Ancestor Archives: William Carroll Roark (1820-1888)

 

by Rocky Macy

William Carroll ROARK was born in Tennessee to William and Dicey (JENT) ROARK on September 18, 1820.  He married Comfort POE in Allen County, Kentucky, on November 10, 1838, and passed away in Newton County, Missouri, on February 21, 1888.
 
William Carroll ROARK was my great-great-grandfather.
 
When William Carroll ROARK and Comfort POE were married in 1838 he was eighteen-years-old and she was one day shy of her sixteenth birthday.  By the time he passed away in 1888, they were in their fiftieth year of marriage, a union that had produced eleven children, and whose descendants have spread across much of the nation as well as around the world.
 
William and his young bride began married life in Allen County, Kentucky, the place where Comfort was from, and likely in close proximity to her parents.  Their first six children were born in Allen County, and then sometime between the birth of Henry Durham ROARK, (#6) on June 7, 1852, and (#7), Samuel James ROARK,  on February 25, 1855, the family loaded into wagons along with other relatives and friends, and headed to southwest Missouri.  By the time of the 1860 US Census the ROARK family was located in Granby Township of Newton County, Missouri.
 
William’s parents also migrated to Newton County, Missouri, presumably at the same time that their oldest son (William Carroll) and his family made the move.
 
According to an article written by their great-grandson, the late Sam NUNN of Newton County, Missouri, in the book,  “McDonald County Sesquincentennial (1849-1999) Family Histories,” William and Comfort moved south into McDonald County during the 1860’s.  They settled in the community of Hart which was in the northwest corner of the county and bordered on Oklahoma Territory and Newton County.   William and Comfort and three of their sons owned adjoining land in what was then called “Roark Valley.”  One of the farms was in Newton County, and the other three were in McDonald County.  A creek called the “Roark Branch” flowed through the property and remains active today.
 
William and Comfort spent the rest of their lives raising children and farming in the Missouri counties of Newton and McDonald.  Their home was listed as being in “Elk” Township of McDonald County in 1870, and they were living in Buffalo Township of McDonald County when the 1880 census was taken.  Sometime after the 1880 census was taken and their family was successfully raised, William and Comfort relocated to Seneca in Newton County where they spent the remainder of their lives.
 
The eleven children of William Carroll and Comfort (POE) ROARK were:  Martha Emmaline (1839-1920;  married Henry S. REYNOLDS);  Camily Frances (1841-1915;  married William R. KELLY);  Nathan Wilson (1844-1908;  married 1. Margaret J. HIRE, 2. Martha Jane MARTIN);  Joseph Austin (1846-1922;  married Siotha Tennessee WOOD);  William Robert (1849-1909;  married Samantha Ann BUTRUM);  Henry Durham (1852-1927;  married Rebecca Victoria LANKFORD);  Samuel James (1855-1925;  married Nancy Anthaline SCARBROUGH);  Mary Jane (1857-1923; married John W. COOK);  Nancy (born 1860);  Albert Curtis (1864-1934;  married Julia Olive BLANKENSHIP);  and, Sarah Elizabeth (1866-1951;  married Edgar Harrison MATTHEWS).
 
William and Comfort’s eleven children (and their spouses) managed to provide the aging farm couple with at least seventy-five grandchildren, with the reproductive leader being Nathan Wilson ROARK of Anderson, (McDonald County) Missouri, who fathered fifteen children by two wives.
 
William Carroll ROARK passed away on February 21, 1888, at his home in Seneca, Missouri.   Probate papers were filed one week later, on February 28, which listed as his heirs his widow, Comfort, and ten of the couple’s eleven children.  Their ninth child, Nancy, who had been born in 1860, was not listed, an indication that she had probably proceeded her father in death.
 
Of the heirs who were mentioned in the probate record, Comfort ROARK and the couple’s son, Albert, were both listed as living in Newton County, Missouri, daughter Mary Jane COOK was noted as being a resident of the state of Idaho, and the remaining eight were listed as residents of McDonald County, Missouri.  Obviously many residents of Newton and McDonald County today can trace their ancestry back to William and Comfort.
 
William Carroll ROARK is buried next to Comfort at the Swars Prairie Baptist Cemetery in rural Newton County, Missouri.  There they rest among family and friends, their travels and earthly chores complete.