Stephen, "Jr." was born April 5, 1762 in Lynn Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. He married Maria Barbara Kettenring about 1784 in Montgomery County, Virginia.
After the death of Barbara in 1820, Stephen married Catherine Banner, the widow of John Banner. There were seven children by Stephen's first wife and none by his second wife. Because one of Stephen's sons was named Stephen, Stephen, Jr., son of the immigrant, came to be called Stephen, "Sr." - which may lead to some confusion when doing family research.
Stephen apparently died in 1847 and his will (which was written in 1842) was executed in February of 1848. The text of this will is posted in the Russell County pages on RootsWeb and may be viewed by clicking on this link. The will gives some good clues and confirmations of family relationships and dates but please note that Stephen is identified therein as Stephen Gose, "Sr".
Upon Stephen's death, his oldest (and, so far as we know, only surviving) son, George, inherited his father's land holdings with the stipulation that he pay the other family heirs a specified total sum of $2100 within three years of their father's death. The only other son of Stephen's that we have been able to document, Stephen, Jr., who had relocated his family to Indiana, died on or before 1842... an event which perhaps prompted Stephen, "Sr." to write his will.
. So far, we have been unable to locate their graves.
The center of the original town of Castlewood is now mostly abandoned. This includes two rather large and at one time quite elegant stone buildings that housed a bank and hotel. The narrow, two-lane road entering the old town of Castlewood drops down sharply in a curving switchback due to the fact that the old town area sits down in a hollow below a steep ridge.
A brand new, prosperous and bustling new town has been built a mile or so southwest, adjacent to the four-lane, U.S. Highway 58. The new town is named New Castlewood.
The Castlewood area was first known as Bickley's Mills. The mills were located just to the southeast of the old Castlewood "downtown" area. You will note from the family genealogy, that John Jack Gose - a son of George Gose, and thus a grandson of Stephen Gose, son of the immigrant - married Elizabeth Bickley. Elizabeth's parents, John and Elizabeth, Sr., built and operated two mills there. The Bickley's used one of the mills to power equipment for a furniture manufacturing business. A lot of the furniture in this part of Virginia came from the Bickleys including some in the Gose family homes in this area.
The home built by the Bickley family there at Bickley's Mill in 1863 has been recently restored by Charles Bickley "Bick" Gibson, a Bickley descendant. The graves of John and Elizabeth Bickley, Sr. are located in the pasture directly across the road in front of the Bickley home. Directly behind the home at the top of a hill, there is a small family cemetery that contains Bickley, Gibson, and one or two Gose graves. As in the other "cemetery" located in the field below, cattle have knocked down and broken many of the grave stones over the years until Bick began to gather them up and store them in a nearby outbuilding.
Photos of the Bickley home with the "cemetery" field visible in the foreground, may be found in the "Photo Gallery" in this History Section of the Gose Website along with some photos of some of John Bickley's beautifully designed furniture. Some letters written by the elder Bickley's to their daughter and son-in-law Elizabeth and John Jack Gose after they moved to Indiana may also be found in Archives Section II of the Research Archives area of this website. The letters give some interesting insight into what life was like for folks in this area of Virginia in the early-mid 1800's.
As stated earlier, after Stephen's first wife died, he married Catherine Banner, the widow of John Banner. The story surrounding the death of Catherine's first husband reminds us of some of the many hardships and risks faced by our ancestors. Per Wayne Banner, a descendant living in Knoxville, TN and a former resident of Scott County, Virginia: "John Banner became seriously ill after being bitten by a rabies infected dog while traveling between their existing home at Elk Creek in Grayson County and their planned new home in Russell County."
(Grayson County was formed from a southern section of Wythe County in 1792.) "John had gone on horseback with some other men from near their current home in Grayson County, to plant crops on their new land in Russell County, when bit by the rabid dog. John died as a result of the rabies infection not long thereafter." Wayne also tells us that John Banner is buried in the field in front of the Bickley home not far from where John and Elizabeth Bickleys grave markers are located. The original gravestone is no longer discernible but one of Wayne's elderly cousins, Mr. Ezra Cox, placed a newer, simple concrete marker there many years ago, so as to continue to identify the gravesite.
Hearing the story about John Banner and where he is buried and that being in the same field as where John and Elizabeth Bickley are buried made us wonder if Stephen, Barbara and Catherine might also be buried in the same "cemetery". The Bickley house and associated cemeteries are located within a quarter mile of the the original town center now known as
Old Castlewood . Even though the field containing these graves has been grazed by cattle for many years, it is possible that at one time, it may have been a primary burial location for some of the very early day residents of the Castlewood, Virginia area. We will investigate that "cemetery" and the stones Bick has salvaged a little closer the next time we are in the area.
There is a Gose homesite east of Castlewood thought by the current residents (with ties to Gose ancestry) to have originally been that of Stephen and Barbara, and which has a family cemetery on top of a hill just south of the home where Stephen and Barbara's son Aaron and his family are buried - but we found no evidence of Stephen and Barbara's graves at that site and this home is over two miles east of Old Castlewood.
(More on that home and family cemetery further below.)
Stephen and Barbara’s 1st born child, George, became the "wealthiest man" in Russell County, Virginia by the time of his death at the age of 76 in 1861.
Click here for link to web pages with Russell County Census data documenting such. (George and other members of the Gose family are located on the Bickley's Mills pages, parts 2 & 3)
The Gose family home that belonged to Stephen and Barbara's son George, is located in an area of rolling pastures and farmland to the west of Castlewood. The original home was of log construction. The log section was eventually covered over with wood clapboard siding and a new, larger section was added to the front side of the original home. A Gose descendant, Frankie (Gose) Harmon, lived in the house until near the time of her death in 1996 at age 93. The house has been vacant since. Another descendant of this Gose line has owned and farmed much of the original George Gose family property for many years and lives in a newer home adjacent to the vacant home. They have attempted to prevent the old home from decaying but the old log section has some serious rot in some of the main supporting timbers and is in danger of falling in on at least one wall. They are in the process of taking down the old log section, marking and storing the logs so that it could be rebuilt some day.
A small family cemetery is located on the farm about an eighth of a mile from the old George Gose family home. George and his second wife, Elizabeth (Cowan) Gose, are buried there as well as other family members. There is one grave stone in this cemetery that is so old and worn that we could not read the inscription. This stone is the first one on the left side of the plot, immediately adjacent to that of George Gose. It is possible that this stone may be that of either Stephen, Jr. or Barbara. However, judging from the spacing between George and his second wife Elizabeth's stones and others in that row and throughout this cemetery, only one person is buried in that area adjacent to George. The unreadable stone is most likely that of George's first wife Elizabeth (Jesse) Gose. - Photos of both the house and cemetery are posted in the "Photo Gallery". The photos show several views of the original log section of the home with the clapboard siding removed, just before disassembly was begun.
As previously mentioned, a few miles to the east of Castlewood and Bickley's Mill there is another old Gose family home that belonged to Aaron Gose, a younger brother of John Jack Gose. This is a beautiful home that also started out as a two-story log structure. Aaron married Nancy Dickenson and the home is currently owned and lived in by Hope (Osborne) Dickenson, a descendant who believes that this home may be the original Russell County home of Stephen Gose, "Jr."
A clue to that being the case is the land description given in Stephen's will which mentions that his land is bounded by the lands of Richard B. Long on the east and Nathaniel Dickenson's land on the west.
(As stated above, Stephen, "Jr."'s only other known son besides George relocated to Indiana and died before his father, and since George's oldest son John Jack also relocated to Indiana, Aaron was George's next oldest son - as well as the only other male Gose descendant of Stephen, "Jr." who was beginning young married life in this area of Virginia around the time of Stephen "Jr."'s death. It thus makes sense that Aaron would take ownership of his grandfather's home. Land records also show that Stephen, "Jr."'s land adjoined the Bickley's land to the east. George's land adjoined the Bickley's to the west.)
The home is lovingly furnished with many old family pieces including some that are thought to have come with the Stephan Goß, Sr. family from Pennsylvania. Two of the Gose family's plates featuring the family china pattern are displayed on the wall next to one of the china cabinets that may have come from Pennsylvania. Some of the Dickensons' family live across the road and have farmed the old Gose family land surrounding the old home for many years.
Aaron, Nancy, and other Gose family members are buried in the small family cemetery located at the top of the hill across the road from the old family home. It is fenced to keep the cattle out and beautiful wild roses grow in and around the cemetery area. It is a very steep climb to the cemetery and you can see for miles in all directions from this hilltop location.
Photos of this home, furnishings, and the cemetery are also in the "Photo Gallery" of this section.
Be sure to view the photo of Aaron's grave marker in that same "Photo Gallery" as the inscription on the marker exemplifies the good values and character in which we take pride.
After the death of George Gose's first wife Elizabeth Jesse around 1823, George married Elizabeth Cowan. Five more children were born to this union. Their first child was George Cowan Gose, born in 1825. George Cowan and descendants are buried in another small family cemetery located west of the senior George Gose's home (between there and Castlewood). Photos of this cemetery are posted in the previously referred to "Photo Gallery" pages for the Stephen Gose, "Jr." Family. There is no old home standing anywhere nearby this cemetery although it is likely that additional scrutiny of the adjacent terrain would reveal evidence of another family home site.