FOURTH GENERATION

56. Lionel (Liner) LACY ⁽¹⁾ was born about 1765 in prob. Buckingham Co., VA. He died on 1 Jun 1816 in St. Clair County, IL. b. ca. 1765, Va., probably in Buckingham County where the family was residing in 1761. d. Saturday, June 1, 1816, St. Clair County, Ill. Interred in family plot on his "plantation", where numerous other burials of relatives were made, including
that of his wife. No stone marks either his or his wifeOs grave. According to family legend, he was buried in his wedding suit, which was his wish. He was assuredly named for his uncle, Linear (Lionel) Brown. Nothing is known of his youth,
which was probably spent in Buckingham Co., Va., where, unfortunately, the courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1869, with the loss of all records. It is not known whether he served in the Revolutionary War or not. One Linner Lacy did serve.
(Aud. Acct. XXII, P.79. "List of Rev. Soldiers of Va.", Dept. Archives and Hist.). It is assumed, however, that this service record refers to a cousin, a son of Elkanah Lacy, Sr., since he was older. It would seem that if subject Linel did so
serve, that his son, Thomas, would have related it to his niece, Pamelia Lacy, in 1863, when he gave her the family history.

Sometime after the ending of the Revolutionary War, possibly between the years 1786 and 1788, Lionel left Virginia and removed to eastern Tennessee, at the time that it was the State of Franklin. He settled either in the Holston settlements or
those on the French Broad River, in what is now Jefferson County, then frontier communities with a frontier society. The eastern part of Tennessee is a great hill-strewn valley, then forest clad, running northeast to southwest, bounded on the
south by the Anaka and Great Smoky Mountains, and on the north, partially, by the Cumberland River, containing within its broad boundaries the Clinch, Holston, Nolichucky, French Broad, and tributary streams, whose combined flow form the Tennessee
River.

The first settlers were mainly from Botetourt, Augusta, and Frederick Counties in Virginia, and Cumberland and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania. They were a hardy, fearless, enterprising and intelligent people, mostly of Scotch-Irish stock and,
for the most part, Presbyterians, if they had any religion at all. Rev. Charles Cummings, one of the earliest ministers in the region, stated that there were some, mainly from the wealthier classes, who were extremely wild an dissipated.

Settlers along the Watauga River were principally from Virginia and the Carolinas. Some were descendants of people who earlier had come down from the North and settled in Virginia and the Carolinas, and were of German stock, Huguenots, and members
of the German Reformed Church, who readily mixed and assimilated themselves with the Scotch-Irish. As to the Scotch-Irish, -

"they were a sturdy race, enterprising and intelligent, fond of the strong excitement inherent in the adventurous frontier life. Their untamed and turbulent passions, and the lawless freedom of their lives, made them a population very productive
of wild, headstrong characters; yet as a whole they were a God fearing race, as was but natural in those who sprang from the loins of the Irish Calvanists.

The women, the wives of the settlers, were of the same iron temper. They fearlessly fronted every danger the men did, and they worked quite as hard. They prized the knowledge and learning they themselves had been forced to do without; and
many a backwoods woman, by thrift and industry, by the sale of her butter and cheese, and the calves from her cows, enabled her husband to give his sons good schooling, and perhaps to provide some favored members of the family the opportunity
to secure a really first class education."

[N.B. Quotes from Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Schribner's Sons, New York, 1926]

About 1789, he married Ann Rankin, a Scotch-Irish girl, daughter of Thomas Rankin and Mary Isabelle Clendenin who were natives of Cumberland Co., Pa. They had first moved to Augusta Co., Va., and thence to the French Broad River area some five or
six years previously. Thomas, and four of his sons, served in the Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania. Thomas was born in Derry Co., North Ireland, in 1724 and died in 1810 in Jefferson Co., Tenn.

There is no record of the marriage of Lionel Lacy and Ann Rankin in the files of Jefferson, Green, or adjoining counties. Many of the old marriage bonds were lost in the various moves of the courthouse records, and in some instances collections
of loose papers, among them marriage bonds, were used to start fires on cold mornings. The record of the marriage exists in old family records, dating back over one hundred years. In 1930 a monument was erected on the grounds of the Mt. Horeb
Presbyterian Church near Jefferson City, Tenn., in honor of "Four Pioneer Settlers of Dumplin Valley", namely Richard Rankin (1756-1827), Thomas Rankin (1762-1821), Samuel Rankin (1758-1828), and John Bradshaw (1745-1818). The inscription carries
a brief history of the Rankin family, and lists the names of all the children of Thomas Rankin (1724-1810), and his wife, Mary Isabelle, and to whom they were married. This list includes the name of Ann Rankin, married to Lemuel Lacy. (The name
"Lemuel" was an error made in reading an old record in which the name was not clear.)

Shortly after their marriage, Lionel and his wife headed for points west. They moved to the Cumberland settlements around Nashville, then a mere collection of huts about 110 miles from their home on the French Broad River. Their travel was
through a wilderness and over a trace which was constantly being harassed by roving bands of Indians. This necessitated that such journeys be made in groups for mutual protection, and guarded by mounted riflemen. The Cumberland settlements were
at the very frontier of the ever advancing army of settlers and frontiersmen as the Indians were steadily pushed back from their traditional hunting grounds. Bands of Indians roamed around the Nashville area and on Nov. 11, 1794 , Charles Snyder,
a gunsmith, was killed by Indians.

On Oct. 23, 1791 near Nashville, Tenn., Lionel and Ann's first child, John, was born. At this time, Nashville was a mere cluster of log cabins in the heart of the Cumberland settlements. There was continuous warfare with the Indians to the
south and west, particularly with the Creeks. In two years or less they were back in the French Board area in Jefferson County, where their next two children were born: Stephen in 1793 and Caleb in 1795. By the fall of 1797, they were back again
in the Nashville area, for their fourth child, Joshua, was born on Jan. 5, of that year on the Red River, near Clarksville.

In all, they had seven sons, each of whom we have descendant data on. In some cases, the data and stories are extensive and in others, there is but a small amount. However, these lines will occupy most of the rest of the book. It is from the
Elliott line that Hubert Wesley Lacey and Howard Elton Lacey descend.

1830 LACY LINEL Wayne County IL 081 No Township Listed Federal Population Schedule IL 1830 Federal Census Index IL559136247

He was married to Ann RANKIN (daughter of Thomas RANKIN Capt. and Isabelle CLENDENIN) about 1789 in French Broad River, TN. Ann RANKIN ⁽¹⁾ was born about 1771 in prob. Cumberland Co., PA. She died on 8 May 1837 in IL. Lionel (Liner) LACY and Ann RANKIN had the following children:

+175 i. John LACEY.
+176 ii. Stephen LACEY.
+177 iii. Caleb LACEY.
+178 iv. Joshua LACEY.
+179 v. Thomas LACEY.
+180 vi. James LACEY.
+181 vii. Rev. Elijah LACEY.

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