More J. Wheat Mysteries Solved

I recently was notified of a Family Finder match on Family Tree DNA. We share 82.61 cM’s, and he and my brother share 125.23 cM’s, both suggested as 2^nd-4^th Cousin Matches by FTDNA. His last name is Spencer, not a known surname to me, and he listed only that surname, with locations in Texas and Oklahoma. He listed his oldest known paternal ancestor as Ollie Spencer and his oldest known maternal ancestor as Pearlie Wheat. Luckily, these two ancestors were married to each other, so I was able to find the correct family on Ancestry.com. (I did try emailing Mr. Spencer who hasn’t replied yet.)

Ollie M. Spencer married Paralee (Pearl Lee) Wheat on 23 August 1906 at Comanche, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory (southern Oklahoma.)  On the 1910 census they are living with Paralee’s step-father, Joseph T. Cook, age 42, and mother Alice E. (Brink) Cook, age 41, in Stephens County, Oklahoma.  Paralee is 21; the census gives her birthplace as Texas. Siblings of Paralee are Samuel E., age 16; Ella M., age 13; Mary R., age 12; Ethel M., age 9; Jesse E., age 7, and Fannie V., age 5, all with the surname Wheat. Others listed on the census were obviously children of Joseph T. Cook, presumably by a deceased wife, the oldest being 20 and the youngest age 9; the remaining child, Annie L. Cook, age 1, was almost certainly the child of Joseph and Alice.

1910 census, Stephens Co., OK
Cooks, Wheats, Spencers

Thanks to some Public Trees on Ancestry.com, I found Alice on the 1870 census with her parents, Jacob and Anna Brink in Milam, Texas. Alice was 8 months old. Turning to FamilySearch, I found the marriage of A.L. Brink to J.A. Wheat on 28 May 1885 in Milam, Texas. Is this my J.A. Wheat? I’m almost certain it is. The timing is just right. The last child of J.A. Wheat and Cynthia Ming was Thomas J., born in 1884. Cynthia remarried in 1890. But where I had assumed that J.A. (Those initials again! That right there almost convinces me it’s the same man.) had died, apparently he and Cynthia either divorced, or he abandoned the family.  Many of the same Public Trees indicate that J.A. (or sometimes Joseph) Wheat was born in Scotland, which is probably why none of them have been able to trace him any further. I can’t imagine where that came from, but it’s possible one person posted it on Ancestry.com, and others have copied that information. I’m pretty sure I can connect him to the other Wheat families of Grayson Co. (See the post “The Mystery of J. Wheat.”)

I do question how J.A. ended up in Milam County in 1885 where he married Alice. While still in northeastern Texas, it is far from his original counties of residence, Grayson and Collin. However, if you look at my Wheat family in general, they moved around a lot within that region of northeastern Texas and southern Oklahoma. Cynthia was born in Grayson Co. but moved to Collin Co. before my grandfather was a year old; she married Thomas L. Rhodes in Parker Co., TX.  My grandfather John enlisted in the Army in 1906 in Logan Co., OK, while living in Pawnee Co.—a considerable distance; John and his brother worked on a ranch in Cottle Co., TX; John married my grandmother in Hughes Co., registered for WWI in Oklahoma Co., and died in Seminole Co.  And back to J.A.--if you’re going to abandon your first wife, you want to do it as far from where she is as possible.

J.A. finally came to rest (literally and figuratively) in Stephens Co., OK. According to Findagrave, J.A. Wheat is buried in the Diamond Cemetery in Stephens Co. in southern Oklahoma. His birthdate is given as 15 February 1859, which dovetails nicely with his birthdate/age on the 1880 Collin Co. census where I originally found him with Cynthia Ming and her family.  His date of death is given as 12 April 1906, about a year after the birth of his youngest child with Alice, and a couple of years before Alice married Joseph Cook. Some Public Trees list his place of death as Haskell in northeastern Oklahoma, so it’s possible that he had wandered again and Alice had his body brought to Stephens Co., where she was living, for burial. He seems to be the only Wheat buried in that cemetery.

J.A. Wheat headstone
from Findagrave.com

This is a perfect example of how traditional genealogical research and DNA results can work together to document the life of an ancestor. I am now pretty sure that I have documented J.A. Wheat’s life from beginning to end. I wish I had more definitive proof that he was the son of Henry and Caroline (Farris) Wheat, but as I accumulate more DNA matches, perhaps that will come.

Grandparent #4: Cora Lee Bell Wheat Altstatt

Cora Lee Bell

Cora Lee Bell was born on 13 August 1896 in Indian Territory, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Cornelia (Roberts) Bell.  She was listed on the 1900 census in Township 2 South, Range 5 East, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, with her father shown as Jefferson Bell, age 27, born in Mississippi, and her mother as Cornelia, age 35, born in Tennessee.  Her parents stated they had been married 7 years.  Cora was 3, and her siblings were Clara E., age 5, and James A., age 1.

1900 Indian Territory Census
Thomas Jefferson Bell & family 

In 1910 the Bells were living in Johnson County, Texas, probably in the home of Thomas’s Aunt Lydia Powell Ray, who was living with her sister Bennie in Briscoe County, Texas. Cora is 13, James is 11, and another sister has been born—Cornelia M., age 6.  Living in the same household is sister Clara E., age 15, and her husband, John A. (Angus) Guest, and their son, Stanley (transcribed as Uriel E.), age 8 months.

1910 Johnson County, TX Census
Thomas Jefferson Bell & family

On 28 January 1917 Cora Bell, age 20, who resided in Dustin, Oklahoma, married John W. Wheat, age 37, in Carson, Hughes County, Oklahoma.  In September 1918 they were living in Oklahoma City, according to John’s World War I draft registration.  In 1920 the Wheats were living back in Dustin with their first child, Leona, age 2.  Son William Powell was born in 1920, followed by daughter Iona Marie in 1922 and daughter Ida Belle in 1925.  John Wheat died in 1927 and on the 1930 census Cora and her children are living with her father, Thomas J. Bell, in Dustin.

Bell-Wheat marriage license

Cora married Henry Paul Alstatt, a widower, on 18 June 1938 in Dustin.  On the 1940 census the blended family included Henry’s children Bonnie, Jack, and Betty Joe, and Cora’s children, Powell, Marie, and Ida Belle.

Granny and Henry

Cora Altstatt was Granny to me, and Henry was Papa Henry.  My dad and paternal grandparents took my brother and me to Dustin to see Granny often when we were kids.  I think my grandmother Smith must have felt she had something to prove to Granny about how she was taking care of us; I remember that within a few miles of Dustin, Tim and I climbed in the back seat and changed clothes so we’d be fresh and presentable when we got to Granny’s house. Dustin was so different than our home in Tulsa.  Granny had a big garden, and raised hogs and chickens, and we walked a dirt road down to visit Aunt Clara.   

My two grandmothers and me

Aunt Clara and Granny in Granny's front yard

Granny was a good cook and a wonderful seamstress, and she was scared to death of storms.  I can’t say that I know much more about her; for one, of course, we didn’t live with her, but for another, she was very quiet and always seemed unhappy to me. Even before Henry’s death in 1970, Granny went to a nursing home in Wetumka where she was basically unresponsive for years before she died in 1981.  Later, when I was old enough to understand, I wondered if losing her two girls, Leona and my mother, so young, was just too much for her to bear.  Now that I know more about her mother, I also think she must have had a difficult childhood, and she probably had a difficult marriage with John Wheat.  I found this picture of her recently and realized, among all the other photos I have of her, this is the only one in which she is smiling.

Granny and me

Grandpa and Grandma Bell

Okay—last branch of my family tree, my mother’s mother’s family.  This research has been some of the most rewarding and interesting of all the genealogical searching I have done.  And while much has been learned, many questions still remain—and a couple of brick walls that I’m still working at breaking down.

Thomas J. & Cornelia Bell
Cora and Clara

My maternal grandmother’s parents were Thomas Jefferson Bell and Cornelia Dee (or Orange??) Roberts.  T.J. Bell was born in 1871 in Mississippi, probably in Early Grove, Marshall County, where he was living on the 1880 census. Sometime before 1893 he moved to Woodford, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, where he married Mrs. Cornelia (Roberts) Spurlock on 15 October 1893.  I have never found the marriage recorded, but my cousin gave me a copy of the original marriage license, which she possesses. 

Marriage license of Thomas J.
Bell & Mrs. Cornelia Spurlock 

Thomas J. Bell’s father and mother were James W. Bell and Mary Mourning Powell.  They married on 4 December 1866 in Marshall County, Mississippi.  Apparently, the Powells moved to Mississippi from Tennessee not long after the 1860 census was taken, taking for clues the marriage dates and places of Mary M. Powell and her siblings.

James W. Bell (1841-1883) was the son of Thomas Bell and his wife Elizabeth.  Thomas was born in 1806 in North Carolina, married Elizabeth about 1830, lived in Marshall County, Mississippi, and his occupation was listed as Mill Wright on the 1860 census.  That’s really all I know about him.  James was the youngest child and the only boy; his sisters were Catharine F. (married Swan), Mary J.R. (married Baldwin), Elizabeth G., Martha, and Winifred (married Losee).    

In 1883 James W. Bell died, and by 1894 or 1895, Polly remarried.  In 1900 she was widowed again and living in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, along with Thomas’s siblings, William, Russell, Joseph, and Kitty (Elizabeth.) In 1900 Thomas’s remaining brother, Benjamin Franklin Bell, was living in Chickasaw Nation with his wife, Martha E. (Mattie) Ming.  (Yes, my Ming family.  Another convoluted relationship. Mattie is sister to Cynthia Ming, my Wheat great-grandmother.)  In 1880 the family of James and Polly Bell was in Mississippi, and by 1900 they were all in Oklahoma.

Cornelia Roberts was born on 4 February 1865 in Granville, Jackson County, Tennessee.  I have seen her middle name recorded as Dee in several places, including the baby book filled out by my mother.  Some descendants have recorded her middle name as Orange, which I would think ridiculous except that her headstone reads “Cornelia O. Bell.”  Her parents were Stephen and Elzina (Huff) Roberts. 

  

On the 1870 Jackson County census her siblings were listed as Nancy, Henry, Ellis, Thomas, Caleb, and Nathan.  In 1874 her mother filed for divorce from Stephen Roberts by reason of abandonment.  On the 1880 census the family, consisting of mother Elzina (enumerated as Elmira), Nancy, James H. (Henry), Thomas J., Cornelia, and Nathan J., were living in Harmony, Caldwell County, Kentucky.  I have never found a reason for the move to this area, over 200 miles north of Granville.  Another puzzling thing about these two census entries is that Cornelia is listed as “Permelia,” age 14 on the 1870 census, and as Cornelia, age 13, on the 1880 census. 

Roberts family on 1880 census of
Caldwell County, Kentucky

Apparently, Cornelia married someone named Spurlock sometime before she married T.J. Bell in 1893.  Whether that marriage ended in death or divorce, I have never been able to determine.  There were several Spurlock families in Jackson County, Tennessee, but I have never been able to figure out who Cornelia married.  The Spurlock men of the right age in 1880 appear to still be living in Tennessee in 1900, so how did Cornelia get to Indian Territory?  I did find a grave recorded in Woodford, Indian Territory, for Maggie L.V. Spurlock, born 14 February 1887, died 7 December 1892.  The 1900 census showed that Cornelia had borne 4 children, but only 3 were living.  I have always wondered if Maggie was the child of Cornelia and her Spurlock husband, and whether the child’s death might have caused divorce or abandonment by Mr. Spurlock. 

Maggie L. V. Spurlock headstone
Woodford Cemetery, Carter County, OK
from findagrave.com 

By 1900 Thomas and Cornelia had three children: Clara Elizabeth, age 5; Cora Lee, age 3; and James Alfred, age 1.  Their fourth child, Cornelia Morning, was born in 1903.  According to cousins descended from Cornelia Morning Bell, T.J. Bell owned a store and post office in Mill Creek, Indian Territory.  Oh, my gosh!! Decided to check this out, since I now know where to go to find postmaster appointments on ancestry.com.  Add another name to the list of postmasters in my family—Thomas J. Bell was appointed postmaster of Lester (near Mill Creek) Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, on 15 September 1899. 

Appointment of T. J. Bell as postmaster
Lester, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory 

In 1904 T.J. Bell became a Primitive Baptist minister.  In 1906 the Bell family moved to New Mexico Territory to homestead but a snowstorm forced them to move back home.  In 1908 they moved to Egan, Texas, to live with Thomas’s aunt Lydia Powell Ray, but then moved to Carson, OK, in 1910 to live in a log cabin owned by Cornelia’s brother Nathan.  They built a new house on Middle Creek (Pleasant View) and lived there until 1922.

By all accounts, Thomas J. Bell was the kindest man alive, and Cornelia Bell was the meanest woman.  To be fair, she can’t have had an easy early life, since her father was a drinker that abandoned his family, according to the divorce papers filed by her mother.  Certainly, if Cornelia lost a child at a young age, that had to have taken an emotional toll.  But just look at her photograph as a young girl—she doesn’t look happy even then.  Here’s the story I love to tell:  One of her husband’s Primitive Baptist minister friends came to visit, and she chased them out of the house with a buggy whip!

Cornelia Roberts

In 1922 Thomas filed for divorce from Cornelia, stating that she had ordered him to leave their home, criticized him because of his religious belief, that she was “of a nervous, high-strung temperament, easy to find fault with the plaintiff; continually fault-finding, many times quarreling with him and abusing him and making their home life miserable and making it absolutely impossible for them to maintain a peaceable home.”  They both moved into the nearby town of Dustin, where they lived on the same street.  T.J. owned the Dustin Harness and Shoe Shop and a chicken hatchery.  Until his death in April 1937 he walked by Cornelia’s house every day to check on her.  She died the same year in December, and they are buried next to each other in the Fairview Cemetery in Dustin.    

First Families of the Twin Territories

To become a member of the First Families of the Twin Territories you have to prove your descent from an ancestor who lived in Oklahoma—in Indian Territory or Oklahoma Territory--before the day Oklahoma became a state, November 16, 1907.  All four of my grandparents lived in Oklahoma before statehood, and my goal is to submit qualifying membership applications for all four.

In 2007 I became a member by proving my descent from my grandmother Cora Bell Wheat Altstatt, who was born in Indian Territory and was living with her parents, Thomas J. and Cornelia Bell, in Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, on the 1900 census.  In fact, my great-grandparents were living in Chickasaw Nation as early as 1893 when they got married in Woodford, Pickens County, Indian Territory, so I could have become a member based on their residence, but I decided that qualifying on each of my grandparents was a do-able goal that I wanted to pursue.

Bell family on the 1900 census, Chickasaw Nation,
Indian Territory

The problem was—even though each of my grandparents was here before statehood, it was going to be hard to prove for the other three.  I really wasn’t sure when my grandfather Wheat came to Oklahoma; in fact, on the 1910 census he was living in Cottle County, Texas.  However, fairly recently I found out that he spent a 3-year enlistment in the U.S. Army starting in 1906.  And he enlisted in Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, on 5 March 1906, stating that he lived in Blackburn, O.T.  I submitted that information along with proof of my descent from him and received my second membership certificate from FFTT yesterday!

My next goal is to apply for my grandpa, Weaver Harris Smith, who was born in 1895 in Catoosa, Indian Territory, but of course, long before required birth certificates.  The biggest problem is that I have never been able to find the Smiths on the 1900 census.  My grandpa’s mother Francis died in 1905 and is buried in Oologah, but I’m not sure that a headstone by itself proves anything. The family did make application for membership in the Cherokee tribe after they moved to Indian Territory, and my grandfather is listed in that document, so I am hoping that the OGS will accept it as proof of his residence in Indian Territory.

Application for Guion-Miller Roll 

Ironically, the one grandparent that I might not be able to prove is the one that actually remembered the day that Oklahoma became a state.  The Castle family had moved to Davenport in Oklahoma Territory the summer before statehood, and my grandmother remembered hearing the bells ring on that November day.  Since they had moved to Oklahoma so recently, I don’t know what document would ever prove they were here.  All I can do is keep looking and hope that something will turn up—a newspaper article, maybe?

By the way, if you’re not from Oklahoma (or even if you are), you might assume that if your ancestor was in Indian Territory before statehood, he or she was able to prove Native American ancestry.  Or, on the other hand, that they were in Oklahoma Territory because they had participated in a Land Run.  I can tell you that neither of those things was true for any of my four grandparents.

I would encourage anyone that thinks they might qualify to check out the application process at http://www.okgensoc.org/firstfamilies.htm.  If you’re thinking about joining the DAR or some other organization that requires proof of ancestry, the FFTT application is a fairly stress-free way to get acquainted with the proof that is required for membership.  Just don’t expect to get your certificate right away.  The OGS members that read the applications are volunteers.  My first certificate came fairly quickly, but the second one took about four months.

Grandpa and Grandma Day

Now seems a good time to talk about my other set of great-great-grandparents on the Castle side of my family: Grandpa and Grandma Day.  I feel like I know them even better than my Castle great-great-grandparents--even though they were gone long before I was born--because they lived and died in Oklahoma. I have photographs of them; I’ve been to the places where they lived. 

My great-grandmother Sarah Florida Day’s parents were James Thomas--sometimes called “Jim Tom” or J.T.--Day and Nancy Emily Reed. James was born 1 December 1856 in Morgan County, Kentucky, son of Andrew Jackson Day and Sarah Jane Oney.  Nancy Emily Reed, daughter of Lewis Reed and Sarah Patrick, was born 26 September 1853 (according to her headstone.) They married on 13 April 1876 in Salyersville, Magoffin County. Their marriage license says that they were married in the home of Nancy’s father, Lewis Reed.

On the 1880 and 1900 censuses they were living in Johnson Fork, Magoffin County. The 1880 census says that Nancy Emily was born in January 1858.  (I can see fudging on the year a little since her other birth date makes her 3 years older than her husband, but changing the whole month?) By 1894 they had had all their children—seven girls! and one little boy, Cassa, who died at age 4. Kelly Day, age 3, listed as a son on the 1900 census, was really their grandson.

Sometime in early 1907 or before, they moved to Indian Territory, and settled near the town of Davenport in Lincoln County. 

They brought all the girls to live with them in Oklahoma: Ida, Zedda, Emma, Margaret, Minta, Retta Lee, and Florida who came with her husband, George Castle.  On the 1920 census James T. and Nancy were living on S. Olympia Avenue in Tulsa. In 1930 the Days were living in Claremore where they ran a boarding house for visitors who came to Claremore to take mineral water baths.

The house in Claremore in which the Days lived in the 1930s
Photo taken in the early 1980s

On their golden wedding anniversary the Days were written up in the Tulsa World.  You get the impression of a devoted couple, loving to each other and generous to others.

According to my grandmother, Grandma Day sometimes let her generosity get the better of her common sense.  “She would invite everybody at church over for Sunday dinner but she wouldn’t have wrung the chicken’s neck yet!” Grandpa Day was dearly beloved by his wife, his daughters, and his grandchildren.

Ida, Florida, Zedda, Emma, Margaret, Minta, Retta Lee
Grandma and Grandpa Castle

J.T. Day died in 1931 and Nancy in 1938.  They are buried in Davenport, Oklahoma, within sight of land that still belongs to Day descendants. Last summer I met some Day cousins at the Senior Citizen Center in Davenport, where we ate ham and beans with cornbread and homegrown sliced tomatoes, told family stories, traded photographs, then visited the cemetery together. We had never met but we came together to remember James Thomas and Nancy Emily Day.

Grandparent #1: Weaver Harris Smith

Weaver Harris Smith was born 18 December 1895 in Catoosa, Indian Territory.  He was the youngest son of Stephen A. and Fannie Smith and the only child born in Indian Territory.  His mother died when he was almost 10.  While his sister Lou was kind to him, his older brothers did things like filling his Christmas stocking with coal and switches.  One of them recommended he try "toilet water," but didn't explain exactly what that was, leading to an incident that was comical, but probably not to Weaver.  He spent his younger years in Oologah, using the town pump as home base for games of Go Sheepie Go.  We once took him back to Oologah to see his old home, and he remarked that he remembered it as much bigger.  

Smith home in Oologah, Oklahoma

My son at the Oologah water pump, about 1980

He was living in Collinsville in 1917 when he registered for World War I.  He met my grandmother there, courted her for several years, and married her on 30 June 1918.  On their honeymoon the newlyweds visited Waterloo, Alabama, the Smiths’ old home. 

Fannie and Weaver, 1919

Weaver and Fannie at the Beckham home in Waterloo, AL

They rented a house on the corner of W. 41^st St. and S. 26^th W. Ave. in Red Fork and started “housekeeping.”  Grandpa joined the union as a pipefitter and worked at the Sun (DX) Refinery in West Tulsa.  He helped build the gasworks on the Arkansas River.  They had really hard times because he was often on strike, but maybe they did a little better than the other families because Fannie was working as a teacher.  The other men would give him a hard time about it, and he would say, “Well, at least my wife is smart enough to get a job!”  By 1934 Weaver and Fannie had bought a house at 2717 W. 42nd St., just a few blocks from their old rent house.

My grandparents, me and my brother on porch
at 2717 W. 42nd St., Christmas 1960 

Grandpa began to have health problems when he was in his 40's.  He survived a cerebral hemorrhage because the doctor in Red Fork performed an experimental operation, drilling holes in his head to relieve the pressure.  He had several heart attacks and had a leg amputated at about age 70 because of circulation problems.  

Grandpa was a nice-looking man now that I look back on it.  He was wiry and strong and had a shock of heavy hair that I think was just beginning to go gray in his 70’s (although he always wore a hat.)  I think it must be telling that I remember him as tough and strong, because he had health problems from the time I can remember him.  I never thought of him as weak.  In his late 60’s he could still do a trick that he had done all his life.  Holding a matchstick between the fingers of his right hand, he would hold his left hand behind his back, doing a one-handed pushup and grabbing the matchstick with his teeth! My recollection of his toughness might have something to do with the fact that he cussed like a sailor, and though he often seemed to be in a bad mood, I always knew he loved me.  He and my grandmother seemed like the mismatch of the century, but they were completely devoted to each other.


He was helpful around the house in a day when most men weren't.  Before my grandmother retired, he stayed home with my brother and me after our mother died.  He was the family dishwasher.  He used to complain that all he did was "wa' dish, wa' dish."  He and my grandmother hardly ever fussed, but I remember them getting into an argument once in the kitchen when he was washing dishes.  He threw a wet rag at my grandmother and knocked her wig askew, and they ended up laughing, the argument forgotten.

My grandparents washing dishes at the house
on 42nd St.

Grandpa had a lot of colorful expressions.  On 42^nd St., he had his own bedroom at the back of the house that he called the “north 40.”   My favorite was “shoe mouth deep,” indicating the depth of water you were stepping in.  He also talked about being so “poor that you couldn’t buy a mosquito a wrassling jacket,” although I can’t imagine what that means.  Grandpa loved “wrassling”--professional wrestling. He would get so excited watching it on TV that we were afraid he’d have another heart attack.  Although he certainly couldn’t help it, I think that the fragility of his health made a big impression on me as a kid.  Between that and the Smith motto “If anything can go wrong, it will,” I grew up pretty fearful, but also pretty appreciative of all the small things that you can lose at any time. 

Christmas at the house on 38th St., 1965 

It was always hard for me to go away from home to spend the night with somebody, because I was afraid that something would happen to him while I was gone (although what I thought I could do about it, I don’t know.) And then something did.  My dad and brother and I had gone out to eat on a Saturday afternoon.  When we came home, my grandmother had had to call an ambulance to come and get Grandpa.  He had had another heart attack, and this time he didn’t recover.  He died on May 17, 1970. 

Smith Questions

So, where do I go from here?  What are the questions I want to answer about the Smiths?

Who were John A.’s parents?  No idea.  I need a copy of John A.’s will—it exists, but I haven’t seen it.  Not that it lists his parents, but it might give me some clues.  I don’t even know what part of Virginia he came from.  My brother supplied a sample of yDNA but no connections with Smiths yet.

Was Mary E. a Williams, and if so, who were her parents?  On the death certificate of her son, Alexander Jackson Smith, his mother was listed as Mary E. Williams and his father as John Smith.  Was she related to Minor?  It appears not—another researcher I have corresponded with has seen the family Bible of Minor Williams’s family—no Mary listed among siblings.

What happened to Sarah, Martha and Willis?  Probably died young but don’t know for sure. 

Who is the father of Moses?  John A. Smith was alive and bought land in Pike Co., AL, in Sept. 1849 but he died before Nov. 1850 when Mary E. was listed as head of household on the census.  Mary could have been pregnant with Moses when John died.  Interesting note:  It appears that Alexander Jackson Smith and Moses Calvin Smith married sisters, Mary Ann Charlotte Briggs (or Breggs) and Nancy Ann Mathilda Briggs. 

Why does the name Willis carry down through the family?  Any significance to the fact that Cynthia’s son is a Willis, her daughter Amanda named a son Willis, and Stephen and Fannie had a son named Willis?  Jackson is another name that repeats from Alexander Jackson Smith, Stephen’s brother, to John Jackson, Stephen’s son.  Do the names Willis and Jackson go back even further? 

Was Cynthia “married” to Jordan Lindsey?  My guess is that Cynthia had children by a Lindsey, perhaps Jordan.  She didn’t feel free to name her children Lindsey when Jordan’s wife was still alive but by 1870 both Jordan and his wife Elizabeth were dead, and Cynthia could freely use the surname Lindsey.  With all respect to Cynthia, going by the name Smithy makes her sound like a madam.  

Who was the father of Elizabeth Simmons?  According to family trees on ancestry.com, Luke Russell Simmons’ wife’s name was Priscilla.  Was she Priscilla Soles?  Some have listed Priscilla Hargette as his wife but haven’t seemed to notice that Priscilla Hargette died in 1811 before many of the Simmons children were born. 

Why the migration from North Carolina to Alabama?  My cousins in Alabama have written a book about the descendants of Elisha Mansell, Sr. called Pages from the Past.  In the book they relate two theories about the emigration of the Mansells from North Carolina to Alabama. 1) They had made their living from the tar and turpentine derived from pine trees that had become less plentiful in North Carolina. Or, 2) Indians were being rounded up for the Trail of Tears and as several Mansell men had married Indian wives, they decided to remove themselves to Alabama.  The Smiths moved to Pike Co. from Coffee Co. sometime between 1865 and 1868 when Stephen and Frances marry in Pike Co.  I don’t know why.  The Smiths followed the Mansells to Lauderdale Co. in the 1870s.

How are our Mansells related to the Mansells in Marion Co., AL (Elvis’s family)?  Why did the family sometimes use the name Mansfield?  My cousins have a theory that our Mansells stopped off to see the Mansells in Marion County on their way to Lauderdale County in the 1870s but didn’t feel welcome as the Mansells in Marion County had been Union sympathizers.  No one knows if Mansfield was an alias or just an alternative spelling.

Did Elizabeth Simmons come to Oklahoma and then return to Lauderdale County with Joanne Mansel Webb’s family to be buried at Mt. Olive, Waterloo?  Where is she buried?  Family tradition says 1) under the cedar tree, 2) under an unmarked pile of rocks, 3) where Margaret & William Mansell’s headstones were incorrectly laid, or 4) did she really die in Oklahoma?

Who is the father of Frances?  William Cotton or someone else?  How will we ever know?  Could she be Elizabeth’s granddaughter, child of one of her sons?  If so, why did she ever use the name Cotton?

How did Frances die?  In a Rogers County, Oklahoma, county history book, one of the Smith grandchildren stated that she fell into a well and drowned.  That was never a story I heard growing up.  If I remember anything, it is that Fannie died of “female trouble.”

Where were the Smiths in 1900?  Hiding in a cave??  According to family tradition, Stephen’s Civil War pension record, and applications for tribal membership, the family came to Indian Territory about 1893-1894. The youngest child, Weaver, was said to have been born in Catoosa, Indian Territory, in 1895.  The family is living in Collinsville in 1910.

Is there any truth to the story of Cherokee heritage in our family?  Probably moot, as it is apparent we can’t connect to anyone on the rolls. Will we ever know?  My DNA shows up 98% European.  Maybe the 2% Uncertain is native American!!

As these questions are answered, more will have to be asked.  It’s a never ending quest.

The Smiths in Oklahoma

My great-grandfather, Stephen Albert Smith, brought his family to Indian Territory from Waterloo, Alabama, in 1893. Making the trip were his wife, Fannie; daughters Molly Ann, Lou Ellen, and Barbara; and sons Owen Stephen, John Jackson, Albert Cleveland, and Turner Lee. His mother-in-law, Elizabeth Simmons Mansell Cotton, may have also made the trip, although that has been questioned.  My grandfather, Weaver Harris, the youngest of Stephen Albert and Fannie’s children, was born in Indian Territory in 1895. Ella Victoria, the second oldest daughter, stayed behind in Alabama with her husband Len Beckham.

Fannie stated her purpose in coming to Oklahoma in an 1896 affidavit for the Dawes Commission: “I left the State of Alabama and came to this Country with the avowed purpose of becoming a Citizen of the Territory and identifying myself with the Cherokees whom I know to be my people by blood.”  She was denied citizenship. In 1905 she died and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Oologah.  In 1907/1908, still living in Oologah, Stephen again made a claim of Cherokee citizenship on behalf of his minor children, and the Smith children who were by then adults applied on their own behalf.  All their claims were denied because no relationship could be proved with anyone listed on the Cherokee rolls.

Headstone -- Oak Hill Cemetery, Oologah, OK

  

I have never been able to find any of the Smiths on the 1900 census, and believe me, I have looked—even searching probable locations page by page.  On the 1910 census the family, still mostly intact, is living in Collinsville, probably at the boarding house pictured in my post “Beginnings and Endings,” because the census lists quite a few “boarders” living with the family. Mollie and her children, Jimmy, Alice, and Ella Scott, and Maggie Kirk; Owen, Barbara, Albert, Turner, and Weaver are all living with Stephen Albert. Lou is living with her husband Albert Barlow near Collinsville in Rogers County.

On October 11, 1927, Stephen married his daughter Lou’s mother-in-law Nancy Barlow at age 80+.  It was written up in the Tulsa World. He died July 27, 1938, in Collinsville.  Because he was one of the last Confederate veterans in Oklahoma, that was written up in the paper, too.  He is buried in Ridgelawn Cemetery in Collinsville.  All of his children, except Ella, lived and died in Oklahoma.

Stephen Albert Smith and children

Headstone -- Ridgelawn Cemetery, Collinsville, OK

I knew my Smith relatives in Oklahoma. We visited Uncle Owen and Aunt Lou in Collinsville.  Uncle Turner came by to visit us.  We saw Uncle Albert's wife Gertrude (he had died in 1953) all the time because she lived near Red Fork in Carbondale, another westside Tulsa community.  I had names and dates of birth, pictures, and funeral cards of the Smith siblings, thanks to my grandmother.  I knew that the Smiths came from Waterloo in Lauderdale County, Alabama.

But then, I found out how little I really knew.