Nathan Clifton

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Nathaniel Clifton
by Teresa Stewart Sitz

My great-great-aunt Sarah Jane Stewart first married John S. Martin, who died during the Civil War. After the war the Stewart family, along with the widowed Sarah Stewart Martin and her two children, moved to Hopkins County, TX. There Sarah married the widower Nathaniel Clifton. She and her two children moved in with Nathaniel and five of his children from his previous marriage .

I have heard two differing paternities for Nathaniel Clifton and I am hoping that someone who knows more than I will set the record straight. I have heard that Nathaniel Clifton was the son of Ezekiel Clifton, but after researching the matter I am more inclined to believe that Nathaniel was the son of Thomas Nathan Clifton and Elizabeth Wilson of Missouri. If this is the case, the woman pictured, Miss Evaline Clifton, would be his half-sister. Her mother was Elizabeth Davis. The photo is from Daughters of the American Revolution magazine, Volumes 38-39, January, 1911, By Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Rachel Donelson Chapter of Springfield, Mo., is fortunate in having Real Daughter, Miss Evaline Clifton. She has been accepted as a member, and the gold spoon presented to her. She is the daughter of Nathan Clifton and Elizabeth Davis, and was born in what is now Raleigh, Wake County, N.C., March 22, 1816, being now ninety- five years of age.

When I went to visit Miss Clifton, I found her resting, although she had been up earlier in the day. She was bright and wide awake, with a clear mind and good memory. She remembered only a very little about her father's experience as a soldier in the Revolution, but that little was perfectly clear. He did not talk a great deal about the war, as he was more concerned in the later events when he moved first to Tennessee in 1820, and then to Missouri in 1840, when it was a wilderness. She remembered distinctly that her father died March 8, 1864, at the age of one hundred and four years. He begged to be allowed to enlist at the beggining of the Revolution, but his parents prevented his going until he was seventeen years of age. Miss Clifton described him as "just a slip of a boy" then.

Miss Clifton has a finely shaped head, showing much strength of character. She remained with her father until his death, and spoke most affectionately of him. She resides with a grand-nephew near Marshfield, Mo.

Nathan Clifton was buried with military honors, the old flint lock musket he carried in the Revolution being used in firing the salute.--Mrs. Eugene E. Adams, Historian.

Thomas Nathan Clifton, in a time before modern medicine, lived to be 105 years old. T.N. Clifton, fought in the American Revolutionary War, and lived to see the American Civil War Between the States. His sons fought and died in the Civil War. The Cliftons are noted for longevity of life and an old Missouri joke says that when a neighbor hears of the death of a Clifton, he exclaims, 'Why, how was he killed?' Thomas Nathan Clifton, wife, and children came to Missouri in 1840 and settled on the James River South of Marshfield, Missouri. Thomas Nathan's son, Madison Monroe Clifton, went to California and mined for gold until he had enough to purchase 300 acres of land - that being the Clifton family farm.

Sarah Stewart Martin and Nathaniel Clifton divorced in 1874. Sarah died in 1878 and Nathaniel died in 1882.