Roberts - Mounce
Elijah/Elisha Roberts s/o William Bailey Roberts and Lydia Ponder
Key: b. (born), d. (died), bef. (before), aft. (after), (m.) (married)
1. Elisha/Elijah Roberts b. 2 July 1798 and d. 3 Dec 1876 and (m.) Margaret Mounce b. 16 Oct. 1800 and d. 20 July 1890
**Parents of Margaret Mounce were John Mounce, Jr. and Rachel Wade
2. Children of Elijah Roberts, and Margaret Mounce:
i. Rachel Roberts b. abt. 1825 and d. 1900
ii. Bethsada Roberts b. 3 Apr. 1841 in Pulaski and d. 01 Sep 1897 in Helenwood, Scott
Co., TN. Interred in Marcum Cemetery. (m.) William Alexander Clark on 16 May
1864 in Pulaski KY, b. 8 Aug 1845 in Worchester, England and d. 3 Mar 1907 in
Pulaski County, KY. (m.) Henry Thomas Clark on 18 Oct 1890.
iii. Joel Roberts b. 11 July 1832 in Campbell, TN. and (m.) Elizabeth Strunk b. 1835
in Whitley County, KY. Married 30 Mar 1854
iv. John Roberts b. 1827
v. Granville C. Roberts b. 11 Sep 1834 in Wayne County, KY. and d. 7 Feb 1921
(m1.) Cynthia Ellon Rains b. 1850 and d. 1933 in McCreary,
(m2.) Lettice B. Garner b. 29 Aug 1851 in Wayne Co. KY
vi. Henry J. Roberts b. Oct 1836 and d. 16 Mar 1906. (m.) Sarah "Sally"
Coffee b. 1833 in Wayne Co. KY. and (m.) 2 Polly J. Walden m. 1 Oct 1863
in Pulaski Co., KY
Note: Margaret Mounce, w/o Elijah Roberts, was supposedly married to Tuckahoe Doublehead prior to her marriage to Elijah. Tuckahoe was the son of an important Cherokee Chief, friends with Jacob Troxel, and the half-brother of Princess Cornblossom. If you have not heard the story of Troxel and Princess Cornblossom, here you are:
Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, the family of John Mounce moved to a homestead located at the mouth of the Rock Creek on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Mounce had two beautiful daughters. Tuckahoe, son of Chief Doublehead, fell in love with one of them, Margaret Mounce by name. The young couple decided that it would be romantic if the girl were to be stolen by Tuckahoe in an elopement. All went well initially. After the eloping party had been gone for several hours, the sister of the bride notified her father that Tuckahoe had stolen Margaret. The angry father, accompanied by a neighbor named Jones, pursued the elopers for many miles overtaking them near the present town of Monticello, the county seat of Wayne County, Kentucky. Knowing the reaction of her father the girl threw her arms around her lover to protect him from harm, thus preventing her father from shooting Tuckahoe. However, Jones drew a bead on Chief Doublehead and killed him instantly. Thus in the year of 1807 ended the life of the last great Indian chief to rule over the Indians of the Cumberland Plateau. Chief Doublehead was buried where he fell. His grave may still be found at Doublehead Gap on the Little South Fork near the town of Monticello.
Soon after the tragic death of Chief Doublehead, John Mounce gave his consent to the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the handsome Tuckahoe, now in line to become the chief of his tribe. Young Tuckahoe and Margaret Mounce were married and established a home on Che-ry Fork, now Helenwood, Tennessee, on US-27 south of Somerset, Kentucky.
The most prized possession of Chief Doublehead's tribe was a secret silver mine located somewhere adjacent to the Cumberland River in the general area of today's McCreary, Pulaski, and Wayne counties, Kentucky. Silver from this mine was taken by the tribe by raft or canoe down the Cumberland River to the French trading post established by the trader Timothy de Monbruen in the new town of Fort Nashborough (the site of the present-day city of Nashville, Tennessee) where it was traded for rifles, powder, knives, lead, hatchets, blankets, and many other trade items.
The location of this silver mine was a tribe secret which had never been given to a white man. A white trader, Han Blackberne, learned of this mine and was determined to find it. He offered to sell young Tuckahoe a fine rifle decorated with silver, together with a fancy powder horn and a fringed bullet pouch for a small amount of silver from the mine. Tuckahoe eagerly agreed. As he went to the secret mine for the silver, he was followed by Blackberne and a hired laborer by the name of Monday. As Tuckahoe was digging the silver to pay for his new rifle, the two white men appeared. While remonstrating with Blackberne for following him, he laid down a pick which he had been using. Monday, a simple-minded individual, grabbed the pick and struck Tuckahoe on the head killing him instantly. Monday then threw Tuckahoe's body down a deep crevice between two large rocks and covered it with leaves, dead branches and loose rock. He and Blackberne then started digging for silver.
In the meantime Princess Cornblossom learned of the deal of Tuckahoe with Blackberne and, suspecting that the trader planned to follow him to the mine, also started for the mine as rapidly as her little legs would carry her in an attempt to stop her brother before he reached the mine site. On approaching the mine she saw the tracks of Blackberne and Monday which confirmed her suspicions. Creeping forward cautiously she arrived at the mine where she observed the trader Blackberne resting under a tree and his hired hand Monday digging the silver. While her brother was not in sight, her worst fears were confirmed by the sight of his new rifle leaning against a tree and large pools of blood scattered about the mine where Tuckahoe had been killed. Realizing what had happened, Princess Cornblossom dashed forward, grabbed the rifle, horn and pouch and sped down the trail so swiftly that Blackberne and Monday were unable to catch her. Fortunately a violent thunderstorm approached on the south and west on the headwaters of Poncho Creek and along the Little South Fork, which made further tracking impossible. The Princess, having reached the top of the mountain, quickly built a shelter at the site of a fallen tree, picked wild grapes and chestnuts for her evening meal, and weathered the storm through the night in comfort, but with a heavy heart at the death of her brother Tuckahoe.
Resolved to avenge his death, as well as to guard the secret of the tribe's mine, she planned to kill both Blackberne and Monday before they could reveal the location of the mine to any other white man.
At the break of dawn she knew that some of her tribe would be searching for her. Sounding the tribal distress call she was answered immediately by two braves less than two miles distant. Knowing that Blackberne and Monday would probably head for their trading station near the Fonde settlement (near what is now Williamsburg, in Whitley County, Kentucky) and that Poncho Creek was a raging torrent as a result of the thunderstorm it appeared Blackberne and Monday would be most likely to cross the creek at Turtleneck Ford. This ford (now called Cracker's Neck) is located about three miles west of the present town of Stearns, Kentucky.
Princess Cornblossom concealed herself on the steep hillside overlooking the ford, posted the two braves in concealment near the creek, and awaited the appearance of Blackberne and Monday. After a long wait she saw a glint of a shiny buckle and a fancy coat and another from the handle of a hunting knife and knew that the white men were approaching. Carefully renewing the priming in the pan of Tuckahoe's fine flintlock rifle, she rested the heavy barrel in the fork of a dogwood tree and waited. Arriving at Poncho Creek and finding it in flood Blackberne dismounted to inspect the ford before trying to cross. Sighting down the long sleek barrel, glistening with bear oil, Princess Cornblossom took careful aim and pressed the trigger. As the shot sounded Blackbern fell to earth dead of a bullet through his heart. The two braves quickly tomahawked Monday, disemboweled both bodies, filled them with rocks and threw them in the raging Poncho Creek. At last the death of the brave Tuckahoe was revenged and the secret of the tribe's silver mine was again safe.
With the death of Chief Doublehead in 1807 and the murder of his son Tuckahoe soon after that, the leadership of the tribe fell to Princess Cornblossom. Her son, Little Jake, born less than a year after her marriage to Big Jake, was now a young brave by tribal standards and helped his mother in the handling of the affairs of the tribe, whose numbers had dwindled to less than a hundred members. New settlements by the whites had crowded them from their previous homes and hunting grounds until they were now living in an area known as Dry Valley which today is known as Big Sinking in Wayne County, Kentucky.
Note: While repeated sources show Margaret Mounce, w/o Elijah/Elisha and d/o John Mounce, as wife of Tuckahoe, I do not believe this to be the case. Margarets father John appears to also have had a sister named Margaret, and it may be that this Margaret was the wife of Tuckahoe. Most sources show Marg. w/o Elijah as having been born abt. 1800, and this does not match up with the date range generally given for Marg. who was the sister of John, Sr. With what little data is available, I think it much more likely that the Margaret Mounce who married Tuckahoe was d/o John Mounce, Sr. and sister to John Mounce, Jr., aunt of the Margaret Mounce who married Elisha Roberts s/o Wm. Bailey Roberts and Lydia Roberts (nee Ponder).
