30 June 2009

Letter from Alice Morgan to her sisters

Ione Morgan Shapard (later Covington) had three sisters, Lizzie, Emma, and Alice.  Lizzie, the eldest, moved from Louisiana to Virginia in the 1870's and was married there.  Later she and her family moved to Arkansas.

The other three moved to west Texas in the early 1880's, after their father died.  (They had been long preceded to Texas by their mother's family, the Johnsons, who migrated there from Alabama about ten years before the Civil War.)  The youngest in the Morgan family, a brother named Haynes -- after his father and their Revolutionary War ancestor -- also moved to Texas.  At this time Haynes Morgan and Onie Shapard lived in Callahan County, whereas I believe that the Mixons resided in neighboring Taylor County.

At any rate, the youngest of the sisters, Alice, had married a man named Powell and moved to Fort Davis, which is roughly 300 miles southwest of Abilene & about 5000 feet in elevation.  Emma (Mixon) had been married the longest and had several children.  Onie had recently become a widow for the second time and had a ten year-old son & a month-old daughter at the time this letter was written.  Alice herself was eight months pregnant with her first child:

Ft Davis, Tex.
Apr. 11th, 1888

Dear Emma and Onie

As Bud is fixing to [go] out there, I will just send my letter by him, as I reckon he will want to take you a little by surprise.  It makes me feel so lonely to think he is going away but know he will want to see you all and do what he thinks best.  I wanted to send the babies something, but couldn't go down in town 'tis so cold and wet, and I feel so awfull bad today I can hardly navigate.  I got Emma's ans. to my card, do hope you will all get on alright with the measles, 'tis a good time to have them.

Hope Onie is alright by now.  Think Cassie's hair looks so sweet, nearly as long as Lawrence's was, would like so much to see the sweet little thing.  Will send you all a pattern to make little shirts, under shirt waists, or you can cut it on down, and make little chemise for Vera and Mattie.  Trim round the top, and button on top of sleeve.  I made the waists of all my little shirts by it.  Have got all of my little things made at last, made one like Emma's pattern, one like Onie's, and one Mother Hubbard with embroidered yoke and sleeves, bottom ruffled with embroidery.  All think them real pretty.

Jim bought me a new machine, called the Premium, like it so well.  Runs nearly like the Singer but has all the late improvements.  Gave a Mrs. Dr. Isaacs of _____ City $25.00 for it, she got it last summer.  And I needed it right then.  Thought I would rather take it than send off and get one like Aunt Fanny, as it is nearly the very same machine.  Have got me a rocking chair also.

Drura, Wagner, Wert, and _____ are fixing to go to a dance to night.  Guess they will have a cold trip.

I want you all to be sure and write to me how you get on.  And Bud will tell you all the news, and I am bound to stop and fix up his things.  I will close for I feel so bad I can't write worth reading.  Kiss all the little children for me and be sure to write soon.

Your loving sister
Alice Powell










17 June 2009

Cemetery in Callahan County, Texas

There are a few graves of interest listed on line as being located in Tecumseh Cemetery, Callahan County, Texas. Tecumseh was probably a tiny rural community. It is where Ione "Onie" Shapard lived, before she married Leroy Bascom Covington.

The family's graves are as follows:

Haynes J. Morgan (1863-1890), age 26, the young brother of the Morgan sisters who moved with them to Texas from Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, in the early 1880's.

Charles R. Shapard (1840-1888), age 47, second husband of Onie Morgan and father of Aunt Cassie Shapard.

Mary A. Martin Covington (1853-1890), age 36, second wife of Bascom Covington who moved with him & their children to west Texas from Robertson County, Tennessee, in the late 1880's. This is a new discovery on my part, to confirm the date of death for Mary and to know that Bascom did not arrive in Callahan County as a widower. He and Onie were said to have married each other in 1890; they lived in the community called Dudley, later moving to Abilene in Taylor County.

[Another Charlie Shapard is buried in Tecumseh, who may have been a son of Dr. Shapard from an earlier marriage. The years listed here are apparently incorrect as they are shown here, for both of the Shapard men.]

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~clearcreek/tecumseh.html

Three library collections of family papers & another book

I've just discovered a book called Tulip Evermore, which contains letters written by Emma Butler Paisley* & her husband/others, in the mid-1800's. These were the Butlers who were Wyche descendants, second cousins of H. A. Tillett. They lived in the vicinity of the community called Tulip or Tulip Ridge, Dallas County, in south central Arkansas. The Butlers, Smiths, and other North Carolina families had moved here in the late 1840's, some taking their slaves with them, about twelve years before the Civil War.

The War Between the States was very destructive for this part of Arkansas, and in some ways it was never the same, having had an antebellum reputation for fine educational facilities. According to Wikipedia, at the 2000 census there were only about 9,000 people living in the entire county, with the largest employer being Georgia-Pacific Corp.

A nearby town to Tulip was Princeton, and it was to this area Gus Tillett went in 1881 after having finished at the University of North Carolina. Here he met and courted Mary Benjamin Smith, who was born and grew up on her family's plantation, called Tulip Farm.

One of Emma Butler's brothers, Ira Wyche Butler, had married Mary Smith's sister. This was the couple in Abilene, Texas, who sent a telegram to Mary and Gus in June of 1885, causing them to get married a little earlier...Fannie John Smith Butler died the next month.

One of Emma Butler's sisters married a Reverend Matthews and lived out her life in the old Butler home place; the Butler-Matthews Homestead is on the National Register of Historic Places.

*The Butler-Paisley Family Papers, including the published letters, are in a special collection at the University of Arkansas's library in Fayetteville:

http://libinfo.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/findingaids/butlerpaisley.html

The central Arkansas library system in Little Rock owns a collection of Smith Family Papers, which revolve around the household of Maurice Smith, a younger brother of Samuel Harrison Smith, or Mary Smith Tillett's great uncle on her mother's side & first cousin once removed on her father's side. The papers were donated only about six years ago, and they're located in a place called the Butler Center. --- I don't know whether this name is connected to the Dallas County Butlers...I would love to look through this collection someday:

http://www.cals.lib.ar.us/butlercenter/manuscripts/collection/mss02-20.html

In the main Charlotte-Mecklenburg library, North Carolina, there is a collection of Tillett papers and albums, donated by our relative Charles Allison, the Tillett book's author. (On my recent N. C. visit, I didn't have enough time to go inside this library.) They are located in the Carolina Room Collections & Archives.