Thus, by about the year 1774 or 1775, this couple had settled in what was later the state of North Carolina.

One incident which took place before their marriage resulted in the religious conversion of Ananias Allen: He was playing cards and gambling with a group of men in a tavern one night, only to discover that they were cheating. Outraged, he accused them and a fight ensued. As the gamblers outnumbered Allen, two stood on him while a third gouged out an eye. As he lay for weeks in pain and darkness, he swore that when he was well, he would kill these men. But the Good Lord saw otherwise. Through some means -perhaps the long period of semi-isolation gave him time for wiser thinking - he was converted there on his sickbed and gambled no more. With his conversion., all thought of killing other human beings left him,

Following this interval, Ananias resumed his life with Jane, nine children being born of the union, all seeing the first light of day in the North Carolina home. As far as is know these were their names: John Allen (born April 10, 1776), Ananias, Hiram, Gursham Lee, Wilson, Betsy, Sarah, Polly, and Patience. of these Gursham Lee and Patience died in childhood, the others living to old age. Ananias, Hiram, Wilson,  Betsy and Sarah married strangers with names unknown, Polly married John Ripetoe(Rippetoe) in North Carolina in 1798.
 At some time during the years of his settling and starting a family, Ananias Allen joined the ranks of the Colonial Army from North Carolina, No record exists of the regiment to which he belonged, nor any further facts about his army service.

Polly Allen, September 3, 1799 - North Carolina
Nancy Allen, February 12 1801 - North Carolina
Carlton Allen, April 2, 1803 - North Carolina
Thomas Allen, Aug, 1807 - Kentucky
Ananias Allen, January 25, 1809 - Kentucky
John L. Allen, June 12,  1812  - Kentucky
Hiram Allen, May 14, 1814  - Kentucky
Louis Allen, June 13, 1816 - Kentucky
D. G. L. Allen, May 4, 1818 - Kentucky
Ambrose Allen, July 25, 1821 - Kentucky
Simon Bolivar Allen, April 11, 1826

Following is a list of the marriages of this family:
 
 

Polly Allen and Joel Wells
Nancy Allen and Hiram Campbell
Carlton Allen and Lizzie Truman
Thomas Allen and Lucy Grider, of Tennessee
Louis Allen and Mary King
D. G. L. Allen and Eliza Jane Goggins (on January 29, 1846)

It is apparent that after the birth of their third child the John Allens had moved into Kentucky. Although there is no record of the exact year in which Ananias Allen 1 died, it is known that sometime after the move to Kentucky John returned to North Carolina because of the death of his father. There was a division of property and John Allen was given five or six Negroes; he had some feeling against slavery, but this did not interfere with his selling the slaves to his brothers in North Carolina, probably with a clear conscience, such was the feeling of the times. Then money for the sale pocketed, he rode back to Kentucky on horseback.

The story goes that he had a man companion on this return journey, probably some North Carolinian seeking adventure in Kentucky. The two stopped late one evening at a mountain cabin, nightfall catching them unawares. Their hosts were very poor but gave them cornbread and clabber milk for supper, and the use of a bed (a poor one). John Allen said one of the boys of the mountain family returned late and asked his mother for something to eat. She told him there was " cornbread and clabber on the shelf ". "Ding the clabber!" said the boy, voicing a sentiment our Grandfather John heartily shared -- it had been pretty bad.

Elizabeth Carlton Allen died March 6, 1833. During her last months she was cared for by a young woman named Elizabeth  (or Betsy, as she was called) Nichols After Elizabeth died, Betsy stayed on to care for the younger Allen children.

Betsy Nichols was born in Illinois on July 22, 1812. She was the daughter of parents in such poor health that both died young leaving a young family, Betsy being the eldest. Her brother Solomon was "bound out" to a family who, though unknown, must have been very wonderful people for Solomon became a Methodist circuit rider ( a Minister) after he left this home at 21. The letters he wrote during the course of his preaching from church to church show not only a sweet and Christian spirit but unusual intelligence and education as well. (it is in connection with his life that I remember the name Glen's Fork, Kentucky.)
In 1834, John Allen asked Betsy Nichols to be his wife; she was then 22 years of age to John's 58. Afterwards, she  said she should not have consented. But she did, and bore John Allen four children.
Elizabeth Jane Allen, the oldest  born April 1, 1835, married James H. Dice in 1858. They lived in Adair County Kentucky, where they became the parents of three children. Later, the youngest of these (Ella Dice (Marshall) Farlee) lived with her husband and widowed mother in Riverton, Nebraska. Her two brothers went to Texas (Houston,  I  believe).
 

Sarah Anne, the second child of John and Betsy Allen was also born in Adair County on April 1, 1840. she became the wife of Burrell Hurt on December 17, 1840. Her children, if any, are unknown.
The third child, Henry Clay Allen, was born November 21 1844. He became a soldier in the Union Army and died in service on June 10, 1863 Julia Agnes Allen (Betsy and John's last-born who saw the light on June 30, 1847, was later to tell her own children of the day on which her brother, Clay, died: She had gone with her older sister and brother in-law to town and, on returning, found her mother weeping and walking the floor, crying over and over, "Clay's dead! Clay's dead!" Finally her daughters and son-in-law got Betsy to tell what had happened:

She had been baking pies, she said, and then setting them on a shelf near the kitchen door to cool. Something made her look toward the road and there was Clay, riding his big horse up the turnpike. Betsy hurried into the house, through the kitchen, dining room and hall to the front door. By this time, Clay should have reached the horseback in front of the house. But he was nowhere to be seen. Psychologists today would accept this as a form of physic phenomena called precognition but to Betsy, Clay's spirit had come home. Slow moving mails brought the actual news of his death several weeks later.

It had occurred on the day on which Betsy "saw" him come riding home, June 10, 1863.

 A less sad, but very disturbing experience for the Allen family during the War between the States was the operation in that area of a gang of Bushwhackers, rough outlaws who pretended to be soldiers but actually fought for neither side. One night they made a visit to the Allen home, where they found only Betsy, her daughter Julia, a negro man, and an elderly negro woman. The Guerrillas rode up to the house, yelling and firing their guns the leader shouting, "Open up in there!"

 Betsy answered, "When I am dressed, gentlemen, I will open the door." They waited. Julia said that when the door alas finally opened, the negro boy's face turned almost white with fear, but he stood his ground, and the outlaws did not take him. What they chiefly wanted was horses, but the depredations of war had already taken from the Allen household all except Julia's riding mare and one sorry old nag. The outlaws took the mare picked up other odds and ends, and clattered off.

 The years preceding and following the war must have been very hard ones for Betsy Allen. Sometime during the late '40's, John L. Allen ( one of Betsy's step-sons) had volunteered for service in the Mexican war, He was taken prisoner and released, returned home suffering from the dread disease Tuberculosis or Consumption, as it was then called. The conditions of his imprisonment -  cold, filthy stone floors, poor fare) and exposure - combined with what was probably an inherent weakness, made his condition such that he lived only a few months at home where Betsy nursed him as though he were truly her son.

In 1856, John Allen died.  Then eighty years of age, he was helping Clay butcher a hog and the strenuous task proved too much for him, causing him to drop dead, probably from heart collapse. Following his death, there was bickering among the children about the inheritance.

 It is evident that Julia was growing up during these difficult years a gay and bright girl who comforted and helped her mother as she could. She remembered and told to her own children tales of Betsy's life. One incident harked back to Betsy's younger years to a time at which cholera ravished Adair County, killing off the flower of the countryside. A neighboring family, the Murrell's lost two sons to this plague, Betsy's memory the deaths adding to our knowledge of funeral customs of her day: The two boys were buried at the foot of the family garden. As their big, black coffins were carried to the burial ground, some of the neighboring young people sang "such a beautiful song":

And Betsy remembered that a weeping willow seemed to lean toward the graves of these two bright youngsters, mourning their untimely death as she did herself.

 Following the Civil War academies, forerunners of the modern high school, sprang up all over the States. Julia was sent to one of these, near Columbia Kentucky. It consisted of a two-story building with a large classroom on each floor. The girls would march up these stairs as the boys marched down since their classes were held separately.

 It was on these stairs that the rosy-cheeked, black-haired Julia Allen noticed a good-looking and tall young man named Jeptha Powell. On February 20, 1867 Julia and Jeptha were married - at a friend's house because both Jane and Jim Dice objected to the marriage. It was then the custom to hold a midday meal -- called an infare dinner -- at the groom's home. Such a dinner was held at the Powell residence. As they rode there, Julia Allen Powell said, when she looked into the green valley that held Jeptha's boyhood home, (near Powell's Creek) she thought it a most beautiful place. However, there was feeling among some of Jeptha's relatives that he had made a mistake in marring this rather pampered child from the Blue Grass Country.  One brother said, "Jep had better get on his horse and leave the country as fast as he can and never look back." But Jep did not go --- not then, at least.

Kelso owned a still and mill on Powell's Creek, near to the home place. There, a keg of peach brandy with a spigot was kept for any chance comer to help himself. Of Kelso Powell, we know very little. When "in his cups" he would say he was born of the "Count of Ireland," but he was silent about his origins when he was sober. He and his Welsh wife, "Oney", lived in a big double log house with a porch running the full length of it. When inclement weather confined Kelso to that porch, the story tells us that he would stride impatiently back and forth like a small (he was of slight build) frustrated lion. Julia Powell loved her tall, fair, gray-eyed mother-in-law, but she feared Kelso.

The Powell family, like most of the mountain people, had been much opposed to the war. They would not go so far as to take up arms against their country, nor - on the other hand - would they defend her against those who had rebelled. None of the boys volunteered for service. However, the family did not escape the scourge of the Bushwhackers. Jeptha was tending the mill one day when three or four of these outlaws rode up, demanding whiskey. Then Jeptha told them, "We have no whiskey here; you'll have to go to the still up the creek."

 With an oath, one of the Bushwhackers shouted, "You're a liar." Lifting his gun and pointing it at Jeptha's head. Seeing the motion, Jeptha threw up his hand. As the shot struck the front of his wrist, his foot rolled on a corn-cob, and he fell heavily to the ground. No doubt thinking they had killed him, the Bushwhackers wheeled their horses and rode away. The bullet lodged under the skin at the back of the wrist and Just above the hand. All of his children and many grandchildren have touched and moved the bullet back and forth under the skin, where it remained lodged for the rest of his life.

 Perhaps descending from the "Count of Ireland" there runs a vein of dry humor, sometimes resulting in a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous:

 Jeptha, a quiet boy not given to demonstration, was heard one day during his young manhood shouting and rejoicing with great fervor as he worked in the tobacco fields. When God speaks to the human heart, He makes Himself known in His own way - Jeptha had felt the joy of sins forgiven and "born again." But his sister Liz, dryly remarking on the event, declared to the other members of the family that "when she heard Jeff shouting, she thought a tobacco worm had bitten him!"

 Polly Ann's husband seemed to share the Powell liking for this kind of humor: One day, Alick Strange told his wife - seemingly in all seriousness that if she were to touch a certain plant and if the leaves were to wither to her touch, this would prove she was not a virtuous woman. Sure of her own virtue, Polly Ann made the test, only to have the leaves of the plant (called the sensitive plant) close as if wilted One can imagine her dismay and her fury when she learned she had been tricked.

The summer after their marriage, Jeptha and his bride moved to a small village called Tamlpico(sp) where Julia taught  a short term of school There were days which found her feeling unwell since she was carrying her first child and then Jep would drop his farm work and teach for her. The following spring, their first baby, a little girl named Sarah Ella Leona, was born March 19, 1868.
Sometime the next year came the exodus to Missouri. James Powell, Jeff's brother had been living in Phelps County for several years, and had written glowing accounts of this place "flowing with milk and honey" to his younger brother.
Leaving Kentucky behind, Julia, Jeff and the little Sallie began the train ride to Rolla, then the end of the Railroad. It was the first time any of the three had ridden on a train, and b always declared Julia hurried to the engine to get on board. Julia remembered that she had to change little Sallie's white dresses time and again because the coal smoke and cinders blackened them, and that a vendor kept walking through the cars shouting "Biled eggs and bix (biscuits)!" Before their leave taking, the old John Allen place with its big brick house had been sold, there had been partings, sorrow, and some bitterness -- but a veil had fallen over much of that period.

The Jeptha Powell family, consisting of Jeff, Julia, Little Sallie and Granny (As Betsy Allen was lovingly called by the others) now began their new life in a farming community near Rolla, known as the Fairview School District. According to the Fairview records, Jeff taught a term of school here, no doubt to compensate for the draining away of their money in the new life. Other children cane along, times were hard, and the fight against poverty began. Betsy Allen - Granny -- Helped all she could with her small pension (from her soldier son's death) but it was an uphill struggle. However, the family slipped into the community life, helped in the Sunday School and soon began to accustom themselves to the different way of living. Their children now numbered three: Sallie, John Kelso, and Annie Elizabeth. An old German named Dan Metzker lived with them from time to time, helping out with the chores and sharing the care of the youngest child.

 Julia had become tired of cleaning up others old houses and moving into them - she wanted a home of her own Her one choice possession, a beautiful stallion given her by her Uncle Dan, was sold and an eighty-acre farm six miles east of Rolla was bought. There, in March of 1874, the Powells moved into a one-room shanty, which Granny - who had gone ahead with the first load of household belongings - had scrubbed and polished until it shone. "How wonderful to have a place all our own. How thankful we are!" Julia said then, and many times in the years to come.

 Three more boys were added to the family while they lived in the shanty: Henry Clifton, Robert Emmett Louis, and William Thomas. Jeff Powell worked hard to clear the timber and subdue the stumpy fields. He was a strong man, of great courage and faith. Julia, though not brought up to hardship, worked long hours too, more often than not singing as she washed and scrubbed and cooked over a crude fireplace. To make a bit of green in her cabin, she would sow wheat in a pot of soil. Granny, never complaining, helped out in any way she could.

 On winter days, Jeff would go into the woods with his axe and cut cord or pole wood. With the help of the wagon and team, he would load the wood, often assisted by his little sons, and haul it into Rolla. When the shadows grew long, the sound of the wagon wheels on the frozen snow would call his children out to meet him as he returned with flour or salt or perhaps a pair of coarse shoes for one of them. Once a jealous schoolmate destroyed little Sallie's arithmetic and scattered the torn pages along the road. When Sallie came home in tears, she was told she would have another book. Early the next morning, Jeff was busy in the woods, and in a day or two the new book (Ray's Arithmetic) was bought. Once again little Sallie could work her sums.

 In all clement weather, the work of clearing the acres went on, with Jeff and the older sons doing the major work, while little Cliff and Annie went along to act as chief sprout cutters. Jeff's ability with the wheat cradle was famous in the neighborhood, a German neighbor, Henry Franz, declaring he wanted Jeff Powell to cut his wheat because he's the best in the country.

 Finally, Jeff started to build a better house farther up on the hill. Although he had the help of a neighbor each man was busy raising crops and pigs, so that the work went slowly. Occasionally in these years, Jeff would rent one or another of the nearby farm, to give his wife and children a better house ... and more room, needed badly because by this time two more boys had been born: Alvin Allen and Ananias Waters (called Nide).

 While they were living on what was known as the Burley place, a young man named Charles Reed Brown was taken into the home as a sort of farming partner. Sallie, by this time a young lady of eighteen and a teacher in the home school (known as the Coffman School) saw romance come into her life through the presence of the young, brown-eyed Charlie Brown. On March 6, 1887, they became man and wife, the little ceremony taking place in the living room of the Burley house,

 The same year brought its sadness, too, for the beloved Granny, Betsy Alien, passed on to a better world on July 27, 1887. In December of that year, another baby boy, Clarence James, arrived. Annie, now fourteen, began helping her with the growing boys and, at the age of seventeen, took the teachers examination and began to teach. Although deprived of the means of much formal education, Annie (who then spelled her name Anna) had an inherent love of learning which kept her at her books at night, hour after hour. Sometimes in the summers, there would be a Teachers Institute, a sort of brief summer school which she could attend. She first taught in a district called Forest Grove, near St. James, Mo. during the fall of 1890, so shy she could hardly tell the children what she wanted them to do at first. In the summer of 1902, she attended a small college in Steelville, Mo., taught by a Professor Hays, who seemed a learned man but whose vision was so slight he was forced to use a magnifying glass to read. At this little "college" there were no study halls as we know them. The students stayed in their rooms to study, hurrying up the hill when the class bell rang -- and woe betide the loiterer!

About 1906, Anna attended a summer session at the Springfield Normal School. Continuing her search for knowledge through correspondence courses and home study, Anna Powell attained a high standing in her profession. Many of her pupils, men of high standing in this and other states, had returned to tell her, "It was because of your teachin, Miss Anna, that I am where I am today."

At home, Anna continued to help her parents and younger brothers and sisters. Often when Jeff's brow was furrowed with worry, this daughter might be seen to go to his chair, slip something into his hand and say, About time for the taxes, isn't it, Pa?" Many a five dollar bill, saved from Anna's meager salary ($20 to $30 a month) went into Julia's purse, too , to be used for things she or the younger children needed.
About the time of Anna's early teaching came the eighth son, Authur Royal, born in July of 1891 and finally, the baby Eulalie Imogene, born in June, 1894.
These eleven children went their separate ways, most having families of their own. Sorrow came first on the death of Clarence on July 14, 1911;
Jeptha's death was next, in 1924; Julia, in 1938 then John, Sallie, Bill, Bob, Alvin and Cliff.
As of this date (September, 1962) only four of the big family are living. But many descendants of the Allen-Powell union have been and are being born -- and will be for the generations to come. Like Tiny Tim, we say of them all, "God bless us, every one!"