John Karnes
(Son of Moses Karnes)

(June 27, 1831 - June 27,1887)

Wife: Cynthia Sainford (or Sanford) (1828 ¹ - ?)

Birthplace unknown, Married on July 21, 1851.

Children:

Adam S. Karnes (January 10, 1857 - January 28th, 1887)

Mary Karnes (? - ?)

Betty Karnes (? - ?)

Sally Karnes (? - ?)

James T. Karnes (June 2, 1859 - October 31, 1928) (Jim)

John Moses Karnes (October 15, 1864 - December 22, 1946)

The only documentation found to date is a marriage record in Gibson County, Tennessee on July 21, 1851. According to family history and the autobiography of John Moses Karnes, the family moved from western Tennessee (near Milan in Gibson County) to southeast Missouri (Pemiscot County) before the Civil War in approximately 1860. John Moses Karnes, the youngest child, was born in Missouri.

According the the autobiography of John Moses Karnes, the family then moved from Pemiscot County to Dunklin County in approximately 1869. His father bought 40 acres of land just north of what later was known as Hollywood from Bob Shultz, a merchant from Hornersville, Missouri.

John Karnes' Sister, Elizabeth also lived in the area and married Richard Tucker. John's Brother, William Karnes, is mentioned in John Moses Karnes' autobiography as living in a settlement "...near, and north of Hollywood" in approximately 1860. It is not known if any of the other siblings from Tennessee came to southeast Missouri.

I have not been able to locate any information on Mary, Betty, and Sally other than their names being mentioned in the Autobiography of John Moses Karnes. Mary was the oldest sister, then Betty, and then Sally, although I don't know exactly where they fit relative to their brothers other than John Moses Karnes being the youngest child in the family. One specific passage indicates that one of the girls married a man named Jim Bolin:

In that settlement lived Clark Pruett, Mr. Brewer, who was Dud Brewer's father, Jim Bolin, my brother-in-law, Troy Johnson, whose daughter I married in later years.

John Karnes is buried in the Coldwater Cemetery approximately 2 miles east of the Lulu Cemetery, South of Senath, Missouri. His head stone is located beside his son Adam S. Karnes. While visiting the cemetery in June of 2006, I noticed that the headstones for John Karnes and Adam S. Karnes had both been repaired and that artificial flowers had been placed at both headstones. I spoke with the man who maintains the cemetery and while he had noticed that someone repaired the stones, he was not aware who was responsible. I left a small plastic bottle containing my address and contact information at the base of each stone in hopes that the persons responsible for repairing the stones and leaving the flowers would contact me some day.

In Late June 2006, I was contacted by Dennis Karnes from St. Louis, Missouri, who was the individual responsible for the repair of the headstones and the flowers. John Karnes is Dennis' great-great-great grandfather. As soon as Dennis provides me more detail on his branch of the family, I'll be posting updates.

In November of 2015, while researching military records, I came across the following information. I've never found any reference to John Karnes being in the Civil War, but he would have been approximately 30 years old at the begriming of the war and would certainly could have been involved. For now I'll list the information here, but I don't have anything solid to connect this bit of data yet:

¹ This information provided/verified by John M. Karnes (karnes@clas.net). His information had the birth of John Karnes in 1829.

Italics – Information not verified by my direct family or public records