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According to the 1900 Missouri census, there lived in McDonald
County a John W. Gillenwater who was born in Iowa and whose parents
were born in Virginia. I propose that Leander Gillenwaters and
Elizabeth Linder, both of whom were born in Washington County,
Virginia, were the parents of said John W. Gillenwater.
Barbara Brown, in [UL: Gillenwaters and Related Families :UL]
includes deeds transactions in which Leander and Elizabeth sold their
inheritance from her father on 13 Nov 1839 after Anne's birth but
before John's appearance. I suggest that the family emigrated in 1840
from Coles County, Illinois into the Iowa territory where John W. was
born.
Barbara Brown also includes John's two applications for a Civil
War pension. He first filed in Jasper County, MO in 1898. He then
filed again in 1907 after he had moved into Newton County, MO. In the
latter application when entering his birth data, John stated that "In
Iowa - State was not then sectionized." Although Iowa was not to
become a state until 1846, 18 `counties' had been established in the
eastern end of Iowa by 1840. John's statement may imply that his
parents had moved into the Indian Land west of the settled area. See
[UL: Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920 :UL] William
Thorndale and William Dollarhide, Copyright 1987, Genealogical
Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD.
Further circumstamcial evidence of the identity of the "two"
Johns is the recorded history of John W. Gillenwater's steady drift
from Cass County down into the southern counties of Missouri - Jasper,
Newton, and McDonald. I believe that it is probable that this John
moved down to Cass County, MO from Iowa.
I would suggest that descendants of John W. Gillenwater begin
their searches in the records of Iowa from 1842 through 1860,
remembering that he joined the Missouri Volunteer Cavalry in Cass
county in 1862.