Their Legacy – My Life
Greg Bennette’s Gowdy family history
As told to Elsie Odell Bennette by Beth Gowdy about her mother, Anne Kemp Gowdy and her grandfather, John Glenn Newbill.
John Glenn Newbill of Virginia was a slave owner but his slaves were well treated. When his daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Riley Kemp, moved to Pettis County, Missouri, he gave her a couple. Continue reading “John Glenn Newbill’s Slaves”
As told to Elsie Odell Bennette by Beth Gowdy about her father, John Tucker Gowdy.
The summer of 1862, John T. Gowdy and a friend went north to Canada to hunt for gold. They had very little success, but John did bring home a very small amount of gold dust.
As told to Beth Gowdy by her mother, Anne Eliza Kemp Gowdy
When I was ten years old, we lived for about a year in a little log cabin in Polk County, near where Fort Sheridan stood. Ever since we had been in Oregon, we had lived in Salem, and had near neighbors with children to play with me. This was a lonesome place, no houses in sight and no near neighbors.
Told by Anne Kemp Gowdy.
I was six years old in November, 1849. The next spring I went to school for the first time. We were living on a farm, near where is now the city of Sedalia, Missouri. My teacher was Mrs. Ferguson. She taught, or kept school, as we said then, in her home.
As told to Elsie Odell Bennette by Beth Gowdy about John Tucker Gowdy on the Oregon Trail in 1852.
Your great grandfather, John T. Gowdy, was only seventeen years old when he crossed the plains in 1852 by ox team. By the time he was telling this story to his children, he had forgotten the name of this river.
Continue reading “Crossing a River on the Oregon Trail by Oxen in 1852”