The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

The Callans and McClarys
Chapter 15
Introduction:
The McClary FamilY
of Cooper County
It is common to trace ancestry
by the paternal line, for it is the
father’s last name that is usually
carried forward in the family. In
Nancy McClary’s family, pictured
on this page, much is known
about the ancestry of both her
mother’s and father’s line.
On the McClary side, the
lineage has been traced back to the
mid 1800s, beyond which evidence of
the family dims. Still, it is known that the
McClarys today come from humble, hard
working roots. During the late 1800s and early
1900s the McClarys, Brownfields and Gerhardts in
central Missouri were primarily farmers, either owning their
own land, renting it, or working as farm laborers. Some operated
businesses such as grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants, some
were school teachers, and one owned an automobile and farm implement
dealership. The three families today still include some farmers,
many blue collar workers, and a number of successful business and
professional persons. Oral family history indicated that the most
distant known ancestor, John Robert McClary (?-1862), was born in
Ireland and came to Cooper County, Missouri around 1850.
The Davis family record goes back more than a hundred years
further, to a Thomas Davis born in 1735. Nancy’s cousin, John
Murray Davis, notes that the Davis clan has always been known as a
family of avid story tellers. Perhaps that is how they were able to keep
their history alive. From the tales included here in, it appears that they
had wonderful material to work with.
~ 66 ~
While the Davis name
goes back only to 1735, the
Davis family has roots going
back to the 1500s, and has a
family tree that sprawled
across Alabama and Georgia
in the 18 th century. By the
mid 19 th century, ancestors of
both the Davis and McClary
families were fighting in The
Civil War, apparently on opposite
sides. After the war, the Davis
family moved from Alabama to Kansas,
came to central Missouri in the early 1900s,
and has been rooted in Boonville, seat of
Cooper County, ever since.
As for the McClarys, they settled around Boonville about 1850,
and in the early 1900s lived in the vicinity of the small town of Blackwater,
about 15 miles up the road from Boonville. It’s in this small
town (population: 100), reconstructed to reflect that bygone era, that
Al Callan and Nancy McClary chose to be wed, on April 20, 2002.
The information in the following narrative was researched and
written down in the 1970s and 1980s by Nancy McClary’s parents,
Mary Elizabeth Davis and Hubert Clinton “Bert” McClary. The
lineages of James Robert McClary (?-1862) and Cynthia Ann Marrs
(1814-c. 1874) were not discovered at that time, and additional research
has not been done.
The descendants of John Brownfield (1791-1851) are documented
in an 800 page manuscript compiled in the late 1980s, with
much of the on-site cemetery research being done by Clinton