My original intent was to alternate between the Wright and McKenrick sides but last week, I wrote a To be continued entry on Andrew McKenrick. So, I have been torn between the two families; however, I have decided to stick to my original plan and present a Grandmother from the Wright side and the next entry will then be about Andrew McKenrick's parents or lack thereof.
So, Mary McCorkle Cushman (1811-1895) [ Mary McCorkle Cushman (1), Josephine Cushman Pattison(2), Kate Pattison Wright (3),Robert Burns Wright (4), Robert Wayne Wright (5)Angeline Wright Meyer (6) ], a Great Great Great Grandmother. on my Dad's side...she married into the Cushman line which gives us several Mayflower passenger Grandparents. After her husband, Ira Harvey Cushman died, she married a man 20 years her junior and became something of a wheeler/dealer in Real Estate. She was another Brick Wall that I inherited from Grandpa Wright. I have managed to knock down a brick or two but have yet to discover her parents or where they come from. Mary was the Mother of Josephine Cushman Pattison, our Great Great Grandmother.
I do believe that she was of Scot-Irish heritage, given her surname and the Calvinist tendency of this line. However, her surname is the first issue: The name I inherited from Grandpa was McCorkle...many of the Southern branch of this family say her surname was McCorde. This was the name used by Henry Wyles Cushman who compiled much information on the descendants of Robert Cushman, agent for the Pilgrims. Henry Wyles Cushman did not source his information, so it is all in question.
Ira Harvey Cushman(1799-1849) , Mary's husband, was born in Vermont-his family had been in New England since the Mayflower landed in 1620. The Cushmans actually were not on the Mayflower but on the second ship...Robert was the Separatists' (Pilgrims')agent who made arrangements for the passage and handled the financial affairs of the Separatists both in Leiden, Holland, before sailing and in the New Colony of Plymouth. When the Mayflower set sail from England, it was accompanied by another passenger ship, The Speedwell. This ship had problems and was unable to make the trip across the Atlantic; some of its passengers were transferred to the Mayflower, some opted to stay in England and come on a later ship. The Cushmans, Robert and his son Thomas, opted for the latter, arriving almost a year after the Mayflower, in the Autumn of 1621, on the Fortune. Son Thomas married Mayflower passenger Mary Allerton and their children married into other Mayflower families giving us eight Grandparents on the Mayflower. Ira Harvey Cushman's line was Robert (1), Thomas (2), Thomas (3), Robert (4), Joshua (5), Paul (6),Clark (7), Ira Harvey (8).
Ira Harvey Cushman married Mary McCorde or McCorkle on 26 April 1830, according to Henry Wyles Cushman in his A Historical and Biographical Genealogy of the Cushmans: The Descendants of Robert Cushman the Puritan from the Year 1617 to 1855. (I do have some issues with this book as a source...First of all, Robert Cushman was not a Puritan, he was a Separatist-that is to say He did not want to purify the Church of England but rather wanted to separate from it. And secondly. as previously mentioned, Wyles Cushman gives no sources for his information. Like many early Genealogist, he most likely sent out letters to everyone named Cushman that he could find and took their information as Truth.) We see Ira on the 1830 Census for Early County, Georgia. He has one Female 15-19 living with him; I would assume this is Mary and one Female 10-14. I am thinking that this may have been Mary's sister Martha who was born in 1819, so she would have been 11 years old. I have been unable to find a primary Marriage Record for Ira and Mary but their first child Carter Braxton Cushman was born in 1831 so 1830 seems reasonable..
So, that is a bit of background information regarding Mary and Ira-back to the issue at hand: her name.
Mary... McCorkle or McCorde?? Solved!!: There is no longer any doubt in my mind that Mary's maiden name was not McCorde...it might not have exactly been McCorkle either but... A few years back, I decided to try to find out who Ira and Mary had named their son Montreal after. Carter Braxton (the eldest) was named after a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Henry Clay (their youngest son) obviously after the Statesman. There was an Ira Harvey, who died as a child: obviously named after his father. Who was Montreal named after? I tried searching for men with both the first or surname Montreal, both nationally and locally. I went back thru the Census in Georgia looking for a Montreal and could find no one historically. The only other Montreal listed in any early Census in any state, proved to be a boy 15 years younger than Ira and Mary's son and he just happened to live in Ft. Gaines where Mary and her husband Ira Cushman were raising their family AND he just happened to have the surname McCorkle!! The odds of 2 boys named Montreal being born in Ft. Gaines GA; one a Cushman, the other a McCorkle, pretty much made up my mind that the boys had to be related and therefore their parents related. Montreal McCorkle was the son of James Madison and Jane Snelling McCorkle. I proceeded on the theory that Mary McCorkle had to be the sister or cousin of James Madison McCorkle, and that the name Montreal was a family name on Mary's side. (I earlier had considered that he was named for the city which was not far from Ira's boyhood home in Northern Vermont).
As an aside, Montreal Cushman, our Josephine's younger brother, joined the Texas Cavalry in the Civil War and was killed in Battle in Mansfield, DeSoto Parrish, Louisiana in 1864. He left a new Bride, no children. He ranked in as a Quartermaster Sargent and ranked out as a Second Lieutenant.
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| Monument to the Texas Calvary in Mansfield, Louisiana. |
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| Civil War Battlefields in Louisiana |
Hmmmm... So as Martha was supposedly from Early Co GA,(now Clay County, GA) I decided to find the McCorkle families in Early County and go from there-unfortunately there were no McCorkles listed on the Census for 1830, or 1820 or 1810. Now, both Mary and Martha listed their Father as being from the Carolinas; on the 1880 Census-Mary said North Carolina and Martha said South-hmmph!
The DNA matches on Mary's mitochondrial DNA suggest Rowan Co NC. so that is where I will start. In the meantime, both girls married in Early Co, Ga in the 1830's-so there had to be McCorkles there! I pulled up 1830 Census and there were only 10 pages-so I did it the old fashion way and went thru one by one. No McCorkles...no McCordes. There were however McCorquodales! This is one of the possible alternate spellings, I assume closer to the Gaelic spelling and pronunciation. . I could not however, easily connect these 3 McCorkles to the McCorquodales in Early. So while I now am sure that the name is not McCorde-it may have been McCorquodale and was simplified by some family members and not by others. Further research is needed, but I am 2 siblings closer to uniting Mary's family!
I mentioned Mary's DNA. I have had the Maternal (Mitochondrial) DNA of this line tested. I was fortunate to have my Dad's cousin still living. He graciously agreed to be a DNA donor. He was the son of our Great Aunt Marian Wright Jarman, Grandpa Wright's sister who was the daughter of Kate Pattison Wright, daughter of Josephine Cushman Pattison, daughter of Mary McCorkle Cushman. MtDNA is passed to both sons and daughters but is only passed on by daughters unlike the male DNA which is passed only father to son; it follows the man's last name. Mitochondrial DNA, the maternal line is not as easy to trace as the male Y-DNA. This is mainly because of the name changes in each generation. Thus far I have had several matches, mainly from Rowan County North Carolina so have been looking there. If interested, here is a link to a wonderful Blog written by Elizabeth Wilson Ballard Diggin' up Graves 2014-2015 concerning one of these mtDNA women who share the DNA that Mary received from her mother. Any of these women could be a sister, a maternal cousin, a maternal Aunt or her mother. https://digginupgraves.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/finding-mary-whitaker-part-1-of-mtdna-u5a1i1a1-52-ancestors/
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| 2 sons of James Madison McCorkle taken in 1905 at Ft. Gaines, Clay County, Georgia Francis M. (Frank) 2nd from Left and James Madison McCorkle Jr, 6th from Left. This is a group of Confederate Veterans. Photo is from the "Vanishing Georgia Collection", the Digital Library of Georgia. |
To continue Mary's story...Interesting fact from the Census, in 1850, when Mary, a widow and her sister, Martha were living next door to each other, in Geneva, Alabama, Martha had a boarder, who was a student; he was 20 years old, William J. Allen. Mary was 39. On the 1860 Census William J. Allen, now 30 years old, is living in Milton, Santa Rosa County, Florida with a wife, Mary Allen who is 49. Also living in the Household is Henry "Patterson", J "Patterson" and 3 Patterson"children. This is undoubtedly our Great Great Grandparents Henry and Josephine Pattison. I do not find William J. and Mary on the 1870 Census, but by 1880, Mary's age had a few years shaved off it and William J gained a few years so that they were now only 10 years apart instead of 20.
Another interesting trail to try to follow is that Martha McCorkle Keith's mother-in-law married, after her first husband's death, a second husband by the surname of Allen. Was this man related to William J. Allen, Mary's second husband?? And to further muck it up-Montreal Cushman is on the 1860 Census living in Texas, with, I think, his sister Martha and her husband and a large family of Allens. Again, related?? I may never know how or if the Allens are related, except for William J., to the McCorkles, Cushmans and Keiths.
There are multiple Court documents of Mary and William J. Allen buying and selling real estate in Milton, FL. Mary died in August 1895 and William J. Allen in January of 1896, they are buried together in the Milton Cemetery, Berryhill in Milton, Florida.
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