At present this site is focused primarily on the descendents of Revolutionary War soldier Thomas Atchley and the cluster of families closely associated with him.  This includes the Atchley, Maples, Lindsey, and Long families of eastern Tennessee and those that moved on to southwestern Missouri after the Civil War.  These families remained closely associated, with many intermarriages, until at least the early twentieth century.

What is research?  Before going much further please read this note regarding how I approach genealogical and historical research.

Revolutionary War Pension File of Thomas Atchley  This site includes high resolution scans of the Revolutionary War pension file of Thomas Atchley and his Widow Lydia (Richards) Atchley.  I have also included my own abstracts and transcriptions of several of these documents along with a few maps.  Thomas Atchley enlisted three separate times during the War of Independence, first in New Jersey and later in Virginia.  The pension file contains strong secondary evidence of Thomas' birth place and date, his wife Lydia's maiden name (Richards), the names and birth dates of all of his children, and the place and dates when he and Lydia died. 

Sevier County, Eastern Tennessee.  Some time after the Revolutionary War Thomas moved through the Cumberland Gap into the area now known as Sevierville, Tennessee.  He established a large farm at Alder Branch and founded Alder Branch Baptist Church in his home, purportedly serving as it's first lay pastor.  Later, he donated land for the permanent church and cemetery that still stand.  Thomas and Lydia are buried in this cemetery.  Thomas had many children, as was common at this time, and it appears from census data that each time one of his children married he carved off a small piece of the family farm for them.  Several of those descendents later further divided the land for their children and by the time of the Civil War it appears that the family was very numerous but not particularly wealthy.  As I get a chance I'll be adding information about the families in this region.

The Civil War.  Almost all of Thomas' descendents, at least those who remained in eastern Tennessee, were staunch Union supporters, as were most folks in eastern Tennessee (there was serious talk of the eastern counties seceding from Tennessee after delegations from these counties were forcibly barred from the Tennessee secession vote).  Dozens of Thomas' descendents mustered into the Tennessee volunteer forces, many of them into the 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry (Union).  As time permits, I'll be posting more information on these men and their families.

Migration to Missouri  Shortly after the Civil War some of Thomas Atchley's grandsons and a cluster of other relations moved their families to Green County, Missouri.  My great grandfather, Isaac Anderson Atchley, a Civil War veteran, was one of these grandsons.  One of Isaac's sons was born in Green County, Tennessee, apparently during their move!  They settled near the communities of Willard, Walnut Grove and Cave Springs, Missouri; a few miles from Springfield, Missouri.  They were members of Rose Hill Baptist Church in Willard, and many of them are buried in the cemetery there.  My grandfather Isaac "Thomas" Atchley was head carpenter during the building of the first permanent building for Rose Hill Baptist Church.  The church was founded by George Long.

Rev. Long fled to Willard from Arkansas during the Civil War - purportedly fleeing persecution for his pro-Union stance.  It seems likely that Rev. Long was of the cluster of families in eastern Tennessee and that he had moved to Arkansas a few years prior to the Civil War.  It also seems likely that it was he who encouraged the cluster of Atchleys, Longs, Lindseys, and Maples to move to Missouri after the Civil War. I visited the church and cemetery in 2001 and I will eventually be placing several pictures from that trip on this site.  Rose Hill Baptist Church is still a very small country church on the same ground where it was originally founded although they are now in their third building - the original was sold and moved long ago.  I had hoped to see the pulpit my grandfather hand carved (a local historical book published during the US bicentennial mentioned it as still being in use in 1976) but was told that the pulpit had been stolen some years before.