The Starks, Foushee, and Sebastian Connection

in old Brandenburg, Kentucky,

Or a search for the Starks family

Compiled by Steven Starks, 1561

Editor’s note: After reading over Jon Whitfield’s second chapter concerning Meade County history I thought about the story that Steve had sent during the winter to put in our files. Several names in Steve’s family history stood out that rang a bell when I read Jon’s history. The interconnections between several of Meade County’s oldest families are absolutely fascinating. Steve shared more stories after receiving my request.

ORION LEE STARKS:

Orion Lee Starks was born on a farm in Brandenburg, KY in 1896. His mother contracted TB either shortly before or after his birth, and died from TB when he was 2 1/2 years of age. From age 3 months on he went to live with his aunt and uncle, William and Margaret Sebastian, where he stayed until he was about 10 years old. His father, Henry Slaughter Starks, remarried in 1900, but there is little evidence that Orion moved back with his father and his stepmother, (Susan Hill or ‘Ma Starks’) until after the death of his Aunt, Mag Sebastian, in 1905. Orion may have returned to live with his father and stepmother shortly after Aunt Mag’s death, but there is no evidence as to when he returned home.

At any rate, Orion is listed in the 1910 Census as living with his father and stepmother along with his two brothers, Roy Langley and Alva Vernon Starks. The 1900 Census lists only Roy and Alva as living with Henry Starks, who is listed as a widower and farmer. (He did not remarry until later in the year). There has been no evidence found of Orion in the 1900 Census, the first one in which he would have appeared

Orion apparently attended school in Meade County, and there is an existing article dated October 8, 1913 that lists him as being on the Honor Roll for second year students with a grade of 93 2/3.

Orion attended Western Kentucky College in Bowling Green, KY. No dates have yet been found. He received a Teaching Certificate to teach in the Common Schools of Meade County, KY in 1916. He passed the exam with an average score of 90 3/11, and was approved by two examiners and the County Superintendent. [The document reads, "This Certificate is valid 4 years from this date. Given under our hands this 23 day of March A.D. 1916."] He taught for two years in Brandenburg (1916-1918), marrying Mary Nancy Roberts in Nov, 1917. He finished the school year after his marriage, and then moved permanently to Beech Grove, Indiana.

His older brother, Roy, had moved to Beech Grove first, to work in the bustling railroad repair yards in Beech Grove. Orion went up and worked there in the summers while he taught, then moved there permanently at the end of the 1917-18 school year. (June, 1918). Eventually all three brothers, Roy, Alva and Orion, moved to Beech Grove, as well as their father Henry and his wife Susan.

(Compiler’s note: Most of the following information comes from a taped conversation with Mary Nancy Starks in 1979.)

Orion met Mary Nancy Roberts in 1915 at a fair in Irvington, KY. She says that he teased her about being from a little “burg” (Guston). She was riding a horse in the fair parade which she was not supposed to be riding, and had trouble controlling her mount but was able to eventually bring it under control. Orion may have been a judge at the Fair, and commented on her good horsemanship. They went out a couple of times, but did not see much of each other until the following November of 1916 when they went together steadily. They were married a year later on November 25, 1917. He was 21, and she was 18. Because she was Catholic and he was of no religion, they could not be married in the Catholic Church proper, but they were married in the parlor of the priest’s house at Mt Merino Church, near Irvington.

After they were married, they may have lived for a while in Irvington, but eventually stored their furniture and lived for seven months with Uncle Bill and Aunt Mag Sebastian, who had raised Orion until age 9. Orion and Mary had no honeymoon, but moved to Beech Grove in 1918 when he finished teaching school in Brandenburg.

Orion went into the Navy the following year, in April 1918. He had been drafted by the Army, but chose to join the Navy instead. He served less than one year in the regular Navy, and then two more years in the Reserves. He reported for duty on ____1918.

In the 1920 Indiana Census, Orion and Mary lived on 8th Avenue, Ages 23 and 20 respectively. Orion was listed as a Tallyman, at the Railroad Shops. In the 1930 Census, they lived at 1522 Main Street, next door to Papa and Fat Mammy Roberts (Mary Nancy’s mother and father). Orion is listed as an Agent for the Life Insurance industry. The Crash of 1929 hit Orion especially hard, as a housing developer, and he was forced to sell the house on Main Street and move to 14th street. Sometime after his death, in 1943, Mary Nancy Starks was able to buy back the house on Main St, which Orion had originally designed and had built.

There are no known Starks descendents left in Brandenburg, or Meade County, Kentucky, all having moved to Beech Grove, Indiana. (A suburb of Indianapolis, on the southeast side of Marion County)

A Note About William Sebastian

Family oral history has it that William Sebastian, the sheriff in Brandenburg, shot Jesse James in the leg, and knocked out his front teeth. William Sebastian was a brother to Orion Starks’s grandma, Mary Ellen [Sebastian] Board. It was decided that Orion would live with Uncle Bill and Aunt Mag, who were childless, so Orion went there shortly after his birth because his mother could not take care of him. She was becoming quite ill from tuberculosis, which eventually killed her in 1899.

Grandma Starks described Uncle Bill Sebastian (who was born 24 July 1840 and d. 25 September 1928) as a short man who was stout of heart and loved to fight. And he had the brass knuckles to prove it. We do not know what years Bill Sebastian served as sheriff, but it is historical fact that Jesse James came to Kentucky several times. KY was a Confederate-leaning state, and hospitable toward many of the guerilla fighters like William Cantrell and Jesse James who had served on the side of the Confederacy. Jesse James is said by the oral history of Brandenburg to have visited the town at least once, and stayed in the downtown Hotel, or even in the Sebastian’s house. There has been no way to authenticate this story other than by what was orally handed down. We do know that Jesse James and his brother, along with their gang, thanked Kentucky by robbing her banks several times.

(In a postscript at the end of Rev. George L. Ridenour’s history of Early Times in Meade County, Kentucky, he writes the following: “---Uncle Tabby Jackson still regales his hearers with an account of the time when Jesse James and his band shot their way to freedom in Brandenburg.”)

L. to R. Alva Starks, Orion Starks, Sr., Aunt Mag and Uncle Bill Sebastian, in front of the Sebastian home in Brandenburg, Kentucky. Photo courtesy of Beth Ferguson, sister of Steven Starks.

Bill Sebastian is even more interesting in that he was the great-great grandson of Benjamin Sebastian, who was forced to step down from the state’s highest court in 1806 because of his involvement with Spain and her attempt to control the traffic along the Mississippi River valley. He was on pension from Spain when he retired to his estate in Grayson County, Kentucky called Falls of the Rough in 1806, and died there in 1825. Grandma Starks (Mary Nancy Starks) always referred to Bill Sebastian as a Spaniard, which I thought was nonsense, but this shows that there was some Spanish influence in the family.

Bill Sebastian is also connected to Orion Starks in that Henry Slaughter Starks (Orion’s father) married Susan E. Hill in 1900, and Susan was the sister of Bill’s wife, Margaret. Almost nothing is known of the Hill family other than that they may have come from the St. Louis area. Bill and Margaret Sebastian are buried in a prominent spot in the St George Cemetery, on a hill overlooking the town.

Orion Stark’s father, Henry Slaughter Starks

Henry Slaughter Starks was born 26 June 1862 and died 11 December 1934. He was my great grandfather.

We know from the Starks Family bible, that Henry Starks was born in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. No official birth record or location of birth has been located.

The first record we have of Henry Starks is in the 1870 Meade County, Kentucky Census. He is listed as 8 years of age, and living “at home” with the Slaughter Foushee family. Slaughter Foushee was a farmer and slave owner. In 1870 his wife, Adelina, is not listed as living, but three children are listed; Anthony (14), Junius (12) and Dora (2). (Editor’s note: Slaughter Foushee m/1 Elizabeth M. Neafus, 2 June 1846, both with consent of their parents; then, records show that on 11 August 1850 he married Martley Adaline [sic] Stith, d/o Robert Stith. Both marriages were abstracted by Wathena K. Miller, in Meade County, Kentucky Records, Vol. II, 1824-1884, Marriages, ATHS, 1988) .

We find Henry Starks and Lee Starks in the 1880 census in the home of Joseph Foushee, where Lee could also be found in the 1870 Meade County, Kentucky Census. They are named “nephews” in the 1880 census. The 1890 Census was tragically destroyed in a fire in 1929 in Washington DC. Some of the records have been reconstructed from tax records, but none for Kentucky have been found.

The next time we see Henry S. Starks is in the 1900 Census, age 37 and widowed. He married Alice Belle Board in 1886 in Brandenburg, but she died in Aug, 1898 of TB. He is listed as a farmer in Meade County, and living with him are Roy (age 10) and Alva (age 8). The third son, Orion Starks (Steven Stark’s grandfather) , was living with his aunt and uncle, Margaret and Bill Sebastian, in Brandenburg, where he had gone shortly after birth and lived until around 1905. This is the first and only time that Henry Starks is listed in the census as being born in Missouri. Alice Belle Board’s parents were Louis Langdon Board and Mary Ellen Sebastian, whose father was Benjamin Sebastian, III.

In the 1910 census, Henry Starks is still listed as a farmer living in Meade County, KY, along with his second wife, Susan E. Hill, and the three boys, Roy (20), Alva (17) and Orion (13). Henry is 47 years old, and Susan is 44.

The 1920 Census for Marion County, Indiana shows that on January 6, 1920, Henry and Susan Starks were living in Beech Grove, Indiana, at 104 Fifth Avenue, a short walk to the Beech Grove Railroad Yards where Henry went to work. Roy Starks and his wife, Ruth (nee Smith) were living next door at 106 Fifth Ave with their four children: Dorothy (7), David (5), Paul (2 ½) and Raymond (1/2). Since Dorothy was the only one born in Kentucky (she was born on the Smith farm, next to New Highland Baptist Church and cemetery), we can assume that by 1915, when David was born, they had left Kentucky to come to Indiana. Alva and Dessie (nee Brown), were probably living with “Ma and Pa” Starks. Orion and Mary Nancy (nee Roberts) Starks, recently married in 1917 in Kentucky, are listed as living on 8th Avenue in Beech Grove, Indiana during the 1920 Census. He is 23, she is 20.

Of note on the 1920 Marion County, Indiana census is the fact that Henry Stark’s parents are listed as having both been born in Illinois. If we can assume that this information came from Henry, then perhaps he learned something of his parents’ origins in the time since the 1910 census, when he listed his mother as being from Kentucky and his father as being from Missouri.

The 1930 Marion County, Indiana Census shows Henry S. and Susie E. Starks living at 72 N 5th Street, Beech Grove, Indiana. They owned their home, valued at $2000, and Henry is listed as a Store Keeper (Occupation) at the Steam Rail R. (Industry.) Susie’s occupation is listed as “none” which all housewives were considered at that time. Henry and Susie’s age is listed as 64 (he is actually 67). Her father and mother are both listed as coming from KY, while Henry’s is listed as Mother (Kentucky) and Father (United States). They are both listed as having been 32 years old at their first marriage, which is not true. Henry was 24 at his first marriage, and 36 at his second. Susan Hill was 32 at her first marriage, to Henry. The only conclusion that can be drawn here is that Susie Starks gave the answers to the census taker, and she did not know where Henry’s father came from, and that she just assumed that they were both married the same amount of years. If this assumption is true, then all the facts hold together.

Henry Slaughter Starks died on Dec 11, 1934 (the day before Jack Starks’ seventh birthday) and is buried in Indianapolis, Indiana along with his wife, Susan, who died in 1938.

The lineage of the Foushee Family

In trying to determine Henry Stark’s parentage we have studied the Slaughter Foushee family. We have found it very probable that his mother was Hester Foushee, a sister to William Slaughter Foushee. William “Slaughter” Foushee was a farmer and slave owner in Meade County, Kentucky, the fourth son of William Thornton Foushee and Elizabeth Barrett Woolfolk.. William “Slaughter” Foushee was named after his father, William, and his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Betsy Slaughter. Like his father, William “Thornton” Foushee, he went primarily by his middle name, a not uncommon practice in those days. Thornton Foushee’s first three sons, (James, Joseph, and John) all had the middle name of Woolfolk. Slaughter Foushee was the first and only one in his family to carry the name Slaughter. It can be assumed that his nephew, Henry Starks, was also given the family name of Slaughter, since his middle name is Slaughter. Both families can trace their roots to colonial Virginia. William Thornton Foushee was born in Brandenburg, Kentucky while Mrs. Foushee was born in Virginia. They had ten children: five sons, four daughters and one who died in infancy.

Slaughter Foushee did seem to have a younger sister, Hester (born 1835), who was eight years younger than he. In the Foushee family tree we found that Hester Foushee was married to John Starks. (Steve cites Bob Juch’s Kin website as the source of the Foushee family tree. This can be found at: www.freepages.genealogy. rootsweb. com/~bobjuch/fam/fam07437.htm. [Editors’ note: Wathena Miller in her 1824-1884 Marriages for Meade County, Kentucky, lists the marriage of a Dr. John H. Starks “of age” to Hester C. Foushee “with consent of her father” on 10 November 1853, by D.C. Culley. Both Slaughter and Hester are listed with apparent siblings in William Foushee’s household in the 1850 Meade County Census, Shelly Sims, ATHS, 1984, p. 41. William was 55, wife, Elizabeth (50), William (18), Hester (15), Thomas, (10), Slaughter, (23) and Hartly A. [sic] a female was (18). These last two listed in the family would seem to be the young couple- Slaughter and his wife, named “Martly” A. Stith, d/o Robert Stith, in Miller’s Meade County, KY

Contact Information:

Steven Starks

Crestwood Lane, South

Lafayette, Indiana 47905