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Thank you, Herb, the information is very helpful. Following is a letter written to my gr grandfather which can be found in the KHS Manuscript Archives. You, or extended VanHook family might find it of interest.
VAN HOOK, MARY JOSEPHINE, Correspondence 5 February 1912, KHS Manuscript Archives 91M01
Kentucky Historical Society Lexington, Kentucky
Copied by Alice Freeman Hills
DAVID L. LANDER dated February 5, 1912, on Department of the Interior, Washington, letter head:
"My dear cousin:
I certainly appreciate the very satisfactory and interesting letter I received from you on yesterday, giving me so much valuable information regarding my family, and convincing me that I am the direct descendant of CHARLES LANDER, of which I had some doubt.
I knew that I had a Revolutionary ancestor. I had often heard my mother say that when she was a little girl she had heard her grandmother FOREMAN (MARY LANDER) relate how when a little girl six years old she had crossed the mountains with her Father into Kentucky; that he was a Revolutionary soldier, and while at the Battle of the Cowpens General LAFAYETTE rode up and down the lines and made a speech to the soldiers. I remember now, since reading your letter, that she said he died with the cholera.
Some years ago I wrote to my "Aunt BETTIE", the only living member of the ANDREW SCOTT family, and asked her what she knew about her Revolutionary ancestor, and she wrote me that she remembered hearing very little about him, as being the youngest member of the family and only five years old when her Grandmother FOREMAN died, she did not know as much or remember her Grandmother as my Mother did; furthermore, that my Mother took more interest in genealogy than she.
About a year ago Miss MARY DESHA of the distinguished DESHA family of Kentucky, who lived here in Washington and was a clerk in the same Department I am in and a prominent member of the D. A. R., interested herself in my becoming a member of the D. A. R. Before my papers were filed Miss DESHA died very suddenly. She had given me the name of CHARLES LANDER as probably my ancestor, and stated that the records at D. A. R. Hall showed him to have been a pensioner. I did nothing more in regard to the matter after her death waiting for an opportunity to go to the Pension Office, draw his papers and read them, which I did in March 1911. When I learned that CHARLES LANDER had had such a brilliant record as having spent the winter at Valley Forge and crossed the Delaware with WASHINGTON, and been a member of the Kentucky legislature, of which no tradition had been handed down to me; furthermore, no mention was made of his having been at the Battle of the Cowpens, I was very doubtful that Miss DESHA had put me upon the right track. At the Pension Office there was also the record of a NATHANIEL LANDER, a pensioner. His papers showed him to have been in the vicinity of the Cowpens, but no mention was made of that battle. He was shown to have only served six months and had trouble getting his pension because his commission was dated after the war closed and the date had been scratched. I did not think he could be my ancestor, as I had never heard of a NATHANIEL LANDER and never heard of any one of the family living in Breckenridge County. My people had all lived, on both sides of the house, in Bourbon and Harrison County, Kentucky. In the meantime a friend of Miss DESHA took the matter up voluntarily, and stated that my ancestor was named CHARLES LANDER, that he served at the Battle of the Cowpens, but was not a pensioner. I then wrote to Mrs. JOSEPHINE JACKSON GEORGE whom Miss DESHA said the records showed to have come in on the line of CHARLES LANDER and whom she believed to be my "Missouri cousin." You see I am from Missouri and had to be shown. I received a reply from Mrs. GEORGE at Webster Groves, Mo., although I addressed her at Hannibal, Missouri. Enclosed you will find a copy of her letter, and you will note that Mrs. GEORGE is descended from MARY LANDER through her daughter, CATHERINE, who married WILLIAM WHALEY, and is, therefore, my "second cousin once removed", as you Southerners say. I then filed my papers, and was admitted a member of the D. A. R. without the least trouble, my number being 85250. Still I was not satisfied. You have "shown me" and now I am.
You say you know nothing of the family of PAULINE FOREMAN who married ANDREW SCOTT and lived near Cynthiana, Kentucky. Their children were as follows:
ROBERT SCOTT, born October 22, 1828, married JULIA G. RIGGS January 10, 1865; left one daughter, AGNES, never married to my knowledge; and last I knew of her and her mother were still living in Kentucky.
EMILY SCOTT, born September 25, 1831, married LOT SCOTT (no kin), September 18, 1851; had three children I think, two sons and one daughter, but I do not recollect their names, I believe one was named WILLIAM. EMILY SCOTT died about ten years ago, and had lived some years at Atlanta, Georgia, and I think her sons as very well-to-do business men there now. They had also lived in Nashville, Tennessee.
CHARLES I. SCOTT, born April 13, 1834. I think he died in infancy.
MARY ELLEN SCOTT, born December 16, 1836, married RICHARD D. SCRUGGS of Tennessee August 19, 1858, who died in the Confederate Army. She was living in Knoxville, Tennessee, when her husband died, and some six months afterwards passed through the Confederate lines and returned to Kentucky with her two children, SALLIE and JAMES ANDREW. After her mother (PAULINE SCOTT nee FOREMAN) died, she and her children came to Clinton County, Missouri, where my mother lived. She died in July, 1904, Her daughter, SALLIE, married ALEX RUSSELL, has three children, LEE, EARLE and MARGIE. MARGIE married a Mr. SMITH and has a little daughter about five years old named after myself. They all live in Kansas City, Missouri. The son, JAMES SCRUGGS, married into a very good family, his wife being a Miss ELLA HALE. He has three children, ALMA, married HOLLAND, and has a daughter about six years old. "DICK" (RICHARD), single the last I heard, employed in a wholesale firm in Kansas City, Missouri; and AGNES, married HOCKENSMITH, and has a baby son.
SARAH CATHERINE SCOTT, born October 21, 1839, married Dr. JAMES D. VAN HOOK December 1, 1859; two children living, JAMES D. VAN HOOK and myself, both single. My father and mother moved to Clay County, Missouri, in 1861, later to Clinton County, where my father practiced medicine until 1874 when he died at the age of 41. My brother became a druggist, and is now traveling for a large chemical house in St. Louis. My mother took me to St. Louis, where my brother was employed in a drug establishment, in 1889 and had me study stenography and typewriting. Later we drifted to Kansas City, where in 1902 I received an appointment, after taking the civil-service examination, to a position in the local land office then at El Reno, Oklahoma, from there I was transferred to Woodward, Oklahoma, then to Washington, and am now in the Secretary's office, Interior Department, Chief Clerk's division. My mother died very suddenly here in Washington in September, 1904, just three months after her sister, MARY ELLEN.
JOSEPH FOREMAN SCOTT, born September 4, 1841; was one of Morgan's men and died a prisoner of war shortly before or just after the close of the war. Never married.
ELIZABETH SCOTT ("BETTIE TAYLOR", as she was called by her father), married at Nashville, Tennessee, during the war a Union officer, Capt. EGBERT HILL, a man much older than herself. They had three children: PAULINE, married LON POTTER, and lives at Warrensburg, Missouri; has two children, KENNETH and a girl whose name I do not know; CHARLES, who married, and died a few years ago leaving three boys (twins); and MAMIE who married a man named HILL (no kin) and lives in Seattle, Washington, where her mother now is. Capt. HILL and his wife lived many years in St. Joseph, Missouri.
You will see that all of this family, except ROBERT SCOTT, drifted away from Kentucky, three members to Missouri. They were not very much inclined to keep up relationship, and with the exception of the SCRUGGS family, I do not know a great deal about them. I can barely recollect my Aunt BETTIE (Mrs. HILL), who I was always told resembled her mother, PAULINE FOREMAN SCOTT, very much.
They were very strong Southern sympathizers during the War, and women of strong prejudices. Mrs. HILL and her husband were never very happy, largely because of political differences.
I have heard my mother speak of ISAAC FOREMAN who lived near Belleville, Illinois. He is reported to have died very wealthy, as you state, leaving the greater part of his estate to the Methodist Church. His will was contested, but I do not know as to the result. I think he left only one child, a daughter.
I do not know very much about the FOREMAN Family. I have heard my mother speak of CHARLES FOREMAN (I think a brother of JOSEPH FOREMAN, husband of MARY LANDER) who was ambushed by the Indians in Virginia during the war of 1812.
I have always had the impression that the FOREMANS were people of strong prejudices, rather unsociable, and high strung, all of which characteristics were possessed by PAULINE SCOTT; that she was not like her mother, MARY LANDER, whom my mother described as "tall, straight, and with piercing black eyes."
Fearing that you have not a copy of the pension papers of CHAS. LANDER, I herewith enclose a copy; also a copy of the pension papers of NATHANIEL LANDER one of whose witnesses was JACOB LANDER. It would appear from the record you have given that NATHANIEL and JACOB were brothers of CHARLES and of the six patriarchs.
I also send you under separate cover a photograph of my brother JAMES D. VAN HOOK, taken about thirteen years ago, but still a good likeness, and a Kodak picture of myself, taken three or four years ago. I was always considered by my mother to be like my father as to features, disposition, etc.
Thanking you very much for taking so much pains to write me, which has given me much satisfaction, I am,
Sincerely, your cousin,
(S) MARY JOSEPHINE VAN HOOK
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