MONTEVILLE PRIEST AND ADELINE ROBERTSON

Monteville Priest (my Great Grandfather) was born July 29, 1863.  Here he is with my Great Grandmother Eliza Adeline “Addie” Robertson.  My Aunt Frances found a slip of paper that was in some of my Grandmother’s papers that said he was born near Thomas, Kentucky. Thomas, Kentucky was at the junction of Brushy Creek and Johns Creek where the James family had their Grist Mill and they and the Priest’s lived.  I think he was named after the Pike County, Clerk Monteville Bevins who came from an old Floyd County family and lived close to the Priests.  Monteville Bevins was very involved in Mahala’s Civil War Widow’s Pension Application. I had a heck of a time originally connecting “Monterville” Priest to John and Mahala Priest. First, is the spelling of his name. The correct spelling in Monteville. In addition to its usually being misspelled, he changed the spelling to Monterville somewhere along the way.

Next, Robert, Monterville and Marian were excluded from the 1870 census. Susannah, Mary Jane, Minerva, George, John E. show up and then Nancy. All the boys in the middle are missing. Was it a census takers mistake or were the Priest’s just being secretive? If so, what was such a great secret. None the less, there are no census records of Monterville in Kentucky because by the 1880 census John Elliot, Robert, and Monterville wereliving in Caroll County, Arkansas and right across the boarder in Barry County, Missouri.

In 1886 Monterville married Eliza Adeline “Addie” Robertson. Her parents were James M. Robertson and Mary Jane Craig (the couple to the right). The Robertson’s lived in Barry County, Missouri just across the boarder from Carrol County, Arkansas. When Monterville married Addie he lived in Oak Hill, Arkansas but they soon settled in Yokum, Arkansas. In 1905 he homesteaded a piece of property between Yokum and Green Forest, Arkansas. It is here they raised their eight children. Twins James Lacy and Martha Alice (who died soon after birth) born in 1887, Minnie Ann in 1889, William Henry in 1891, Saryelen (my grandmother) in 1891, George W. in 1893, Della Frances in 1896, and Farris Ely in 1904. In the Priest picture section there are quite a few pictures of Monterville’s family.

James Lacy married Viola “Ola” Onsbey and adopted her daughter Cleta. He died in 1936 in a mill accident. My uncle Jim who was named after my Grandmother’s brother remembers how hard she took his death. Jim was her favorite brother. My grandmother’s sister Minne had come to visit my Grandmother in Kent and my Grandmother wanted Minnie to move to Washington, but she decided to go back to Arkansas. Minnie Ann worked in a General Store until she married William Herring in 1928. They had two children William and Mava. He was a tobacco farmer.

George W. was born in 1894 and died in 1908 when he was 14. He was cleaning his rifle on the front porch and was killed when it accidentally went off.

Picture of Della Priest McClure and Ellen Priest DeYoung in the 1970’s