Several years ago I begin researching and found a few things that were of interest to me.......Mordica Lane bought some land (80 acres) in 1839 from Peter and Jane (Coker) Bilyeu who were my ancestors. Peter and Jane married in Tennessee and came to Miller County with other members of the Bilyeu family in the mid 1830s. The land they bought and homesteaded was directly east of present-day Iberia. About the same era of time, a man named John J. Lane also resided in Richwoods township. It is my guess or assumption that John Lane was a son of Mordica Lane..

 

John J. Lane married Louisa Coffee in Miller County in 1842 and they acquired acreage in northwest Richwoods township, the land once owned by the Kraml family. Mordecai/Mordica Lane married Selia/ Celia Atkinson in Wayne County, Kentucky on 2 November 1811. Other Lane pioneers included Mary Malissa Lane who married James T. Lynch (their marriage performed by Haman Dyer, a justice of the peace in Miller County); Nancy Lane who married Creed T. Biggers in 1841, their marriage performed by Reuben Short of Miller County. These Lane folks (John J., Mary Malissa, and Nancy) were all natives of Kentucky and I believe were children of Mordica and Celia...The foregoing information was all the records I found in Miller County for a family named Lane. I have to use my imagination and try to piece together and speculate what their story may have been...........

I believe Mordica and Celia (Atkinson) Lane, came to Miller County in the latter part of the 1830s from Kentucky via Illinois and settled on land a short distance east of Iberia. As I stated before, I believe they were the parents of John J. Lane, Mary Malissa Lane Lynch, and Nancy Lane Biggers.
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Nancy H. Lane, who I now believe was the wife of Mordica's brother, Lewis Lane, died in 1844 and was buried at Lane Cemetery on land near John J. and Louise (Coffey) Lane where they were living in northern Richwoods township.

The Lane families disappeared from Miller County between 1850-1860 and I believe they moved west during the 'gold rush days'. I do know that Creed T. Biggers and his wife, Nancy (Lane) and their 3 children moved to Oregon Territory in 1853. Many families had a wanderlust in those days and moved westward across the Great Plains and mountain ranges in 'droves'. Since the name Lane disappeared from the county by 1860, I think my speculations may prove correct when I suspect that Mordica & Celia Lane, John J. & Louisa Lane, Mary Malissa (Lane) & James T. Lynch, and Nancy (Lane) and Creed T. Biggers all have descendants living today near LaGrande, Oregon.

 

Nancy H. Lane (1805-1844) has been resting in our Missouri soil for over 165 years with no family left to tend and care for her overgrown and forgotten gravesite. In 1897, a son of Creed and Nancy (Lane) Biggers stopped off in Miller County and visited the place where he had been born in 1845. Dr. George W. Biggers from LaGrande, Oregon, visited Miller County on a trip to New York City. I wonder if he searched for and found the grave of Nancy Lane, who may have been his aunt (wife of his uncle, Lewis Lane) all those years ago?

 

Has anyone came back searching for the site where she was laid to rest all those generations ago? It makes me rather sad to think that no one has known who she was for all these past years that have reached over a century and half. I still don't know for a certainty who she actually was, but perhaps my imagination has given her a new identity and if you happen to visit her gravesite someday, then she won't be a complete stranger!

NOTE FROM PEGGY: If Nancy Lane, who is buried at Lane Cemetery near Iberia, was the wife of Lewis Lane, her maiden name was Dean. Lewis and Nancy were parents of at least 4 children before her death including: Susannah (Waller), William Dabney Lane, Laura L. Lane, and Nancy Ellen Lane. After Nancy's death, Lewis married a second wife, Eliza Jane Broyles in Hamilton Co., Illinois and they had one son, Jeremiah H. Lane born 1847 in Hamilton County. Later Lewis and Eliza moved back to Missouri and settled in the Pulaski County area where she died and is buried. Lewis died in 1874 and is buried in Mill Creek Cemetery in Phelps County, MO. His second wife, Eliza Jane (Broyles) is buried near Waynesville, Pulaski County, MO and if Nancy was his first wife, she is buried near Iberia, Miller County, MO......strange that he is buried alone in Phelps County. His daughter is buried in Hamilton Co., Illinois and 2 of his sons are buried at Big Piney Cemetery in Pulaski County, MO....... The Lanes are scattered and buried all over America! From their birthplaces in Virginia, to their wanderings in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and some ventured out west to Oregon. That was not uncommon for many of our ancestors who loved to roam all over the country looking for a new "promised land"....... I also found the identity of the parents of Mordica and Lewis Lane. They were Thomas Lane and Nancy Ann Dabney who married in Bedford County, Virginia in 1783. Their children included Frances Ann Lane 1785-1859 m. James Coffey; Mordecai/Mordica Lane 1787-1873 m. Celia Atkinson; Sarah Lane 1798-1880 m. Jacob Clay Dean; and Lewis Lane 1799-1874 m. (1) Nancy Dean (2) Eliza Jane Broyles......it was interesting to learn that the families of Lane, Dean, and Coffey were close knit and intermarried over several generations in Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and finally in Oregon.....

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