Known War of 1812 veterans are a little scarce here for a couple of reason, but primarily because these men were born in the late 18th century and already were in their 50s and less inclined to resettle by the time Lucas County opened to EuroAmerican pioneers in 1846.
In addition, many served in state militias, so records are scattered; some were brought west as old men by their families, died soon and then were largely forgotten; others lived in Lucas County for a time, then moved on west.
I was counting on my old friend Joel Lowder being buried in an unmarked grave at Bethel Cemetery, for example --- his son, Nelson, was the first to be buried there. Unfortunately, for my purposes, he turns up in Harrison County, age 81, during 1872 --- and so most likely is buried in an unmarked grave there. So he got away.
Nine of the veterans, four of whom I've already written about, turned up when we untangled old state veteran graves registration records at the genealogical society library (they had been alphabetized after being originally categorized, so the few 1812 veterans had become almost invisible among hundreds of Civil War veterans; we found an early set of records categorized by war).
So here are the nine on record for the county: Nathaniel Goltry, Lagrange Cemetery; Joseph Howard, Newbern Cemetery; Aaron Kendall, Greenville Cemetery; Caleb Proctor, Chariton Cemetery; Jacob M. Taylor and Benjamin Tracy, Goshen Cemetery; William Tilford, Fletcher Cemetery; and Samuel Walthall and Henry Younkin, Chariton Cemetery.
I already knew that Isaac Renfro, buried in Brownlee Cemetery, also was a War of 1812 veteran and located Daniel Musselman at Mount Zion a couple of years ago. I confirmed service of the other three by locating the military bounty land warrants (for War of 1812 service) available via the federal Bureau of Land Management that they used to buy Lucas County land --- Joseph Mitchell, Chariton Cemetery; James Irons, Strong Cemetery; and John May, also in Greenville Cemetery.
That's Joseph Mitchell's tombstone (above) in the Chariton Cemetery. He died at age 67 on Nov. 14, 1861, after arriving at Chariton with his family during 1852 and using a military land warrant to claim 40 acres at the northwest corner of town. I'll have more to say about Joseph and his family another time, but here's the warrant he used. Note that it identifies him as a private in Capt. John Haden's company of Kentucky Mounted Volunteers.
I'm confident that there are other War of 1812 veterans scattered in Lucas County's cemeteries, but digging them out (figuratively speaking, of course) will take a while.
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