"There was probably the largest crowd ever present at one of these gatherings and it was an occasion of appropriate respect to the oldest family in the oldest settled township in the county. ... the Waggoners were the first permanent settlers of the township and they came before any settlements were made in other parts of the county. The first members of the family arrived in March 1828 ... It being the oldest family in the county and very few of its members having moved away, while it is related by marriage with all the other old families, make these reunions very large affairs. There is said to be about four hundred descendants of Isaac Waggoner now living, most of whom reside in the county." (pages 18-19)
Reading through the listed descendants of Isaac Waggoner reveals many familiar surnames to any who grew up in Sullivan, IL. One particular name caught my attention. On page 27 is the listing for Hugh Lane (he and his wife Gertrude raised their family on the farm next to where Dad grew up). I discovered from this entry that Hugh Lane was half-brothers with Earl and Dale Lane. This would make Hugh, Earl, Dale and Dad 4th cousins. I knew growing up that Dad and Earl Lane, of whom Dad spoke often and fondly in his last few years, were good friends from way back.
(Duane, Don and Earl Bragg in front of Earl Lane)
A little further research from leads drawn from this book, along with some fairly recent obituaries, soon turned to an interesting direction. Specifically it relates to Hugh Lane's great-grandfather, Archibald Lane (he is the patriarch of many of the Lane families reared in and around Sullivan, IL). [Note: to help you (and me) keep this straight I have added a number of tables in an effort to help clarify the various marriages between the Waggoner, Martin and Lane families]
The story begins with a couple named James Scott Martin (1779-1865) and his wife, Mary Jane Figley (1781-1845). Both were born in North Carolina (James S. was born not far from where I currently live) and both died in Coles County, IL. This couple raised a large family of ten children.
After all of their children had grown up, married and left the home, James and Mary Jane Martin decided to take a trip back to their old home in Kentucky. Along the way they would spend their nights in public houses, or inns. At one of these stops they noticed a "lively six-year-old boy" sitting on a stack of pallets. They learned that he was an orphan (his mother died when he was born around 1835 and nothing was known about his father) and that he was being raised by a family named Webster who, it seems, ran the inn.
The couple went on their way the next morning but Mary just couldn't get the boy out of her mind. So it was agreed that, upon their return trip, they would stop again at the same inn and if the boy was still there they would talk with the innkeeper about taking the boy with them back to central Illinois. They stopped. The boy was still there. The innkeeper's wife, who confessed that she didn't think the inn was a proper place for the child to grow up, was happy to turn him over to the Martins and Archibald Lane become the unofficially adopted son of James and Mary Martin.
Archibald was a loyal caregiver for James Martin (it appears that Mary died when Archibald was about ten years old). It was said that when James Martin died in 1865 at the age of 86, he gave his home and farm to Archibald.
The years passed as Archibald grew up with the Martin's own grandchildren. For one of these grandchildren the relationship grew far more significant that a childhood playmate. She became his wife. Some sources assert that Esther Jane Lewis granddaughter of James and Mary Jane Figley Martin. However, it seems the best evidence indicates that Archibald Lane actually married the granddaughter of James Martin's sister, Jane. She married Charles Neeley in Kentucky (1797). Their daughter, Margaret, married Abram Lewis in 1834 and their daughter, Esther Jane Lewis, married Archibald Lane in 1852.
| John Martin (1755-1821) and Sarah Scott (1753) | |
| James Scott Martin (1779-1865) | Jane Martin (1781-1834) married Charles Neeley |
| Archibald Lane (1835-1905) married | Margaret Neeley married Abram Lewis |
| Esther Jane Lewis (1835-1872) | |
The second of Archibald and Esther Lane's five children (oldest son, the oldest daughter was named Lucinda but went by Lucy), James Lewis Lane (1858-1919), married Mary Elvina Martin (1866-1934) who just happened to be the great-granddaughter of James Scott and Mary Jane Figley Martin. Mary Elvina Martin Lane's mother was Jane Waggoner, the great-granddaughter of Jacob (Hans) Waggoner.
| Johann Jacob Waggoner (1717) | ||||||
| Isaac Waggoner (1761) | ||||||
| James Scott Martin (1779-1865) and Mary Jane Figley (1781-1845) | John Garland Waggoner (1790) | |||||
| Archibald Lane (1835-1905) and Esther Jane Lewis (1835-1872) | John Martin (1803) and Ann Neeley | William Waggoner (1826) | ||||
| James Lewis Lane (1858-1919) | William Thomas Martin (1835) | married | Jane Waggoner (1835) | |||
| married | Mary Elvina Martin (1866-1934) | |||||
James and Mary Elvina Lane's second child (oldest son), Claude F. Lane (1887-1955) was 17 years old when his grandfather, the orphaned Archibald Lane, passed away on July 24, 1905. Claude would have been 24 years old when his oldest son, Hugh Francis Lane, was born in 1912.
| James Lewis Lane (1858-1919) and Mary Elvina Martin (1866-1934) |
| Claude F. Lane (1887-1955) married Georgia Hunter |
| Hugh Francis Lane (1912) |
And to illustrate why family history research is so much fun, James and Mary Elvina Lane had eleven children. Their eighth child (and fourth son) was Walter Martin Lane (1906). He married Oleta Marie Waggoner, the third great-granddaugther of Hans Waggoner. She was also Dad's 3rd cousin. Walter M. and Marie Lane was the father of James Andrew and Gerald Leon Lane, very familiar names in Sullivan, Illinois' history.
| Johann Jacob Waggoner (1717) | |||||||
| Isaac Waggoner (1761) | |||||||
| Johann Jacob Waggoner (1717) | James Scott Martin (1779-1865) and Mary Jane Figley (1781-1845) | John Garland Waggoner (1790) | |||||
| Isaac Waggoner (1761) | John Martin (1803) and Ann Neeley | William Waggoner (1826) | |||||
| James Scott Martin (1779-1865) and Mary Jane Figley (1781-1845) | Gilbert Waggoner | William Thomas Martin (1835) | married | Jane Waggoner (1835) | |||
| Archibald Lane (1835-1905) and Esther Jane Lewis (1835-1872) | Andrew J. Waggoner (1842) | John Dawson Martin (1861) [brother of Mary Elvina Martin] | |||||
| James Lewis Lane (1858-1919) and Mary Elvina Martin (1866-1934) | Winfield "Scott" Waggoner | married | Rose Alice Martin (1887) | ||||
| Walter Martin Lane (1906) | married | Oleta Marie Waggoner | |||||
| James Andrew Lane Gerald Leon Lane |
|||||||
And to add to the confusion, the third child of Archibald Lane (1835-1905) and Esther Jane Lewis (1835-1872), Louisa J. Lane (1861), married Charles Pinkerton Martin (1851) who was the grandson of James Scott Martin (1779-1865) and Mary Jane Figley (1781-1845).
| James Scott Martin (1779-1865) and Mary Jane Figley (1781-1845) | |||
| Archibald Lane (1835-1905) and Esther Jane Lewis (1835-1872) | James Frost Martin (1815) | ||
| Louisa J. Lane (1861) | married | Charles Pinkerton Martin (1851) | |
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