[First Wife] [Second Wife] [Fourth Wife]

Once again Nathan was widowed.  He remarried on or about December 14, 1814.  His new wife's name was Mary, called "Polly" on the marriage bond.  Polly is the common nickname for Mary and is often used interchangeably with it in older records.  She appears as Mary in a court record later with Nathan.  This marriage is the subject of one of the exciting - and most frustrating - discoveries of our research on this family.

After the lack of records for Nathan's previous marriages, we were elated to find an 1814 marriage bond for his impending marriage to Mary.  No entry has been found for this marriage in the marriage record books for Washington County. 

The principal source for marriages in Washington County, a single, large register, was prepared in the 1930s. An FERA (Federal Emergency Recovery Act) project focused on sorting and copying old records. These marriage bonds were found in the basement of the courthouse in Jonesborough, Tennessee.  As part of the project, marriages were copied from the earlier books and from loose marriage licenses and bonds found in boxes in the basement of the Courthouse into a large, marriage register book.  These records begin in 1787, a full ten years after the formal organization of the county.  No marriage records have been found for the first ten years of the county's history.  Another fact that points to this gap is its incomplete nature in the lack of records of a number of marriages in the Gann family, which are said to have taken place in Washington County. 

Since there is no record in this early marriage book for a marriage of Nathan Gann between 1808 (the possible death year of Susan) and 1817 (the marriage to Sarah), we were, therefore, elated when we found the original marriage bond in the loose court papers of Washington County at the Archives of Appalachia.  At last, we had proof of the detail of one of Nathan's marriages and the name of his wife -or so we thought!

State of Tennessee     }
Washington County     }          

            Know all men by these presents that we Nathan Gann and Reuben Gann are held and firmly bound unto his Excellency William Blount & his successors in office in the full sum of twelve hundred and fifty Dollars to be void on Condition there be no legal obstruction to the marriage of Nathan Gann and Polly [illegible]

Witness our hands and seals this 14 December 1814

Test                                          Nathen gann

J. C. Harris                Rheuben gann

illegible]

Imagine our consternation upon discovering that the wife's surname was an indecipherable scrawl. While several individual letters are indistinct, other letters, including the initial letter in the surname, appear to be any of several possibilities. We consulted three highly regarded authorities on early handwriting, as well as two local historians in Washington County who are well-versed in the local surnames of that time period.  None was able to state conclusively what the surname actually was. The following are some of the oft-suggested possibilities: Clark, Click, Clack, Mauck, Mock, or Mauk.

Clark, Click, and Clack are three distinct surnames.  Mauck and Mock are variant spellings of one specific surname: Mauk.  Most of these surnames are found in the area of the county where Nathan then lived.  In particular, we know of associations with Clark and Mauk families.  No direct connection is known with Clack families, although that surname is found in the vicinity. In Washington County, one isolated instance of Gann contact with the surname Click in was found:  the name occurred in one of Nathan's deeds. Click families also lived near some of his children after their move to Texas:  a George Click witnessed a document for William Gann in 1846.  Nonetheless, in the absence of any other documents, we cannot say conclusively that was the surname of Nathan's third wife. 

No known children from this marriage survived to adulthood. Either Polly lost any children she had or she did not give birth to any.  We do not rule out the possibility of one or two children, but simply state here that at the present time, no children have been positively identified from this marriage.

Unlike Nathan's prior wives, none of whom appeared in surviving records, we do have a record of Mary "Polly" Gann, in addition to the marriage bond previously cited.  On July 18, 1816, a summons was issued which named Mary:*

State of Tennessee          }
Washington County          }

            To any Sworn officer to execute and return

you are hereby commanded to summon Nathan Gann and Mary Gann his wife to be an appeare at the first Circuit Court to be holden in Jonesbougrough the first Monday in September 1816 to give evidence & the truth to speake in behalf of the Defendant the State against Hiram Clarke Black Smith of the aforesaid County who stands Charged of Feloniously & Burglariously braking open the storehouse of Wm. Mitchel & David Mitchel of said County  given under my hand this 18th Day of July 1816   

                                                Jno Collom
                                                Justice of peace

A notation on the reverse of this original document states that this summons was executed the 20th of August and returned September 4, 1816, by William Collom, Constable, proving that Mary Gann was still alive on August 20, 1816.  Mary apparently died sometime between that date and the summer months of 1817 in Washington County, Tennessee.  According to local historian, John Fain Anderson, she was buried in the family plot on Nathan's farm.

*Paul Fink Collection, Loose court papers of Washington County, Tennessee.  McClung Historical Collection, Lawson McGee Library; Knoxville, TN

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