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- In approximately the mid 20th century two ladies came to the Waggoner Family Cemetery, which is located about four miles south of Pittsfield in Pike County, Illinois. They claimed that the Doaks were tall people and prone to TB, which was then usually fatal. The Doaks came to Pike County, Illinois from the area of Frankfurd, Missouri in Pike County, Missouri. Like the Waggoners, they left Missouri and crossed into Pike County, Illinois.
The Doaks were a pioneer family and the members of the family of John and Lydia Doak left Missouri and followed the Oregon Trail in the 1830's and settled in Oregon. It is thought that one of the Doaks died on the trail before reaching Oregon. John and Lydia Doak and, at least their daughter Caroline, crossed with them into Pike County, Illinois and settled in Martinsburg Township. Caroline married Green Caston Waggoner in 1845 in Pittsfield, Illinois. It is believed that Green Waggoner, who farmed and was also a carpenter, built the home that the Doaks lived in at Martinsburg. The parents of Caroline died along with a son from TB, according to family lore.
Green and Caroline had three children when Green Waggoner, like many of his neighbors, got Gold Fever and went West to make his fortune. It is doubtful that Green knew that his wife was pregnant when he left for California in the Sring of 1850. A son, John Green Waggoner, was born to the couple in the father's absence. Green Waggoner was not at home in Pike County when his wife died in 1852. It is still a mystery where Caroline was during the census of 1850, but she was likely still at home and missed by the census taker. John Green Waggoner later would state that his proclivity to melancolia may have been inherited from his mother. Caroline was buried in the Waggoner Cemetery, where her stone is still prominent. Green did not make his fortune in California but returned to the Martinsburg area and was united with his young son. Green Caston Waggoner remarried in 1854 when he and two brothers married three Foster sisters. Green continued to live a long life and dying in 1913. A newspaper article claimed that at the time of his death Green was the oldest citizen in Pike County, a claim that is dubious.
http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/24994679/person/1589752955/story/ba558948-a409-41ae-bb6c-573d202c5804?src=search
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