Census Details |
| Year | Schedule | Address | Condition | Age | Profession | Place of Birth | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 (USA) | full details | Concord Twp, Washington Co, MO | unmarried | 6 | MO | Listed as Jno | |
| 1870 (USA) | full details | Concord Twp, Washington Co, MO | unmarried | 16 | Works on Farm | MO | can't write |
| 1900 (USA) | full details | Big River Twp, St. Francois Co, MO | married | 44 | Farmer | MO | Birthdate: April 1856; parents born TN; married 17 years; can read, can't write; rents farm, 21 farm animals |
| 1910 (USA) | full details | Silver Springs Road, Big River Twp, St. Francois Co | married | 56 | Laborer | MO | Listed as Jno; married 28 years; parents born in MO; general work laborer; rents house, 2 farm animals; can't read or write. |
| 1920 (USA) | full details | Big River Twp, St. Francois Co, MO | married | 66 | Farmer | MO | Can't read or write; general farming; parents born in TN |
Notes |
cannot find on the 1880 census
1860 & 1870 Censuses give birth year as 1854
1900 Census gives birth year as 1856
According to 1900 Census, was married about 1883
According to 1910, was married about 1882
buried money near Hopewell, MO
1900 Census
Big River Twp, St. Francois Co, MO
#38 FORCHEE, sheet 3, lines 17-22
John, head, born Apr 1856, age 44, married 17 years, MO, TN, TN, farmer, 0 months unemployed, can read, can't write, rents farm with 21 farm animals
Maggie, wife, Apr 1865, 35, married 17 years, mother of 5, 5 living, MO, KY, KY, reads, writes
John A., son, Aug 1886, 13, single, MO, MO, MO, farm laborer, 0 months unemployed, reads, writes
Albert, son, Apr 1889, 11, single, MO, MO, MO, farm laborer, reads, doesn't write
Stella, daughter, Aug 1891, 8, single, MO, MO, MO
Wm J. B., son, Nov 1897, 2, single, MO, MO, MO
1910 Census
Silver Springs Road, Big River Twp, St. Francois Co
#102/111, FOURCHEE, lines 27-31
Jno, head, m, 56, married 28 years, MO, MO, MO, laborer, general work, rents house, has 2 farm animals, cannot read or write
Maggie, wife, 48, married 28 years, mother of 5, 5 living, MO, MO, MO, reads, writes
Jno, son, 2x (?), single, MO, MO, MO, teamster, general hauling, reads, writes
Albert, son, 21, single, MO, MO, MO, laborer, general work, reads, write
William, son, 12, single, MO, MO, MO, no occupation, no school this year
1920 Census
Big River Twp, St. Francois Co, MO
#135/142 - sheet 7A
FORCHEE
John, head, rents, w, m, 66, married, can't read or write, MO, TN, TN, farmer, general farm
Maggie, wife, w, f, 56, married, reads, writes, MO, TN, MO
William, son, 21, single, reads, writes, MO, MO, MO, laborer, timber work
THURMAN, Harry, grandchild, 11, s, reads, writes, MO, MO, MO, attended school
THURMAN, Marvin, granchild, 8, MO, MO, MO, attended school
"after the birth of John and Belle, the Forshees moved to the Pike Run district where they settled on the Ridge near the 'Pond.' at the very tip end of Pike Run. They lived in a two story log house until after Albert, born Augst 4, 1889, Stella, b 1894, and William Jennings Bryan Forshee, born November 12, 1897, came into the world."
Note: Records of John Thomas and Margaret Forshee found in St. Francois County, Census records, memory of a granddaughter and the author's memory.
The following narrative is from:
St. Francois County Missouri Pioneers, their ancestors and descendants
Francis Marion Thurman
"The stubbly whiskered John Thomas, who wore a rope for a belt, and a black felt hat with a hole in the crown, a strand of black hair protruding from the hole, talked himself and family out of a home about 1909-10. He openly claimed to have lived on the hill place long enough to claim it through "Squatter's right." The owners heard about the talk and had the sheriff and a posse visit the Forshee place, remove the furnishings and burn the place down.
The yearly trade mark of John Thomas was the New Year's blast, set off in a high black oak tree near the pond each New Year's Eve. The eight or ten sticks of dynamite would shatter the top of a tree and could be heard for miles in all directions, in spite of the smothering effects of the deep valleys and wooded hills.
About the time the hair protruding from the hole in the crown of John Thomas' hat became sprinkled with grey, his love for dynamite nearly resulted in the death of the family.
At Christmas time a bucket full of dynamite, fuses and caps was stored behind the heatin stove in the living room, drying out in preparation for the New Year's blast.
John Thomas and sons were sitting near the open door with a bucket of live coals, lighting firecrackers and tossing them over the rail of the front porch to explode on the ground. Someone, (it will never be known who) missed the door with the cracker which bounced back into the bucket of dynamite. One of the boys picked up the smoking bucket and tossed it over the porch just in time to see the porch and one side of the house disintegrate. Fortunately no one was injured, but it was the end of the New Year's dynamite celebrations.
Soon after the start of WWI Marion [Thurman] left the country and spent a year in Montana where his sister, Viola was teaching school, and another year in Denver, Colorado before returning to Pike Run just in time to become engaged in the most exciting time of the "Bootlegging" and "Moonshining" era, with the Forshee clan.
When John and Albert Forshee came home from WWI, many discharged soldiers rode freight trains from the East to the West, looking for work and met other soldiers traveling from West to East searching for the same thing. No work was to be found.
At 65 years of age, the hair protruding from the hole in the crown of the hat of John Thomas Forshee was white, and he was old but not spiritless. He soon had a twenty-gallon still in operation near the Forshee farm house. The log cabin where he had decided to make his brewing house, was near Pike Run and a little way up creek, and had a stovepipe protruding from the side, several barrels of "mash" souring beside the cabin door and a smell that could be identified all the way to Big River. Willie and I talked it over and decided to relocate the still on a spring branch in the back hills, where the water drained directly into Big River. The safety of this choice was proven years later, when the 'still' and rusty equipment was found intact long after the old man had been caught with a gallon of fresh "corn squeezins" and arrested by a squad of strong armed "law officers" and sent to Jefferson City for a ten-year stretch. The sentence was more for "resisting arrest" than for getting caught with the goods. (The old man hit a deputy over the head with a stick.) The still produced a gallon of "White Mule" each day, the gallon being peddled for $28 per. Not a bad day's work when the going wage in the mines, (when there was work to be had) was $1.75 for eight hours. To see the gallon of liquor the old man walked to the pump ford at night, swinging his lantern as a signal, and when a customer appeared in a buggy (later a model T), the $28 would be collected and the old man returned for another gallon for tomorrow night.
He soon had a roll of $100 bills which he showed off when he visited Bonne Terre, until somebody shortchanged him $100 when he made a $1 purchase.
John and Albert Forshee came home from the war about this time, and had a hard time finding work. All the Forshee family lived in the two-story log house at the foot of Pike Run at this time, sharing what income each could make. (Except the old man and his $100 bills he kept in hiding, until he began getting hungry.)
It was hard work carrying 100 pound sacks of corn and sugar over the rough, steep hills to the still, and the old man had to share part of the work and income. Each of us had a task to perform. I kept the fire supplied with smokeless wood, and made many trips in the dark of night, carrying sacks of corn and sugar over the rocky hills, and had many skinned shins to prove it.
John was the official watchman and seldom did any actual work, other than sit on top of the ridge, on a stump or rock, and listen for danger. The location was so remote that only once were we disturbed by a dog's bark. We knew John was somewhere on the hill, so we all faded across the creek and up the opposite hill to a brush-covered clump of logs, and stayed there until John came down the opposite hill and sat down beside the still and whistled. We went back to work sitting watching the drops of almost pure alcohol drop from the spout below the wooden bucket condenser. Most of the work of actual production fell on the shoulders of Willie, being responsible for keeping the fire stoked just right to prevent the "Mule" from getting too strong or too weak.
The old man was the 'mash' man, deciding when the mash was "cured" just right to produce liquor of the proper strength and consistency. Albert seldom came on premises, but did occasionally as he hauled loads of grain and sugar from distant stores to prevent snoopers getting wise to the operation. At such times, the last two miles of the haul were by horseback, after unloading the wagon in some remote cabin in the hills. During the winters of this period, I lived at Esther and went to school there. The operation of the still was temporarily abandoned because of the cold and snowy weather.
Another summer came, and as I sat on the big rock close to the spring house, a noise like a herd of wild cattle, came from the hillside above. A group of men, there must have been twenty or twenty-five of them stopped beside me and asked such questions as "What's your name?" "Do you know where old Forshee's still is located?" "Where is the trail to the still?" I was very honest and gave them my name and where I lived. Most of the men knew me, and the questions were brief - after all they wanted the old man, not me.
The men lined up, side by side, completely across the valley and up each side, trying to find a trail leading to the still. They turned over leaves, kicked shrubs and examined rocks and logs with great care and thoroughness. Eventually they gave up and went back up the hill, disappointed. The Forshee clan were not that naive, each trip to the still, carrying sugar or grain, etc was by a different route. There never was a trail.
And so, this writer went West, never returned to Pike Run except on rare visits, even to this day.
Old John Thomas Forshee was 68 years old when the Sheriff and a posse caught his red-handed. It must have given the "law" a great satisfaction to catch the 68 year old hillbilly, who had eluded them for so many years, and fight him for possession of a gallon jug full of home made liquor! The old man was given 10 years, but it turned out to be a life sentence. In 1927 he was dying and they turned him loose to spend his last days in the Pike Run Hills, where he had lived for so long, and where he had raised his family. He was 72 years old ad his hair was snow white when he died.
Not long after John Thomas was sentenced, Sam Doss was assassinated in his own home. Sam was said to be one of the leaders who finally affected the capture of the old man Forshee, and it was a foregone conclusion that Willie would be questioned. Willie was home when Doss was killed, so the questioning was brief."