Days 72 & 73: Carmi, IL

We made a slight change of plans yesterday morning.  Instead of taking the ferry to Kentucky, we reverted to our original plan, which was to make a detour to visit Carmi, IL, since that is where the White County courthouse and Mary Smith Fay Genealogy Library are located.  My great grandfather (William Thomas Malone) died here, as did my 2nd ggf (Absalom Malone).  There are also several older ancestors who also died here (surnames Brown, Hon, Johnston and Russell), in the area around Phillipstown.

What harpooned our original plans was that today is Columbus Day and the courthouse is closed.  So that left us with the prospect of treading water for a couple of days until I could do some family history research (the main reason for visiting here).

But the main lure of coming here was Burrell Park, a City of Carmi campground ($16, full utilities and FREE firewood).  So we decided that we'd camp here for the night and I drove into Evansville, IN on Sunday to do some research at Willard Library about the Davises of Livingston County, Kentucky, and to do some research for a  cousin, Neil Martin.  

Our campsite at Burrell Park in Carmi, IL.

The Willard Library has the early Livingston County, KY tax lists on microfilm.  In them, Mathis or Matthias Davis is listed as Matthews Davis (there is a Mathis Davis listed in the 1820 Census for Jackson County, Illinois, where my Davises were early settlers).  It is the same guy, based upon the amount of land on Bissell Creek (also seen spelled as Bizzle or Biswell) that he was taxed for (174 acres).  The interesting thing there is that Hezekiah Davis also lived on land on Bissell Creek, though the two men were NOT directly related.   There is pretty clear evidence that Hezekiah's father was Vann Davis (who died in Pendleton District, South Carolina) and that Mathis was not Vann's son.  But it is very curious that Hezekiah and Mathis lived in Livingston County, KY before moving to Jackson County, IL (assuming that Mathis is the same person who was living next to Aaron Davis in the 1820 Census in Jackson County).  If the records in Livingston County, KY and Jackson County, IL are for the same person (he sold his land in Livingston County just prior to the 1820 Census), then it hints at the possibility that my 4th ggf James Davis quite possibly was somehow related to Hezekiah Davis.  The two men lived about 5 miles from each other in Jackson County, Illinois for a couple of decades.  

For my cousin Neil Martin I was looking for records related to his ancestor Elsberry Armstrong, but I had no luck.  He is definitely not in the Grantor deed indexes for Vanderburgh County, IN, nor in the probates for either Posey County or Vanderburgh County.  The last possibility is that something may exist in the deed records of Posey County, but that will require a trip to the courthouse in Mount Vernon or to order the early deed indexes for Posey County from the Family History Library.  The latter is the simpler thing to try.

While in Posey County I revisited the family graveyard near Cynthiana where my 3rd and 4th ggps are buried (Williams and Caters).  It was distressing to see that in two years time a number of small headstone fragments had gone missing and that there was evidence of a few stones having been pulverized, likely by farm machinery.

Simon Williams Family Cemetery near Cynthiana, IN.

Anyway, Burrell Park is currently our favorite campground of the trip.  It's a great little park, far from the highway, only occasional train traffic noise, the price is unbeatable and it is close to stuff that we are interested in.  We stayed over today in order to wash the van and trailer at our campsite.  When we do that at most car washes it costs us $10 just to spray off the grime (a full wash could easily be twice that amount), so the car wash pretty much gave us a free night of camping.  Loraine is now as shiny as new, and #531 is sparkling clean also - the cleanest that they've both been in over six weeks!

While at Cave in Rock State Park the trailer became coated in tree sap (luckily stuff that washed off very easily), so we've decided that we'll avoid having that happen again by leaving from here on Wednesday morning to catch the ferry to Kentucky.  We originally were going to camp again at Cave in Rock, but it's cheaper for us to stay here, and we'll have a short enough riding day that getting a late start after the ferry ride won't be a problem for us.