McNeill and Related Families

I felt I couldn't produce a tree of just my McNeill ancestors and their descendants. They married members of other families many times. Some other families married into those families many times. I have merged all these families into one tree.

These families all came together in West Virginia or Ohio. Many came from Burks county, Pennsylvania to the South Branch (of the Potomac) Valley of what's now West Virginia. Others went first to Greenbrier county, West Virginia. It is not known if they traveled together. Many families had members who went from West Virginia to the Scotio Valley of Ohio both as captives of the Shawnees after the Muddy Creek massacre in Greenbrier county in 1763 and during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. After the Revolution, when the Indians had been suppressed, the Scotio Valley was settled by those who had been there before and knew of its lushness. The town of Frankfort was founded by John McNeill on the site of the Shawnee village called Old Town. This was where the whites captured during the 1763 raids had been taken.

The predominant occupation of these families was raising cattle, both in the South Branch Valley and the Scotio Valley. Some families had members in both areas, e.g. McNeill, Pancake and Renick. They were not known to be in business with each other, but acted independently, selling their cattle for the best prices in the East. Letters from Felix Renick in the Scotio Valley to Daniel McNeill in the South Branch Valley discussing market conditions in the East have been preserved in the West Virginia Archives.

The Ohio cattle were driven east over the National Highway, what's now U.S. 50, which went though Chillicothe, Athens, crossed the Ohio River at Parkersburg, then continued through Clarksburg and Romney to Baltimore. The South Branch cattle were driven from Moorefield and surrounding areas to Romney. There are towns named McNeill and Pancake along the South Branch. The 1850 census shows these cattle-dealing families were very wealthy. Their worths were up to $120,000.

I have attempted to trace each of these families at least back to the immigrant. Many families have been traced to living descendants.

The major families included in this tree are:

Harness
Harper
Kuykendall
McNeill
Pancake
Renick
Roseboom
See
Seymour
Smalley
van Meter
Yoakum

Please read the NOTES when present. There's much historical information in some.

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