Isaac Routh was born in North Carolina about 1745, and was probably a son of Zacheus Routh (1717), or one of the other sons of Lawrence Routh (1687). Isaac was living in the household of his older brother, Jacob, at the time of the first US census in 1790. He moved to Grainger County, Tennessee with that family in 1791. Isaac married near Knoxville in 1794. He was the father of nine sons. The oldest, Jacob, was born in 1795. He died in 1835, leaving his five sons orphans. His brothers took the boys with them when they moved to Indiana, Arkansas and Missouri. Two of the boys, Jacob and John, were left in Tennessee with their Uncle Stephen. The following story was based on a story told by Edward Routh, son of Jacob, when Ed was eighty years old. It tells how his father made his way to Missouri in 1837. The rest of this story concerns his descendants and the families of their wives.