Julius Gari Melchers: Mother and Child (c. 1906)

"This world moves exclusively in mighty mysterious ways."

I can track my forebears’ migrations by noticing where they dropped their babies. Those prior generations seem to have been constantly on the move, though vagaries of time might better explain their apparent restlessness. I can relive a decade in a minute, but they lived it a minute at a time. The births maintained a background rhythm that seems extraordinarily regular today. Another child would appear every eighteen to twenty-four months, most with a birth location attached. By tracking where and when those babies arrived, I easily visualize a map of their progress. They generally kept moving West, with settled periods of varying lengths. My fourth great-grandfather, James Emsley Mayfield, returned to Central Tennessee from his birthplace in Albemarle, North Carolina, and raised his family there in apparent proximity to his extended family. Born just after The Creek killed his father in 1780, he lived until he was 75 and died in 1855 in Montgomery County, Illinois, near the end of what was known as The Great Highway, the primary route between the headwaters of The Potomac in Maryland and The Mississippi.

Interestingly, that country was where James Emsely Mayfield's father had served with William Rodgers Clark in The Revolutionary War. Clark's company secretly crossed the Ohio to "liberate" several villages in what was then the British Province of Quebec. They captured the officer in charge of that region, and the Virginia Legislature declared that area between The Ohio River and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi the Virginia County of Illinois. This was formally ceded to the United States at the end of the war. The new Congress declared the area The Northwest Territory. It later became Illinois. I figure the Mayfields gravitated there because, after 1840, Middle Tennessee was fast filling up. I suspect there was insufficient land to satisfy all those regularly appearing sons and daughters, so they headed west. Always west, and one does not usually head off cross country when moving a family. One takes the highway.

James Emsley's son, my third great-grandfather Deacon Andrew Jackson Mayfield, was born in Tenessee in 1811 and would marry there in 1833. His first child would be born there a year later, but his second would arrive in Illinois in 1835. His third son and, a year later, his first daughter, Mary Louise (Mayfield) Horner Ringo, of whom we will hear more later, would arrive in Arkansas. Until his eleventh child arrived in Missouri in 1846, my third great-grandfather came in 1848 in Barry, Missouri, an area in the south-central part of that state, not far from Springfield. We know Mary Louise (Mayfield) Horner was married by 1840 when her first child was born in Barry, Missouri, evidence that the Mayfields might continue traveling together through these generations, too. Mary Louise's husband "enlisted" into the Confederate 3rd Missouri volunteer cavalry regiment in August of 1862, not long after losing an infant son. He left three living children and his wife behind while he served for three years, finally surrendering in May of 1865. He was paroled in Alexandria, Louisiana, in June and died of fever at home a month later. His final child was born in 1866 in "an unknown location."

Deacon Andrew Jackson Mayfield left Missouri in 1867 with his family, driving ox teams and heading for Oregon. Six months later, they would arrive near Estacada, Oregon, and create a compound in what became known as The Clarks Area east of Oregon City. The family cemetery remains where Deacon Mayfield and his wife, Missouri Dicey Roberts, are buried. My third great-grandfather, Andrew Jackson Mayfield, would greet his first child in Clarks. His older widowed sister, Mary Louise, would remarry shortly after arriving in Oregon to a former Missouri Judge, one Joseph Ringo, who'd lost his wife shortly after arriving. Ringo's nephew, Martin Ringo, had tragically died while on the trail to California from Missouri in 1864. He accidentally blew his head off when climbing down off his wagon with a shotgun during a nighttime Indian scare. This event traumatized his son, Johnny, so he was never the same. His mother drove their wagon to family in San Jose, California. Johnny later lit out for the Southwest, becoming the infamous gunfighter Johnny Ringo of Tombstone fame.

Mary Louise's new husband is famous for more than his relationship with Johnny Ringo, though, for he brought one of the first black men to Oregon. Judge Ringo reportedly brought two of his ex-slaves with him; though territorial law forbade both blacks and Chinese, there was nobody to enforce the regulation. He'd freed his slaves in 1863 while still in Missouri and came to Oregon in 1864. Judge Ringo gave his former male slave William Livingstone forty acres in The Clarkes Area, and he thrived. Livingstone was said to have grown up in Hannibal, MO, and was a childhood friend of Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain. He became a prominent member of the State Grange and a businessman and property owner in Oregon. In 1872, he reportedly sold 128 acres of land to Judge Ringo. Hundreds attended his funeral. This world moves exclusively in mighty mysterious ways.

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