John and Mary Keziah Young were my fifth great-grandparents on my mom’s side. They were my great grandfather Peyton Skeen’s third great grandparents on his mother, Flora America Facemire’s, side.
JOHN YOUNG’S CHILDHOOD
John Young was born about 1760 to Conrad and Anna Margaretta Young near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. On the 24th of July 1762, before John was two years old, tragedy struck. While rocking her son John in her arms, Anna Margaretta was struck by lightning, which killed her instantly, though John was unharmed.
Four years later, John’s father, Conrad, took him and his siblings and moved to the Shenandoah Valley in present day Augusta County, Virginia. There Conrad remarried. Several years later Conrad’s second wife, Elizabeth Woods, drowned while crossing a flooded creek, leaving John motherless for the second time.
JOHN YOUNG’S MILITARY SERVICE
John Young went on to serve against the British during the Revolutionary War in the Virginia militia. Towards the end of the war John followed his brother to the Kanawha Valley, in what was, at the time, still Virginia. He went on to become a scout for Virginia because of so many problems with the Indians using the Kanawha Valley to raid Virginia from Ohio.
After the Fort Tackett escape, John Young again served in the Virginia militia. This militia was raised from the men of Kanawha County, and they served under the great explorer Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone, being fed up with Kentucky, had moved to the Kanawha Valley before finally settling in Missouri.
JOHN YOUNG’S WIFE AND CHILDREN
In 1789, John married Mary Keziah Tackett, the daughter of another settler of the valley, Lewis Tackett. This is the same Lewis Tackett I wrote about earlier that was tied to the tree in present day Charleston by the Indians. Mary Keziah Tackett had previously been married to John Young’s friend, John Townsend. John Townsend and several of their children had died of cholera several years earlier. Her only remaining daughter from her first husband was Mary Townsend. She was the one who was thought murdered in the first cabin on the day of the Indian attack on Fort Tackett. It was thought she had either been killed outright after the second cabin fell or had been taken captive back to Ohio, never to be heard from again.
John and Mary Keziah’s son Jacob, my fifth great uncle, is recognized as the first white child born in the Kanawha Valley. If he was actually the first white child, we will probably never know. There were several other families settled in the Kanawha Valley before John’s arrival. Jacob, however, was the first birth listed in the official county record. John and Mary Keziah Young had at least six more children, according to the listing at Find-A-Grave.
Be aware that there were two men in the same area named John Young. Take care not to confuse them.
SOURCES and FUTURE PLANS
This information was found in John Young, Lieutenant at Elk, written by Orton Jones, and Lewis Tackett-Pioneer, written by Norval Jack Dudley, as well as many other sources. I have other stories about John and Mary Keziah to post in the future, as well as a story about Mary’s sister-in-law, Hannah, and her harrowing escape from her Indian captors.