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Francis Marion Huffman


Huffman HomeFrancis Marion Huffman was born on 31 August 1822 in Barren County, Kentucky to Thomas J. and Olive P. Pedigo Huffman[1]. He preferred his middle name Marion and many of his records are under the name Marion Huffman. Marion Huffman married Nancy Jane Pedigo on 26 June 1844 in Barren County, Kentucky[2]. By 1860 the Huffman family had grown and the 1860 Census showed Marion and Nancy had a 2 sons and 2 daughters although the name of their son James Marion was incorrectly documented as Franklin[3]. James Marion went by the name Frank so I believe he was enumerated incorrectly as Franklin. The Franklin on the census was the same age as James Marion who is missing from the census record so I believe Marion and Nancy never had a child named Franklin and this is actually Frank (James Marion) on the census which has created many inaccurate entries in family trees throughout the internet. To be as sure of this as possible, I have searched every record set I have access to and could not find anything for a Franklin Huffman who was the son of Marion and Nancy.

Francis Marion and Nancy Jane (Pedigo) Huffman had the following children:



On 12 April 1861 the first shot of the American Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. On September 24th of the same year Marion, his younger brothers Jonathan Clark and Louis Francis went to Camp Boyle in Adair County, Kentucky to register with the Union Army for a period of 3 years[4, 5, 6]. Marion was 39 years old. His youngest brother Louis was 21. Louis did not return from the war. He died 24 April 1862 "of fever at Columbia, Kentucky"[5]. (Francis) Marion returned from the Army in 1863 because he was injured after his participation in the Battle of Shiloh[4] on the second day of the battle. The bones in his foot were shattered by a bullet (ball) to his right foot. Surgeons had to remove several bones that had shattered. This left James with little use of his right foot and made farm labor very difficult. As time passed, his injuries became worse and more painful as gangrene set in and moved from his foot up his leg gradually to his thigh. James eventually died as a result of complications (gangrene) of his injuries in 1874[4]. A more detailed account about Marion's Civil War experiences will be coming soon.

In 1865 the oldest son of Marion and Nancy died at the age of 15. Marion would have struggled to complete his farm work with his bad foot, however, he was approved for a disability pension in the amount of $6.00 per month for his service in the war so that would have helped the family survive. Francis Marion Huffman died on 22 May 1874. The official cause of death was pyremia and gangrene, all the result of his injury to his foot in the war.


Nancy Jane Pedigo

Nancy Jane Pedigo was born in December of 1825 in Barren County, Kentucky to Henry Louis and Judith (Farley) Pedigo. When she married her husband Marion Huffman in 1844 she was 18 years old. When her husband died in 1874, her son Frank (James Marion) was 19 and still living at home. He worked on the family farm to support himself and his mother. Shortly after Marion's death Nancy filed for a widow's pension for her husband's service in the Civil War. She was awarded $8.00 per month[7]. She lived with her son in the 1880 census and it can be assumed they lived in the same house since most of the neighbors were the same. By 1900 Nancy was living with her widowed daughter Mary (Huffman) Sartain in Temple Hill. Nancy (Pedigo) Huffman died on 2 November 1900 at the age of 74.

Notes

Aside from census records I could find no other trace of Marion and Nancy's daughter Permelia. I was able to find death and marriage records for their son James Marion and their daughter Mary Susan (Sartain). It is currently unknown what happened to her.

According to family stories, James Marion lived on the farm of his father. On the property was a small family graveyard that contained the graves of his mother, father and grandparents, Thomas Huffman and Olive (Pedigo) Huffman along with other family members. The house pictured on this page is the home of James Marion Huffman with his family. It is quite possible that is also the home of Francis Marion and Nancy Huffman.










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Henry and Judith (Farley) Pedigo, the parents of Nancy



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