| Sources |
- [S410] Lucy Manson (Reliability: 2).
Ralph Petty, Jr.
(Son of Isabella McClure and Ralph Petty, Sr.)
Ralph Petty was born October 14, 1804 in Barren County, Kentucky, and he spent most of his life in the state of his birth. He married Lucy Embrey Walden in Barren County on April 18, 1831 in the home of his parents, Isabella and Ralph Petty, Sr. Ten children were born to Lucy and Ralph, but only five survived to have families of their own. Three daughters, Lucy, Emily, and Mary died young and two sons, Henry and Ralph 3rd, died during the Civil War. The other children, Harriet Elizabeth, Nancy Jane, Alice, Albert Thompson and Mariah Petty all raised large families. The family lived in Barren, Graves, Calloway, McCracken and Marshall Counties during their lives. Ralph’s wife Lucy died shortly after the birth of her tenth child, a daughter named Mary. Nancy Jane Quarles, Lucy’s daughter who had recently given birth to her second child, Ralph Petty Quarles, took the baby as her own and nursed her, but the baby died in spite of the care.
Most of Ralph and Lucy’s children were born in Graves County. Ralph had built a home for his family shortly after their marriage, for Nancy Jane was born in that home according to what Nancy’s children recalled. The home was located about one mile from Farmington on the old Mayfield-Murray road. It is no longer there but it was a two story log home, the logs hewn perfectly smooth, then painted. Their grandchildren recalled hearing how Ralph Jr. made the cedar shingles by hand for the roof, painted them on one side, nailed them on, and then painted the other side. This home was still standing in 1930 after almost one hundred years.
Ralph Jr., like his father, became an Elder in the Primitive Baptist Church, “serving for the sake of serving his Master and would never take any pay for working for his church�. It was the “Lord’s work, and should be done without price and without pay�. Ralph established a blacksmith shop and a tin shop, and at some point he also ran a hotel in Murray. He was an excellent gunsmith and he made and presented a rifle to both Nancy Jane and Harriet. The rifle given to Harriet was passed down in her family. Nancy Jane used hers to kill the chicken for dinner, never asking anyone to do it for her.
In the 1850 census records of Graves County, Ralph gave his age as 45, his occupation as a gunsmith, and had real estate valued at $1500. He was listed with his wife, Lucy (36), and seven of their children: Harriet (18), Nancy (16), Henry (12), Ralph (10), Alice (7), Lucy (5), and the baby not yet named aged 10 months old. When his father died in 1851, Ralph, Jr. along with his brother Henry, were executors for his estate in Barren County, Kentucky.
On July 3, 1859 in Henry County, Tennessee, Ralph, now a widower married Rebecca Parker. There is nothing more known about this marriage, but it was not a success and after a few years they separated.
By the time of the 1860 Census, the family was living in Calloway County. Ralph was listed as age 55 and a gunsmith, Lucy was deceased and he was living with his second wife, Rebecca (46), and four of his children by Lucy, (Ralph 3rd, Alice, Albert and Mariah) who ranged in age from seven to seventeen.
Marshall County real estate records show that in March of 1861, Ralph Petty gave 368 acres of land situated in Marshall County on the waters of the East Fork of Clarks River and Jonathan’s Creek to his son, Albert Thompson Petty, and as well deeded land situated in the same location to his daughter, Mariah Petty Parker. He made this land gift as a way to be sure that he was provided for in his old age in a “comfortable manner during my natural life�.
In the 1870 Census of McCracken County, Kentucky, Ralph was listed as age 64, living with his sister Alice (Petty) Thompson, and was a retired blacksmith. They were living at Pine Cottage Farm along with the grandchildren of his sister Alice.
Ralph’s son and namesake, Ralph Petty 3rd gave his life for the Cause for which the South felt so justified in rebelling against the Union. He was a tall man and had the same kind eyes as his sister, Nancy Jane. He and Nancy Jane were very close and she grieved over his untimely death as long as she lived. He enlisted in the Third Kentucky Regiment, and was in the same Division as his cousin, Colonel A. P. Thompson. Ralph was a remarkably good rifle shot, and they made him a sharpshooter. He was in the battle of Paducah, and was cruelly wounded by a splinter from a house in which he was stationed. This tore away his knee-cap, he fainted and was captured. He was taken to a hospital, where his leg was amputated, and he was then taken to the Jefferson Barracks at Jefferson City, Missouri, where he died and was buried in an unknown grave.
Ralph’s son Henry was a tinner by trade, and managed a shop in Murray, Kentucky for his father. He was not a Southern sympathizer, so he never joined the army. When his brother Ralph was wounded, Henry went to Paducah where Ralph had been wounded, to try to get him released from the Union hospital. He was told that he would have to get permission from the Federal Headquarters. Ralph traveled to the Federal Headquarters where he tried to get his case heard. He finally got permission for his brother's release and returned to Paducah to bring him home, only to find that his brother had been removed from that city, and he could get no information as to where he had been taken. Henry began a search, first going to Cincinnati, then New Orleans, stopping to make inquiries along the way. He traveled for months, and then decided he would never find him and started home. He then met a man who told him of a detachment of Confederate prisoners taken to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and that he should look there. Henry arrived three days too late. Ralph had died a prisoner and was buried in an unknown grave. Henry had suffered so much from exposure in his search, that his health was broken, and he, too, filled an untimely grave. The Masons of his Lodge in Murray held memorial services for him after the War was over. He was buried in the same cemetery as his mother and two little sisters.
Ralph and Lucy’s daughters Harriet Elizabeth and Nancy Jane married Quarles brothers, the only two surviving children of Samuel Overton Quarles and Parthenia Maria Hynds, who had eight children born to them while living in Tennessee. Harriet and Joseph Rives Quarles were married in Marshall County at the home of her father on March 18, 1854. Joseph was a farmer and he brought his bride to Weakley County, Tennessee to a farm near Martin. This was where Joseph’s grandparents had settled in 1835 after moving the family from Wilson County, Tennessee, where Joseph was born. They raised a family of eleven children, most of whom became farmers.
Nancy Jane and James Monroe Quarles were married on June 19, 1853, also in the Marshall County home of her father. On September 1, 1853, less than three months after his marriage, James Monroe purchased his first home on Soldier Creek in Marshall County and it is here that his first four children were born. In April 1856 he purchased 160 acres adjoining him, giving him 240 acres. He later traded his place on Soldier Creek to the widow of his Uncle Milton Quarles, and moved to her place in Paducah. He remained in this home until they moved to Pine Cottage Farm, where they remained and raised their family which grew to be ten children. Five of their children raised families, several were educators, and two were lawyers. One of them, Ralph Petty Quarles, was elected Justice of the Supreme Court of Idaho in 1896, and later he was appointed to the same position by President Wilson for the Territory of Hawaii.
Alice, another daughter of Ralph and Lucy, married Dr. John Bedford Wilson, who was from Trigg County, Kentucky. Alice and John lived in the Bishops Mill area of Marshall County for all of their married life. They had eleven children and only three lived to raise a family. Only one of her children lived past the age of thirty. Alice herself only reached the age of forth-two. John, who lived about thirty years longer than Alice, remarried and had one more son.
Ralph and Lucy’s son, Albert Thompson Petty, married Martha Ann Miller of Calloway County, and had six children. After the death of Martha in 1878, Albert married Sallie Ann Rowland, and seven more children were born. Albert died in Lyon County, Kentucky in 1918 at the age of sixty-nine.
Mariah was the last of the children who lived to adulthood. She married Joseph A. Parker of Tennessee on December 29, 1867 in the home her sister, Nancy Quarles, near Paducah. Mariah and Joe lived near her sister, Alice, in the Bishop District of Marshall County. She and Joe had a family of thirteen children, many of whom died young. Mariah herself died in 1904 at the age of fifty-two.
In the 1880 census of McCracken County, Ralph was living with James and Nancy Jane’s family in McCracken County. James was listed as a farmer. The household was a large one, with eight Quarles children still at home. Ralph Petty was 75 years old, and there was a laborer aged 26 living with the family, probably doing the work on the farm.
In a fall from a horse, Ralph broke his leg and at the same time cataracts began to form over his eyes so that he eventually became blind. Ralph resided in the home of his children after his second marriage failed. First he lived with Nancy Jane Quarles until she left Kentucky to live in Florida for health reasons in 1882. After 1882 he lived with either Alice Wilson or Mariah Parker, staying with one daughter, then the other. It was in the home of Mariah that her father, Ralph Petty, Jr., was living at the time of his death some time not long after December of 1885.
1. Note: There is some confusion as to whom Ralph married. “Bible Records of Calloway County and Adjoining Counties Part 1� by the Calloway County Genealogical Society, p. 282, show the Parker-Petty family bible record, which seems to be misleading. This lists Ralph Petty, Jr.’s first bride as Alice Quarles, born circa 1802. It also lists a daughter of Ralph and Alice as Mariah, born November 7, 1852. Mariah was actually the daughter of Ralph Petty, Jr. and Lucy. Lucy did not die until 1856. This misconception appears to be because Ralph lived with his sister, Alice Petty Thompson, at the same time that the Quarles family, (Ralph’s daughter) was living there. There are no firm dates for Alice Quarles, and no one was found living in the area by that name.
2. Marriage License, Barren County, Kentucky, gave her name as Lucy E. Walden. Note: Cannie Q. Gainer and Hattie Q. Wyatt, her grandchildren, said that “grandfather married a Miss Embrey,� or “Lucy Embrey�
3. Kentucky Vital Record, Marshall County Kentucky (1855); parents listed as “Ralph Petty and Lucy Embrace� (sic).
4. “Petty family Recollections�, by Cannie Q. Gainer and Hattie Q. Wyatt (1929). Both knew their grandfather, Ralph Petty, Jr.
5. This child was their son, Albert Thompson Petty.
6. Marshall County, Kentucky (1861); Deed Book 6, pp. 195, 196
7. Samuel Quisenberry and Matilda Breckenbridge
8. Hattie Quarles Wyatt, granddaughter of Ralph Petty, and family researcher, left this story about her uncle
9. Ibid.
- [S281] Petty Papers, Barbara McGee, Petty papers Vol 9 #2 pg 67: Petty Papers Vol 12 #1 pg 78.
- [S186] GEDCOM file imported on 14 Aug 2002., Shane Symes.
- [S667] 1880 United States Census, 178B (Reliability: 3).
James M. QUARLS Self M Male W 54 TN Farmer VA VA
Jane N. QUARLS Wife M Female W 45 KY Keeping House KY VA
Leonora QUARLS Dau S Female W 25 KY At Home TN KY
Dora QUARLS Dau S Female W 18 KY At Home TN KY
Alice QUARLS Dau S Female W 14 KY At Home TN KY
Albert QUARLS Son S Male W 12 KY At Home TN KY
Augustus QUARLS Son S Male W 10 KY At Home TN KY
Horace QUARLS Son S Male W 8 KY TN KY
Hattie B. QUARLS Dau S Female W 5 KY TN KY
Robert QUARLS Son S Male W 2 KY TN KY
Ralph PETTY FatherL W Male W 75 KY At Home VA VA
James STRONG Other S Male W 26 KY Laborer KY KY
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Source Information:
Census Place Hays, Mccracken, Kentucky
Family History Library Film 1254430
NA Film Number T9-0430
Page Number 178B
- [S518] Marriage Record.
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RNT Family History
1804 - Aft 1885 (> 82 years)
