John Carter Rayfield Jr.

Their Story

John Carter Rayfield Jr. was born around 1848 on his father's Reynolds County homestead — the second generation of Rayfields to grow up on Sinking Creek. His father was the patriarch John Carter Rayfield Sr.; his mother was Mary Ann "Polly" Mann, who died when John Carter Jr. was about twelve years old. He grew up in a large household, farming the same Ozark ground his father had patented from the federal government, and he stayed there his whole life.

He married Nancy Ann Farris sometime in the late 1860s. Nancy Ann had grown up in the same river valley community — her father was Lucian Nester Farris, one of Reynolds County's most significant men of the era: a farmer, two-term state legislator, and Confederate officer who had arrived in the county around 1840 and built one of its most prominent households. When Lucian died in 1876, Nancy Ann was already a young married woman. When John Carter Jr. had married her, he was joining two of the county's founding families.

They raised their family in Webb Township — the same remote corner of Reynolds County where both families had been rooted for decades. The 1900 census shows them together, both listed at age 52, with three of their children still at home: son John at eighteen, son Franklin at sixteen (who would one day carry this family's story forward into the next generation), and daughter Sarah at twelve. John Carter Jr. died around 1915, probably in his late sixties. Nancy Ann outlived him by sixteen years, dying on February 8, 1931. Her funeral was held at the Buffington schoolhouse — not a church in town, not a funeral parlor, but the community building of the valley where she had spent her entire life.

Name in Records

John Carter Rayfield Jr. appears in records almost always as a variant of his father's name, which can create confusion:

His wife’s 1931 obituary calls him “Carter Rayfield” — the informal name that distinguished him from his father. The 1900 census lists the head of household as “J.C.R. Rayfield,” age 52. His wife goes by “Nannie” in the same record, though she is Nancy Ann Farris in her own records and obituary.

Vital Facts — John Carter Rayfield Jr.

Vital Facts — Nancy Ann Farris Rayfield

Census Timeline

Nancy Ann’s Earlier Censuses (as a Farris child)

Known Children

Nancy Ann’s 1931 obituary names five sons (with their locations at the time) and notes three daughters, whose names were not recorded in the obituary. The table below lists the confirmed children; the daughters remain a research gap.

What We’re Still Looking For

This profile is a work in progress. Several pieces of the picture are still missing. If you have family records, photographs, or memories that might help fill these gaps, please get in touch.