All Things Cherokee

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Mary Francis Lee

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Mary Francis Lee – b: June 6, 1848, Greene, MI – born on the Trail of Tears.
Sarah Elizabeth Reno – b: Dec 11, 1813, Jackson, TN
James Alexander Lee – b: 1810, TN
Sarah Rogers – b: Sep 4, 1772, Jonesborough, TN
Johnathan Reneau (Reno) – b: Sep 30, 1780, Fredricksburg, Virginia
Sarah Reneau – b:Jun 15, 1744, Prince William, Virginia
William Rodgers – b: abt 1741, Virginia

Comments

  1. I’m afraid it’s not possible that Mary Francis Lee was born on the Trail of Tears. If she was born in 1848, then she was born ten years after the Trail of Tears, which took place in 1838-39. Additionally, none of the Trail routes passed through Michigan.

  2. I have found grave stones of the family and it shows birth of Mary Francis Lee was june 6 1840 , Tennessee.In the information previously it was from my mother for june 6 1848 for Missouri.Thank you for your response.

  3. Mary Frances Lee was not born on the Trail of Tears. She was the daughter of White settlers that pushed west from the early colonial settlements over several generations, moving from Virginia, southern Pennsylvania, into Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and points further west.

    They also represented some of the earliest White settlers pushing Cherokees and other Indians directly off their lands. Consequently, they had a long standing tradition of being involved in Indian Wars. Part of the family was even involved in the Oklahoma Land Rush, moving in from temporary staging locations in Kansas, and pouring into the central part of the territory, in the 1890s, to what is now Pottawatomie County.

    Mary’s place of birth (born 1840) is listed as Missouri on the 1850 Census while she was living at home with her parents, and also on the 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900 and 1910 Census records. Only her death certificate seems to list Tennessee as her place of birth. So, unless you found a more accurate record, it is still a bit unclear. However, personally, I would tend to lean toward a Missouri POB, just based on the fact that she was enumerated as such by an informant in her child hood home. It was closer to the source, in other words. Tennessee is where the Lee family had lived for a while, and so her father was associated with that state. However, even he (James Alexander Lee) had moved into Illinois in the late 1820s, having married Sarah Reno in 1831, in McDonough County.

    This book states that Jonathan settled in Illinois in the fall of 1825.

    https://books.google.com/books?id=3lA0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA309&lpg=PA309&dq=%22jonathan+reno%22+war+of+1812+tennessee&source=bl&ots=lvVZB0f2On&sig=vdS5WvWEBVMqYAeun_iIZQ1DB4Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBWoVChMIhuuE6s_PyAIVRBs-Ch3QFQiO#v=onepage&q=%22jonathan%20reno%22%20war%20of%201812%20tennessee&f=false

    James Alexander Lee was an Indian fighter (Black Hawk War, 1832). He received land grants in standard American fashion. He was not a Native American.

    Jonathan Reneau (Reno) was the grandson of John Reno and Mary Susannah Thorne. This couple was part of the Watauga Settlement and involved in fighting the Cherokees over the years. Mary Susannah was likely killed by Native Americans. Their son, Jonathan’s uncle, was also killed by Native Americans.

    http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~reynaud/Ren-Reyn/d432.htm#P443

    Jonathan Reno was also an Indian fighter himself, having served with the Tennessee Militia during the War of 1812. Most of these TN units were used to fight tribes, rather than British forces, per se. He also served in the Black Hawk War (CPT Wilson’s Company, 4 Regiment, Whiteside’s Brigade, Mounted Volunteers, IL Militia).

    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=92512421&ref=acom

    Sarah Roger’s was the daughter of William Rogers and Sarah Reno. So, they were likely cousins, of some degree. Actually, speaking of cousins, this Reno family is also related to Major Marcus Reno, second highest ranking member of Gen. Custer’s Seventh Cavalry, and Battle of the Little Bighorn infamy. Major Reno’s grandfather, Aaron Reno, was first cousin to Mary Frances Lee’s great-grandfather, James Reno. The interesting this about doing genealogy and putting things into perspective is finding these little gems of information. It makes you wonder, when she was 36 and the newspapers were covering this event, did the family tell others that “Major Reno was a cousin of ours.”?? Mary Frances’ mother, Sarah Elizabeth, died at age 79, so she would have been even more closely related to Major Reno and maybe this connection was known to them at that time..

    One source states William Rodgers and Sarah Reneau were married in Prince William County, Virginia, in 1766.

    http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/r/e/n/Gregg-A-Reno/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0829.html

    This lineage appears to be correctly traced as it is presented here. However, it also seems to be misplaced on a Cherokee genealogy board. None of these family lines were connected to the Cherokee people, via ancestry. There seems to have been a very close, and decidedly hostile, historic relationship with Cherokees though. Some of these family members fought Cherokees, and were even killed by them. Basically, these families directly help to displace Native Americans, and Cherokees in particular.

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