From what we have gathered our line of USA Arnotts came from New Jersey. Henry Arnot(t?) jr. was born in Essex Co. in 1791. From here a western migration of the family was to begin. One of his sons, Henry Watts Arnott, was born in 1822 in Monroe County, Virginia (West Virginia as of 1863) so it looks like Henry, the father, was the one to make the move to the south and a little west. One of Henry Watts Arnott's sons is Lonnie Payton Arnott, my grandfather and the 8th child of 9 in the family.
Like his father, Lonnie was born in Greenville, Monroe county, West Virginia--just after the Civil War in 1869. He grew up there. There's a story about him told to me by one of his cousins of getting chased by a "panther" while he was returning home late one night from a young lady's house. It was told that as he was going through some wooded area he could hear the big cat's tale thumping the ground behind him and he broke into a swift run. Apparently and thankfully, he made it home without mishap.
Lonnie met Marie I. Sipp, from Milan township, Erie County, Ohio, and at the age of 38 married her. They were married in Abilene, Kansas so perhaps they met in that state somewhere. After marriage the couple moved and settled to McPherson, Kansas. All of their 3 children were born there.
Gailen, my dad and the one in the middle in the top photo--yup in the dress and as a young father in the Army just above, was born in 1914. Thirty-three years later in 1947, after dad's hitch in the Army Air Corp, the Arnotts completed the westward migration of our line to one of the three western-most states in the union (at the time). I was the first Arnott in our line born on the left coast being born in 1949 in San Bernardino, CA. The trip from the east to the west took somewhat less than 158 years!
