Week 45 (Nov. 5-11): War and Peace

Sergeant Richard A. Gee (Rag = his initials)

This post is about Fanny Witty Gee (1850-1923) sister of my GG Grandmother Eugenia Witty Booth (1852-875), and Fanny's husband, Sgt. Richard A. Gee (1833-1930)

She was a Valentine baby, Fanny (Frances Malone) Witty Gee born on Feb. 14, 1850 in Limestone, Alabama. But I don't know if Valentines Day was celebrated much then.

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.

Fanny 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, (though one died at 19 years of age) and they had 19 grandchildren.  Some of her children and grandchildren lived into their 90s, and one, Ethel M. Stingily, lived to 100, dying in 2013.

Her son who died at 19, has a marker in the same cemetery where she was buried, but I can't find any photos of her marker. So I'm using his because I know how hard it must have been for a mother to lose a son when he had his whole life ahead of him.

Marker for John C. Gee, 1876-1892. In Covington Cemetery, Hill County Texas, where his mother Frances Malone Witty Gee is also buried (1850-1923). Fanny herself was 73 when she died in 1923.

One of these men is Richard Albert Gee. I think it's the older looking one. Rag only had one brother, John O. Gee, born in 1844, so about 11 years younger than Richard (born in 1833!)

Richard Albert Gee was a Sergeant in the Confederacy, and thus had a veterans grave marker when he died in 1930 at age 96. He entered the Civil War in 1861 as a Corporal in Parson's Mounted Volunteers, 12th Regiment of Texas Cavalry, Company A. He discharged with the rank of Sergeant.

Having survived the Civil War, he lived many more years, and it wasn't until 1927 that he applied for Veterans Benefits. His wife Fanny had died in 1923. And Rag only had these benefits until he died in 1930.

Richard Albert "Rag" Gee, (1833-1930)  He's also buried in Covington Cemetery, TX. 

The Find A Grave site lists these children: Jennie Burgess; Lena Mae Stingily; William W Gee; John C Gee; Albert Richard Gee; Marvin Brice Gee. 

For some reason their son Alonzo Benjamin Gee who lived till 1958, wasn't included in that list.

When I recently spent a day with cousins who live a long way away, one of them said that there's a genetic trait that she's noticed from her father to her grandson. Their ears stick out quite a bit. But all the rest of the siblings in her family, and her other children and grandchildren don't have this trait. Must be recessive!  The family I posted about today is on my mother's side of the tree, and this cousin is from my father's side...so no blood relation to the Gee men. I just thought I'd mention it, since us matriarchs are the ones who can remember things like that going down through the generations...and it seldom will show up in anyone's biography!

Sharing with 52 Ancestors 52 weeks

Eugenia Almeda Whitty Booth

This week I'm posting about the Booth family tree.

A repost from Monday, February 24, 2014 (edited)

Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth, my great great grandmother

She would have been 169 years old this year!!

Wikipedia tells me a bit about Marshall, TX (Eugenia Witty's birthplace)

The Republic of Texas and the Civil War (1841–1860)

Marshall, TX was founded in 1841 as the seat of Harrison County, since the county was established in 1839, and was incorporated in 1843.. The city quickly became a major city in the state because of its position as a gateway to Texas on several major stage coach lines and one of the first railroad lines into Texas. The establishment of several colleges, including a number of seminaries, teaching colleges, and incipient universities, earned Marshall the nickname the Athens of Texas, in reference to the ancient Greek city state. The city's growing importance was confirmed when Marshall was linked by a telegraph line to New Orleans, becoming the first city in Texas to have a telegraph service.^[8]

By 1860, the city was the fourth largest city in Texas and the seat of the richest county. The county had more slaves than any other in the state, making it a hotbed of anti-Union sentiment, though some residents of Marshall nonetheless fought for the North. 

Eugenia Witty was born on Feb 24, 1852 in Marshall, TX, a city where her parents aren't on the census records as having ever lived.  They were in Athens AL in 1850, she had 3 siblings born in Marshall before 1856, and they were all the way over in Hill County TX by 1860's census.  So I think they weren't planning to settle in Marshall at all...maybe were just waiting to go on their way to a better place to live.

Carroll and Susan Hoke Witty had been a farming family in the 1850 census of Limestone County, AL, living next door to a brother Jackson Witty and his wife Emily.  Susan Hoke Witty's father, Joseph Hoke, (57), lived with her family.  She already had 5 of their children in AL. 

Athens, Limestone County AL was

...founded in 1818 by John Coffee, Robert Beaty, John D. Carroll, and John Read... one of the oldest incorporated cities in the State of Alabama, having been incorporated one year prior to the state's admittance to the Union in 1819. (Source Wikipedia)

Founders Hall, Athens College, Athens AL

By 1852 the family had moved to Texas, where the rest of their children were born in Marshall.  They settled in Hill County, TX by 1860, which is another 175 miles or so west of Marshall.  In July of 1860 a census shows Carroll Witty identifying himself as a Wagon Maker, and his two oldest sons are stocksmen (which I assume means cowboys, before the term came into use).

Susan Witty now had 9 children, two of whom are 6 year olds (twins probably!)  And Eugenia is listed as 9 years old.  

Hill County, Texas was founded in 1853, so the Witty family was among the earliest settlers, and their property was listed in 1860 as "The Subdivision."   There no longer is another Witty family nearby, nor any Hokes either.  If I ever get the time, I might try to trace where these families moved. 

In 1868 Richard Booth, an attorney like his father, was 22 when his first wife had died in childbirth (and the baby died within 4 months.)  (See Here for more on RRB)  Their 2 year old son had been named after his grandfather, William Lewis Booth.(see HERE for more on WLB)  Richard R. Booth married Eugenia Almeda Witty on 7.20.1869 in Hill County, TX. 

William Booth residence, Hillsboro, TX, land purchased 1855

So by the Hillsboro Census of 1870, Richard and Eugenia and little William L. Jr,  were listed as living in a separate household next door to the senior William Booth's household, which included some of Richard's older siblings, who were also attorneys.  

On 7 Feb 1871, Eugenia Witty Booth gave birth to Edwin Witty Booth. And on 30 Jan 1873, she gave birth to Eugenia Almeda Booth, both children born in Hillsboro, TX. 

At some point in the next 4 years, the Richard Booth and the William Booth families moved to Hempstead TX. On July 13, 1875 Eugenia gave birth to a daughter and they both died the same day. Chidbirth was not as safe a procedure a it is today. Eugenia was only 23 years old.

  

Hempstead, TX was the home of the Booth families according to the 1880 census.   William Lewis Booth, Sr's household included his grandchildren: William Jr., 14, Ed, 9, and Eugenia A, 7.  Their father, Richard Booth, had been killed by a person he was prosecuting in the same town in 1879. He had been just 32 years old, leaving three orphaned children.  Hemstead is known as having been a distribution center between the Gulf Coast and the interior of Texas since 1858 when the Houston and Texas Central Railway reached it.  

Hempstead, Waller County,Texas: 

Availability of transportation facilities and the surrounding area's large cotton production facilitated growth of textile manufacturing and cotton processing industries. Merchandising and processing grew rapidly between 1867 and the 1880s. The town prospered as a transportation center and became Waller county seat in May 1873. Hempstead's commercial, manufacturing, and processing sectors suffered large financial losses from fires between 1872 and 1876.  (Source: Handbook of Texas)

There are various spellings of Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth's name, Almetta, Almeta, Whitty, and so on.  I would be interested in finding out the source of the name Almeda.

The great times 3 grandparents, the William Lewis Booth family, evidently moved back to Hillsboro TX by 1885 when grandmother Hannah Conn Booth died, and Uncle Charles Thomas Booth died in 1886. Great great grandmom Eugenia Almeda Booth married Charles Herman Mueller in 1896. The loss of the 1890 Census doesn't confirm where they were at that time (a fire at the Library of Congress I think.)

Here's my tree, not counting generations of my children (2) or grandchildren (1)

3) Barbara Booth Rogers (living)

4) Mataley Mozelle Webb Munhall Rogers (1917-2003)

5) Mozelle Booth Miller Webb Munhall (1897-1960)

6) Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller (1873-1936)

7) Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth born 2.24.1852 Marshall, Harrison County, TX, d. 13 Jul 1875 

Hempstead, Waller County, TX.

 married on 7.20.1869 (his second m) Hill County, TX

    (7  Richard R. Booth, born 23 Sept 1846, Jackson, IN, died 30 May 1879 Hempstead, Waller County, TX.

 her parents:  

8) Carrol Witty b. 6 Nov 1818 in Alabama,  d. 19 Sep 1898 in Texas

       married on 16 Jan 1843 Limestone County, AL

    (8) Susan E. Hoke Witty, b. 12 June 1817 in Athens, Limestone County, AL, died 18 Dec 1895, Hill County, TX 

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 hilly area of Hill County.

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

This post belongs to the Barbara Booth Rogers Family Tree. Photo shows Mataley Mozelle Rogers, and her mother Mozelle Booth Miller, and my sister Mary Beth Rogers.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week...not sure how my great great grandmother's life, and where she lived, would actually meet this prompt photo...will think about it!

I'll post about Eugenia's sisters next.

The Whitty's of Alabama and Texas, John and James in the army

 My great times 2 grandmother was Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth...daughter of Carroll Witty and Susan Hoke Witty.

I wrote a blog about Eugenia HERE, and another one Here.

My gg grandmother had a lot of siblings, most of whom moved to Texas as well, from Alabama.

James J. Witty was just a year younger than John, the oldest of his siblings (which number 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 Brooks 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

This is an edited post from 2015 HERE.

The following is a revised post from Thursday, February 19, 2015

John C. Witty

He died in 1865, in the county in which he lived according to several census records.

Who was John C. Witty?
My great great grandmother's brother, Great times 2 Uncle John Witty.

My Mother: Mataley Webb Munhall Rogers
Grandmother: Mozelle Miller Webb Munhall
Great grandmother: Eugenia Booth Miller
Great great grandmother: Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth

John was in the Civil War,  Confederate  Regiment, State/Origin: Texas 12th Regiment, Texas Infantry (Young's)  Company:  K  Rank In:  Private   Rank Out:  Private 
1862 enlistment records.

With the great flux of Ancestry records, I find that Kezia and John Witty lived (were born and died) in Yorkshire, England. So that wasn't the one born in Alabama who fought for the Confederacy, but was the one who married Kezia!

John and Kesiah Martha Witty (not in America)
This version of his dates gives him living from 1845-1931.
And being married to Kesiah.

What I do know is that John C. Witty was part of my Great times 2 Grandmother's household, first in Alabama before she had been born, then to Texas, and he's also on the census of the new "subdivision" in Hill County when 16.

This was a young man who joined the 12th Texas Infantry for the Confederate cause.  Some Texans didn't want to fight for the south, and some left and joined Union forces.  It was a terrible conflict with brothers against brothers.  He was only 18 when he enlisted in the military.  And he died in 1865.

Eugenia Almeda Whitty Booth

Happy birthday yesterday to my great great grandmother, born in Marshall, Texas Feb 24, 1852. 

I spoke about her life already HERE, another blog post a few years back.
 
Interestingly enough, I posted a facebook sharing about Marshall Texas also, because there is a college there, started quite a while after she had already moved to Hillsboro, Texas.   Here's the Texas Historical Association background about Wiley College, established 1873.  
But here's the info on the largest black college west of the Mississippi from yesterday.

February 24th, 1969 -- Rangers sent to Wiley College in response to student demonstrations

On this day in 1969, approximately 100 Texas Rangers, local lawmen, and state police were dispatched to Wiley College, the oldest black college west of the Mississippi River, in response to a series of nonviolent student demonstrations on the Marshall campus. The students were demonstrating over faculty hiring practices, primitive dormitory facilities, and cutbacks in the intercollegiate athletic program. The lawmen undertook a massive search for concealed weapons in the dorms; the search was fruitless, but the school was closed down for several weeks. Further demonstrations resulted in the school administration's agreement in August to improve living conditions on campus. Wiley College was founded in 1873 and chartered in 1882. In 1907 Wiley received the first Carnegie college library west of the Mississippi. In 1960 Wiley and Bishop College students held sit-ins at the local Woolworth store. Their activities and the local reaction made national headlines. These demonstrations helped integrate public facilities in Marshall. In 2004, Wiley College had a student body of 552 and a faculty of 56, and Dr. Haywood Strickland was president.

 Just kind of interesting that they happened at the same dates... 

It's also of interest that Eugenia was Richard Booth's second wife.  Jemima J. Johnson Booth (1847-1868) had been his first wife.  They had two sons, and the second one died at 4 months of age, while Jemima died the day he was born.  So Richard remarried quickly, with his one son still a child, William Lewis "Willie" Booth (1866-1940). He and Eugenia Whitty married July 20, 1869.

Eugenia and Richard Booth had just three children, with the last daughter dying without even being named in 1875.  Their first son was Edwin Whitty Booth (1871-1924), and then they had my great grandmother (after whom I'm named) Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller (1873-1936).  

Yes, I noticed also that Almeda is sometimes spelled Almetta.  I have no idea which is correct, and apparently neither did various ancestors.  Fortunately (maybe) I received Booth as my middle name.

And sadly enough, Eugenia Almeda Whitty Booth probably died in childbirth in 1875, July 13.

Texas Bluebonnets...every spring in Hill Country.