(1) Name: Mary Magdalene BIRCH
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Birth: February 14, 1818 Cynthiana, Kentucky
Death: May 21, 1909 Plattsburg, MO Age: 91
Father: Thomas Erskine BIRCH Rev.
Mother: Mary Magdalene MILLER

Misc. Notes
MARY MAGDALENE BIRCH
1818- 1909

Mary Birch was born 14 Feb 1818 and died in Plattsburg, Missouri, May 1909. She married Joseph Shawhan (1797-1850) 29 Sept 1835. Joseph was the son of John Shawhan (1771-184O of Bourbon County, Kentucky. Mary Birch Shawhan married Abraham Ferguson Dudley (1808 1875) in 1870.

Joseph Shawhan (1797-1850)
m. 29 Sept. 1835
Mary Magdalene Birch (1818-1909)

John Erskine Shawhan (1839-1905)
m. 2 Oct 1858
Mary Ann Jourdain (1841-1924)

James McCune Shawhan (1863-1911)
m. 25 July 1885
Ada Romer(1865-?)

Violet Romer Shawhan (1886-1937)

Thc following article is taken from The American Monthly Magazine, June 1907, pages 497-499, provided by Bernerd L. O'Neil, M.D., Beverly Hills, Florida

Mrs. Mary Birch Dudley, "Real Daughter" of the St. Louis Chapter of St. Louis, Missouri, was born in Washington, Mason County, Kentucky in 1818. She was the youngest of the ten children.

Her father, Thomas Erskine Birch, was born on the island of Jamaica. He was educated at Oxford college, where he was ordained to the ministry.

He settled in Richmond, Virginia, and when the Revolutionary War broke out he replaced his gown for the uniform of an ensign and entered the Virginia Navy under John Paul Jones. In one of the fiercest engagements of that period, he was wounded and being thus disabled, returned home and engaged in recruiting men for the army.

About the year 1800, he married Mary M., the daughter of Colonel John Miller, and in 1806, moved to Kentucky and established the Washington University in Mason County.

This loyalty and devotion to country was handed down from father to children and Mrs. Dudley has maintained the principles that her father so sacredly cherished. Her mother was a woman noted in every condition of life for her strength of character. Pious and practical, she instilled into her children high principles of Christian integrity. Mrs. Dudley was twice married. Her second husband, Abram F. Dudley, was a nephew of Thomas P. Dudley, the noted Baptist preacher, of Lexington, Kentucky. Mrs. Dudley has been a member of the church of this faith since 1839.

All her life, but especially in her widowhood, she has manifested great zeal for quilt making and in this work she possessed rare ability. Early in the fifties, shc conceived the idea of an autograph quilt. She worked with great ardor for months in securing the names of noted men, many of whom accompanied their autographs with beautiful sentiments, mottoes, etc. The quilt was of white linen, the autographs being in indelible ink and in the center was embroidered a huge horn of plenty from which emerged fruit and flowers of every description. This beautiful piece of workmanship was known far and wide through Kentucky and became an historical quilt. It was finally destroyed by fire while on exhibition at a fair in Kansas City, Missouri.

In 1903, Mrs. Dudley became a member of the St. Louis Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of which she is an honored "Real Daughter." Through the efforts of this society she draws a pension.

Now in her eighty-ninth year, she is in possession of her faculties to a remarkable degree. She lives with a great-niece, Mrs. Harriet Frost Bean, in Kansas City, Missouri, where in the evening of her life, she is pleased to meet her many friends.

The following information is taken from a document sent to Mrs. Ruth Birch by Mr. Nelson Reed of St. Louis, Missouri.

Plattsburg, Missouri, May 12, 1902

I, James H. Birch, in support of the application of my Aunt, Mrs. Mary M. Birch Dudley, to be enrolled as one of the surviving daughter of a Revolutionary Sailor, do state that I am the grandson of Thomas Erskine Birch, the Sailor, and son of the late Judge James H. Birch, of Missouri, and am over seventy years of age.

Of course any statements are traditionary, having received them from my father and my Uncle Daniel Miller, who know the facts better than my father, for he had associated with the Rev. Thomas E. Birch, from the time he married his sister, my grandmother, in 1803, until he died in 1821, and he heard him detail his experiences while in the Navy, some of them of such a character as to impress them very vividly on my mind to-wit:

A Lieutenant on duty came on deck and calling to a sailor said: 'Extinguish that nocturnal luminary.' The sailor did not understand such language and did not move to obey, which greatly enraged the Lieutenant, when Ensign Birch, who crossed the ocean twice, over from St. Christopher Island to England, where he was educated and thence across to the Colonies, spoke up and said: 'Let me have it done' and followed up by saying, 'Jack, douse the glim." Many other facts I gathered from him about his wounds, etc., from which he died, cancer finally setting in.

It was a matter of family pride that our ancestor had helped to establish the government of the United States and my father impressed the fact on me, as a family matter, more particularly in the following interview.

During the winter of 1861 when the Southern States were passing ordinances of succession, my father came into the library and said: 'My son, I have a statement to make to you and get a pledge from you. In 1821 your grandfather, Thomas Erskine Birch, when Iying on his death bed, sent for me. I was then entering my nineteenth year. After requesting me to take a seat close to him, he said: 'My son, I am near my death and before I died I want to tell you something and then get your promise to do as I tell you, then I will give you my blessing and die contented.'

My son, I was educated in England and took my orders afterward in the old English Church, but instead of going back to my home, I came to the United States at the commencement of the war of the Revolution. Reaching Virginia, I pulled off my gown and put on the uniform of an Ensign and entered the Virginia Navy. While in the Service I was wounded in the groin. From that wound I am now dying, and my days or even hours, are short.

I desire to call your attention to the great cloud of discussion that is now spreading over the country. Raising himself as it were for a last great effort, with his eyes burning with excitement, he placed his hand on my head and said, 'I helped to establish this government and have christened it with my blood. I see in this movement the hand of Great Britain. I know the English people well for I spent six years there in school and I know the selfishness of the English politics and English statesmen. They have long since seen that on this continent is to grow the only nation that can ever rival Great Britain and they are ready to do anything necessary to destroy this Government and the best way is to divide it, and the Slavery question will be the great weapon in her hands, fermenting antipathy to it in the North and resistance in the South. This cloud will blow over, but it will return and continue to return until war will be the result and with war the result and England's help cannot be foreseen. Here is to be the final climax of political existence among men, but this danger must be avoided, if not avoided, must be met.

And now I want you to pledge me, for yourself and for your children, that you will never under any circumstances nor for any reason, consent to the dissolution of the Union.

I gave your grandfather my promise and received his blessing. The task was too great for him and he fell back, calling for his wife, expired in her arms. Now my son, war is to be the inequitable result of the prevalent political excitement. I have come to you to tell you of the pledge I made to your grandfather for myself and my children and ask you to join me in carrying out that pledge. I gave him the promise and with my only brother, went into the Army. The brother and father lie side by side in the cemetery, and I am left to tell this short story, to aid an Aunt to be enrolled among the few daughters left on earth.

Judge Birch was a strong Southern man and his children had been so educated. They were among the largest slave holding families in Northwest Missouri but obedience to our own consciences as well as the pledge made in our names, we faithfully assisted Judge Birch in his efforts in the Gamble Convention & in the (?) field to carry out the wishes of our Revolutionary ancestor.

Many men were astonished that Judge Birch and his sons were union men, not knowing that it was the result of the blood of an Ancestor shed during the Revolutionary war in upholding the flag of Washington.

James H. Birch

I went to Richmond to get Ensign Birch's record but found that the records had been burned in the great fire of 1811 and consequently I have never applied for admission to the Sons of the Revolution.

Mary Magdalene BIRCH. Born February 14, 1818 in Cynthiana, Kentucky and died May 21, 1909, in Plattsburg, Clinton County, Missouri. She married (1) Joseph Shawhan September 29, 1835 in Cynthiana, Kentucky. He was born in September 1802 in Bourbon County, Kentucky and died during the gold rush mining along the American River in E1 Dorado County, California in 1850. He was the son of John Shawhan, who was born October 23, 1771, in Hampshire County, Virginia and died in 1845 in Bourbon County, Kentucky and Margaret "Peggy" McCune, who was born October 24, 1793. She married (2) in 187O, Abraham Ferguson Dudley, who was born in 1808 in Kentucky and died inl875 in Missouri. She had issue with her first husband. She was the first family member of the Birch family to join the DAR. # 40455, Plattsburg. Missouri. 1902. [1]

A Daughter of the Revolution
Mrs. Mary Birch Shawhan Dudley, one of the three daughters of a Revolutionary soldier, died on last Friday, at the home of her niece, Mrs. Turney, in Kansas City, in tho 90th year of her earthly life.

Mrs. Dudley was the daughter of Thomas Erskine Birch, who was an Episcopal minister, located in Richmond, Virginia. When the Revolutionary War began, he laid aside his gown and put on the uniform of an Ensign and entered the Virginia navy under John Paul Jones.

During one of the fiercest engagements he was wounded in the groin and thus disabled from further service. After the war he moved to Kentucky and established Washington College in Mason County, where among other distinguished men he educated Col. Alexender W. Doniphan.

Mrs. Dudley was a most remarkable woman, both physically and mentally. Her mother being a member of the Regular Baptist church, she accepted her religion, and was baptized by Kentucky's most celebrated divine, Thomas Dudley, whose nephew she afterwards married.

She exemplified her faith in the grace of God as taught by her church during her whole life, and died with the conscious belief that she was one of the chosen children of his Mercy.

Mrs. Dudley was well known to all the older citizens of our county having passed many years in Plattsburg with her son, John E. Shawhan, who, before and after the war was a leading merchant in Plattsburg.

She was the 1st of her father's family. Her sisters, Mrs. Turney, Basset, McClintock and Dunham and her Brothers, James H., Weston F. and Thomas E. Birch had all preceded her.

For many years she was a cripple, and could only walk on crutches, but she bore her misfortune and suffering with a resignation which drew its strength from her faith in the mercy of her Creator, and with His name on her lips she passed from earth into his presence, where, her friends firmly believe, she was received and crowned as a reward for her Christian character and irreproachable life.

Her remains were brought here Sunday morning and ruing a short rest at the home of her nephew, Robert Frost, the Rev. Standiford delivered a short, but impressive address from the text, "If a man die shall he live again?". From thence she was taken to the old cemetery and buried beside her husband and only son, amid the presence of many loving friends who had bid her a last adieu. [Copied by Dr. Bernerd O’Neil from the Plattsburg Missouri Newspaper, dated May, 1909.]


Spouses
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1: Joseph SHAWHAN
Birth: September 1802 Bourbon County, Kentucky
Death: 1855 Died during California goldrush, El Dorado County, California Age: 52
Father: John SHAWHAN (1771-1845)
Mother: Margaret "Peggy" McCUNE (1775-1857)

Misc. Notes
Marriage Bond (original located in the Harrison County Vault, Cynthiana, Kentucky):
Know all men by these present that one Joseph Shawhan & J. V. Bassett are held & firmly bound unto the Commonwealth of Ky. in the sum of £50 current money and for payment, well and truly to be made and done, we bind ourselves our heirs, executors and administrators, jointly, severally & firmly by these presents sealed and dated this 26th day of Sept 1835. The Condition of the above obligation is such that whereas a marriage is shortly intended to be solemnized between the above bound Joseph Shawhan and Mary M. Birch.
Now should there be no lawful cause to obstruct said marriage then the above obligation to be void. Otherwise to remain in full force and virtue.
Attest
S. Endecott, Clk
Joseph Shawhan (seal)
J. V. Bassett (seal)

Marriage: September 29, 1835 Cynthiana, Kentucky
Divorce: March 2, 1843
Children: Ana Birch (~1836-)
John Erskine (1838-1905)

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2: Abraham Ferguson DUDLEY
Birth: November 9, 1805
Death: 1875 Missouri Age: 69
Father: Gen. James DUDLEY (1777-1870)
Mother: Polly FERGUSON (1782-1823)
Marriage: September 8, 1870


Sources
1. “The Birch Family History: Part 4, Descendants of Dr. Charles Birch of St. Kitts 1729-1768” by Dr. Bernherd O’Neil, pp. 250-252.

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Last Modified: February 28, 2003
Created: February 28, 2003