John Zion Sr.
BIRTH 1770
Washington County, Virginia, USA
DEATH 1845 (aged 74–75)
Pennington Gap, Lee County, Virginia, USA
BURIAL
Zion Family Cemetery
Pennington Gap, Lee County, Virginia, USA
John Zion, Sr., is the earliest known progenitor of the Zion family of southwest Virginia. The family is of German origin, though John does not appear to have been the original immigrant, but was perhaps his son or grandson. The name Zion itself is most probably an anglicization of the German surname Zinn, Zahn, Senn, or others. Our ancestor first appears in written record as a young man in 1789, when he married Lucy McCormick in Washington County, Virginia. John and Lucy acquired considerable land holdings on the North Fork of the Holston River, where their eight children were born and reared. In 1812 John sold off all his land and removed forty miles west to Lee County, where he again accumulated several hundred acres, upon which the town of Pennington Gap now stands. John died sometime between 1840 and 1850 and is believed to be buried in a nameless grave in the old Zion Cemetery.
Of his eight children, only three (John Jr., William, and Rachel) remained in Lee County all their lives. The other five all left Virginia for Indiana between 1817 and 1828, two of these five later moving further west to Iowa. The Zions of early generations were honored and dutiful Christians: several sons and grandsons were founding members of early churches in Virginia and Indiana and were active in the political affairs of their communities. Together the several branches of the Zion family leave tens of thousands of descendants throughout the United States.
A unknown sister of John Zion is believed by some to have been the first wife of another southwest Virginia German, the eccentric Jacob Blubaugh, based on the evidently close tie between the two men and their families.
Some notable descendants of John and Lucy Zion include a grandson, William Zion, who established the city of Zionsville, Indiana, now the wealthiest city in that state; and a great-grandson, "Indiana Apple King" Jim Zion, a renowned orchardist, two-time candidate for Governor of Indiana, 1904 World's Fair Gold Medal winner, and lifelong friend of Indiana Governor James A. Mount and cartoonist Kin Hubbard.
Though no likeness of John Zion exists, it is noteworthy that many early Zion men that were photographed sported a distinctive "neck beard"—without moustache or goatee—in the old German style, and we may presume that our forefather John wore his in like fashion.
Only one of John and Lucy's children, their son William Zion (c. 1799 - c. December 1872), who married Polly France, has no memorial on this site. He is the only child whose date of birth, date of death, and place of burial are not precisely known.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/242349087/john-zion
