Daughter of Nathaniel Parker and Abigail Garlinghouse. Wife of Michael Buchanan and James McWhorter. Anna was the first schoolteacher in Avoca. She would go to all the homes and teach the children how to write and cipher, though she admitted later that she could hardly write herself. The mother of 5, possibly 6, children.
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Arathusia "Anna" (Parker) McWhorter was born October 27, 1777 in The Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Her father (Nathaniel Parker) was killed in the “Massacre of Wyoming” while young in life, leaving a young wife Abigail (Garlinghouse) Parker with one child, Anna only seven months old. After the massacre the few men, women and children, about sixty in all, fled to the forest for safety. After several days of suffering some of them found their way to the nearest settlements. Her mother found her way to Eastown, Pennsylvania. There the citizens kindly furnished her with an old blind mare on which she rode, carrying the baby Anna in her arms to Essex County, New York, where her parents were still living.
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While privation and suffering were their lot, the first settlers of Avoca did not forget that there was something to be looked to more than to supply their physical wants. As early as 1795 or '97, they employed one Anna Parker to teach school by going around from house to house through the sparsely settled country, imparting knowledge to the young as well as she could under existing circumstances. Her qualifications, except in having good physical powers, and sterling worth as to character, would, at this day, be deemed doubtful for that vocation, for in after life she would often tell of her pioneer teaching, and say that she could not write, and those who could were regarded as highly educated. She followed the vocation of teacher for a number of years. Susan Collier was the second teacher, and taught school in part of her father's log house and the dwellings of the inhabitants. Anna Parker and Susan Collier were the only teachers who taught in Avoca until a school house was built in 1818. This was built of logs and stood on a plot of ground near where the railroad bridge now stands. Mary McKenzie was the first teacher after the erection of the school house - she taught the summer schools, while on George Cameron was hired to teach the winter terms at eight dollars a month, a price in those days considered high.
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Michael Buchanan married Anna Parker, the pioneer schoolteacher, about the year 1800, the marriage having been solemnized by Gen. George McClure. He lived with his wife only seven years, when he died. In 1811 his widow married (Michael’s first Cousin) James McWhorter, but she continued to live on the Buchanan farm, it having been willed to her by her first husband. The first framed dwelling in Avoca was erected by James McWhorter on the Buchanan farm, and but about three rods from where once stood Eight-Mile-Tree.
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James McWhorter and Arathusia (Parker) Buchanan had four children;
1.Abigail McWhorter - 1812...………………..M:Spence Moore
2.Keziah McWhorter - 1813...………………..M:Joel Richard Collier
3.Tyler McWhorter - 1815...……………….….1M:Lydia Esther Grow
…………...………...…………………………..2M:Clarissa M. Luce
4.Hanna Ann McWhorter - 1818...…………...M:Nathan Barney
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HISTORICAL GAZETTEER
Steuben County, N.Y.
John Single Paper Co., Ltd.
Syracuse, N.Y., 1891
Compiled/transcribed by Dennis W. McWhorter
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