Texas Pioneers

repost from When I Was 69 dated 7/12/14

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 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!