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Reece Family Documents |
Coverage
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| Surname |
Graham
McWilliams
Reese
Symington
Weach
Wetherell |
Citation
“Sketches of a Pioneer Life” by A. W. Reese, MD, TS, nd, Genealogy, Reese Family I, Box 3, Folder 10
p. 4 – grandfather John Reese wanted to go to America, but his parents objected. When King of England hired Hessian soldiers, John ran away from home and enlisted, and was disinherited by his father
p. 5 – “After a short service in the British Army he deserted and after many hardships and not a few perils – narrowly escaping capture on two occasions by the British, he succeeded in reaching the American camp. He, at once, enlisted in the Continental army, and until the close of the Revolutionary struggle, carried a musket under ‘the Stars and Stripes.’ ”
Letter, Florence A. Blakely to Mary Graham Walker Severance, Kansas, 19 Feb 1910, Genealogy, Reese Family I, Box 3, Folder 10
- “If step-great-grandfather Reece was twenty-two or five, & was one of the Hesians soldiers that Washington captured at Trenton Dec. 26, 1776 & died in 1825, he then would be only about 74 years old.”
Letter, Florence A. Blakely to Mary Graham Walker Severance, Kansas, 15 Feb 1911, Genealogy, Reese Family I, Box 3, Folder 10
“If step-great-grandfather Reese was in the Battle of Brandywine in 1777 when did he desert or maybe taken prisoner later to join Washington’s Army & become a patriot? Did he anglisize his Hessian name as was the fashion of those days when men wanted to become American citizens? I do not believe his grandchildren know, there was too much myth about him.”
PIONEER SKETCHES, Dr. A. W. Reese , TS, nd, Genealogy, Reese Family I, Box 3, Folder 10 [Emphasis as in original]
Old grandday Reese “built him a hut” in the shape of a double log cabin, chinked and daubed with mud. This family residence consisted of two rooms below and a loft overhead. The boys slept in the loft. Access to this airy bed-chamber was secured by means of a small door in the gable reached by a ladder set up on the outside of the house. Imagine the fun of going to bed up there of a storm-tossed night!
The boys were clad in buckskin garments. The material was prepared by old granddaddy who, among his other numerous accomplishments, included that of dressing deer hides, and the skins of divers “varmints” besides. No underwear was used, and my father said that on rising and donning his buckskin breeches on a wintry morning his legs were “mighty chilly” at first, but in a short time they got warmed up, and as the buckskin was impervious to atmospheric influences, he was quite comfortable in his home-made garments. Neither my father, nor any of his brothers, ever knew anything of such a luxury as an overcoat in those halcyon days. As for overshoes nobody eve dreamed of such a piece of useless extravagance. The nearest approach might have been a pair of home-made buckskin moccasins. The women of the family were clad in “linsey Woolsey” manufactured, in idle hours, by their own fair hands. Instead of the modern piano, the girls were taught to play on the big spinning wheel for wool, and the little spinning wheel for flax – the latter being a progressive luxury, brought in at a later day on the advancing tide of civilization. Long after the Indians had ceased to be troublesome, and the white settlers at rest, a calico dress cost 75 cts. a yard, and was a piece of extravagance indulged only by the most wealthy, exclusive, and aristocratic of the pioneer belles. A girl clad in a bright calico was the admiration of the beaux and the envy of her sex. It was, indeed, a finer dress in that day than a silk garment of the present.
The living was very plain in those days. The diet consisted mainly of corn bread. This was the staple article of food varied with “hog and hominy”-hence the Kentuckians became known to fame as “corn-crakers.” Hominy was procured by “main strength and awkwardness,” being pounded up by hand in a home-made mortar constructed of a black gum log set up endwise, with an excavation in the upper end for the reception of the corn. The evening meal consisted in the wintertime especially, of milk and mush – sometimes a deer would be secured from the all-pervading forest and then venison would be added to the menu (though it was not known by that name then).
Record of the Symington Family
– TS by Alexander W. Reese [written aft. 1 Aug 1869, based on Family Bible Records, with information on A. W. Reese and family also entered in Bible at time of occurrence]
[Records submitted with Application for DAR Membership by Effie Eby Minnich, Nat'l #: 291227, Ancestor #: A094962]
Robert Symington, b. Scotland, 22 May 1772
m. Nancy McWilliams, b. 19 Jan 1785, KY
Children:
Alexander Symington, b. 15 Sep 1803, d. 28 Jul 1848
Andrew Symington, b. 29 June 1805, d. 12 Mar 1808
Elizabeth Symington, b. 24 Aug 1807, d. 26 Aug 1865
Sarah Symington, b. 17 Feb 1810,
Charlotte Symington, b. 7 Sept 1812, d. 2 Aug 1862
Eliza Symington, b. 19 Jan 1817, d. 31 Aug 1837
Robert Symington (Smith), b.29 Jun 1819, d. 9 May 1897
Thomas Searle Symington, b. 29 Oct 1822, d. 15 June 1910
Miriam W. Symington, b. 1 Jan 1829, d. 1903
Williamson Dunn Symington, b. 1 Jan 1829, d. 19 Jan 1871
John Reese (my grandfather), b. Hesse Cassel, Germany, d. Clark County, IN
m. in Kentucky to Elizabeth (Wetherell)_ a widow with one child, Elizabeth, who afterwards married John K. Graham of New Albany
Their children:
Joseph Reese, b. 31 Mar 1785, d. (19 Nov 1847, other records)
Catherine Reese, b. 29 Jan 1788, d. 4 Feb 1828
Sarah Reese, b. 6 Nov 1790, d. 4 Jul 1859
Benjamin Reese, b. 13 Nov 1793 [sic] d. 9 Nov 1853
John Reese (my father), b. 19 May 1797, d. 14 May 1852
John Reese (my father), b. 19 May 1797, d. 14 Mary 1852
m1 15 June 1815, Jemima Russell (d. 5 May 1826)
Children:
Eliza Jane Reese, b. 20 June 1816, d. Feb 1828
John Bourbon Reese, b. 19 Oct 1818, d. 19 Jan 1900
Malvina Reese, b. 27 Nov 1820, d. 2 June 1821
Livonia Ann Reese, b. 24 Nov 1825, d. 21 May 1832
m2 Elizabeth Symington, 18 Oct 1827
Children:
Alexander William Reese, b. 18 Aug 1828, d. (m1 Ellen Cobb, m2 Susanna Eby Baile)*
Sara Ellen Reese, b. 7 Feb 1830 (m1 Ed Lynn, m2 Merritt Utley)
Robert Symington Reese, b. 5 Feb 1832 (m. Hetty Wilson from VA)
Nancy Jane Reese, b. 31 May 1834 (m1 Will Lucas, m2 Norman Hennion)
Charlotte Annette Reese, b. 17 Oct 1836, d. 1 Aug 1869
Mary Elizabeth Reese, b. 12 Jan 1839
Martha Jeanette Reese, b. 20 Oct 1847 [sic - original Bible entry says 3 Oct 1844]
Myra Isabell Reese, b. 20 Oct 1847 (m. Norman Conkling)
Thomas Benjamin Reese, b. 26 June 1850
- (information in parentheses added by a daughter & his widow)
Alexander William Reese, MD, m1 13 Sep 1857, Pleasant Hill, MO, 13 Sept 1857
Ellen Maria Cobb, b. 23 April 1839 - Died 27 Nov 1865
Children:
Lizzie Dennison Reese, b. 22 Dec 1858 - Died (m. Will Mohler)
Gertrude Reese, b. 25 Jan 1862, d. 16 Apr 1883
Alexander William Reese, b. 1 Feb 1864, d. 8 Oct 1864
Alexander William Reese, MD, m2 22 Oct 1867, Preble County, OH, Susanna Eby Baile
Children:
Sallie Baile Reese, b. 10 Dec 1870, m. Jesse Eby
Effie Eugenia Reese, b. 8 Sept 1872, never married
Minnie Virginia Reese, b. 2 Dec 1784, m. Otto F. Burkett
Paul Symington Reese, b. 12 Nov 1876, m. Elsie Mauthe
Mark Anthony Reese, b. 25 May 1880, m. Ida Hines
Nancy J. Reese, b. 16 June 1882, m. Fred H. Coon
Susanna Eby Reese, b. 15 Jan 1885, d. 22 Feb 1904
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