James VanZandt Knowles (1919 - 2006), an Edmund "Old Silverhead" Knowles descendant, provided the following article about his father's [Farman Enos Knowles or Enos Forman Knowles(1873 - 1956)] membership application for the Covered Wagon Club.  The article includes background information concerning Farman's family's ancestors, who migration from Delaware to Georgia and subsequently from Georgia to Indiana.  The family's trip from Georgia to Indiana in 1811 was developed from entries in a Knowles family diary maintained during the actual move to Indiana.   The account of the the move from Georgia to Indiana is fascinating.  This is one of many documents that demonstrate that our ancestors were well aware of history being made and in their own family history.

The Knowles genealogy for James VanZandt Knowles and his father is as follows:

	James VanZandt Knowles  (1919 - 2006)
	s/o  Farman Enos Knowles  (1873 - 1956)
	s/o  Francis Dodds Scott Knowles  (1842 - 1905)
	s/o  Eli W. Knowles, M.D.  (1799 - 1868)
	s/o  James Knowles, R.S.  (1757 - 1839)
	s/o  Richard Knowles, Sr.  (1715 - 1791)
	s/o  Edmund "Old Silverhead" Knowles  (1685 - 1762) Edmund is Knowles Delaware Progenitor #01

R. B. Noles
January 1, 2008

The Covered Wagon Club

Wagon No. 3 takes on its last passenger this morning – Farman E. Knowles, Owensville, Indiana, whose application for membership n The Covered Wagon Club is so interesting, we hope to give it the space it deserves.   Wagon No. 4 starts tomorrow.  Hurry up, folks.

Introducing Mr. Farman E. Knowles:

In the early autumn of 1795 my great-grandfather, James Knowles, together with his wife who was Patience Marvel before their marriage, and their five sons and one daughter, Prettyman, James Jr., Freddy, Jesse, Nathan and the daughter, Comfort, packed their belongings into a covered wagon, left the valley of the Delaware River, in Sussex County, Delaware, and passed out into the adjacent land of Maryland and on to the shores of the Chesapeake Bay where they boarded a schooner which had been previously engaged and were safely landed on the Virginia shore where they again took up trail through Virginia a the Carolinas and into Georgia to a point in Green County about 15 miles from Greensboro, the county seat, about 60 miles northwest of Augusta.

Here the family took up their abode and made their home for the next 16 years, during which three more sons, Ephraim, Eli (my grandfather) and Asa, were born.  However, the family was not long satisfied in Georgia.  In Delaware they had rich fertile soil but in Georgia the land was rolling and soon began to erode and lose its fertility.  So on or about the first day of November, 1811, James Knowles once more placed his worldly belongings into a covered wagon and took off for Indiana territory.  Great-grandmother Patience rode in the wagon and drove the team, great-grandfather riding the “near” horse, the four boys who were still single, Nathan, Ephraim, Eli, and Asa, the eldest being about 16 and the youngest about 9, took up their positions on foot.  All the children except the last four were now married so to complete the covered wagon train that was moving off from Georgia to what is now Gibson County, Indiana, next came Prettyman with his cart, wife and four children, then comes James Jr., with his cart and two children.  This made a band of twenty members of the Knowles family and in addition to these, two or three other young men of the neighborhood came along.

The other two boys, Jesse and Eddy, together with their wives, had left Georgia about a year previous to the time that James and the rest of the family left.  However, their trip from Delaware to Georgia might be required to qualify them in “The Covered Wagon Club” due to the fact that all of Jesse’s household goods and his wife and baby were on the back of their one horse all the way to Indiana.  Eddy and his wife, who had been married only a few weeks, placed their belongings on the back of one horse and the shoulders of one negro slave, while they walked the entire distance.

Great-grandfather James and his wagon train moved on over Lookout Mountain and on to Nashville where they purchased food supplies, crossed the Cumberland River, and traded with Indians, from there on for a long distance they had fine weather and good roads.  However, this good fortune was not to last indefinitely for on November 5, 1811, the battle of Tippecanoe had been fought and many white people killed.  News of this had reached our covered wagon train; they halted and held a consultation to determine what to do.  Some wanted to stop in Kentucky, but great-grandfather said, “We started to Indiana and to Indiana we will go.”

They reached the Red Banks of Henderson, Kentucky, on the south side of the Ohio River rather late in the evening of December 16, 1811, cross the river the same day and made camp, spending their first night on Indiana soil.  This was the night of the great earthquake that caused the sunken lands of New Madrid, Missouri, and made Reel Foot Lake.  A few days later they came on north a little farther and selected their land for entry what is now Mounts Station and the land on which Adrian Knowles now resides.  Here they built their first log cabin which was covered with shingles 18 inches long, rived and dressed by hand, each one being fastened down with a wooden pin, most of the work being done by Nathan Knowles.  From this man James Knowles and his nephew, David Knowles, who came to Indiana in 1812, every Knowles in southern Indiana, in-so-far as I know, except the family of Josepha Knowles, who located in Inglefield, Indiana, a good many years later, is descended.  The family is English.  As a boy I well remember that my father, Frank Knowles, owned and operated a covered wagon with the old bent hickory bows and wagon sheet.  I have ridden in it many times but never traveled to any new location.

Farman E. Knowles

Note:  If anyone has an actual copy of this document, probably a Covered Wagon Club newsletter, or more information concerning Farman's membership application and/or knowledge of the Covered Wagon Club, please let Robert B. Noles know.