John was born in Rowan County, North Carolina in 1775. He married Catherine ("Caty") Henry in Wythe County, Virginia February 20, 1800.
John and Caty initially bought land in Wythe County, Virginia but sold it around 1810 and moved to Kentucky. John and Caty had six or seven children, most of whom were born in Virginia.
Caty died before 1816 assuming John's second marriage date to Elizabeth Gilmore is correct. According to Morgan County records, John married Elizabeth in 1816. John and Elizabeth had five or six more children.
There is a discrepancy between the reported age of John in the 1850 Federal Census for Morgan County which lists his age as 75 and the age reported in the 1852 death record which is given as 82.
The census reports prior to 1850 did not give specific ages, but instead listed the number of male and female residents in a particular age range. The 1840 census data lists him in the age range that would indicate he was born between 1770 and 1780. The 1850 census also substantiates that John was born in North Carolina.
The 1852 death record giving John's age as 82 would suggest a birth date of 1770. However, if the date documented for John's first marriage to Catherine (Caty) Henry is correct, he would have been 30 years old when first married if born in 1770. We tend to think an age of 25 is more reasonable for his first marriage to Caty and thus favor the 1775 birth date assuming the marriage date is correct.
Additionally, the reported age of John's second wife Elizabeth in the 1850 census indicates a birth date of 1795 for her and the 1840 census concurs that she was born between 1790 and 1800. Thus, if John were born in 1775 he would have been 41 when marrying Elizabeth in 1816. This is more reasonable than an age of 46 for John considering Elizabeth would have been 21 when marrying John in 1816.
Furthermore, the 1850 Morgan County census lists a 15 year old son named John living in Elizabeth and John, Sr.'s household. This John, Jr. appears to be the last born child of John and Elizabeth. The reported age of John, Jr. would indicate an age of 60 for John, Sr. and 40 for Elizabeth when son John, Jr. was born. This is a more reasonable scenario than that of John fathering a child at the age of 65 - which is how old he would have been at that time had he been born in 1770. For these reasons, we have chosen to go with the birthdate of 1775 for John, Sr. although we do concede that there appear to be no conflicts with the documented birth dates of any of John, Sr.'s siblings that would preclude the 1770 birth date.
More than one John "Goß"/"Gosse"/"Goss" appears in Rowan County, NC records for the years 1790-1810, but none of the ages indicated by the Rowan County, NC census information correlate with the that of our John Gose born around 1775.
There were a number of germanic "Goss" folk in the Rowan County, NC area, but most if not all of these are descendants of a Frederick Goss who was born in Switzerland in 1701. It appears almost certain that the surname of this Goss family was also originally spelled "Goß" in german letters and translating to the english equivalent "Gosse", since the earliest Rowan County census records show it hand-written that way. A book about this family is located in the Rowan County public library in Salisbury, NC and a family information article about them is posted in the Family History section of this website.
We drove the backroads of Rowan County in the Spring of 2000, visited with a few locals in the Abbott's Creek area, and searched the library in Salisbury, but could find no record of the Stephan Gose family. For more on why it may be difficult to find record of the Gose family in North Carolina, see the article on the Stephan Goß Family
The above referred to Morgan County, Kentucky death record lists
The age of Mason reported here appears to be correct as it agrees with census records.
Per Michael Jones' message on the Gose Family Forum http://genforum.genalogy.com/gose/messages/1.html he has found a marriage record which proves that Phillip, b. 1825, is the son of John Gose and Elizabeth Gilmore.
A family squabble surfaced at the time of John, Sr.’s death as a lawsuit was filed in Morgan County by one of his sons, James, in question of the assignment of his father’s property. From other Morgan County records describing land transactions, it appears that John's son Henry was particularly close to his father and may have been favored over his older brother James whom we speculate may not have been on such comparatively good terms with his father. As noted above, James and Henry's younger brother Mason also died of Flux about a month earlier than their father.
We are attempting to follow up on the record of that lawsuit in Morgan County, Kentucky since it may contain a great deal of information on family members including names and relationships. During his stopover there in the Fall of 2000, Michael Jones found that there is some additional old information archived in Morgan County that is apart from the main county records location. He has also copied some associated court record data from the Morman's huge library of genealogy microfilm records located in Salt Lake. Michael is sharing this with us and we will continue our investigation by studying the scanned microfilm images as well as another research trip to the area in the coming months.
The Kentucky descendants of John Gose, Sr. were caught up in the political division of the area residents during the Civil War. The fighting in those eastern Kentucky mountainous areas often took the form of a murderous feud between neighbors with opposing views. Many of the "Mountain Folk" sided with the Union but many others there sided with the Confederacy. The Goses in this area of Kentucky sided with the Union and several participated in the war as members of the "Home Guards".
My Great-Great Grandfather, John Milt Gose, (a grandson of John Gose, Sr.) was killed by ambush on his own land in the spring of 1865 as a consequence of those Civil War skirmishes. The children heard the gunfire that killed their father. More information about this may be found in the notes associated with the John Milt Gose family page in the posted GEDCOM file.
Barry Gose of the Philip line has generously contributed text of some personal family letters written during the Civil War that tell much about the personal war experiences in this area of Kentucky. The letters reference the participation of a John M. Gose, who appears to be Henry's second born son and thus a grandson of John Gose, Sr. The letters are very interesting to read and may be viewed by going to the Letters section in the "Archives" area of this website.
Since this is our own particular Gose family line, we do have additional information on the John Gose family and descendants that we will continue to add to this page and the associated GEDCOM file as time permits, so you may wish to check back periodically.