JANICE'S FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT
Contents:
Introduction (6/20/2009)
My great-great grandparents:
Rufus Pitt Williams (6/20/2009)
Nancy Clark Adkins (6/21/2009)
Andrew Jackson Lett (6/22/2009)
Sarah Emmer "Sallie" Estes (6/23/2009)
William Thomas Puckett (6/24/2009)
Mary Victoria Riggs (6/27/2009)
Isaac Newton Hood (6/28/2009)
Sarah Mariah Louise Larimore
John Harrison Hallford
Mary Jane "Mollie" Leonard
William Henry Cunningham
Mildred "Dred" Wright
Wilson Harrison Couch
Elizabeth Jane Little
William Joseph "Joe" Moore
Trissia Arminda Faulkner
My great-great-grandparents:
Williams Wesley Williams and Minerva Fannin
Henry Baxter Adkins and Emily F. Motley
James H. Lett and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Duncan
William F. Estes and Sarah Alline Rutland
Creed T. Puckett and Sarah Brown
? Riggs and Sarah Beauchamp
Daley Walker Hood and Nancy Roddy
R.E. Larimore and Nancy ?
James Powel Hallford and Sarah "Sally" Medlin
Abram Leonard and Margaret ?
James Cunningham and Susannah Tate
Richard Wright and ?
Robert Couch and Louisa Osborn
Willam B. Little and Eliza Louise Tate
Joseph Iddings Moore and Frances Elizabeth Reeves
Benjamin Faulkner and Arminda Lee
My great-grandparents:
Charles Wesley Williams
Mattie Adella Lett
Sam Houston Puckett
Salina Louella Hood
Edward Lewis Hallford
Henrietta Cunningham
Henry Wilson Couch
Etta Josephine Moore
My grandparents:
Andrew Lee Williams
Sarah Ola Puckett
Arla Edward Hallford
Willie Couch
Who am I?
INTRODUCTION
I’m going to start this before I get off onto another
project and delay yet another day. As I keep thinking about this project I keep
thinking about what I don’t know and what I don’t know how to do, but I
remember Mamie McCullough saying, “When you don’t know how to do something . .
. start!” So I am starting.
My purpose is to write what I know about my direct ancestors
(and maybe a few non-direct). While it may be overwhelming to think about all I
know about my parents or grandparents, it gets narrower and narrower as I go up
the tree, so I will start with Rufus Pitt Williams and branch off from there. I
WILL start with him today, even though I know I’ll get off and get lost in some
details, but even if I get a start, that is more than I’ve done these last
years of thinking about it.
This project is, of course, for Brandt and Connor. They are
the only ones in the next generation that are related to all of these people. I
hope my cousins on both sides of the family can get some use and be interested
in their relations and I hope Brandt and Connor can preserve this information
for another Janice in the future that needs to know more about her ancestry.
Already, my head is telling me to stop and gather some info,
but in this computer age I know I can always go back and add things, so I will
forge ahead with Pitt…
RUFUS PITT WILLIAMS
Rufus Pitt Williams was born April 3, 1848, in the Deep South- -
Tallapoosa County,
Alabama. I’m sure as he was a little boy, the issues of secession
from the
Union were already being discussed among his father, William Wesley
Williams,
and his much older brothers, William LaFayette Williams (a doctor,
born in 1833) Baron (born in 1836) and others of the community. I
don’t know that
they were slaveholders at that point, and I need to look that up, but,
obviously, they lived in a place and era that supported slavery. One
week after Pitt turned 13, the attack on Fort Sumter began the Civil
War. Again, I wonder how quickly the news spread
and how they were informed of what was going on in Washington and in
South Carolina
and along the Mason-Dixon Line in those first battles. Pitt was one of
the
younger members in the family and his older brother Baron went off to
fight in
the Civil War. Imagine what the home life was like as they waited for
word of
his fate and also prepared their home and property for possible
invasion from
the North. Baron did survive the Civil War, though he lost an arm. He
came home
and became a successful merchant after the war.
When Pitt was 20, he married Martha Robertson. She was
also from the community and had lived nearby for many years.
Pitt’s brother Thomas Cooper married Martha’s
sister, so their children were double cousins. She died after only 5
years of marriage. They had two daughters and then she gave birth to
a son and he died before he was a year old, so I wonder if there
was
a flu epidemic or something that killed them both near the same time? I
think she is buried in the Darien Cemetery in Tallapoosa County, but
I'm not sure from web research and I need to make a trip to
research. Soon after, Pitt
married Martha’s cousin Nancy Clark Adkins. I’m sure that
was common in those
days to marry family members and certainly both were neighbors for a
long
period of time and would have been known to Pitt. And I’m sure
Nancy loved her
cousin Martha’s children as her own.
Pitt and Nancy began to have their own
children and had one daughter and then
their one and only son, Charles Wesley Williams. He was born in 1878.
They had two more daughters and then in 1884, when Charley was 6, they
moved to
Texas. This was not an impulsive move. Pitt’s first
father-in-law, Martha’s
father, Allen Jordan Robertson had already moved to Texas. I have no
doubt that he made a return trip to encourage other members of his
family to
move to Texas with him. Pitt and Nancy and a bunch of children and some
livestock loaded up a wagon and moved to East Texas. I believe Nancy
was preganant during trip and gave birth to another girl after they
were in Texas. Several of Pitt's family members continued to live in
East Texas, but the Robertsons and Pitt and Nancy ended up in Cornhill,
Texas, in Williamson County, near Jarrell. .
All together, Pitt and Nancy had 9 children, 8 daughters and 1 son, and
the 2 daughters from his first marriage, so 10 daughters and 1 son from
this family grew to adulthood.
The father-in-law Allen Jordan Robertson died in 1905and is buried in
the
Cornhill Cemetery as are twin babies of Pitt’s brother Cooper and
sister-in-law Ellie. As the family grew up in the community, they
married neighbors. Charley
met Mattie Lett, another immigrant from Alabama (though I don’t
know if there
were any connections in Alabama or not) after they met at a church
social. They
married in Corn Hill in 1902.
In ___, Pitt and
Nancy (and children?) moved to Chico, Texas, near Decatur, in Wise County.
There they lived out their days and are both buried in the Chico cemetery near
at least three of their daughters, their daughter Esther who never married, one
who married a Morrow, and one other. Pitt died May 21, 1926, at the age of 78, of heart trouble.
I drove just past Chico on I-35 for more than 20 years going back and
forth from Dallas to Amarillo and back without ever stopping to see the
cemetery. In March of 2006 when I was home for Mother's birthday, she
and Daddy and I finally made the trip to Chico and saw the graves. Here
are Dad and me standing next to the grave of his great-grandparents who
both died just a few years before he was born.
Sources for the information on Rufus Pitt Williams comes mainly from a distant cousin's website.
Her name is Georgia Fleming and she lives in Enterprise, Alabama, which
is in the far south of the state. She is descended from Baron Williams
and has pictures of him and his wife and child on her website along
with a picture of another brother in the family. Somewhere along the
way she got information on some of our (closer) family from a family
tree of mine that got posted by another cousin of mine on the
web. Much of the information comes from or was corroborated by my dad's
first cousin Maxine Boschetto in Boston. She also has done a lot of
family research and I got my one and only picture of Pitt and Nancy
from her (it is below). I also corroborated information from the
gravestone of Pitt and Nancy in Chico, census records, and a fabulous
document from a lawyer named Mr. Adkins who is a cousin through Nancy.
I will footnote this information when I get time.
Back to the top.
NANCY CLARK ADKINS
I know more about Nancy’s father than I do about her, but
we’ll get to him in the future. I know that she was born August 6, 1850, in Georgia and her
father was a shoe cobbler. She also grew up in an antebellum world with
slavery, but I doubt that her family had slaves since they were not farmers
(though they probably did farm some, didn’t everyone then?). She had 10
brothers and sisters. She married Rufus Pitt Williams when she was 24, December 3, 1874, taking on his
two small daughters. Pitt called her “Sis” rather than Nancy because his oldest
sister was named Nancy and he had had a bad relationship with her and the name
had a bad feeling with it (though I think it is odd that he would then call his
wife “Sis”).
Along with her husband and 5 daughters below the age of 15
and her only son Charley, who was 6, the family loaded up their wagon and
livestock and moved to Texas in 1884 to East Texas, and then Williamson County, Texas, where they
lived for ___ years and then she and Pitt (and possibly there were still
children with them) moved to Wise County, near Chico, Texas.
Nancy was educated and could spell very well. She had a great sense of
humor
and was very loved by her 10 daughters and family. She died August 24,
1924, at the age of 74, and is buried in the Chico Cemetery alongside
her husband and at least 3
of her daughters and 2 sons-in-law. She preceded her husband in death
by 2 years.
This genealogy would be pretty dull if I didn't have some pictures to
share, too. This is my one and only picture of Nancy and Pitt,
apparently taken when she was near death in the 1920s. It was sent to
me just last year (2008) by my cousin Maxine in Boston.
Sources for
information about Nancy Clark Adkins Williams are mainly from a distant
cousin Mr. Adkins. When I first started being interested in genealogy
when I was in my teens, Daddy somehow met Mr. Adkins in Amarillo. Mr.
Adkins was a lawyer downtown. Daddy made me get an appointment with Mr.
Adkins and I met with him in his big law office and discussed family
history for a good long time. I can imagine now how nice it was for him
to find a younger person that was interested in the family history. He
had researched and written a wonderful history of the Henry Baxter
Adkins Family in the 1960s and gave me a copy of it. It is a trememdous
document and I hope some of my research helps someone else like his
helped me. Other information from Maxine Boschetto in Boston,
Massachusetts, the gravestone, census records.
Back to the top.
ANDREW JACKSON LETT
(I keep feeling the need to apologize before I write here, but I don't
think anyone is really reading this, so why do I worry? And again I am
thinking, I need to look some stuff up before I write! I'm tamping down
that feeling and I am determined to write, first thing in the morning,
just what I know off the top of my head, and then I can come back after
it starts eating at me and make the corrections, add the details, and
put in the pictures.)
Andrew Jackson Lett was born in Georgia or Alabama and he was orphaned
by the Civil War. I don't know the circumstances of what killed his
parents, but I know he and his brothers and sisters were found in other
households in later censuses and are listed in an orphanage
somewhere along the way. How sad. Eventually he married Sarah "Sallie"
Estes and they lived in Chambers County, Alabama, which is just next
door to Tallapoosa County, so we have a lot of heritage in that
southeastern part of the state (and more coming up in the other side of
the family, too). In Alabama they began their family. I think all of
their children were born there, 2 sons, Marshall and Andrew Jackson
Lett, Jr. (called Jay, I think), and 4 daughters, including my
great-grandmother Mattie. They all came to Texas in the 1880s or 1890s
and settled in Cornhill, Texas, near Jarrell today, at some point. The
Letts migrated to Winters, Texas, in Runnels County. I don't know if
they went there first or if they followed their children there, but the
entire family ended up there, all moving after the kids had found
spouses.
According to my cousin Edna England, who was this man's granddaughter
-- isn't it wild that someone that had a grrandparent the grew up in the
Civil War is still with us today? -- Andrew Lett was a fun, lively man
with bright red hair and a great sense of humor. He was also a Democrat
through and through. On his deathbed, he made Edna promise she would
always vote Democrat.
As a side note, first, about voting Democrat. Andrew Jackson's daughter
was my great-grandmother and she was alive until I was in college, so I
knew her. She also was a Democrat, of course, and she absolutely hated
Richard Nixon. And I'm talking about before the Watergate scandal came
to light. She just talked about "that Richard Nixon" and how she hated
him and how she wasn't going to die until he was out of office. She was
old then, terribly hard of hearing and had a hearing aid that went over
her head like a headband and it squealed because it was up too loud and
had feedback whenever she talked. She had a distinct Southern accent
from having grown up in Alabama and around people from Alabama. When
Nixon resigned, we teased Grandma and said, "Well, Nixon's out of
office now, I guess you can die." So then she changed her tune to, "I'm
not going to die until the Republicans are out of office." She railed
on that for a time. Then the election of 1976 came along and Jimmy
Carter, a Democrat from the South, was elected. She stayed with us a
couple more years and died in 1978, happy.
I say all of that about my great-grandmother to say that I knew where
Edna came from and the Democratic family that the Letts were from way
back. But when I met her, in November of 2008, I didn't know what
to expect. The week before, I had been in Mineral Wells, Texas, and
felt distinctly out of place with my Obama sticker on my car among the
Republicans with McCain stickers on their cars. The election had just
ended and I felt like I needed to get out of town fast. So the next
weekend I went to Runnels County, full of Republican ranchers, to meet
Edna for the first time. We had spoken on the phone and she had said,
"You'd better come see me, I'm 90, I might not be here too long!" I
wondered if I should take my Obama sticker off before I got to town. I
especially didn't want to offend her or talk politics with her, I
wanted to talk about family. I met her at a Mexican cafe and we just
hit it off wonderfully from the start. Nothing about her said "90." She
was red-headed and cute and dressed up in a pretty pantsuit with
jewelry and makeup. Determined to NOT talk politics, when she started
talking about her grandfather voting Democrat, I just smiled and
listened. I told her about my great-grandmother waiting to die until
Republicans were out of office and she nodded knowingly. She knew
Mattie well, too. She went on to tell about how Andrew Jackson
Lett, her grandfather, had made her promise to always vote
Democrat. I smiled and listened. Eventually she quoted him, and I hope
anyone reading this understands that this man was from a different time
and place. She said that one time he told her, "I'd rather vote for a
n___ than a Republican." We sat there a moment and I finally said,
"Well, I guess that would have been his choice this election." She
smiled and nodded and I asked, "How did you vote?" I think she had been
waiting for me to ask. She said, with conviction, "I voted for Obama. I
see no reason the color of a man's skin should make any difference in
the way I vote." I finally breathed out and she leaned across the
table, conspiratorially, and said, "But don't tell my kids." I had met
her grandson and his family in the parking lot and could tell on sight
that they were strong Republicans, there was no doubt. She confirmed
it. After that, we had a lively discussion of politics and many more
things and I'm glad that she was there to give me first hand knowledge
of her grandfather.
Andrew Jackson Lett and his wife are buried in the ___ Cemetery in
"downtown" Winters on the main street. His son "Uncle Jay" is buried
nearby and Edna England's mother is close by, too, as are my
great-grandparents, Mattie and Charley Williams and one of their babies
that died, Lily Pearl.
This was the only picture I had of the Letts for a long long time, but
I took pictures of pictures that Edna had, so I have some more now. I
believe that Andrew Jackson Lett was probably a very handsome, striking
man when he was younger.
Back to the top
SARAH "SALLIE" EMMER ESTES
I'll go ahead an put her name like that for now because that is how I
think of her and how I've had it written in my files for years and
years. When I visited Edna England and began looking at her pictures
and research I realized her middle name isn't "Emmer" it is "Emma"! I'm
sure it was pronounced Emmer by many people along the way and someone
wrote it down like that. Despite learning how she spelled her name, I
haven't found much more on Sallie Estes Lett. She was born in
1860 in Alabama. She married Andrew Jackson Lett in Alabama when she
was 16 and he was 19. I looked at a few things last night and
realized on his entry I didn't mention that they did have a daughter
named Arkatie (I love that name!) as their first child, born in 1878.
She is with them in the 1880 census and then must have died young
because there is no more record of her. I only discovered her a year
ago. They moved from Chambers County, Alabama, to Texas. in 1900 by
covered wagon with 2 mules and 1 cow and 4 children. They had the last
2 children in Texas. I do know who here parents were and have
possibilities for her ancestry, but nothing concrete.
WILLIAM THOMAS PUCKETT
After four great-great-grandparents from Alabama, let's change
dramatically. William Thomas Puckett was born in northern Kentucky in
1845, possibly near Louisville. The family lived in a couple of places
in Kentucky and his father went off to serve in the Confederate Cavalry
in the Civil War and died when William Thomas was only 17. He had
brothers and sisters down to 6 years old and one older sister. I don't
quite know if their mother remarried or how the family ended up in
Texas, but they did and were in Washington County, Texas, by the time
W.T. was 27 and he married Mary Victoria Riggs near Brenham in 1872.
They had 3 sons and a daughter over the next six years and when the
baby daughter was only a few months old and W.T. was 33, he died. I
have it recorded that he died of blood poisoning or cancer from riding
an old saddle while harvesting grain. I don't quite know what that
means. He is buried in the Macedonia Cemetery near Granger, Texas. I
have been to the cemetery and it is a beautiful old, peaceful cemetery
that I had a hard time finding. His grave was either never marked
(highly likely in that time and under the circumstances) or the
gravestone has been moved/taken/destroyed. I did not find a marker and
have not found any record of a marker on websites.
MARY VICTORIA RIGGS
Mary Victoria Riggs was born in 1848 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I do not even know her parents names, but her mother was possibly named
Sarah Beauchamp. She moved with her family to Texas and settled in
Independence County. She married William Thomas Puckett when she was 24
in 1872 near Brenham and they had 3 sons and a daughter before he
died. They were living near Granger in Williamson County then. I don't
know how she continued to farm her land, but she did. I don't know how
much time passed before she married W.T. "Bill" Newman from Rockdale. I
think it was some time because I think only she and her daughter (who
was a baby when Williams Thomas died) moved to live with him and the
boys lived on their own, even though they were not completely grown. I
think I have this information in the book my Uncle Richard Puckett
wrote about the family. The man she married was known as "Grandpa
Newman" to all the grandchildren and was well loved by my grandmother,
Ola, I know. He and "Grandma Newman" lived in Burleson County until
sometime between 1900 and 1910 they moved to Coke County in West Texas
(further west than Winters, closer to San Angelo) and were there in the
1910 and 1920 census and then they relocated to Runnels County to be
near her son Sam Houston Puckett (her son) when they were elderly. They
both died there in the fall of 1928 and are buried in the ___ Cemetery
in Winters, the one just west of town. I do know that she had a
half brother named Jeff Riggs, too, that was the first to migrate to
Runnels County and he came back and encouraged the Puckett boys to come
there to farm. Another story of hers: Apparently, she was a third
or fourth cousin of Queen Victoria, who was, of course, queen of
England for most of her young years (until 1901) and that is why she
has the middle name Victoria (though I expect it was a popular name
because of the Queen anyway). Uncle Richard says the Riggs thought the
queen was snobbish as they were commoners. No proof at all of any
relationship or how they would be related.
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ISAAC NEWTON HOOD
Isaac Newton Hood was born March 17, 1836, in Maryville, Blount County,
Tennessee. Sam Houston lived here at one time and there was a barbecue
held in this town to honor him in 1845. It is in far eastern Tennessee,
bordering on North Carolina. Before he was 15, it appears that his
family (ultimately with 12 chidren, but the last born after the
move) moved to the northwest part of Arkansas, east of Fort Smith. In
1860, 24-year-old Isaac married 17-year-old Sarah Mariah Louise
Larimore. He was a cabinet maker and an herb doctor. Two years later,
he left his young wife and their 4-month-old son, Eliud Oscar, and
traveled 15 miles east to Ozark, Arkansas, and enlisted in the
Confederate Army. I do not know where he fought in his first 15 months
of service, but in May of 1963, he was part of the Big Black Bridge
batter where Union forces forced the Confederate Army to retreat across
a railroad bridge and a "boat bridge" across the Big Black River in
Mississippi. Confederate soldiers fled across the bridge (and later
regrouped, unsucessfully, to defend Vicksburg), but the bridge was
burned and the boats were sunk to prevent the Union Army from using
them. Sadly, thousands of Confederate soldiers were still on the east
side of the river. Many tried to swim the river and met their death by
drowning. At least 1700 were captured by the Union forces and Isaac
Newton Hood was among them. He was held as a prisoner of war at Camp
Morton, Indiana; Fort Delaware, Delaware; and, Point Lookout, Maryland,
where he was paroled December 24, 1863, for exchange, after 8 months in
captivity. Interestingly, another great-great-grandfather of mine, Joe
Moore, was also held at Fort Delaware. During his service in the
CSA, Isaac Newton Hood received a bullet wound in his back which
caused him to be so crippled he depended on a cane to walk for the rest
of his life. Returning home to Arkansas, Isaac and Sarah had six more
children, including my great-grandmother, Louella Hood. At that point,
the family joined two of Isaac's brothers, Aaron and Josiah, in a wagon
train to move to Texas. Brother Aaron and his family stopped in Belton,
Texas, and made their home, Josiah went on to San Angelo, Texas, but
eventually returned to Arkansas, and Isaac and his family settled, and
stayed, in Florence, Texas. They had two more children after they
settled there. Isaac Newton Hood died in Florence in 1910 at the age of
73 and is buried in the city cemetery.
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