JOHNS, John Jay (1818 - 1899)

Family(s):	Johns,Durfee
Person ID (Link to genealogy):	GED link I28
Sex:	M
Date born:	24 Jun 1818
Born in:	Buckingham County, Virginia
Date died:	3 Apr 1899
Died in:	St. Charles, Missouri
Buried in:	Oak Grove Cemetery, St. Charles, Missouri
Find-a-grave:	98124914
Father:	JOHNS, Glover (1769-1834)
Mother:	JONES, Martha (1786 - 1829)
Spouse(s):	WOODRUFF, Catherine A. (1823-1846) , DURFEE, Jane Amanda (1829-1915)
Children:	JOHNS, Louisa Woodruff (1842 - 1917) JOHNS, Mary Jane (1844 - 1922) JOHNS, Martha Jane (1848 - 1905) JOHNS, Charlotte Elizabeth (1850 - 1938) JOHNS, Frederick Durfee (1851 - 1945) JOHNS, Arthur Clifford (1853 - 1935) JOHNS, Thomas Glover (1855 - 1881) JOHNS, George Sibley (1857 - 1941) JOHNS, Annie Durfee (1860 - 1876) JOHNS, Margaret Glenday (1863 - 1865) JOHNS, John Jay (1867 - 1877) JOHNS, Blanche Borden (1869 - 1870) JOHNS, Shirley Winston (1873 - 1909)
Fawcett book:	JOHNS, John Jay (1818 - 1899)
Other attributes
Needs attention:	Yes
Needs annotation:	Yes

Biography

John Jay Johns was born in Buckingham County, Virginia to Glover and Martha (Jones) Johns. After Martha died in 1829, the family moved first to Rutherford, Tennessee, where John's sister, Mary, married and remained. The family then moved to Alabama and finally settled near present-day Clinton in Hinds County, Mississippi, where his father, Glover, buit the plantation they called Chevy Chase, which really belonged to John's brother, Alfred and his family.

John lived with his sister briefly in Memphis, Tennessee, and then attended Miami University in Ohio where he met and married his first wife, Catherine Woodruff. They had two daughters, Louisa and Mary. Catherine died of consumption in 1846 in St. Charles, Missouri. John married Jane Amanda Durfee in 1947. They had 11 children. John farmed for awhile, then moved to town where he built a house on Tompkins Street.

John kept a journal for most of his life; excerpts are found in these pages. He was a devout Presbyterian, and his beliefs punctuate his writings. John Jay Johns died in 1899 in St. Charles.

From Bill Fawcett's book:

JOHN JAY JOHNS was born in Buckingham County, Virginia in 1819. His father, Glover Johns, was a tobacco farmer and magistrate. They moved to central Tennessee in 1831 and then to Mississippi in 1834. John Jay attended Miami University at Oxford, Ohio (1836-1840). The year he graduated (1840), he married Catharine A. Woodruff of Oxford, and they returned to Mississippi where he farmed. That year he also became and elder in the Presbyterian church, and served as one until his death. In the spring of 1844 they moved to St. Charles County, Missouri and settled on Point Prairie. Catharine Johns died in 1846, leaving him to raise two daughters. Other nearby farmers included Willis Fawcett, B.H. Alderson, Abner Cunningham, John Chapman, Charles Sheppard, and James Judge. On November 2, 1847, John Jay Johns married (2) Jane A. Durfee, daughter of Rev. Thomas Durfee and Ann Glendy, at the old Thomas Lindsay farm, near St. Charles. In 1848 John Jay Johns, B.A. Alderson, Willis Fawcett, and John Stonebreaker pooled their resources to purchase the first McCormack repear ever used in Missouri. They and other farmers increased the growing of wheat. In 1851 John J. Johns moved his family to St. Charles, where they still lived in the 1870s with 10 of his 13 children--4 daughters and 6 sons (Bryan and Rose 1876:161-162).

Source

From A History of the Fawcetts and Related Families in America by William Bloys Fawcett. Used by permission of Dr. Fawcett.

This book was first published in 1996 and some of the information is quite dated. If you find errors or want to add updates, contact me, and I will add notes to the page.