William Steen : Short Biography

William Steen was born in Ireland about 1738, came to the British Colonies in America, and after a time located in Union District, South Carolina. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and was wounded in the battle of King's Mountain. October 7, 1780. He was married about 1772 to Nancy Lusk and brought up a family of eleven children in Union District, South Carolina.

William Steen was born in Ireland and came to the British Colonies in America near the middle of the eighteenth century, and eventually located in South Carolina, near the Great Broad River. He was a farmer by occupation, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and was wounded and taken prisoner in the battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780. He was soon afterwards rescued from the British by a band of American soldiers, among whom was Jacob Neely, whose granddaughter, Margaret Ann Neely, afterwards married his grandson, Carroll Jeffries Steen, in Rankin County, Mississippi.

The following report was sent to the writer by one of his descendants. When William Steen was wounded, his wife and three children were in a fort for safety, sixty miles away. One of the children had just died, and at that time lay a corpse. As soon as Mrs. Steen heard of the calamity, she procured a horse, and leaving her dead child with her friends, proceeded at once in great haste to her husband. It was late in the afternoon, and she had to travel all alone along the dreary road that sad and gloomy night and did not reach his side till after daylight the next morning. This brave and heroic act shines in the family until this day as characteristic of them.

They are not only politically but religiously enthusiastic and patriotic. Mrs. Steen was a very energetic and intelligent woman, and lived to be eighty-eight years of age. She used to relate to her grandchildren many interesting accounts of the trials and hardships of those early struggles and conflicts during the Revolutionary War. One of her grandchildren writes: "She was as true a Christian as the world affords.”

Several years after the close of the Revolutionary War William Steen started to remove with his family from South Carolina to Mississippi, stopping for a time in Carroll County, Tennessee, where he was taken sick and died. Not long after his death his wife and all her children, except three, resumed their journey and went on to Lawrence County, Mississippi, where they af1erwards resided. After their father's death John Steen returned to South Carolina, Sarah Steen married Thompson Enochs and remained in Tennessee, and Jane Steen married Levi Noble and removed to Texas. Five of the children of William Steen were among the early settlers and influential citizens of Rankin County, Mississippi. All were farmers and brought up large families. One son located in Holmes County, Mississippi, and another near Hazlehurst, Copiah County, Mississippi.

This large family of William Steen has left a numerous posterity. One of the grandsons writes concerning his own family as follows: "We have ten children, and thirty-seven grandchildren. My father had cousins in Alabama. There is a large number of Steens in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, and a number of Steens were in Knox County, Indiana, fifty years ago, cousins to my father. I think it would be a difficult task to count the descendants of the original Steens who came into this country from Ireland. l am almost inclined to think that they are like the descendants of Abraham for multitude. They are also remarkable for strong constitutions. I have never heard of a consumptive er dyspeptic one. I think we should justly be proud of the name of Steen. I have never known one who failed to pay his honest debts. They are remarkable for reverence. hospitality, charity, and industry; and among this large number I have never known or heard a breath of suspicion in regard to their moral character.”

Captain Isaac V. Enochs, of Terry, Mississippi, another grandson of William Steen, in 1893, wrote as follows: "I have some reputation for an extraordinary memory. I certainly feel surprised at the distinctness with which memory photographs my old grandmother, as she and my mother coddled together over their domestic work, and grandmother, with her quaint Gaelic expressions and brogue, recounted to my mother the history that I now see reached back into the centuries. I can even see myself as I lay around with my heels up and drank down the curiosity - feeling such stimulating draughts - as she told of the Trans-Atlantic history of her old uncles, and great-uncles and aunts. As I remember, the Steens and Lusks were pure Orange Irish and Presbyterians, while their English cousins, the Hayes, were Welsh.

My Grandfather Steen was wealthy when he was married. I have often seen a little unique trunk, or strong box, covered with ox hide holding something over a gallon, which he placed in his wife's keeping, filled with English guineas, but the old stronghold impressed my young imagination with the 'what might have been.

When tbc Revolutionary War had closed, and grandpa was dead, his property was reduced to the ownership of one negro woman 'Milly,' which grandfather had purchased in my mother's name, the evening after he bad accidentally clipped off the fingers of her right hand with a broad-axe. And just here hangs an example of Irish generosity, in this, that this woman and her progeny were passed back into the estate. Thus, it happened that the number of her children corresponded with the number of grandma's children, so that each had a negro to begin life with, and they all, except Uncle Thompson and Aunt Sallie Enochs, afterwards became thrifty slave-owners.

A history of the Steens without their connection with the Enochs would be like a three-wheeled wagon. The old families were related through the Hays, or Hayes. I am not sure about the orthography. My Grandmother Steen's mother was a Hays. My Grandmother Enochs' mother was a Hays, she and grandfather being related, I don't know how, through the Hays. It is the General Jackson Hays. Gen. Harry Hays, of New Orleans. and his still more celebrated brother, Jack Hays, who killed on the streets of San Francisco its then marshal, were grandsons of my grandmother’s brother. This was the connecting link between the old Steens and Enochs, or Enos, as it was in old German, or more recent English history. My great-grandfather, Enoch Gabriel Enos, was a round-headed Welshman, and a follower of Cromwell. He made himself too conspicuous - a well-known family trait.

And right here let me compare the distinguishing characteristics of the connecting families. The Enochs are willful, aggressive, while the Steens are won'tful, cautiously stubborn. It has been said of your correspondent that he has all the aggressiveness of the Enochs and the stubbornness of the Steens, minus their caution.

In the decapitation of Charles II, and after the fall of this great leader, my grandfather, Gabriel Enochs, smuggled his way with the Hays (who were British sailors) across the Atlantic and hid himself away in the mountains of Southwest Virginia and North Carolina till the Revolutionary War was well underway.

My grandfather and grandmother Steen came from Ireland and lived near the line of North and South Carolina. Thither my great-grandfather went when he dared, and the two related families were raised up together. And when the young State of Tennessee began to come into notice, both families migrated thither, except the eldest son of each, and were raised up in the shadow of the Hermitage, each feeling proud of the blood of its hero and central figure.

I remember with zest the accounts my father and uncles used to give of their fun with the Crocketts, and the pride they had in the denouement of the only break that ever existed in the lifelong relation between the Crocketts and our family There were so many more of our folks than of the Crocketts, the whole trouble was to be settled by Uncle Thompson Enochs and David Crockett knocking it out in a single fight: but when “Bill” Crockett saw that Uncle Thompson was getting the best of it, he brought on an additional scrimmage with my father. Of course, they used to tell us the Crocketts got the worst of it. I have never heard the Crockett version of the affair. This I know, however, that the old men shed sincere tears when David Crockett fell at the Alamo.

When grandpa had been gone to the war nearly two years, getting a furlough to return, he was shot through the body when within two miles of home. The Tory neighbors. knowing the sorrow that was already in that home, placed him upon a litter and took him to his already distressed family. 'Polly' was dead and laid upon the cooling board. 'Can a mother forget her offspring?' I have heard grandmother say: “Yes, when l saw the greater sorrow, it was now 4 P.M. - I caught up Polly's body and laid it upon a clothes shelf in the back room. The next morning, at 9 o'clock, I wanted clothes that were upon that shelf. and found my dead child that I had forgotten till then.”

Grandpa survived the wounds. but was never well. Grandma kept as a memento - and I have seen the red bandanna kerchief that she and her Tory neighbors, without a doctor drew through his body, in accordance with the vulgar idea of the surgery of that period.

Silas Steen. the youngest son, died in 1857, aged about 56 years, which would indicate that grandpa lived into the present century." Captain Enochs concludes a communication of many pages as follows: "One more morsel I will give you in pride, and I can say just pride. Five weeks ago, I spent a Sunday and night with my afflicted double cousin, Carroll J. Steen, who has recently lost the wife of his youth. “Cousin Isaac.” said he, “I regard our family, taken as a whole, as a wonder. You and I can trace them over a century, count them by name: by the hundreds, and yet not one of them ever came in contact with the laws of his country for a mean thing. No woman ever failed to make a good wife, and not a breath of suspicion ever marred her good name; and while none have reached extraordinary wealth, all have been good livers.” But you are tired; so is my hand.
"Terry, Mississippi.

William Steen was married in South Carolina, near the Great Broad River, about 1772, to Nancy Lusk, she, having been born in Ireland and died in Mississippi. To them were born eleven children, all born and brought up in South Carolina. Their names were: John, Mary, called "Polly": James, Sarah, called "Sally'': Nathaniel, Elias, Robert, William, Mary (2d), called "Polly''; Jane, and Silas.