Hilpa Bryson and John Anderson Craft
3. Hilpa Bryson, the third child of Abner Bryson and wife Nancy Whitlock, was born 9 May 1806 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died in the same county on 14 February 1858. Her tombstone in Rose of Sharon cemetery in Cumberland County has these dates of birth and death.[1] Hilpa’s date and place of death are recorded in her death entry in the 1858 death register of Cumberland County, which appears to spell her name as Holpa.[2] The death register states that she died of consumption, that her parents were Abner and Nancy Bryson, and that she was born in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Because the entry giving the latter pieces of information appears to be on a line on the facing page higher than the entry stating Hilpa’s name and date and place of death, transcribers have misread the entry to give Hilpa an erroneous set of parents.
On 17 May 1827 in Cumberland County, Hilpa Bryson married John Anderson Craft, son of Michael Craft and Elizabeth Christian of Cumberland County. A transcript of the record of the marriage of John A. Craft and Hilpa Bryson is in the file of a pension for which John applied when their son Gilbert Bryson Craft died as a Union soldier at the hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, on 4 December 1863 (see below).[3] The marriage record shows John A. Craft giving bond with Hilpa’s father Abner Bryson on 14 May 1827, and then William Cross filing the marriage return on 13 July 1827, stating that he married the couple on 17 May.
John Anderson Craft is buried in Rose of Sharon cemetery in Cumberland County along with Hilpa.[4] His tombstone gives his name as John A. Craft and states that he was born 3 October 1800 and died 2 October 1884. John’s obituary in Nashville Christian Advocate on 12 September 1885 also states these dates of birth and death, noting that John was born in Cumberland County and spent his life there, and was buried in Rose of Sharon cemetery about a half mile from where he was born.[5] The obituary notes that he married 1) Hilpa Brison [sic] and 2) Sarah Brake, having five children by Hilpa and ten children by Sarah.
In an affidavit John A. Craft gave in Cumberland County on 25 August 1866 as he applied for a father’s pension after his unmarried son Gilbert Bryson Craft died as a Union soldier in the Civil War, John stated that he lived at Burkesville post office 10 miles from town on the wagon road running from Burkesville to Livingston, Tennessee.[6]
Vestal Cross and Ernesta Mira provide information about John Anderson Craft and his family in Cumberland County, Kentucky, Yesterday and Today.[7] Cross notes that the Craft family in Cumberland County originated with Michael Craft, who married Elizabeth, a daughter of Major Gilbert Christian. Mira adds that Michael Craft’s father, Michael Sr., is found in records of Amherst County, Virginia, before he moved to Sullivan County, Tennessee, and then to Kentucky. Michael Craft Jr., father of John Anderson Craft, received 400 acres on Illwill Creek in Cumberland County, Kentucky, in 1801, and wife Elizabeth received 200 acres on Illwill in the same year. Mira notes that Michael and Elizabeth donated land for the establishment of Rose of Sharon Methodist cemetery in Cumberland County.
As previous postings have indicated (and here), when Thomas Whitlock and wife Hannah Phillips came to Cumberland County in 1805 along with their daughter Nancy and Nancy’s husband Abner Bryson, both families settled next to each other on Illwill Creek. Note, too, that the previous posting notes that James Williams, whose son John Wilson Williams married Hilpa Bryson’s sister Catharine, came to Cumberland County from Sullivan County, Tennessee, as did the Craft family.
In his book about the Revolutionary battle of King’s Mountain and soldiers who served in that battle, Lyman C. Draper provides a brief sketch of Major Gilbert Christian, whose daughter Elizabeth married Michael Craft younger.[8] Draper notes that Gilbert Christian was born about 1734 in Augusta County, Virginia, and died in November 1793 at Knoxville, Tennessee.[9] He provides a sketch of various military campaigns in which Christian was involved in western Virginia and east Tennessee.
Hilpa is named as a daughter of Abner Bryson and as wife of John A. Craft in the December 1842 and May 1843 deeds and court records discussed in a previous posting, which name Abner’s children by Nancy Whitlock and document the division of his land among his heirs after his daughter Sarah and husband John Strode Lander filed suit against the other heirs in May 1842 regarding the land distribution.[10]
The name Hilpa was an invention of 18th-century English writer Joseph Addison in his Spectator. Addison spun an “antediluvian romance” about Hilpa as a daughter of Zilpah, who appears in the biblical book of Genesis as an enslaved girl given by Laban to his daughter Leah when Leah married Jacob.[11] Leah then gave Zilpah to Jacob to bear children by Jacob. Though uncommon, the name was in use in the United States through much of the 19th century. In addition to Hilpa Bryson Craft, over twenty women with this name are found on the 1850 federal census in places as far-flung as New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Arkansas, and even more variant phonetic spellings of the name are found on the same federal census.
Children of Hilpa Bryson and John Anderson Craft
Hilpa Bryson and John Anderson Craft were parents of the following children:
a. Mary Elizabeth Craft was born 10 September 1827 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 11 May 1911 in Washington township, Vernon County, Missouri. In 1847 in either Cumberland or Clinton County, Kentucky, Mary Elizabeth married Rufus K. Armstrong, son of Stephen K. Armstrong and Maryanna Huffman. Rufus was born 28 April 1823 in Kentucky and died 20 August 1899 in Vernon County, Missouri. Mary Elizabeth and Rufus are buried in Antioch cemetery in Vernon County, Missouri.[12]
b. Nancy G. Craft was born in September 1828 at Burkesville in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 15 March 1907 at Clifton in Greenlee County, Arizona. About 1850 in Cumberland County, Nancy married John B. Carver, son of William Carver and Susannah Bow. John was born in 1829 in Cumberland County and died 4 May 1865 at Fortress Rosecrans near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He died as a Union soldier serving in the 154th Illinois Infantry, and is buried at Stones River National cemetery, Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, Tennessee.[13]
Nancy’s obituary in Clifton, Arizona’s Copper Era and Morenci Leader states that she’s buried in a Masonic cemetery at Clifton.[14] The obituary erroneously gives her birthplace as Berksville, Pennsylvania, rather than Burkesville, Kentucky. Her Find a Grave memorial page, which repeats the misinformation in her obituary about her birthplace, identifies the cemetery as Clifton cemetery.[15] As a previous posting notes, on 6 April 1863 in Cumberland County, Nancy and husband John B. Carver sold their share of Abner Bryson’s estate to their brother-in-law Rufus K. Armstrong, husband of Nancy’s sister Mary Elizabeth.[16]
c. Rufus Alexander Craft was born 20 October 1831 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 14 March 1909 at Burlingame in Osage County, Kansas. His dates of birth and death are recorded on his tombstone in Burlingame cemetery at Burlingame, Osage County, Kansas.[17] Rufus’s obituary in the Burlingame newspaper Osage County Chronicle on Thursday, 18 March 1909, also states that he was born 20 October 1831 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died the previous Sunday at Burlingame.[18] The obituary states that he married Martha E. Vance in Clinton County on 14 November 1859. The marriage record in the Clinton County marriage register for 1859 gives the date as 17 November.[19]
Martha Elizabeth Vance was the daughter of Samuel Vance and Elizabeth Cherry. She was born 14 October 1835 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 10 April 1914 in Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas. She’s buried with Rufus in Burlingame cemetery at Burlingame, Osage County, Kansas.
d. Gilbert Bryson Craft was born 17 May 1834 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 4 December 1863 at Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee. Gilbert was a corporal in Co. J of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry (Union) when he died in the hospital at Knoxville after having been shot in his left arm. He is buried in the Knoxville National cemetery.[20]
e. George Lafayette Craft was born 20 January 1834 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 14 November 1885 in Cumberland County. These dates apparently appear on his badly deteriorated tombstone in Rose of Sharon cemetery in Cumberland County.[21] On 10 November 1859, he married Mary A. Johnston or Mary J. Johnson.[22] The marriage is recorded in both Clinton and Cumberland Counties, with the Clinton County record giving his spouse’s name as Mary A. Johnston and stating that she was aged 14, and the Cumberland County record. The 1850 federal census shows Mary Johnson, aged 5, in the household of George Johnson in Clinton County, with James Johnson as Mary’s father. Note that this marriage was a week before his brother Rufus married Martha Elizabeth Vance in Clinton County.
A Find a Grave memorial page for Mary Johnson Craft states that she was born 21 January 1844 and died in August 1876 in Cumberland County, and is buried in Chestnut Grove cemetery at Burkesville, Cumberland County.[23] Following Mary’s death, George then married in 1877-7, probably in Clinton County, Nancy Jane Hay, daughter of William Hay and Nancy Wright. She was born 22 November 1845 in Kentucky and died 9 December 1922 Albany in Clinton County, where she’s buried in Five Springs cemetery.
Elizabeth N. Bryson and Reid Mackey
4. Elizabeth N. Bryson, the fourth child of Abner Bryson and Nancy Whitlock, is said to have been born 14 July 1809 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and to have died 17 November 1857 in Christian County, Kentucky. I’m using the qualifying phrase “is said” here because I have not been able to find a source for this birth and death information, which is widely reported in family trees. In their Founders of the Mackey Clan in Kentucky, Everette Mackey, Barbara M. Grider, and Hazel Wells state that Elizabeth’s husband Reid Mackey was born 17 May 1805 in Rockbridge County, Virginia, and died 23 May 1844 in Christian County, Kentucky.[24] But this source does not state Elizabeth’s birth and death dates.
According to Founders of the Mackey Clan in Kentucky, Reid Mackey and Elizabeth N. Bryson married 4 September 1828 in Christian County.[25] Reid was the son of James and Mary Mackey of Cumberland County, and, as previously noted, a brother of Mary Mackey, who married Elizabeth’s brother Thomas Whitlock Bryson. This is the same Mackey family for whom Elizabeth’s aunt Sarah Whitlock and husband Thomas Brooks named a son Alexander Mackey Brooks, a family that included an Alexander Mackey who bought Thomas Whitlock’s family bible at Thomas’s estate sale in Cumberland County.[26] The specific dates cited in various family trees for the births and deaths of Reid Mackey, his wife Elizabeth N. Bryson, and their four children make me think a bible of the Reid Mackey family may have survived and may be the source for these dates. But if that’s the case, I haven’t seen information about such a source cited in any family tree providing these pieces of information.
Between 1830, when the federal census shows Reid Mackey’s family living near his father in Cumberland County, and 1840, when the family appears on the federal census in Christian County, the family moved from Cumberland to Christian County, perhaps at the same time that Nancy’s parents Abner and Nancy Whitlock Bryson moved to Christian County between 1832-3. Elizabeth is named as a daughter of Abner Bryson and as wife of Reid Mackey in the December 1842 and May 1843 deeds and court records discussed in a previous posting, which name Abner’s children by Nancy Whitlock and document the division of his land among his heirs.[27]
Children of Elizabeth N. Bryson and Reid Mackey
Reid Mackey and Elizabeth N. Bryson were parents of the following children:
a. Martin Alexander Mackey was born 29 July 1829 in Cumberland County, and died there 5 October 1829.
b. Mary Whitlock Mackey was born 9 December 1831 in Cumberland County, and died 23 March 1908 in Christian County. Mary did not marry. She is buried in Cox cemetery in Christian County with a tombstone marker giving her full name and dates of birth and death.[28]
c. Abner Bryson Mackey was born 5 June 1836 at Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky, and died 24 October 1927 at Malheur in Malheur County, Oregon. His death certificate in Malheur County, with information supplied by his daughter Emma Helen McCumber, states that the preceding death date and that he was aged 91 years, 4 months, and 19 days when he died. The death certificate states that he was born at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and gives his father’s name as Reid Mackey, but does not name his mother.[29]
As this subsequent posting shows, between 1850 and 1860, Abner went to Missouri with his aunt Nancy H. Bryson and her husband William Bryan Sutton, in whose household in Newton County, Missouri, Abner is enumerated on the 1860 federal census. After Abner married Nancy Ann Bird in Nebraska in 1862, he then returned to Missouri and is found on the 1870 federal census in Cedar County, adjacent to Polk County, where the Suttons had moved by 1870. Ann Bird’s date and place of death are stated in her obituary in the Oregon Daily Journal on 19 February 1912, which states that Mrs. N.A. Mackey, aged 70, an Oregon pioneer, had died at home on the north fork of the Walla Walla River [Milton in Umatilla County] on 16 February. She was born in Tennessee in 1842. After marrying in Nebraska in 1862 and then going to Missouri, in 1872 Abner and Ann went to Montana and then moved to Oregon in 1879.[30] Nancy’s death certificate, with information supplied by G.M. Bradshaw of Milton, Oregon, states that Nancy E. Mackey was born in Missouri on 6 February 1842 and gives her maiden name as Bird.[31]
Abner Bryson Mackey is buried in Juntura cemetery at Juntura, Malheur County, Oregon, with a tombstone giving his years of birth and death.[32] Nancy Bird Mackey is buried in the Pioneer Bowlus cemetery in Umatilla County, Oregon.[33]
d. Nancy Frances Mackey was born 13 November 1838 in Christian County, Kentucky, and died 12 August 1928 in Christian County. On 25 December 1862 in Christian County, she married John M. Cox, son of Elijah J. Cox and Irena Wilkinson. Nancy’s death certificate, with information supplied by her daughter Mrs. G.W. Wilrose, states her dates and places of birth and death and that her parents were Reid Mackey and Elizabeth Bryson.[34]
John M. Cox was born 15 February 1835 and died 17 December 1882. Nancy and John are buried in Cox cemetery in Christian County.[35]
James Bryson
5. James Bryson, the fifth child of Abner Bryson and Nancy Whitlock, was born 1813-5 in Cumberland County, Kentucky. The 1850 federal census, enumerating him in Christian County, Kentucky, with his widowed mother Nancy living with him, gives his age as 37. In 1860, again in Christian County and again with Nancy in the household, along with James’s nieces Mary and Nancy Mackey, James is aged 45. I discussed these census documents in a previous posting which notes that James’s mother Nancy lived with him in her final years, after Abner Bryson died, and that it seems James farmed how own land along with his mother’s.
As the posting I’ve just linked shows, James administered the estate of his father Abner Bryson along with James’s brother Thomas Whitlock Bryson. On 3 October 1839 in Christian County, Abner’s estate was inventoried at the request of James and Thomas W.[36] James is named as a son and heir of Abner Bryson in the December 1842 and May 1843 deeds and court records discussed in the posting linked above, which name Abner’s children by Nancy Whitlock and document the division of his land among his heirs after his daughter Sarah and husband John Strode Lander filed suit against the other heirs in May 1842 regarding the land distribution.[37]
As the posting I’ve just linked states, when Abner Bryson’s lane was divided, James purchased the portion of his sister Catharine and husband John Wilson Williams, ending up with a total of 105 acres adjoining his mother’s land, and this perhaps explains Nancy’s decision to live with her son James in the final years of her life: they had adjoining pieces of land and James was evidently farming his mother’s land along with his own. At Nancy’s estate sale on 12 September 1863, James purchased all of her property, though seven enslaved people listed in the inventory of Nancy’s estate do not appear in the list of property sold, and it seems likely that James obtained possession of those enslaved people, too.[38]
James Bryson had died in Christian County by 9 December 1868 when his estate was inventoried and appraised by Stephen S. Lander and W.D. Lander as the appraisers, and with John M. Cox, husband of James’s niece Nancy Mackey, as administrator.[39] Stephen and William David Lander were sons of John Strode Lander, who married James’s sister Sarah Whitlock Bryson, by John’s first wife. Christian County will books actually record the inventory and appraisement twice, with the second record giving 19 December 1868 as the date it was made and naming James as Capt. James Bryson. The second inventory has the name Johnson written in the margin, though the inventory itself states that it’s the inventory of Capt. James Bryson’s estate.
On 11 December 1868, James’s estate was sold.[40] Buyers included James’s brother Thomas Whitlock Bryson, John M. Cox, James’s niece Miss Mary Mackey, and members of the Lander family.
On 3 January 1871, John M. Cox reported a settlement of the estate, which notes that it had a net value of $4,132.31, of which $2,443.31 had been disbursed, leaving an amount of $1,689.[41] On 1 November 1871, pursuant to a court order in October, a division of land of the estate was recorded.[42] The land division states that James Bryson died seized of the following tracts: a dower tract of 170 acres belonging to his mother Nancy Bryson, Abner Bryson’s widow except for a seventh part of that tract; and two tracts of 49 and 88 acres.
The dower tract was valued at $3,684, and L. Bryant had purchased the seventh part of it for $526.28½, leaving the tract valued at $3,157.71½. With the other tracts added in, the total value of the land was $4,592.71½. The only two people mentioned in the division document are Catharine Williams and L. Bryant. It appears this division was made to settle the disposition of land between those two persons, Catharine being James Bryson’s sister with an interest in the dower tract. As noted previously, Lawrence Bryant was administrator of Nancy Whitlock Bryson’s estate in Christian County.
[1] See Find a Grave memorial page of Hilpa Bryson Craft, Rose of Sharon cemetery, Cumberland County, Kentucky, created by Elaine, maintained by Middle TN, with a tombstone photo by Elaine.
[2] Cumberland County, Kentucky, Death Register 1858, unpaginated.
[3] See NARA, Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Widows and Other Dependents of Civil War Veterans, ca. 1861 – ca. 1910, RG 15, Gilbert B. Craft, Pension Application of Father John A. Craft, WC117311; available digitally at Fold3.
[4] See Find a Grave memorial page of John Anderson Craft, Rose of Sharon cemetery, Cumberland County, Kentucky, created by Bow, maintained by Middle TN, with a tombstone photo by Bow.
[5] See Jonathan K.T. Smith’s abstract of the obituary in “Genealogical Abstracts from Reported Deaths, the Nashville Christian Advocate, 1885-1886: July-December, 1885,” at the Tennessee Genweb site.
[6] See supra, n. 3.
[7] Vestal Cross, “Craft, John Anderson,” and Ernesta Mira, “Craft, Michael (Sr. and Jr.),” in Cumberland County, Kentucky, Yesterday and Today, ed. Ruth Wooten (Dallas: Curtis Media, 1992), pp. 241, 243.
[8] Lyman C. Draper, King’s Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It (Cincinnati: Thomson, 1881), p. 417.
[9] Christian family researchers have suggested that it’s more likely Gilbert Christian was born in Frederick or Orange County, Virginia, from which his family moved to Augusta County, Virginia, where he married Margaret Anderson on 14 June 1763. See this discussion and a photo of a memorial marker erected in 1976 by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kingsport, Tennessee, of which he was the first permanent settler: Find a Grave memorial page of Col. Gilbert Christian, created by tbickellb, with a photo by tbickellb.
[10] Christian County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. 30, pp. 80-95; and Christian County, Kentucky, Circuit Court Order Bk. W, pp. 42-4.
[11] Joseph Addison, “An Antediluvian Romance,” The Spectator no. 584 (23 August 1714) and no.585 (25 August 1714): see Essays of Joseph Addison, vol.2, ed. James George Frazer (London: Macmillan, 1915), pp. 339-347.
[12] See Find a Grave memorial page of Rufus Armstrong, Antioch cemetery, Vernon County, Missouri, created by Jarrott P. Cox, with a tombstone photo by William Fischer, Jr.
[13] See Find a Grave memorial page of Pvt John B. Carver, Stones River National cemetery, Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, Tennessee, created by Bev, maintained by Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, with a tombstone photo by Lori Parker.
[14] “Passed Away,” Copper Era and Morenci Leader (Clifton, Arizona) (21 March 1907), p. 3, col. 5.
[15] See Find a Grave memorial page of Nancy Carver, Clifton cemetery, Clifton, Greenlee County, Arizona, created by Dayna Palmer.
[16] Cumberland County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. P, p. 537.
[17] See Find a Grave memorial page of Lt. Rufus A. Craft, created by Charles W. Brown, maintained by Jim Nelson, with a tombstone photo by Jean Pinick.
[18] “Rufus A. Craft,” Osage County Chronicle (Burlingame, Kansas) (18 March 1909), p. 1, col. 1.
[19] Clinton County, Kentucky, Marriage Register 1859, pp. 67-8.
[20] See Find a Grave memorial page for Gilbert B. Craft, Knoxville National cemetery, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, created by US Veterans Affairs Office, maintained by Sue Butterfield Picard, with a tombstone by Howard A. Sutherland.
[21] See Find a Grave memorial page for George Lafayette Craft, Rose of Sharon cemetery, Cumberland County, Kentucky, created by Vickie Rush, with a tombstone photo by Judy Reneau.
[22] Clinton County, Kentucky, Marriage Register 1859, pp. 67-8; Cumberland County, Kentucky, Marriage Register 1859, pp. 73-4.
[23] See Find a Grave memorial page for Mary A. Johnston Craft, Chestnut Grove cemetery, Burkesville, Cumberland County, Kentucky, created by Vickie Rush.
[24] Everette Mackey, Barbara M. Grider, and Hazel Wells, Founders of the Mackey Clan in Kentucky (Albany, Kentucky: Gibson Printing Co., 1980, 1988), p. 4. The authors say they are citing files of Barbara Grider and Sam Brents.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Cumberland County, Kentucky, Will Bk. B., pp. 426-433.
[27] See supra, n. 10.
[28] See Find a Grave memorial page of Mary Whitlock Mackey, Cox cemetery, Christian County, Kentucky, created by Parks Mason, with a tombstone photo by Parks Mason.
[29] Oregon State Archives, Oregon, County Birth and Death Records, 1855-1962, Malheur County 1927, state file 72, available digitally in Ancestry database Oregon, U.S., County Births and Deaths, 1855-1970.
[30] “Pioneer Woman Passes,” Oregon Daily Journal (19 February 1912), p. 7, col. 3-4.
[31] Oregon State Archives, Oregon, County Birth and Death Records, 1855-1962, Malheur County 1927, #429, available digitally in Ancestry database Oregon, U.S., County Births and Deaths, 1855-1970
[32] See Find a Grave memorial page of A.B. Mackey, Juntura cemetery, Juntura, Malheur County, Oregon, created by Tami K., with a tombstone photo by Tina Robison-Jones.
[33] See Find a Grave memorial page of Nancy E. Mackey, Pioneer Bowlus cemetery, Umatilla County, Oregon, created by Carmen Mildenberger Adams, maintained by Looking For Loved Ones.
[34] Kentucky Bureau of Vital Statistics, Christian County death certificates 1928, #19207, available digitally in Ancestry database Kentucky, U.S., Death Records, 1852-1965.
[35] See Find a Grave memorial page of Nancy Frances “Nannie” Mackey Cox, Cox cemetery, Christian County, Kentucky, created by Parks Mason, with a tombstone photo by Parks Mason.
[36] Christian County, Kentucky, Will Bk. K, pp. 550-3.
[37] See supra, n. 10.
[38] Christian County, Kentucky, Will Bk. S, pp. 382-3.
[39] Ibid., Will Bk. V, pp. 107-8; and Will Bk. W, pp. 405-6.
[40] Ibid., Will Bk. U, pp. 261-4.
[41] Ibid., Will Bk. V, pp. 125-6.
[42] Ibid., pp. 361-2.
Begats and Bequeathals 
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