The first of my ancestors to arrive in Lawrence County were Henry and Elisabeth Jackson Smith. They came from Randolph County, North Carolina, stopping off, for several years, in Perry County Tennessee. They arrived here in 1839, and settled in Chesapeake.
Next to arrive was the family of William and Evaline Airey Brown, who had lived in DeWitt County Illinois after moving from Greenbrier County West Virginia. They settled on land owned by Rev. Clark Smith, in the Onward community. William and Evaline's first child born in Missouri was my Great grandfather, Fred, in 1868.
During these years, the Vandergrift family had travelled from Grainger County Tennessee into several Missouri counties, having first settled in Gasconade, then moving to Dade, then to Dallas County where my Great Great grandfather Alvis married Rachel McKee in 1873. By 1875, Alvis and Rachel had relocated in Lawrence County, where my Great grandmother Lucy was born.
Eli McGehee and his wife Rosella Underwood came from Tennessee about 1839 making Lawrence County their family's home. Eli's grandson William Riley "Pat" McGehee, whose father was Isiah Josiah McGehee, married two of William & Adeline Brown's daughters. He first married Rebecca, and after her passing, he married her younger sister Elvira Brown, making the combined family of children not only cousins, but half brothers & sisters as well.
Lonnie Edward McGehee, the son of William T. McGehee, and
another grandson of Eli's, married Lyda M. Smith, who was the niece of Martha
Louisa (Smith) Doss. Martha was the mother of Mattie Alberta Doss,
who
married the eldest son of Frederick Brown.
Eli's daughter Mary was the mother of Eli Bridges, whose daughter Amantha Bridges, married B Brown, son of Frederick Brown.
From here, the family lineage is woven like an intricate tapestry -see for yourself by following the links below:
VANDERGRIFT