The 2022 Jackson Brigade Reunion will be held in the Forsyth area of Taney County, Missouri about 15 miles east of Branson, Missouri. The dates are Thursday August 4, Friday August 5, and Saturday August 6, 2022. For more details about the Reunion and the Reunion Registration Form visit http://www.jacksonbrigade.com/2020-reunion/ The deadline to return the Reunion Registration Form is June 25, 2022.
But why did Charles Persinger and his wife “Kate” Jackson Persinger settle in Taney County, Missouri? Jackson Brigade member Rick Persinger writes about the family history of his great-grandparents Charles Lewis Persinger and Elizabeth Catherine “Kate” Jackson. It explains why Charles and Kate settled in the area and much more.
We hope to see you all at the 2022 Jackson Brigade Reunion!
Dan
Charles Lewis Persinger (1842-1912) and his wife Elizabeth Catherine “Kate” (Jackson) Persinger (1849-1929).
Kate descends from Andrew Jackson3, Edward Jackson2, John Jackson1. Image from Rick Persinger.
Persinger – Jackson Family
By Rick Persinger
Charles Lewis Persinger was a Confederate soldier under the command of General Thomas Jonathan Jackson (Stonewall) and always said if he survived the war and was able, he would go to visit the Jackson Mill where Stonewall was raised. When he arrived at the Mill, Elizabeth Catherine “Kate” Jackson, Stonewall’s first half cousin (although because of the 45 year age difference she always referred to him as Uncle Stonewall) was there and saw him coming up the road. She thought he was the prettiest boy she had ever seen. Her father, Andrew Jackson, was the youngest son of Colonel Edward Jackson and he operated the mill that his father had built.
The courtship began between Charles and Catherine and they married September 14, 1865 in Lewis County, West Virginia. She was 16 and he was 23 at the time. Their son Thomas Jackson “Tom” Persinger was born July 19, 1867 at the Mill which was on the West Fork of the Monongahela River. Charles and Kate left West Virginia for Indiana, where she was born and her father owned land, in November 1868 about a year after her father had died. Three additional children who survived were born in Indiana, Douglas born in 1870, Edward born in 1872 and Hampton “Hamp” born in 1877. The family moved to Missouri in 1881 because of Catherine’s ill health. She had been diagnosed with lung fever and the doctor advised they move west. We still have two trunks, a kerosene lamp and a draw knife they brought with them on the journey. [Rick told me on the phone that Charles and his family had trouble crossing the Mississippi River, south of St. Louis, and broke their wagon’s tongue. On the western side of the river, Charles walked to a grove of trees and found the draw knife. He used it to create a new tongue for their wagon and kept it for the rest of the trip. – Dan]
Catherine was pregnant on the trip and when the family arrived in Branson, Missouri, she gave birth to a stillborn infant who is buried in the old Branson Cemetery. They recommended she stay in bed for nine days and recover from the birth.
They started to farm down T highway in an area called McKinney Bend.
Charles and Kate sharecropped for at least one year and maybe more, and then came across the White River and farmed the area just above the mouth of Snapp. Uncle Johnny May owned the farmland above the mouth of Snapp and he rented it out to farmers (perhaps five or six acre plots). They rented some of his land and farmed it on the shares.
Then they homesteaded a farm on KK highway in Cedarcreek, which is presently owned by the Clark family. The current homestead owner Walter Clark is a grandson of Charles and Kate Persinger. [Walter has recently died. – Dan] After they homesteaded the land they had Sarah (who married Charley Clark), Mary (who married a Holman from Oklahoma), Lizzie (who married Obie Hurst), and Ellen, who drowned in the well as a toddler.
Charles farmed and raised corn, had a few hogs for butchering, and a few cows for milking. They grew wheat and a threshing machine would come through and thresh it for them, and then they would take it to Kissee Mills to the mill. Schuyler Kissee (great-grandfather of author’s wife Brenda Kissee Persinger) ran the mill 24 hours a day at this time. He would sit down and sleep and if something was going wrong or needed to be restocked, the vibration or noise would wake him up and he would do what needed to be done.
Charles Persinger died in 1912 and Catherine remained on the homestead. According to Truman, Tom’s youngest, by the time he came along his Grandma had had her fill of all the grandkids she cared to be around, and he remembers only a few visits to Grandma’s house. He recalls watching her feed the chickens on his way home from school. She had Rhode Island Reds and they ran circles around her until she started throwing them feed.
Grandma was tall and slender and wore glasses. Truman remembered diphtheria vaccinations being given at her house. Hamp lived with his mother, Elizabeth Catherine until she died and then lived there until he passed away. Grandma died when Truman was almost 15 and he was born in 1913.
According to Truman, his Grandmother remembered his birthday one time and she waited for him to walk by after school and she gave him an apple for his birthday. They had an apple orchard. Truman remembers red peppers strung on strings to dry in the kitchen. She had last year’s peppers and this year’s peppers.
Much of this information is taken from the Jackson Family Book and The Taney County Missouri History and Families Book.
[Note from Dan: Truman Persinger died in 2013 at age 99 and is Rick’s father. Rick’s wife Brenda wrote a tribute to her father-in-law in the February 2014 (Vol. 22, No. 2) issue of the Jackson Brigade Quarterly.]