• General Notes

  [316552.ftw]
  
  http://www.sheltons.net/genes/133.html Isaac (unconfirmed)
  Bilyeu
  
  Born: Abt 1801
  
  Married to Native American Unknown
  
  Died: 1829
  
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  -------------- ------ First Bilyeu Came To County Over 150
  Years Ago, by Clyde Lee Jenkins, The Elden Advertiser,
  October 26, 1972
  
  Distributed with permission of the Eldon Advertiser, Vernon
  Publishing, Eldon, Missouri.
  
  The first Bilyeu in what is now Miller County was, without
  any doubt, Isaac. He appeared in the Gasconade River
  country on a hunting expedition in late 1818, and having
  found game so plentiful, camped for more than a year near
  the Shawnee villages by the Big Maries river. During this
  time he made several excursions into the wilds of the Big
  Richwoods with Indian Chief Rodgers, hunting for dear and
  bear. An excellent hunter, old Chief Rodgers was a white
  man, having been removed from the breasts of his mother by
  Indians raiding settlements near the falls of the Ohio
  River before the Revolutionary War.
  
  Isaac found wild game in the Big Richwoods so abounding
  that he raised a log cabin near the mouth of the Atwell,
  Johnston, and Little Tavern forks, probably on land now
  owned by Leonard Keeth. In the summer of 1820, having
  married an Indian maiden, Isaac moved with his new bride,
  both under 20 years of age, into their log cabin home.
  Their closest neighbors were John Wilson by the Barren Fork
  Creek, and Daniel Brumley by the Big Tavern Creek to the
  north.
  
  Isaac kept his wife supplied with sugar by gathering wild
  honey. Every season, at the Missouri River, he got salt
  from the canoes coming down from the Boone's Lick. For
  three or more years he got corn from James Harrison at the
  mouth of the Little Piney River. He kept the corn inside
  his cabin, concealed in a hollow-log barrel, and when
  needed for bread-stuff, a small portion of the grain was
  placed in a bowl-shaped rock and crushed with a round stone
  by hand. The bear and deer furnished meat for food, and
  skins for leather breeches, skirts, jackets, moccasins, and
  hammocks. Having a trio of Indian dogs for chasing bear
  made Isaac a wealthy hunter. These animals were vicious, a
  cross between early puritan mongrels and domesticated
  prairie wolves.
  
  In fact, it may be said, Isaac hunted like an Indian, was
  married to an Indian, and generally, lived like an Indian.
  Little or nothing is known of his ancestors, and upon his
  death in late 1829, his wife returned, with at least two
  children, to her own people.
  
  Without any doubt he was a relative of the Bilyeus who
  commenced entering the area before his demise. In fact, he
  may have been a son of the Isaac who followed him. Isaac
  Bilyeu, born in Maryland in 1780, grew to manhood there,
  then, after his marriage to Mary Ann, moved into Tennessee,
  where they settled in Overton County about 1799.Their known
  children included Jacob, born 1803; Mary Ann; John Witten,
  born 1809; Elizabeth, born 1813; Margaret Ann, born 1821;
  and Stephen, born 1826.
  
  During the War of 1812, Isaac served in the First Regiment
  of Bradley's Tennessee Volunteers. After the war he moved
  with his family into Green County, Ky., and from this point
  in time, Isaac was always on the go, following the fur
  trade.
  
  During the 1820's he often visited the area now Miller
  County. His first trips were made to obtain saltpeter, a
  necessary ingredient for the manufacture of gunpowder. The
  soil in the floors of the many caves in Central Missouri,
  heavily saturated with nitrate of lime, when leached with
  wood ashes, yielded nitrate of potash. In this manner
  saltpeter was manufactured by the patriots in Kentucky and
  Tennessee for the government during the War of 1812.
  
  By 1830, Isaac Bilyeu and his family were situated in
  present day Glaze Township, Miller County, then Crawford
  County, Mo. Jacob, the eldest known son of Isaac and Mary
  Ann, was married to Catherine Elizabeth Williams, daughter
  of William Williams and Sarah Ann Sullens Williams. They
  lived in Miller County until the middle 1840's then moved
  to Taney County, Mo., and after a few years there, moved to
  Carroll County; Ark., where Jacob died in the early 1850's.
  He was buried at the head of the Big Indian Creek.
  
  It is known that Isaac Bilyeu, the old fur trader, was
  living with his son, Stephen Bilyeu, in Carroll County,
  Ark., in 1860, in the 80th year of his lifetime. It is
  believed he died soon afterward; his wife, Mary Ann, having
  died a few years before in Taney County, Mo.

Details of Isaac's family with Elizabeth Moore