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Subject: [ARSebast] Finding Jonas
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 01:00:24 EST

I need help to determine if Jonas E. Hendrix actually made it to AR from TN.
Jonas was my g-grandfather and first shows up in the census records of 1860,
Giles County, Hammond's Store, TN. Jonas was born abt. 1845, in TN, had nine
brothers and sisters and parents named James and Matilda Hendrix.

According to the 1870 Census, Jonas Hendrix, wife Rhody Hendrix, and two
children, Sarah A. & Nancy E. lived in Giles County, TN.

1880 census, District two, Wayne County, TN Rhoda Hendricks shows up as a
widow living with Riley (Hendricks) Hendrix, my grandfather and all the right
siblings.

THE PROBLEM STARTS

The 1880 census shows a Jonas Hendrix, age 36, married but living with a
Lance Fisher in Grundy County, TN. At the same time another Jonas Hendricks, same
age, shows up in Davidson County, State Prison, TN.

Did Rhoda lie about being a widow because Jonas was in prison or was he
really dead?

The Jonas Hendricks listed was sentenced in Wayne County where Rhoda lived in
1880. Jonas later escaped while on work detail in Tracy City, TN on
September 22, 1882.

So this Jonas might have left TN in 1882 to take his family to AR because
Anna Hendrix Nixon told the story of how her grandpa, Jonas Hendrix had shot a
man in TN. He had taken his family and crossed the Mississippi River in a make
shift boat made from a wagon bed. She goes on to say that they settled in the
Ft. Smith area.

Any available info with helping me find Jonas will be greatly appreciated.

Ed Hendrix
Oklahoma City

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