George Marcum
George W. Marcum (1816-1891) was a resident of the Marcum Creek community near Buffalo who supposedly helped hide the horses of the outlaw Jesse James when James was in Scott County under an assumed name in the 1860s.
Biography
Born May 31, 1816, George Marcum was the son of Arthur Markham III and Anna Bransgrove. He is not to be confused with another George W. Marcum, who was his nephew and was murdered on the Marcum family’s property at Marcum Creek during the Civil War.
George Marcum’s parents moved from Virginia to Buffalo in the early 1800s, and may be buried at the Marcum Cemetery on Marcum Creek, which is near where their farm was located. Marcum Creek empties into Smith Creek near the present-day farm of retired educator Gary Cross. Smith Creek, in turn, empties into Buffalo Creek. The area where the Marcums lived is more commonly referred to as Smith Creek, though historians referred to the area as Buffalo.
George Marcum’s brother, Hiram Marcum, lived nearby and served as a pilot for Union loyalists who were slipping north into Kentucky to enlist in the federal army during the Civil War. Because of this, he became a wanted man in the eyes of the Confederate army, and rebel soldiers attacked his home in September 1861. Hiram Marcum’s 16-year-old daughter, Julia Marcum, was severely wounded in the attack but became a Civil War heroine by defending her family. Months later, in January 1862, Confederate soldiers returned to the home, and another George W. Marcum was killed. The younger George W. Marcum was a nephew to Hiram Marcum and the older George W. Marcum. He was enlisted in the Union army, but was on furlough and was attempting to slip north into Kentucky to rejoin his regiment. He was shot and killed as he attempted to flee a barn on the farm as the Confederate soldiers arrived.
The younger George Marcum’s father was John Arthur Marcum, a brother to George W. Marcum and Hiram Marcum who settled in the Pine Creek area near Oneida and established the large Marcum family that remains prominent there today.
Family
George Marcum married Mary Ann Hanks (1822-1887) in 1843. They had at least three children, though probably more: Martha Ann Ellis (1848-1928), Nancy W. Crabtree (1855-1912) and Mary Jane Honeycutt (1858-1923).
Mary Ann Hanks was the daughter of Joshua Hanks (1789-1874) and Amelia Rape (1802-1862). They were married in September 1818 in Davidson County, Tenn., and moved to Scott County, Ill.
George and Mary Ann’s children married into other families who lived at Marcum Creek. Nancy married John Nathaniel Crabtree (1854-1919) in 1875. Mary Jane married Edward “Ned” Honeycutt (1854-1919). The exception was Martha Ann, who married Rev. Truman M. Ellis. The Ellis family did not live at Marcum Creek.
Other possible children of George and Mary Ann include Arthur Joseph Marcum (1844-1927), California Marcum (1851-1920), William D. Marcum, and Alexander P. Marcum. Different family genealogists list different names, including Josiah and John Green.
Jesse James legend
In 1867, the notorious outlaw Jesse James supposedly spent six months in Scott County under an assumed name, Dave Moore. He resided at a Huntsville hotel owned by William “Uncle Billy” Sharp and opened a grocery store. This story is told by both H. Clay Smith, in Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, and Esther Sharp Sanderson, in County Scott and Its Mountain Folk, as well as other authors. This would have been after James was a wanted man in Missouri but before he became the nationally-renowned outlaw.
Sanderson wrote in her book that Jesse James stabled his horses on the Marcum farm near Buffalo. Locals later began to refer to a ravine on Marcum Creek as “Horselot Hollow,” where the James horses were supposedly stabled.
Although Sanderson didn’t provide the exact identity of the Marcums who assisted Jesse James, identifying them only as the “Marcums on Buffalo,” it’s clear that she was referring to George and Mary Ann Hanks Marcum.
Sanderson wrote that the Marcums always seemed to have money, even when times were bad, leading other local residents to assume they had been paid by Jesse James for hiding his horses. Following their deaths, she wrote, Mary Ann’s grave was robbed by a group of men who thought gold was buried with her.
“It is doubtful whether the Marcums knew the actual identity of the outlaws, but inasmuch as they had to hide their loot, some of it could possibly have been found; while on the other hand, they could have been paid ‘liberally’ for their kindness and services,” Sanderson wrote.
Sanderson added that a descendant of George and Mary Ann told that George gave each of his children $600 in gold before he died in 1891, “and where it came from they never knew.”
She also wrote that following Mary Ann’s death in 1887, someone slipped into the room where her body was located and placed something inside the casket. “Could this have been some of the hoarded gold of the James Brothers?” she speculated.
Many years later, the Marcum grave was looted by grave-robbers who decided to find out for themselves. According to Sanderson: “Under the cover of darkness, (three men) slipped to the cemetery and dug up the remains of Mrs. Marcum. They did not find the expected pot of gold, but they did encounter the unexpected law who lodged them in the Huntsville jail where one died immediately after, presumably from poisonous fumes from the grave.”
Death
George Marcum died on Nov. 28, 1891, at age 75. He was buried at Marcum Cemetery. Mary Ann had died four years earlier, on July 30, 1887, at age 64. She was also buried at Marcum Cemetery.