When I finally
started doing "real"
genealogy research in Jonesborough, Tennessee, I was surprised to find
almost nothing about Dr. Samuel Blair Cunningham, early physician and
first
president of the E. T. & V Railway. The home he built
is on the historic
walking
tour of Jonesborough, and he is buried in the Old Jonesboro Cemetery,
but
I could not find anything about his family.
I am so grateful to
cousins and friends, Jim
and Pat Blair of Huntsville, Alabama, for sharing so much of their
early
research and finding the home and church of Rev. Alexander Newton
Cunningham; to Margaret Vance Webb for sharing her extensive research;
to Ann Geoghegan for bringing in the element of Hugh and James
Cunningham, who seem almost certain to have been the brothers of
Ebenezer John Cunningham.
It has, indeed, been a very interesting
family
to research.
Ebenezer John Cunningham
was born around 1768 in Augusta County, Virginia. In 1799 there
is a record of a deed transfer from James Cunningham to Ebenezer John
Cunningham, of 160 acres on Little Limestone Creek, $500.00 "part of
300 ac from Robert Gentry to Hugh Cunningham entered 28 Dec 1778 by
Gentry, Deed Bk 6, p. 514." (Source: Margaret Vance).
Martha Blair Cunningham's
was a family of devout Presbyterians, involved with
Washington
College and the early Presbyterian Church of Washington County,
Tennessee.
Ebenezer John Cunningham is said to have been a member of the old
Lebanon church in Washington County. Three of the
Cunningham brothers became
Presbyterian ministers.
Jane
Cunningham married a prominent Presbyterian minister, Rev. James McLin,
who died in Cass County, Georgia in 1848. As
you
read through the biograpies, you'll see that many of the Cunningham
daughters
married Presbyterian ministers.
