Cousins & Other Close Connections

Grace E. Yeager Hunt, and mother Maggie Wilson Yeager Find-A-Grave website (photo submitted by Dr. Jon Tyler Conner) Ref: Find A Grave - Grace E Hunt I ran across this photo recently on the Find-A-Grave website, and after at first thinking the names sounded familiar, I then realized why. Besides making for a striking photo, this pair help illustrate how closely interrelated our neighboring communities were in and around Sullivan & Vigo Counties. This mother-daughter photo is of Grace Ellen (Yeager) Hunt and Margaret ‘Maggie’ (Wilson) Yeager. (This photo would have been taken in the mid-1890s.) Maggie, the daughter of Henry Kouchman Wilson and Mary E (Mann) Wilson, was married to Warren Milton Yeager of Prairie Creek; second marriage for both.  Their daughter Grace would marry Arthur Hunt, also of Prairie Creek. Through the Wilson family tree, Maggie was a 1st cousin to Tacy Margaret (Cochran) Smith, the grandmother of our grandmother Mildred (Smith) Thompson. Maggie’s husband Milton Yeager was a 4th cousin to Clara (Yeager) Phillips, mother of Leo S Phillips. Therefore, Grace was a 2nd cousin to our ‘Great-Granddad’ Edgar Smith, of Cass Twp., and a 5th cousin to ‘Grandpa’ Leo Phillips, of Graysville. To round out our family connections, Grace’s husband Arthur Hunt was a 3rd cousin to ‘Grandpa’ Walter Thompson through their common ancestry (Hunt family from Guilford County, NC).  Arthur and Walter were also 4th cousins and 5th cousins through other lines of the Hunt family. Also, Maggie (Wilson) Yeager was a 1st cousin to Mary (Mann) Durham, the mother of Thomas Mann Durham who was married to Ruth (Eno) Durham, 1st cousin of 'Grandma' Helen (Cushman) Phillips. Got it all?

Fire claims main sanctuary of Prairie Creek Baptist Church 

5 Dec 2013
The loss of the Prairie Creek Baptist Church to fire represents another lost connection to the Thompson family’s past. The lady in this photo is Beulah Ellen Thompson, wife of James Washington Thompson, and daughter of Zadock and Margaret (Johnson) Hunt of Fairbanks Township. Beulah was born in 1816 in what is now part of Greensboro,NC. The Hunts were among “Carolina Quaker” families who migrated in 1820 from Guilford County, North Carolina to Indiana.  

James and Beulah Thompson, who married in 1835, are listed on the “1851 roll call” members of the Prairie Creek Church.  James W Thompson is buried in the cemetery behind the old church, along with six of their thirteen children, all victims of a smallpox epidemic in 1864 during the Civil War. Beulah lived to see 89 years and is buried at Little Flock. This photo was taken about 1894 at her son Edmond Thompson’s farmhouse when she would have been about 78.  

Location: Latitude 39.27617, Longitude -87.49764

Ref:  http://www.geocities.ws/prairiecreek1/1pcchurch.html
         http://www.tribstar.com/latest/x853086221/Historic-church-burning-in-Prairie-Creek