The Ten Tribes of David Stiles
David Stiles, our ancestor must have had a lot in common with todays' 14 year old boys. He probably had not started to shave, and I imagine that he was ready to eat at moment's notice. There were a lot of girls in Morris County and they would have begun to take notice of him. In fact, he probably had received a note from Elizabeth Kitchell, one of his neighbors, that said something like this, "Do you like me? If so, check yes, if not check no." Secretly, he would have been feeling really proud of himself for having attracted her attention, but to his friends, he would have swaggered around and more than likely have said something less than respectful about her.
But, on the other hand, it would be hard to imagine what David's thoughts really were. David had grown up in a country that was very unsettled. He knew that his family had been helping to collect an arsenal because they were concerned about England and the way the colonists were being treated. He would have known that some of his family and his neighbors believed in the "Divine Right" of a king to rule, and what God had decreed one must accept. For that reason, the very people he had come to depend on were angry and distrustful toward one another. He knew all the news - how could one help not knowing it, when everyone was talking about it. He had heard about the massacre in Boston, he knew about the Boston Tea Party, and he heard the hot heads on either side of the issue talking in the meeting place in the center of town.
The community was unsettled, and his family was unsettled. David was the second or third child of a family of 8. Just the year he turned fourteen, his father died. His mother knew that she couldn't take care of a family that size by herself, so she had remarried very soon after her husband's death. Now, David's home life consisted of having to put up with a bunch of little kids (which is the worse thing that can happen to a 14 year old boy) and adapting to life with a step father, which he despised. Not only that, but his mother was ailing and not expected to live much longer. So, our David may have been forced to grow up a little faster than most kids his age.
David had learned to depend on his uncle, Johnathan Stiles, during his father's sickness. Johnathan had taken David under his wing, knowing how difficult his homelife must have been and understanding the difficulty of being a fourteen year old having to grow up in these conditions. Johnathan had given him a large hunting knife, and taught him how to set snares for rabbits and birds, then how to skin his catch. Johnathan had showed him how to fish and how to survive in the forest. When he was twelve years old, Johnathan had given him his gun, an Enfield Flintlock. It was a man's gun, in fact, one of the best there was to be had. It had been made in England and imported to the colonies. Johnathan taught David how to use the gun and how to care for it. David adored his uncle, and grew up around Johnathan and the older men of the community who were Johnathan's friends. He was comfortable with the Munsons, the Kitchell's (in fact, Elizabeth's father, Abraham Kitchell, was one of Johnathan's best friends.) He knew the Ford family, the Hoagland family, the Pierce's and the Hurds and enjoyed "hanging around" and listening to them talk with increasing excitement about the war. In fact, this entire group of colonists were leaning toward independence and talking about the bad things that were happening to them because they were dependant on a country and a king that was far away. They all knew George Washington and all were hoping that he would consider taking up arms against the king.
The men talked about George Washington and how he had joined the Royal Army, hoping to make a career out of the army. When Washington joined, the French and Indian War had begun. England and France both wanted to colonize what would become our country. The dispute that Washington was involved in concerned the valley of the Ohio River that was in what is now Pennsylvania. Washington was involved in several battles and because of his efforts had become a Lt. Col. in the Royal Army. The French with Indians who were their allies had built a fort on the Ohio about where present day Pittsburgh is located. The General leading the army, along with Washington, who was one of the officers under his command, marched toward the fort with the intention of taking it over and making it their own. As David listened, the men from his community told how Washington had told them about this march. Washington had said that the march took place in the winter. Leaves had fallen from the trees, and everything was grey or brown. The only color in the landscape was the dark green cedar trees, yet marching single-file down the trail, came the British army. Their uniforms were bright red and very shiny clean white. Washington had thought at the time, that they looked like perfect targets. They could be picked out from miles around because they really stood out from the background. The general intended to approach the fort, line his men up in battle formations and fire on the fort. It never dawned on him that other armies may set up an ambush. Most of the fighters on the other side were Indians. They were hidden and camouflaged and from this advantage, they killed most of the British soldiers and many of the colonists who were fighting with them. George Washington escaped unharmed, but he had four bullet holes in his coat, and had had two horses shot from under him. George Washington said that from that experience, he had learned that the Redcoats could be beat! In his opinion, they just did not know how to fight in this country.
David was so excited. He didn't want his friends to see him, but when he took his gun out into the woods to hunt, he pretended to be a soldier. He just knew that he could take on those Redcoats! He didn't have to wait long to get a closer look at the British Army. They were invading. The Continental Congress had made George Washington Commander of the Continental Army and he was moving to Morris County to make it his headquarters! Washington had met the British Army in New York, but had not been able to stand against them. He had been pushed back by the British until he and his troops had escaped them by crossing the Delaware River at night and in the middle of the winter. It looked like he might lose. The British had taken Long Island, Staten Island and Manhattan Island. Manhattan is only 30 miles from Morristown! The British had a large army and the only way they had of maintaining that army was by sending foraging troops out for food for themselves and feed for their animals. The nearest place for those troops to forage was the state of New Jersey. Not only that, New Jersey was placed right between the areas of New York that the British controlled and Philadelphia, so any march to be made to conquer Philadelphia would be made right through our ancestor's home. That is why Washington had made it headquarters.
Now Washington was calling on New Jersey and asking that they provide a militia to help his Continental army. To be a member of the militia, you had to be a property owner. David qualified, because he had inherited a small amount of property from both his father and grandfather, and you had to own a few pieces of equipment. David read the following notice concerning the equipment:
" shall with all convenient speed furnish himself with a good musket or firelock and bayonet, sword or tomahawk-, a steel ramrod, priming-wire and brush fitted thereto, a cartridge-box to contain twenty-three rounds of cartridges, twelve flints, and a knapsack, agreeable to the direction of the Continental Congress, under the forfeiture of two shillings for the want of a musket or firelock, and of one shilling for the want of the other above-enumerated articles"; also " that every person directed to be enrolled as above shall, at his place of abode, be provided with one pound of powder and three pounds of bullets of proper size to his musket or firelock."
David had all the equipment. After all, no one he knew of his age had half as nice a gun as his uncle had given him! The men that he had been hanging around had no choice. They had to be a part of the militia, but David didn't have to be, because he was younger than the required age. He wanted to be, though, so he joined. He was so excited when the agent of the state of New Jersey brought him the powder and bullets and explained to him, that he was considered a "minute-man". Should he be called for, he should be ready to leave at the minute. David wasn't scared. After all he was just a boy, and boys don't believe in the horrors of war. He was excited and anxious to leave. Washington sent a message to the members of the New Jersey Militia. Imagine how excited David was when this message was delivered to him home. A message from George Washington! David felt so very important and so fired up:
To the Friends of America in the State of New Jersey The Army of the American States under my Command being lately greatly reinforced, and having again entered the State of New Jersey, I most warmly request the Militia of Said State at this Important Crisis to Evince their Love of their Country, by boldly Stepping forth and defending the Cause of Freedom. The Inhabitants may be Assured that by a manly or spirited Conduct they may now relieve their Distinguished State from the depredations of our Enemies-I have therefore dispatched Coll. Neilson, Majors Taylor, Van Emburgh, + Frelinghuysen together with some other Gentlemen of your State to call together and Embody your Militia, not doubting but Success will attend their Endeavors-
What Washington wanted from the militia was an idea that he had gotten way back when he was an officer in the British Army. He asked the militia to "harass the enemy", "annoy them day and night." Do not fire on them unless your target is sure, and be sure you have a retreat to protect yourself. Make it impossible for them to send out small parties to forage - either capture or kill small parties. Set up boobie traps. Don't take them head on, ambush them. Steal their horses.
Can you imagine a person more able to "harass and annoy" than a teen age boy?
Washington also wanted the militia to block their paths, and to stop the "London Trade". The winters had been harsh during this time, and people were hungry. With both the British Army and the Continental Army foraging in the same area, many of the animals and a lot of the crops had been taken. The Continental Army paid for supplies they "bought" from citizens, but with paper money that had inflated terribly. The British paid for their supplies with gold coins. Citizens (about 30% of which were Loyalists anyway and on the side of the King) would sell to the British because of the "hard cash" in the form of coins with which they were paid. This helping the enemy by selling them supplies was called "London Trade", and if the Militia discovered someone guilty of this, it was considered a crime, and the Militia could arrest them.
Soon, Washington said that the enemy was unable to send out forage parties smaller than 1000 to 1500 men. That's enough men to scare off every animal in the woods!
The New Jersey Milita was able to do what Washington wanted them to do, and due to their efforts, the tide of the war began to turn. It looked like Washington had been right - the British Army could be beaten in this country. Most of the men looked at horror at the war. David loved it. He was able to harass and annoy with the best of them! He was able to steal some horses, which both helped to disable the British troops, and helped to start his own farm. (Imagine us, the proud Stiles family, being descendants of a horse thief!)
David grew up while he was fighting the Revolutionary War. The war was over in 1783, when David was 23 years old. During the time he was involved in the war, he grew tall, he developed wisdom, and he earned some money. His Uncle was given the job of distributing pay to the militia. While his pay wasn't great, it was enough for David to be able to purchase a farm of 102 acres in the Pequannock Township of Morris County, New Jersey. Not only that, his attitude about women changed also. He had spent a lot of time serving with Abraham Kitchell in the militia, so it was only fitting that the Kitchell's invite him over to dinner when Abraham and David returned home. He took a look at Elizabeth, and decided that he should be rethinking his former opinion of her. He decided right away, that the answer "Yes" should have been checked on the note she had sent him when he was 14! It wasn't long until David and Elizabeth had decided that they were meant for each other, so in 1784, just a year after the war ended, they married, and settled on his farm.
They were both close to their families, so when the babies started coming, they named them after their family members. Lewis was the first baby, and was named after Elizabeth's little brother, and from then on every baby was named after either David or Elizabeth's family member. (This manner of selecting the names of the babies didn't stop with David and Elizabeth's family. Rhoda was named after David's sister Rhoda, who married a Munson. Rhoda named her son, Munson).
David was kept busy managing his farm and he and Elizabeth had a full time job with a family that was growing larger by the years. They were able to keep up with the news, but didn't let it concern them too much. They knew that the Continental Congress had not been able to establish a government - there was too much diversity between colonies in the north and colonies, like Georgia in the south to make becoming a real government easy. Occasionally the David Stiles family worried about anarchy, but finally they learned that a Constitution had been written and accepted by all the colonies. It was already 1788 and David and Elizabeth had married, had their farm prospering and were the parents of two children before the government that he had spent all those years fighting for had actually been formed. In 1789, Washington was elected President of the brand new country, the United States of America. Thus, their third child, Eunice Kitchell Stiles was the first of David and Elizabeth's children to be born in the United States of America.
David and Elizabeth were not the only ones who were married. All the men that were friends of his Uncle Johnathan and who were the ones that David grew up around married into the family in one way or another, and even today, many of those people's names pop up in the Stiles family. Look how many Davids, Johnathans, Johns, Fords, Munsons, Kitchells, Ogdens, etc have been passed down through our family over the years.
As their family grew in size and in numbers, David and Elizabeth began to realize that 102 acres had been a good sized farm for the two of them to raise a family, but it just wasn't enough to give their children a future. They couldn't have all their sons come into the family business. There just wasn't a business that large. They couldn't afford to give their daughters household furnishings to start a marriage. What had been enough for a young couple, just wasn't enough for this large an older family. Everyone had been talking about the opportunities in the west since just after the war. In fact, Daniel Boone had led settlers into "KainTuck" even before the war. David had had a hankering to go West for a long time. Peter Hoagland, one of his neighbors, and someone he had known since he was a child had bought land there just to speculate. He believed that enough settlers would be moving and would want to purchase land that he could turn a pretty good profit. A lot of soldiers had been paid in Land Grants. They could just go into this territory, find some of the land that had not been claimed, and use their Land Grant to claim the land as their own. Some of those veterans didn't want to move, and would sell their Land Grant. Hoagland was buying up some of them.
David, like most of us Stileses, even though he had been an adventurer when he was fourteen, was a very conservative 40 year old. He had kept up with the Transylvania Company and knew the problems that they had had. Daniel Boone's daughter had been kidnapped by the Indians, and Nathaniel Hart, who had been one of the developers of the Transylvania Company had been shot and killed with an Indian arrow. David was not going to think about risking his wife and children's lives in a part of the country where there was a chance of being attacked by Indians. But he knew that George Rogers Clark had taken an army in and had pretty much driven the Indians out of the state. He knew that Kentucky was now a state, had a governor and was much safer than it had been right after the war. His two oldest sons were now adults, and they were very excited about the prospect of moving west. In fact, they had been talking to Peter Hoagland and found that he was going to make a trip to Kentucky to check out the land he had been buying. They wanted to travel with him. In 1807, Lewis and Charles traveled with Peter Hoagland to Kentucky. When they returned they were very excited by what they had seen. They told David and Elizabeth that the trip only took about 3 weeks. There were ships on the Ohio, so they could travel by ship with all their goods easily. The ships landed right above the falls of the Ohio and the trip across country was on a good road. There were settlements all around, and the land was so beautiful and so fertile that it was beyond belief. The two boys were ready to leave the next day!
David and Elizabeth discussed moving to Kentucky. Both had been worried about opportunities for their children for some time, and this move looked to be practical. There didn't seem to be much risk to it, it was close enough to visit back and forth with their New Jersey families, there was now a United States Post Office, and letters could be exchanged, the Indian threat was over and both of them were still young enough to take on the massive amount of work that would be required to build their home and farm. If they waited many more years, they would be too old. So, they decided that they would make the move.
It took almost 2 years to make the preparations. During this time, Lewis and Charles made the trip a couple of times. They took care of finding land that had not been claimed by someone else, and seeing that all the legalities were in place so that the rest of the family would not have to make the trip in vain. They needed to find a place with access to a water way since traveling was done by boat a lot in that time. They also had to find a way to get farm products to market, and in Kentucky that market was in New Orleans. That meant that the water way they picked had to be navigable and it had to eventually connect to the Mississippi River. That was the two boy's job. Having them be away, meant that David had to shoulder most of the farm work since the next two children were girls and the next boys were John and Chalen who were only 11 and 9 when the decision to move was made. David not only had to put up enough hay and fodder for the animal's needs for the coming winter, but he had to have some to take with them on the trip and to use in Kentucky until he could get crops going there. Elizabeth had to make the lists of the things that had to be taken to set up housekeeping in Kentucky. What a job that was! She had to save the seeds from her garden, and keep them all labeled and dry. To feed her family she had to have a large garden. She had to remember herbs for medicine. As she gathered her herb seeds, she thought of all the medicinal uses she had for her dandelions. She wondered if dandelions would survive in the Kentucky climate! She would have to take geese and ducks for the tons of feathers that would be needed for enough ticking for mattresses and pillows for a family as large as hers. She would need chickens for eggs and for their meat. She would have to carry enough food to keep her large family fed until they reached their destination. Of course, they could hunt and fish along the way, but she had to have flour, coffee, sugar, salt and pepper. Everybody had to be clothed, and since most of their clothes were homespun, she would have to take spinning wheels and looms. She wanted to take some sheep for the wool that they would need. She would need tools and David would need tools. There just wouldn't be room to take the furniture. She would either have to give it away or sell it. She did have to take her cooking utensils. She made lists, tore them up, made more lists, refined and polished those lists, until she had everything planned to perfection. She told David that she understood the story of Noah much better now. She knew how much planning had to have gone into packing that Ark!
They decided that they should get to Kentucky as early in the spring as possible. They wanted to be able to camp out so they wanted warm weather until they had time to build a house. They needed to be able to plant a garden, start the farm and plant fruit trees and do so early enough to be able to have a harvest. Since the boys had said that they could get there in as early as three weeks, and at most four weeks, they decided to leave Morris County, New Jersey in March of 1809 and arrive at their new home on the Rolling Fork River, in Nelson County, Kentucky in April of that year. The only furniture they took was the cradle for little David, Jr. who would be two years old before the year was over.
By the time they were ready to leave, Lewis and Charles had come back to help. David and Elizabeth had sold their farm and their household furnishings. They had everything packed and ready to go. They said their good byes to all their family and friends and left for their new home. Elizabeth had read about the trips west that had been taken through the Cumberland Gap. She knew about the troubles those people had had. Wagons had turned over, or been stuck. Mules had fallen down the mountains, and even people had been killed. She knew that her sons had told her that this trip would be much easier, but she was apprehensive. The road to the Ohio River was modern and offered no trouble at all. The trip down the Ohio River was great - almost a vacation, or at least as good of one as a mother of 10 children, all of who needed to eat at least three times a day, and a whole bunch of animals that had to be watered and fed - can expect. She and David watched the shores go by and watched the environment change as they went farther and farther west. Soon she was excited as the children, and even David was in the best of moods. She anticipated trouble though, when the boat came to rest in the "wild west" that was her idea of Kentucky in 1809. What a surprise. The road was as good as the ones in New Jersey! There were people everywhere! After several days journey, they ended up in Bard's Town and even spent the night in an Inn - The Olde Talbott Tavern. Lewis told them, that with a good horse, they could travel from their new home to Bard's Town in a day. There were stores there and plenty of salesman selling about any kind of goods that you could want. It was almost as modern a town as Morristown, itself!
Two days later, they arrived at their property. It was breathtakingly beautiful. In the spring, the dogwoods and the redbuds are in full bloom. Birds were singing and the air smelled wonderful. Butterflies flitted from flower to flower. Their property was in a river valley surrounded on all sides by hills and in it's midst stood one tall hill, separated from any ranges around it. David pointed the hill out to Elizabeth. He told her that he remembered her having compared herself to Noah. He didn't relate to Noah, but instead he felt like Moses. He said that like Moses, he had found his promised land and that promised land could be viewed from atop that hill, just as Moses had viewed his promised land from the top of a hill. Moses' hill was Mt. Pisgah, so David named his hill Mt Pisgah also.
That night, after the children had all fallen asleep, David and Elizabeth had time to just visit, enjoy the beautiful night and review their lives. From a 14 year old boy, who couldn't really be thought of as a patriot, but more just a boy who wanted an adventure, he had helped do what the patriots dreamed of. He had been instrumental in the founding of this country. In return this country had given him the freedom and liberty to hunt for opportunity. It took a lot of thought and a lot of hard work, but the two of them had done it.
David and Elizabeth realized that what they had found in this property was opportunity for their children and for their children's children. Here their children could start businesses, they could marry and have children of their own and David and Elizabeth had given them this opportunity. We are all the result of that opportunity. Our roots lie in that same river valley. We come back once a year so we can feel what they must have felt and so we can appreciate what they did, ultimately, for us. We come back because we can see each other, our kin and we come back in memory of David and Elizabeth and their children. We should pray that we do not take what we have been given for granted. Our heritage is not the farm that you see when you look from the steps of the Union Band Church. Our heritage is the freedom that was won for us by David Stiles and his fellow soldiers. Because of that freedom, we like David and Elizabeth can dream our dreams, and if we are willing to dedicate ourselves to the task, we can find our opportunity and achieve almost anything that we can dream. Our heritage is this wonderful country where we are free.
David's earthly remains are buried in the Stiles valley in the cemetery just behind the church. It is fitting that we honor his grave and those of so many other of our ancestors by taking care of the cemetery. The only money to maintain that cemetery comes from the sale of the lots and from our donations. Please help with that maintenance by sending a donation. You can bring it to the reunion or you can send it to me. Make your checks out to the Stiles Cemetery Fund. My address is: Joanne Perkins, 2920 New Hope Road, New Haven, Ky. 40051.
My story has come to an end. It started with our earliest known common ancestors in England. It crossed the Atlantic with our ancestors and traveled through Connecticut and New Jersey, then came West to Stiles, Kentucky. David is the last of the ancestors we have in common. We are descended from different of his children. Lewis is the oldest child.
~by Joanne Perkins, circa 2004.
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