James Monroe Youngblood

     James Monroe Youngblood married Elizabeth Sharp, daughter of Powell Hamilton Sharp and Mary Malinda VanBebber, on Tuesday, 2 June 1846 at DeKalb County, Missouri.¹
     From Gary R. Hawpe, ed. and comp., 'The James Monroe Youngblood Branch,' Van Bibber Pioneers E-Newsletter, Vol. 5 No. 1 (November 2001), pp. 4 - 5.

THE JAMES MONROE YOUNGBLOOD BRANCH

James and Elizabeth (Sharp) Youngblood had only been married a short time when they joined his family in their move from DeKalb County, Missouri to Arkansas. They settled on Long Creek, Carroll County, where their first four children were born. About 1855, they returned to DeKalb Co., Mo., where Elizabeth's family still lived, possibly because of her father's ailing health, and their fifth child was born there, three months before her father died in 1856.

According to a story told years ago by a descendant of the Sharp family, James and Elizabeth had another child, who died in a tragic accident occurring when a turkey feather duster caught fire in the fireplace. Elizabeth had gone to the spring for water at the time and was so traumatized by the incident, that she 'went crazy.' (Quite likely, the diagnosis today would be called a nervous breakdown). There does appear to be some basis to the story, as the 1860 census reflects James and the children back in the home of his parents in Carroll Co., Ark., while Elizabeth is still in DeKalb Co., Mo. with her mother and a widowed sister, and noted on the census as being 'insane from grief.' It is believed that she died not long after this and probably buried in the Sharp Cemetery, although there is no marker there, today, to confirm this.

There is evidence that James made visits to DeKalb County, Mo. and possibly moved back there when he left Arkansas about 1862. As the certainty of civil war drew closer, the safety and welfare of his children became a grave concern, for the advanced ages of his parents would preclude their caring for them, should he fall victim to the Confederate conscriptors now active in the area.

When James returned to Arkansas after the war was over, he brought with him a second wife and another son, who had been born in Iowa. Family tradition recalls only that this wife was an Indian woman, who spoke no English, and it appears that she, too, died after the birth of their daughter, about 1868.

James remarried a third time, to a woman with several children from a previous marriage. Two of them were still living at home, one of who later married James' son. They settled in Carrollton Township of Boone County, Ark. where James bought forty acres of land on January 1st, 1880. (SE1/4, SE1/2 Sect.5, T19N, R21W). This was located south of Burlington in a community known as Lick Branch, near a stream of the same name. James and Nancy sold this land a couple of years later, but evidently remained in the area. No headstone has been found for James, but he is likely buried in the Auman Cemetery.

Jeremiah Youngblood, A Genealogy, Compiled by: Dorothy Morris Quaife, Printed and Distributed by America Press, 18312 Ward Street, Fountain Valley, CA 92708. Pg. # 279.