His parents:
Her parents: Thomas L. Gore Sr and Elizabeth Darnell
An entry in Thomas Gore's bible, passed down to Isaac D. Gore, states, "Lydia Gore was born the 29th 1798 August."
Lydia was married to a McClure, and tradition is that the husband was Thomas McClure and that they came together from SC to Franklin County, TN. Although I have found no records to prove the husband's name, the story has probably been passed down correctly. There was assuredly a Thomas McClure in Franklin-Lincoln-Moore County area, and it was probably Lydia's Thomas who witnessed the Will of Elijah McClure, husband of Susannah Gore.
Lydia and Thomas were likely still in South Carolina in 1820; however, I have been unable to locate them there on the 1820 census or on other records.
In 1830, they were in Franklin County, TN, and had eight children enumerated with them on the census. Since the censuses before 1850 identified only the head of house by name, the listing provides no information about the children's identities. We do learn that they had a son born between 1810 and 1815, two sons born between 1815 and 1820, three sons born between 1820 and 1825, and one son and one daughter born between 1825 and 1830.(1)
A search of the 1840 census did not reveal a Thomas McClure family matching that on the 1830 census anywhere in Tennessee or the states bordering Tennessee on the north and the south.
Thomas McClure died before 1848, probably between 1835 and 1845. A bit of deduction is required. Thomas likely witnessed Elijah McClures will in Lincoln County in 1831, and, since the signatures were not notarized, he may have been required to affirm the witnessing after ELijah's death in 1834.
Lydia married John M. Alexander 28 September 1848. I have done research on John M. since he was almost certainly the brother of my 3Xgreat-grandfather James C. Alexander. John M. and Lydia had no children since she was about 50 and he was in his late fifties when they married.
Lydia and Thomas had eight children born before 1830 and probably had at least two born after the 1830 census. Susannah/Susan, born 1828 or 1829, was the young daughter on the 1830 census, and it's probable that some of the young McClures living near Lydia and husband John M. Alexander in 1850 were her children from marriage to Thomas.
Aaron, who was about Lydia's age, obviously could not be her child, and he and his family make up eleven of the thirty-one Henry County McClures in 1850. Aaron was likely closely related to Thomas and could have been Elijah McClure's brother Aaron.
Jesse McClure, 36 in 1850, could have been the son who was between 15 and 19 in 1830, and, although it is not possible to tell from the 1850 census, Henry County marriage records and the 1880 census reveal that Elizabeth, 20 in 1850 and 50 in 1880, was Jesse's second wife. Jesse's family included five young McClures who were probably his but not Elizabeth's children.
William McClure, 28 in 1850, was probably one of the three sons between 5 and 0 in 1830. He was married to Epsy McClure , and their family in 1850 included her sister Oney McClure. They had no children in 1850.
Jonathan McClure, 25 in 1850, was very likely another of the three sons between 5 and 9 in 1830, and Joshua was the son under 5 in 1830. Henry County marriage records show that Eliza and Caroline were spouses of Jonathan and Joshua, respectively. Andrew, 16 in 1850, was brother to Jonathan and Joshua, but he would not have been one of the eight children from 1830.
Elijah McClure, 19 in 1850, was probable another son who was not listed on the 1830 census since he was born later.
Lydia and her daughter Susan and sons Jesse, William, Jonathan, Joshua, Elijah, and Andrew all lived in Henry County very close to its border with Weakley County where many of them ended up in later years. It is probable that Thomas McClure, who married Mary Darnold (usually Darnell) in Weakley in 1844 was a son who preceded them there. I have been unable to trace Thomas and Mary after their marriage. Thomas was born by about 1825 and cound have been one of the two sons aged 10 through 14 in 1830 or one of the three sons aged 5 through 9.
Lydia's second husband John M. Alexander seems to have died before 1860, and Lydia was in the family of her daughter Susan in Weakley County in 1860. I've been unable to find Lydia or Susan after 1860.
Although I have not in general attempted to trace Lydia's and Thomas's children past their marriages and their appearance on the 1850 federal census and noting that several of them had relocated to Weakley County by 1860; however I devoted more atttention to Joshua, who married Caroline Marberry, and to Susan, who seems never to have married. I covered Joshua because of his future ties back to my Gore-Alexander family. I attempted to provide documentation for Susan and her son Martin mainly because no one seemed to have ever done so. I soon discovered why documentation for them was poor. Records for them are simply not there in many cases.
As the 1850 census shows and as was passed down to some of Martin's descendants, Susan appears to have had a child, Martin Jones, when she was no older than fourteen, while the family lived in Alabama. Although he was listed as Martin Jones on the 1850 census, he began using the name Martin McClure soon afterward. He married Martha Merrell. There were no children for the 1860 census in Weakley County, but it showed a McClure male, age 20, in their family. I did not accept that the Martin and Martha in Carter County, MO, in 1870 was the same family as the Martin and Martha in Weakley County, TN, in 1880 until I found death records for two of their children, David Washington and Martha Era, that provided evidence. It was a bit disturbing that both death certificates listed the mother as Martha McClain instead of Martha Merrell, and I have failed to find proving evidence that Martin did not have a second marriage although I've found no record of that either. Although it seems almost impossible that Martin and Martha married using her surname incorrectly in 1859, I have not completely ruled it out. I leave documentation of Martin's family as incomplete as I found it.
One of Joshua McClure's and Amy Caroline Marberry's children was Caroline A., born about 1865. Caroline McClure married Jeff Gore, son of Isaac Gore and Margaret Wall, and one of the two children they had before Caroline's early death in 1889(2) was George, my great uncle by marriage to Alice Alexander, who was George's first cousin. I remember George and Alice well from my childhood and early adulthood.
(Note 1): From the 1850 census, we can deduce that the daughter born between 1825 and 1830 was Susannah, or Susan.
(Note 2): Although Caroline's son George Gore likely had a note of her death in a bible or diary, no one seems to have access to these books if they have survived. The only record I have of her death is the gravestone for "Calley" McClure Gore in the Foundry Hill Cemetery, Puryear, Tennessee.
(Note 3): Nat Harris was listed as a mulatto, brick mason. Although he is listed with Joshua's family, he may have actually lived next door on the farm of Gray Harris. Perhaps he was doing some building on the farm of Joshua when the census was taken. He must have been free since he had a personal estate.
(Note 4): Although Mr Inman transscribed the groom's name as Joshua McLane, I know that the marriage was between Joshua McClure and Amy Caroline Marberry since they were my Great-uncle George Gore's grandparents.
Federal Censuses
1830FranklinTNp121 (there is another illegible page number also.) Thomas McClure, 30-39, female, 30-39, 1 male, 15-19, 2 males, 10-14, 3 males, 5-9, 1 male under 5, 1 females under 5
1850HnTNp360B: John M Alexander, 60 VA area that became KY, Lydia, 53 SC, Jane, 23 KY, Martin Jones (surname), 10 AL, John H. Alexander, unreadable age TN, Thomas Alexander, 6 TN, Susanna McClure, 23 TN
1850HnTNp352A: Jesse McClure, 36, Elizabeth, 20, Lydia, 16, Rosanna, 14, William, 12, David, 9, Francis, 6
1850HnTNp364A: Jonathan McClure, 25, Eliza, 22, E. S., 2, Joshua, 21, Andrew, 16, Caroline, 18
1850HnTNp269A: William McClure, 28, Epsy, 20, Oney, 19 (Oney was Epsy McClure's sister, and both were almost certainly daughters of Aron McClure.)
1850HnTNp360A: Wm D Brisendine, 45, Julia, 37, others, Elijah McClure,19, b. AL
1860WeakleyTNp181 (page 316 stamped on): Susan McClure, 32, Lydia McClure, 62, Elizabeth McClain, 23 (Elijah McClure's and Jonathan McClure's families just above)
1860WeakleyTNp181: Martin V. McClure, 19, Martha, 19, (abbr possibly Wm but uncertain) McClure, 20 (next beelow Susan)
1860HnTNp444: Joshua, 30, Caroline, 27, Lydia J., 7, Margaret E., 6, William M., 4, Elijah B., 1, Nat Harris, 50(3)
1870HnTNp246A (page 12 penned in): J. M. McClure, male, 41, C. A., fem, 38, M. E., fem, 15, E. B., male, 12, A. J., male, 9, Thos A., 7, C. A. fem, 5, J. B., male, 2
1870CarterMOp477A: Martin (initial appearsto be C) McClure, 27, Martha, 28, Mary E., 10, David W., 7, James A., 5, Frank, 2, Susan 9 mo
1880WeakleyTNp135A: Martin McClure, 40, Martha, 41, Washington, 16, James, 14, Martha, 3
1880HnTNp174A (page 12 penned in): Joshua McClure, 50, Amy, 50, Margaret E, 26, Elijah B., 21, Andrew J., 19, Thomas A., 16, Caroline A., 14, Joshua B., 12, John M. or W., 10, Susanna, 8
Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN
Weakly Co, TN, State Copies of June 1843-Sept. 1853 Marriage Book, p.40: Thomas G. McCluer to Mary Darnold, License, 30 April 1844, Tom Etheridge, Clerk
Martin V. McClure to Martha Merrell, 14 Dec 1859,
Henry Co, Tennessee, Marriages, 1838-1852, Marriage Book A, transcribed by W. O. Inman, Paris, TN, 1974
page 46, Jonatha(n) McClure to Elizabeth Hart, 14 Nov 1844, J T Frazier, JP
page 46, William McCLure to Epsy McClure, 16 Feb 1845, Lewis Edgar, MG
page 48, Joshua McLane to Caroline Marberry, 10 Oct 1850, Lewis Edgar, MG(4)
page 46, Jesse McClure to Elizabeth Vickery, 25 Apr 1850, Robert Lemonds, JP
Henry Co, Tennessee, Marriages, 1881-1890, transcribed by W. O. Inman, Paris, TN, page 160, Jefferson D. Gore to Miss Caroline A. McClure, 8 Nov 1885, Jas W. Johnson, MG