According to Ruth Beddingfield Helms in The Heritage of Henderson County, Volume II, “John Wesley Anderson (29-April 1845 – 3 August 1899) was the son of John Anderson (1819-1889) and Margaret Elvira Reid Anderson (20 June 1826 – 1 June 1922). John and Margaret Anderson were buried at Holly Springs Baptist Church Cemetery, Henderson County, North Carolina. John Wesley married Lucinda Matilda McCrary (16 February 1852 – 6 September 1899). She was the oldest child of Adolphus McCrary (29 March 1830 – 8 November 1915) and Julia Ann Jones McCrary (12 May 1827 – circa December 1893). Julia Ann Jones McCrary was the daughter of Solomon Jones, known as the “Roadbuilder.” Aldophus and Julia McCrary are buried at the McCrary family cemetery, Henderson County, North Carolina.
John Wesley Anderson was a Baptist Minister and circuit rider. He also served one term in the North Carolina Legislature in 1891. Wesley and Matilda had sixteen children. During the summer of 1899, he contracted typhoid fever while helping care of sick parishioners and died. Matilda was left with thirteen unmarried children at home, ranging from nine months old to twenty-two years old. She also died of typhoid fever just weeks later. The Wesley Anderson land which included part of the land now included in Pleasant Hill Baptist Church Cemetery, Henderson County, North Carolina and the adjacent land now occupied by Kanuga Conference was sold soon after Wesley and Matilda died to meet the needs of the surviving dependent children. John Wesley and Matilda are buried in Pleasant Hill Baptist Church Cemetery…. The children of John Wesley and Matilda showed great courage, determination, ambition, achievement and adventuresomeness despite the death of their parents when ten of the sixteen children were less than eighteen years of age. With the help of the older children, homes and education were provided for the younger children. The siblings remained in close contact and were supportive of each other despite geographic separation. They and their descendants place high value on educational achievement and humanitarian concerns. Lawrence Augustus Anderson was my grandfather.”
