Rev. William Penn McEwen

1815-1883 · Georgia

Born 1815, Washington County, Georgia

Died 1883

Children include Nancy

William Penn McEwen was born on 20 September 1815 in Washington County, Georgia. As a young man he volunteered at Sandersville, the county seat, on 8 February 1836 as a private in Capt. Charles J. Malone's company of Georgia militia, and was discharged there on 15 April 1836.

On 17 November 1839, in Washington County, he married Rutha Sheppard, born in 1819. In the 1850 census he was a planter and minister, aged 34, with Rutha, their children, and Rutha's widowed mother, Elizabeth Sheppeard, in the household. The slave schedule that year shows he held six enslaved people. In 1857, after the Washington County courthouse burned, the will of Charles Sheppard was re-recorded on the oath of William P. McEwen and Emmanuel Brown.

About 1858 the family moved to Florida, probably to Lake City. In 1867 they settled a mile and a half south of the present town of Wauchula, at the site of old Fort Hartsuff, in Manatee County. The 1870 census lists him there as a "minister gospel," with Rutha and their younger children Milton, Zachariah and Mary Ann. His son Alex farmed next door.

He was a local Methodist preacher who rode a circuit on horseback. There was no organized church south of Fort Meade when he came. He preached at Fort Green, Fort Ogden, Oak Hill, now Parrish, and Pine Level, and he organized churches. Because the ministry did not support a family, he also farmed and raised stock. In November 1871 he registered his mark and brand in Manatee County, and in 1873 he was taxed on one horse and thirty cattle.

He worked closely with the Baptist preacher John Wright Hendry, and the two shared pulpits. At Fort Hartsuff Baptist Church, founded in 1876, Hendry preached for some Sundays and McEwen, the Methodist, filled the pulpit in between.

In his last years he suffered from long illness. He died on 27 July 1883 at the home of his son-in-law, Robert Calvin Hendry, while he was at Nocatee for a revival. He was buried at Joshua Creek Cemetery. Rutha lived until 1898.

Their seven children were William Alexander, Elizabeth F., Nancy Virginia, Martha Winfield, Milton C., Zachariah Francis and Mary Ann. Four of them married into the Whidden and Carlton cattle families of the Peace River.

Children

Nancy Virginia McEwen 1848-1914

Sources

United States census, 1880, Fort Green and Bassenger, Manatee County, Florida, ED 104, sheet 8A; FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:MNZW-XSH.

Southern Christian Advocate (Macon, Ga.), 5 November 1873, p. 2; Georgia Historic Newspapers, Digital Library of Georgia, sn91099152.

Washington County, Georgia, Marriage Licenses 1828-1860, image 100 of 478, FamilySearch image ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9BZ6-WJ4; Georgia County Marriages, 1785-1950, ark:/61903/1:1:KXVQ-7DX.

Spessard Stone, "Rev. William Penn McEwen" (2001, from South Florida Pioneers 51/52, 1987), citing the 1850, 1870 and 1880 censuses, W. D. Payne, John W. Hendry, A Pioneer Baptist Preacher of South Florida (1907), T. C. Underwood, A Brief History of the First Baptist Church, Wauchula (1976), the Florida Christian Advocate of 31 October 1912, the Bartow Informant of 11 August 1883 and a 1974 recording of Gladys Carlton Clavel; Spessard Stone, "Robert Calvin Hendry" (2001, from The Herald-Advocate, Wauchula, 18 August 1988), citing the pension files of Robert C. and Nancy V. Hendry at the National Archives; 1880 census, Manatee County, Florida, FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:MNZW-XSH; Southern Christian Advocate (Macon), 5 November 1873, p. 2 (Georgia Historic Newspapers, sn91099152).

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Cite: Heirology, "Rev. William Penn McEwen (1815-1883)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/rev-william-penn-mcewen-1815-1883-aaf0a6.