John C. Mannan seems to have arrived in in northern Owen Co./southwestern Morgan Co. area in the early 1820's. John's wife's first name may have been Lettina. The land upon which the northern section of the present Mannan cemetery is located was entered in the name of John Manning (Mannan) in 1822. This site is the southeast quarter of Section 17 of Morgan Co. Twp. 12/Range 2W, and was the earliest land purchased from the government in Ashland Twp.. In the same year John Mannan entered land in Section 19 in Owen Co., SW of the Ashland Twp. land (Owen Co. was then called Wayne Co.). The area had only been open for settlement by treaty with the indians since 1818. Among the family John brought with him were William Riley and Robert Radish Mannan. There is some argument as to whether William and Robert were John's sons or grandsons. William had been born in Virginia in 1810, Robert was born in 1813. There is a fair possiblity that the family spent some time in North Carolina, and it is all but certain they were in Kentucky for a time before migrating north into Indiana. The land that the Mannan family settled in Owen and Morgan Counties continues to be farmed to this day, some of it by descendants of John Mannan.
John Mannan died in 1840. The earliest land known to be entered by William Mannan was a site entered in 1836 which was north of John's land on the border between Adams and Gregg Twp., Morgan Co.. Upon John's death William inherited his father's land and over the years expanded on the holding around section 17, northward into Morgan Co. and probably southward further into Owen Co. as well. Robert R. Mannan may have also inherited some of his father's and also purchased land from the government in the vicinity.
William Riley Mannan married Rebecca Serena Chambers in May of 1834. They had nine children in all, five sons and four daughters (see the Mannan descendant chart for more details). Rebecca Chambers Mannan passed away in July of 1851. William Mannan married his second wife, Sarah Jane Pemberton sometime in the 1850's. Sarah was the daughter of William Pemberton and Margaret Gregg. There is a good possibility that William was a member of the prominent Pembertons of Philadelphia, one of the founding families of the Pennsylvania colony. Margaret Gregg was a sister of Harriet Louisa Gregg, whose grandson, Harry S. Truman, would become President of the United States. William Pemberton having apparently died young, Margaret Gregg had married Grafton Baker Whitaker, a landowner in Morgan Co. Land Northeast of the Mannan land on the Morgan/owen Co. border was entered by Mr. Whitaker in 1845/6. Other members of the Whitaker family also had also entered land in the area. (Grafton baker and Margaret Gregg Whitaker were buried in the Samaria Church graveyard in Ray Twp., Morgan Co..) William's second marriage produced seven children; four sons and three daughters.
In 1887, upon the death of his 13 year old grand daughter Iva, William Mannan granted a portion of the land along what is now called the Lewisville Road (on the border between the counties) for the Mannan Cemetery. This cemetery is still in use today. In the nineteenth century the closest settlement to the Mannan lands was the village of Alaska, IN, located a little east of the Mannan homestead. At one time Alaska had some shops, including a blacksmith. All that remains of the village today is the Alaska Christian Church. A little further east on the crossing of the Lewisville Rd. and State Road 42 is the small town of Lewisville, which still has some extant building from the 19th c.. Lewisville was the site of the area's first mill, which was established in the early 1800's by Benjamin Gray. The largest settlement in the area was the better known town of Eminence, which is a few miles north of Lewisville. William Mannan's home is still in existence.
(To be continued at a later date;
this entry written by J.D. Mannan in May, 1997)