The migration of Moore Barnett’s children from northern Alabama to Arkansas in the first half of the 19th century had aspects in common with that of Hugh Barnett’s children about ten years later, although Hugh’s children wound up in Yell County, Arkansas, rather than in Sevier County.
Other families appeared to have travelled with them—or at least were in the same places at the same time at the beginning and end of the journey. In the case of Moore’s children, Robert M Barnett was in Morgan County, Alabama in 1840, and in Sevier County by 1842. So were Elijah D and Gideon Skidmore. Others who apparently migrated in a similar fashion were members of the Millwee, Pride, and Robinson families, to name a few.
An in–depth analysis of the migration of these families is beyond the scope of this article, but there seems to be a rough pattern of movement toward the northwest from northern Alabama to west central Tennessee, in and around Madison County, then westward from there.
Map of Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas showing the migration of the families of Hugh & Moore Barnett.
Image modified from http://earth.google.com/
Many of these families were members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.1 The area near present–day Dilworth Community in Sevier County, where they settled in the 1840s, still has a Cumberland Presbyterian Church, although it is not the original one established by the settlers. That church was destroyed in a tornado in the 1930s. According to a long–time resident of the area, Fischer Volk, the church was two miles north of the present church, near where Stringtown Creek crosses Wall Road.2
We know that Moore’s widow, Elizabeth, and her children went from Madison County, Alabama, where Moore died, to Morgan County, Alabama, by the time of the 1830 census. Perhaps she moved to be near Robert Barnett’s family. We don’t know. But by 1832, she and the children had again moved, this time to Madison County, Tennessee, where Andrew McMillan and Enos Henderson had been living in 1830.
We know that Moore & Elizabeth’s daughter, Lucinda Jane, married James Russell McMillan in 1832, and we assume that Moore & Elizabeth’s son, John M Barnett, and our Elizabeth R were married by mid–1835, because Deltry was born in early 1836, in either Tennessee or Mississippi.
In the 1840 federal census of Desoto County, Mississippi, which is just south of the TN/MS border, we find Moore’s widow, Elizabeth, living very near to the households of JR McMillen and James H Barnett.3 There were two males living in Elizabeth’s household: one age 10–15, and one age 20–30. That fits with what we know of the approximate ages of Wesley A and Archibald Jackson Steele Barnett.
So it appears that we’ve found Moore’s widow and all of his children and their families, except for John M & Elizabeth R Barnett, living in northwestern Mississippi in 1840. We think they were probably nearby, and it’s possible that they were in Tippah County; the John W Barnett household enumerated in that county would fit our John M Barnett’s family perfectly.4 It is not outwith the realm of possibility that an error occurred in transcribing the data from the original enumeration for the federal copy. But that is supposition, and we may never know exactly where they lived before coming to Sevier County.
Interestingly enough, although we have had difficulty in finding John M and Elizabeth R Barnett, not to mention any of the McMillans apart from James Russell, we have found possible entries for him twice—once in Madison County, Tennessee, and once in the above–mentioned DeSoto County, MS, census. Perhaps James & Lucinda Jane were in the process of moving west that year, and left Madison County after being enumerated there, arriving in DeSoto County in time to be enumerated there as well. Or perhaps one of them was a different James R McMillan. Again, we may never know.
Hugh Barnett’s family migrated later than Moore’s family did, staying in Madison County, Alabama, until the late 1840s, then moving to Madison County, Tennessee, where Hugh died in 1853.5 Several of his children later migrated to Arkansas, as did Enos Henderson and his wife, Susannah Barnett.6
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