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Note: William Neel, or Bill, as he was called, was my grandfather's uncle and while not directly related is the reason for our family being in northwest Tennessee. He and his family were the first to come to Gibson County from Hardin County, Tennessee and settled near Mason Hall. Perhaps they were just passing through Mason Hall on their way to Hickman, Kentucky to cross the Missisissippi River like his grandfather 40 years earlier and thousands of others migrating west then. Ferrying across the Obion River bottom was difficult especially when the river was out of it's banks during floods. It was Bill and his daughter, Susie, that my grandfather lived with when he left home in Hardin County as a young boy.
William was born in 1835 in Haywood County. Between 1838 and 1840 his parents moved to the southwestern area of Hardin County, on the Mississippi and Tennesse state line, where his father had obtained a Tennessee Land Grant. William Jenkins, and Elizabeth, who was half Indian, married in Hardin County in 1856. They had seven children; Amanda, Susan, Virginia, Mary, Nancy, John, and Jim. From the 1860s to the mid-1880s they lived nearby in Alcorn County in north Misssissippi.
It's uncertain, when or where William enlisted in the Confederate Army. The 16th Tennessee Cavalry organized near Tupelo, Mississippi but as war progressed and casualties taken the unit was consolidated into the 21st Tennesse Cavalry. William may have joined when the unit's Company B was organized of men from Hardin County on 15 June, 1863. The unit operated throughout West Tennessee, North Mississippi, and Northwest Alabama. In 1877, at the age of 18, Bill's daughter Susie married James Glover, a 37 year-old Civil War veteran. The war having been over 13 years before their marriage, details of his service were not known to Susie when she applied for a widow's pension 60 years later. However, her uncle, Silas Green Timms, recalls being there at Hamburg in Hardin Co when James enlisted in August of 1861. It is believed James served with Company B, 34th Tennessee Infantry but his war record is not yet clear as two other James R. Glovers from Tennessee served in the Confedrate Army.
About 1889, after Susan Glover's first four children were born, William and Elizabeth, their children Nancy, Jim, John, and Susan's family all came by covered-wagon to northwest Gibson County where Elizabeth's brother Silas Timms, had come just a few years earlier. Their daughter Amanda died before 1870 and Mary Emeline married there. Virginia came to Gibson County before 1880 and lived with her mother's sister, Adeline/Eveline Timms Burnett at Possum Pond.
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~masonhalltn/wcpix/013.jpg"/> Nancy Jenkins, Susie Jenkins Glover William Jenkins, Charlie Glover, Elizabeth Timms Jenkins 1882
<p style="text-align: left; ">In 1889, William bought a 25 acre farm from Susan Morrow on the Cool Springs Road near the Trimble - Kenton Road, now Morella Road. Susan Glover and her family lived in a log cabin nearby and had four more children. The home and log cabin were later owned by Obie Graves in the mid to late 1900s. J. G. Jackson, a farm-hand, lived with them to help the elder James Glover on the farm as Susan's oldest son, Charlie Marcus, was just a young boy. Bill's wife Elizabeth died in 1894 at 56. His son, Jim Franklin, married Susan Hargett and moved to Obion. James Glover died in 1901 and left Susan with eight children to raise. William's other son, John Wesley, married Ella Fisher and stayed with Bill and worked Bill's farm until they also moved to Obion around 1902. Jim and John became well known commercial fisherman on the Obion River. Bill's other daughter, Nancy, married William Hargett and lived near Mason Hall.
Unable to farm his land any longer, at 67 years of age, William Jenkins sold his farm to J. K. Graves and moved in with Susan. In early 1901, Tom Jenkins, Bill's 18 year-old nephew came from Hardin County to help Susan and her only grown son on their farm. Charlie and Tom became very close and married at the same time a few years later. Charlie married J. G. Jackson's, sister Mellie Jackson. By 1910 Susan's children, Charlie, Myrtle, Virgie, Jimmie, and Algie had left home and married. Tom Jenkins had married but lived nearby in the Fairview Commmunity and continued to help Charlie farm. William was now 75 years old and lived with Susie and her children Nora, Willie, and Edgar. Nora married in 1913 and had a son in 1914. Nora died at 31 years old of influenza and left her son, Walter, to be raised by Susan. By 1920 all of her children had left home and now Susan cared for her father and grandson.
Bill lived with Susie for 30 years after his wife passed away and until he died in 1931 at the age of 96. He is buried in Bethpage Baptist Church Cemetery with his wife Elizabeth and near his children Susan, Nancy, and John. His granddaughters Nora, Myrtle, and grandsons Robert and Edgar rest nearby.
The several hundred of Bill's descendants now in northwest Tennessee descend from Susan Glover so do not share the Jenkins name any longer. Jim and John's sons never married before entering the service. Cecil Jenkins, Jim's son, was killed while serving his country during World War I and John's son, Robert Wesley Jenkins, during WWII.
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