County of memorial: Iron County
Location of memorial: Main St. (old MO hwy 21), behind berm Fort
Davidson (near Valor & Devotion stone), Pilot Knob
Date memorial dedicated: 1985
Memorial erected by John Woolard Chapter, Sons of the American
Revolution
Memorial text:
In Memory of
Pvt. JOHN WALLACE
1746 - 1834
P.O.W. of the Revolutionary War
"REV. JOHN WALLACE, Soldier of the Revolution, Pioneer and Circuit Rider
Paper read by Dosephine Chapman, DAR, Corresponding Sec, 1906-7, a charter member of White River Chapter DAR, Washington, Indiana.
"John Wallace, served in the Revolutionary War as a private in General John Gibson's detachment, Wester Division. At the beginning of the last entury he brought a large company of relative from Salisbury, North Carolina, and from Spartansburg and Union, South Carolina to people in the FAR WEST, as the Indiana Territory was then designated. They traveled in wagons called Prarie Schooners over mountain and plain, through forest and streams, camping at night for rest and sleep. To guard against attach from Indians and wild animals some would watch while other slept. On and on they went, finally reaching the settlement at Vincennes but later decided to remove t the bands of WHITE RIVE, where they founded Maysville in 1808.
"At the conference at Vincennes, between TECUMSEH and WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, then Governor of the Indiana Territory, Rev. John Wallace, William Wallace and William Horrall, Sr., were present. During their stay in the Fort Rev. John Wallace preached to his kinsmen and did missionary work among the Indians by whom he was almost worshipped.
"In 1813 in the Indiana Uprising, in the five forts of the county the names of his relatives almost make a complet census of the inhabitants. The Indians threatened from without, the Malaria from within, so they moved from the river, built a church on the Wallace Land, two miles from the present town of Wahington, which church was called BETHEL. It was heated by a charcoal brazier, and builded with a large balcony. It was the first church in the county Rev. John Wallace was its pastor, and here the MISSOURI CONFERECE, which was bounded on the east by a line running North from Madison, was held in 1818. Bishop McKendre presiding. This conference embraced Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. In 1815 Wahington, then called Liverpool, was founded by John Wallace and his relatives and friends. The deed was witnessed by Emanuel VanTress, William Wallace and John Wallace, as Mr. David Flora, the owner could not sign his name.
"Rev. John Wallace, died while in the service of THE GREAT MASTER as bravely as he had fought to free his country from British Opression. He had founded a new home and community in the western wilderness, where his son, William, helped to protect the homes and forts of Daviess and Knox Counties and when trying to help the new state make laws to protect and maintain the rights of its inhabitants so dearly bought." ~ InGen genealogy