Historical records indicate that three unrelated events took place in three unrelated segments of the world in 1785. It was by providence that these three events were set to collide within the state of Mississippi, in the town of Starkville. A battle of epic proportion took place in the fertile hills and valleys of what is now called Oktibbeha County, along the banks of the Talking Warrior and Dancing Rabbit creeks. Overseen by the Europeans, an Irish farmer's obsession, fueled by the sweat of the Africans, met the indomitable spirit of the Choctaw Indian. That meeting produced the Gillespie-Ward bloodline, a proud family name, though bloodied by the curse of slave traders, land grabbers, Indian fighters, and the Civil War, the Gillespie Family name is the product of an Irish family that immigrated to the United States in search of freedom and for the expressed purpose of making a new start.