John CORNWELL appears with his wife and four children in the 1830 Bedford County, TN, census.  He then disappears from the records.  Some suspect that John was the son of Micajah CORNWELL of Rutherford County, NC, since Micajah’s son John is known to have died in the 1830s.  Other evidence suggests he was the son of William CORNWELL of Spartanburg/Greenville Districts, SC.   

John CORNWELL’s wife, nee Stacy FARMER, appears as head of household in the 1840 Bedford County census.  Later censuses indicate Stacy was born about 1805 in South Carolina.  We believe she was a widow when she moved to Alabama with her four children — Larkin, Nathan, Mary, and Rebecca — sometime after 1840.

At about the same time the CORNWELL family went to Alabama, the spelling of the surname changed to CORNELL.  They lived for just a brief time in Alabama and left no records there; yet the evidence is very persuasive that they settled in Fayette County before moving west to Pontotoc Co., MS, by 1850.

The CORNWELL, WHEELER, and FARMER families all lived "next door" to each other in Spartanburg District, SC, according to the 1820 census; and the same families appear next door to each other in Bedford County, TN, in 1830 and 1840.  The oldest common WHEELER ancestor was John WHEELER Sr., whose plantation was on the dividing line where Spartanburg and Greenville districts came together.  Stacy was the granddaughter of John WHEELER Sr. and the daughter of Margaret “Peggy” WHEELER (John Sr.'s daughter), who married Nathan FARMER.  A widowed Margaret “Peggy” FARMER is found living next to the CORNWELLs in the Bedford County, TN, census in both 1830 and 1840.  

Stacy's son, Larkin CORNELL, married Mary THOMAS, daughter of Solomon THOMAS, about 1847.  Unfortunately, many of Fayette County’s records from prior to the Civil War were destroyed, so no marriage record has been found.  The family of Solomon THOMAS appears in the Fayette County, AL, census in both 1830 and 1840.  Larkin and Mary’s first child, William N. CORNELL, was born probably in Fayette County.  The 1850 Pontotoc County, MS, census indicates William was born in Mississippi, but in the 1860 and 1870 censuses, his birthplace indicated is Alabama.

A number of ORR and WHEELER families were living in the area of Poplins Crossroads, TN (where the CORNWELLs lived in Bedford County) and also in Fayette County, AL.  The family of Sample ORR appears in Fayette County in both the 1830 and 1840 censuses.  Larkin’s brother, Nathan CORNELL would later marry one of Sample’s daughters, Clarinda ORR.  A sister, Mary CORNWELL, would later marry Daniel Silas BURTON, whose parents, James G. and Melinda BURTON, also appear in the 1840 Fayette County census. 

Margaret “Peggy” FARMER (nee WHEELER) brought 10 of her children to Bedford County, TN, from South Carolina in the late 1820s.  Her brother (son of John Sr.) was David WHEELER (1789-1848), who married Elizabeth Courson McMAKIN.  They had two sons that moved to Fayette County, AL, appearing in census records for 1840 and 1850:

•  A.J. WHEELER migrated to Fayette County in 1837.  This is Andrew Jackson WHEELER, who was born in 1815 (based on the 1840 census and pension records) in Spartanburg District, SC.  He appears in the Fayette 1840 census and 1850 census (in Beat 9, household #151).  A.J. is found living very close to Sample ORR in 1840.

•  Jesse Jones WHEELER appears in Fayette County in 1850.  Both A.J. and Jesse lived in or near what is now Vernon in Lamar County, AL, which was carved from Fayette County in 1866.

The family’s association with the THOMAS, ORR, and BURTON families — all of which lived in Fayette Co., AL, before 1850, and moved to Pontotoc County, MS, by 1850 — leaves little room for doubt that the CORN(W)ELLs also lived in Fayette County.  The connection between Bedford County, TN, and Fayette County, AL, was certainly the WHEELER family and also possibly the ORR family.  More research is needed to determine what caused these families to leave Alabama en masse in the 1840s.