James Groom and Rebecca Adams

James Groom was born September 3, 1810 in Estill County, Kentucky, the son of Abraham and Jane Crawford Groom. Soon after James' birth the family emigrated to Missouri, to the area that became Howard County in 1816. In 1821, when James was eleven years old the family again moved West . . . this time to Ray County, Missouri, to an area that became Clay County in 1822.

James' mother, Jane, died in about 1825-1826. James was seventeen when his father, Abraham, married Sarah Holtzclaw Adams, the widow of John Adams. Their marriage brought Abraham's eight chidren and Sarah's eight children together as stepbrothers and sisters.

Clay County was being settled rapidly, and the population had become large enough in 1833 for it to be divided into two counties. The new one to the north became Clinton County. James' older brother, William, had purchased land in this area in 1829, and James helped him build his cabin there. Their father, Abraham, purchased 160 acres of land in Clinton County southeast of present day Gower. Abraham and Sarah probably moved there in 1834, the year in which he sold his property near Liberty, and changed his guardianship records for Sarah's children to the Probate Court in Plattsburg.

"The Life and Times of James and Rebecca Adams Groom," by Sarah and Eugene Allison states, "We know little about James before his marriage at age 26, but do have glimpses. He was active in civic affairs and on election days was responsible for delivering the polls to officials in Liberty. He was an accomplished hunter, who was at home in the forest and familiar with its resources. If not a craftsman, he did have working knowledge of the skills he was to need and the strength and willingness to use them. In his middle years he has been described as a practical man, courteous and courtly. His neightbors frequently came to borrow feed and other items. In the absence of convenient lending institutions he often loaned money secured by promissory notes. During the administration of Presidaent Andrew Jackson, he took title to 160 acres of land under patent by the United States of America in the year 1835, the Sixtieth Year of Independence, and one year later married Rebecca Adams."

James married his step-sister, Rebecca Adams, on April 7, 1836 in Clinton County, Missouri. Rebecca was fifteen when they married. "Together they stood hopefully between a past largely unknown to them and a then uncertain but remarkable future. Only a winding trail marked the boundary between their land in Missouri and another land known as Indian Country, later Platte Putchase, its Western edge on the Missouri River. Between the trail and the Missouri was a territory as large as the State of Delaware.

Their home was a "log house; and later another; and Sarah was to bear a family of 17 children, 14 of them living far into maturity; he thinned the forest for pasture and cleared land for gardens, orchard and fields. Their life drew to a close as they had planned and built for the comfort of their sunset years the house on county-line road. This the year 1880."

"James and Rebecca were then surrounded by much security and enjoyed the comforts of their day. The wilderness had been tamed and a modern farm was operating successfully; and, befitting their years, the times were pleasant, full and mellow."

"It was on October 4, 1886, in this appropriate setting, that the first man after the Indians to call this land his home surrendered his rights to a younger generation hopefully, perhaps, to join his ancestors in some dewy meadow or pleasant glade in the mysterious beyond. He was survived by Rebecca until March 17, 1901. Their final resting place is among friends and relatives in Mount Carmel Cemetery Southeast of Gower."

Descendants of James Groom GROOM

Sarah Groom (1839) and John Lyon LYON

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