Well, chalk another family up to Christain County, Kentucky! There must have been SOME salesman for SEMO visiting Christian County between 1812 and 1815! "The best we've traced so far, the family lived pretty much together and was in Christian County KY from at least 1808 through the 1810 census. Several members of the family (David and wife, Davis and wife, William and wife) joined the Bethel Baptist Church at Jackson MO in 1812. David had land near Cane Creek in what is now Bollinger Co MO." The Revelle family also migrated from Christian County to Cape Girardeau County, into the part that later became Bollinger County. Goodspeed's says that the earliest migration was 1812, though that date is not substantiated by evidence. A more conservative est. of 1815 fits better. The Revelles were in Christian County from the late 1790s on, and completely dissapeared from there in about 1815. Another Revelle married Robert Chase between 1800 and 1805 in Ste. Genevieve County, and they migrated to Madison County on his Revolutionary War grant. It is unclear how exactly these two Revelle families relate, except that they later intermarry. Does anybody else trace a family's migration from Christian County, KY into Bollinger or Madison Counties? I have had a hard time establishing where the Revelles were prior to moving to KY, and would be interested in the migration routes of other families who came to MO the same way... Best regards! David J. Revelle 5044 Bancroft Ave St. Louis, MO 63109 djr2@cec.wustl.edu

I figure that salesman for SEMO already lived in SEMO and wrote glowing letters to his friends and relations in the east. There's a land grant in SEMO, apparently along the Sikeston Ridge for a David Johnson in early 1812 that isn't on any plats. I'm beginning to think that he never finished the paper work after the earthquakes began and headed north until he found more stable land in the granite based mountains away from the alluvial plain. But the records I've found so far aren't specific enough to know it was my David. I suspect that SEMO may have been the goal all along, and the pause in CC KY was to rest up, grow some grain for the stock, and to wait for Missouri to be more open and for the indians to move on. Maybe it was simply a wait for better roads. The CC KY area was populated a bit earlier than SEMO and possibly the best living spots were already taken (hills for summer, hollows for winter). I have a book that reports folks living in the hollows and valleys of western Kentucky long about 1805 were plagued with malaria carried by mosquitos and those that could moved to the hill tops to be away from the thickest of the mosquito population. There's a land grant in 1837 in Stoddard County south of the escarpment for Alfred Henson. That's the year my gggp Alfred Gain Henson was married. That land grant was sold in 1839, and Alfred Gain Henson was found in different KY counties until he moved to Union Light near Patton in 1853. I don't know if its the same Alfred Henson because he didn't use a middle initial in the land grant and the sale (because his son Alfred Boyd Henson hadn't been born or named yet, maybe). I suspect the mosquitoes ate too well and the family headed for Kentucky hills to escape them. The land at Union Light is high ground flat woods. Not the crop land the alluvial plain is today, but more livable. I've been sent what looks like an excerpt from a history book that says Alfred Gain Henson first moved to Missouri as a young man (of 30+?) in 1853. I've not found the source of the excerpt. It truly is difficult finding where the CC KY and SEMO folks migrated from. Especially when the patriarch was named David Johnson. There were about 18 David Johnsons in the two Carolina 1790 census. Several with the right number of offspring. I can't be sure which Carolina because the offspring that were alive in 1850 and 1860 were not consistent about where they were born, not even the same person in the two census. I've eliminated one David, because he stayed in SC and became governor about 1840, long after my David died. There's another I'd like to eliminate. He confessed to adultery in a Baptist Church and was excommunicated. The best markers for my Johnson family migration has been Baptist church activities, as members and as messengers to the various Baptist Association meetings between 1816 and 1863. That's not what I think of the activities of a man thrown out of church fellowship for being honest. He was admitted to the Bethel Church at Jackson by a letter from his previous church. I wish I could find that letter or a comment on which church it came from. There was only possible church that old in Christian County and I hope to dig into their records sometime. Their meeting minutes likely will show at least the month of joining that church and the month of leaving. Those will be closer than any civil records of the era (e.g. census) and could only be improved on by a family diary or a long sequence of letters to the folks left back east. I saw a book of such letters from a German immigrant in the ISU library this evening. She settled in the Jefferson City area and so I didn't bring it home. Several of my Johnsons served in war of 1812 Missouri Militia companies, mostly Capt Tinnan's Mounted Militia out of Cape Girardeau County. Their names are in the rosters. The vast majority of war of 1812 history books totally ignore Missouri unless troops went east and joined in KY or TN. Just like most of the Civil War history books ignore Missouri though there were more battles in Missouri than any state to the east except Virginia and Tennessee. I believe that the folks traveled west in groups of neighbors. That long walk (for all but the babies and really old) left the youngsters a lot of time to become acquainted. Gerald J.