U.S. Route 62 - A Family History Route - Part 2: Oklahoma to Kentucky

All four branches of my kids' family tree has stopovers on U.S. Route 62 from Oklahoma to New York.  The route is a family history route.

Part 1: Oklahoma to Kentucky

Meet some of the people and places in the family history story along the first 1,000 miles of US62, heading east from Oklahoma.

Amos Platt:  US62 runs through Oklahoma City, just a few miles southeast of the burial place of my kids' third great grandafther, Amos Platt in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma.  Amos was a Methodist Episcopal minister with churches in Western Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Oklahoma.  He moved his family west around 1885, but stayed there even when they moved back to Pennsylvania five years later.

He was born in 1844 in Clarion County Pennsylvania, just a few miles southeast of US62 too.

Lorene Mastin (left)

Lorene Mastin:  My kid's great grandmother on their mom's side spent the last four decades of her life living in Mountain Home, Arkansas.  She grew up in the heartland with a penchant for music.  Her sister Cora and her were the "cowgirls of the radio" and music brought her to Mountain Home, nearby the music scene of Branson, Missouri.

Lorene died in 2012 and is buried less than a mile off U.S. Route 62.

Pocahontas: The daughter of Chief Powhatan is my kids' 11th great grandmother and gives her name to a town in Arkansas right along US62.  It's safe to say she never visited, but there is a statue of her right there at the Black River Overlook Park.  Just take US62.

The Gates Family Farm in 1905

Eliza Mattingly:  Bardstown, Kentucky is dissected by US62 and the Nelson County home of Elizabeth (Mattingly) Gates isn't far north in Samuels.  My kids' fourth great grandmother spent all 85 years of her life in the same general area around US62.

Her daugther, Eliza (Gates) Blandford, spent her 50 years living around US62 too.  The Gates, Mattingly, Miles, and Blandford families had deep roots there long before US62 was built.

A bible record of US62 births.

John Downing:  A 1790 tax list places my kids' sixth great grandfather in Mason County, Kentucky early in the area's settlement history.  A bible record documents the births and deaths in this county where US 62 now runs.

Like the McConnell, Ellis, Naylor, Sanders, and other ancestral families, the Downings came down the Ohio River from the Washington County, Pennsylvania area to settle.

US62 crosses right through Old Washington where James and his wife, Susannah (Ellis) Downing are reportedly buried on the old family farm.

Then, the stories cross the Ohio River.