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Submitted: 2/24/20 • Approved: 2/25/20 • Last Updated: 2/28/20 • R825083-G0-S3
1802 or 1807 Mecklenburg, NC
1861 Cassville, Barry Co., MO
Son of David B. Yandell and Elizabeth Parks
Husband of Mary Katherine “Lockie” Meador
Married Sep 25, 1828 Summer, TN
There are two differing accounts of his murder:
In 1862, another event influenced Columbus Addison Lee's decision to leave Missouri to go to Texas. C. A. Lee's father-in-law, James Parks Yandell, (my great-great-grandfather) was an avid anti-Confederate person who was not timid about speaking out against slavery and the Confederate cause. What's more, Yandell had opposed the marriage of C. A. and his daughter, Permelia Caroline, (my great-grandmother), causing the young couple to elope. There was continual conflict between C. A. Lee and Yandell until Yandell was ambushed in 1862. He fell from his horse at what is now the gateway to Corinth Cemetery in Lee Valley, near Cassville, Missouri, and was buried where he fell. James Parks Yandell, who had shot his own son-in-law years earlier in Illinois, which caused his own sudden move to Missouri, had thus been killed by his own son-in-law -- which is another story.
All the Lee family in Missouri knew that C. A. Lee had been the trigger man in this ambush and that he had killed his father-in-law. All, that is, except his wife, Caroline Yandell Lee, because no one wanted to be the one to tell her. Family stories also say that after the Civil War, C. A. Lee decided to move his family to Texas to escape his reputation as a bushwhacker and murderer. His greatest fear was that his wife would leave him if she found out what he had done.
When the Lee family arrived in Texas, C. A. Lee was apparently able to change his reputation and became known as a family man, music teacher, church leader, and community leader.
Source: The Family Saga: A Collection of Texas Family Legends edited by Francis Edward Abernethy, Jerry Bryan Lincecum, Frances Brannen Vick. Pages 59-60. Excerpt by Jean G. Schnitz.
The other version was written about by George Franklin Meador, an 89-year-old relative who stated that the 'Jas P. family moved to Barry Co. in 1854 and bought 80 A. of land about 4 mi. SW of Cassville, near where the Corinth Church was later located. James was bitterly opposed to slavery and located in a county where most people were Southern sympathizers during the Civil War, and Uncle Parks was ambushed from the brush. No one knew who did it, but it was thought that his partner, Lillard, might have had a hand in it as he went to Texas. He was buried on the corner of his farm...and his grave probably was the starting of the Corinth Cemetery... My wife and I were born and reared in Barry Co., Mo, and my father showed me the location of the grave many years ago.' A hand-drawn sketch of the grave location was included in his letter. (the above citation was taken from Nan Yarbrough's book, pg's 363-364.)
Contributed on 2/24/20
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Record #: 825083