FAULKNER FAMILY
FAULKNERS INFLUENTIAL WITH 1ST SCHOOLS, CHURCHES
Allen newspaper, Between the Creeks, by Gwendyn Pettit.
The name Faulkner has long been associated with the prairie on the east side of Allen. The Faulkners moved from Kentucky about 1854. We don not know if there were any connection to the Coffey, Yantis, Wolford clan that came from Kentucky at about the same time; however, Amanda, the wife of Jacob Faulkner, was a daughter of Isaac Stimpson (or Stimson), a Virginian who had lived for a time in Kentucky before settling west of present Ridgeview Memorial Park, north of Allen.
When or why the high ground from north of Main Street to south past Bethany along FM 2551 became known as Faulkner’s Prairie is unknown. Jacob and Amanda Faulkner’s land holdings were not as large as others in that area, and in the beginning were only 50 acres given to Amanda by her father. Yet, by the end of the Civil War, the local name of the area was Faulkner’s Prairie. The reason could be Faulkner’s connections to schools and churches. (There will be more about each of these later.)
The large number of children in the families of that area indicate that education was a primary concern. The Faulkners had 12 children, and their neighbors the Sniders, Coffeys, Lucases, McKinneys, Loveladys, Spurgins, Kirbys, and others were equally prolific. The earliest school was perhaps known by the name of Orchard Gap.
We know that in the beginning the Orchard Gap Church met in homes, and not until 1874 did the church have a permanent location. Yet a school on the east side of the prairie was known as Orchard Gap before the Civil War.
This could have been the school taught by James D. Young, in 1858 with G. F. Lucas and James Lovelady as representatives of the paying patrons. In 1859, patrons were Lucas and J. W. Kerby and the teacher was W. W. McFarland. F. H. Lindsey was the teacher in 1860, with Lucas and James Snider as patron.
In the Brown papers (1920-30s), Honorable J. H. Sneed said about Orchard Gap School, “Elder Jim Lowery taught the school here, and also Jacob Faulkner before the Civil War.... Chris Black also taught at Orchard Gap.” There is a discrepancy in the time for Elder J. Ben Faulkner, son of Jacob Faulkner, in a letter written in 1906 to Gabe Lucas that his father taught after the war.
The Elder wrote about his education, his early ministry, and his enlistment in the Confederate Army. “In Capt J. J. Dickson’s company, Col Maxey’s regiment and crossed the Mississippi river at once, and to make a short matter of it did my duty the best I could for four years. I came out with not a cent, not even a good suit of clothes. Married one of the best women on earth (Catherine, daughter of William Snider, and widow of Daniel Bradley) and went to work at any and everything I could get to do, to make an honest dollar; made a very good little start, had a home and plenty; my mind on home, wife and little farm, was happy, and God called me to preach, I told him I couldn’t, I wasn’t educated sufficiently. Again He said, “Go and I will be with you always, even to the end.’”
Elder Faulkner, a Christian minister, told of preaching in little school houses and private dwelling and under trees and brush arbors. “I would work hard all week, ride from ten to twenty miles, preach on Saturday nights and Sunday, back home Monday to go to work again until time to go again. Did my reading at night first by a tallow candle, then a brass lamp, then a lamp with a chimney; thus with the little education I received at such schools as we had.
“I went through Smith’s grammar, Davies Arithmetic, McGuffey’s readers to the sixth. When was came up I had made arrangements with Dan Bradley to send me to college at Clarksville to McKinsey, but when the bugle wounded to call us to arms, I was one among the first to enlist.”
Faulkner related the Orchard Gap incident that has become apart of folklore: “Well do I remember the Ike Ellis affair. He went to Orchard Gap to break up the school, then being taught there by my old father (Jacob Faulkner), who was shot in the leg and disabled during the war between the States, from which he never recovered, and when the news came that Ellis had struck father over the head with his pistol I immediately armed myself and went after John and Bent Whisenant, Bro. Bud, Tom Muse, Joe Russell and other, and we hunted for them twenty-four hours and ran them out of the (county). You know there was a gang of them, together, there were three or more with Ellis at the school. It was well for them that my poor old father was not armed for Collin County never had a braver man than Jake Faulkner, nor one that would have fought quicker for what he believed to be right.”
Allen newspaper, Between the Creeks, by Gwendyn Pettit.
The name Faulkner has long been associated with the prairie on the east side of Allen. The Faulkners moved from Kentucky about 1854. We don not know if there were any connection to the Coffey, Yantis, Wolford clan that came from Kentucky at about the same time; however, Amanda, the wife of Jacob Faulkner, was a daughter of Isaac Stimpson (or Stimson), a Virginian who had lived for a time in Kentucky before settling west of present Ridgeview Memorial Park, north of Allen.
When or why the high ground from north of Main Street to south past Bethany along FM 2551 became known as Faulkner’s Prairie is unknown. Jacob and Amanda Faulkner’s land holdings were not as large as others in that area, and in the beginning were only 50 acres given to Amanda by her father. Yet, by the end of the Civil War, the local name of the area was Faulkner’s Prairie. The reason could be Faulkner’s connections to schools and churches. (There will be more about each of these later.)
The large number of children in the families of that area indicate that education was a primary concern. The Faulkners had 12 children, and their neighbors the Sniders, Coffeys, Lucases, McKinneys, Loveladys, Spurgins, Kirbys, and others were equally prolific. The earliest school was perhaps known by the name of Orchard Gap.
We know that in the beginning the Orchard Gap Church met in homes, and not until 1874 did the church have a permanent location. Yet a school on the east side of the prairie was known as Orchard Gap before the Civil War.
This could have been the school taught by James D. Young, in 1858 with G. F. Lucas and James Lovelady as representatives of the paying patrons. In 1859, patrons were Lucas and J. W. Kerby and the teacher was W. W. McFarland. F. H. Lindsey was the teacher in 1860, with Lucas and James Snider as patron.
In the Brown papers (1920-30s), Honorable J. H. Sneed said about Orchard Gap School, “Elder Jim Lowery taught the school here, and also Jacob Faulkner before the Civil War.... Chris Black also taught at Orchard Gap.” There is a discrepancy in the time for Elder J. Ben Faulkner, son of Jacob Faulkner, in a letter written in 1906 to Gabe Lucas that his father taught after the war.
The Elder wrote about his education, his early ministry, and his enlistment in the Confederate Army. “In Capt J. J. Dickson’s company, Col Maxey’s regiment and crossed the Mississippi river at once, and to make a short matter of it did my duty the best I could for four years. I came out with not a cent, not even a good suit of clothes. Married one of the best women on earth (Catherine, daughter of William Snider, and widow of Daniel Bradley) and went to work at any and everything I could get to do, to make an honest dollar; made a very good little start, had a home and plenty; my mind on home, wife and little farm, was happy, and God called me to preach, I told him I couldn’t, I wasn’t educated sufficiently. Again He said, “Go and I will be with you always, even to the end.’”
Elder Faulkner, a Christian minister, told of preaching in little school houses and private dwelling and under trees and brush arbors. “I would work hard all week, ride from ten to twenty miles, preach on Saturday nights and Sunday, back home Monday to go to work again until time to go again. Did my reading at night first by a tallow candle, then a brass lamp, then a lamp with a chimney; thus with the little education I received at such schools as we had.
“I went through Smith’s grammar, Davies Arithmetic, McGuffey’s readers to the sixth. When was came up I had made arrangements with Dan Bradley to send me to college at Clarksville to McKinsey, but when the bugle wounded to call us to arms, I was one among the first to enlist.”
Faulkner related the Orchard Gap incident that has become apart of folklore: “Well do I remember the Ike Ellis affair. He went to Orchard Gap to break up the school, then being taught there by my old father (Jacob Faulkner), who was shot in the leg and disabled during the war between the States, from which he never recovered, and when the news came that Ellis had struck father over the head with his pistol I immediately armed myself and went after John and Bent Whisenant, Bro. Bud, Tom Muse, Joe Russell and other, and we hunted for them twenty-four hours and ran them out of the (county). You know there was a gang of them, together, there were three or more with Ellis at the school. It was well for them that my poor old father was not armed for Collin County never had a braver man than Jake Faulkner, nor one that would have fought quicker for what he believed to be right.”
