Richard R. Booth's birthday

My great great grandfather...who lived only a short life.  I've already posted about him here.

b. 9.23.1846, Jackson County, Indiana,
d 5.30.1879 killed by person he was prosecuting, Hempstead, TX
married 7.20.1869 (his second w.) Eugena Almetta Whitty

I think I'd like to look at his first wife, who isn't in my direct line, but I do have a cousin living who's contributed to Ancestry...her line goes back through Jemima Johnson Booth, while mine is through Richard's second wife Eguena Almeta Witty Booth.

Jemima Johnson's parents were Harvey Johnson (1810-1870?) and Sarah (Sally) Kelly Johnson (1815-1860?).  They had married in 1832 in Randolf County, Indiana. There's no death date for Jemima's father, and we don't even know who his parents were.  He probably came from Virginia, and his widow applied for veteran's benefits in 1865, which details that he was in the 3rd NY Cav.

Sally had been born in 1815 in Kanawha County, Virginia (which became West Virginia.)  The original Ancestry listing said she died between 1852-1860.  But then how could she have requested widow's pension for her husband? She isn't listed on the 1860 census when Harvey W. Johnson was living with his 4 youngest daughters, including Jemima.  Their youngest daughter, had been born in 1852.

I noticed Thomas Johnson was the next farmer listed in the 1860 census, so I thought perhaps he was related to Harvey.  But even though I found Thomas' parents, I couldn't find a Harvey in the family.

When I tried to find out more about Jemima's mother Sarah Kelly Johnson...well I just threw up my hands.  I'm pretty sure she was the daughter of a second marriage, but there are confusing lists of siblings, and dates of marriages.  Jacob Kelly was probably her father...from Virginia.

Harvey Johnson is also on an 1870 census, which was just  added to my information at Ancestry while I've been writing this.  He was living with a Jacob Johnson.  He didn't have a son by that name, and their ages were too close... Jacob was also born in Virginia and was 55, while Harvey was 61, and listed his occupation as carpenter, while Jacob was a farmer. I am not going to go back into Jacob's family.  Aren't you proud of me to not go on another wild-goose-chase? (however, I'm making a note to see if Jacob was Harvey's brother...which could possibly give me his parents' names.)

Jemima was the fifth child of 7, and had only one brother, Zachariah.  She and Richard Booth married in 1865 in Hillsboro, Hill County, Texas when they were both 18.  The Booth family had moved from Jackson County, Indiana to Whiteside Illinois then to Texas.  In 1860 Jemima had still been living in Randolf County, IN.  Richard must have gone back to Jackson County IN, since he'd moved with his family to IL when he was just 2.  He probably didn't know Jemima until he visited IN sometime when his family was moving to Texas. They were there by the time he was 7.  It is possible that he stayed with relatives as his family moved first to IL then to TX, but there's no record of that.

When he was 4, in the 1850 Census, he lived with his parents in Whiteside, IL. And when he was 14 in the 1860 Census, he also is listed with them in Texas.

So the mystery remains, how did Richard R Booth meet his future wife, Jemima Johnson?

They had 2 children, William (Willie) Lewis Booth (1866-1940) and James L. Booth who lived from May to Sept of 1868.  Jemima died at his childbirth.

Richard R. Booth married my great great grandmother, Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth in 1869, and they had 3 children, the last dying when just 7 months old, and her mother died at the same time, which sounds like an epidemic of some kind.

Fanny (Frances Malone) Witty Gee, and Mary Elizabeth Witty Hughes

More about the Witty family...Eugenia Almeda's siblings...

Originally published: Wednesday, February 25, 2015

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 Sergeant in the Confederacy, and thus had a veterans grave marker when he died in 1930 at age 96.

Originally posted: Sunday, February 22, 2015

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.  

Laura Dove Witty Patty

Originally posted on Saturday, February 28, 2015

Eugenia Witty Booth's next younger sister

Laura Dove Witty Patty was born on 29 Mar 1854, in Marshall Texas.  This is where my great great grandmother Eugenia Witty Booth also was born just 2 years earlier.  Then by 1860 the family settled a new area in Hill County, much further west.  Actually their father, Carroll Witty had purchased land and "settlers began moving into the area about 1850, and the community was established in 1857."  I note that the Hillsboro Historic Association doesn't have any records of him...which seems interesting somehow.  (More on Hill County tomorrow when the Witty's family has settled there.)


But let's go back to Marshall, which was founded in 1841 as the seat of Harrison County, in East Texas, and was incorporated in 1843.

Marshall quickly became a major city in the state because of its position as a gateway to Texas; several major stage coach lines and one of the first railroad lines into Texas ran through it. The founding 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.Marshall was the first city in Texas to have a telegraph service....by 1854 the local paper had a telegraph link to New Orleans, which gave it quick access to national news. By 1860 Marshall was one of the largest and wealthiest towns in East Texas, with a population estimated at 2,000.  With slavery still prevalent for the major industry, cotton, over half the population were Blacks.

The whole Witty family had still lived in Limestone County, Alabama as of Feb 1850s census.  Carroll Witty probably settled his wife and the younger children in Marshall, by 1852 when Eugenia was born, then took his two oldest sons with him (this is pure speculation on my part) to set up a home in Woodbury, Hill County, Texas.  Then they would all have a place to live on the frontier.

Obviously father Carroll visited the Witty family in Marshall, perhaps for supplies or other reasons, including fathering Laura Dove.

Isn't that a pretty name?

She married like many young women in that time when she was 17.  Her husband was James Riley Patty, born on 14 Oct 1845 in McMinn County, Tennesse.  He had been a Corporal for the 59th  Tennessee Mounted Infantry, Company A, during the Civil War.  So he moved to Texas following the war, and was 26 when he married in 1871 in Hill County, Texas.

The Patty family included 9 children, the last one born in 1890.  The youngest, Eva Laura Fay Patty Herring, lived to be 96, dying in 1987, after having 4 children.

Laura and her husband both died in 1935.  He died first, March 30, and she applied for pension as a Civil War widow in April of that year.  She died on Oct 5.  Her adult son who lived with her, Birch, gave information for the death certificate, saying she was still married.  He had been 50 when the 1930 census was taken, and his 45 year old sister Hettie also still lived with their parents.  Birch was employed as a grocery clerk, but Hettie didn't work outside the home.  These adult children  didn't marry or have children as far as I know.

Edith, who died at 90, their oldest child, also was living with her parents as of 1920, and she was a public school teacher.  By 1930 however she was living as a boarder in Dallas, TX, and was still teaching.  She didn't marry or have children.

Lexie Patty, their 6th child, is on a Sevier County, Tennessee Census in 1930 as a widow, with 3 sons who all have Patty as their last name.  And Lexie is the head of a household which farms, while parents who are listed must be her in-laws, Levi and Sarah Henner.  She also gives her birth as well as that of her parents as being in Tennessee (which wasn't true).  At some point in her life Lexie returned to Hill County Texas, and she died there age 84 in 1968.

Major Riley Patty...the next youngest of their children...what another interesting name!  As a child he was given Major Riley as his name, but later records just show him as Riley.  Perhaps various official persons thought the title should belong to someone who had attained that rank.  He lived from 1885 till 1951, dying at 71 years of age.  In 1940 it is interesting to note, that he lived with his brother Birch, and sisters Hettie and Lexie, in Hillsboro, Hill County Texas.

These were siblings that came back to, or never left, the home of their parents.

William Canal Patty did marry, and had 2 children, then in his fifties became an inmate of the Colorado State Hospital, where he died after 5 years at age 57.  How sad.