John Clabaugh (1777 - 1853)

Born 1777 in Frederick, Maryland, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1853 at about age 76 in Madison, Texas, United States

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Biography

John was born in Frederick Co. MD in the fall of 1777 and, as a young man, moved to the moun­tains of East Tennessee where he settled on Middle Creek a few miles south of Sevierville.

He married about 1801 Elizabeth Haggard, daughter of Henry Haggard, a licensed preacher of the Forks of the Little Pigeon Baptist Church in Sevierville. On October 8, 1813, he enlisted with other Tennessee volunteers and headed off to join Andrew Jackson.

After the war, he and his wife and her family moved to the newly created Alabama Territory, where he established his farm on Sixmile Creek in what became Bibb Co. Here he raised his family. He prospered until around 1848.

Per John Henry Clabaugh:

”My grandfather would buy up the cotton crops of his neighbors and, with his own, load them on rafts of timber (and float them) down the river to Mobile where the cotton and rafts were sold. These also carried four or five men in charge of an agent, and horses for the return trip through the country. The last of these trips was disas­trous to the old man and bankrupted him. The agent sold the cotton, horses, timber in the rafts, and absconded with the money, leaving the men to make their way home through the wilderness on foot.”

John and Elizabeth then joined their sons in East Texas, settling on Larrison Creek in Walker (Madison) County. He died their around 1853/4; Elizabeth had died by 1860.

For the sources and for more on this fascinating family, see:^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Harrell, Betty [Elizabeth Jean], The Clabaughs - Frederick Clabaugh of Maryland in 1742 and his descendants who migrated to East Tennessee, then on to Alabama and Texas; includes a special chapter on Henry Haggard (1746-1842) frontier Baptist preacher of Virginia, East Tennessee and Alabama. 1982, Chapter 4. This book is available on FamilySearch. See below. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/140095-redirection