Abijah HIGHTOWER

                   NOTES: 25 May 2000 - In Bill Packers book, Alicia is listed as Alicia Ann Sanders.

NOTES: 18 Oct 2002 - See copy of 1850 Indiana Census taken 3rd of Sept 1850 Lynn Township County of Posey, in my
file. Alicia Hightower was living with her daughter Martha Causey.

NOTES: October 2013 - Paper I copied while on trip to Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee.  (see original in my Harris/Hightower file)
"Notes on the Red River Baptist Church, Adams, Tennessee"
--Notes concerning the Minutes of the Red River Baptist Church--
Jeffrey Saunders and his wife Ferriby Saunders, attended this church.  Also their daughter, Lysha Hightower (a.k.a.) Alasha Saunders, who married Abijah Hightower, in Logan County 16 November 1811) is also among the membership.  This book documents something very unusual.  Saturday, December 13, 1811, "The church agrees to take no part of the conduct of  Sister Lysha Hightower.  The Brethren to consider the matter again next conference." "It appears to the satisfaction of the church that Sister Lysha Hightower, though (through?) weakling of mind and temptations of the wicked one, did hang herself and to all appearances would have been dead in a short time had not one of the Brothers providentially discover (sic) her, who immediately released her.  Upon which the church suspended her from the privileges of the church until they discover her to possess her right mind."
This Ruth Hightower Smith went on with her assumption:
I wondered why she would hang herself and did she hang herself before she married Abijah Hightower or afterwards?  I wondered about this for years--until I met someone who happened to have the birthdate of their first child, Sarah Hightower, who was born 9 April 1812, not even 5 months after they were married.  It is my personal opinion that she was pregnant and, knowing how very religious her parents were (Jeffrey and his son, Ezekiel Saunders, started one of the first Baptist Churches in the Evansville area), she was probably ashamead and did not know how to tell them.  Maybe, assuming the child was Abijah's and I think it surely was, he didn't want to marry her.  She did suffer from severe depression, which was handed down to several of her descendants.  I know of three:  Her grandson, George McNiece Hightower (Pash), who came in and told his wife in February, 1904 , "I tried to hang myself, but the rope hurt my neck."  The next day, he successfully hanged himself with a chain.  I believe he was depressed more than usual because his brother, Tobias Hightower had died in January, 1904.  Two of his descendants committed suicide, one (James Edgar Harris) by shooting himself with a shotgun after telling his family he was going rabbit hunting and the other by drinking carbolic acid in a service station restroom on the Elkton court square.  I am sure there are others of which we are not aware.  I found her reply to his filing for divorce in 1825 and her response states that, even though she was mentally ill at the time he left her in May 1819, he treated her badly and took John Pinckney, their son and a sucking babe and told her that if her Uncle David Smith didn't take her and their two young daughters to her family, who had moved to the Evansville area, that he would put her on the county (county farm).  Alasha (Lysha) in her response begged him not to divorce her because of the children, but he went ahead with it because by then, he had 2 or 3 illegitimate children by Betsy Jones.  Abijah later married Elizabeth (Betsy) Jones and had seven more children, including the 2 or 3 he had before they were married.