Andrew Chumbley

The following writing is by Alice Chumbley Lora, a direct descendant and a member of the Chumley/Chumbley Research Group:

ANDREW CHUMBLEY, the eldest son of Robert Chumbley and Elizabeth Betsy Ford, was born about 1803 in Amelia (or Giles) County, Virginia. By 1840 he, along with his brothers John, Lewis and Robert Chumbley were living in Claiborne County, Tennessee, where some of the family stayed and put down roots.

But in the early 1840s, Andrew and his brother Britain [also spelled Britain, Briton, Brittain, Britton] moved to Kentucky and were in the 1850 Pulaski County Census. They and two of Andrew’s sons, William and John J, were buying land and settling their families on land that adjoined the Cub Creek and the Cumberland River, along the border of Russell and Pulaski counties [1], where they were later joined by their brothers Samuel, Robert Green, James Franklin, Elias Britain, and Martin, along with sisters “Mary” Mahala Ann and Martha A.

Andrew had purchased 100 acres of “vacant and unappropriated lands” for the sum of $2 [2].  Andrew’s eldest son William Chumbley purchased a half-acre lot in the town of Harrison (Now Harrison’s Knob), which is close to Faubush in Pulaski County from John M. Weddle [3].   Then in 1859, Andrew and his wife Elizabeth, William, and his wife Sarah (Dotson) sold 146 ½ acres of land along the White Oak Creek, Pulaski Co, to one William Vanhoozer for $636.90.  Families who owned adjoining land were the Redmans, the Logans, the Connors and the Norfleets. [4]

On Nov. 30, 1860, William Chumbley purchased more land, this time three tracts of land, totaling 284 acres, from William and Sally McClendon for $500.  This land also lay along the Cub Creek and adjoined lands owned by Solomon Turpin, David Thomas (deceased), and Andrew Grinswett (Grunnset?).  One sidelight of this deed is that William McClendon “reserves to himself one half of a mile…necessary to own a distillery off of said lands.” [5]  Later William Chumbley and his wife Sarah Dotson Chumbley sold rights to “bore, explore, dig, or mine for coal, water, oil or other minerals” on this land in return for one-tenth of all the proceeds made from these minerals.  The Chumbleys were to furnish timber “sufficient to erect derrick” and “wood for running the engines and for the manufactures barrels.” [6]  On March 20, 1865, William paid fifty dollars to Enoch Callicotte for fifty more acres adjoining Andrew Grinswett (Grunnset?) and Smith W. Cain. [7]

On August 12, 1865, Andrew’s sixth son John J. Chumbley also purchased land along the Cub Creek, but this land was on the Russell County side of the creek.  From Jacob and Levanah Royedon he bought over 100 acres of land that adjoined that of Smith W.Cain, George B. McClendon, John Canaday and Ephriam Cain.   This land was strategically placed because John J. and his brother Samuel later married two of Ephriam Cain’s daughters. [8]  However, in October of 1865 John J. needed to borrow $50, so he signed a note to Joseph E. Hays on 140 acres of land, to be void when he repaid the loan. [9] Although many of Andrew’s family settled in Pulaski, Russell, and Casey County, other descendants moved in groups to Kentuckytown, Texas, to Pike County, Indiana, and other places on what was then the frontier; however, many of Andrew’s descendants stayed in Kentucky.

MOVING WEST: FROM PULASKI COUNTY TO RUSSELL COUNTY
by Alice Chumbley Ray Lora
Moving west was something that many Americans were doing in the 1800s, but sometimes “west” meant only a few miles. Several Chumbleys who lived in Pulaski County decided to move west to Russell County. Established in 1825, Russell County in early 1870 had a population of fewer than 2,000 citizens. The level bottom lands on the Cumberland River were beautiful as well as fertile. The section of land where the Chumbleys originally settled is an area where Pulaski, Wayne, and Russell counties join. Place names that appear in early family history in Russell County include Vinnie, Bart, Ono, Effie, Jabez, Gadberry, and Pleasant Hill.

Also in the area was a 4-square mile area known as the Panhandle. It was known as a “rough” area, not because of its hilly land being hard to cultivate, but because it was hard to enforce the law. When one could simply escape the law by stepping from Russell County into Wayne or Pulaski, setting up a still was a prosperous possibility. The Pottershop Cemetery, where Civil War veteran William Chumbley is buried, is said to have between 17-30 murdered men in it; a small cemetery. [10]

On January 13, 1871, Andrew Chumbley and his second wife Mary Jane Gooden McClendon leased 360 acres of Russell County land that had belonged to his son William and that was left to them in his will.[11] The leaser was Milford Cain, a neighbor and probably an in-law, who gave them $450 in return for a promissory note payable twelve months after the date. The interest on the loan was Cain’s right to cultivate the land. If the Chumbleys did not pay off their loan at maturity, then Cain would receive possession of the land. Andrew was 69 years old and in poor enough health that by July of the next year he saw fit to write out his will, attested to by the doctor who cared for most on Jabez Ridge, Dr. J.B. Scholl.[12] However, Andrew must have recovered because he lived another twenty years.

It was to this land in southeastern Russell County that Andrew and Elizabeth Betsy Ford’s third son, James Franklin Chumbley, was to take his wife, buy a farm, and raise his family. James was born in Claiborne County, TN in 1834 and had moved with his family to Pulaski County, Kentucky in the mid-1800s, where he met and married Lucy Ellen Frye.[14]

While working as farmers, James and Lucy soon started their family. Mary Etta, John William, Samuel Bryant, Charles Andrew, Robert E., and Martha Ann were all born while in Pulaski County, but in 1876 James and Elizabeth moved their family thirty miles west into neighboring Russell County, and it was here along the Cumberland River that their last child, James Milford Chumbley, was born in 1877. Their youngest daughter Martha Ann vividly recalled the move from Pulaski to Russell County, a trip of about thirty miles. Her father owned a very stubborn mule that he wanted to take, but her father was the only member of the family who could handle him. Because the mule would not move when tied to the wagon, her father had to ride him. Already packed and ready to go, Martha Ann began crying because she wanted to ride on the mule with her father. He granted her wish, so she remembers the trip very well.[15]

Martha Ann also recalled her first school in Russell County; built of logs with a roof made of branches and sod. The logs were chinked with mud. Inside, a long broad board rested on the pegs inserted in the logs along two sides of the room, and this formed a steep desk. The June 1880 School Census for District 11, Russell County, KY lists Chumbley children: John W., 18; Sam B.,14; Charles A., 12; Robert C., 10; and Martha Ann, 7. Other family names listed in this District 11 school census include: Hatfield, McGowan, Wooldridge, Hart, Gadberry, Upchurch, and Polston.

They must have learned something in this rural school because two of the four boys, Samuel Bryant Chumbley and Charles Andrew Chumbley, became medical doctors. Dr. Samuel Bryant Chumbley was listed as a physician in the 1900 U.S. census of Pike County, Patoka Township, Indiana, in a household that included his wife Fannie and his infant son Marvin. In 1902 he sold some land to Jonah and Jonathan Gosser,[16] in Russell County, possibly because he was ill, because on August 21 of 1902, he died. According to his direct descendant, Samuel’s tombstone was erected by his brother Charles. There is a Masonic emblem and another emblem with the letters WMA and some tools or other symbols on it.

Samuel’s brother, Dr. Charles Andrew Chumbley, was a teacher before he received his medical diploma from the K.S.M. in Louisville on July 10th, 1902[17]. For a while, he and his wife lived in Rocky, Oklahoma, and it was there that his first son Ralph M. was born on Oct. 1, 1910. When Charles Andrew’s wife Hester Bertha Foley, a native of the Fonthill section of Russell County, became ill, Charles moved his family back to live in Russell Springs. Bertha died in April of 1918 and was buried in the Russell Springs city cemetery, and Charles remained in the county for a while, He and his two sons are still listed in the 1920 census, along with two of Bertha’s sisters who were living in the home as housekeepers. One might speculate that as a physician he was also taking care of his aged parents, but in 1920 he sold his home to a Mr. Tarter and moved away.[18]

Martha Ann Chumbley, the little girl who had wanted to ride the mule with her father, married William Franklin Thomas on Sept. 8, 1890, and they had five boys and two girls in Kentucky before moving to Kansas. In the spring of 1892, Martha Ann’s family decided to try their luck in Oklahoma. Her husband made the run at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Opening on April 19, 1892, and secured a claim nine miles south of the town of Hinton. She recalled that when their wagon halted, her husband took a spade and began to construct a home. She cooked the family meals by campfire, and the group slept in the wagon until the house was completed. They reared their family, adding two more girls, while living and working their claim. Oklahoma was admitted to statehood on Nov. 16, 1907, as the forty-sixth state, and by 1910 its population was 1,657,155. The 1910 census shows both Martha Ann and her brother Dr. Charles Andrew Chumbley living in adjoining counties just west of Oklahoma City. [20] Then by 1918 Charles had returned to Kentucky. In 1936, Martha Ann’s first husband died, and the following March, she sold her share in the homestead and moved to El Reno, Oklahoma. In the fall of 1937, she remarried.[21]

Martha Ann’s sister Mary Etta Florence Chumbley married into an infamous family when she married Moses Harrison Hatfield about 1869 in Wayne County. This Moses was a cousin to the more famous “Devil Anse” Hatfield of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. I got this information from Kese Chumbley Lawless, who wrote me: “I’ve talked with an eighty-year-old lady at Jabez named Estell Hatfield. Her grandmother was a sister to my granddad John Will Chumbley. Ethel’s grandmother Mary Etter Florence Chumbley, who married Moses Hatfield.”

The youngest child of James and Lucy was James Milford Chumbley, who moved to Illinois in the late 1800s. He migrated to the Warrensburg-Latham area in central Illinois and worked as a farm hand. He married Mary Viola Barry, the daughter of his employer, Joseph Stuart Barry, who was a prosperous farmer. Eventually, James bought his own farm. James was known as a no-nonsense, hard-working man, but also one who liked to play hard.[22] James and Lucy Chumbley’s oldest son, John William Chumbley, was my great-grandfather.

John Will Chumbley and his wife Rebecca Frances Hart lived at Jabez, along the Cumberland River. Rebecca was the daughter of Socrates Hart and Nancy Brown Hart. As with many of the Chumbley men, John Will was strong and stern, while his wife was strong and sweet.

Retta Hatfield, a 90-year-old woman I interviewed in Jabez on Feb. 16, 2003, remembered John Will living on a farm near her own: “John Will was a smart man. And he sent all his kids to school.” She also told the story of gathering apples with her father. They were picking up apples that had all fallen on the ground. John Will rode up on his horse and picked the last apple on the tree. It irritated Retta’s dad, who returned to the house and told his wife, ‘That John Will has taken the very last apple from our tree!’” John Will farmed, taught at the Gadberry School in Jabez,[24] and even preached a bit in a Methodist Church and also that he owned a store.

Rebecca and John Will had twelve children: William Joshua, Henry Clay, Rosa Frances, Sam Bryant, Lily Margaret, Peter Lee, Lula Jane, James Franklin, Eula May, Zula Fay, Joseph Lawrence, and Benjamin Irvin – all born in the Jabez area.

James Franklin Chumbley and Lucy Ellen Fry Chumbley, both lived until after 1920, but their graves are unmarked.[25] It is possible that their graves were lost when in the late 1940s several cemeteries were moved because of the formation of Lake Cumberland after Wolf Creek Dam was built. The U.S. Corps of Engineers subcontracted to private individuals the responsibility of reentering over two thousand graves. During the low water season in the late 1970s, several old wooden coffins resurfaced. Obviously not all graves had been moved.[26] Several graves from the “Chumbley” graveyard in Jabez were moved unmarked to the Square Oak Baptist Church Cemetery, and it is possible that they lie there.

A Family of Teachers

It is fitting that at least one school picture of school children from the family of John Will and Rebecca Frances Hart Chumbley has survived because John Will and two of his brothers, Samuel Bryant Chumbley and Charles Andrew Chumbley as well as his daughter Lula Jane Chumbley were at one time schoolteachers—as were several of their descendants, including my father Kenneth Landis Chumbley and his sister Kese Chumbley Lawless; and my own brother Ronald Edwin Chumbley and I, Alice Chumbley Ray Lora.

End notes:
[1] 1850 US Census. Kentucky. Pulaski County, Division 2, pg. 253 lists Andrew 46, farmer, born in Giles Co, VA; Elizabeth 46 born in NC; Martha A. 19 born in TN; James 16 born in TN; Britain 12 born in TN; Martin 10 born in TN; John 8 born in KY; KY; Samuel 4 born in KY. On a nearby farm lived Andrew’s brother Britain Chumbley 35, his wife Margaret 33, and their children: Alexander 12, Andrew 10, James 8 and Malinda 6. Two of Andrew and Elizabeth’s sons are also listed: William 24 and his wife Sarah 19, and Robert 22 and his wife Jane 17.
[2] Warrant#24175 Pulaski Co., KY Entered Nov. 18, 1852.
[3] 1857 Deed Book 17, p. 611. Pulaski County, Kentucky.
[4] 1859. Deed Book 18, p. 195. Pulaski County, Kentucky.
[5] 1860. Pulaski Co. Deeds. P. 614.
[6] 1865. January 30. Deed Book H, p. 200. Russell County, Kentucky.
[7] 1865. March 20. Russell County Deed Book, p. 615.
[8] 1865. Russell County Deed Book H, pp. 366-367.
[9] Pulaski County Marriages, Book 3, pgs. 41, 42, John Chumbley and Margaret Cain. Bond: Aug. 15, 1861. Andrew and Elizabeth Chumbley give permission for the marriage. The bride’s father is E. Cain. Coatney Cain married Samuel on March 6, 1866 in Dorena, Kentucky. Russell County Marriages: March 6, 1866, Samuel Chumbley married Rebecca A. Cain???, pg. 512.
[10] 1865. Russell County Deed Book H, pg. 617.
[11] Morris M. Gaskins. My Scrapbook: A History of Russell County.1992.
[12] 1871 Russell County Deed Book K.
[13] Russell County Will Book 4, pg. 55, July 19, 1872. I Andrew Chumbley being of feable at body but of good sound mind do make this my last will and testament after paying my just ?well? burial expenses I will and bequeath to my wife Jane Chumbly a living or support off of my land. Second, I will and bequeath to my son Lewis Chumbley my home farm at my wife June’s death and my will and desire is that Lewis to have the control of the farm so far as to cultivate the farm and have all the proceeds over and above my wife Jane Chumbly’s support. Thirdly, my will is that the remainder of my estate be equally divided among all my legal heirs. From under my hand and seal this July 19, 1872. Signed Andrew Chumbly (his mark) Att: J.B. Scholl
[14] This photo belonged to my great-uncle Joe Chumbley and was given to me by his widow Glada Chumbley.
[15] 1859 Marriages: Pulaski Co, KY, KY State Archives Film #994053. Pulaski County Marriage Book II, page 19. James Franklin Chumbley and Lucy Ellen Frye. March 27, 1859. Minister is William S. Weddle. Witnesses: Wm. Frye and John Pitman. Bride born: Morgan County.
[16] Indian Pioneer History, vol. 99, pg. 170. An interview dated Jan. 14, 1936, with Martha Ann Chumbley Thomas Andrews, who lived at 400 North Macon Street, El Reno, Oklahoma.
[17] Book 6, p. 566 and Book 7, p. 157
[18] Russell County, Kentucky Medical Register. Kentucky license issued by the State Board of Health, Bowling Green Kentucky, on Sept. 13, 1902. Registration August !2, 1918 in Russell County before L.G. Bernard, Russell County clerk.
[19] Russell County Deed Book 7, p. 88.
[20] I have been in touch with a grandson of James Milford Chumbley, son of James Franklin Chumbley and Lucy Ellen Fry Chumbley. He sent me a photo of one of James’ brothers, Dr. Charles Andrew Chumbley, and his family sitting in an early automobile. Judging by the ages of the boys (Ralph and Roy), it might be around 1915 (Their mother died in 1918).
[21] 1910 US census. Oklahoma: Canadian County, Walnut Twp; Washita County, Rainy [Rocky].
[22] Indian Pioneer History, vol. 99, pg. 170.
[23] Letter from David Chumbley, Edina, Minnesota, Oct. 29, 2005. David was the grandson of James Milford Chumbley.
[24] This photo was given me by Glada Chumbley, the widow of Joe Chumbley, son of John Will and Rebecca.
[25] Russell County, Kentucky: History and Families. Turner Publishing Company. Paducah, KY. 1996. p. 155.
[26] Pulaski Co. Deed Book 45, pg. 234-235: This deed of conveyance made and entered into this the 9th day of April 1894 between James Chumbly and Lucy E. Chumbly his wife, parties of the first part, and J.S. Woolridge of second part, all of the County of Russell, State of Ky. Witnesseth that said party of the first part, for and in consideration of the some of thirty dollars, in hand paid, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged. Do hereby sell and convey to the party of the second part his heirs and assignees, the following described property to-wit, All their undivided interest of the part of the first part, in and to the following described property. Certain tracts or parcels of land lying and being in the County of Pulaski, state of KY and on the dividing ridge between Wolf Creek and Faubush Creek and on the east side of the Jamestown rode [sic], containing five hundred and two (502) more or less, and being the same land, conveyed to Charles Fry by T.Q. Elliot and wife by deed, now of record in Pulaski County Clerk’s office. Deed book No. 27, page 192, to which reference is here made for more particular description, the ??? being conveyed our undivided thirteenth part in and to said described property, to have and to hold the same together with all the appurtenances there unto belonging unto the party of second part, his heirs and assignees forever, and the said part of the first part his heirs and assigns forever. And the said party of the first part hereby covenants with the party of the second part, that they will warrant the title to the property hereby conveyed unto the said party of the second part and his heirs and assigns forever. In testimony whereof the party of the first part hath hereunto subscribed their names the day and year aforesaid.