As a direct descendent of James and Luona Parchman, for many years I have searched for more knowledge about them and their families. We had been quite certain that he was a member of one of the Stewart County families but did not have a correspondent there to help us substantiate that relationship. In 1974 I recorded what we knew and made inquiries concerning his ancestry. In recent months we have made the connections that evidently give us an immigrant ancestor, Nicholas Parchment, of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in 1773, and Allegheny County in 1783.
The said Nicholas Parchment (Parchmann, Perchment, Parchman) was from Germany and we know of three of his sons, one or more of whom may have been born in Germany and immigrated with their father. In the oral tradition they were ``three brothers from Germany,'' Peter, Phillip and John. We are greatly indebted to Dr. Lonnie Gerald Parchman for his comprehensive study of Parchman families in the U.S.A. and his distribution of his study to various historical societies. It is likely that he had access to my work of 1974 for he mentioned the connection of the Lauderdale County, Tenn., families to our James Parchman. I found his materials, entitled The Parchman Family Tree [40] through the Columbia, Tenn., Genealogical Society publication, The River Counties Quarterly.
I wrote to the author, but my letter was returned. About the same time, I
received a letter from Mrs. Mary Holland Lancaster 
,
offering information on other Parchment descendents, and enquiring as to
the ancestors of the Stewart Co. family. Some of her materials were from
other Parchmans in Texas who seem to be descendents of Nicholas Parchment
through Phillip and his children who lived in Tennessee and Monroe County
Mississippi before moving to Texas. Their oral tradition had ``Aquilla
Parchman,'' who served in the War of 1812 from Tennessee as the Tennessee
ancestor, father of John, Phillip, Peter, James and Jesse. Facts revealed
by Dr. Gerald Parchman's research makes this seem unlikely, and we have
virtually no documentation on Aquilla except his military service. It is
therefore considered that he was a beloved older brother or kinsman whom
the oral tradition, lacking other documentation, assumed to be the father
of the above named sons.
Gerald Parchman identifies the above named sons as children of Phillip
Parchman, who migrated to Robertson County, Tenn., before 1796. He also owned
land in Stewart Co., which he sold some years later to James Fletcher. A
booklet on the Parchmans of Texas and Oklahoma, most of whom are
descendents of this Phillip (or Aquilla?), has been published by Mrs. Launa
Ragle.
Though it was published after 1973, some of the material had been collected
and circulated as early as 1912 by W. C. Parchman of Oklahoma City, Okla.
From this family came many of the Parchmans of Mississippi in the 1820-40
period, and perhaps the J. M. Parchman who sold land to the State of
Mississippi for a pentitentiary and for whom the village of Parchman
established there was named.
The West Tennessee Parchmans come then through James and his Indian bride, Luona, b. in Mississippi ca. 1812, and through James's father John (b. Germany or Penn., 1770-75), who settled near Cumberland City in what is now Stewart County in 1789 or 90, well before Tennessee became a state. He is recorded in the Stewart Co. history to have been one of the earliest settlers of the county. His brother Phillip settled in nearby Robertson County a bit later, while his father and brother Peter stayed in Pennsylvania. Peter and his children and grandchildren lived in Wilkins Township, Allegheny Co., Penn., which has now become a part of the city of Pittsburgh. There is some oral tradition of the brothers coming through North and/or South Carolina in their migration to Tennessee. According to the travel routes of the time it would seem very likely that they did come through North Carolina; indeed, Tennessee was still North Carolina as far west as Stewart Co. in 1790.
Luona, born in Mississippi ca. 1812, is still a mystery. But with first cousins of James living in Monroe Co., Mississippi, as early as 1820, which was then only recently opening to settlers where many Indians had lived for centuries, it is even more likely that she was a Chickasaw or Choctaw than a Cherokee, if indeed she was born in Mississippi. Her daughter, Fredonia, who married Michael C. Watlington, was not ashamed of her ancestry and neither were her descendents, many of whom revealed physical characteristics of Indian heritage.
-- Oct. 11, 1988