From Proud Heritage, Vol. 1 by DCPA, not currently in print.
The pattern of movements of Elisha Fike/ Fyke followed a typical migration trail from South Carolina to Kentucky to Tennessee to Texas. Information about his early life is scanty. According to the will of his father, Mallichi Fike, and the 1850 and 1860 censuses, Dallas County, he was born circa 1792 in South Carolina. He is accounted for on the 1810 census in Logan County, Kentucky, and on the 1820, 1830, and 1840 censuses in Robertson County, Tennessee. His father had received land in Kentucky and Tennessee in consideration of military service performed by his brother, James Fike, to the State of North Carolina in the Revolutionary War. It was a part of this inheritance that he and his wife, Ann, shared with their three sons – Elisha, James and John – and their three daughters -Ann Fike Phillips, Rachel Fike Ward and Elizabeth Fike Glisen – as well as a nephew, Josiah Fike.
Elisha Fyke (the spelling finally accepted by the family) was in Robertson County when he entered the War of 1812 on December 13, When he married Sarah is not known, but their daughter, Rutha, was born in December of 1816.
Within six weeks of his entering the afore said war, he was seriously injured in the Battle of Emuckfaw (Alabama) when two musket balls hit him in the left arm just below the elbow and one entered his left side. Thought he was forced to return home after this injury, he volunteered again as a substitute to relieve Simon Fike on September 20, 1814. Because the old wound continued to plague him, he applied for compensation and on January 26, 1824, was granted a monthly pension of two dollars. As he became further incapacitated, his pension was doubled in 1838.
The Elisha Fyke family came from Robertson County, Tennessee, to Texas in 1846, travel ing by water from Memphis to New Orleans and then to Shreveport. There they bought wagons and teams to reach their destination in Peters Colony. Those accounted for in the family group were the parents, two sons John and Archer-three single daughters Mary, Penninah and Nancy – and one married daughter, Sintha Mai, with her husband Noah Good and three children. It is not certain when another daughter, Rutha, came to this area. Evidently she had been married twice first to a Mr. Preston and second to a Mr. Forester. Seymour Conner says she came to the colony as a widow before July 1, 1848. She had married James Madison Baker in Dallas County on February 17, 1848; they are listed on the 1850 census in Tarrant County.
Elisha Fyke and Noah Good each received a certificate for 640 acres and each patented his claim in Dallas County. Archer Fyke like wise patented his certificate for 320 acres as a single man in Dallas County, but the older son, John, settled his in Collin County. Rutha sold her certificate unlocated.
Sarah Fyke died the first year the family was in Texas.
Family conjecture indicates that Elisha died in 1860.
John Fyke, the oldest son, was born April 16, 1819 in Tennessee. On April 21, 1851 in Collin County, he married Milly Philips, believed to be the daughter of the Baptist preacher, Jonathan Philips, with whom John Fyke is known to have worked. She is probably accounted for in the Reverend Philips’ household on the 1850 Collin County Census as “M f 22 yrs.” Nothing more is known about her or their life together. John was active in the Baptist church work in Dallas and Tarrant Counties and in the Elm Fork Association of Baptist Churches. He was ordained as a minister of the gospel by the Union Baptist Church (Farmers Branch and Carrollton) in 1850 and represented that church several times in the previously mentioned association. He is recognized as one of the founders of the Mt. Gilead and Bear Creek churches in Tarrant County. He died December 30, 1861 and is buried at Keenan Cemetery, Farmers Branch.
Sintha Mai Fyke (January 8, 1821 – May, 1897) and her husband, Noah Good (Septem ber 20, 1814-April 14, 1894) reared a large family and participated actively in school, church and civic affairs. Having been faithful worshipers at the Union Baptist Church, which was finally located in Carrollton, they, along with two of their children, became charter members of the First Baptist Church of Farmers Branch when it was organized on February 17, 1870. Many of their descendants still live in the area. Their children are as follows: George Washington, Sarah A.M., Mary E., Martha Ann, William Lafayette, Penninah Virginia, Nancy Helena, Francis Marion, Rutha Ellen, and twins James Archer and John Allen.
The Fyke name has been carried on in Dallas County through the descendants of Archer, the second son of Sarah and Elisha (April 26, 1823 – July 14, 1865). He married Jemima Myers, daughter of the Reverend and Mrs. David Myers, in Dallas County on May 22, 1853 in a ceremony performed by the bride’s brother, The Reverend John Miller Myers. Like his older brother, John, Archer was active in the Union Baptist Church and the Elm Fork Association. He served briefly in the Confederate cavalry in 1863. His wife survived him by 16 years and reared five of their children. She died March 13, 1881 and was buried by her husband’s side at Keenan Cemetery, Farmers Branch. Their children are as follows:
Elisha Wilkinson Fyke: born March 26, 1854, died August 3, 1896; married Lillie Nix. They had seven children: Mary B. (called May), Lottie, Oscar W., Ray Elisha, Lillie Irene, Elisha Earl, Edwin Durr.
Mary Ann (Molly) Fyke: born March 28, 1856, died January 19, 1896; married (1) Daniel Nix and had four children: Ada, Ross, William Daniel and Lula Nix. Married (2) Worth Hoffman (Huffman) and had four more children: Andrew Lynn, Harriett Eugenia, Leona and John Clinton (Doodles) Hoffman.
William Daniel Fyke: born January 16, 1858, died October 21, 1935; married Lura Dale Perry on November 25, 1880. They had four children: Eva Roxanna, twins Wade Hampton and Willie Dale and Sarah Shelton (Sallie).
A.J. Fyke: born September 26, 1860, died September 15, 1861.
George Washington Fyke: born October 10, 1862, death date unknown; married Laura Brake. They had four children: Jemima Pearl, Georgia Bell, Elva and Dale.
Archer Cleaver Fyke: born December 16, 1865, died October 6, 1934; married (1) Sarah Brake and had two children, Claude E. and Rue Wilkinson; married (2) Ollie Maxey and had one son, A.C., and a daughter who died shortly after birth.
Mary Fyke was born October 29, 1825 in Tennessee. After the death of her mother, she kept house for her father until he died; then she lived with her brothers and sisters. She died March 3, 1914.
Another daughter who came to Texas with her parents, Nancy, whose last name is printed as Fikes in most of the records, was born circa 1829 in Tennessee. Soon after her marriage to William D. Conner on March 18, 1849 they moved to Tarrant County and settled on a farm adjoining that of his father. Her husband was injured in the battle at Chickamauga during the Civil War and was sent horne to recuperate just as the war was ending. The Conners sold their Tarrant County farm in 1875 and moved to the San Saba Area. Presumably, Nancy is buried at Live Oak Cemetery in Brady, Texas, where the writer found the graves of her husband and several family members but did not locate hers. Their children were Alexander Hamilton, Christian, Frank and Josephine.
Born in 1831, Penninah was about 14 years old when the Fykes came to Texas. She was the second member of the Fyke family to marry a Myers. On July 6, 1856 she married Benjamin Cleaver Myers, son of David and Letitia Myers. Just as her brother Archer and Jemima Myers had been married in a ceremony performed by a Myers brother, John Miller, so were this younger couple. Penninah died in September 1888. Though some of their eight children stayed in Dallas County, most of them moved to Jacksboro and towns farther west. The children were David E., Sarah A., Andrew J., Mary W., Benjamin F., Lucy J., Fannie L., and Thomas M. Besides Rutha, the oldest daughter mentioned earlier, there may have been other children in the family according to the census records in Tennessee.
For 140 years seven generations of the Elisha Fyke family have been leaders in various phases of community life in Carrollton and Farmers Branch. Memory of the pioneer family is perpetuated in a street name, a thoroughfare that separates the two cities.
By Georgia Myers Ogle, Carrollton
