I thought I had finished with the recent Nation rabbit holes, but with all the meandering I did while researching and reporting results in earlier posts this month, I decided that I need to spotlight my new theory concerning the wives of Henry Nation.

Reviewing all these new pieces of evidence has forced me to revise my thinking!

Henry Nation lived most of his life in Fentress County, Tennessee, where, unfortunately, there have been courthouse fires that destroyed many records, including marriage records. Henry doesn’t appear in the county land records, either, which have survived. He does appear once in Overton County land deeds, but the county apparently didn’t require witnesses’ names to be recorded, so there isn’t much to be gleaned from those records.

That pretty much leaves only the census and developing Henry’s FAN club to look for clues to the names of his wives. Only the last wife, Mary Riddle, has been identified for certain.

Here are the facts and my theories about the wives of Henry Nations:

Henry married (1) Unknown (MNU), c1831, probably in Fentress County, Tennessee, although he lived in Overton County at the time. By his unknown first wife, aged 20-29 in the 1840 census, he had one son and one daughter born 1830-1835, son Joseph Michael Nation/s, born 17 March 1836 and another son born c1838, all at home in Fentress County, Tennessee in 1840.

Children with Unknown Wife #1:

• Son, born c1832
• Daughter, born c1834
• Joseph Michael, born 17 March 1836
• Son, born c1838

Although all four of the above children were living in 1840, the two sons and one daughter might have died by 1850, as they are not at home with Henry and I haven’t found evidence of them living in Tennessee with other families.

Henry was again enumerated in 1850 with wife Mary, born c1825 in Cumberland County, Kentucky. At home were Henry, Mary, Joseph Michael Nations and Thomas Nations, who was born on 11 May 1844 in Fentress County, Tennessee.

With the gap of 6 years between Joseph’s and Thomas’s births, it seems there was a second wife. Henry Thomas Nation died in 1909 and his family left a detailed obituary stating that he was the son of Henry Nation and Mary (Polly) Riddle and that his mother died when he was just six weeks old. No siblings were mentioned in his obituary. Aside from wife and children, he was survived by “numerous relatives.”

My question here is if Mary Riddle was Henry Thomas’s birth mother or if she was Henry’s next wife – Mary found in the 1850 census – and the only mother he ever knew?

By 1860, Henry Thomas was a young 16 year old apparently married to Nancy, aged 23 years old. They were living among the Ledbetters in Overton County, but I believe Nancy was the daughter of Philip and Martha (Cravens) Livingston, who took in young Nancy Nations, born c1849, and who all ended up living in Howell County, Missouri after the close of the Civil War.

I believe at this time that Henry Thomas Nation was the son of Unknown Ledbetter, perhaps Mary, and that Mary Riddle was the (step)mother who raised him. That seems to be the only explanation why he would be living surrounded in a neighborhood of Ledbetter families.

Child with Wife #2 (possibly Mary Ledbetter):

• Henry Thomas, born 11 May 1844

Now, most descendants lump Nancy Nations, born c1849 with mother Mary Riddle, supposedly at home with Henry, Joseph, Thomas and baby Nancy in 1850.

Unfortunately, Nancy died in 1933 in Oklahoma with no apparent death certificate recorded, thereby leaving no primary documents with the names of her parents.

I believe that Mary, found in the 1850 census of Overton County was her mother and possibly born a Cravens, given that Peter and Martha (Cravens) Livingston took her in and raised her.

Child with Wife #3 (Mary possibly Cravens)

• Nancy A., born c1849

I also believe that some time shortly after 1850, Mary (possibly Cravens) died and Henry married (4) Mary (Polly) Riddle. Mary Riddle didn’t die in the 1840s – she was still at home with her parents in 1850, who moved from Cumberland County, Kentucky to Fentress County, Tennessee and who lived only four doors away from Henry Nations!

Henry married (4) Mary Riddle, c1852 and had three children with her:

• Isaac Suel, born 2 June 1853, Fentress County, Tennessee; died 27 June 1938, Madison County, Arkansas; married Mary Ellen Phelps, 8 December 1872, Scott County, Missouri
• Zerilda, born February 1857, Tennessee; died after 1900 when the family lived in Johnson County, Arkansas; married Andrew Hughes, 28 May 1871, Scott County, Missouri
• Sarah Emeline, born April 1860, Arkansas County, Arkansas; died after 1900, possibly in Mississippi County, Arkansas; married George W. Stratton, 28 May 1878, Scott County, Missouri

Mary (Riddle) Nation married (2) James Conkin, c1865. They may have divorced between 1870-1880, as Mary is enumerated as Mary Nations, living with Sarah and George Stratton in Scott County, Missouri in 1880.

Mary hasn’t been found after 1880 and no death records have been located for Isaac, Zerilda or Sarah.

I think this is a plausible working theory for the difficult task of identifying the wives of Henry Nation, who died after the 1860 census when the family lived in Johnson County, Arkansas. I have no knowledge of whether Henry died due to the Civil War, but have found no evidence of service for him. There was a skirmish at Clarksville, Johnson County, Arkansas that took place from 28 September 1864 to 9 October 1864 with 20 CSA soldiers killed. Since Henry’s son, Henry Thomas, served in the CSA, it’s possible that Henry also supported the CSA.

Readers – What do you think? Have I made a case for identifying the four wives of Henry Nation, or at least Wives 2, 3 and 4? There are absolutely no clues as to the mother of my husband’s 2X great grandfather, Joseph Michael Nation. If there are clues in the names of Joe’s children – Nancy Ann, Henry Jackson, Joseph, John Wesley, Rosetta, Thomas Nathan, Clayton Columbus and Alice, I have yet found them!

The last of the Nation rabbit holes covers the search for what happened to Nancy Nations, born c1849 in Tennessee.

My theory at the moment is that the two Nancy Nations, both aged one year in 1850, are the same girl, the daughter of Henry Nation and a deceased wife, possibly with the maiden name of Cravens, enumerated twice – once in Fentress County, living with Henry and Mary (Riddle) Nation and again next door in Overton County, Tennessee living with Peter and Patsey (Martha) (Cravens) Livingston.

Nancy Nations has not bee found in the 1860 census, which might be the time period when the Livingstons left Tennessee for a new life in Missouri.

The Livingstons settled in Howell County, Missouri and are enumerated there in 1870. Nancy isn’t in the home because on 24 September 1868, she married Samuel Alexander Potter in Howell County.

By 1870, Samuel and Nancy, along with their one year old son, Madison, had left Missouri and settled in Cherokee County, Kansas.

The family also appears in the 1885 Kansas state census, living in Galena, Cherokee County.

By 1900, they were enumerated in Galena, but not in Kansas – Galena in Jasper County, Missouri!

In 1910, Samuel, Nancy and son Floyd were living in South Carbondale, Garfield, Colorado.

By 1920, they had moved once again, this time to Quapaw, Ottawa, Oklahoma, where Samuel and Nancy died.

Their last census entry in 1930 had one interesting item. Under the birthplace for Nancy’s parents, the census taker wrote in “Mixed blood Cherokee.”

In every other census, Nancy was enumerated as white, as was Samuel. Where they trying to obtain land and claiming Native American heritage or was this some kind of strange error that the census taker made, perhaps mistaking Cherokee County, Kansas for Cherokee ethnic background? Very odd, to say the least.

Samuel and Nancy were the parents of seven children:

1. Madison Eldrado, born c1869, Missouri; died 2 May 1948, Quapaw, Ottawa, Oklahma, but buried in Galena, Cherokee, Kansas; married Caroline E. Crosby, c1890
2. Cyrus, born 1871, Kansas; died 10 August 1938, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, but buried in Galena, Cherokee, Kansas; married Rosa L. King, c1891
3. Oliver Monroe, born 31 January 1875/1878, Kansas; died 27 October 1950, Coquille, Coos, Oregon; married Winifred Elizabeth Stevens, 12 December 1897, Cherokee County, Kansas. He is the only family member not buried at home in Galena, Kansas.
4. Elizabeth Jane, born 25 October 1877, Missouri; died 17 February 1959, Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas; married George Archie Sunderland, c1896
5. Joseph Juneth, born 21 January 1880, Kansas; died 8 June 1932, Picher, Cherokee, Kansas; married Anna Cox, 23 September 1900, Cherokee County, Kansas
6. Rosa Lee, born 26 June 1882/1884, Kansas; died 25 June 1973, Galena, Cherokee, Kansas; married (1) William L. Bender, c1899 (2) David Cutrell
7. Floyd L., born October 1885, Kansas; died 1966, Carbondale, Garfield, Colorado; married Sarah Anzenberger, 24 November 1913, Garfield County, Colorado

Nancy gained a few years in age as time passed. When she did in 1933, her reported birth year was 1844. She died on 8 May 1933 in Quapaw, Ottawa, Oklahoma.

Samuel was born in June 1847 and predeceased Nancy, passing away on 16 June 1930, also in Quapaw.

Both Samuel and Nancy were buried back home in Galena, Cherokee, Kansas with other family members.

Unfortunately, Nancy died during the Great Depression and it seems no death certificate was filed for her. I would love to have been able to read the names of her parents! Yet another block wall in figuring out the extended Nation family.

Since I went down rabbit hole #4 looking for more information about Henry Nation’s son, Thomas, I got caught down there by some BSOs and decided to continue digging.

I’ve hand drawn a family tree that shows the many ties between the Nation family and the Robbins, Livingstons and Ledbetters. It’s not the easiest diagram to follow, but that means it does an excellent job highlighting the murky, undocumented but by tradition connections.

The first BSOs that caught my attention were two entries in the 1850 census of Tennessee. The first was the family of Peter Livingston, who as far as I could tell had no apparent ties to the Nation family, and lived in Overton County, Tennessee:

As you can see, the Livingstons had eight children of their own at home, yet one year old Nancey Nations is living with them.

If you read my post about Henry Nation’s son, Thomas, who turned out to be Henry Thomas Nation, he was apparently married at the age of 16 to one Nancy (MNU), aged 23 years old, c1860.

Remember, too, that the 1850 census of Thomas Nation at home with father Henry, stepmother Mary (Riddle) and two half siblings, including one year old Nancy Nations.

Were the two Nancys the same child? There is no Nancy at home with Henry and Mary in 1860. . . .

What drew me further down the rabbit hole is the fact that both Henry and his father, Isaac, who died c1849, had wives whose names aren’t known.

Henry actually had two wives, the first the mother of Joseph Michael Nation, my husband’s 2X great grandfather born in 1836, and the second was the mother of Henry Thomas Nation, born 1844.

Isaac Nation, father of Henry Nation, married three times. The first was to Margaret Tillman, mother of Henry, the second wife was Jane Robbins and the third wife is Unknown. The order in which Isaac married wives 2 and 3 is unknown, but he had four children, Isaac Jackson, born c1835, Margaret, born c1837, Mary, born c1840 and Vina A., born c1842.

That information led me to the second entry in the 1850 Tennessee census of Fentress County, Tennessee, the family of Jones Ledbetter, who had one daughter, Margaret, plus two Nations children, Margaret, 13 years old, and Vina, 8 years old.

I was hoping that these miscellaneous Nations children, living with the Livingstons and the Ledbetters, might provide some clues as to their parents, particularly to who their mothers were.

While these families are tantalizing, they actually haven’t been terribly helpful.

First, Jones Ledbetter married Catherine Nation, daughter of Isaac and Margaret (Tillman) Nation, so when both Isaac and their mother died before 1850, young Margaret and Vina were then taken in and raised by their half-sister, Catherine. One mystery solved.

What became of the girls? I find no record of Margaret after the 1850 census, but she was already 13 years old and living in an area where it was very common for girls to marry in their mid-teens. I suspect that Margaret married – Fentress is a burned county – and looking for Margaret, born c1837 in Tennessee is quite hopeless with no hints popping up. Vina still lived with Jones and Catherine in 1860, when they lived in Texas County, Missouri. She was 18 years old and probably on the brink of marriage. However, she, too, has disappeared without a trace. So, one mystery solved, but questions remain about their lives.

The Peter Livingston family is a bit more tantalizing. Peter married Martha Cravens, which still didn’t ring any bells for me. However, I took a look at the 1840 census. Look at Henry Nation’s next door neighbor in 1840:

It’s a bit hard to read, but that is Henry Cravens, aged 40-50, easily of an age to have a daughter who married Henry Nations. I suspect that Martha (Cravens) Livingston was related to Henry Cravens and that Nancy Nations, born c1849, might be the granddaughter of Henry Cravens. Another possibility is that Joseph Michael Nation’s mother was the Cravens.

It’s interesting that I’ve found an online tree that claims – no sources cited – that Henry Nation married one Mary Ledbetter and that they were the parents of Nancy Nations, born c1849. That Nancy Nations married Samuel Alexander Potter on 24 September 1868 in Howell County, Missouri, where Catherine (Nation) Ledbetter Taber was living after Jones Ledbetter died in 1862.

There’s one more clue pointing to the Cravens family. Not only did Peter and Martha (Cravens) Livingston have Nancey Nations at home with them, but they had a daughter of their own listed among their children – Nancy, born 1837, at home in 1850, but not found after that time. Could it be that Henry Nation’s son, Henry Thomas, enumerated aged 16 and apparently married to 23 year old Nancy in 1860 might have married Nancy Livingston?

That’s also another possible clue that the two Nancy Nations enumerated with Henry and Mary Nation in addition to Peter and Martha Livingston, both in 1850, was actually the daughter of Henry and his deceased wife – not the daughter of Mary (Riddle) Nation.

Given the paucity of records, this post is really just suppositions, but I believe the Nation family had a tie with the Livingstons, probably through a Cravens marriage.

Thoughts?