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Continued: Excerpted from: A Short History of Stephen & Elizabeth Elliott By: Pauline Mitchell Pierce, a great-great-great granddaughter He was in Warren County, Tennessee before 1812. He was married on Hickory Creek, in Warren Co. on the 13 Feb. 1811 to Elizabeth, born in Virginia (maiden name, County and parents still unknown). Their first child Henry, was born in Warren County in 1812, as well as their second child, Malinda, born in 1814 and Monroe in 1816. Stephen was drafted into the Tennessee Militia on the 1st. day of November 1814, for a term of six months, he was honorably discharged, first on 10 Jan.1815 in New Orleans, he re-enlisted on the same day and was again discharged on 13 May 1815 at McMinnville, Warren Co. TN. He fought in the Battle of New Orleans, 8 Jan. 1815, under the command of General Andrew Jackson. He received two land grants for this service as will as receiving pension and Elizabeth a widows pension. The earliest deed book for Warren County begins in March 1814. The book for 1807 (when the County was formed from White) until 1814 has evidently been lost. Stephen owned land there before 1814, for on the 26 Feb. 1815 he sold 25 acres to Willis Garner for $350. There is no record of this purchase, of course it could have been given to him by his father as was done quite often then. On an 1812 tax list, Stephen and William are the only Elliotts listed in Warrn County. . . . By 1850 he owned 525 acres, sixty acres were improved and used for farming and 465 acres unimproved. These were covered in good timber. When the Civil War began their home was directly in the path of troop movements between Atlanta and Nashville. They were near enough to the mountains that there was almost continual guerrilla warfare by the Confederates in all of Coffee Co. These soldiers, Confederate as well as Federals, lived off of the land, what was not given to then by private citizens, was taken. When Federal troops had taken almost complete control of the County in 1862 they imposed higher taxes (to pay for the war) and 50 percent penalties on all who were not loyal to the federal government. With this tax Stephen's land was valued at $2000. He managed to pay his taxes but many could not, and their lands were confiscated. It was during this time that Stephen had his will written and it is believed that he thought he might not survive the war, so he took it to the Courthouse and left it, where it is today. Never probated or recorded, but he did name all of his children in it. All of Stephen and Elizabeth's children had emigrated by 1850 to Arkansas. Monroe was there between September 1842 and February 1845. Henry and Malinda (Elliott) Bickle were there by 1840. It is believed that Monroe had gone with Henry to Jefferson Co. Ala. He has never been found on an 1840 census. Regardless, he returned to Coffee Co. by 1843 when he married Margaret Eoff. He would have settled his affairs which probably took about a year, for his first child was born in TN. His two younger sisters and their husbands, and his younger brother Stephen Jr. all evidently made the trip to Arkansas together. Older brother Henry was still in Ala. but returned to Coffee Co. for about one year before he too set out for Ark. He was there between 1846 and 1849. In 1850 he was in Stone Co. Ar. with all his brothers and two of the sisters. By 1860 he was in Lawrence Co, Ar. Bickles Cove, Stone Co. Ar. was named for Henry and Malinda (Elliott) Bickle, they were supposedly the first white settlers in this small area. . . . By the time the Civil War was over Stephen and Elizabeth were almost eighty years of age. Stephen, Jr. had died in 1865, their land was laid waste, his slaves freed, with no one to work the land. They were now very poor, old, and broke and no one to help care for them. So Stephen made an oral contract with Jane (Elliott) Davidson, one of his former slaves who was a young strong woman, with no husband, but two very small daughters to care for. If she would return to live with them until Thier deaths she would receive all the household furnishings and be well paid, if there was no money at their deaths to pay her, then there was always the land that could be sold. To help pay their every day expenses, he rented out most of the land to be cultivated by neighbors and sold timbers off the land for cross-ties and lumber. When in Feb. 1870 the Federal Government passed a law for a pension for survivors and widows of the War of 1812. Stephen applied for and received a pension of $15. per month. He never actually received any money before his death 30 Aug. 1872, but after his death Elizabeth received $135. that was due him and applied for and received a pension of $8.00 per month for a total of $320 before her death 28 Dec. 1875. Stephen and Elizabeth Elliott were two of the earliest settlers in what is now Coffee County, yet it is assumed they lay in unmarked graves. . . . 1860 Census, Coffee Co., TN Census Stephen Elliott,71, Farmer, real property val. 2000 and personal value, 7000, born NC Elizabeth 75, Domestic, b. VA John, 17, farmhand b. TN Hannah Anderson, 60, Domestic, real property val. 500, per. 400, b. NC (widow of Jordan Anderson) Mary, 28, Do, b. TN. New info on the ancestors of Stephen Elliott comes from Herman Cummings' Rootsweb pages: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=d9rdozer&id=I27661&style=TEXT I realize this is the subject of controversy in the family. The info has not been verified by me, but neither have I seen it disproven.
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