Several years ago, I became interested in our family history, but I am sorry to say that it was not before I had carelessly let the golden age of opportunity slip away, and all the older members of our family had passed on to their eternal reward. When I did awaken to the fact that I must get busy if I were to know anything about our family lineage, I was at a loss as to where to look or turn.

As my father died when I was but a child, and before I had ever thought of asking any questions about his parents and grandparents, I knew but very little of our family history. All the record that I had was Grandmother Carothers' brothers and sisters, and the names of the men that her sisters had married. These last names I had received from my Great-Aunt Margaret Forsythe, the widow of Louis Forsythe (Grandmother Carothers' brother).

From my cousin Catherine Eskridge of Leavenworth, Kansas, I received a little sketch of the family, written by her father, John H. Carothers, for a gentleman in Pennsylvania who was gathering some family history. I also secured quite a bit of assistance from Manville Carothers of Kirksville, Missouri, who was also interested along the same line.

I then secured the services of a party in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to look up the Carothers' history in Cumberland County. From them I gathered copies of court records and deeds, and the location of the ancestral farm, which quite definitely confirmed the sketch given by John H. Carothers.

About this time, I received a letter from Josiah V. Thompson of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, asking about the Carothers family in Shelby County, Missouri. I gladly gave him all the assistance I could, and in return, he gave me quite a lot of material on the Carothers' line, confirming what I already had. He provided quite a bit of additional material on the family history going back to Ireland and Scotland, which he had secured from his genealogist, whom he had employed to look up the family line in Scotland and Ireland.

Mr. Thompson had been gathering this material for a number of years with the intention of publishing it. Unfortunately, through adverse conditions of health and financial matters, he was prevented from achieving his ambition. His death occurred September 27, 1933.

I continued at my task and, although the early notes were jotted down, sometimes without giving their source, the facts were taken from the most reliable sources, such as family bibles, court records, marriage records, church records, obituaries, tombstones, deeds, wills, war and pension records, county histories, historical books and magazines to be found in the Missouri Historical Society's library at Columbia, Missouri.

Bit by bit, not much by itself, but in conjunction with other material, I have been able to trace the Carothers and their allied families back for a number of generations. However, there are some dates that are missing, attributively to the loss of church, court, family and bible records by fire. I mention one reference when my grandfather James Carothers and his family were coming to Missouri.

After leaving the boat at Hannibal, Missouri in 1836, they started westward with oxen hitched to a prairie schooner. After one day's travel, they found the trail so rough and bad, that they decided to leave part of their baggage, go on to their destination, and come back later for what they had left. On going back, however, they found that a prairie fire had burned everything they had left, including the family bible and record.

I have spent quite a lot of time and expense in gathering this material. While a great deal of it was gathered here and there, by carefully comparing, checking re-checking, and comparing the difference in the way names, both christian and surnames, were spelled, I have, I believe, traced in our branch of the family at least, a fairly accurate account of the family line.



John Franklin Carothers (b. 1876)

November 15, 1937