Walter Thomas Adams (1897-1977, son of Enoch Adams, grandson of Thomas Adams) wrote the following letter when asked what he knew about the Adams family in Southern Illinois. The letter was written in the 1960's.
My grandfather was one of five boys. They came over from England
to South Carolina. My great grandfather was kind of wild and run
off to Kentucky, where he lived and traded with the Indians for five years.
Then he went back to South Carolina, but his folks had moved and he never
found any trace of them. Then there was no phones, papers, or anything
like that. He then came back to Kentucky and married. For a
few years he would go to Cincinnati, Ohio and buy or build a barge and
stock it with tinware, calico, whiskey, needles, thread, and anything the
settlers would buy and trade for. He would first float down the Ohio
and tow up at the landing and trade and sell. When he got to Cairo
he would sell everything including the barge or (flatboat) and buy a horse
and go home.
There close to Bowling Green my grandfather was born. Sometime after
he married my grandmother (who was fourteen at the time) they came to Southern
Illinois in a covered wagon with a coop of chickens, a cow, and all their
goods in the wagon. The Illinois court had a land grant down there
of several thousand acres of land. My grandfather bought forty acres
for three hundred dollars and had ten years to pay for it. The first
winter (they built a log house) he cleared two acres and that spring put
that new ground in sweet potatoes. He hauled and sold them in the
mining camps for two dollars a bushel. He raised almost five hundred
bushel. He paid for the forty and bought forty more acres.
All his life he raised sweet potatoes and sold sweet potato plants every
spring. Settlers would come from miles to buy his plants. He
was known as Sweet Potato Adams. He had four boys and two girls,
one of the boys and one girl died. He also raised two orphan boys
(no orphan home in those days so neighbors would take them). These
were two brothers (Sam and Chas. Anderson). When all the children
married he gave them each forty acres, a team, cow, chickens and one hundred
dollars in money which in those days was a lot. My father did not
like farming so he moved to town (Carbondale) and was very successful in
business. He also talked my Uncle Tom to do the same, and he was
successful, too.
I don’t know much about my grandmother. Her name was Lavina Duncan.
Her father owned several slaves and a Negro nanny took care of grandmother
when a child and she was named Lavina after the Negro woman. She
told me that her mother and grandmother one time molded the bullets while
her father and brothers fought off five Indians. The land was cleared
around the house so the Indians had to cross the clearing. They finally
shot one and the others got him and carried him off and left. My
grandmother was eighty-four years old when she died. An oil can exploded
as she was pouring kerosene to get the fire in the stove going. At
eighty-four she could thread a needle without glasses and spin around on
her heel. She was quite a woman.
I hope this is what you wanted. This was told to me mostly by my
grandmother. I was sixteen when she died. We were very close.
She was a wonderful woman.
Walter T. Adams
Hobert Adams (1897-1979, son of George W. Adams, grandson of Anderson Adams) wrote the next letter. It gives an excellent description of the area where the Adams family settled in Jackson Co., IL.
Anderson Adams
Hopkinsville, KY
Aug. 17, 1832
Feb. 22, 1900
No military
records of he nor any of his brothers. He died at our old home place.
Was buried at North County Line Cemetery on the west side and almost at
the south tip under a large oak. His daughter Ida Mae is beside him,
born June 13, 1876, died Nov. 26, 1905.
Anderson
married Nancy Duncan (no dates). The family consisted of:
George W. Adams
Wm. “Billy” or “Bowie” Adams
Grant Adams
Steve Adams
Jennie Adams North
Lula Adams Hogg
Dona Adams Elmore
Ida Mae Adams- never married
Steve and
Grant Adams were the youngest and died quite young, 8 or 9 yrs. These
were all born Jackson Co., Makanda Township, the area now is Giant City
State Park and the house and barn, etc. sit at the identical spot where
the park lodge is now located.
Anderson had an earlier marriage to whom or when I never found out but
a son was born. Bob “Buckskin” Adams, a half-brother that Dad never
mentioned. I knew his “Bobs”, two boys, Wm. And Ben and I’m inclined
to believe that a daughter was born. When the model T’s came out
Dad bought one about 1912-13 give or take a year and he and mom would take
off real early Sat. morning and go to Grayville, Ill. Maybe in White
Co. near the Indiana line and visit relatives, cousins and farther out
on the limb, and I believe they were from Anderson’s first marriage.
Their last names were Petit, McClain, McClun. I met a lady at Dad’s
funeral 1945, she introduced herself, said she was Dad’s cousin.
Her name was Petit, she didn’t say if she was first, second or third cousin.
Jennie is buried in the same cemetery as Anderson but I could not find
a marker. Before the Gov’t. flooded the lake area they moved bodies
from family and country cemeteries and made a terrible mess of it- Dad’s
sisters Dona and Lula were moved.
The name Hogg entered when Lula married Geo. Hogg. She died young,
but left one daughter, Leta Hogg. She married an Edwards. The
only marker I could find at Nancy’s grave at the Gov’t. Cemetery was a
small, metal one which read Nancy Adams. There may have been others,
but it’s pretty deep when there is no written record to go by- but these
are authentic.
Anderson had two brothers,
one sister:
John Q. #1 Adams
Thomas #1 Adams
Jane Adams
John Q. #1 had 2 sons, 1 daughter:
John Q. #2 (Tater John)
George W. (Curley George)
Berthie
Thomas #1 married Vina Duncan, a sister to Nancy. They had 3 sons and maybe 1 or two daughters:
John Q. (Fiddler John)
Thomas, Jr.
Enoch
If
you will note carefully these were double cousins to Dad. Nancy and
Vina were sisters and Anderson and Thomas were brothers.
The name Aikens is on my mind and I believe that Jane married an Aikens.
I remember her well. She used to come to our place and stay maybe
a month or more each year and help mom put up fruit or make kraut- she
smoked a clay pipe and could spit through a keyhole 4 feet away.
I think she chewed a little nip of tobacco also, that’s where she got her
spitting experience. She had a pocket in her petticoat where she
kept her utensils. She could shoot a rifle like an expert and was
a self-proclaimed healer- if you had an earache she would blow smoke in
your ear. I would tell her my ear had quit hurting in order to get
rid of the smoke.
Anderson’s parents came from Virginia through North or South Carolina to
Hopkinsville, KY. How many brothers and sisters not known.
I imagine they are buried in family plots in and around Hopkinsville.
After Anderson’s immediate family grew up, he sold the place in Makanda
Township and bought and built one and a half miles east of Carbondale-
on what is now the John Rendleman farm. The barn is standing yet
and is north of the hi-way going east out of Carbondale. He sold
and bought sixty acres where we folks grew up- it was owned by a party
named Walker who came from Tennessee. Ill. Became a state in 1818
and people started coming in soon after. The largest percentage of
them came from KY or Tenn. Anderson was co-founder and one of the
first board members of Antioch Baptist Church about four miles east of
Carbondale on New Hiway just inside Jackson Co.
Hobert Adams