John (the Deer Hunter) Cutright was born on September 24, 1789 probably at their home on the West Fork of the Monongahela near Clarksburg WV. There used to be a question about whether John was born in Virginia or Kentucky because the family moved to Kentucky in 1789; however, on August 26, 1850 John reported in the 1850 Federal census that he had been born in Virginia. John married Marthe Engle on October 29, 1809 in Ross Co. Ohio. Martha was a sister of Phoebe who married his brother Andrew. John was a frontiersman, soldier in the War of 1812, a Justice of the Peace in Ross Co. Ohio, and one of the administrators of his fathers estate. John was involved in several court cases---one time he was sued over a dam and mill he built in Chillicothe Ohio. The jury found in John's favor. Another time he defended his son Albert in a paternity case. He lost that case. John was in the Ohio Legislature in 1835 and attended a presidential convention as Ohio favorite-son candidate for Vice President. John was called the Deer Hunter because of his ability to shoot a deer from the back of a galloping horse. His Kentucky Rifle is still in existence.
In November 1838 John started buying land in Cumberland Co. Illinois from the government, and about that time John and several of his children and other family members moved from Ohio to Illinois. John eventually bought at least 1470 acres from the government, and other tracts from individuals so that at one time he had about 2000 acres in Illinois. Eventually all of Johns children except Camden moved to Illinois along with several nephews and sisters-in-law after their husbands died. According to tradition John also had $2000 in gold which he buried on his Illinois farm. Numerous people tried to find it over the next century but as far as is known no one found it. In about 1910 Oliver Cutright was plowing a pasture field next to a hill that hadn't been plowed before. When he reached the end of the field he noticed the lid of a pot that he had hit and dragged on the bottom of the plow with him. The underside was clean, indicating that it had covered a pot--perhaps a pot of gold. Oliver never was able to find the pot or the gold.
In the summer of 1960 after I graduated from High School and before I started College, a friend of mine and I used a metal detector to search for the gold. We found lots of shot gun shells and pieces of scrap metal. Finally one Sunday afternoon we were "detecting" behind an old house where John's daughter, Elizabeth Redman , had lived and suddenly the metal detector started beeping. We moved it around and could see that it was a piece of metal about 2 feet in diameter--just the size for a large pot of gold. We grabbed the shovels and started digging and soon we uncovered a lid with a ring in the top. We tried to lift the lid but couldn't so we decided to dig it up. We started digging down the side and then we saw that the side was made of bricks and we realized that we were digging up the septic tank.
John and Martha had 6 children--Albert(9/4/1812-3/17/1878) who married Sarah Marie Pennington on 12/24/1838; Rachel Shaner(3/4/1815-9/10/1887) who on 8/31/1845 married John Shaner; Oliver(10/16/1816-12/4/1892)who in 1843 married Mary Baumgartner; Camden(8/29/1819-3/1/1898) who on 1/20/1846 married Margaret Campbell; John III(11/23/1821-4/1/1892)who married Elizabeth Day and Elizabeth Shaner; and Elizabeth Redman(4/2/1824-11/1/1866) who on 11/22/1846 married John Redman. Camden stayed in Ohio and the rest of the family eventually came to Illinois. One of the children, Oliver, married Mary Baumgartner, the granddaughter of Henry Baungartner, a Hessian Soldier who was brought to this country to fight for England in the Revolution. Henry deserted and stayed to fight for the colonies.
John died on June 29, 1860 and is buried in the Cutright Cemetery in Cumberland Co. Illinois.