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Ethel Starkey
he saw us right in the middle of London, I couldn't imagine who was calling
me Cuz!! We thought that was the funniest thing.
FRANCELLE: Were they staying there too?
ETHEL: Well, they were with a group. And so they were just walking down. So
anyway he came across the street and we had a visit. A boy from Mountain
Home.
FRANCELLE: And that's when you realized what a small world it really is.
ETHEL: Well, I could just go on and on.
FRANCELLE: I forgot to tell you (stops to change discs).
FRANCELLE: Were going to go back and start and let you give us the history of the Starkey
family, and I believe the first was James Monroe and Martha Rees. She was a
Rees.
ETHEL: Well, we'll start with James Monroe. He was born in 1820 in Sparta,
Tennessee. In 1843 he married in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee, a girl by the name
of Elizabeth Young Ridley. And a year later they had a little girl named
Elizabeth. But the mother died 10 days later. So the father, James Monroe, of
course he was 24 years old, but she had wonderful parents, so they helped him
raise the little daughter. When she was 5 years old, in 1849, the community
was just - the conversation was totally about the Gold Rush in California.
So 8 young men who were carefully selected so that their temperaments would
be, they knew they were all honest, very carefully selected, and James Monroe
was one of them, decided that they would go across the continent on land to
California and see if they couldn't make their fortune. And he left Elizabeth,
his little five year old daughter, with her grandparents, the George M. Ridleys,
and left $65 to help pay for her - he thought he'd be back in 2 years. And if
anything comes up and you need more than that, I'll try and send it to you. So
these 8 young - they were called the Invincible Eight - pooled their money,
bought a big heavy wagon, stocked it well, each of them had their own horses
because you had to have more than one horse. And 4 mules to pull the wagon,
and they started out. James Monroe was 29 years old then, and he was the
oldest, down to the youngest was 19, of these 8 men. Well, I'll have to make it
short. The trip from Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee, to California is a tape unto itself.
It is vastly, vastly interesting. And two people kept logs, and J.M's is on -
Uncle Jim put all the original papers from James Monroe and records in the
state archives, which are under the Starkey file in the state archives today. He
did that back in the '30's. So I'll pick it up to where they got to Mariposa digs
in California, it took them 7 months and one day to get there. And all 8 of
them made the trip, even though there were Indians and floods, crossing the
Mojave Desert, just a horrible experience, they made it. But shortly thereafter
one of them had an illness and died so they buried him right there above the
Mariposa diggings. Well anyway, he and two others found that there were
Kerr County Historical Commission 12 Oral
History Project