HENDRIX

The first known ancestor in the Hendrix line is Alexander Hendrix, born about 1675 in Rowan, North Carolina, who married Mary Elliott 29 Dec 1697. They had the following children:

  1. Garrett Hendrix, born about 1715 in Rowan, North Carolina and died 25 May 1823 in Union, South Carolina.
  2. John Hendrix, born about 1715 in Rowan, North Carolina.
He had the following children:
  1. Garrett Hendrix, born about 1735/1743 in Rowan, North Carolina and died about 1806/1808 in Knosville, Knox, TN
  2. Benjamin Hendrix, born in North Carolina
  3. Tobias Hendrix born in North Carolina Andrew Hendrix born in North Carolina
  4. Isaic Hendrix born in North Carolina
  5. John Hendrix born about 1740 in North Carolina
Benjamin Hendrix's wife is unknown. They had the following children:

  1. Elijah Hendrix b 1792 place Wilkes Co., NC married Drucilla/Estella Day, Daughter of Thomas Day

They had the following children:

  1. William born Wilkkes Co. NC died in Civil War
  2. Nancy
  3. George Bradley
  4. Wilson
  5. Vincent H. born June 8, 1837 Wilkes Co., NC Married 1st Martha Mary Walsh and the second wife was Sarah Marley

Vincent H. Hendrix born 6-9-1837 Wilkes Co., NC died 6-27-1915 Caldwell Co., NC married Mary Martha Walsh, born April 19, 1843 Wilkes Co., NC died June 29, 1880, she was daughter of Elbert K. Walsh and Elmira Cox Walsh children:

  1. Lenzy F Hendrix born 29 Oct 1862 Wilkes Co., NC Died Dec 1, 1946 Married Julia Ann West
  2. John Wilson
  3. Juliet E.
  4. Nancy L.
  5. Sallie L.

Lenzy Franklin Hendrix b. Oct. 29, 1862 Wilkes, Co., NC d. Dec 1, 1946 Place Clay Co. NC mar. Julia Ann West Jan 3, 1883 in Wilkes Co., NC at the home of her parents. Julia Ann West was born 14 Aug 1859 in Wilkes, NC and died 7 Jun 1937 in Clay Co., NC. She was buried at the Baptist Cemetery in Hayesville, NC. They moved from Wilkes Co., NC to Clay Co., NC about 1905. Lenzy is listed as Lindsey in a census record showing him at age 8 living with his parents and siblings on the 1870 census. In 1910 census his name was spelled Lindsey F. age 47, married 27 years, b. NC, living with Julia A. age 51, b. NC, daughter Martha age 23, son Omar, age 21, son John F. age 18, son Leonard age 16, daughter Mamie age 9 and a possible granddaughter Jessie M. age 1 Juliea Ann West was the daughter of Franklin West and Chntha Holder. They had the following children: Lenzy and Julie migrrated to Clay County North Carolina. The rode in a wagon to Morgantown and then boarded a train to Murphy, North Carolina. A wagon then took them to Clay County where Lenzy had purchased land in the Downings Creek area from J. H. and Minnie Cassada. Their home was a modest one, with a large kitchen, living room with a large fireplace, and a bedroom large enough to accommodate the number of beds needed for their five children.

Grandpa had owned a store and a mill in Wilkes County. At this new residence, a mill stood a short distance from the house. The general store was built on the curve of the road on a steep embankment. Under the store "coops" were built for chickens and pens for the variouis animals that he took in trade for items the store contained.

Across the road from their house was the garden where many varieties of vegetables and fruits were grown. A white picket fence enclosed the garden. It was necessary to keep out stray animals and sometimes a grandhild who might wander into this area. The temptation to sample the red raspbettires as they began to ripen was often beyond the control of small fingers. Grandma seemed to know our desires and would give a stern warning not to pick the berries which were needed to make jam and jellie.

Grandpa's mill was a source of wonder to the eys of a child. As he started the motor, a terrible noice came forth as the corn traveled along the various stages of the grinding process. My brother and I would stand at the bin to watch the meal spill into it. Sometimes reaching out our hands to let the meal spill into it.

Meal times were special at Grandpa's house. Not only was there a bountiful supply of delicious food, but the table on which it was placed was a masterpiece of workmanship. It was admired by all who had the opportunity to bow their heads in prayer of thanksgiving for the food on this table.

  1. Roxie Alice, born Dec 17, 1883 died Jan 29, 1889
  2. Martha Ann Hendrix born June 12, 1886 Wilkes Co.NC died Jan 16, 1947 Clay Co., NC
  3. Omar Franklin born June 12, 1889 d Mar 13, 1983 Clay Co., NC
  4. John Philo born
  5. Leonard Arvil born Jan 22 1894 Wilkes Co., NC died April 21, 1949
  6. Mamie Elmira born July 16, 1900 Wilkes Co., NC died April 12, 1917 Clay County, NC

John Philo married Carrie Carter and they had the following children:

  1. James Hendrix
  2. Martha Inez Hendrix (10 Apr-)
  3. Jarvis Ray Hendrix (11 May 1919-2 Mar 1987) m. Martha Jeanette Ware (8 Sep 1920-30 Jun 1990) and then Ruth Naomi Schossler (7 Apr 1918-)
  4. Thomas Willis Hendrix
  5. Irene Hendrix
  6. George Lenzy Hendrix (1 Jun 1927 -) m. Bonnie Ann Kroeckel (7 Aug 1927-)

Note from Irene Hendrix Basey:

Philo Hendrix m. Carrie Lee Carter January 16, 1915 in the home of R. J. Coffey, a Baptist minister. They made their home in the Downings Creek area of Clay County. Dad built their home at the foothills of the mountains. The Double Knobbs were in view from their farm lands. Dad was a carpenter as well as a farmer, and the buildings were added for their various needs. Dad and mother were members of the Downings Creek Baptist Church.

In the year of 1933, Dad had the opportunity to come to Indiana. He was ambitious and having heard of the wonderful soil and opportunities that existed, he came to see. Later, in the fall of the same yar, he sent for his wife and children to join him. The family belongings were packed in the truck that was to take us to Indiana. We waved goodbye to our Aunt and Uncle as they watched us leave for the long journey to Indiana.

Dad enjoyed farming and worked deligently to produce abundant crops in the "flatlands" of Indiana. A family member describewd dad as a hard working honest Christian man with high integrity. He died five years after moving to Indiana, and is interrred in the Oak Forest Cemetery, locaed in Clay County, North Carolina.

 

Irene Hendrix married Carl Wilbur Basey. Their descendants are listed here.

 

According to the book, Pinhook to Brazil by Nelle Decker Hubbard, published by Wm. Mitchell Printing Company in Greenfield, Indiana, 1936, the following is known about the Hendrix family:
Brothers journeyed to America from Holland or (a traditional oral history) that Adam and Frederick Hendrix, two brothers, and Hendrik Hudson, their cousin, journeyed to America in the year 1609, landing on Manhattan Isalnd, and were two of the original settlers of New Amsterdam, now known as the City of New York.
Adam and Frederick were owners of real estate in New Amsterdam and Frederick died in 1686.
It is unknown how long the brothers remained in New Amsterdam, but they were owners of hmes and raised families. Sometime later, descendants emigrated to the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, where they kept a prominent tavers, known as the Blue Ball. They were holders of real estate, married, raised families, and are believed to have lived to a ripe old age, leaving their children comfortably situated. Their descendants kept the tavern, which became a hotel.
One of Adam's sons moved to Pennsylvania and died there some years later. One of his sons, Joseph, was the father of Adam, whoemigrated to Fayette, HOward County, Missouri in 1839 and died there in 1876.
Frederick's sons are said to have emigrated to Maryland and then into New Jersey with the immediate descendants of Henry and Peter going as far south as North Carolina.
In Chapter VII, the book notes:
The Hendrix family tree, since the first transplanting at New Amsterdam fro the parent country, nearly three hundred years ago, has put forth numerous branches and brnadhlets, casting its line out into many of the Middle, Southern and Western States of the Union. But it is universally accepted and agreed that all have sprung from the same parent family, immigrants from Holland in the early part of the seventeenth century. From this unanmity of belief as to the singleness of the parent stock it is easily deductible that there was but one way of spelling the name, and equally reasonable to assume that the changes which have come about, whether in the country of ancestral nativity or in the country of their adoption, are to be attributed to circumstantial and local causes. The name was originally spelled Hendrick, subsequentially Hendricks, and at a still later date, Hendrix, and in some instances Hendryx and Hendrik.

The following is from the Journal of Surry County Genealogical Association, Volume V, Book II, April 1985: Abstracts of Wills

4:61a. 11 August 1833. Will of FREDERICK HENDRICK (HENDRECHAN). Wife Catherine all estate life or widowhood, then to children. Son Joshua $1.00. Susannah FRAZIER bed and furniture, son BENJAMIN HENDRICK $1.00, Ruth HENDRICK home tract of land, Joseph HENDRICK tract of land whereon PETTIJOHN now lives adj. Joes SPARKS, dau. Sarah PETTIJOHN 50 a. where she now lives. Rest divided between dau. Ruth and son John and dau. Sarah PETTIJOHN. Wm. HENDRICKS, exr. Wit: James TULBERT, John CLARK. S/Frederick HENDRICK. Probate November Court 1833.

 

The following account is from Irene Hendrix Basey, daughter of John Philo Hendrix:

John Philo Hendrix was born in Wilkes County, NC July 13, 1891. His father moved the family to Clay County, North Carolina, about 1905 and John Philo married Carrie Lee Carter, Jan 15, 1915. The lived in the Downings Creek Settlement of Clay County and there home was at the foothills of the mountains. John Philo was a carpenter, farmer, furniture maker, and had a blacksmith shop located not far from the barn. he would often do work for his neighbors. [It was fun to watch him at work, and I would work the bellows that helped to control the red hot coals of the fire, which was used to heat the metal he would be working to create the shape he desired.] He was described to me by a cousin who had known him all her life as a hard-working Christian man with high integrity. He had all the equipment to be used as a cobbler to fix our shoes.

He could use his gift of making furniture and weaving hickory bottoms on the chairs he would make. He made a small wagon for his children to use to ride down the hills. He was a perfectionist as he worked the piece he had cut from the log tomake it perfectly round. He had piped water down from a spring in the mountain to a box close to where my mother did her washing in the summer months. His father had bought a music teacher to their home where the children were taught to play an instrument. Dad tried to play the banjo, but could never accomplish the necessary achievements of it. He was very strict in matters of his children about honor and Christian faith. He and his brothers helped to build the Baptist church where he was a deacon.

When we got a new pair of shoes, Dad would cut out a piece of an old tire and then cut it to fit the bottom of the shoe so it would last longer. He invented these shoes that you see the kids wearing now.

Dad had bought a Model T Ford, possibly from Sears, as that is where some of them were bought. He would get it out and drive down to the road below the house and we would get in the car. Dad had never learned that you couldn't say Gee or Haw like he did the horses, so he had some problems keeping it on the road. I remember the time we had come back from somewhere and he let us out at the road that led up to the house before he drove to the bar where the car would be housed. Well, he just couldn't keep it on the road and we laughed and laughed as he would go up to the side of the bank a little way and back down to the other side of the road and so it went all the way back to the barn. Then, after we moved to Indiana, this place where he worked would let him have a car to drive home so he wouldn't have to walk. Well, another problem. He couldn't seem to get the clutch and the gear shift to work together. he would start to get going and then try to shift gears and it would just chugh and jerk along, making everyone laugh. He was interested in all the new machines and the corn picker had just come into existence. Then, after moving to another far wher ehe could farm on shares, he began to plant tomatoes on contract and the owner of the farm would get half the crops., etc. That was a good money maker.

While Dad was working the farm land, he would be so sick that all he could eat was a poached egg. Mother would cook one for him during the time he was working, and George and I would take it to him and he would stop the plowing and eat the egg. And that is the way it went until he went to the hospital. He had cancer of the rectum.

Dad was just beginning to get ahead when the doctor thought he should have surgery at the hospital in Indianapolis. The surgery was a success, but the pain was too great and Dad could not take it. He died, and the man in the same room with Dad said that Dad just kept saying, "God, please someone take care of my family. He wanted to be buried back in NC in the cemetry by his two sons that had died and his father. I had a momument put on his grave many years ago. Mom had never done it; she didn't want to spend the money.

Turning back to the year of 1771, the Hendrix surname can be found on the list of "Polls" for Surry County, North Carolina, and for the subsequent years until 1778, when Wilkes County is formed from a part of Surry County. In the year of 1778, the Hendrix families are living on land in the Stony Fork and Elk Creek areas of Wilkes County.

My great-great-grandfather, Elijah Hendrix, was born in 1792, a few years following the settlement of the family in Wilkes County. In the year of 1815, he married Drucilla Day. Elijah later purchased land in the Stony Fork Creek area. The deed states "for the sum of five dollars for every hundred acres hereby granted and paid into our treasury by Elijah Hendrix, have granted a tract lying on the waters of Stony Fork."

His name appears as a voter in School District #51 in Elk and Stony Fork in the year of 1845. The children attending school were: Wilson, Lindsey, and Vincent. The following children were listed on the 1850 Census of Wilkes County: Nancy, Lindsey, Vincent, and Franklin. Wilson had married Margaret West in 1849.

On September 2, 1864, Elijah sold to his son, Wilson Hendrix, land on Stony Fork Creek. The Hendrix Cemetery is located on this land.