Matthew Wesley Cockrum (1797 - 1878)

Born 11 Jul 1797 in Kentucky

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah M. Gibson — married 11 Jul 1822 in Presbyterian Church, Todd County, Kentucky

Descendants

Died 18 Jul 1878 at age 81 in Sesser, Franklin County, Illinois

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Biography

This biography was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import. It's a rough draft and needs to be edited.

Name

Matthew Wesley /Cockrum/^[1]

Birth

11 JUL 1797

Kentucky^[2][3]

Death

18 JUL 1878

Sesser, Franklin County, Illinois^[4][5]

Burial

Horse Prairie Cemetery, Sesser, Franklin County, Illinois^[6]

Marriage

11 JUL 1822

Presbyterian Church, Todd County, Kentucky^[7][8][9]

Name: Matthew Wesley COCKRUM. Surname: COCKRUM. Given Name: Matthew Wesley. A Given name was found in addition to a first name in the NAME tag.

Note:

MATTHEW WESLEY COCKRUM, eldest son of John and Susannah Cockrum was born in Kentucky July 11,1797, Just where is not certain, but he grew up in Christian County, in that part that later (1816) became Todd County, and later married in Todd County. Another youth somewhat younger than Matthew, grew up in the same community and they probably knew each other. The other youth was Jefferson Davis, later President of the Confederacy. Matthew married Sarah Gibson in Todd County, Kentucky on July 11, 1822, according the the rites of the Presbyterian Church, William K Stewart, Minister. (Marriage Book A, Todd County, page 6, entry number 72). Since Sarah's father , an unreconstructed Scot, objected to Matthew on the grounds that he was neither Scot nor Presbyterian, they had to wait until he died before they married. At that time Matthew was 25 and Sarah 29 . The Gibsons owned slaves and were considered "well-off" by frontier standards. Considering that Sarah was 32 before she produced her first offspring, it is remarkable that they had seven children. Matthew and Sarah crossed the Ohio River in the early Spring of 1830, with their three oldest children, fording the river on a team of horses. They took land at Spring Garden, a small settlement a mile east of present day Ina, Illinois and remained there until 1840 when their seventh and last child was born. In April 1840 Matthew homesteaded a tract of timberland in Goode Township, Franklin County, Illinois embracing what is today the center of the town of Sesser. About 1920, Rose Cockrum Boswell showed her son Ralph two wells back of the old Sesser Bank on Franklin Street, which had been dug by Matthew and his younger brother Henry, and were in front of their log cabins. Neither Matthew nor Sarah ever had their picture taken nor painted, so no likeness remains. In her last years, the children wanted a photograph, but Sarah refused, saying, "Pa never had his tookin". Sarah was a typical pioneer woman who enjoyed her corncob pipe, spat into the fireplace and went barefoot in the summer, but so did her contempary, Mrs Andrew Jackson! All five of their sons became Franklin County farmers. In Sarah's later years a letter came addressed to Sarah Gibson Cockrum or her legal heirs. It was in regards to an estate being settled and asked that a legal firm in Kentucky be contacted. Son James read the letter to his illiterate mother. Sarah was not interested, and the letter was not answered. Matthew was a "Copperhead" or Northern Democrat sympathetic to the South. He tried to keep his family out of the Union Army, but two sons, a son-in-law, and the eldest grandson went anyway. Matthew died July 18, 1878, and Sarah September 26, 1881. Both are buried in the Horse Prairie Baptist Cemetery, 2 miles east of Sesser. The city of Sesser, Illinois now completely occupies the homestead of Matthew and Sarah. Sesser was named for a transient Engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, and could have been more appropriately named Cockrum after the original landowners. The only recognition accorded is Matthew Street, just south of Franklin Street, named for Old Matthew, running directly by the site of his old homestead log cabin, and Cockrum Street, which parallels the Illinois Central Railroad just to the West.

Married July ll, 1822 in Todd County, Kentucky, Sarah GIBSON died on September 26, 1881 in Sesser Illinois. She was born on July 11, 1797 in Tennessee. Children of Matthew Wesley COCKRUM and Sarah GIBSON were:

James Jackson COCKRUM b. Jamuary 16, 1840 in Illinois. Ann Elizabeth b. October 2, 1828 in Kentucky. John Calloway Rabrum COCKRUM abt 1829 in Kentucky. Mary COCKRUM b 1830 in Kentucky. Henry Ayer COCKRUM b. January 29, 1832 in Illinois. William David COCKRUM b. April 10, 1836 in Illinois. Matthew Wesley Jr., COCKRUM b. January 29, 1832 in Illinois.

Sources

1. ↑ Source: #S523 Page: p. 37
2. ↑ Source: #S523 Page: p. 37
3. ↑ Source: #S53 Page: p. 15
4. ↑ Source: #S1045
5. ↑ Source: #S523 Page: p. 37
6. ↑ Source: #S53 Page: p. 17
7. ↑ Source: #S1045
8. ↑ Source: #S53 Page: p. 15
9. ↑ Source: #S613

• Source: S1045 Title: Research of Juanita Rosalee (Henry) Jones, 1977 NOTESource Medium: Book CONT
• Source: S523 Title: Horse Prairie Cemetery, Sesser, Goode Twp., Franklin County, Illinois, Tombstone Inscriptions & Family Records by Brown & Stockton, 2004
• Source: S53 Title: A Genealogy of the Ancestry of Emmett E. Cockrum.....by Emmett E. Cockrum, Carbondale, Il, 1983, held at Mt. Vernon, Il, public library
• Source: S613 Title: Marriage Book A, Todd County, Kentucky, No. 72, p. 8

Notes

N12"In 1840, he (Matthew) homsteaded the land where Sesser (Illinois) now stands, his log cabin standing one block south of Franklin St. (main street in Sesser)......the street south of Franklin St is named Matthew Street, and passes the old cabin site" (from A Genealogy of the Ancestry of Emmett Erston Cockrum, Carbondale, Ill., 1983)

"Matthew Cockrum was born in Kentucky and came to Illinois in the

very early day, settling as a piouieer near lowing (?). In 1840 he took his

family to a farm on the present site of Sesser and started to cultivate the

one hundred and eighty acre tract which he had secured from the gov-

ernment, he was engaged in farming during the remainder of his life. " (from VOLUME III, "A history of southern Illinois; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests" by by George Washington Smith, M. A., The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York,

1912

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Ron Hallberg for creating WikiTree profile Cockrum-365 through the import of Indiana Crouch Family, April 2013.ged on Apr 23, 2013. Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Ron and others.

• Source: S7 A History and Genealogy of the Cockrum Family, to include all branches, A comprehensive treatise of all descendants of the Cockrum family in America. Emmett E. Cockrum Publication: Revised, Marion, Illinois 1992. Copies to be found in LDS Library, Salt Lake City Note: The volume was a privately printed Genealogy. The author was a competent researcher who prepared the first volume which was copyrighted in 1949. Copies were known to be distributed to the LDS, Salt lake City, the Shawnee library in Carterville, Illinois, and other major genealogical libraries.