My Mother was Nancy Mackey, daughter of Samuel Mackey who operated the salt works on the Illinois River. She was a sister of Preston Mackey. She was educated at Dwight Mission. Samuel Mackey had three sons, Preston, Jim and Bill.
Before and during the Civil War, my father [David Vann] made salt at the Drew salt works near Illinois River north of Gore. He also had salt works on Dirty Creek about a mile above the old bridge on that creek west of Webbers Falls. They had a great many kettles and vats there and I can remember the Creek Indians coming to the salt works and loading their wagons full of salt and driving away to their country.
My mother bought the place where we lived from Dick Crossland a Cherokee. When his folks died Dick was the only heir and the Cherokee sheriff put the place up at sheriff's sale and my mother bought it in. This was long before the Civil War. At the time she married my father she was a widow, a Mrs. Talley. She was my father's only wife and they were married long before the war, in the bottom on the south side of the Arkansas River. The Feds burned my mother's house during the war and then went and burned the Granary and the other houses around and then burned Aunt Sally's house. Our home place was about two miles west of Webbers Falls and contained three or four hundred acres.