Individual Details
Sampson FURR
(1776 - November, 1824)
According to folklore in his family, Sampson Furr went horse racing with other men and accidentally ran into a low-hanging branch and killed himself. This occurred in Saint Louis about November 1824. He was mentioned as an overseer for the roads in Mason County Ky for a time. He fathered 12 children -- we know of 1 (and his 3 wives) -- all 4 are buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis on the boundary of New Augusta and Traders Pont about 2 miles from Lafayette Road and 71st street.
Bonnie Gail Clark
Would like to know the children's names of Sampson and Sarah Furr. They had 12 children; Charity married Poteet; Mary married John S. Gordon; Charles married Mary Alice Graves; and John Furr married 3 times 1. Martha Humes; 2. Clarissa Rodman; 3. Mary Sydner. My line is John and Clarissa, son, William Gordon Furr, my grandfather. All lived at one time in Shelby County around Shelbyville, Illinois). Some of the family know that Mary moved to Clarksville, Texas, where Sarah is buried. The tie with Marion County, Indiana, and here in Shelbyville, is that John and Charles lived both places at one time or other. Charles is buried at Pleasant Hill (get this) it is Shelby County, Illinois.
Chapter II
The Life of Sampson Furr
If Sampson had kept a diary of his life, what incredible reading it would make. But he and his family were much too busy to keep journals.
We do not have the birth date of Sampson, but records indicate that he was the youngest of Edward and Sara Ogden Furr. His oldest brother William was born in 1765. Based on how children were named after their grandparents, Charity was probably the second child. With babies usually born every two years, she could have been born in 1767. Sabina came in "1768 or 1769.” If we continue to have them born every other year, that would put Sampson in 1777, which would have made him 24 when he married in 1801.
Sampson was born in Loudon County, Virginia, on Goose Creek. When he was around 13 years old, the family moved to Kentucky. We have surmised in Chapter I that they traveled the trail from Alexandria to Pittsburgh in order to raft down the Ohio to "Limestone", present day Maysville. His father had seven horses in 1782, so most of the family could have ridden the trail if it had been cleared enough for horses.
With such a large family traveling together, the Furr's could have taken up most of a boat. We wonder if they took cattle and horses with them. Pittsburgh must have been an exciting place as families waited for boats and exchanged travel plans. The trip would seem terribly uncomfortable to us, but to the Furr's who were used to toiling in the tobacco fields in Virginia, it was not such a hardship.
If they landed at Limestone, they found a lively town there, the "northern port to Kentucky". There they would have had to unload their belongings and begin traveling south to Fleming County where Sampson's father had 800 acres waiting for him. Perhaps they passed through the thriving town of Washington on their way south.
Sampson would have been expected to work right along with his father and two brothers in the fields. We do not know if they planted tobacco as they had in Virginia; probably they did, as Kentucky is a tobacco state even today. As Sampson's sisters married, their husbands also lived and worked the 800 acres.
On February 14, 1801, Sampson married Sarah (Sally) Cantwell. She was the daughter of John Cantwell and Sarah Berry Cantwell who married “in the 1770's" according to Henry Cantwell of Glenview, IL (ca. 1981) and had six children: Edward, Mary Ann, Berry, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Margaret.
John Cantwell served in the Revolutionary War as a private and was in three separate units. (A) South Carolina Troops under Captains Flood, John Couterier and Tompson. (B) Virginia Troops from October 1, 1777 to January 1778 and (C) Captain Daniel Flowery's Company from September 1781 until the surrender of Cornwallis
He made a better soldier than he did husband to his first wife. In the South Carolina and American General Gazette, March 27, 1776, there appeared the following article: "John Cantwell has the impudence to advertise me in the papers, cautioning all persons against crediting me; he never had any credit till he married me; as for his Bed and Board he mentioned, he had neither Bed nor Board when he married me; I never eloped, I went away before - his face when he beat me. SARAH CANTWELL."
They must have patched things up and made preparations to go to Kentucky. John was to stay behind to sell his land while Sarah and the children went ahead with the Berry Colony. Before John could leave for Kentucky, he received word that Sarah and the children were dead, victims of an Indian massacre.
John married 21 year old Jane Barnett. In 1816 the Berry brothers sent John word that their sister Sarah had died and his six children were alive and well in Kentucky. John wanted to see his “lost" children and began the long journey. He became exhausted and was persuaded to settle in Claiborne County, Tennessee, and let his "boys" come to visit him. When word came that his father was near, Berry and his family were preparing to move to Indiana. Instead, they came to Tennessee where they spent ten years before going on to Fountain County, Indiana.
That's the father-in-law of Sampson Furr.
At this time, I do not know where Sarah and the Berrys lived in Kentucky, but it must have been rather close to the Furr's be- cause Sarah's brother Edward and her sister Mary Ann were married in Mason County.
In 1809 Sarah's grandfather George Berry Sr. of Mason County "In consideration of the natural love and affection which I have and bear toward Sarah Furr, and for other good causes and consideration - now grant her one negroe girl named Milly about four on five years old. Wt. John Lee, William Berry Wagner. Clerk: Marshall Key" He gave Sarah's sisters Elizabeth Owens of Mason County and Margaret Cantwell of Mason County each one negro child.
In the 1810 census for Kentucky, Sampson had listed in his household "4 males under 10" and "2 females under 10" which meant that they had had 5 children in nine years. By 1810, the black girl Milly would have been six or seven years old and would have been busy helping Sarah with the children and household chores.
Sampson Furr had inherited half of 240 acres from his father in 1801. As mentioned earlier, Sampson bought lot #65 in Maysville on September 6, 1803, paying John and Margaret Brown $50. On April 9, 1807, he and Sally sold 86 acres on Fleming Creek. The following December 7 they sold 70 acres on Fleming Creek for $100. A month later on January 7, 1811, they sold 70 acres on Logan Run of Fleming Creek for $207.50. They sold a total of 226 acres, which means they had acquired 106 acres beyond the land he inherited. We do not know why they were selling their land at this time. We do not know if they ever lived in Maysville on the lot they bought in 1803.
Did Sampson serve in the War of 1812? In Memoirs, Indianapolis and Marion County Indiana, published by Goodspeed Brothers, Chicago, Ill, 1893, it says, "Sampson Furr was a soldier in the War of 1812.” This appeared in a sketch about John Furr, Sampson's youngest son. Although Sampson died when John was only one month old, the fact that Sampson fought in the War of 1812 would have been told by the family.
Research needs to be done on Sampson Furr about the possibility of his serving in the Kentucky militia. And if he did, we need to determine if he received a land grant for his service.
Sampson and Sally and their five children moved to the St. Louis area. We know that they were there because we copied a debenture showing that they paid the sum of $250 for "a certain lot or parcel of land containing five arpens ...to be taken off of a certain tract of forty arpents of land purchased by William C. Carr...which said — five arpents adjoins the land of said William C. Carr on the hill in the prairie back of the town of St. Louis and to the North west there- of". Question for someone to answer: how much land is in an arpent? This debenture was dated September 29, 1813.
On the 15th of March, 1814, Sampson and Sally bought from Joseph and Julie Bissonnet for $400 "a certain lot or piece of ground (391) lying and being situate in the town of St. Louis containing twenty feet, french measure, fronting Main Street which separates the same from the lot now occupied by Jacques Clamorgan, on the near or Easterly bank of the river Mississippi, Southerly by a cross street which separates the same from the river Mississippi, Southerly by a cross street which the same from the lot of Pascal Leon Cerre and adjoining on the North to the lot of Bazile Bissonnet & including a house & other buildings thereon..." (See complete copy enclosed).
Sampson was brought up on farms, so we wonder what he and Sally were doing if they lived downtown in St. Louis. Did they keep shop or have some other occupation besides farming?
In the aforementioned Memoirs, John Furr told the biographer that St. Louis had "only three American families in the place" when his parents moved there between 1812 and 1814. This statement needs some research, because St. Louis was a rather large town. In the Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days, 1804-1821, page 132, the census for Dec. 2, 1815, was "Town of St. Louis, 2,000; County, 5,395. Total, 7,395.”
Also on page 132 of Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days, 1804-1821 appeared the following advertisement:
FOUND, sometime ago in St. Louis, a watch; the owner is requested to prove property, pay charges, and receive her. Sampson Furr. Sept. 17, 1815.
Sampson's father Edwin had 7 horses when he still lived in Virginia. They were a necessity in those days, so we assume that he took the horses to Kentucky and that Sampson had his own horses too. When he and his family moved to St. Louis, most probably they took horses with them. Sampson was no doubt an experienced rider, and yet, according to the story handed down in the Furr family, he met his death on horseback. It seems that Sampson and some men friends were racing horses in the country outside St. Louis. His horse ran under a limb, causing Sampson's death sometime in November, 1824.
This was a real-life tragedy. Sarah and Sampson had 12 children, the youngest John being just one month old. We know that at least one child was married by then; Charity married John D. Poteet On July 1, 1822 in St. Louis.
Unfortunately, we only have data on four of Sampson's 12 children.
1810 Kentucky Census
3 males under 10
2 females under 10
One daughter would be Charity.
The other could be Mary who in 1830 married under John S. Gordon.
Charles b. 13 April, 1815 in Missouri
John b. Oct. 1824, St.Louis, Mo.
Barbara Moorman
From: Donna Lupton dllupton@bmmhnet.com
To: Ken Lupton kimI2001@aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 12:55 AM
Subject: Kenneth Rueff/Mildred Furr
This Mildred Furr who Kenneth Rueff was married to is from the other Furr. Most of them are buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery south of Shelbyville.
Mildred's father was Oscar Furr, who was adopted by Sampson & Annie Furr. His real name was Oscar Bartimus, he took the name of Furr. At least that is what is on his tombstone. Sampson is one of 9 children born to Charles & Mary Alice Graves Furr. Most of the nine children are buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery and some are buried in Richland Cemetery near Strasburg. Charles is the son of Sampson Furr and Sally/Sarah Cantwell. He is the brother of our John Furr who with Charles is one of twelve children. We can come up with only 4 children of the twelve and John Furr being the youngest.
Hope this helps you.
Donna
Family stories handed down say that Sarah was too grief stricken to care for the new baby John, so a married sister living in Shelbyville, Illinois, took John to raise. An ironic twist to the story is that the "grief-stricken" mother went off to Texas and lived to be 96 years old, dying on April 24, 1871. She is buried in Wheatland Cemetery in Clarksville, Texas, but we could never prove this until our cousin John Lupton in 1993 found that Sarah had married a man named Gillespie.
There is another research project, finding out how many of her twelve children and spouses went to Texas, when they went, and when Sarah married Gillespie - and where, in St. Louis or in Texas?
As yet, we have no record of Sarah selling their land in St. Louis, which she no doubt had to do.
And so the young Sampson who was born in Virginia, traveled with his family to Kentucky in 1790, worked on their 800 acres until the death of his father in 1801, married Sarah Cantwell in 1801, possibly served with the Kentucky militia in the War of 1812, and bought land in St. Louis in 1813, died an "untimely" death and left his widow with at least part of their twelve children still at home. If Sampson was 24 when married in 1801, he would have been only 47 years at the time of his fatal accident.
Bonnie Gail Clark
Would like to know the children's names of Sampson and Sarah Furr. They had 12 children; Charity married Poteet; Mary married John S. Gordon; Charles married Mary Alice Graves; and John Furr married 3 times 1. Martha Humes; 2. Clarissa Rodman; 3. Mary Sydner. My line is John and Clarissa, son, William Gordon Furr, my grandfather. All lived at one time in Shelby County around Shelbyville, Illinois). Some of the family know that Mary moved to Clarksville, Texas, where Sarah is buried. The tie with Marion County, Indiana, and here in Shelbyville, is that John and Charles lived both places at one time or other. Charles is buried at Pleasant Hill (get this) it is Shelby County, Illinois.
Chapter II
The Life of Sampson Furr
If Sampson had kept a diary of his life, what incredible reading it would make. But he and his family were much too busy to keep journals.
We do not have the birth date of Sampson, but records indicate that he was the youngest of Edward and Sara Ogden Furr. His oldest brother William was born in 1765. Based on how children were named after their grandparents, Charity was probably the second child. With babies usually born every two years, she could have been born in 1767. Sabina came in "1768 or 1769.” If we continue to have them born every other year, that would put Sampson in 1777, which would have made him 24 when he married in 1801.
Sampson was born in Loudon County, Virginia, on Goose Creek. When he was around 13 years old, the family moved to Kentucky. We have surmised in Chapter I that they traveled the trail from Alexandria to Pittsburgh in order to raft down the Ohio to "Limestone", present day Maysville. His father had seven horses in 1782, so most of the family could have ridden the trail if it had been cleared enough for horses.
With such a large family traveling together, the Furr's could have taken up most of a boat. We wonder if they took cattle and horses with them. Pittsburgh must have been an exciting place as families waited for boats and exchanged travel plans. The trip would seem terribly uncomfortable to us, but to the Furr's who were used to toiling in the tobacco fields in Virginia, it was not such a hardship.
If they landed at Limestone, they found a lively town there, the "northern port to Kentucky". There they would have had to unload their belongings and begin traveling south to Fleming County where Sampson's father had 800 acres waiting for him. Perhaps they passed through the thriving town of Washington on their way south.
Sampson would have been expected to work right along with his father and two brothers in the fields. We do not know if they planted tobacco as they had in Virginia; probably they did, as Kentucky is a tobacco state even today. As Sampson's sisters married, their husbands also lived and worked the 800 acres.
On February 14, 1801, Sampson married Sarah (Sally) Cantwell. She was the daughter of John Cantwell and Sarah Berry Cantwell who married “in the 1770's" according to Henry Cantwell of Glenview, IL (ca. 1981) and had six children: Edward, Mary Ann, Berry, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Margaret.
John Cantwell served in the Revolutionary War as a private and was in three separate units. (A) South Carolina Troops under Captains Flood, John Couterier and Tompson. (B) Virginia Troops from October 1, 1777 to January 1778 and (C) Captain Daniel Flowery's Company from September 1781 until the surrender of Cornwallis
He made a better soldier than he did husband to his first wife. In the South Carolina and American General Gazette, March 27, 1776, there appeared the following article: "John Cantwell has the impudence to advertise me in the papers, cautioning all persons against crediting me; he never had any credit till he married me; as for his Bed and Board he mentioned, he had neither Bed nor Board when he married me; I never eloped, I went away before - his face when he beat me. SARAH CANTWELL."
They must have patched things up and made preparations to go to Kentucky. John was to stay behind to sell his land while Sarah and the children went ahead with the Berry Colony. Before John could leave for Kentucky, he received word that Sarah and the children were dead, victims of an Indian massacre.
John married 21 year old Jane Barnett. In 1816 the Berry brothers sent John word that their sister Sarah had died and his six children were alive and well in Kentucky. John wanted to see his “lost" children and began the long journey. He became exhausted and was persuaded to settle in Claiborne County, Tennessee, and let his "boys" come to visit him. When word came that his father was near, Berry and his family were preparing to move to Indiana. Instead, they came to Tennessee where they spent ten years before going on to Fountain County, Indiana.
That's the father-in-law of Sampson Furr.
At this time, I do not know where Sarah and the Berrys lived in Kentucky, but it must have been rather close to the Furr's be- cause Sarah's brother Edward and her sister Mary Ann were married in Mason County.
In 1809 Sarah's grandfather George Berry Sr. of Mason County "In consideration of the natural love and affection which I have and bear toward Sarah Furr, and for other good causes and consideration - now grant her one negroe girl named Milly about four on five years old. Wt. John Lee, William Berry Wagner. Clerk: Marshall Key" He gave Sarah's sisters Elizabeth Owens of Mason County and Margaret Cantwell of Mason County each one negro child.
In the 1810 census for Kentucky, Sampson had listed in his household "4 males under 10" and "2 females under 10" which meant that they had had 5 children in nine years. By 1810, the black girl Milly would have been six or seven years old and would have been busy helping Sarah with the children and household chores.
Sampson Furr had inherited half of 240 acres from his father in 1801. As mentioned earlier, Sampson bought lot #65 in Maysville on September 6, 1803, paying John and Margaret Brown $50. On April 9, 1807, he and Sally sold 86 acres on Fleming Creek. The following December 7 they sold 70 acres on Fleming Creek for $100. A month later on January 7, 1811, they sold 70 acres on Logan Run of Fleming Creek for $207.50. They sold a total of 226 acres, which means they had acquired 106 acres beyond the land he inherited. We do not know why they were selling their land at this time. We do not know if they ever lived in Maysville on the lot they bought in 1803.
Did Sampson serve in the War of 1812? In Memoirs, Indianapolis and Marion County Indiana, published by Goodspeed Brothers, Chicago, Ill, 1893, it says, "Sampson Furr was a soldier in the War of 1812.” This appeared in a sketch about John Furr, Sampson's youngest son. Although Sampson died when John was only one month old, the fact that Sampson fought in the War of 1812 would have been told by the family.
Research needs to be done on Sampson Furr about the possibility of his serving in the Kentucky militia. And if he did, we need to determine if he received a land grant for his service.
Sampson and Sally and their five children moved to the St. Louis area. We know that they were there because we copied a debenture showing that they paid the sum of $250 for "a certain lot or parcel of land containing five arpens ...to be taken off of a certain tract of forty arpents of land purchased by William C. Carr...which said — five arpents adjoins the land of said William C. Carr on the hill in the prairie back of the town of St. Louis and to the North west there- of". Question for someone to answer: how much land is in an arpent? This debenture was dated September 29, 1813.
On the 15th of March, 1814, Sampson and Sally bought from Joseph and Julie Bissonnet for $400 "a certain lot or piece of ground (391) lying and being situate in the town of St. Louis containing twenty feet, french measure, fronting Main Street which separates the same from the lot now occupied by Jacques Clamorgan, on the near or Easterly bank of the river Mississippi, Southerly by a cross street which separates the same from the river Mississippi, Southerly by a cross street which the same from the lot of Pascal Leon Cerre and adjoining on the North to the lot of Bazile Bissonnet & including a house & other buildings thereon..." (See complete copy enclosed).
Sampson was brought up on farms, so we wonder what he and Sally were doing if they lived downtown in St. Louis. Did they keep shop or have some other occupation besides farming?
In the aforementioned Memoirs, John Furr told the biographer that St. Louis had "only three American families in the place" when his parents moved there between 1812 and 1814. This statement needs some research, because St. Louis was a rather large town. In the Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days, 1804-1821, page 132, the census for Dec. 2, 1815, was "Town of St. Louis, 2,000; County, 5,395. Total, 7,395.”
Also on page 132 of Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days, 1804-1821 appeared the following advertisement:
FOUND, sometime ago in St. Louis, a watch; the owner is requested to prove property, pay charges, and receive her. Sampson Furr. Sept. 17, 1815.
Sampson's father Edwin had 7 horses when he still lived in Virginia. They were a necessity in those days, so we assume that he took the horses to Kentucky and that Sampson had his own horses too. When he and his family moved to St. Louis, most probably they took horses with them. Sampson was no doubt an experienced rider, and yet, according to the story handed down in the Furr family, he met his death on horseback. It seems that Sampson and some men friends were racing horses in the country outside St. Louis. His horse ran under a limb, causing Sampson's death sometime in November, 1824.
This was a real-life tragedy. Sarah and Sampson had 12 children, the youngest John being just one month old. We know that at least one child was married by then; Charity married John D. Poteet On July 1, 1822 in St. Louis.
Unfortunately, we only have data on four of Sampson's 12 children.
1810 Kentucky Census
3 males under 10
2 females under 10
One daughter would be Charity.
The other could be Mary who in 1830 married under John S. Gordon.
Charles b. 13 April, 1815 in Missouri
John b. Oct. 1824, St.Louis, Mo.
Barbara Moorman
From: Donna Lupton dllupton@bmmhnet.com
To: Ken Lupton kimI2001@aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 12:55 AM
Subject: Kenneth Rueff/Mildred Furr
This Mildred Furr who Kenneth Rueff was married to is from the other Furr. Most of them are buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery south of Shelbyville.
Mildred's father was Oscar Furr, who was adopted by Sampson & Annie Furr. His real name was Oscar Bartimus, he took the name of Furr. At least that is what is on his tombstone. Sampson is one of 9 children born to Charles & Mary Alice Graves Furr. Most of the nine children are buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery and some are buried in Richland Cemetery near Strasburg. Charles is the son of Sampson Furr and Sally/Sarah Cantwell. He is the brother of our John Furr who with Charles is one of twelve children. We can come up with only 4 children of the twelve and John Furr being the youngest.
Hope this helps you.
Donna
Family stories handed down say that Sarah was too grief stricken to care for the new baby John, so a married sister living in Shelbyville, Illinois, took John to raise. An ironic twist to the story is that the "grief-stricken" mother went off to Texas and lived to be 96 years old, dying on April 24, 1871. She is buried in Wheatland Cemetery in Clarksville, Texas, but we could never prove this until our cousin John Lupton in 1993 found that Sarah had married a man named Gillespie.
There is another research project, finding out how many of her twelve children and spouses went to Texas, when they went, and when Sarah married Gillespie - and where, in St. Louis or in Texas?
As yet, we have no record of Sarah selling their land in St. Louis, which she no doubt had to do.
And so the young Sampson who was born in Virginia, traveled with his family to Kentucky in 1790, worked on their 800 acres until the death of his father in 1801, married Sarah Cantwell in 1801, possibly served with the Kentucky militia in the War of 1812, and bought land in St. Louis in 1813, died an "untimely" death and left his widow with at least part of their twelve children still at home. If Sampson was 24 when married in 1801, he would have been only 47 years at the time of his fatal accident.
Events
| Birth | 1776 | Loudoun County, VA | |||
| Marriage | February 14, 1801 | Mason County, KY - Sarah Ann "Sally" CANTWELL |  | ||
| Death | November, 1824 | St. Louis, St. Louis County, MO |
Families
| Spouse | Sarah Ann "Sally" CANTWELL (1775 - 1871) |
| Child | Charity FURR (1802 - 1877) |
| Child | Mary Ann FURR (1813 - 1896) |
| Child | Charles FURR (1815 - 1885) |
| Child | John Gordon FURR (1824 - 1895) |
| Father | Edwin FURR (1739 - 1801) |
| Mother | Living |
| Sibling | Stephen FURR (1761 - 1802) |
| Sibling | William FURR (1765 - 1856) |
| Sibling | Sybil Sabina FURR (1768 - 1849) |
| Sibling | Charity FURR (1772 - ) |
| Sibling | Leah FURR (1774 - ) |
| Sibling | Margaret Elizabeth FURR (1778 - 1820) |
Endnotes
1. Dodd, Jordan. Kentucky Marriages to 1850. [database online] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 1997. Electronic transcription of marriage records held by the individual counties in Kentucky..