Horton and Bryan Family History

Joseph Eccles McCoun began with his birth on 24 August 1825, in Salvisa, Mercer County, Kentucky. He was the fifth of six children of Joseph McCoun (1784-1829) and Esther Eccles McCoun (1792-1881). In these biographies, Joseph Eccles McCoun is called “Joe” and his father “Joseph,” to distinguish the son from the father. Joseph died when Joe was only four. On 2 December 1856, he married Mary Louise “Luta” Pepper. The wedding was performed at Sweet Lawn, her parents’ home in Woodford County. The couple had eight children, six of whom reached adulthood:

1. Perla Sue McCoun, born in Salvisa on 13 September 1857.
2. Mahalie, born in Salvisa on 17 May 1859; died four days later.
3. Robert Pepper McCoun, born in Salvisa on 8 May 1860.
4. Samuel Pepper McCoun, born in Salvisa on 13 October 1862.
5. Esther McCoun, known as Hettie, born in Salvisa on 28 January 1865.
6. Mary Louise McCoun, born in Sweet Lawn, Millville, Woodford County, 10 March 1867.
7. Joseph Eccles McCoun, Jr, born in Sweet Lawn, 26 February 1869.
8. William H. McCoun, born in Sweet Lawn, 13 August 1871; died at age four.

During the marriage, Joe and Luta lived in Salvisa, in the Mercer County home in which Joe was born from 1856-1865; in Woodford County, in the home in which Luta was born, from 1865-1873; and in Fort Worth, Texas starting in 1873. Luta died there of typhoid fever on 28 December 1874. She was 40. Their youngest child, William, died the following year. While Joe, Rob, and Sam moved to Throckmorton, Texas and lived there several years, the other children (Perla, Esther, Mary Louise, and Joe Jr) returned to Kentucky to live with their grandmother and aunt. In about 1888, Joe and Rob returned to Kentucky, working for awhile in the timber industry in Wolfe County. Joe returned to Mercer County and in 1889 married a widow named Mary Priscilla Adams Sea. In 1891, Rob married Syrene Cockerham of Wolfe County, Kentucky. Joe died on 28 March 1897 and is buried in the cemetery of the New Providence Presbyterian Church in McAfee, Mercer County, Kentucky.