The Cash Family Migrated to Hickman County in 1834

In 1824, James Cash signed a document in Nelson County, Kentucky bonding him to marry Elizabeth Jones, daughter of Aaron and Sally Taylor Jones. The signature is shaky and uneven suggesting that writing was not a customary activity for James. Elizabeth Jones, who was born about 1804 in Tennessee, used a partial "X" as a signature.

Marriage bonds were guarantees that an impending marriage was between parties that were legally eligible to marry. No money was forfeited unless that was not case, such as when one of the party was underage or already married.

The marriage between James Cash and Elizabeth Jones occurred on September 11, 1824 at St. Rose Catholic Church and was witnessed by Rev. Richard P. Miles.

Kentucky was still a rough neighborhood, though growing rapidly and adding some layers of prosperity and even gentility. Steamboats were just beginning to churn the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Louisville, 50 miles away, was becoming a metropolis. And the Bardstown area was establishing its reputation as the center of the bourbon distilling industry. Bardstown still proclaims itself as "The Bourbon Capital of the World".

A number of Catholic institutions were founded in the area early in the 1800's, including St. Rose Church in1806 near Springfield, Washington County. Soon a Dominican Order monastery and St. Thomas College were added. Bardstown became the home of the first Catholic Diocese west of the Appalachians in 1808.

Having help make a congregation, James and Elizabeth Cash soon went about adding to it. Church records of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Bardstown record three baptisms. Copies were made by Brother Leo Willett.

The first reads, "I baptized this 28^th day of July 1825 Mary Jane Cash daughter of James Cash and Elizabeth, his wife, born June 18^th, 1825. Rosamond McMahon, Godmother." It is signed "E. McMahon".

The second one, "The 10^th day of May, 1828, I baptized Lucinda, Daughter of James and Ely Cash born 1 April, same. God Mother Mary Frances Lonahoe". The signature is unclear.

And the third reads, "April 26^th, 1832, I baptized Louis Alexander, infant son of James Cash and Elizabeth, his wife, born this 10^th of March, 1832" (the rest is largely illegible).

With a growing family, it would seem unlikely that James Cash would take the risk of uprooting and moving to a new section of the country. However, the desire to better provide for his loved ones along with reports that unsettled land was available at low cost in extreme western Kentucky may have motivated his desire to move.

Farmers in the Catholic communities of central Kentucky were not completely happy. R. C. Hammett states that the Pottinger's Creek settlers found the land there to be poor, and quotes the following passage from a reprinted 1897 article by J. E. Coad.

"...when the old pioneers from this section used to meet Saturday evenings in Bardstown, as soon as they had shaken hands, one would turn his back to the other and beg him for half a dozen kicks under his coat-tail, and when they were duly administered, the other would turn around and ask his friend for his kicking... Not infrequently, half a dozen pairs have been noticed exchanging civilities of this nature, in the course of an afternoon. Why was this done, you ask? Why, in order to get temporal punishment inflicted, to expiate the grievous sin they had committed in abandoning the peaceful shores of Maryland for the wild forests and savage Indians of Kentucky. But the plunge had been made, the labor and exposure of going forbade the idea of return, and it was a clear case of "root hog or die'".

The 1830s were a time of restlessness and more than one family considered relocating. Several Catholic families including the Willett and Hobbs family had relocated to Graves County in far western Kentucky starting in 1829. The westernmost section of Kentucky, known as the Jackson Purchase, had been owned by the Chickasaw Tribe until a treaty in 1818.

The land had been surveyed in the 1820s and sold for $1.25 an acre, which was later reduced to as little as 25 cents an acre. Reports came back that this land was cheap, level, and fairly fertile. This was not a dangerous new territory, such as Texas, but an area of Kentucky near at hand and with functioning Kentucky County governments.

In 1834, James Cash bought land in Hickman County, Kentucky, not far from the future site of the Fancy Farm Catholic Settlement. He was not alone. His brother John C. Cash and brother-in-law Samuel S. Hayden also bought farms. Sam Hayden was married to Charity Jones, sister of James Cash's wife, Elizabeth Jones. Hayden was also first cousin to Samuel B. Willett, founder of Fancy Farm, since his mother was Polly Willett, Sam Willett's aunt.

The Hickman County land purchased was just west of Dublin, Kentucky, along Little Obion Creek. According to a family history written by Anna Courtney Hunt in 1977, "James Cash made his homestead near the present Dublin-Beulah Road, about three hundred yards West by Northwest of the Oscar Dalton homestead, now occupied by a son of the latter, Earline Dalton."

Two transactions are recorded in the Hickman County Deed Book. One reads,

"This indenture made this 25 day of October in the year 1834 between Owen S Jackson of the county of Hickman and state of Kentucky of the one part and James Cash of the county and state aforesaid of the other part witnesseth that the said Owen S Jackson for and in consideration of fifty dollars... doth grant bargain and sell unto the said James Cash his heirs and assigns all that tract or parcel of land Situate and being in the county of Hickman on the waters of Little Obyne Creek being as follows including all the land west of a large branch of the north west quarter of Section one township 3 range 2 west... In witness whereof the said Own S Jackson together with Martha his wife..."

Sources:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyhickma/deeds/B547.htm

Another transaction on the same day was for $300 to purchase 160 acres at the same location.http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~slhessick/peakes04.htm