Picture undated; Martha died in 1915 at age 92

Martha Jay Waggoner
b. 8 January 1823 Rutherford County, North Carolina
m. 28 June 1839 Shelby County, Illinois
to Andrew Scott
d. 28 March 1915 Long Beach, California

Martha was the daugher of Amos Waggoner and Narcissa W. Jay. She moved with much of the rest of the Waggoner family--including her grandparents, Isaac Waggoner and Emsey Holyfield and numerous aunts & uncles--from North Carolina to Illinois in 1827/28. This Waggoner family were some of the earliest settlers in Shelby County, and in Moultrie County as well, which was separated from Shelby and Macon Counties in 1843.

Martha was married to Andrew Scott in 1839, and they had 9 children. Andrew died in Sullivan County, Missouri in 1857, when their youngest child was just over a year old; their eldest a young man of 16. Martha and the children moved back to Moultrie County for a time (her mother was still living; her father had died in 1854). Eventually almost all of the family made their way west; most of them went to California, including Martha herself. Some (including William Henry Harrison Scott, my great-great-grandfather) ended up in Oregon. One child, Louis Kossuth Scott, stayed in Moultrie County, where he was a Deputy County Clerk for 16 years, and then County Clerk.

In spite of this history of public service--another son was County Treasurer for a time before removing to California--there does seem to be something a little odd about this family. Nine children were born and survived to adulthood--fairly remarkable for the time. But of the nine, only four of them ever married; and of those four, three of them married members of the Gerking family! And two of them married the same Gerking--though at different times, of course. Margaret Jane Scott married James Gerking in Missouri in 1862. She unfortunately died a few years later in Oregon, after giving birth to twin girls. In 1884, Margaret's sister Susan Isabel Scott married the same James Gerking. And the Scott girls' brother, William Henry Harrison Scott, married the sister of James Gerking, Mary Margaret Gerking.

In the book "The Waggoner Family" it says of Martha: "She was one of the North Carolina emigrants and became the best historian of the early Waggoners. She was but 5 years of age when they made the long journey over the rivers and mountains from North Carolina to Illinois in 1828, yet she has given more incidents of the trip and the first years in Illinois, than any other of the family."

People interested in the History of Shelby and Moultrie Counties should check out this link:

http://www.edenmartin.com/