My Genealogy Hound

J. W. Forsee was born in this county in 1836, the son of P. N. Forsee, a native of Virginia. The father was of French descent, and the mother of Scotch-Irish descent, and born in Franklin County, Ky. The mother’s maiden name was Gray, and after their marriage in Kentucky, where the father had come from Virginia as a child, they came to Clark County in 1835, and crossed the Mississippi in a cotton-wood canoe. The father lived there thirty years, removing to Adams County, Ill., in 1865. The parents lived with our subject after his marriage until their deaths, in 1877 and 1872, respectively. The father was reared a Whig, but afterward became a Democrat, and for forty years was a member of the Baptist Church, of which he served as clerk and deacon. Our subject began working for his father independently at the age of fourteen; four years later he began teaching, and continued four years in Knox and Clark Counties. January 19, 1860, he married Amanda T. Williams, daughter of Thomas Williams. After marriage he settled in Clark County for four years; then, during the war, spent fourteen months in Canada, and then, after a year in Iowa, went to Adams County, Ill. In 1872 he came to this county, where he now owns a farm of 200 acres and forty acres of timber. Their children are Eliza Tompkins, Maggie, Robert B. and Edward W. His wife died in August, 1872, and in April, 1875, he married Miss Georetta Wilson, a native of Cooper County. They had one son, who died at the age of five and one-half months. After this wife’s death he married Johnnie, the daughter of E. G. Moseley, a native of Clark County. Our subject is a Democrat, and has been a member of the Baptist Church for over thirty years.