John AVERETT

   General Notes:

!When he was a child, his mother "bound" him out to learn the Hatter's trade. He moved to White Co., Illinois in 1830. The LDS Missionaries converted him with his family in 1835. (His father, mother and 5 of their children and their spouses. He moved to Hamilton Co., Illinois and then to Missouri in 1837 about 1 and a half miles from Far West.
Remarks written by George Washington Gill Averett:
"My father John Averett was borned in Pitsylvania County, Virginia. Father had one or two sisters whose names I haven't got. There was one brother, Elijah Averett, older than my father. Sometime after the Revolutionary War, my grandfather died, either in Virginia or in some of the Southern States, the date and facts in the case I never knew. At least my grandmother and her chidlren moved south to Georgia, and North to South Carolina. While my father was yet a boy his mother bound him out to learn the 'hatter' trade. Being something he did not like, he served out his time and never worked one day at the business, but turned his attention to shoe and boot making and wagon making, and always had a farm, teaching all of his boys to farm. Some of them learned trades; Elisha, Elijah, and John learned to lay stone. G.W.G. Averett, wheelwright and gunsmith."
"John Averett married in South Carolina, some woman whose name is unknown to the writer, but soon after the birth of a boy child, name not known, his wife proved to be untrue to him, and they separated and ceased to live together everafter. And from one of the above states mentioned, emigrated to Kentucky in the early settlement of the same, and settled in Baron County, where he became acquainted with Jannett Gill.
Soon after the birth of their first child, my father sent with a surveying party authorized by the government to survey the wilds of Tennessee, in the region of Cumberlain and Duck Rivers, and after assisting in surveying for some time, he became satisfied with the country and desired to move to the same. On returning to Kentucky, he and my grandfather, George Gill, and his family all emigrated to the state of Tennessee, father settling in Maury County and grandfather George Gill settled in Giles county or Hickman. "
" Soon after the birth of the last child, John Averett went to Illinois with some of his neighbors, to see the country, and bought himself a place in White County, Illinois. He returned, sold his farm in Tennessee to John Commel, and in 1830 moved his family to Illinois. Jennette and her husband, S.A.P. Kelsey, accompanied them. After a short time, they traded this place for one in Hamilton County, nine miles south of McLain Burrow (McLeansboro) in a place known as Maberry Settlement, on the north fork of the Salina River. They were very comfortably situated there, owning 80 acres of land, 40 of which were under cultivation. They seemed contented there until the spring of 1835 when they were visited by two men, elders of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons), who preached to them the tenets of this religion.
The father and mother, with five of their children and their sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, embraced this religion. In 1837, John sold his Hamilton County place and relocated at Caldwell, Missouri, where some of his children were already living. It seems they were persecuted here by border ruffians who did not like religion of any kind, so they went back across the river into Illinois. They crossed the river at Hannibal, Missouri, going two and one-half miles from Payson, Adams County, Illinois, where they rented some ground and stayed for a year. Then they moved down to Pike County, Illinois, 12 miles south of the county seat. Later, John bought more land near Pleasant Hill and worked there for five or six years until his health began to fail. Father, being in very poor health, labored very hard, for one so old as he was, in clearing the timber from the land. On April 19, 1847, after a hard day's work piling logs and brush and burning them; near sundown he took sick with an old chronic disease, the cramp colic. He died in a short time that same evening without having time to send for myself or anyone else any distance away. I was only two or three miles away. Going home that night, being uneasy and not knowing why, I was met at the gate and told of my father's death, this being the most unexpected shock I had met with in life."

   Marriage Information:

John married Jennette Hamilton GILL, daughter of George Jr. GILL and Jennette (Janet) (Janett) HAMILTON, on 1 May 1806 in Barron County, KY, Kentucky, USA. (Jennette Hamilton GILL was born on 5 Dec 1786 in Barron County, Barron, Kentucky, died on 20 Nov 1855 in Pleasant Hill, Pike County, Illinois and was buried in Nov 1855 in Pleasant Hill, Pike County, Illinois.)