The Gilmore Family

Samuel Gilmore was born in Kentucky in about 1798. He emigrated to Bedford County, Tennessee by about 1817.

Samuel Gilmore married Margaret Wilson (Peggy) Doherty. The marriage records for that period in Bedford County are not extant, but it is believed that they married in about 1817. Peggy was born November 13, 1800, in Tennessee, the daughter of William Taylor Doherty and Ellen Bennett (Nelly) Bradford. The Doherty family had moved to Bedford County between 1797-1812. Samuel and Peggy had eleven known children.

The Gilmore and Doherty families emigrated to Clay County, Missouri in the late 1820s. Samuel Gilmore patented land in Township 52 North, Range 31 West, for the west ½ of the NW 1/4 of Section 30, February 27, 1829. This land was about a mile north of Liberty, Missouri, near the settlement of Roosterville.

Demand for additional settlement land mounted, pressuring Congress into purchasing the Platte Country from the Indians. After the Platte Country was purchased from the Indians in 1836, Indians occupying that region had to move further west, across the Missouri river to reservations established in Kansas and Nebraska. The Platte Purchase treaty with the Indians required the government to ". . . furnish them with a farmer, blacksmith, schoolmaster, and interpreter . . ." Samuel and Peggy Gilmore, and their children, and Robert and William Doherty went to the Platte Country to educate and teach the Indians in 1836.

Samuel and Peggy's ninth child, Samuel, was born in Nebraska in 1838-1839. Soon after his birth, they returned to Missouri. The 1840 census finds the Gilmore family back in Clay County. Between 1840-1843, Samuel Gilmore entered land in Township 57, Range 32 of Clinton County, Missouri, in the area that became DeKalb County in 1845. Samuel Gilmore is listed in the first assessor's list for DeKalb County.

When gold was discovered in California in 1849, thousands rushed to the West Coast to seek their fortunes. Artisans dropped their tools, schoolteachers closed their class books, ministers deserted their pulpits, farmers left their crops to rot in the fields. William Doherty, and Samuel and Peggy's son, Joseph Gilmore, went to California with a wagon train from Clay County in 1849. They first worked on claims near Placerville, and later staked their claim at Kelsey Canyon.

Samuel Gilmore and his family are listed in the 1850 Missouri census. Sometime after the census was taken, possibly in 1851, Samuel joined his son, Joseph, and William Doherty in California. William Doherty returned to Missouri in 1851-1852. On March 28, 1854, Joseph Gilmore wrote a letter to William Doherty, that he is ". . . alone as you are aware that father (Samuel Gilmore) has returned home . . ." Samuel must have started for home in the early fall of 1853, for he wouldn't have risked traveling during the winter months. There is no record of Samuel Gilmore after this letter. We don't know if he successfully made the return to Missouri, or he like many others did not survive the arduous trip. No record has ever been found of his death or burial site, and family history gives us no hints to where or when he died.

The 1860 census shows Peggy Gilmore living in the household of her brother, William T. Doherty, in DeKalb County. Peggy died in the fall of that year, on October 10th. She was probably buried at the Doherty cemetery, or possibly the Old School Presbyterian Cemetery south of Stewartsville, Missouri. No gravestone has been found at either site.

Descendants of Samuel Gilmore

• 1 Samuel Gilmore b: 1798 d: Aft 1850

  . +Margaret (Peggy) Wilson Doherty b: November 14, 1800 d: October 10, 1870

  • 2 Benjamin Bradford Gilmore b: November 12, 1817 d: May 04, 1905

    .... +Lenary (or Louray) Holmes b: 1820 d: 1852

    *2nd Wife of Benjamin Bradford Gilmore:

    .... +Harriett Holmes b: 1827 d: April 05, 1892

    2 Elizabeth Elanor Gilmore b: May 23, 1821 d: May 13, 1911

    .... +John A. McKamey b: Abt 1810 d: Aft 1850

    2 Harriet Gilmore b: 1824 d: 1830-1840

    2 Robert Gilmore b: 1826 d: 1840-1850

    2 William T. Gilmore b: 1828 d: 1870-1880

    2 Nancy ( Lavina ?) Gilmore b: December 13, 1829 d: August 18, 1904

    .... +Elkanah C. Anderson b: October 14, 1818 d: November 16, 1905

    2 Joseph Gilmore b: 1832

    2 Martha A. Gilmore b: 1835

    2 Samuel A. Gilmore b: 1838

    .... +Yes

    2 Margaret J. Gilmore b: 1842 d: 1924

    .... +Tillman Howard Carroll b: January 09, 1844 d: March 09, 1926

    2 Mary A. Gilmore b: 1844

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