Volume 15 , Issue 8

McCary Family Home & Story

We received the following McCary family information back in 2002 from Charles Cook. We are re-submitting it to our OkieLegacy database by way of this week's newsletter in hopes that the Cook's might make another connection to their genealogy research.

Charles Cook writes back in 2002, "Besides the Martin's and Barnett's of early Woods County, I am also descended from a McCary family who lived in and around Alva. In the book Pioneer Footprints Across Woods County - 1976 by the Cherokee Strip Volunteer League, on pages 441, 442, 443, this family was written about by the late Evelyn B. Stout.

"I descend from James C. McCary and his son Charles Henry McCary. James was my great-great-grandfather. His wife Mary Elizabeth Slocum was his first cousin's child. Therefore I descend from the McCarys twice. Evelyn shared information with me.

However, in my research I later found some of that information incorrect. James C. McCary was born about 1838 in Fluvanna County, Virginia, according to early census records. Family tradition indicates he raised his age when he went to Kansas so a son could do the same and be able to homestead land. "His wife Mary Elizabeth was named Slocum, but she was already five years old when her mother married Lewis Slocum. Furthermore, the Union general Slocum had no brother named Slocum. So there's another old family story that proved inaccurate.

"James C. was born into a wealthy Virginia family who owned many slaves. I'm attaching some Photos of the McCary Plantation Home in Fluvanna County and a paper I did about the home and James' father, Richard R. McCary, being tried for murder, leading to the loss of the plantation. James was the last McCary born in the house.

"The following is the family version of what happened. Richard owned a number of slaves. One night he caught a neighbor, named James Noel, in the slave quarter, 'messing with the girls.' Richard told him that if he ever caught him again he would 'beat him within an inch of his life.' About a week later Richard caught him again. He was carrying a cane. He beat the man so badly with it that he died about a week later. He was said to have been arrested for murder and put in the old stone jail." Read More at this Link - Richard R. McCary's Trial Story.

Photo of James C. (McCary)


Photo of Mary Elizabeth Slocum McCary (taken in Alva)


Photo of James 1913 Reunion of Veterans of Battle of Gettysburg
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---