The Wheat Brothers: Myths and Legends, Part III

In "The Wheat Brothers, Part I," I profiled Samuel Wheat, who is my 3rd great-grandfather. Brothers Benjamin and Josiah were the subjects of Part II. In this post I'll talk about William, who is also my 3rd great-grandfather, and tell you what I know about John, the fifth brother. 

Wheat Genealogy has this to say about William:

WILLIAM -- born c. 1785; married Hester Whitley and lived in Alabama, in Tennessee, and in 1833 went to Texas

If William actually was born in 1785, that would make him the second oldest of the brothers for whom we have birth dates. Josiah was born in 1779, and Samuel was born in 1787. It is also interesting that the 1850 census gives William's birth place as Kentucky. While I think I have eliminated Loudoun County as the origin for the brothers, both Josiah and Samuel consistently gave their birth place as Virginia. 

William married Esther Stephenson in Madison County, Alabama, on 15 September 1813. Esther and Samuel's wife, Cynthia, were daughters of Robert Stephenson and Elizabeth Whitley. Another sister, Susannah, who married Thomas N. Ming, is also my 3rd great-grandmother. Thomas and Susannah's son, William F. Ming, married his first cousin, Susanna Wheat, daughter of Samuel and Cynthia. Just to give you some perspective, out of my mother's 8 great-great-grandparents on her paternal line, 5 of them are either Wheat brothers or Stephenson sisters. 

The Stephenson sisters were granddaughters of William and Esther Whitley, notable pioneers of Kentucky. It's no wonder that the author of Wheat Genealogy misnamed William's wife as Hester Whitley. 

I have not corroborated the statement that William lived in Tennessee. In 1810 a William Wheat, living in Mississippi Territory east of the Pearl River in what would become Alabama, was involved with a petition to Congress for the division of the territory; the petitioners felt themselves too far removed from their territorial representatives. (It was 1817 before Mississippi was admitted as a state and the eastern half of the territory was designated Alabama Territory.) In 1815 he appeared on the tax list for Madison County AL. On 1816 he appeared on the Mississippi Territory census. He may have served in the Mississippi militia in the War of 1812; a William Wheat served in Lt. Col. Neilsen's detachment formed in Amite County, Mississippi. However, Amite County MS is in the Gulf area bordering with Louisiana, which seems too far from William's home in Madison Co. AL for this to be the same William. In 1830 William's family (1 m 40-49; 1 f 40-49; 1 m 10-14; 1 m 5-9; 2 m under 5; 1 f under 5) is living in Limestone AL. There doesn't seem to be much time for William to have lived in Tennessee, unless it was before 1810 or after 1830; however, Tennessee was a staging area for settlers waiting to move legally to Alabama, so William might have lived there briefly before 1810.

The Biard Family, a family history compiled and written by Maud Biard Smith in 1929, states that Robert S. Wheat, William's son and future brother-in-law to the Biards, came to Texas in December of 1832 with his parents. (He would have been 13, so he undoubtedly did not come alone.) According to Smith, the Wheats were living in Red River County near Clarksville when two Biard brothers came there from Alabama in 1836. So we have at least some hearsay evidence that William Wheat was in Texas in 1833, but we know he was there in 1838, as you will see below.

The Biards--mother Rebecca (Stone) Biard, sons William Washington, Andrew Jackson, and John Gaines, and daughter Minerva Jane Biard Stephenson--came to Lamar County, Texas, in 1846. (Lamar was formed from Red River County in 1840.) Smith wondered why they came to Lamar County. She thought it was because "the Wheat boys, three of one set and three of another, cousins to the first" were already there.

I wish she had spelled out which "Wheat boys" she was referring to. Because she mentions him by name, it appears that one of them was Robert S. Wheat, and by her statement I conclude she means that one set consisted of Robert and his two brothers, Samuel and Henry. But who are the other three brothers, cousins to Robert and his brothers? It's unlikely she could be talking about Samuel's sons, as they were living in Arkansas in the 1830's, or Josiah's sons who were living much farther south in Tyler County. I think she's talking about Benjamin's sons, James, John, and William. I haven't found documentation that proves they were in Texas in the 1830's, but we know they were in Lamar County in the 1840's and 50's. 

The connection to the Biards is an interesting one. Apparently, Robert S. Wheat returned to Limestone County, Alabama, sometime before October 1845 when he married Elizabeth Finn there. She was the daughter of Edward Wilson Finn and his wife, Martha Mullins. Elizabeth's sister, Delila, had married Andrew Jackson Biard in 1833, and another sister, Amanda Menifee Finn, had married William Washington Biard in 1840. So the Biard brothers were now Robert's brothers-in-law. Robert was also related by marriage to the Biards' sister, Minerva Jane. Her husband was William Stephenson, son of Logan Stephenson and his wife (and cousin), Mary "Polly" Stephenson. Polly was another of the Stephenson sisters, so Robert's aunt; William Stephenson was his cousin.

In October of 1950 Maud Biard Smith was asked to tell about the history of Biardstown in the column, "Backward Glances," in The Paris News (Paris, TX). In the first installment, published 3 October 1950, she wrote that 

"The first person to own the land on which Biardstown is located was Robert S. Wheat, a native of northern Alabama, who had come to Texas with his parents in December, 1832, and had fought in the battles for Texas independence. As a reward for his military service for the Republic of Texas [I've found no record of what that was, but bounty warrants for military service began at 320 acres for 3 months service; for Robert to get 1,000 acres he must have served nearly a year] he was granted a tract of land, a First Class Headright, numbered 242, containing five labors and...1,000 acres of land. The patent for this land was signed in Austin by President [of the Republic of Texas] Anson Jones, November 7, 1845."

She goes on to describe how the two Biard brothers, William Washington and Andrew Jackson, both unmarried, had come to Clarksville in 1836, where they stayed for two years. After returning to Alabama, they married the Finn sisters. "When Robert Wheat came back to Alabama and married their sister-in-law he told such wonderful stories about the Republic of Texas that the Biard brothers and all their families decided they wanted to live in Texas."

In the next installment of the story, published in the paper on 4 October 1950, Mrs. Smith told the story of how the Biards made the trip to Texas. It sounds harrowing. Keep in mind, this is almost 15 years after the Wheats came, so their journey was probably even worse. Their remembrances of the journey were just never written down.

In The Biard Family, Maud Smith estimated, to the best of her knowledge, the date that the Biards left Alabama for Texas. She wrote, "The nearest I can come to fixing the date of the trip to Texas is this: A. J. Biard buried a child in Alabama, Feb. 24 1846, and S. H. [Sam Houston Biard, son of W.W. and Amanda] Biard was born at Clarksville, Aug. 27, 1846. So they came between those dates."

Here is how she described the trip:

"They procured two flatboats, fastened them together and loaded them with all their possessions, including chickens, cows, at least one pony, and a wagon. They stayed close to the river, and helped the boat along with long poles, and at times with the pony. At night lanterns were lighted on the boat to guard against collisions.

They were four months making the journey. Coming from Limestone County in north Alabama, down the Tennessee River to the Ohio; down the Ohio River to the Mississippi; down the Mississippi to Red River [In The Biard Family she recounts the story of one of the Biard children, Matilda, who fell off the boat into the Red River and was rescued by her brother James]; then up Red River to the mouth of Mill Creek near Clarksville. 

There they ran onto a sandbar and stayed three weeks. They sent word to Robert Wheat, who had come back to Texas and was living in Clarksville, of their arrival. He came with wagons and carried the movers and their possessions to Clarksville where they stopped long enough to make a crop in 1847."

Not long after their arrival in Texas in October of 1846, the two Biard brothers, William Wheat ("a cousin of Robert Wheat"; this has to be Benjamin's son) and a fourth man, William Cheatham, bought Robert's 1,000 acres at $2 an acre. In the summer of 1847 the four men built log cabins on their land. Washington Baird later gave this first house to the Christian Church for their meeting place and built a second house, "the first house built in the present village of Biardstown, which was built on his land and named for him." 

I have not been able to find Robert's father William on the 1840 census, but I think I know where he was: what later became Wheatville in Morris County. Wheatville, which no longer exists, was in the area of present-day Naples in Morris County. The area has gone through many county changes. According to the Handbook of Texas, the area that is now Morris County was part of Red River County when it was established by the Republic of Texas in 1836. In 1846 the state of Texas established Titus County which included all of what is now Morris County; finally Morris County itself was established in 1875. So when the Wheats were said to have lived in Red River, Lamar, Titus, and Morris counties, they're really talking about what was Red River County in 1836.

Texas counties where the Wheats lived

I've known about Wheatville for a long time, but for years I didn't know exactly how the town was connected to my branch of the Wheats. A little over a year ago I got an email from a man who wanted to share some information about Confederate papers that had belonged to Robert S. Wheat. (I never did figure out how he found me.) The email spurred me to do some research on Robert and led me to discover his 2nd wife and their children, which I wrote about in the blog post, "Cousin Communication." In researching Wheatville, I found this website with information about Wheatville prepared by Glenda Brown Scarborough. She wrote:

"Wheatville was indeed the true beginning of present-day Naples, Texas. It received its name from the William Wheat family sometime before 1852. William Wheat received a Land Grant for 20 labors of land by the Board of Land Commissioners for Red River County on the 27th of April, 1838. By using the classification of land grants and references to the locations of homes, it is felt that William Wheat was living in the Morris County area as early as 1836."

William was definitely in Red River County, Texas, in 1846, because he appears on the Texas Census for that year. William was in Red River County on the 1850 federal census with wife Esther and sons Samuel and Henry, both age 27. Since I couldn't find William on the 1860 census, I have assumed he died sometime in the 1850's; however, Esther, age 84, was living with son Samuel on the 1870 census, so maybe William was alive in 1860 and the census record is just missing.

In 1830 William and Esther Wheat had five children, but as far as I know, only Robert, Samuel, and Henry lived to adulthood. 

Robert S. -- I have already said quite a lot about Robert S., but here is just a thumbnail sketch of his life. First, I have no idea what the S. stands for. His name is consistently given as Robert S. Wheat, but nobody ever spells out his middle name. Wouldn't it be amazing if it was Stephenson? It is not unlikely, as his grandfather, Esther's father, was Robert Stephenson.

He was born 23 February 1819 in Madison County, Alabama. Conflicting marriage data has him marrying Elizabeth Finn in Limestone County AL on either 10 October or 14 October 1845. On the 1850 census he and Elizabeth are living in Tyler County with son William E. and daughter Harriet Gordon. In 1860 they are in Titus County with additional children, Lawrence W., Charles L., Louis N. B., and Samuel Henry. 

On 1 May 1863 at the age of 44 Robert enlisted in the 33rd Regiment, Texas Cavalry, in the Civil War. His unit was mostly occupied with patrolling the Rio Grande and later escorted prisoners who were captured in a raid into Indian Territory to Camp Ford in Tyler, Texas. Robert's discharge from the C.S.A. in June of 1864, shown below, was "by reason of Surgeon's Certificate of Disability."  

Contributed to Ancestry.com by ddscott2008

Apparently, some time in the 1860's Elizabeth died. By the 1870 census Robert had married Mary E. (Corprew) Sheppard, widow of Williamson B. Sheppard, and they were living in Grayson County. On the census the Wheats' blended family included five of Robert and Elizabeth's children; Mary's daughter by her first marriage, Mary; and Robert and Mary's son, James. Still in Grayson County in 1880, Robert and Mary had had two more children. 

After such an interesting life, Robert S. Wheat had a sad end. On the 1900 census he is age 81, living in the North Texas Hospital for the Insane, possibly suffering from senile dementia. He died in 1901 and is buried in the Hall Cemetery, Howe, Grayson County, Texas.

Samuel -- As I mentioned above, on the 1850 census of Red River, Samuel and his brother Henry, both born 1823, are living with their parents. I'm still not sure whether they were twins. Later censuses consistently show Samuel's birth year as 1821, but then Henry's headstone says he was born 18 October 1821. Nothing I have found proves or disproves that they were twins.

Samuel married Rebecka (Beckie) Box on 13 June 1852 in Red River County. Samuel and Rebecka appear on the 1860 census of Cass County with their three daughters, Mary J., Margaret, and Esther. On the 1870 census they are in Grayson County with four more children, two boys and two girls. As I mentioned above, on that census Samuel's mother, Esther, age 84, is living with them. Samuel's brother Robert is living next door.

Samuel and Beckie are living in Parker County on the 1880 census. Four teen-aged children are still living at home, and two more daughters have been added to the family. Samuel, age 79, and Rebecka, age 65, are living in Eastland County on the 1900 census. They have been married almost 50 years. Two adult children are living with them.  

It appears that the end of Samuel's life was rather sad, as well. On the 1910 census of Nolan County, Samuel, age 88, widowed, is living as a "Lodger" with the family of W. J. Edwards. I have tried to find some family connection, but it appears that "Lodger" is the correct word for what Samuel was to this family. It's possible that this is not our Samuel, since there are no family members to compare, but he fits the parameters of birth date, birth place, father's birth place, and mother's birth place.

This timeline of Samuel's life leaves me with questions. Why was his family in a new county every 10 years? These were not adjacent counties, or a situation where the family remained in the same home but the county name changed. It looks like the family hopped a couple of counties west every time they moved, and finally Samuel ends up alone in Nolan County. Where are all those children he raised, and why are they not taking care of their father in his old age? There has to be a story there.

Henry Clay -- I've written about Henry Clay Wheat before in the post, "The Mystery of J. Wheat." After doing some intensive research in Grayson and Collin counties in Texas for all the Wheats that lived there at about the time my great-grandfather, J. (Joseph) Wheat married my great-grandmother, Cynthia Ming, I determined that Henry Clay Wheat was the best bet to be my 2nd great-grandfather. 

Henry's headstone at the Cottage Hill Cemetery in Celina, Collin County TX, says that he was born 18 October 1821. The 1850 census of Red River County is the first time he appears on a document, along with his parents and brother Samuel. Weirdly enough, he is the same age, 27, on the 1860 Titus County census in which he appears with wife and children. (He had married Caroline Farris in about 1855.) On 1 March 1862 he enlisted in Company K, 23rd Texas Cavalry, C.S.A., which is also acknowledged on a military headstone at his gravesite.

On the 1870 Davis County census he catches up those ten years, as he is enumerated at age 47 with wife Caroline, and five children, including Joseph, age 13. He appears on the 1880 census in Grayson County as a widower with daughters Lucy, Mollie (Henrietta), and Emma. (Daughter Elizabeth, "Lizzie," married John Alexander Cooper in 1882.) I have been able to trace all of his daughters as they married and had children, but son Joseph just disappears after the 1870 census unless . . . he is the J. Wheat who married my great-grandmother Cynthia Ming, his 2nd cousin, in 1877 and appears with the Ming family on the 1880 Collin County census. 

 

There were a couple of details that didn't quite match, the biggest being that the J. Wheat on the 1880 census with Cynthia gives his father's birthplace as Arkansas and his mother's as Mississippi. Caroline was born in Mississippi, which I thought was a good sign I was on the right track, but Henry was born in Alabama, not Arkansas. 

Now I am beginning to wonder if my Joseph is the son of James or John, Samuel's sons who were born in Arkansas in the 1830's. Either of them would be just the right age to be Joseph's father; but speaking of disappearing, James and John just vanish after the 1850 census in Milam County (Salado). If either of them really is Joseph's father, it makes my family tree even more gnarly. Cynthia Ming's mother was Susanna, the sister of James and John, so if Cynthia married a son of one of those men, her uncles, she would have married her 1st cousin.

Henry Wheat, who may or may not be my 2nd great-grandfather, died on the 4th of July, 1893.

And finally--

JOHN -- "went to Kentucky"

There are John Wheats all over Kentucky in the early 1800's, but how do you connect one of them with the other Wheat brothers if they have all moved to Mississippi Territory? 

The 1800 federal census shows a John Wheat in Prince George's County, Maryland. A John and a Zachariah are on the tax list of Bourbon County KY in 1800. Called the "Second Census of Kentucky," this is a compiled list of 32,000 taxpayers based on original tax lists on file at the Kentucky Historical Society. Hard to tell anything from this, except that John and Zachariah would have been heads of household in 1800.

1810 is the first federal census in which I found Wheats in Kentucky. A John and a James are in Adair County. Hezekiah, Joseph, and Zachariah are in Bourbon County. Hezekiah and Joseph are possibly the sons of Charles Wheat from Montgomery County, Maryland, according to Wheat Genealogy. A Samuel and his wife, both younger than 25, with no children, are in Lewis County. A John with young children is in Green County, and a Bazel, also with a young family, is in Madison County. 

In 1820 two men named John are enumerated in Kentucky--one in Adair County and one in Green County, probably the same men that appeared on the 1810 censuses in those counties. Assuming that each of them would be the oldest male in the family, they both fall in the 26-44 column, which would be about right for the John I'm looking for. 

Three John Wheats appear on the 1830 census for Kentucky--John K., 30-39 in Bourbon, possibly the son of Zachariah who was in Bourbon County in 1810. Again, that family appears in Wheat Genealogy with documented parents and children. The John in Green County is 50-59, so is his wife, and they have six children that vary in age from 5-9 through 15-19. The John in Russell County is 50-59, with a wife 40-49, and possibly a married son or daughter, 20-29, with his or her spouse, as well as 3 teenagers and a son 5-9, which could be a child or grandchild. By age, which is really all I have to go by, either the John in Green County or the John in Russell County (or neither) could be the fifth Wheat brother.

Both the John in Green and the John in Russell are still living in 1840, both 60-69. The John Wheat in Green County wrote a will, probated 3 November 1845, mentioning wife Sarah (possibly Hudson), sons James, Booker, and William, and daughters Mary, Nancy, and Elizabeth. Some trees on Ancestry show John Wheat and Susannah "Sukie" Gatton as parents of John of Green County. The same trees give conflicting information about the origins of this Wheat family in Prince George's County MD and Loudoun and Bedford VA. 

John in Green County could still be our fifth Wheat brother--lots of trees have the wrong parents--but John in Russell County seemed more likely to me. It appears that John of Russell also passed away between 1840 and 1850 (he was 60-69 in 1840), leaving a wife named Martha. (Some trees show her as Martha Rosson, probably because the researcher found a John Wheat who married a Martha Rosson in Albemarle Co. VA in 1843; it seems unlikely that John would leave Russell Co. to marry someone in Virginia, or that she could be the mother of his children when they were all born by 1830. Do people not do the math?) Martha was living with daughter Parthena Bibee (husband Allen) in 1850 and with son Samuel in 1860. 

This John's children include Samuel (usually shown as Samuel Baker Wheat although I've not seen that on any document), Drury, Parthena, John R., Alfred, and Blatchley Calvin Wesley. Some trees also include another son named John Wesley. The two children that are of most interest to the question of the identity of our John Wheat are Samuel and Alfred. 

Alfred married Amanda Eastland, and they moved first to Georgia in 1850 (where Drury was living with his family), and then to Van Zandt County, Texas in 1860. Van Zandt is not a county that any of the five brothers ever lived in, but it is in that same northeastern quadrant of Texas where most of the brothers lived.  

The other connection to Texas comes from three children of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, the oldest son of John of Russell. They are Doctor H., Valentine, and Samuel. Doctor (yes, that's his given name) and Valentine were twins. 

Doctor married Nancy Margaret Paul in Russell County in 1866; sometime between 1866 and 1870 they moved to Collin County, TX. I had seen Doctor's name before. When I was trying to find the father of my great-grandfather, J. (Joseph) Wheat, who was in Collin Co. in 1880, I did research on every other Wheat family in Collin Co. I saw Doctor's name but finally eliminated him as having any connection to my Wheats. (That was before I started looking for the fifth brother, John.) Valentine moved to Texas between 1870 and 1880.

This was just about the time last night when I thought, "It would be nice if I could find Doctor or Valentine living next door to one of our known Texas Wheats. Then I would know that they knew they had cousins from Kentucky living in Texas, and maybe we could theorize that they had maintained contact with John and knew that Doctor and Valentine were his grandsons."

Be careful (or happy) what you wish for! About this time I located Valentine on the 1880 census of Bell County, Texas, and everything fell into place. Remember back in Part I when I told the story of the first of the five brothers, Samuel, and how he was one of the first settlers in what became Bell County? I was about to find just the evidence I was looking for to prove that John Wheat of Russell County, Kentucky, was the fifth Wheat brother.

I searched for Valentine on the 1880 census and found him living in Bell County, Texas. I looked just below him on the actual census record and saw a Sam Wheat. I clicked back a page on the census and found more Wheats. Finally, I just searched the 1880 Bell County census for anybody named Wheat and found seven families. I had to make a chart--because what was really exciting is that I recognized some of these names, and they weren't all John's children; some of them were Samuel's grandchildren, and one of them was a grandson of Josiah! So the other Wheat families in Texas did know that John's grandchildren were in Texas; they were living next-door to them. And John Wheat of Russell County was the fifth Wheat brother!

Wheats on the 1880 Bell County, Texas census:

• Dwelling #62: Doctor, born 1841 in Kentucky, son of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, grandson of John Wheat
• Dwelling #109: Samuel DeWitt, born 1840 in Texas, son of Joseph Wheat, grandson of Samuel Wheat
• Dwelling #113: Joe, born 1855 in Texas, son of Joseph Wheat, grandson of Samuel Wheat
• Dwelling #121: William Jasper, born 1842 in Arkansas, son of Joseph Wheat, grandson of Samuel Wheat
• Dwelling #123: Valentine, born 1847 in Kentucky, son of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, grandson of John Wheat
• Dwelling #124: Sam, born 1851 in Kentucky, son of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, grandson of John Wheat
• Dwelling #407: Cordilleras, born 1852 in Texas, son of Brice M. Wheat, grandson of Josiah Wheat

1880 Bell County TX census, showing
Dwelling Nos. 121, 123, 124

Unlike their Confederate cousins, Doctor and Valentine fought for the Union in the Civil War. Both of the brothers enlisted in Co. B, 13th Kentucky Infantry. They both enlisted at Camp Hobson KY on 5 October 1861. According to records for Valentine, he mustered out on 12 January 1865, having served for most of the war. (The 13th KY Infantry was at Shiloh, among other battles and campaigns.) After being in the hospital in Indiana for six months for "chronic diarrhea with incipient tuberculosis," Doctor was discharged in November of 1862. It makes me wonder if there was any lingering animosity between the Kentucky cousins and the Texas cousins. I would love to think not.

Twins Doctor H. and Valentine C. Wheat
Contributed to Ancestry.com by Dora Coffey

 

At one point yesterday when I was working on this post, I thought I wouldn't be able to come to any kind of conclusion about the fifth brother, John. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to go forward to go back. If I hadn't worked the second generation of descendants for all of the brothers, I wouldn't have found the proof I was looking for in Bell County, Texas. It was not anything I expected at all. First, I thought that probably all of John's descendants had stayed in Kentucky. Second, I honestly didn't think any of Samuel's grandchildren were still in Bell County. Familiarizing myself with the first four brothers and their descendants helped me find the fifth one.

I also might mention here at the end that in looking at family trees for John of Russell County, I found some that named his parents as John Wheat and Susannah Gatton, the same parents that others gave for John of Green County. A very few named John's father as Zachariah Wheat. With so little information available, researchers have used what there is to come to many incorrect conclusions, in my opinion. However, when asked by the census taker where their parents were born, many of John's children said their father was born in Maryland. Maybe we will never be able to conclusively identify the father of the five brothers, but maybe we should expand our search to include names other than Zachariah and places other than Virginia.

The Wheat Brothers: Myths and Legends, Part II

See "The Wheat Brothers: Myths and Legends, Part I" for what is known (and unknown) about Zachariah Wheat of Virginia, usually shown as the father of the Wheat brothers, and for the biographical sketch of Samuel Wheat (1787-1866). This post will focus on brothers Benjamin and Josiah. William and John will be the subjects of Part III.

From the list of the Wheat brothers in Wheat Genealogy: A History of the Wheat Family in America (in Ancestry.com's database, North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000):

BENJAMIN--of Kentucky

Most trees give Benjamin's year of birth as 1790, which is a good average date for the birth of all the Wheat brothers. However, having looked a little more closely at the available data (which is not much, to tell the truth), I think he might have been born closer to 1780.

Wheat Genealogy places him in Kentucky, where he certainly may have gone after leaving Virginia, but I have found no documentation for that. He appears on the tax lists of 1811 and 1815 in Madison County, Alabama (Mississippi Territory) and on the 1816 Residents' List.

He was the first of the Wheat brothers to marry in Madison County on 17 August 1812. Every official source I have found for Benjamin's marriage says he married Mary (or sometimes May) Jolly or Jolley. I am sure the differences are due to different transcriptions of the original record.

Many trees show that Benjamin married Mary Gourley. I think the original source of this name is the Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas, 1889. I have seen at least one tree that suggested that Mary's maiden name was Gourley and that she married a Jolly before marrying Benjamin, but I have seen no evidence for this. I have wondered if the difference is just due to different pronunciations or transcriptions of the names Gourley and Jolly. Some trees show Jeremiah Gurley as the father of Mary; according to the database, North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 on Ancestry, Jeremiah Gurley of North Carolina had a daughter named Mary. Jeremiah was in Anson, North Carolina, in 1830 and in Madison County, Alabama, in 1840. He died and is buried in Gurley Cemetery in Madison Co. 

I have gone with Jolly in my tree, because that is what can be documented; it's helpful to remember that the authors of the Biographical Souvenir didn't have access to the original records that we have today. I'm trying to keep an open mind--in its favor, the Biographical Souvenir did have access to living people in 1889 who should have known what was true. In my opinion, it's unlikely that Mary was in Madison County by herself in 1812 when she married Benjamin. From the available records it appears that Jeremiah Gourley came to Madison County in the 1830's. So, for me, Jolly it is. 

I have to admit here that I have not seen an original marriage license for Benjamin and Mary, if one exists. I have done the Family Search merry-go-round, looking for original records. There are several lists on which Benjamin and Mary's marriage appears, and FamilySearch has the original images--sometimes original marriage licenses and sometimes transcribed lists of marriages. However, although images are digitized, they are not indexed. I finally figured out Family Search's system of Digital Folder numbers, but when I found that one of the marriage lists was available, and then found Benjamin and Mary on it, it said that the image was unavailable at this time. So frustrating! 

In its biographical sketch of William Wheat, one of the sons of Benjamin, the Biographical Souvenir says that William "is the third of the four children of Benjamin and Mary (Gourley) Wheat, the other three being named--James, John, and Mary. The father, Benjamin, was a native of Virginia, was a substantial farmer and a member of the Primitive Baptist church." With the addition of a note contributed by tali7311 on Ancestry, this is practically the extent of what is known about Benjamin; tali7311 found a reference to Benjamin in the History of Lamar County by A. W. Neville, stating that he served on a Grand Jury in April 1841.

If not for the Biographical Souvenir, I doubt that I would have ever found the names of Benjamin's children, since they were grown and he was deceased by 1850. They were:

• James, born 1814 in Alabama, married Rhoda Boren 26 Apr 1848 in Lamar County, TX. He appears on the 1846 Tax List for Lamar County and on the 1850 Lamar County and 1860 Ellis County censuses. I believe he is the James Wheet who enlisted in Co. F, 1st Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Texas State Troops in August 1863. He enlisted at Tehuacana, Texas, for 6 months. (The Texas State Troops were not part of the Confederate States Army but served under officers in the employ of the State of Texas for the purposes of frontier defense.) James's mother, Mary, age 74 (born 1776), is living with James and his family on the 1850 census. (This is one of the reasons that I believe Benjamin was born much earlier than 1790.) Both James and Rhoda had died by 28 September 1868 when the Bond of Administration for their estate was filed and Rhoda's father, Michael Boren, was named administrator. The probate record on Ancestry is over 100 pages, not because James and Rhoda had such a large estate, but because they left 5 minor children: James H., William Riley, Sarah Eliza, Texanna, and Joseph. It may be unjustified but I don't get a very good impression of Michael; in 1869 he wrote a letter to an Ellis County judge asking for money from the estate to support the children, and the 1870 census shows them farmed out to his neighbors. The names of James, Rhoda, and James H. appear on a memorial at the Boren Cemetery in Reagor Springs, Ellis County, as they are buried in unmarked graves.

James, Rhoda, and James H. listed upper right

• John first appears on the 1850 Lamar County TX census as a Laborer, living with the John Johnson family. In 1850, apparently later in the year, he married E. Turner. On the 1860 census he is head of household in Lamar County with wife Elizabeth, sons Stokeley, age 9, William Todd, age 7, and Travis F., age 5; plus Paschal Turner, age 20, and Matt Turner, age 15. When Travis Fannin Wheat died in 1931, his death certificate said that his parents were John Wheat and Elizabeth Johns(t)on (maiden name). Here's my guess: John was working for Elizabeth Johnson Turner's parents when Elizabeth came home a widow. The 1860 census shows their blended family of five sons, three of theirs and two of Elizabeth's. John enlisted in Co. G., Whitfield's Legion, Texas Cavalry, C.S.A., in Paris TX in March of 1862 for a period of 12 months. The 1880 census, which is the last document in which John appears, shows two grandchildren, Thomas and Sarah Click. Since all of John and Elizabeth's children were sons, I'm not sure to whom these children belong--perhaps one of the sons was widowed and these are children by the wife's previous marriage? 

• William is profiled in the Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas, 1889. His biographical sketch states that he was born 18 January 1819 in Morgan County, Alabama, and that he came to Texas in 1837, where he lived in Lamar County. (On the 1850 census he is age 31, living with his cousin, William Whitley Wheat, in Grayson Co.) The Souvenir records that he married at age 32 to Adaline Turner, daughter of John Turner of Lamar County, and had ten children: Mary Ann, William Tolbert, Elizabeth, Joseph A., Idella Frances, Charles Carlton, Cora O., Erasmus B., Hester A., and John T., who had passed away in 1858. According to the Souvenir, the family moved to Delta County in 1856,

"in the organization of which he took an active part. There was not a house at that time in the town of Cooper, and deer, bear, and game of all kinds roamed at will over the site of that now populous and thriving county seat, in the laying out of which Mr. Wheat assisted materially. He also served under General Rusk in the campaign against the hostile Indians and aided in protecting the frontier. . . besides being otherwise instrumental in protecting and building up the county. At the outbreak of the late Civil War Mr. Wheat enlisted May 9, 1861, in the Texas State troops and served until the final surrender."

On the last census upon which he appeared, the 1880 census of Delta County, William Wheat was 81.

• Mary was born in 1823 in Alabama and married Israel Boren (no relation to Michael Boren, above, as far as I can tell). Their children were: Washington, Melinda Malvina, Harrison "Jack", Sara Frances, Cortez, Paralee, Josephine, and Robert. On the 1850 census the family is living in Lamar Co. TX. On the 1860 census Israel is a single father, living in Collin Co. TX; it is believed that Mary died in 1855 at the age of 32. Israel married twice more. In 1891 the 75-year-old Israel was living with his granddaughter Crissie, daughter of Sarah Frances; her husband, Noah Nance; and Noah's brother Syd. Apparently without provocation, one morning in April Israel killed Syd Nance with an axe. The only explanation he ever gave was that he thought Syd had made improper advances to Crissie. He pled insanity, was found guilty, sentenced to ten years, and imprisoned at Huntsville State Prison where he died in 1895. 

JOSIAH--of Tiler Co., Texas

Josiah was born 3 September 1779 in Virginia. I think he may be the origin of the belief that the Wheats came from Loudoun County, Virginia. On the 1810 census of the town of Hillsborough (now Hillsboro) in Loudoun County is a name that has been transcribed as Josiah White but could possibly be Josiah Wheat. However, in following up this clue I found an article about Hillsboro that mentioned a founding father of the town named Josiah White. With no Zachariah, Samuel, or Josiah Wheat having been documented as living in Loudoun County, I think we can dismiss that recurring myth of the origin of the Wheat brothers.

Josiah was the second of the brothers to marry in Madison County, Alabama, taking Martha Fletcher as his wife on 15 October 1812. He appears on the 1815 Tax List for Madison County. By 1835 he had sons, John, Brice M., James Edmond, Edmond P., Josiah, Jr., and daughters, Elouise or Elouisa (who is usually recorded as Eliza), Amanda, and Martha.  In 1835 the oldest, John, was 21, and the youngest, Josiah Jr. was 2. There being "quite a talk of Texas," Josiah Sr., age 55, sent his son John to "see what he thought of the new country." 

Those quotes are from a wonderful narrative, Early Texas ("In the year 1835") written by Josiah's grandson, L. M. (Levi Martin) Wheat (1858-1926), in 1922. I first found it attached to Josiah on the tree of Ancestry user rjohnson1672; I don't know if she was the person who first shared it. As you can tell from the dates, Levi was in his 60's when he wrote down the stories he remembered his father John telling him in his youth. I can just imagine him sitting enraptured at his father's knee while John told him about the exciting days in 1830's Texas. As you might expect, Levi as a young boy and as an old man, was much more interested in hunting exploits than in genealogy, but he does include important names, dates, and events.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Josiah lived in northern Alabama, close to "Molton" [Moulton] in Lawrence Co. when he sent John to "see what he thought" of Texas.

• Levi names John's brothers, Brice, James Edmond, and Josiah; Edmond is not listed, although his name is written in the margin of the document, and a couple of the stories feature "Uncle Ed"; James is "Uncle Jim."

• About March 1, 1835, John set out for Texas, accompanied by a neighbor, "old man" Sam Goode. It was possible to travel by rail from a location near to them in Alabama to New Orleans, but I couldn't tell if they actually took the train or just followed the tracks on foot to New Orleans. From New Orleans they took a steamboat north on the Mississippi until they reached "Natches" [Natchez], then they walked from Natchez to Texas, where they turned west at the Sabine River for the town of Jasper. They stayed in Jasper for 2 to 3 months until the middle of May/1st of June. John got a job as a chain carrier, helping survey the area. 

• When they came home in June, everybody in the community came over to hear what John thought of Texas. After making his crop, Josiah began selling everything in preparation for leaving Alabama for Texas. Josiah's family came to Town Bluff [between Jasper and Woodville in Tyler County] in the winter of 1835. Along with several other families, they came by ox wagon, crossing the Mississippi at Natchez. John told Levi that "in crossing the bottom they had a very difficult time, the bottom being wet and muddy. Some days they would cut new roads, prize out their wagons and work all day and when night came they were hardly out of sight of their camp where they had camped the previous night..."

• According to Levi, there were only about 3 white families living in Tyler County at the time, whose names might have been Burke, Nolen, and Hanks. [Wyatt Hanks, an early settler, operated a ferry at Town Bluff as early as 1833.]

• In 1836, as Levi writes, "Texas and Mexico got into a scrap." John joined Capt. Chesher's Co. in Jasper. Chesher took 125 men to Nacogdoches where Americans had taken possession of the fort. Expecting a battle, they were surprised when the Mexicans surrendered the next morning. Chesher was anxious to join Col. Sam Houston's army at San Jacinto, so he took off with a small company of men, John included, leaving a few to guard the fort at Nacogdoches; rain that had caused the flooding of creeks and rivers delayed them, and they reached San Jacinto the day after the battle. [The fort at Nacogdoches had been dismantled in 1902, which greatly annoyed Levi, writing in 1922. He would be pleased to know that the original stones have been used to reconstruct the fort on the grounds of Stephen F. Austin State University.]

This photograph of the original fort was taken in 1885.

• John related to Levi many stories that were told to him by the victorious Texans, including the capture of Santa Anna, but John himself was a participant in what came next. One of Santa Anna's generals, a man Levi calls "Wool" came to Houston's camp. Boasting that he could "give him a better fight than did Santa Anna," Wool left the camp to go back to his army of 3,000 men near where Dallas now stands. After at first letting him go, Houston thought better of it and sent out a posse to bring him back. John was one of those set to guard Wool; he recalled that the general was "very dignified and insulting, especially to a private," and "that all the soldiers hated him so badly that they wanted some excuse to kill him, but knew it would not do." [This was Adrian Woll, who was "dispatched. . .to the Texan camp as an emissary under the pretext of learning the terms of the armistice, but actually to gain information on the strength, armament, and resources of the enemy," according to the Handbook of Texas.]

• Meanwhile, back at home, Josiah was trying to get out of Texas "on account of Santa Anna coming through the State with his army"; as Levi writes, it was "the time everybody here called the 'runaway scrape.'" Having dug a boat out of a big cypress tree, Josiah, his family, and some neighbors made part of their escape by water and part by land; "...on their march from Jasper to Nacogdoches they would meet men, women and children, some horseback, some in wagons, some walking, barefooted and dear old women tired, worn out, hungry, and almost breathless would invariably ask them if they had any coffee..."

• The war being all over, Josiah and his family came back home, "just below the little Town of Town Bluff, Tyler County." In 1837 John went "land hunting" west of Town Bluff, naming Turkey Creek for the many wild turkeys he found there. They came to the area where Woodville is now. Later, his father would claim 2/3 of a league there and 1/3 on the Neches River; John claimed 1/3 of a league just south of his father's 2/3. Josiah "gave 200 acres of this to build the little town of Woodville." [According to "Brief History of Tyler County," submitted by the Woodville Chamber of Commerce in 1999, "In 1846, settlers in this area held an election to select a county seat and when Josiah Wheat offered 200 acres of his land in the forks of Turkey Creek for a townsite, his offer was accepted."]

• The Wheat families did not move immediately to the new land at Turkey Creek. At first, they cut a trail from Town Bluff to their field, planted corn and then pumpkins. John would make the trip by mule with provisions for one day, shell a "turn" of corn which he put in the corn crib they had built, tie his mule to the crib and sleep in it overnight, then bring two or three bushels back home with him. Along with the dangers of "bear, panther, catamounts. . .and wolves," John also once met a group of about fifty Indians with flintlock rifles on his way back; one unwrapped his rifle from a buckskin, took aim at John, and then inexplicably let him go. 

• In the years from 1837 to 1839 John, Brice, and Jim "hunted a great deal, especially in the winter months." They dug a boat from a cypress, "so large that they could carry everything for a bear hunt." Wearing buckskins and moccasins, the young men would be gone for a month or six weeks. They would hunt, floating the river all the way to Beaumont, where they would trade oil, meat, and skins for groceries--coffee, sugar, and ammunition. In a first mention of "Uncle Ed" [Edmond P.], Levi wrote that he was "too small" [9 or 10] to go with them on the big bear hunts. Much of the rest of Levi's narrative is taken up with hunting stories, the exploits of his uncles with bears, deer, panthers, and alligators. It is clear that Levi was fascinated with these stories and had heard them so many times that he could still tell them with detail over 50 years after he first heard them. 

Josiah Wheat served as a physician for his community in Tyler County. The 1850 census of Tyler County gives the 70-year-old Josiah's occupation as M.D. His wife Martha and 17-year-old son Josiah Jr. are members of his household. He died later that year on 4 June 1850. 

According to Handbook of Texas, Josiah spent his last years in the Dies community, seven miles northwest of Woodville in central Tyler County. The Handbook relates that "The area around Billums Creek and Colmesneil, where Dies is located, is surfaced by a band of blackland soil good for raising cotton. After 1835 Josiah Wheat, an early settler who donated land for the county seat at Woodville, cleared land south of Town Bluff for a farm but traded it soon afterward for land in Dies because he wanted to raise cotton there." 

Josiah and Martha are buried at Pilgrim Rest Cemetery in the Dies community. His marker credits him as "Donor of County Site of Tyler County 1846." 

Josiah and Martha Wheat headstone at Pilgrim Rest Cemetery
Photo contributed by rjohnson1672 to Ancestry.com

Contributed by Patricia Buckley to Findagrave.com

Josiah and Martha Wheat's children:

• John, whose grave is located in the Mount Pisgah Community Cemetery in Woodville. A Texas historical marker at the site reads: "John Wheat. (August 7, 1813 -- April 24, 1889) A native of Lawrence County, Ala. Migrating to Texas in 1835, Wheat located his headright and bounty lands here, and named many Tyler County creeks while hunting bear and other game. A soldier in Texas War for Independence, he guarded a Mexican officer prisoner after Battle of San Jacinto. He donated land for this cemetery, and served as county commissioner in 1852-1854. Married four times, he had several children, and left to descendants many legends of the early days." John's first wife, Mary Jane Durham, was the mother of Levi and others. He had three children with his last wife, Joanna Prescott.

Photo contributed by James Durham to Findagrave

• Elouise/Elouisa, often shown as Eliza in records, married William Rowlett Goode in Lawrence County, Alabama, in 1833. William was the son of Frances Rowlett and "old man" Sam Goode who accompanied John Wheat on his first trip to Texas.

• Brice M., born 8 May 1816, died 1 October 1894, married Frances Peyton Nowlin in 1849. He is buried in the Nowlin Cemetery in Polk County, Texas, where his military headstone reads: "Brice M. Wheat CPL. Bell's Texas Mtd. Vols Mex. War"

Photo contributed to Findagrave by Charla Clark

• James Edmond, born 3 April 1822, died 14 Sep 1898, is buried in the Egypt Cemetery, Colmesneil, Tyler County. He was married to Morrie Elizabeth Risinger, who had been previously married to John Clinton Durham. J. C. Durham didn't die until 1877, so Morrie Elizabeth could not be the Elizabeth that appears with James on the 1850 and 1870 censuses. This has caused me great difficulty in sorting out the documents for James Edmond and brother Edmond P. (see below).

Photo contributed by KLH to Findagrave

• Edmond P., born 14 April 1826, appears on the 1860 and 1870 censuses with wife Elizabeth. An Edmond P. Wheat married Elizabeth Dunham in 1860 in Navarro County, Texas. I got so confused trying to document the life of Edmond P., as he has been consistently confused with his brother, James Edmond (they are two different people), and his wife Elizabeth (possibly Dunham) consistently confused with James's wife, Morrie Elizabeth Risinger Durham. I'm still not sure I have them completely untangled, but I think I do. To make things even more complicated, both James Edmond and Edmond P. had daughters named Mary Jane. Edmond P.'s daughter M.J. appears with him and Elizabeth on the 1870 census, aged 14. 

• Mary Amanda Melvina (yes, she had all those names, although she is usually shown as Amanda), born 20 June 1828, died 23 August 1899 in Hardin County, TX, married Andrew Jackson Richardson. She is buried in the Richardson Cemetery in Warren, Tyler County.

• Martha A., born 29 January 1830, died 20 February 1910. She married Andrew George. She is buried in the Anderson Cemetery in Woodville.

• Josiah Jr., born 5 March 1833, married Nancy H. Snead in 1854 in Tyler County. 

The Wheat Brothers: Myths and Legends, Part I

My cousin, Paul Ming, with whom I share Wheat ancestors, recently emailed me to ask whether I knew the name of the wife of Zachariah Wheat, our oldest Wheat ancestor. Conflicting trees showed her name as Priscilla Reynolds or Priscilla Ridgeway. This was a question I had had myself, and Paul had decided to leave her out of his family history because he couldn't find evidence to support either name. The answer to this question ended up contradicting everything I thought I knew about the origins of my Wheat family and sent me on a quest to discover what happened to the five sons of Zachariah Wheat.

For the record--it is documented that Priscilla Reynolds married Zachariah Wheat in Prince George's County, Maryland, on 4 February 1782. Rowena Hearn Randle, author of Genealogy of the Patterson, Wheat, and Hearn Families, published in 1926, showed the wife of Zachariah Wheat as Priscilla Flagg Ridgeway. She apparently made this mistake by confusing the maiden names of a couple of Priscillas that became Wheat wives; her error has been duplicated in multiple family trees. However, as it turns out, finding the right Priscilla didn't help me or Paul because we had the wrong Zachariah--at least, according to Wheat Genealogy: A History of the Wheat Family in America, a book first published in 1903 and then updated in 1960.

Silas Carmi Wheat, the author of the first edition of Wheat Genealogy, was mostly concerned with his family, descendants of Moses Wheat of Concord, Massachusetts. In 1960 Helen Love Scranton updated the original book with the addition of S. C. Wheat's unpublished material and the descendants of another Wheat family, that of Francis Wheat of Maryland. Many trees that include my Wheats show their descent from Francis Wheat of Maryland, but according to Wheat Genealogy, this is not correct. In fact, my Wheats are included in the chapter titled "Unplaced Families." How had I not seen this before?

Included in the "Unplaced Families" are four fathers named Zachariah: Zachariah Wheat of Prince George's County, Maryland, born in England in the 1750's, died 1792. This has to be the Zachariah who married Priscilla Reynolds. They only had two sons, Jonathan and Thomas. Jonathan had no children, and as far as I can tell, all of Thomas's descendants went to New York and Indiana. Not our Wheats. Zachariah of New Geneva, Pennsylvania (the only Zachariah I can find on the 1790 census), born 1768, had two sons whose names are unknown and Jesse, who ended up in Ohio. Not our Wheats. Zachariah of Kentucky married Betsy Kennedy in 1791; their children, many of whom lived in Adair and Bourbon counties in Kentucky, are documented. Again, not our Wheats.

Then we have Zachariah of Virginia, born about 1750. Of him Scranton says "had sons:

• SAMUEL, 'living in the Indian Nation'
• BENJAMIN of Kentucky
• JOSIAH of Tiler [Tyler] Co., Texas
• WILLIAM, born c. 1785; married Hester Whitley [actually Esther Stephenson, daughter of Elizabeth Whitley Stephenson] and lived in Alabama, in Tennessee, and in 1833 went to Texas
• JOHN, 'went to Kentucky'"

Finally, these are our Wheats. It's just that their father Zachariah doesn't exist. Or at least I can't find him. He should be on the 1790 census because that is just about the time his sons were born; he's not. Not that he's just not in Virginia; he's not anywhere. As I mentioned above, the only Zachariah Wheat on paper in 1790 is in Pennsylvania, and his family is documented. Loudoun County, Virginia, is given as the birthplace of some of the Wheat brothers, but I can find no evidence the family came from there. Paul's daughter, who lives in Maryland, did hands-on research in Loudoun County and never found our Zachariah either. I thought for a time I had found him in Bedford County, Virginia, but that is yet another Zachariah with a documented family.

As Scranton says in her introduction to the chapter in which Zachariah appears: "Among the Unplaced Families in the South, the almost complete lack of dates makes it difficult or impossible to place the members with any degree of confidence." No kidding. Not to mention the numerous Wheat families with the same given names. 

She also makes mention of one of the legends surrounding this branch of the Wheats--"it has been reported that he [Zachariah] was one of 5 brothers who came from Ireland before the Revolution, a statement that was doubted by Mr. S. C. Wheat." So apparently Silas Wheat could find no evidence for this legend; I have looked in his book for a mention of it but have decided it must be recorded in the unpublished material that his family gave to Helen Love Scranton. If true, which it probably isn't, it could tie together some of those "unplaced" families, although evidence to verify it probably doesn't exist. It's also good to keep in mind that Silas wrote his book in 1903. For a time he didn't believe that there were any other Wheat families except his own.

So, let's put Zachariah aside for a moment. He may or may not exist. He may or may not have a connection to Francis Wheat of Maryland, especially since Loudoun County, Virginia, is only about 60 miles from St. George's County, Maryland. However, we do know what happened to the Wheat brothers, at least most of them, who are supposed to be his sons, and that is the subject of the rest of this post.

SAMUEL--"living in the Indian Nation"

We begin with my 3rd great-grandfather, Samuel Wheat. Paul and I both recognized right away that "Indian Nation" does not refer to Oklahoma, but probably to Mississippi Territory or Arkansas. It is true that Samuel Wheat lived in both places.

These are the facts we do know about Samuel. His birthdate is derived from his headstone, which records that he was 79 years and 1 day old when he died on 23 November 1866; therefore, his birthdate would be 22 November 1787. Again, many Wheat researchers say he was born in Loudoun, Virginia, although I have not found evidence for this. (Paul's daughter also looked for Samuel in Loudoun County but found no mention of him.) On the 1850 census, which is the first census to ask for place of birth, Samuel reported that he was born in Virginia.

The first mention of him in records that I have been able to find is his marriage on 13 November 1814 in Madison County, Mississippi Territory, to Cynthia Stephenson. Samuel and Cynthia are my 3rd great-grandparents.

Marriage license of Samuel Wheat and Cynthia Stephenson

(I intended to give a history of Mississippi Territory and Madison County AL here, but the history of Madison County is so extensive and important that I decided it needs its own post. Stay tuned for some posts about Ancestral Places--and Sources--for some of the locations that have contributed to my family's history.) 

It's not clear when the Wheats and Stephensons came to Madison County, but it's possible that Cynthia Stephenson's father, Robert, was there before 1809, when a "Squatters' Census" was taken in preparation for opening the area for legal settlement. Governor Robert Williams had proclaimed Madison a new county on 13 December 1808. The illegal inhabitants who registered with government surveyor, Thomas Freeman, were able to remain on the lands they were already occupying in Madison until land sales took place in Nashville in August 1809. A Robert Stinson appears on the 1809 Squatters' Census with 320 acres at Indian Creek (R 2W, T 3, Section 21). He also appears as head of household on the 1809 Madison County census with 1 female over 21, 3 males under 21, and 5 females under 21. This tallies almost exactly with the ages of his family members as we believe them to be in 1809. The Wheats do not appear on either of these lists, so it is probable that Samuel came to Alabama after the lands were open to legal settlement. Of course, we know that he was there by 1814 when he married Cynthia Stephenson. He appears on the 1815 Tax List for Madison County. 

Sometime before 1819 Samuel and Cynthia moved to the next county to the west of Madison, Limestone, which had been established on February 6, 1818. It is possible that this is where Samuel Wheat got his start as a Primitive Baptist preacher. (See my post, "Gimme That Old Time Religion" for more information about the Primitive Baptists.) I am indebted to an Ancestry member with the username "downtownripley" who posted the following comment to a biographical sketch of Samuel Wheat: " Samuel Wheat in Limestone Co. Al: Samuel Wheat joined Round Island Baptist Church by letter in March 1819. He was licensed to preach Sept. 1821. Round Island decided to move to a more distant location and he along with others asked for and was given letters of dismissal August 10, 1822. They were constituted a Church Oct. 5, 1822. He and others withdrew from this Church and were constituted a Church as Baptist Church of Christ known by the name of Poplar Creek. This Church and Round Island are still functioning." 

The Stephensons also moved to Limestone County, as Robert's widow Elizabeth appeared in court there on 25 August 1825 asking for permission to sell his estate and divide his assets among his heirs. Cynthia is mentioned in the petition as an heir who was living out of state, because...she and Samuel had moved again--possibly to Tennessee where daughter Mary Elizabeth was born in 1826 (Elizabeth consistently gives her place of birth as Tennessee) or to Arkansas, where they appear on the 1830 census of Washington County, Arkansas Territory. This is the first census I have found for Samuel; his household consists of 1 male 40-49; 1 female 30-39; 1 male 10-14; 2 males 5-9; 1 female 15-19; and 2 females under 5. 

Samuel Wheat, 1830 census, Washington Co., Arkansas Territory

On the 1840 census the family is living in War Eagle, Madison County, Arkansas, and the household consists of: 1 male 40-49 (Samuel is really more like 53 at this point); 1 female 40-49; 1 male 15-19; 2 males 5-9; 1 male under 5; 1 female 15-19; 1 female 10-14; and 1 female under 5. According to a contribution to Ancestry by user tali7311, "In August 1840 [Samuel] helped organized Shiloh Church of Primitive Baptists, Springdale, Arkansas. Lived at War Eagle until about 1844."

With the exception of the youngest son, George, who was born in 1840, Samuel and Cynthia's family is complete at this point, so I'll list their names here, since they are not all listed on the 1850 census. They are: 

• Joseph, born 1815, who married Malitta (Morgan? Reeves?). His household appears on the 1840 census in War Eagle, Madison County, Arkansas, and on the 1850 census in Milam and Williamson, Texas. Joseph must have died before 2 June 1860, when Malitta appears as head of household on the 1860 census of Bell County, TX. Their last child, Joseph, was born in 1853.
• Sarah Elizabeth, born 1817, who married William Jackson. They married in Arkansas and followed the family to Texas, having 12 or 13 children along the way. This does not surprise me, as I have a million DNA matches to their descendants. If I see the name Jackson in a list of matches, it's almost always a descendant of William and Sarah.
• William Whitley, given the middle name Whitley for his great-grandfather, William Chapman Whitley, born 16 March 1820 in Madison County AL, married Cynthia Maynard. He has his own historical marker at the Hall Cemetery in Howe, Grayson County, TX. It reads: William Whitley Wheat (1820-1890) was born in Alabama to Samuel and Cynthia (Stinson) Wheat. He married Cynthia Ann Maynard, and the couple came to Texas in 1842 to Peters Colony. They moved three years later to what is now Grayson County, settling and raising ten children near Farmington. Wheat was an early cattle drover to northern markets, and he became a respected and successful farmer. He served for many years as Grayson County Commissioner in the 1870s and 1880s and was first presiding present of the Old Settlers Association of North Texas. As such, he worked to ease local tensions in the post-Civil War years. He died 26 November 1890.

• Mary Elizabeth, born 8 February 1826 in Tennessee, married George Washington Cloer Jr. They follow basically the same migration path as Mary Elizabeth's parents. G. W. Cloer died in the Civil War in 1863; most researchers think he was the G. W. Clore who enlisted in the 18th Texas Cavalry in Bell Co. TX in 1862. His youngest son and namesake was born after his death. Samuel Wheat, age 72, is living with George and Elizabeth on the 1860 Bell Co. TX census.
• Martha Jane, born 8 December 1827 in Madison County AL, married Andrew Jackson Edwards in Arkansas. Her husband died in 1878 and is buried in Keller, Tarrant County, TX; Martha died in 1916 and is buried in Garner, Parker County, TX.
• James, born 1830 in Arkansas, appears at age 20 with the family in Milam County TX. I can't find him after that. Ancestry user MarkSheppard67 contributed a Grayson Co. (Pilot Grove) land map from 1853 that shows a tract owned by a James Wheat.
• John, born 1832 in Arkansas, appears at age 18 with the family in Milam County TX. Also can't be located after 1850. Also appears on the Grayson Co. Land Map from 1853.
• Susanna, born 1835 in Arkansas, married William Frederick Ming; they are my 2nd great-grandparents. You can read more about William F. and Susanna in my post, "The Ming Dynasty."
• Samuel, born 1838, appears on the 1850 Milam Co. census with his parents, Samuel and Cynthia. Every reference and hint on Ancestry is for Samuel Dewitt Wheat, his nephew, son of Joseph and Malitta, also born about 1838. Samuel D. appears on the 1850 Milam Co. census with Joseph and Malitta. That would indicate to me that they are two separate people, but I can find no reference to Samuel, son of Samuel and Cynthia, after 1850.
• George, born 1840, appears at age 10 with parents Samuel and Cynthia on the 1850 Milam County census. He can't be the George Lewis Wheat, born 1825, killed by Apaches, or the George C. Wheat, born 1832, living in Arkansas in 1850. Again, I can't find the right George after 1850; numerous trees on Ancestry show Samuel and Cynthia as the parents of George L., George C., or a combination of the two. 

As seen above, Samuel, Cynthia, and family were living in War Eagle, Madison County, Arkansas, in 1840 and in Milam and Williamson District, Milam County, Texas in 1850. However, they must have made a stop along the way in Pilot Grove, Grayson County, Texas, because Samuel helped start a church there in 1847. 

I have known for decades that Samuel and Cynthia were living in Milam and Williamson District, Milam County, Texas in 1850. The problem is--I didn't really know where that was until just a couple of weeks ago. I was searching Ancestry and any other source I could find for Samuel in preparation for this blog post, when I googled his name and found a book online entitled Salado: Frontier College Town by Charles A. Turnbo. That really caught my eye, because I was just in Salado last year. 

Now Salado is a little town--even though it has a college and a reputation as the "Athens of Texas"--and I would probably have never even known about it if it hadn't been for my friend Cecilia. She is familiar with the Temple area because her son once lived there, so when we were planning a trip to Texas, she said she knew a quaint little town with antique and gift shops called Salado, and did I want to go there? Salado is now in Bell County, so I never even had a clue we were in what was once Milam and Williamson District, Milam County.

Without the book catching my eye because I had been in Salado, I would never have discovered that Samuel and Cynthia were some of the very first settlers there. Even when I read the opening page of Chapter 3, "The Settlement of Salado," I still didn't believe the author was talking about my Samuel. Turnbo names Archibald Willingham, who bought 320 acres on Salado Creek in late 1848, as the first white settler in Salado. In addition to Willingham and his family, Turnbo lists these other early heads of household in Salado: Andrew Wilkie, William Bailey, Ira E. Chalk, James M. Cross, Robert S. Elliott, Edward N. Goode, William K. Karnes (and single laborer James Hash), Cornelius B. Roberts, and Samuel Wheat. Still not convinced, I pulled up the 1850 Milam Co. census on Ancestry to the page on which Samuel Wheat's family is the first entry, shown as Family #599. At #601 was Archibald Willingham and his family; #602 was Andrew Wilkie and family; #604 was Ira E. Chalk and family; #605 was William K. Karnes and family and laborer, James Hash; and finishing out the page at #606 was Robert S. Elliott and family. 

I'm still not sure why the census called this Milam County, as Bell County was established in the year of 1850, and the census was taken in October. Bell County, named after the third Texas governor, Peter Hansborough Bell, consisted of 1,000 square miles and 700,000 acres, according to Turnbo. Only 8 miles north of Salado was Nolanville, later to become Belton, county seat of Bell County. I just wish I had known all this before I visited Salado. 

As I mentioned above, Samuel, age 72, widower, is still in Bell Co. in 1860, living with his daughter Elizabeth Cloer and her family. Samuel's occupation is given as "Baptist clergyman." It is apparent that they are living in a ranching area, although it's possible they were living in the town of Belton, listed on the census as nearest post office. I say that because of the variety of cattle-related occupations listed for the neighbors: Stock raiser, Stock trader, Blacksmith, Wagon maker, etc. 

The only other Wheats in Bell Co. in 1860 are Joseph's widow, Malitta, and her children. By 1860 Susanna had married her first cousin, William F. Ming, and is living back in Grayson County (Pilot Grove), as are several of Samuel's other children. It has long been supposed by Wheat researchers that Cynthia is buried somewhere in Milam County, as she died sometime between 1850 and 1860. Now I wonder: is she buried somewhere in Salado?

Samuel died in 1866 and is buried in Hall Cemetery in Howe, Grayson County. He apparently was living in Grayson County at the time of his death, as you will see from his tombstone inscription. Thank goodness the inscription was recorded, as the stone facade of the tombstone has slidden right off. It says:

In memory of Elder Samuel Wheat, who departed this life 23 Nov 1866, aged 79 years and 1 day. Elder Wheat had been an old-school Baptist from his youth and a Minister of the Cross for 50 years. Standing firm amidst the siftings and schisms among the Churches, the fearless advocate of Virginia immigrated to Alabama, then to Tennessee, then to Arkansas, then to Texas in 1847, making his first discourse to Pilot Grove Church in Grayson County to which he made his last a few days before his death.

 

Contributed to Ancestry by ditz929, 
who gives credit for the photo to
George and Lynn Pollack

 

All you genealogists out there: Don't you wish everybody's tombstone had this much information on it? 

It's ironic that the Primitive Baptists don't believe in missionaries because Samuel lived the life of a missionary, moving from place to place, state to state, preaching his version of the Gospel to some far-flung places where pioneers were just beginning to settle. His DNA has been passed down to hundreds of descendants; I have a slew of matches with whom I share Samuel and Cynthia as common ancestors. 

Well, I intended to move on to the other Wheat brothers, but this post has been so long that I think I'll start working on "The Wheat Brothers, Part II." Stay tuned for the lives of Benjamin, Josiah, William, and John.