Modena Chittenden Clark

     Modena Chittenden Clark was born on 4 Oct 1779 in Ira, Vermont.^7,8 She married Gideon Dyer Cobb, son of Elkanah Cobb and Mary Willard, about 1796 in or near Castleton, Vermont. According to family lore, her family was opposed to the marriage because she was so young (about 17), and forbade young Gideon from coming to the house. But one day he was out riding and met her taking a walk. He took her up on his horse behind him and they rode into the next county and wer married. If so, no record has been found of their marriage in Castleton; no records survive from that period in Fair Haven.^9,10 She died on 7 Oct 1837 in Caldwell Co., Kentucky, at age 58.⁸ She was buried in Riverview Cemetery, Eddyville, Kentucky, in the Cobb plot, next to her husband.¹¹
     Modena and Gideon and their young son Caleb were part of a group of over seventy people who moved from Vermont to Kentucky under the leadership of Matthew Lyon. They were part of a small group that made the trek in late 1799, followed by a larger group who arrived in mid-summer 1801.^12,13,14 (See map.) According family lore, Modena was a favorite of her aunt, Beulah Lyon, Lyon's second wife, who she visited many times at the Lyon's home in Fair Haven. Supposedly, that is where that Modena met Gideon. When the Lyons decided to migrate to Kentucky, they prevailed upon them to join the party.¹⁵ The group traveled in five wagons across the Allegeny Mountains to New Geneva, on the Monongahela River, over 50 miles above Pittsburgh, arriving in mid-Nov 1799. The water was too low to float down the river, so they spent the winter preparing their boats. New Geneva is not known to have been a common embarkation point, so it seem likely that the location was chosen because of Lyon's association with Albert Gallatin, minority leader of the House when Lyon was serving, and a resident there. Lyon left the party while preparations were underway, returning to his Congressional duties.^16,17,18
     Life on the frontier was challenging to a young mother, if exciting to a young boy, if this story passed down through the family is true. Supposedly, while Caleb was still very young, Indians who lived nearby would come and want to take him with them. Modena was afraid to let him go, but also afraid of offending the Indians, and the little boy always wanted to go. They gave him an outfit with a bright feathered headpiece, which he loved. One day his mother saw an Indian swimming out in the middle of the river with the child on his back, giving her a terrible fright. Later the Indians threw him in the river, and the little fellow kicked and stayed afloat, after which they returned him home supposedly saying "Him heap plucky." No doubt the story has been enhanced over time, if not invented outright, but it probably gives at least an idea of the percieved risks the families faced.¹⁹
     Gideon established one of the earliest, if not the first, tavern in Eddyville, obtaining his permit 22 Jul 1800. By one account, it was build of "logs of his own hewing, ... the only tavern on the then lonesome lower bends of the Cumberland River."^20,21 It would seem that the tavern was actually run by Modena. Their daughter recalled, many years later, that she kept a hotel where she boarded the men who built barges. She had to have breakfast for them by daylight and then she had clerks who ate between 7:00 and 8:00. She did all this with the help of one Negro man.²²
     According to family lore, Modena was often sent for to administer to the sick and destressed. Her daughter recalled often hearing her mother's account of one such case, "a trip down the river in a canoe six or eight miles to see a sick family. The man who came could not get a physician and no one else to go, so she started with him and he took a chill and she had to paddle her own canoe. Wheny the landed they had to walk two miles through cane nearly as high as a tree to get to the cabin. Nothing but logs covered in, no shutters or doors and one man dead and not one of the others able to help the rest. She and the man who came with her laid out the corpse and then she went a mile and a half to the spring for water with only a dog for company, sat up all night by herself and the wolves howling around the house."²³
     She was probably the female age 26 to 45 listed in the household of her husband, Gideon, in the 1810 Federal Census of Eddyville, Caldwell Co., Kentucky.^24,25 She was probably the female over age 45 listed in the household of her husband, Gideon Dyer Cobb, in the 1820 Federal Census of Eddyville, Caldwell Co., Kentucky, although she would have actually been only 41 years old.²⁶ She was probably the female age 30 to 40 listed in the household of her husband, Gideon Dyer Cobb, in the 1830 Federal Census of Eddyville, Caldwell Co., Kentucky, although she would have actually been 51 years old.²⁷