THE OLE WARHORSE

 

The Ole Warhorse, by Lillian Adeline Rosenberger and Nancy McGahagin Perry, is a brief and somewhat informal biography and genealogy of Joshua Lucas McGahagin by two of his granddaughters. It is undated but appears to have been privately published about 1965. There is no copyright data.

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The book comprises two parts, the first being the brief biography and family oral history for Joshua McGahagin, the second part is a listing of his descendants. The information appears to be drawn mostly from some research, but largely from the personal knowledge of the authors and correspondence with other known descendants. Although the sources for various lines of descendants are not given, the unevenness and variation in the presentation of the lines make it appear that much of the data is from correspondence, at most lightly edited.

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I am posting here portions of the book, mostly those portions most clearly of genealogical interest. More will be posted as I get around to typing it in. What I have included so far is portions of the first part.

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I am working from a personal copy of the book, given to me by one of the authors, my grandmother, Lillian Rosenberger. There is a copy in the Marion County Florida Public Library, call number REF GENEALOGY 929.2 MCGAHAGIN.

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The Ole Warhorse

[page 1]

Part 1

CHAPTER I
IMMIGRATION TO AMERICA

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In Scotland's highlands, three young brothers grew to manhood. All three had longed for adventure and absorbed the tales told by sea captains and others who had made the long perilous voyage of the faraway land of America. They decided to set sail for the land of the West. The words of Horace Greely, "Go West, young man," uttered later, had become a driving urge to them. This was in the mid seventeen hundreds.

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Each brother sailed to a different part of the American Atlantic seacoast, one to Connecticut, the second to Delaware Bay, thence to what is now West Virginia, the third to Savannah, Georgia. He, William McGahagin, was the father of our grandfather. He moved to Effingham County, Georgia, and married a Georgia girl, Margaret Lucas. Four children were born to them; two sons, William and Joshua Lucas, and two daughters, Margaret, who married William McCardell, and Sallie, who died at sixteen.

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We know nothing of the other two brothers, although we have heard of that name in Northern states. Dr. Lincoln Hully, once president of Stetson University, told of having a college pal named McGahagin in the North and others have mentioned the name in West Virginia.

[page 2]

CHAPTER II
GRANDFATHER’S CHILDHOOD

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Grandfather’s parents, William and Margaret McGahagin, did not live very long. Their surviving daughter had married and moved away, the two boys were about eleven and thirteen when they became orphans. One Lucas uncle took one boy into his home. Another took the other. His uncle who took Grandfather soon died also, but his wife continued to keep the boy. It became necessary for Grandfather, aged twelve or thirteen, to help provide for himself and the aunt. He said he plowed all day, clad in an extra-long shirt as his only outer garment. Somehow both boys acquired a good education.

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When he was eighteen, Grandfather mounted his horse, already laden with his few clothes, broke off a switch from a big mulberry tree in the yard and set out for Marion County, Florida, where his older brother, William, had already become established. When he arrived at his brother’s, he selected a home plot near a spring about a mile away. There he stuck his mulberry switch into the ground. It grew into a large tree and bore fruit for many years.

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He built a house, probably a “double pen,” two large rooms with a large hall between them, possibly with a porch in front and two “shed” rooms in the back. He cleared land and established a plantation, homesteading a patent in 1835, in the Eastern District of Florida and the Second District of Marion County. According to the 1840 census, he owned seventeen male slaves and twenty female slaves.

[page 3]

 

On one of his trips to Jacksonville or Fernandina for supplies, he met Sarah Adeline Eubank, and on September 16, 1846, he returned to her home and married her. She was seventeen, he was twenty-seven when he brought home his bride. In the 1860 Census, he was listed as a farmer with real estate valued at $14,000 and personal estate of $25,000.

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Grandfather put in the first sawmill of the district quite early. He sawed lumber for his next home and to rebuild his brother’s home.

[page 4]

CHAPTER III
WILLIAM McGAHAGIN

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William McGahagin settled about ten miles south of Ocala, possibly on a government land grant. When he was about thirty-seven years of age, he married Sarah E. McCormick, daughter of Paul McCormick who also lived in the Ocala district and had acquired much property. William and Sarah McGahagin had only one son, Willie, born in 1854. ...

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Great-Uncle William became a probate judge, also was ex-officio president of the board of county commissioners of Marion County in 1851. Marion County was established in 1844.

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He was also a member of the Secession Convention which met in Tallahassee in January 1861. The other delegates from Marion County were S. M. G. Gary and Dr. James B. Owens, “By action taken, Florida became a free and independent nation.”

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Sarah McCormick McGahagin died of consumption when Willie was too small to remember her. During the Civil War, his father met an Army Nurse and married her. Her name was Thyrza Brewer. They lived in the Marion County home for a few years [page 5] while William was a probate judge. He became ill one day and a doctor was sent for. Some medicine was left. Thyrza gave it to her husband as directed and soon he died. She thought the medicine caused his death. She continued to live in the home for some years. Sometimes Willie was there; most of the time he was in boarding school in Savannah.

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... She finally sold the place and moved back to Georgia.

After her departure, Willie spent his vacations at his Uncle Josh’s home. He was a slim, active, fun-loving boy, six feet two inches tall. As he grew up he liked to ride spirited horses and to attend parties. He often rode to Leesburg to attend a party. He was fairly wealthy even after the war. His favorite relatives were his cousin Addie McGahagin, two years his junior, and her older brother, William, eight years his senior.

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When he was about twenty, Willie developed the dread consumption. For a few months, he stayed in the home of his Uncle Josh, where he was well cared for. He [page 6] gave his cousin, Addie, his mother’s jewelry, a gold watch and chain, several broaches, gold pencils, and rings. As he became weaker he went to the home of his cousin, William E. McGahagin in Lake Weir, where he died at the age of twenty-one. He was never married. He gave them his mother’s silverware.

[page 13]

CHAPTER VI
COUNTRYSIDE

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[page 15]

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At that time Alachua County extended from somewhere about its present northern limits south to Tampa Bay, east to Lochloosa Creek, Cooter Pond, New River, and Sampson, now roughly Island Grove, Lochloosa, and Citra. Later Alachua County was divided into several counties, Marion being one of the first new counties cut from Alachua.

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Grandfather was one of a colony of Homesteaders and settlers of the district. One of these, William Tyner, purchased 2,828 acres. The patent was issued by the President of the United States, November 10, 1850. Great Uncle William McGahagin homesteaded quite a large plantation and his father-in-law, Paul McCormick, had over 800 acres.

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William McCardell, who had married Margaret McGahagin, sister of William and Joshua, became the overseer of the William McGahagin plantation. He had acreage of his own and became clerk of Court of Marion County before 1855. The district was somewhat a family affair. The McCardell's has two sons, Joshua and Jim who lived in the Lake Weir district some years later.

[page 53]

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CHAPTER XVI
FAMILY

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Joshua Lucas McGahagin and Sarah Adeline Eubank were married on September 16, 1846. She was about seventeen, he was about twenty-seven. He brought her to his first home and there were six children born to them; William Emmet, Elizabeth, Alelia Tallulah, and Sarah Adeline. Two sons, Stephen Eubank and Jessup Eubank died when small. Grandfather always managed to get a doctor to attend his first wife in childbirth. However, when the youngest, Sarah Adeline, was born, the attending physician did not fully perform his duties and four days later the young mother dies of "childbed fever." She was about twenty-eight.

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Grandfather superintended the care of his four children for two years, then married again. This bride was Margaret Leitner, a daughter of Colonel George Leitner, a well-to-do planter in Micanopy. He was nearly forty, she was twenty, not very tall, and had black hair and grey eyes.

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Their family consisted of three girls and six sons. Cora was born in 1859, Margaret Jane (Maggie) in 1861, Benjamin Franklin in 1863, Joshua Lucas, Jr., in 1865, in 1867 Wilber was born and died in infancy, James E. (Jim) in 1970 [sic., 1870], George in 1875, Eunice in 1877, The last-child, Howard, only lived about two weeks.

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Grandfather reared a total of eleven children, six daughters and five sons reached maturity, and all were married. Four sons had died in infancy.

[page 54]

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After his decision to move to Brazil was made, Grandfather also put up a general store in hopes of making a little extra money. Mostly it was run by a Hungarian Jew named Wohl, pronounced “Wool.” He and his sister, Minnie, were traveling and glad to settle down for a time. They had a little apartment in the store. Minnie and Addie, the oldest girl at home, became good friends. Minnie Wohl spent her spare time doing exquisite needlework.

[page 55]

CHAPTER XVII
DEATH AND TRIBUTE

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In 1880 Grandfather felt he had arrangements just about finished for the move to Brazil. Most of his investments were liquidated and he still had his cows to gather up and sell. One morning he rode off on a young horse to look for more cows. After some hours the horse came home, dragging him by one foot caught in the stirrup. He had been dragged through bushes, over stumps and rocks, so of course was in terrible condition, though still breathing slightly. He soon died without regaining consciousness. It was supposed the horse became frightened possible by a rattlesnake and bolted, throwing Grandfather suddenly from the saddle in such haste he could not free his foot. He was buried in the neighborhood cemetery, Blue Sink, beside his first wife and near his brother and his wife.

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Grandfather was an honest, clean-living man. He did not drink, swear, make whiskey, or lead a bad life in any particular. He was honored and respected by all who knew him. He would never quarrel. He said it always took two to make a quarrel and he would not be one of them. If anyone began to “fuss” around him, he picked up his hat and left that vicinity. He was devoted to his family, fearless, courageous, and a Christian gentleman.

After his untimely death, one older daughter wrote to another of him as "our idolized father.”

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(NOTE:  Joshua went to Brazil, along with his daughter Lula (Alelia Talula).  While in Brazil. she married Lucius Alphonsa White Sr., the son of Confederado Col. Thomas Bannister White and Elizabeth Shepherd Kirby.  They were married Jun 9, 1873, in the Province of Bahia. - Editor)  

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