================================================== ================================================================ Match: Bowles Source: HUCKABY@rootsweb.com From: "gc-gateway@rootsweb.com" <gc-gateway@rootsweb.com> Subject: [HUCKABY] Biographical Sketch of Joshua Brannon Huckeby (1802-1889) This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: Jesse_Stamper Surnames: HUCKEBY, BRANNON, SELF, DE LA HUNT, LOUDOUN, LANG Classification: biography Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.huckaby/348/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Posted below is a biographical sketch written in 1928 by Thomas James de la Hunt, Jr. (1866-1933) about his maternal grandfather, Joshua Brannon Huckeby (February 13, 1802 - March 22, 1889) of Perry County, Indiana. The sketch appeared on pages 46-55 of the August 1929 issue of the "Indiana History Bulletin," a magazine that was published by the Indiana Historical Bureau. In the sketch, Joshua Brannon Huckeby is identified as the second son of John Huckeby & Frances Anne Brannon, as well as a grandson of Thomas Huckeby & Keziah Self and Lawrence Brannon & Olympias Loudoun. Of particular interest to Huckaby/Huckeby researchers will be the section concerning the ancestry and early history of the Huckeby family in America. The skecth identifies the earliest ancestor as a Joshua Huckeby from England, he was apparently married to a Mrs. MacLachlan. JOSHUA BRANNON HUCKEBY, PERRY COUNTY PIONEER By THOMAS JAMES DE LA HUNT, Cannelton. Evansville, February 23, 1928. The pioneer Virginians, Carolinians, and Marylanders who early crossed the Ohio River into the territory or state of Indiana were in many instances men of marked energy, both mentally and physically, who had made their own primitive schooling the basis of a broader education whose dominant characteristic was an enlightenment of mind wholly independent of mere scholarship. By heredity and enviroment they were thinkers, accustomed to looking facts straight in the face, and thus had a training better in many ways than any schoolroom could furnish. From infancy they had lived in a certain atmosphere of backwoods culture, drawn partly from the few but good books accessible to them, but in a greater degree from association with powerful men, builders of our nation, from whom they caught that dauntless spirit which conquered a new, virgin domain, and made of Indiana a princely possession of the great Republic. Adding to this cavalier strain of blood the men of decided intellect who had come in smaller numbers from New England and the Middle Atlantic states, one can trace from the very first an impulse toward betterment in the social atmosphere of southern Indiana, a distinct uplift sufficient to raise the entire level. Bringing thus from widely remote sctions their ideas, convictions, viewpoints, customs, and standards of living, to dwell side by side in a region whose very fauna and flora show singularly harmonious of two latitudes, northerner and southerner each lost something of prejudice and provincialism, and gained far more in tolerant comprehension. Into the composite communities of Perry and the other river counties, came now and again an Irish, a French, or a German family, some "Pennsylvania Dutch," Scotch or Welsh, and groups of Switzers to become neighbors and friends. Each outgrew the narrowness of bigotry in which he had been bred, and developed a generous humanity ! perhaps unknown in sections whence each had come, so that southern Indiana became more accurately representative of all that is best in American thought and life than any other part of the Union had ever been before. Joshua Brannon Huckeby, the subject of this biographical sketch, may be cited as a fairly average and representative man of his day and generation, born in the Old Dominion under Thomas Jefferson as president, and passing away in Indiana a few weeks after Benjamin Harrison took the chief magistrate's chair; a period of fourscore years, during which he saw much national and state history unroll itself in an impressive panorama. He was third in descent from the first Huckeby in America---also a Joshua---who had crossed the Atlantic from the east of England into the province of Virginia under the reign of Charles II. His wife was of Scottish extraction, as her family name of MacLachlan clearly indicates. The date and place of their marriage is not known. real estate records show that they lived in Cumberland County, in the tidewater district, where two sons and two daughters were born to them. The first child, Thomas Huckeby, married Keziah Self, and in 1772 moved up into the piedmont region where, an ancient deed shows, they purchased land from Simon Chaffin in Bedford County. Here John Huckeby, the eldest of seven children, was born June 17, 1774. At the age of twenty-four he married Frances Brannon, third among six children of Lawrence Brannon and his wife, Olympias Loudoun, who had been left an orphan in infancy. A quaint record on the court files of Bedford County reads: "January the 21st day, ! 1799, friend Benjamin Rice, please to give John Huckeby license to be married to my daughter Frankey Brannon, thy Complyance will oblige thy well wisher, Lawrence Brannon." Frances Brannon Huckeby bore her husband eleven children. I quote the written words of the second of these, signed by his own hand, December 13, 1878: "I, Joshua Brannon Huckeby, second son of John Huckeby and Frances Anne Brannon, was born in Bedford County, Virginia, two miles east of the Blue Ridge, February 13, 1802, about 4 o'clock a.m., snow on the ground eighteen inches deep." The "wanderlust" which stirred so many Virginians into westward migration wofe Thomas Huckeby and his sons at length, and the ninteenth century was still young when lad Joshua Brannon Huckeby found himself with his grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, following the same old trail which valiant explorers as Dr. Thomas Walker, Daniel Boone, and Richard Henderson had traversed through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and toward the Ohio River. Some of the Huckeby sons and daughters tarried by the wayside here and there, in Lincoln and Garrard counties, but John and Frances pressed onward, enventually reaching Hardin County and Elizabethtown. From this point led the old Post Road toward Yellow Bank (Owensboro), Red Creek (Henderson), and western Kentucky, along which the Brannon brothers carried the United States mail by contract, a route which their sister and her husband pursued into Breckinridge County, where they bought land east of the county seat, Hardinsburg (old "Hardin's Station"), and spent the remainder of their days. Good American stock was represented among such neighboring families as the Murrays, De Havens, Mercers (with whom the Huckebys became allied through marriage), Moormans, Kincheloes, Heatons, and others. A road from Hardinsburg led perhaps a dozen miles over the hills to the mouth of Sinking Creek, now Stephensport, where dwelt the Stephens, Holt, Minor, Hardin, and Helm families. Rich lands border both sides of the river there, and some of these same families were represented on the opposite Indiana bank, just below the village of Rome, which was then the seat of justice for Perry County. Its new courthouse, which was considered an architectural triumph, copied the Daviess County building. In the village or its vicinity lived the families of Connor, Lamb, Shoemaker, Frisbie, Cummings, and Thompson, while at court or tax-paying time there came the Esareys, Ewings, Taylors, Danielses, Lashers, Cunninghams, Cassidays, Van Winkles, Deens, Polks, Tobins, Groveses, Wheelers, Weat! herholts, Winchels, Fosters, Terrys, and Reilys, besides such lawyers and judges as John Pitcher, John A. Brackenridge, James R. E. Goodlett, Charles I. Battell, Samuel Hall, Eben D. Edson, Elisha Embree, and James Lockhart. Here, not long after attaining his majority, Joshua Brannon Huckeby met and fell in love with a young girl, Rebecca Lang. She had recently come from Corydon with her mother and stepfather, Lemuel Mallory, a Connecticut veteran of the American Revolution, whom the widowed Rebekah (Reagan) Lang---herself the daughter of a Revolutionary patriot---had married several years after her first husband, John Lang, had been killed by Indians in 1811, while on his way to join Harrison's army at Vincennes. The Langs had migrated from Frederick County in the northern end of the Valley of Virginia, down the Monongahela River to Pittsburg, thence continuing their keelboat voyage with their goods and chattels down the Ohio to "the Falls" in the autumn of 1808, soon crossing into Harrison County, Indiana. The childhood of little "Becky" Lang was an interesting one after Corydon became the territorial and state capital. Quite near in age was a favorite playmate, Kate Hay, sister to Mrs. Jonathan Jennings, and the two children had free run of the governor's mansion (the mansion has been destroyed), or sported under the "Constitutional Elm," except when warned away by the grave presence of the convention delegates who sought its cooling shade for their deliberations. Little "Becky" did not quite grasp the significance of hearing her elders say that Indiana had "come in free," but more vividly impressed by the personal loveliness of beautiful Harriet Brandon, early Indiana's most famous belle; or by her first party at the old Merrill homestead (this house still stands); or by that day of all days in 1819 when President James Monroe and General Andrew Jackson were entertained at a sumptuous "dining" in the little capital. The marriage of Joshua Brannon Huckeby and Rebecca Lang at Rome on April 4, 1824, followed a rather brief engagement. Lemuel Mallory was a justice of the peace and performed the ceremony for his stepdaughter. She wore, according to her own description given sixty years afterward, a "slip" made of two breadths of sheer India muslin, belted high under the arms with a white satin girdle, with narrower ribbons strapping her heelless ankles. It was recalled in Rome that the first time chocolate was ever served as a festive beverage was at Rebecca Lang's wedding supper and dance. Not long after his marriage, Joshua Brannon Huckeby took over the tavern which George Ewing, Jr., had been operating at Rome. It was a commodious log structure. here, during the next quarter of a century, most of the leading men who came to Rome were entertained, and here most of the Huckeby children were born. Law then required a tariff of prices to be posted in every inn and the schedule once tacked up in this old tavern is still in existence, its lines just as legible as when penned more than a century ago by the elderly hand of Solomon Lamb. Its characters show the old-time "long s" on paper yellowed with age. Breakfast, dinner, and supper at a fixed charge of twenty-five cents were allowed; lodging at twelve and one-half cents. For a horse standing to hay and corn or oats per night, thirty-seven and one-half cents. The retailed prices of liquors are too far a thing of the past to claim citation here. The first political office to which Joshua Brannon Huckeby appears to have been elected was that of Justice of the peace, fixing upon him the colloquial title of "Squire" which he bore for the remainder of his life. His commission for five years, signed by Noah Noble, governor, and attested by William Sheets, secretary of state, under date of April 29, 1833, is still in the possession of a descendant. In 1836 he was appointed a member of the first board of school examiners for Perry County, and the same year saw him elected as representative to the legislature. Governor Noble had, on January 27, 1836, affixed his signature to the mammoth Internal Improvements Bill which Dr. Logan Esarey calls, taking in all its aspects, its consequences immediate and remote, "The most important measure ever signed by an Indiana governor." Its appropriations represented an aggregate of thirteen million dollars, at that time one-sixth of the wealth of the state, fixing its policies and mortgaging its resources for half a century. "Classification" was the campaign slogan of 1836 and "the System," the most fruitful topic of discussion, though no one could interpret either term to the complete satisfaction of all sections, since no two sections could unite on what "classification" stood for in Perry County, but documentary evidence showing that Joshua Brannon Huckeby belonged to this party, exists in a personal letter addressed to him by one of the "the Pocket's" most distinguished citizens, Huckeby's "sincere fr'd, Robert Dale Owen." Written before the day of adhesive envelopes or stamps, it was carefully folded to allow its sealing with a scarlet wafer and to leave space for the superscription, "12 1/2 cents postage" in penscript in one corner. Another corner of the old missive bears the clear postmark, "New Harmony, Ia. 9 Aug." Its inner page is dated at New Harmony, August 8, 1837, evidently the next day after the state election , as Owen remarks to his friend Huckeby: "My fellow citizens returned me yesterday by a handsome majority. I hope to hear of your election in the course of a few days. I know that you have always felt & voted with us, & that y'r County must of necessity be a Classification County. We are all here Classification "up to the hub" as the phrase is." County records indicate the election of Dr. Robert Greenberry Cotton, of Troy, as Perry's representative in 1837, but in 1842, Joshua Brannon Huckeby was once more sent to the General Assembly and was returned again in 1844. The latter of these sessions was the memorable one in which Lieutenant Governor Jesse D. Bright, as president of the Senate, by the privilege of his deciding vote, postponed the regular election of a United States senator until the next session, when he hoped to be, and was, the successful candidate. A letter in beautiful script written to Huckeby by his maternal aunt, Keziah (Brannon) Jordan, of Montgomery County, addressed to her nephew at the capital city under date of December 27, 1844, shows that some women of her day already took an interest in politics: "We are sorry to hear that our honorable legislative body are so confused in their purposes and somewhat disposed to postpone the election of a U. S. Senator this winter. We hope that you will assist us in that honorable body to procure a charter for our intended railroad from Crawfordsville to some point on the Wabash. We have rented out our farm and are living in Crawfordsville where William Brannon Jordan is going to college to learn Latin, &c." Fellow members of this same legislature, with whom Joshua Brannon Huckeby was more or less closely associated, regardless of political differences, were James D. Williams, of Knox (long afterward the "Blue Jeans" governor) ; William A. Bowles, of Orange; samuel Hanna, of Allen; David Macy, of Henry; and David P. Holloway, of Wayne. Between Huckeby and the clerk of the House, William H. English, of Scott County, later representative for the Third Congressional District, there grew up a very warm personal friendship, notwithstanding frank political antagonism. The attachment lasted into old age of both men, who were "Bill" and "Josh" to each other down through the presidential campaign of 1880, when Winfield Scott Hancock, of New York, and William Hayden English, of Indiana, headed the national Democratic ticket. Joshua Brannon Huckeby was at the time serving his twelfth year as Republican postmaster at Cannelton ; he had been appointed by President Grant and filled the office until Cleveland's first administration. In 1849 he removed to the newer and more promising town of Cannelton, where again he was a tavern keeper for a while. But the freshet of 1851 drove him from the property he had first rented, and he never reoccupied it, saying that one move out of high water was enough for him. He bought a home safely above floodmark, making some additions to suit his Old Dominion tastes, and there spent the rest of his days, practising law for some years in association with his son-in-law, Charles H. Mason, who had come from New Hampshire to Cannelton in 1849. Joshua Brannon Huckeby's political career in middle and later years was largely the same as that of other Old Line Whigs who stood by their colors to the last ditch. Their presidential candidate of 1852, General Winfield Scott, was overwhelmingly defeated in spite of his triumphant military record in the Mexican War, and no Whig ticket was placed in the arena in 1856, the party vote being divided between Fremont, the Republican candidate, and Filmore, of the American (or Know Nothing) party. In both North and South many embraced Know Nothingism as an alternative rather than from original choice. But the strong charge of "sectionalism" which was brought against both Republicans and Democrats at the approach of the 1860 campaign induced the creation of a third party, made up mainly of former Whigs whose long-cherished partisanship kept them antagonistic to Democrats in the South and Republicans in the North. In the South, they were men whose moderate anti-slavery feelings had been outraged by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and by the Lecompton trickery in Kansas. In the North, there were many like Joshua Brannon Huckeby whose inherited traditions and affiliations revolted at the extreme utterances of avowed Abolitionists. In the various states these former Whigs, under names which varied in different localities, had maintained a minority organization ever since the defeat of Filmore in 1856. All these fragments and factions sent delegates (regular and irregular) to Baltimore in May, 1860, where they united themselves under the designation of the "Constitutional Union Party," proposing to steer a middle course between Democrats and Republicans and, by ignoring the issue of slavery, to allay sectional strife. As their platform they adopted a single resolution declaring in substance that they would "recognize no political principles other than the Constitution of the country, the union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws." There was no reasonable hope of direct success at the polls in November ; but there was a clear possibility of defeating a popular choice and throwing the election into the House of Representatives. In that case, their nominee might stand high on the vantage ground of a compromise candidate, so there was some degree of zest in the rivalry of the several aspirants. On the second ballot, however, a slight preponderance of the votes cast favored John Bell, of Tennessee, whose nomination was then made unanimous ; the choice for vicepresident fell upon Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. Bell is described as having many qualifications desirable in a presidential candidate. He was a statesman of ripe experience and fair, if not brillant, fame. Though a southerner, his course on the slavery question had been so moderate as to make him reasonably acceptable to the North on his mere personal record. However, as Hay and Nicolay have said: "Upon this platform of ignoring the political strife of six consecutive years, in which he had himself taken such vigorous part, he and his followers were but of course as grain between the upper and the nether millstones." Joshua Brannon Huckeby's southern birth and conservatism allied him with the Constitutional Union party from its inception, and he was placed upon the Bell and Everett ticket as elector for the First District of Indiana, to which Perry County then belonged. Butin this sentiment he was not upheld by his two sons, who were Lincoln adherents, as was their mother, notwithstanding her own southern nativity and close kinships below the Mason and Dixon line. Her own cousin, John H. Reagan of Texas, held a portfolio in the Confederate cabinet. A slight personal anecdote handed down verbally to Huckeby descendants may find place here as typical of conditions in many households in the Border States where political opinions were divided. It was cutomary in those days for each party to erect a flagstaff at some point of vantage and fly the national standard throughout the campaign. The Lincoln followers had early raised on the river bank at Cannelton a lofty pole that far overtopped the rival Douglas staff, the flag in each case representing the patient hand-stitchery of women who had not yet been admitted to more active participation in the great game of politics. One day in the summer of 1860 there called at "Virginia Place," the Huckeby homestead in Cannelton, an intimate family friend, Mrs. Samuel Archer (Burnetta Mason), a southern sympathizer. "Mrs. Huckeby," she said, "I came to see you about when we shall get to work making our flag." "Why, my flag is made and already up. Haven't you seen it?" was the amiable response. "Why, what flag do you mean?" "The Lincoln flag, to be sure." "But I thought Mr. Huckeby was a Bell and Everett man," returned Msr. Archer in surprise. "Yes. Mr. Huckeby may be a Bell and Everett man, but Mrs. Huckeby is not a Bell and Everett woman." This incident is a small circumstance linked with the brief career of a politcial party which gained a place in American history not through what it accomplished, but by reason of what a portion of it failed to perform. In the presidentail election of November 6, 1860, Perry County's vote was : Douglas, 947 ; Lincoln, 1026 ; Bell, 160 ; Breckenridge, 6. Only three states, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, chose Bell electors, giving him thirty-nine votes in the electoral college to but twelve for Douglas, though the latter's popular vote was largely more than double that cast for Bell. Within less than a year from their avowed pledges to the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws, Bell and most of the southern adherents in the seceding states were banded together in open revolution. On the other hand, Edward Everett and most of the northern members, including Joshua Brannon Huckeby, together with certain shining exceptions in the border slave commonwealths, such as John Jordan Crittenden, of Kentucky, supported the Federal government with patriotic devotion, and the Huckeby family at Cannelton became united in upholding the cause championed by Abraham Lincoln. The two sons saw active service at the front, John Lang Huckeby as lieutenant in Company K, 81st Indiana Volunteers, and William Lamb Huckeby as engineer on a Union gunboat that ran the blockade at Vicksburg. Their elder sister, Rachel, whose husband, Charles H. Mason, was colonel of the 5th Regiment, Indiana Legion Home Guards, herself founded and was first president of the Ladies' Patriotic Aid Association, which supplied to the quartermaster-general at Indianapolis many undergarments, socks, mittens, and comforts of regulation pattern, representing the loyal generosity of Cannelton, Tell City, and Troy women in time and labor. The youngest daughter of the house, Isabelle Huckeby, was married after the war to a young graduate of Genesee College (now Syracuse University) who had been her teacher before going into army service as one of "Hovey's Babies," and that gallant commander's personal memoirs make repeated complimentary reference to the dashing bravery of this fav! orite staff-adjutant who he loved as a son, Thomas James de la Hunt. Jesse L. Stamper Leecorydon(at)juno.com Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. 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