My Genealogy Hound

RAYBURN FAMILY. The first representative of this family in the United States, so far as is known, was John Rayburn, Sr., who married a Miss MacNatt, and resided in the State of Maryland. They had but one child when John Rayburn died. The child, a son, was also named John, and in his early life became a Baptist minister; he married in what is now Stewart County, Tenn., from which he removed to Calloway County, Ky., about 1827. That county was then almost wholly uninhabited, and Rev. John Rayburn was doubtless the first minister to locate within its borders. He lived but two years after settling there, and his remains are there buried. He had four children, named Levi, Harrison, Nancy Ann and Eliza. Levi, the eldest of these, was born February 22, 1819, in what is now Trigg County, Ky., and married a Miss Nancy Walden, who died in Calloway County, having borne him three children, viz.: John, Alfred and Lafayette Rayburn, the latter being a resident of Paducah and the only one now living. Alfred, the second one, was a member of Company D, of the Fifty-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry; was captured at the battle of Guntown, Miss., and was shot by a Confederate soldier while a prisoner. After the death of his wife, Levi Rayburn removed to Tennessee, and there married Elizabeth, widow of Nathan Skinner, which union resulted in the birth of five children, viz.: Augusta, wife of W. Bass; Samuel, Louie, Nathan S. and Eliza Rayburn. Levi Rayburn died in Tennessee in 1873 and his family are now residents of Paducah, Ky.