EARLY MARRIAGES.
For sometime prior to the organization of the county,
and for many years afterwards, Eneas McCallister, father of the lamented
'Squire John E. McCallister, did the duty of parson on marital occasions.
He was one of the first magistrates, and was authorized by the County
Court to perform that service. In 1800 he married Captain Daniel McBride
and Mary Bennett, Jacob Sprinkle and Axy McLean, Moses Stegall (whose
first wife was brutally murdered by Big and Little Harpe, and he himself
afterwards killed) and Sally Vane. In 1804 he married Dr. Adam Rankin and
Haney Gamble.
YOUTHFUL WEDLOCKS.
In primitive days men and women - if they could be
called men and women - inter-married at an earlier period in life than
they do now.
Oftentimes girls at fourteen and sixteen years of age
were given in marriage to youngsters from nineteen to twenty-one, and in
some instances to men of mature age. Instances were known, and are known
to this day, of girls becoming mothers before arriving at the age of sweet
sixteen.
In is also a fact that marriages, considering the
population, were far more frequent than nowadays. Computing the number of
marriages in 1797 and 1800, and up even to 1810, with a corresponding
regard to numbers, the list of marriages annually at this modern day, to
correspond with the list in those years, would reach fully fifteen
hundred, if not more, per annum.
History of Henderson County, Kentucky
by Edmund L. Starling
pps. 98 - 99
published in 1887
public domain material
