Seventh Generation

803. Mary Rebekah Vernon was born on 19 June 1836 in Sequatchie Valley, TN. She died on 19 January 1918 at the age of 81. She was buried. [Marcus Merged 7.FTW]

1. Mary Rebekah Vernon, after the death of her Mother in 1849, was reared by her brother-in-law and sister, Audley and Emmaline Skillern. When the Mother died soon after coming to Arkansas, the Skillerns took the thirteen-year-old Mary Rebekah, the nine-year-old Martha Ann, and the Father into the Skillern home.

At the time the Civil War broke out, John T. and Mary R. Skelton made their home at the spring North of Fayetteville where Charles Skelton later lived (just across the Highway 71 from Greenacres). In the spring of 1862, Confederate troops camped on the farm and prepared for a fight. The home was hastily abandoned although no fight developed. When the Conferderates withdrew suddenly, camp followers stole many things from the house. The Skeltons returned to the home where they remained until he made a crop. He then moved her back to the Skillerns and joined the Confederate Army. Later, the Federals, in their turn, deployed on the Skelton farm (for battle or maneuver) but again no battle developed. Shortly afterward the Federals burned the house.

Before John T. Skelton joined the Confederate Army he was captured by the Federals, but soon released. The Federals took the team he was plowing but, when friends in the Union Army interceded, his property was returned. On the same day, a fine team was taken from his Father, who although hidden within fifty feet of the team, was not discovered. The team was not recovered.

Although before the war, the Skeltons were "strong antisecesh", throughout the War between the States, John T. and Mary Rebekah Skelton faithfully served the Southern Confederacy - he in the army and she on the home front. The Skillerns lived five miles Northeast of Fayetteville, just far enough out for the convenience of the Southern men when they slipped in to obtain information or supplies. Skillern was old and had suffered a crippling accident; Vernon was an invalid. Mary Rebekah took the lead in meeting strangers or in rendering whatever service was possible to soldiers or neighbors. Several times the Federals threatened to hang Skillern, Vernon, or both, and the women kept them out of sight as much as possible. Often the Federal "scouts" came disguised as Confederate soldiers.

Throughout the war, Mary Rebekah Skelton served the neighborhood in many ways. She went to the mill for the neighborhood. She helped to gather and circulate news. Another situation was grim. While the soldiers were encamped near Prairie Grove (sit of the battle), the weather became very cold. In heaping logs for a fire, Bob Hewitt was so badly hurt that he was taken home to die. Mary Rebekah Skelton, Beck Hewitt (Bob’s sister) and Uncle Johnny Pearson, a very old man, laid Bob out, and with the help of several small boys dug his grave and buried him in Gehren’s Chapel Cemetery. The women had to do nearly all the work for the old man was feeble, the small boys very small and no young men dared stay around.

These experiences from the historic past give us much insight into the courage of those gone before and of the times in which they lived.

John T. Skelton (private).