HMC Family Association

by Don Rivara

Isaiah Cooper Matheny [1826-1906], son of Daniel and Mary Cooper Matheny, had a daughter, Mary Ellen, who was living with her parents near what is now Mos-cow, Idaho, when she met Joseph Mordeaux. She had two children from Mordeaux before he was killed when a grizzly bear attacked his horse. The horse reared up and fell on Joseph, killing him.

Soon afterward Mary and her young son, Allen Mordeaux, made a terrifying escape from the area during the Nez Perce Indian War. [Her daughter had died in infancy.] The young widow settled at Wawawai, Whit-man County, Washington Territory, with her parents. Not long afterward, she met Samuel Norris, married him, and moved to Southern California awhile. From there the family moved to Pueblo, Colorado. She and Norris had three more children: Clyde [1889], Floyd [1891] and Zoe [1893].

Several years ago Corry and Guy Mordeaux, descendants of Allen Mordeaux, found their way into the family association. Family researchers looked for des-cendants of the Norrises with little success. Now Corry has found his second cousin, Pennee Norris Mecham living in Bremerton, Washington. Pennee has been re-searching her Norrises for thirty years with little luck. Now she is a member of the Family Association and get-ting to know her many ancestors. She has been able to fill in the history of some of her branch.

Her grandfather, Floyd Norris [1891-1953], lived in Denver. He married Alice May Baker. They had four children: Floyd Shymer Norris, Jr.; Richard Eugene Norris; Robert Steele Norris [1921-1963][Pennee’s fa-ther]; and Hazel Clare Norris. During the Great Depres-sion, the family was very poor. Young Robert Steele Norris worked for the CCC at a camp in Colorado. In 1939 Floyd and Alice divorced. He later married a woman named Carrie and died in Ashland, Ohio, 12 No-vember 1953, age 62.

Robert Steele Norris married Vardean Carscaden. They divorced in 1962 after having two daughters, Pennee and Pam Norris. Robert committed suicide 31 December 1963 in Seattle, when Penee was eight years old.

Pennee is married to Michael Mechem, who is the City Engineer for Bremerton, and she has a home-cleaning business on Hood Canal. She also enjoys paint-ing. There are three grown children: Heidi Mechem, Karaleigh Mechem, and Tim Mecham, who is married to Nicole Tolman. So far there are no grandchildren.

Pennee can be reached at sisterpennee@yahoo.com if you have any information to share with her. We hope to find other Norrises in time.

Making Connections
I have a picture of Ann W. Matheny in a family album with other pictures most of which I can’t identify. On the back it says D. Wooten, Dixie, WA. My great-great-grandfather was William Matheny. He was born in 1810 in Kentucky. He lived briefly in Ohio. Went back to Kentucky and for several years before the 1850 census lived in Danville, Montgomery County, Missouri. My great-grandfather was Stephen P. Matheny. I know that Ann and her family were related, but I’m not sure how to make the connection. By 1840 William Matheny and his family were living in Missouri. William was a wheel-wright.

Also I’m beginning to see a possible Cooper connection. Benjamin Garrett Kimble (B: 1795 PA) married Rebecca Cooper who was born in 1801 in MD. She was the daughter of Jacob Cooper and Elizabeth Atkinson. Eldora Kimble Watson was one of my grandmother’s best friends now I see that there could be a possible connection going back several generations.

Maureen Barnard (a Matheny) earlmoci@camano.net

Continued from March 2008

From Don Rivara…
Thomas C. Cooper*abt. 1705-1785
Mary Unknown*abt. 1710-abt. 1791
Joel Cooper

Thomas Cooper left nothing to his son Joel in his will, yet he made him the executor of the will. This suggests that Joel was provided for during Thomas’ lifetime or that Joel was very prosperous. Born about 1743, Joel may have been the Cooper son captured by Indians in 1753. He was married 5 November 1764 to Courtney Roberts in Norfolk County, VA. He appears in the Hampshire County, VA [WV] censuses in 1782, 1783, 1784, and 1785.

After settling the estate of his father in 1785, Job appears to have left Virginia. On September 12, 1786, he and his brother Thomas II leased out 146 acres on Patterson Creek in Hampshire County that they apparently owned jointly. Witnesses to the lease were Job Cooper, David Cooper, and Arjalon Price. Thomas II moved to his inherited land on Allegheny Mountain and Job moved to the Watauga River Valley in what is today the easternmost tip of Tennessee. The 1787 tax list shows that Joel owned 150 acres on Sinking Creek. On January 20, 1788, Joel Cooper, Jr., married Elizabeth Job with Joel Jr.’s uncle, Job Cooper, as surety. In March of 1819 Joel Sr. made his X to sell 180 acres there to his son Joel Jr. Joel Sr. died in Carter County, Tennessee, in 1825. [By then the portion of Washington County where the Coopers lived had become Carter County.] In his will, he left his “plantation” to Joel, Jr., and divided the proceeds of the sale of the rest of his property among his other heirs. Joel Jr. remained in Carter County and died there in 1858. (to be continued in the next newsletter)