James Moore Powell (consolidated blogs)

Another anniversary of my great x 4 grandfather, who I wrote about last year as well as several years before.  So today I'll try to combine all those posts (and make it easier for you readers who never go to "links.")

Repost #1:

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Ah-Ha!

Where have I spent most of my time lately?  Here.  Well, with my various ancestors.  Here James Moore Powell (1791-1868) has a marker in Texas.  He had been born in North Carolina, (the state in which I now live, but nowhere near me).

Here's a census report from Louisiana, giving his wife's name and various children.

I noticed the neighbors (all farmers) were a family by the name of Traylor.  Didn't think much of it until I saw 2 Traylor children listed as living with the Powells.  Then as I noticed one of the Powell children grew up (over various census reports) and she married a man named Richard Bass, there were still these one or two Traylor children being part of the household.

Then when they moved to Texas and I again saw Traylors in the neighborhood as well as the household I went Ah Ha!!

The wife must have been a Traylor.  And by looking at the originals of many census reports back and forth, there she was.  Alabama, Louisiana, and finally Texas, she was Nancy Jones Traylor Powell (1804-1881).  I guessed the neighbors to be her brothers, the ones who had all these other children...and one must have lost his wife or maybe some of the children were orphaned, so the Powell and the Bass families took them in.  This was the way families took care of their own in the old South, and many still do.

I also have guessed some other neighbors might have had a sister Traylor marry and raise her family named Hill.  Haven't got anything that connects these famlies for sure yet.  This mystery solving has certainly attracted my attention.

It wasn't until I was telling a friend how I spent yesterday, that I realized the name sounds like trailer, so these days it might have the new-South connotation of trailer-trash.  I wonder how many if people might have changed their names because of that. (NOTE: many folks live in trailers on their family property in North Carolina and all over the south, because trailers offer complete housing compared to an older cabin which may need construction help [including indoor plumbing.])

And Nancy Jones Traylor Powell  was listed with a surname for her middle name.  Doesn't that make me think her mother might have been a Jones?  I wonder if I'll find a connection and be able to go further back in her family tree.  Even if I can't, NJ Powell was my grandfather's great-grandmother. (NOTE: on my father's side)

While my fingers continue to heal and I do my exercises instead of pottery, (and I've got more pottery than I know what to do with anyway,) the computer has become my pal. (NOTE: this was 2013) I know these people have been gone for over a hundred years.  But their bones that lie in those graves carry the same DNA as I have, and they have given me the gift of curiosity as well as creativity.  Don't you know that's carried genetically?  Why not? So this is where I'll be for a while.

Repost #2 

Thursday, February 27, 2014

GG grandfather Powell in NC

James Moore Powell
born Feb 27, 1791 in Bertie County, North Carolina, USA

Also lived in Warrentown, Warren County, NC when 29
Then he married Nancy Jones Traylor on 20 Sept when he was 31 in Perry Alabama.
Then they moved with various family members to Dallas County, Alabama, where the state capitol had been laid out at Cahaba.  This census of 1830 has him at 39, married with 2 children, in a household with 22 slaves, 9 of whom were children under 10 years old.
Then more family moved together to Union District, LA, for the census of 1840 his household consisted of James, his wife, and 4 children, one had died in 1838.  The census of that year doesn't list slaves.  Ten years later, Census of 1850, this is the same location of the family.

My great great grandmother, Mary Ann (Mae) Powell, had married Richard Bass by the time of the 1850 Census, so the children at home still are Travis 19, John 17, Wm 14, and Emily 1.  Sons Lewis, John and Dr. William Pentecost POWELL have also moved out as they became adults. 

The 1860 census finds the family living in Walker County, Texas, which is also where my GG grandmother was now living.  

James Moore Powell died at age 77 in Old Waverly, Walker County, Texas.


Repost #3

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

James Moore Powell

Great great great grandfather James Moore Powell has a birthday today, born Feb 27, 1791 in Bertie County, North Carolina.

He was a soldier in the War of 1812, for the Seventh Company of the Warren County Regiment of North Carolina.  He served in 1812, according to the muster rolls.

I covered his life, and that of his wife, Nancy Traylor Powell HERE, and here and Here! especially about their daughter, Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell Bass.

Incidentally, when I was 69 years old, I discovered my great grandmother after whom I was named, had been born 69 years before I was.  And Nancy Traylor Powell had been born 69 years before she had, though she was on my father's side of my nuclear family.

This is NOT the home of the Powell family.  Hope Plantation, built in 1803  near Windsor, Bertie County, North Carolina. The plantation house was built by David Stone, a member of the coastal Carolina planter class, later Governor of North Carolina and a United States Senator.  I'm sharing it here because it was restored in the 1960s from a derelict condition and the property has other old buildings also restored.  I live a long way from the coastal area of North Carolina, but I'd love to visit this site.

The Powells were farming people who moved from one community to another throughout their lives.  James Powell died on the same date as his birthday, Feb. 27 in 1868 in Walker County, Texas.  So he and his family lived through the Civil War.

Walker County Texas also has some great historic sites to visit. The Texas on Line link is Here.

The Lucky Couple

52 ancestors
Week 9 (February 25-March 3): At the Courthouse

My parents got their marriage license on Friday the 13th of November, 1936, at the Courthouse in San Antonio, TX. The county is Bexar.

They got their picture in the paper as well.  

I think they had no clue about anything of the date maybe being unlucky.  They certainly were in love, and were planning a simple wedding ceremony.  The bride's family attended and the groom's did not, because they were adamantly opposed to alcoholic consumption. (My mother's family had all the signs of being alcoholics.)

They were married in a church, not city hall, however!

It's so wonderful for me to see my parents as they looked when they were young and still had stars in their eyes as they looked to the future.  

I know I've posted these events before on my blog, so please forgive me for doing so again...just for the 52 Ancestors effort!

Making a correction to the Bass family

I've recently honored the birth anniversary of Mary Ann Powell Bass, my great great grandmother HERE.  But following that, I kept working on looking at her children, the siblings of my great grandmother Elizabeth (Bettie) Bass Rogers.

And I just found out the younger sister to Bettie, ended up not being a Bass after all.  Turns out "Mollie" married a man named Nicholas Judson Bass, and her maiden name had been Mason.

Mary "Mollie" Dora Mason Bass was born in FEB 1864 in Cherokee County, Texas, and she died in 1916 in Roane, Navarro Co., TX.  So I've deleted her from Mary Ann Powell Bass and Col. Richard Bass' family, and tried to see if Nicholas Bass was a cousin of any kind.

Let me just mention that the number of Bass families in the south in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is about like Smith or Jones in number.  Oh dear, it was pretty impossible.  Especially since they had repeating names through generations.  The numbers of Williams and Alexanders, and Marys...you have to be sure that you have the right ones married to the right ones, and the same for children. 

Liendo Plantation, Waller County, north of Hempstead TX Historic American Buildings Survey, James I. Campbell, Photographer March 10, 1934 FRONT ELEVATION 

And many freed slaves by the 1870 census were listed having given their former masters' names as their last names (since they had not had any of their own prior to emancipation.) So I know I have relations who are blacks.  I don't know if they were children of the slave owners, or had been freed slaves.  But I can count that we're related somehow.

So as of looking through ancestry, I have gone back a few generations to find Nicholas, but have not found a definite connection.

The only thing I'm sure of is that Mollie wasn't my great grandmother's sister after all.

Sam Houston House, Huntsville, Walker County, TX

Happy birthday to Eugenia Witty Booth and grandfather James Whitty

Here's an older post in Eugenia Almetta Witty Booth's honor...Click HERE.
And a not quite as old post HERE.

So this year I am sharing about her family of origin, namely her grandfather James Witty, my 4 times great grandfather.  Since I don't have a birth date for him, I won't be able to celebrate his life on his own birthday. (I started writing about him last spring HERE. But will add several details today.) He was born around 1768, and has several Quaker documents about him and his family from Guilford County, North Carolina - but no birth record.  It could have been lost, or he might not have been a Quaker from birth.

The New Garden Meeting (Guildford County NC) has a beautifully penned introduction, mentioning that it would record births and deaths, and especially work around the 11 lost days in Sept. 1752 (when the calendar moved from Julian to Gregorian according to England finally changing it's calendars). But nobody is mentioned in the introduction itself.  It should also be remembered that until 1752, the Western Christian Feast of the Annunciation, on March 25, also called "Lady Day". was considered the first of the year. And since the Quakers don't use the Roman names of months or days, there was First Month, Second Month, etc.  So I'm not sure (like many genealogists) of when these events actually happened which are recorded as, say, 3rd of Fourth Month, etc (no births or deaths are available now).

James Witty's birth is listed in an index (again hand written) with a number 240 next to it.  This might refer to a page number, or maybe a later microfilm number.

His children's birth's are recorded, as well as early deaths. Only 2 of the 5 may have made it through childhood apparently (at least as far as these records provide). I know 3 died early, and the other 2 don't have dates of death listed on Ancestry.  His wife, Mary, also died around 1792.

See the typed version below...with months listed as left numerals (but again, in Quaker version)

The minutes of the New Garden monthly meeting in 1806 report that James Witty had removed with his family to the visit (?) of the Miami Meeting. (This location is unknown to me, the modern one is in Ohio.)  Since he hadn't followed their proper procedure, another member was going to visit him and make sure everything was alright and report back next monthly meeting.

In the next meeting minutes, a report is made that the Friends who visited James Witty and his family gave a certificate saying all was well with them.

He apparently remarried in 1800 or so to Lucretia Wells (Witty) in Tennessee.  This has no documentation however.  Their first son, George, was indicated to have been born in TN in 1805. But with the notation of the New Garden Meeting of Friends that it was 1806 when his family moved from Guilford County, NC, I question that these 2 events happened in TN.  I also found that his son George had a headstone which said he was born in 1805, but there are newspaper clippings (just found on Ancestry) saying he was the first child born in Limestone County, AL in 1808.

I believe that the records saying both the marriage and the birth were in TN are due to the boundaries of the states being close to one another.  I think it more likely that the marriage was in NC still, but that the birth of George Witty was in their new home along the border of TN and AL.  These are based on the Guildford Quaker document of 1806 about the family moving, and the newspaper clipping.  But there seem to be no records saying that TN was indeed the location of these events.  don't know where they came from.I

Anyway, back to James.  I just found out his second wife was named Lucretia Wells Witty.  All the records on Ancestry had been calling her Elizabeth.  But Lucretia and Elizabeth Well's father's will (James Wells) states Lucretia Witty would receive some money, as well as her sister Elizabeth Riece. That's enough for me to put two and two together and know Elizabeth Wells Riece wouldn't have had a sister named Elizabeth Witty...and there's Lucretia's first name...as of 1775.

So James Witty took off for the frontier of Alabama, with his family, and had a land claim which is mapped.  It's rather confusing, but apparently he was one of the founders of that area, on the border of what eventually became Tennessee.

And while looking at Uncle George Witty's Ancestry site, I found a photo of the Witty Cemetery in Limestone County, Alabama.  It was completely overrun by trees, but the photo of George's headstone looks as if someone might have cleared it out.  I would imagine Grandpa James is also buried there, as well as other Witty's living and dying in that area. (Uncle George was a older brother of my 3 x great grandfather, Carroll Witty (1818-1898) who was born in Limestone, AL, then moved from Alabama to Texas.

Two Swasey's born on same date...

130 years ago,

Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers, my grandmother on my father's side. 

Born: FEB 23, 1886 • San Marcos, Hays, Texas, USA

DEATH 2 DEC 1964 • Houston, Texas

She was born 133 years ago today.

I've mentioned her before in celebration of her birth HERE.  Please take a virtual walk over and see what I said about her.

------------------------------------------------

Sarah Hellon Swasey.
birth: 23 FEB 1757, Taunton, Bristol Co, MA
 DEATH: 25 DECEMBER 1836, Somerset, Bristol County, MA.

She was my 4 times great grandmother, born 262 years before this year (2019).

Sarah Hellon was the daughter of Ratcliff (Radcliff) Hellon (1729–1770)
BIRTH 14 DEC 1729 • Whitehaven, Cumberland, England DEATH AFT 1770 • At Sea ?

Her mother was Parthenia (Berthany?) Palmer Hellon (1732–?)BIRTH 1732 • Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts,  DEATH Unknown

Grandmom Sarah Hellon married Lt. Jerathmel Swasey in 1775.  He was born May 10, 1752 in Somerset, Bristol Ma, the son of Joseph and Mary Bowers Swasey.

Lt. Jarathmel Swasey (1752-1829) served as 1st lieutenant in Capt. Job Slead's 8th company, Col. Thomas Carpenter's 1st Bristol County Massachusetts regiment.  

(Source: North American Family Histories, 1500-2000, Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Books, page 257,  Mrs. Lewelyn S. James Nickerson, descendant.)

Their children incuded my great times 3 great grandfather Capt. Alexander G. Swasey (1784-1861) and 3 other children, Sarah (Sally) Swasey Walker, Parthenia Swasey Palmer, and Capt. Jerathmel D. Swasey.

I admit today was the first time I found the daughter, Sally Swasey Walker listed (at Find-A-Grave). That explains why a cousin was so excited about the Walker dolls, which are apparently famous as being early beauties by a Miss Walker.  And the Swasey home is also know to have been the home of the Walker doll creator in (I think) Newport, RI.

Grandmom Sarah lived to be 79 and Grampa Jerathmel lived to his 73 year.  I wish there was more known about Grandmom Sarah Swasey.  All those years of her life were lived in such different circumstances to mine...cooking, cleaning, making clothing, obtaining food, probably growing food, saving food for wintertime, having children, teaching children, caring for sickness and injuries, just being a woman with all that entails!

And as I type this, an ambulance just wizzed up our road, siren blaring, then turned into our parking lot in quiteness, but with lights still flaring...and the EMT's (Emergency Medical Technicians) went in a neighbor's apartment and then after a while she left on a stretcher in the ambulance, at least sitting up and showing us all she's trying to run things.   While the ambulance was parked in the driveway, the garbage truck arrived...a weekly pickup of household waste. Then they all roared away down an interstate highway.

In a year, will I remember this event? We are hooked to phones and immediate care. What a difference again, to the lives of the 18th and 19th centuries I was just trying to understand.

Mary Ann Powell Bass birth anniversary

A repost of my blog on the 2014 anniversary of her birth! She was born 194 years ago this year.

Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell Bass

Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell was born on 21 Feb 1825 in Perry, Alabama, where her father had received a land grant from his service in the War of 1812.

She met and married (at age 14) Richard Bass (later to be called Col. following the Civil War) in her home town, (see Here for more on him) but they started a migration to Texas, stopping along the way for several years. By the time she was in a census at age 25, she had a daughter, Julia (9) born in Alabama, and a son, James (7) born in Louisiana, and daughter, Ellen (5) also born in Louisiana.  That census of 1850 showed the family living in Union Parish, LA.

In the 1860 census the family lived in Walker County, Texas, with a 5 month old baby Elizabeth, who was born in Texas.  Ellen is no longer listed, and another daughter, Nancy C. is 6 years old, born in Louisiana.  There's a cousin living with the family as well, whose name is Emily W. Traylor.

What is interesting about both the Union Parish LA census and especially the Walker County, Texas census, is the listing of various relatives along the same road...all farmers at this time. I'm pretty sure her parents lived on the next farm, but her younger brother who was a physician is also in the neighborhood.  

My great grandmother, Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass Rogers was born in 1861.  (More about her HERE)

Mary Ann Powell Bass died on 12 Oct 1871.  If the Ancestry.com family tree is to be believed, she had 4 more children before her death at age 46.   (Editor's note: only 3 more children were born to Mae...see correction of Bass family published soon.)


 

Here's her headstone in the  Old Waverly Cemetery.,Walker Co., Tex

Her parents were buried nearby, James Moore Powell (27 Feb 1791 Bertie County, NC - 27 Feb 1868, Walker County, TX) 
and Nancy Jones Traylor Powell (16 May 1804, Oglethorpe County, Georgia - 27 Jun 1881 in Old Waverly, Walker, Texas)  

James Moore Powell (1791-1868)

Nancy Jones Traylor Powell 1804-1881

Poppy's Birthday Party

52 Ancestors
Week 8 (February 18-24): Family Photo

The photo of the most family members that comes to mind is this one for my Poppy's 72 birthday.

Gummy (Ada Rogers) wrote everyone's names on the back.  

For a long time I thought this must have been Poppy's 70th.  But apparently it was his 72th birthday party.  The cincher was that there's my little sis, Mary Beth in the front row.  And she's definitely closer to 3-4 rather than just 18 months old, having been born in Feb. '46.

My Poppy, George Elmore Rogers Sr. has been honored on his birthdates before in my blogs, Here and HERE.    You might notice in the first of these former blogs I was sure it was his 70th being celebrated.  But it's possible there are photos from 2 different birthday groups...it was a good reason in the summertime to gather at the grandparent's home.

So here's a tipped over version showing the list of people!

Standing
Dad
"Me" (Gummy, Ada Rogers)
Bill W - behind him (Bill Winslow)
Jane (Joan?)
Mrs. Herman (Virginia's mother)
Virginia 
Frank
Geo. Sanford
Chauncey (to the back)
Mataley (my mother)

Seated
Zulie (Zulie Winslow Semans, daughter of Aunt Jim))
Aunt Jim (Stella Swasey Winslow, Gummy's sister)

Chidren
Billy S. (Zulie's son Billy Semans)
Sandy Wilson
John Barry Wilson
Suzie S.      Claudette
Barbara, Mary B.  Sandra

The people I recognize in the photo are myself (Barbara) and my sister, Mary Beth, my cousins Claudette and Sandra, my grandparents, (me and Dad) a.k.a. Ada and George Rogers Sr., Uncle Chauncey Rogers, and my mother Mataley Rogers.  My dad was taking the photo.  Incidentally, since you don't know which kid was which, Claudette is kneeling in the front with my little sis Mary Beth, and I'm right behind Claudette with my chin on my hand. Sandra is the blond also kneeling in the front, looking to her sister Claudette who is to her left. We all look like we'd had a Toni home perm recently!

And I don't have time/energy to figure out who the people were who were probably cousins or something that I didn't know!  But Aunt Zulie is one that caught my eye, so I want to see what her relation to me might have been. She's a brunette next to Aunt Jim, and I don't know for sure her relation either.  (No Barb. Go fix dinner, do not go into the rabbit hole after your ancestors.)

Wrong...a half hour later and I'd found the Wilsons were Poppy's sister's family, while the Winslows were Gummy's sister's family.

And I had another hour after dinner to find that Aunt Jim was really Gummy's sister, Stella Winslow. (How that happened I'd love to know!) Zulie Winslow Semans, who I did recognize was her daughter.

There was one son of Zulie, who would have been around 10 years old, Billy.
I don't know yet about Sandy and John Wilson, other children in the Wilson family.

Bill W was probably Billy Winslow, who would be brother of Zulie. Perhaps my ancestry records are wrong, but Gummy says he was with Jane, and I remember hearing her called Jane, but my records say her name was Joan.  Oh those Texans!

OK, George Sandford was really George S. Wilson, husband of Virginia Heuerman Wilson, who was standing by her mother.

Who was Frank?  He was Zulie's husband, Francis Semans. And he has 3 other wives (at different times) also listed on his ancestry site.  Busy gentleman, eh?  I don't mean to belittle having 4 wives, but that's not what I planned to spend my evening figuring out.

I give up.  This has been fun. And if I ever have time, I'll try to weave these people's lives through some semblance of organization.  In this brief time I found on Ancestry that Virginia H. Wilson was listed as having been married to George Sanford Wilson, and another George with a different middle name.  So there may be some records having to do with the wrong George Wilson. At least I know Sanford was a family name, and there is his picture with my family.

Hope you have a great week! See you next week, same time, same place (does that sound like a radio sign-off?)