the Pine Ridge Road, we believe, at what is now the Velma Everett Maxwell place. The house the murder took place in was mov! ed in 1972 to a location north of Walker Store in Brockwell. I remember as a 5 year old in 1972 watching the house cross the bridge and being placed on its new foundation just north of the store. At the time, it was a very old looking house with shingle siding and no front porch, etc. Hubert and Grace Owens McDonald who owned the house and land where this murder happened moved the house because Grace was supposedly afraid to stay back there in the country after they had retired from their many trips to Washington State. After being moved, Hubert and Grace remodeled the house completely adding on to the front of the house and making a new front porch. They put nice new white siding all around the house. It looks nothing now like it did when it was first moved 35 years ago. But I will almost promise on a Bible that this is the very house the murder took place in. What I am getting at is that Elijah Blankenship, who was known to drink heavily, and spend all of his money on boo! ze instead of clothing for his five children for school and for food f or the family, etc. He was also cruel in that he was always threatening to kill his wife Sarah Jane and as punishment instead of whipping his children as was common, he would make them place their hands on the hot wood stove. Sarah Jane, after he came home one last time drunk saying that when he woke up one of them was going to die, had all she could take, for her sake and her kids' sake. During the night, and I have heard different stories on this part, she supposedly sewed a sheet around his body so he couldn't move when he awoke. She then took a chopping ax and struck him I don't know how many times, but primarily in the juggular vein in his neck. She took the children and hid. He was coherent enough to get up and if he was in a sheet, he was strong enough to get out of it. He managed to get on his horse or mule and get to the end of the lane where he fell off the horse and bled to death. Some say he was going to a doctor, and others say he was going after Sarah Jane and ! the kids. Nevertheless, Sarah Jane was cleared of the murder charges in court at Melbourne, and there is no record since the courthouse burned in 1889. During the preliminary hearing phase of the case to see if there is enough evidence for a trial, the judge after listening to all the testimony, threw out the case saying, "She should've chopped the old devil's head off a long time ago." Anyway, there was nothing any longer for the Goodrich family who had been here since the 1830s over 50 years to fear. They did not have the aw to fear. They were exonerated. They owned all the land around Brockwell well over 200 acres and had all these years. Yet everyone of them, grown family members and all took off and left for Texas abandoning this land. They were deeply scared and scared of something. Oliver Goodrich, whose whole family of 25 graves is in the Goodrich Cemetery just by the highway across from ICC School with no markers at present since they were bulldozed up by a farmer,!   was born in 1803 in Hartford, Connecticut. He moved here to Brockwell in the 1820s or 1830s, the first family in these parts. The Blankenships were next, and their cemetery is across the creek from the Goodrich Cemetery, where Elijah is buried. Also, Elijah's sister Ankey Jane Blanekenship Melton, a practicing Indian witch and his mother, Jane Moorehead Blankenship b. 1810 also one, are buried there, as well as his father Elisha Blankenship, his maternal grandparents, the Mooreheads born in the 1760s and probably 30 or 40 other family members. Judge Cap Hanley, Sr. dismissed murder case at preliminary hearing. Source:  Ancestry.Com/Posted by Mike Walker/7 August 2006 I have just been waiting for the opportunity. The Goodrich family, with Oliver B. Goodrich as patriarch, born 1804 in Connecticut, settled in some states before settling for good at what is now Brockwell on the traditional homestead site of 160 acres where the whole town of Brockwell is now located. We have not determined the exact location of their house, but it can't be far from the cemetery with the 25 graves. This cemetery is beside Highway 9 north of the store and almost across from the ballfield at the corner of the Simmons property. When the cemetery was doused, instead of 13 graves there were 25 and two were located between the fence and highway and two were located across the fence in Mrs. Thelma Montgomery's field. They have graciously allowed us to preserve the cemetery with markers, a fence, and a sign. As I have said, I remember counting 13 as a child. They were all cotton rocks from Knob Creek that flows through Brockwell. Only one was marked that I could read and said the name Mary or Martha, loving wife and mother, 1843, assuming this to be the date of her death. In the 1840 Census she is listed as his wife, and she had a 4 year old daughter at the time of her death named Sarah Jane called Jane. There were several other children all born in Arkansas making Brockwell their home as early as the early 1830s. Anyway, all of the remaining graves were destroyed by a bulldozer for farming purposes. We did retain the one marked grave, but it has mysteriously disappeared in the last year or so. Another early family besides many others such as the Simmons family, was the Blankenship family. They have a family cemetery located across the creek from the Goodrich Cemetery. You follow the fence between the Simmons property and Thelma Montgomery's property across the creek, and you will come to a clear field with a plum thicket. Then there is a thick growth of trees that makes it so dark and eery in broad daylight. Many graves cannot be seen because they have been covered up so long by rotten leaves or just flooded away. The last known person buried there was Ankey Jane Blankenship Melton 1850 - 1934. Her parents, Elijah Blankenship and Jane Moorehead Blankenship born 1810 and died between 1886 and 1900 when the big Blankenship house on the hill where the old barn stood for so many years across the highway burned to the ground. Nix Melton was Ankey Jane's son and had a house just south of this barn that replaced the old house. I have been in the barn and saw the old cistern where the old house used to be. Nix's house was modernized and did not burn until 1979. I remember seeing it burn. After his death around 1968 or 1970, many tenants lived in the house up until the fire. It was a nice house. Cal and Ankey, his parents lived in a house directly across the highway from Max and Kay Williams - a fine house when they lived there. Then it decayed as it got older, and I have relatives that lived in it: the Olen and Omah Burns Taylor family. I am not sure if Elijah Blankenship, Ankey's father' parents came with them and are buried also in the cemetery, but Ankey's mother's parents, the Mooreheads born in the 1760s are buried there. They were all full blood Indian and practiced their special whatever with these witch balls, as they were called, and made from different animal hairs. I know for a fact of their existence as Mrs. Ethel Kent Brockwell, postmaster of Brockwell for 43 years, would never tell a lie, and she told me that her husband, Thomas Brockwell, was rummaging through the attic of the old Nix Melton house before it burned and after his death, and found these very witch balls so they existed as fact, not as tales, but as fact, and not as fiction. How they worked, only they knew. I don't have a clue. But they did exist, and they used them to scare people.  Anyway, Ankey Jane had a brother among many other siblings named Elijah Blankenship born 1848. He married Sarah Jane Goodrich, daughter of Oliver B. Goodrich by the first of his three wives by which he had children. Elijah was about 8 or 9 years younger than Sarah Jane, and many have speculated that she most likely had a previous marriage, but if a child was produced by that union, the child is not listed in the 1870 or 1880 census with them. Elijah and Sarah Jane had five children together, and I have actually corresponded with some of their descendants. I mentioned in an earlier post about the magnificent Blankenship Rocks located across the highway 56 from the late Kate Clark's house. Anyway, very clse to here is also the home now of Velma Everett Maxwell on the Pine Ridge Road just before it hits Hwy. 56. Elijah and Sarah Jane and their five children lived on this property. Previously during practically all of their married life, Hubert and Grace Owens McDonald also lived here before Velma. They made many trips to Washington State year after year to work in the hps and whatever else and would come home to their house at Brockwell for the winter. In 1972, when they both turned 65, they retired as they began drawing their social security. I remember standing in front of the store as a 5 year old and watching this very old house being moved across the bridge, and they moved it to its present location, the house just north of the store. It looks nothing now like it did when they moved it. They remodeled it considerably - Hubert and Grace. I remember when it had shingle siding, and it was just ancient. They put new siding all around with a new porch and really made it look nice. They lived their final years here Hubert dying in 1977 and Grace in 1990. I recently saw the indention of where it used to stand on the Maxwell property. I believe it was this house or one just before it where the ax murder happened.  Elijah was abusive toward his wife and children. He hid money under rocks from them, would not buy them the bare necessities for even clothes for school, food, etc. He would beat both his wife and children. He was always coming home in a drunken stupor threatening to kill his wife, Jane. One night, he did that in his stupor and told her that when he woke up one of them would die. She waited until he was sound asleep where he had placed a knitting needle under his pillow to stab her through the heart. This was later found. Anyway, she had all she could take, and this one night sometime after the 1880 Census, she took a chopping ax and struck him in the juggular vein and I have also heard several other whacks, but the juggular vein was the worst injury. She took her 5 kids and hid. He got up, got on his horse or mule and made it to the end of the lane and fell off and bled to death. Some have said he was either going to a doctor or to look for her. There was a court hearing or preliminary hearing where the judge hears all of the evidence to determine if there is enough evidence for a trial. His name was believed to be Judge Cap Hanley, Sr. He told her, "You should've chopped the old devil's head off a long time ago." He dismissed the case against her. Well, it was after this occurrence that every member of the Goodrich family left their farm and moved to Texas possibly some other places. Oliver died in Texas in 1893, I found out from a descendant, and she wondered why he, a landowner in Arkansas, that many years, 60 years, would just take off and leave with all of his family never to return. I don't understand it, either, because Jane was exonerated in court and had nothing to worry about. All I can think of is fear or retaliation by Ankey, her mother, and the menfolk. I have no idea, but there had to be a great fear of something for them to leave. Dad has mentioned that numerous times people from Texas would stop by the store inquiring about the cemetery. He didn't know anything about such things and would usually send them up to the Simmons family. That was before my time, I guess. Well, that is the story, and that is the reason I want to find as much proof as possible since it is public record. Source:  Ancestry.Com/Posted by Robert W. King Ozarker's had many superstitions about pregnancy and child birth.  Almost all would put an axe under the bed of the expectant Mother. New Findings: Source: From an early Melbourne newspaper 12 August 1877 NOTICE Is hereby given, that my wife, Sarah J. Blankenship, has left me, without a just cause and that I will not be responsible for any debt contract or promise she may make from this date, henceforth, this September 13th, 1877. Signed Elijah Blankenship. This came from a film that may be seen at the library in Calico Rock, AR. Source: My Family Almon Butler Blankenship was the youngest son of Elija Blankenship and Sarah Jane Goodrich Blankenship.  It is very likely that she was pregnant with my grandfather at the time of the murder. My Dad shared that his Grandfather, Almon Butler "Pat" Blankenship,  said that "My people were Blackfoot Indians." Elisha Blankenship's Sister, Mother, and Grandmother; have been listed in records with Ankey or Aunky preceding their given name. In Blackfoot Indian: Woman (Femme) Aakíí (wa)   Aa -Is pronounced like the "a" in father.  K- Is pronounced like the soft "K" in skate.ii- Is pronounced like the "I" in police. Source: exploreizard.blogspot.com Blankenship's Rocks, a huge outcrop of limestone on a hilltop above Knob Creek...a natural playground! There are several deep fissures the visitor can traverse that almost form a maze! Rocks to climb, trails to follow, trees to conquer(possibly even a thong tree!)...no wonder this place has been visited by generations of frolicking Easter Sunday pic-nickers! There is a darker, more tragic history to this place, we have learned. It is said that once, a physically abusive husband, after having been fatally injured by his fed-up wife by way of an ax-blow to the neck, died on these rocks trying desperately to make his way to the closest doctor at Brockwell. Though some believe that this incident is how the rock formation gained its name, it is said by others to have been called by the same name even before this took place. We've recently heard an alternative story to the one offered above. A descendant of the man who supposedly died upon the rocks, Elijah Blankenship, may not have died at all! There is a very good possibility he made it to Brockwell where he got treatment and was able to recover. There is testimony by someone claiming to be a descendant through a second marriage that Elijah moved up north and began a life with a new family. His first wife, who administered what she thought was the fateful blow, was Sarah Jane Goodrich, and is said to have fled with her family after the incident to Texas. It was a cold day on this rocky hilltop. We hope to visit again on a more accommodating day and spend more time exploring this place. When we do, we'll also visit a similar formation nearby!