For Elizabeth
The Parson Family Story
Chapter 03
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Helen's Benediction
Wynn Haynie
PHOTOS
Stories and Tales
(Mostly True)
Great
Great Great Grandparents
James William Parsons
And
Catherine Long
James William Parsons
And
Catherine Long
His parents, Joseph and Parthena Parsons, were twenty-one and twenty and had been married for five years at the time that he was born. They were traveling westward looking for new land, closely following the Trail of Tears. It is likely that he was born along this trail as they followed a band of Cherokee Indians being forced west to the new Oklahoma Territory.
His older brother, George R. Parsons, had been born three years earlier in 1845, two years after Joseph and Parthena were married in Meigs, Tennessee and began their journey west. He too, was likely born along this Trail of Tears.
By 1850, when James William was two years old, they had traveled as far as Alabama and were living in District 26 in Cherokee Alabama. Here, three more children would be born to Joseph and Parthena; Harriet C,. Goranval H., and John Thomas.
In the following years, James William's westward journey was to continue on to the new Arkansas-Missouri Territory, arriving in Greenbrier, Independence Co., Arkansas by 1857. It was here that this family seemed to have planted roots once again. James William's youngest brother, Dewitt C. would be born there in 1859. Another sister, Althea Emmaline would be born amidst the turmoil of the Civil War.
In the decade between 1850 and 1860. The rumblings of Civil War and secession were rising rapidly and by 1861 Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas had all seceded from the United States to join the new Confederacy.
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The battle had begun.
James Williams's father Joseph had joined the Confederacy and died at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862.
James William was twelve when the war began and thirteen when his father died. The Civil War did not end until the spring of 1865 when James would have been seventeen.
Reconstruction began soon after the war ended. It was slow and arduous. Transportation networks had been destroyed, major cities left in ruins and widespread devastation was everywhere in the South. The task of each of the southern states was to rebuild the foundations of their society and integrate back into the Union.
At the age of twenty, James married Catherine Long in Independence, Arkansas on December 17, 1868. Catherine was also twenty and was born in
1848 in in Alderbrook, Independence Co., Arkansas.
In the first years after James William and Catherine had married in 1868, they had two children; Joseph Alexander Parsons who was born in 1869, and Jennie Lucretia Parsons, born in 1873. At some point prior to 1874, James William, Catherine and their two children had moved on to Camp, Cass County, Texas. It was there that your Great, Great Grandfather, Robert Lee, was born on October 20th 1874.
James William's wife, Catherine died in 1876, when they were both just 28, and he was left alone to care for the children and decide what his future would be. The children, Joseph Alexander, Jenny Lucretia and Robert Lee would have been around seven years old, four years old and two years old at that time.
They were shown in the 1880 Census still living in Precinct 1, Camp, Cass Co., Texas. Life in Camp, Texas was not perhaps what one would think. Originally covered with dense forests, it was founded in 1874, about the time that James William arrived there, and is located about seventy miles south of today's Texarkana. The land was the most fertile and best cultivated in the state. The Big Cyprus and Little Cyprus streams wound along the gentle rolling hills and spring branch bottoms suitable for farming and agriculture and populated with deer, turkey, squirrels, opossums and raccoons making it likely that James William had at some point acquired some coon hounds, much beloved by his son, Robert Lee.
The plentiful timber provided ample building material and a General George Lee, in 1867, wrote that Camp, Texas homes were substantial structures, either cottages or farm houses, well kept, with surrounding fields well tended, near streams, and under the shade of wide-spreading oak trees. The fences were kept in order and no gates were hanging off their hinges. A very pleasant place, indeed!
On December 29th, 1881, James William married his second wife, Charity P. (Lula) Lantroop. He was thirty-three and she was twenty-four.
At some point, James and his family of five moved further west to Clay Co., Texas located along the Red River. Perhaps they were anticipating the opening of the Indian Territory north of the river to white settlers. The railroads, beginning in 1876, had begun to traverse the great state of Texas, and the lure of the west came calling again .
In the twenty years between 1890 and 1910, the number of farms in Clay Co. had grown from barely seven hundred to over two thousand. The majority of the population lived in rural areas and cotton had become king.
In earlier times, this area of Texas, along the southern edge of the Red River, had been explored by the Spanish, and was a place of conflict between white settlers and Indian tribes. These early settlers first arrived in Clay Co. in the 1850's and built their homes on the south fork of the Wichita River, two miles from present day Henrietta, Texas. Good range and farm land was plentiful. In 1860, on the Eve of the Civil War, the population of Clay Co. was one hundred nine. There were ten homes and a general store and Indians were a constant threat.
The county was largely abandoned when federal troops moved out during the Civil War. But by 1880, the Ft. Worth and Denver Railroad brought a new boom to the area. The population had increased from a few hundred to five thousand. Buffalo hunters shipped their hides from Henrietta to Ft. Sill in Oklahoma. White-tail deer, bob-white quail, and migratory birds were plentiful.
In 1901, oil was discovered and another boom changed the county forever. The number of farms declined, ranch spreads increased their acreage, cowboys on horseback or in old pick-up trucks became the symbol of the times and oil had become king.
Unable to locate James William in the 1890 and 1900 census records, his location is not exactly known. His children were all grown and married by this time. His son, Joseph Alexander, is found on the 1900 Census as a married white Head of Household living in Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. Oklahoma did not become a state until 1907.
The 1889 Land Rush occurred when the United States purchased land from five Indian tribes in the Treaty of 1866 for $1.40-$2.50 an acre and designated it eligible for settlement under the Homestead act of 1862. These areas had previously been off-limits to white settlers.
The 160 acre plots were available to homesteading settlers who would live on and improve the tracts for a minimum of five years. Thousands of settlers were lined up on the Red River border, eager to claim these lands. By horse, mule, wagon, or on foot, they rushed by the thousands to stake their claim. It appears that James William's brother, Dewitt Cleveland, age thirty-two, and James William's son, Joseph Alexander, age twenty, were both lined up on that border ready to claim their homestead.
When the gunshot sounded at twelve noon on April 22, 1889, the crowds surged forward to claim their stake, becoming known as the "eighty-niners"or "sooners." By the end of the day, two million acres of land had been claimed.
James William is found in the 1910 Census Record living in Precinct 1, Collin Co., Texas. Thus, at some point , he had moved one hundred thirty-five miles east of Clay Co. Texas to the area around McKinney, Texas. He is listed as a married, white Head of Household, age sixty-one. Also in the household was his wife Lula, age fifty-two and eighteen year old Callie D. Parsons who was Dewitt Parsons' child.
James William Parsons died in Vashti, Texas, eighteen miles southeast of Henrietta, in Clay Co. Texas, on October 2, 1928. He was likely living with his daughter, Jennie Lucretia at that time. He was seventy-nine years old and had seen many changes in his America.
His wife, Lula, out-lived him by twelve years and passed away in 1940. She is buried beside him in Vashti Cemetery, Vashti, Texas.
We still do not know very much about him but we are so thankful that he brought our family to Texas.
James
William Parsons
Rabbit Holes
Rabbit Holes
Catherine Long's Ancestry
Catherine Long's father, John Long and her mother, Rachel T Fleming, had both been born in Tennessee. They were married on January 22nd, 1845 in Alderbrook, Independence County, Tennessee.
Catherine's father, John Long, died the same year she was born, and she was his only living child. Her mother, Rachel, died only six years later at the age of twenty-nine.
Catherine was very likely raised by her grandfather, Nicholas Jr Long and her grandmother, Hannah Cactanino Churchman, whose Quaker ancestors immigrated from England in 1666 to establish a colony in the new world.
The Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, was an evangelical Christian movement that began in the mid 17th century. Many English, Irish, and Welsh families emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony established by William Penn to escape religious persecution. This "Holy Experiment" was meant to create a land of virtuous people whose morals and ethics would influence the shape of government and society.
The Quakers were very devout in their religion, pacifist in their politics and insistent on purchasing, not taking land from the Indians as they moved westward. And certainly, the Parsons' religious persuasion, thrift, values and independence must have been heavily influenced by these Quaker values.
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