Monday, February 17, 2014

William Lewis Booth

  • Birth 17 Feb 1818 in Farmington, Ontario County, New York
  • Death 24 Feb 1894 in Hillsboro, Hill County, Texas,
  • father of Richard Booth (1846-1879, who was murdered as an attorney in Texas, and his life described here.)
  • grandfather of Eugenia Booth Miller, (my great-grandmother, her life described HERE.)
  • attorney in Hillsboro, TX, founding father of that town.
He lived during the time a man by the name of William Booth started a Salvation Army, and a man named John Wilkes Booth assassinated a president.  Neither of them were related to him, to the best of my knowledge.

I've written a bit in Richard Booth's post (see above link) and about how William and his family with his brother Charles, immigrated from their original homes in NY, through Indiana and Illinois, to finally end up in Hillsboro, Texas.  Here's the family home as it survived into the 1990s.

William Booth Home, 208 N. Waco St, Hillsboro, TX, purchased land on 12 May 1855, (photo 1993)

Here is his obituary, which calls him Col. Booth.  I find it interesting that people who keep these clippings so often neglect to date them, nor say which publication printed it.  Perhaps it was on the back, in 1894.

His second wife, Hanna Conn Booth, had died ten years prior, in 1884.   His brother, Charles Booth would live just 3 more years.  And Lucinda Booth Slocum, his only sister living at this time, was the one mentioned in Minnesota.  She lived until 1906. 

This obituary gives me information that I didn't have before, that his son W.L. Jr was still alive at this time. This son wasn't a true "Jr." as his middle name was Legrand, not Lewis.

His daughter Miss Cinnie Booth was well known in Hillsboro, TX.  His youngest daughter, Annie Booth Attaway, had already given birth to his three grandaughters, two of them were to become my Great-Aunts Alice and Gertie Attaway, and will be honored elsewhere.  I don't think I ever met Aunts Alice and Gertie, but I received beautifully hand embroidered dresses and wrote thank you letters to them (they living in El Paso, me living in St. Louis) in the 1950s.

William Booth was a county judge, at a time when law was difficult to enforce in Texas.

I was very interested to see that he identified himself as a Spiritualist, as well as a republican.  Maybe the former was the reason his burial was presided over by a minister who was from Waco, rather than Hillsboro.  Just guessing.  Spiritualists have often been disdained by more conservative religious groups, and he was the President of the statewide Spiritualist organization.  I wonder if he ever contacted his descendents during a seance.

William Lewis Booth

Texas Find-a-Grave has a picture of the city cemetery in Hillsboro.  I'm interested to read there that he...
was called "Colonel" by the locals, although he would have been too old to fight in the civil war, he was a Texas volunteer serving on the homefront. "
 These are his children and their dates from that source.  Richard R. Booth is not on this list for some reason.


His first wife was Mary Ann McManus (1818 – 1842), the mother of his first three children.  He married Hannah Leak Conn (1818 – 1884) in Indiana in 1843, who was mother of his 6 younger children.

 His parents have already been honored on this blog under other posts.  Jane McElhaney Booth,(Here) and Isaac Booth (HERE)




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1 comment:

  1. 21 WitsFebruary 17, 2014 at 12:20 PM

    Wow, a most wonderful, well scripted accounting! I just adore this old house, with it's wrap around porch as well.

    ReplyDelete

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