Adams County, Ohio
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Cherry Fork Cemetery Adams County, Ohio |
A1 John McClanahan was born ca. 1740 in Ireland, died ca. 1820 in Adams County, Ohio.
John emigrated from Tyrone County, Ireland in 1785. He married (1) ____ ___, and (2) Elizabeth Thompson, (headstone on right) born June 1765 in Ireland, died August 30, 1842 in Liberty Township, Adams County Ohio. Elizabeth is buried in Cherry Fork Cemetery, Cherry Fork, Adams County, Ohio. Both of these marriages took place in Ireland. Nine Children (5 with first wife, 4 with Elizabeth Thompson).
John and his family first settled on the James River in Virginia, then moved to Bourbon County, near Lexington, Kentucky. Due to his opposition to slavery then being practiced in Kentucky, he moved his family to Adams County, Ohio and settled on the headwaters of Eagle Creek, on lands still in possession of his descendants today.
On May 6, 2010, I had the pleasure of meeting with a contemporary McClanahan who lives on this land, James Troy McClanahan. He took me on a tour of the McClanahan lands, including a corner of a present day corn field that most likely was the site of the origional log cabin erected by John McClanahan in 1799. The site today includes the outlines of a stone foundation and an obvious circular well frame, also of stone. This site location is roughly one mile north of the East Branch of Eagle Creek on the Old Cincinnati Road, just east of State Route 136. For a more precise map of the location of this site, click here. Thanks Troy!FIRST McCLANAHANS
The McClanahans belong to that hardy race which has survived trial and persecution, war and peril in Scotland, in Ireland, and the frontiers of America. These are the Scotch-Irish. Born with a characteristic urge to travel, thrice and four times transplanted, who of the McClanahans has not heard a call, "Get thee out of thy country and from thy father's house?"
A sketch of the family migration ia all that is possible today. We know there were McClanahans in Scotland, and in Ireland, and we have some records of the family in Kentucky, Virginia, and in Ohio.
How few threads remain of the rich tapestry of their lives.
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MACLEAN of Dowart
Source: Burke's Peerage and Baronetage 1978 |
Little is known of the family's origin and early ancestry, but it is probable that all branches trace to the same Scottish clan, in the Gaelic, MagLeannagheim. Among the many spellings, we find McClannaghan, McLenachan, McClanaghan, McLanahan, our McClanahan, and perhaps McClain and McLean.
Bolton's American Armory gives the McClanahan crest and the family motto, "virtue aqui itur honor," (sic) and Burke's Peerage gives a very similar crest as Maclean with the motto "virtue mine honor." The likeness makes a common origin probable.
The name goes far back. It is found in church records of the 13th century. A MacLean was slain at Flodden Field in 1513. At the Battle of Inverkeithing seven brothers of the name in turn each rushed to protect his hard-pressed chief. Each shouted as he fell, "Another for Hector!" Their sacrifice was in vain, since their chief also fell, but it gave the clan its war-cry, "Another for Hector!"
Fighters for generations, sifted again and again, the Scotch-Irish emerged a distinct type, a strong and stubborn race. Sturdy in body and strong in soul, they chose the very frontier of settlement. With their young wives and their broods of stout little bairns, their psalms and their catechisms, the forefront of settlement was theirs by choice. True to their race henceforth, the McClanahans were among the pioneer Scotch-Irish at every migration and on every frontier.
Though the McClanahan name is occasionally found documented in Scotland or Ireland, of our own line we can learn but little. A fact "record" was kept in the family Bible and handed carefully on to the eldest child of each generation. But when it had descended to Mary Ann Thompson, first of our patriarch's seventeen, in the burning of her pioneer Adams County home it was destroyed. This was lost, perhaps forever, the detailed lineage.
ENTRY INTO OHIO
There was the beautiful section of the Ohio county lying between the Scioto and the Miami Rivers. It was the fertile tract first traversed by those captives [from the French and Indian War days, 1755] who sang the 137th Psalm,Under the Ordinance of 1787 slavery had "forever been prohibited" in the land north of the Ohio. To the Dissenters whose ministers had long denounced human slavery, this seemed the very land of promise.
A "Seceeder of the Seceeders" was that John McClanahan who came from Ireland in 1785. He joined his relatives in Rockbridge County [Virginia] but soon came on with them to Bourbon County, Kentucky.
In Virginia he had viewed the slaves with horror and when he found their condition not improved in Kentucky, he at once urged pressing on across the Ohio. He pointed to the success of the Marietta settlement and no doubt felt only _____ ___ ____ was needed.OUR FAMILY LOOKS TOWARD OHIO
With the swarming Dissenters came the "Old Seseeder," John McClanahan. He, too, early moved into the Ohio country, the Virginia Military District. He settled far up on Eagle Creek in the wilderness and happily began the immense task of the pioneer.
It seems strange today that these frontiersmen, Robert and John McClanahan, keen judges of land as they were, should by-pass the fat valley levels and ascend to the high hills before locating their claims. They knew the land; but too well had they found there was death in the valley. All undrained, clogged with underbrush, and with the swamps alive with insects, the valley bred malaria, "chills and fever."
The first house in their clearing was made of logs. cut and notched on the spot from the smaller trees. It was furnished with tables and stools from the slabs. Stout saplings made table logs or spokes for the spinning wheel. Long winter evenings would come in which to smooth and round them.
As they worked, John McClanahan recalled similar hard tasks of the past, stories of Scotland and Ireland. The McClanahans had been almost exterminated during the persecutions [in Ireland]. They had been chased like wild beasts, driven across the Fourth into the wilds of Galloway to Digtonshire. "But, somehow, there's always a John McClanahan left. We always name our first son John." He counted back as far as he could. "I'm the eighteenth John McClanahan myself."
A History of Adams County, Ohio
by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers
West Union, Ohio
Published by E. B. Stivers, 1900 John McClanahan - The John McClanahan family is of Irish origin. The grandfather of James and John McClanahan, whose name was also John, was married twice. By his first marriage, he had five children: Andrew, the oldest, never came to this country. His second wife was Elizabeth Thompson. They were the parents of four children: William, Martha, Rebecca and Margaret. This grandfather, John McClanahan, bought 100 acres of land of Gen. Massie, about two miles west of West Union. He deeded, Sept. 28, 1814 fifty acres of this land to his son William, by his second marriage.