The root country for Eugenia Witty Booth

I'll just share the photos I've found on line from Hill County, the area where lots of my roots were planted.



In Hill County Texas, there are several sites which factor into my ancestors' homes.
Hillsboro became the site of the Booth family home, but Woodbury was where the Witty's settled.


A couple of the areas of Hill County...including an early pioneer home.

Randle-Turner House, Itasca, Hill County, Texas

A later house in Hill County

 

Map of Texas highlighting Hill County

Laying of Corner Stone, City Hall Hillsboro, Texas

A twin who was a sibling of Eugenia Witty Booth

Yesterday I introduced to you Laura Dove Witty.
She was actually a twin.

William Wiley Witty has the same birthday on most of his records.

But there is discrepancy on some others.  So though his year of birth is always within a year of the same one, the place is given on some records differently.

So about half the Ancestry listings in families have him born in Marshall Texas on the same birthday as Laura, the other half (out of 10) say he was born earlier in the same month, to the same parents, but in either Missouri or Georgia, these mainly coming from his death certificate and the grave site information.

Now I've got a bit of logic on my side, the Marshall Texas and twin story that I'm presenting today.  His mother gave birth in Marshall 2 years earlier to my great great grandmother, Eugenia.  The kids are all on the first census in 1860 in Subdivision, Hill County, Texas...and there's no mention anywhere that Susan Hoke Witty (their mom) could have gone to Missouri or Georgia.  It's just not logical.  Until proven otherwise, I'm sticking with this direct movement of the family from Alabama, to Marshall (eastern Texas) to Hill County (central Texas)

Unfortunately a lot of his, and his children's records in "Find A Grave" use the earlier March 3, 1854 and Missouri information.

So who was William Wiley Witty?

The 1870 Census of Precinct 1 in Hill County, Texas, taken in July of that year, lists him as 16, while Laura is 17, both born in Texas.  So here he is a year younger than she is. But the 1860 Census had also been taken in July, and there he and Laura were both 6 years old.  One of these records gives his birthday a year off, I think.

But skip ahead to the 1900 census for Precinct 2, Hill County, Texas, taken in June, and here is some interesting information that has been added to the data.  He is married and age 46.  That still has the 1854 birth year, including month of March.  He states he's been married 26 years, making his marriage happen in 1874 to Mary Witty.  They have 10 children at that time, and he owns his own farm.  Mary was born in Georgia in Nov 1854, but William was born in Texas, as well as all their children.

The very same 1900 Census also gives his sister, Laura, a clear birthday as March 1854...though they no longer lived in the same area...so a different census taker was recording it.

So I continue, at this time, to think these siblings were twins.

As I mentioned his wife was Mary, and one source gives her as Molly, and another says Mary Jane Paschal.  I haven't looked into her family beyond the fact that they came from Georgia to Texas.

AND they had at least one set of twin children: Stella and Della.
They not only have the same birthday, but were buried under the same headstone, though one died in 1909 and one in 1926.

I was thinking perhaps a pair of their older siblings were also twins, being sometimes listed as born the same year, but I haven't found any more information on one of them...and some information again gives their dates a year apart.  Both are possibilities.

Mrs. William Witty, Molly, after giving birth to 10 children, lived to 79, dying in 1933.
William, the farmer, predeceased her in 1929, dying at 74.

They had married in Hill County Texas, but lived in Star, Mills County, Texas.  Where is that, you may ask?  Star is a small unincorporated area with agriculture, named after nearby Star Mountain.

From The Texas Historical Association:

The first settlers, (Mills County) like the Indians, subsisted primarily on hunting. A number of the early settlers were German immigrants who toiled, as one put it, in a "place that was a heaven for men and dogs-but hell for women and oxen." Life on the frontier was often precarious; Dick Jenkins and several other early pioneers were killed by Indians. In 1858 Mr. and Mrs. Mose Jackson and two of their children were killed by Indians at Jackson Springs, while two other children were carried into captivity. After a force of settlers routed the Indians at Salt Gap, their pursuers and a company of Texas Rangers recovered the captive Jackson children. In 1862 a band of twenty Comanches raiding for horses was pursued by settlers to the mouth of Pecan Bayou and put to flight after three Indians and one white, O. F. Lindsey, were killed. After Indians killed John Morris, a rancher, settlers pursued them and killed or wounded seven of the twenty-seven raiders. Few of the settlers joined the Confederate Army during the Civil War because their own frontier required protection against the depredations of Indians and outlaws.

During the Civil War and for decades thereafter whites caused settlers more trouble than Indians, as cattle rustlers, horse thieves, murderers, army deserters, and other rogues infested the area. Vigilante committees were formed to deal with criminals, but then these groups degenerated into warring mobs committing criminal acts themselves. A reign of terror followed conflicts between vigilante groups, which broke out in Williams Ranch in 1869. Vigilantes drove out some bad characters, but killed other innocent men; lynchings and assassinations became commonplace. The turbulence lasted until 1897, when the Texas Rangers finally broke up a group of vigilantes who frequently gathered at Buzzard Roost. The first post office in what is now Mills County was established in Williams Ranch in 1877, and the place became a center for the area; between 1881 and 1884 250 people lived there. In 1885 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built tracks into the region, stimulating settlement and demands for organization. In 1887 the Texas state legislature carved Mills County from lands formerly assigned to Brown, Comanche, Hamilton, and Lampasas counties. Goldthwaite became the county seat. In 1890 5,493 people lived in Mills County. By that time, the area's agricultural economy was already fairly well-established. The county had 680 farms and ranches, encompassing 142,299 acres, that year.

Sources:Hartal Langford Blackwell, Mills County-The Way it Was (Goldthwaite, Texas: Eagle Press, 1976). Flora Gatlin Bowles, A No Man's Land Becomes a County (Austin: Steck, 1958).

 There are at least 6 graves of Witty's in this Cemetery, very near Star, Texas.  At the information site about the cemetery, it says:

Hurst Ranch Cemetery is in Hamilton County, Texas but has so many Mills County connections from Star, (originally Hamilton County) Mills County, Texas...

Fanny Witty, next oldest sister of Eugenia Witty Booth

She was a Valentine baby, Fanny (Frances Malone) Witty Gee born on Feb. 14, 1850 in Limestone, Alabama.

Her first census listing was when she was 4 months old, and the penmanship is so illegible the transcriber calls her Thomas, though a female child.  At least by 1860, when her family had moved to Texas, she was listed as Fanny. 

She married at 17, to Richard A. Gee who had been born in 1833 in Tennessee (17 years older than she was). Some of his records say he was born in Virginia, where his parents were born.  They raised 7 children, who all lived to be adults, and had 19 grandchildren.  Some of her children and grandchidlren lived into their 90s, and one, Ethel M. Stingily, lived to 100, dying in 2013.

Many of the death certificates in the early 1900s show how hypertension was a killer in my family.  I've seen this on many Booth records.  I'm so glad there is medication now (which I can take.)

Fanny herself was 73 when she died in 1923.

One of these men is Richard Albert Gee...I don't know the other, nor which one he is.

Her husband, Richard Albert Gee (Rag, which are his initials) was a Sargent in the Confederacy, and thus received a veterans grave marker when he died in 1930 at age 96.

Next I'll look at some of Eugenia Witty's younger siblings!  Oh yes, it was a big family!

Another Sister of Eugenia Witty Booth

Mary Elizabeth Witty Hughes was 6 years older than my great great grandmother, Eugenia Witty Booth.

Great Aunt Mary Beth (I'm guessing that that was her name because my own sister went by that nickname as a young girl) was born in 1848, also in Alabama, the 4th child of Susan Hoke Witty and Carroll Witty.  

 In Limestone County, Alabama in 1850, the Wittys were farmers, and grandfather Joseph Hoke, age 57 was living with them as well.  At that time the next family listed in the census were Jackson Witty, a brother of Carroll Witty's, actually named Andrew Jackson Witty.  When Carroll went to Texas around 1850-52, Andrew Jackson Witty stayed in Alabama.

 But let's look at Great Aunt Mary Beth a bit more.  By 1860 she was 12 and living in Hill County, Texas.  Then when she was 19 she married Isaac Butler Hughes, who apparently went by his middle name on most records.

They had 2 children: James M. Hughes who lived just from 1867-1876, and Alice Dovie Hughes Felts, 1869-1893.

But the same year that their son died, so did Aunt Mary Beth, on July 2, 1876.  She is buried with her husband, who had died just the year before, on 10 August 1875.

 His headstone is broken, but her's has been somewhat repaired. It's interesting to note that her initial is wrong "M".  They are in the same cemetery as her parents and other family members, The Old Woodbury Cemetery, Hill County, Texas.

I was trying to find out if Alice had any children, who would be my cousins of course...but there wasn't much information on her, besides a name J. B. Felts for her husband, but no information on him.  

I did discover an interesting autobiography written by another woman named Alice Hughes, which I downloaded and read.  Since she also was born at the same time, and travelled all over the south, I may post a little of it sometime.  Her story conveys how often children would live with relatives when their parents died.  

More of Eugenia Witty's brothers

James J. Witty was just a year younger than the oldest of his siblings (which numbers 10 in all, including one set of twins).  Born in 1845 he was barely old enough to go to the war between the states for the Confederacy with his older brother, John, in 1862.

He didn't serve in the same way however, and was in the cavalry while John was in the infantry.
And he had a surviving widow who eventually applied for his war pension many years after he died.

12th Texas Calvary, W. H. Parsons Regiment , Company "A" of Hill County, TX,

His family had settled in Texas from Alabama, and his father (Carroll Witty) was one of the founders of a community called originally "Subdivision, Hill County, Texas" and later known as Woodbury. The Hill County Historical Commission tells us: " Woodbury is on Farm Road 309 twelve miles northwest of Hillsboro in north central Hill County. Anglo-American settlers began moving into the area about 1850, and the community was established in 1857, when Carroll Witty, William R. Nunn, and Rev. Thomas Newton McKee purchased property and offered it for sale."

In the 1870 Census for Hill County, TX, James was 25 and living with his parents and listing his occupation as "stock raiser,"  just as he had 10 years previously in the 1860 Census.

James married a woman who was a widow with three children, when he was 39 himself.  Mary Lou Cobb Books and James were married Nov 23, 1884.  Her children were William Terrell Brooks (Born: 1859) Mary Elizabeth Brooks Dennis (Born: 1862) and Bert Brooks (Born: 1875).  The date of the marriage was listed on her application for widow's pension, and the location was Shackleford, Texas, where she lived the rest of her life.

Unknown old house, Moran, Shackleford County, Texas

Moran Texas, 1924 looking west.

Shackleford County, Texas is where James spent his later adult life, and where he and his wife are buried, but in different cemeteries.   She's in the Moran Cemetery, also in Shackleford County, and her youngest son Bert Brooks was also buried there. 

Witty Fish and Chip truck, probably a belonging to a later descendant of the Witty family

His death is noted in the Texas Find A Grave site as "J.J. Whitty found dead in his wagon Sept of 1904 on his way home from town. found by Brooksey King (Possible burial place 7 or 8. Thought to have died of a heart attack. (Jo Ann Farmers Notes)"

The cemetery where his remains are located is unique in that it's a ranch cemetery with many unknown cowboys buried there.  It is listed as the Lynch Cemetery.  "The Lynch Cemetery is located 8 miles southeast of Albany near the Ibex Community on FMR 601. The cemetery began in the summer of 1875 as the final resting place of J. A. Leflet, a young cowboy who worked for the Lynch family on what was then called Fairview Ranch. Founders of the ranch, John C. Lynch and his wife Fannie, arrived in this part of Shackelford County in the 1860's after coming to nearby Stephens County with Fannie's family, the Peter Gunsolus family. After Mr. Leflet was buried in 1875, on a rise a quarter of a mile from the Lynch home, other cowboys on the ranch who died were also buried there, most now are unmarked or unknown."

 James J. Witty is listed as a known grave, and has a legible marker there.

Post office, Moran, Shakleford County, Texas

Texas Pioneers

Carrol Witty  my great grandmother's grandfather.  (Eugenia Almeta Witty Booth Miller is my mom's mother's mom.

Carrol Witty was born: Nov. 6, 1818,
Death Sep. 19, 1898 Burial:
Old Woodbury Cemetery Woodbury Hill County Texas, USA

Spouse: Susan E Hoke Witty (1817 - 1895)

This list of children (below) from Texas Find a Grave doesn't include Eugenia.  She was born in 1852.   But I am going to use the information on these sisters to my family tree, because most of them only have estimated dates of birth based on census data.  This is a real find, though of course only depends upon the iffy source of Find A Grave which left out my great grandmother. 

Children:  Martha E Witty Barnes (1846 - 1914)*
 Mary Witty Hughes (1848 - 1876)*
Susan E Witty Moore (1856 - 1902)*
Laura Dove Witty Patty (1854 - 1935)*

I now have checked the source from 1860, the Census of Hill County, Texas, where Carrol Witty was a wagon maker.  He was one of the original founders of the community of Woodbury, Texas.

WOODBURY, TEXAS. Woodbury is on Farm Road 309 twelve miles northwest of Hillsboro in north central Hill County. Anglo-American settlers began moving into the area about 1850, and the community was established in 1857, when Carrol Witty, William R. Nunn, and Rev. Thomas Newton McKee purchased property and offered it for sale. After the Civil War settlers began moving into the area. The first business, a dry goods store, opened in 1869. A general merchandise store opened the following year. A post office opened in Woodbury in 1871. In 1892 the town had a population of 200, two general stores, a drugstore, two blacksmith shops, and a steam-powered cotton gin and gristmill. By 1900 the school registered 114 students and employed three teachers. The town was bypassed by the rail lines, and by 1936 only 148 people and two business were in Woodbury. In 1946 it had forty people and one business. During the 1950s and 1960s the population was twenty. From the 1960s through 2000 the community reported a population of forty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hill County Historical Commission, A History of Hill County, Texas, 1853–1980 (Waco: Texian, 1980). Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County (Chicago: Lewis, 1892; rpt., Dallas: Walsworth, 1976).

 I also learned that his children as of 1860 were many more than those who apparently have been noted by the Find A Grave people.

Carrol and Susan at 43, had 9 children living with them.  The oldest sons, John (16) and James (15) are already working as stockmen (I think, it's not really clear stock raisers?).  Then come daughters, Martha, 13, Mary, 12, and Fanny,10; then Eugenia, 9, William, 6, and Laura, 6, (twins?) and the smallest is Susan at 4.  Of course there could have been some children who were being fostered, as always happens in old records, so that might account for the extras that haven't appeard elsewhere in Ancestry.

Now I've got to find out more about Carrol's parents.  I just discovered there is more information available and I'm so excited to chase down details.

I know, it's just moving information from one place to another.  Going to see where the grave is, maybe there's a photo of the headstone that I can download onto my computer...and this is what excites me these days.  Mmm, don't you dare say what you're thinking!