1. Thomas Whitlock Bryson, the first child of Abner Bryson and Nancy Whitlock, appears to have been born in 1802-3. A peculiarity of the December 1842 and May 1843 deeds and court records discussed in the previous posting, which name the heirs of Abner Bryson and show how Abner’s land was divided among them, is that Thomas is listed in these documents after his sister Catharine, though all the other children are listed by order of birth and documents appear to indicate that Thomas was older than Catharine.[1] But Catharine Bryson Williams’s tombstone in the historic Old Washington cemetery at Washington in Hempstead County, Arkansas, states that she was born 29 January 1804, while Thomas Whitlock Bryson’s date of birth appears on federal censuses in 1850 through 1870 to be 1802-3.[2]
The 1850 federal census, enumerating Thomas and his family in Trigg County, Kentucky, shows him aged 47 and born in Virginia.[3] In 1860, Thomas and his family appear on the federal census at Folker township, Acosta post office, in Clark County, Missouri, with Thomas listed as 58 and born in Virginia.[4] Thomas is enumerated twice on the 1870 federal census, first on 12 July with his family in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana, and second without his family and in the household of William H. and Sarah Blakely in Trigg County, Kentucky, on 31 August.[5] Both of these census entries give his age as 68 and state that he was born in Kentucky.
When Thomas Whitlock Bryson married his second wife Cynthia Ann Frizzell in Trigg County, Kentucky, on 4 August 1853, the record of this marriage states that Thomas was aged 50 and was born in Wythe County, Virginia.[6] As a previous posting notes, when Nancy Whitlock Bryson’s parents Thomas and Hannah Phillips Whitlock moved from Wythe County, Virginia, to Cumberland County, Kentucky, in 1805, it appears that Abner and Nancy Whitlock Bryson made the move to Kentucky along with them. Abner and Nancy are thought to have been living in Surry County, North Carolina, at this time, but as I think about the fact that their first two children Thomas W. and Catharine were apparently both born in Wythe County, Virginia, I begin to suspect that Abner and Nancy probably lived in Wythe County following their marriage.
As the oldest son and first child of Abner Bryson and Nancy Whitlock, Thomas Whitlock Bryson was named for his maternal grandfather Thomas Whitlock. As a previous posting notes, Nancy’s sister Sarah and her husband Thomas Brooks also named a son for Thomas Whitlock: Thomas and Sarah’s first son was named Charles, for Sarah’s brother who died four years before Charles Brooks was born; and their next son was named Thomas Whitlock Brooks. In addition, the sister of Nancy and Sarah who married William Hannah — I have not found the given name of this Whitlock daughter — named her first child Thomas W. Hannah.
Thomas Whitlock Bryson was of age by 15 November 1824 when he witnessed a deed made John W. Williams, who would marry Thomas’s brother Catharine within a few years after this deed was made.[7] John was deeding land in Cumberland County, Kentucky, to John B. Jackson of Wayne County, Kentucky. As he witnessed this deed, Thomas signed as Thomas W. Bryson.
Marriage to Mary Mackey, Cumberland County, Kentucky
According to Everette Mackey, Barbara M. Grider, and Hazel Wells in their book Founders of the Mackey Clan in Kentucky, Thomas W. Bryson’s first wife was Mary Mackey, daughter of James and Mary Mackey of Cumberland County, Kentucky.[8] This source states that Mary was born 14 April 1811 at Forest Cottage, Kentucky, and died 14 October 1850 in Trigg County, Kentucky. Forest Cottage is in Cumberland County. A number of online trees for Thomas Whitlock Bryson’s family state that he and Mary Mackey married 9 April 1829 in Cumberland County. In these online trees, I haven’t found a source cited for that date. Note that Mary Mackey’s brother Reid Mackey married Thomas’s sister Elizabeth N. Bryson.
The 1830 federal census, which lists Thomas W. Bryson next to his uncle Reuben Bryson in Cumberland County, does suggest that Thomas was married by 1830.[9] His household contains a male 20-29 (Thomas, born 1802-3), a female 15-19 (Mary, born 1811), and a male under 5 (the couple’s son Cyrus Walker Bryson, born 1830).
As a previous posting notes, Thomas Whitlock Bryson was, with his brother James, administrator of their father Abner Bryson’s estate in Christian County, Kentucky. On 3 October 1839, Abner’s estate was inventoried at the request of these two administrators, and at the estate sale held on the same day, Thomas was a buyer.[10]
Move to Trigg County, Kentucky, and Marriage to Cynthia Ann Frizzell
By 1840, Thomas had moved his family to Trigg County, Kentucky, where he appears on the federal census in 1840.[11] Trigg borders Christian County on the east, and like Christian, Trigg is on the Tennessee state line in southwest Kentucky’s Pennyrile Plateau region.
As also noted previously, on 24 July 1842, as administrator of the estate of his father Abner Bryson, Thomas W. Bryson filed an account of his father’s estate in Christian County.[12] As indicated above, when Thomas’s sister Sarah Whitlock Bryson and husband John Strode Lander filed suit in May 1842 in Christian County circuit court against the other heirs of Abner Bryson regarding the division of Abner’s land, Thomas was named among the other heirs in a set of deeds made 16 December 1842 and circuit court minutes dated 20 May 1843, as the land division was settled.[13]
As noted above, Thomas and his family are listed on the 1850 federal census in Trigg County, Kentucky.[14] Thos W. Bryson is 47, a farmer born in Virginia, with $1,000 real worth. Wife Mary is 39, born in Kentucky. The children in the household are Cyrus W., 20, James M., 18, and Thos W., 12, all born in Kentucky. Thomas Jr. is in school. Mary is listed as illiterate.
Mary Mackey Bryson died in Trigg County on 14 October 1850, a month after her listing on the 1850 census, and on 4 August 1853, as stated previously, Thomas remarried to Cynthia Ann Frizzell, daughter of Francis Harrison Frizzell and Avarilla Stancil, in Trigg County.[15] The record of this marriage in the county marriage record states that Thomas was 50 and born in Wythe County, Virginia, a widower, and Cynthia was 19, single, and born in Trigg County, Kentucky.
Final Years
The 1860 federal census listing for Thomas and his family, which finds them, as noted above, in Clark County, Missouri, states that T.W. Bryson is 58, a farmer, born in Virginia, with $752 real worth and $312 personal worth.[16] Cynthia A. is listed as S.A., 27, born in Missouri. In the household are children F.J., 6, N.W., 4, F.A., 2, and A.F., 1. All are daughters except A.F. The first two were born in Kentucky and the next two in Missouri. Clark County is in the northeast corner of Missouri bordering Iowa and Illinois.
As noted above, Thomas is enumerated twice on the 1870 federal census, first in New Albany in Floyd County, Indiana, with his family, and second in Trigg County, Kentucky, with none of his family members listed with him.[17] The Indiana listing shows Thomas as 68, born in Kentucky. Wife Annie is 37, also born in Kentucky. In the household are children Florence, 16, Nannie, 15, Fannie, 13, Franklin, 11, Sarah, 9, and Charles, 6. All children are listed as born in Kentucky except Franklin and Sarah, whose birthplace is given as Iowa.
The Trigg County, Kentucky, census entry for Thomas W. Bryson shows him living in the household of William H. and Sarah (spelled Sarha) F. Blakely, aged 68, a farmer born in Kentucky. This is the last record I’ve found for Thomas W. Bryson. I haven’t found a record showing when and Thomas’s wife Cynthia died, whether the couple had separated or divorced by the time he returned to Trigg County, or what became of several of their children.
Children of Thomas Whitlock Bryson and Mary Mackey
The children of Thomas Whitlock Bryson and Mary Mackey were as follows:
a. Cyrus Walker Bryson was born about 1830 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and died 15 October 1898 in San Francisco, San Francisco County, California. By 1867, Cyrus had gone to San Francisco where he appears in city directories and newspaper articles as a junk or bottle dealer who at some point may also have owned and operated a bakery and confectionery business. By 1880, Cyrus had a wife Susetta E., who was born in California about 1856 and died in San Francisco on 20 March 1920. The couple also appear to have owned various pieces of property in San Francisco, since newspaper listings of land sale show them several times selling lots or property in the city.[18]
The couple appear to have had a turbulent marriage, with the San Francisco Examiner reporting on 8 May 1892 a sensational story about the attempted suicide of one Peter Roetti, an employee in a fruit store near the residence of Cyrus and wife Susetta, who is called Anita in this article.[19] According to this account, “Anita” frequented the fruit store, Roetti was smitten with her, and when the neighborhood became aware of the scandal of her relationship with a man not her husband and began to talk about it, she produced a blank marriage certificate claiming she had married Roetti and that C.W. Bryson was her father, not her husband.
“Anita” then rejected Roetti and he shot himself, surviving the suicide attempt. The report states that C.W. Bryson was interviewed and expressed himself satisfied that his wife had not engaged in wrongdoing.
Then several years down the road on 15 October 1898, the Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle printed reports that C.W. Bryson had gone missing, and his wife and son Harry L. Bryson had contacted the police asking for a search for him, with the wife fearing that he had committed suicide.[20] The Examiner report states that Cyrus had a stationery business at 1413 Castro Street, and the Chronicle indicates that the family had a bakery and confectionery business at the same address. Both reports say that he had gone missing after visiting Mayhew’s drug store to collect a debt, and that Mayhew couldn’t meet with him at the time and told him to return later. The Examiner report says that Cyrus had a daughter Pearl Bryson who was an actress. The 1900 federal census shows Susetta living with daughter Pearl in San Francisco, with Pearl listed as a music teacher.
On 5 January 1903, Pearl married William C. Taylor in San Francisco, as reported by the San Francisco Examiner (p. 6, col. 7) and San Francisco Call (p. 12, col. 3) on 9 January, with the announcements giving her name as Caralita Pearl Bryson. By 1910, when Susetta was again listed with her daughter Pearl in San Francisco on the census, Pearl is listed as the widow Taylor, and her occupation is given as “musician, piano.”[21] Pearl now has a daughter Louise, aged 5.
I do not find Pearl and her daughter on the 1920 federal census. That census shows Susetta living in a “relief home” in San Francisco, and the California Death Index shows her dying 20 March 1920 in San Francisco, evidently at the relief home. San Francisco Chronicle on 10 May 1905 published a funeral notice for William Charles Taylor, noting that he was husband of Pearl and father of Louise, and had died on 8 May, aged 24 years and 6 days (p. 15, col. 7). The death notice states that he was a native of New Zealand. The notice states that William C.. Taylor was buried at Cypress Lawn cemetery at Colma, which is also where both Cyrus and his son Harry are buried.
On 17 October 1898, the San Francisco Call published list of recently deceased persons in San Francisco.[22] The list includes C.W. Bryson. On 20 October, the Chronicle reported that the coroner’s jury had rendered verdicts on the 19th in several inquests, and had ruled that C.W. Bryson had committed suicide.[23]The San Francisco Call has a funeral notice on the 17th of October stating that the funeral was held that day at Carew and English in San Francisco, and that Cyrus was survived by his widow S.E. Bryson and children Harry Lee and Pearl Bryson.[24]
A sad footnote to this story is that Harry Lee Bryson, son of Cyrus W. and Susetta Bryson, died in the year followiing his father’s suicide. The San Francisco Call has an obituary notice dated 18 July 1899 which states that Harry L. Bryson, son of Mrs. S.E. and the late C.W. Bryson and brother of Pearl Bryson, died in that city on 17 July 1899, aged 17 years, 11 months, and 7 days (p. 11, col. 4).
b. James M. Bryson was born about 1832 in Cumberland County, Kentucky. His full name was, I suspect, James Mackey Bryson, after his maternal grandfather. The only fairly certain record I’ve found for James beyond his listing in his parents’ household on the 1850 census is a record of his service in Captain Robert L. Cobb’s Company of Kentucky Light Artillery (Confederate) during the Civil War. I’ve concluded that a J.M. Bryson who enlisted in this company in Manchester, Tennessee, on 4 April 1863 is James M. Bryson, since James’s brother Thomas Whitlock Bryson served in the same military unit.[25] Thomas actually enlisted in two CSA units consecutively, and, as we’ll see, he, too, was in Tennessee when he first enlisted. Cobb’s battery was organized at the start of the Civil War at Mint Springs in Kuttawa in Lyon County, Kentucky, which borders Trigg County on the north.
I’ve found no record of what became of James M. Bryson following this enlistment record. Though I have located service records for his brother Thomas, I don’t find a service record for James beyond his listing on a roster of members of Cobb’s battalion compiled by the Kentucky Adjutant General’s office, cited above (n. 25).
c. Thomas Whitlock Bryson was born about 1838 in Trigg County, Kentucky. The 1838 birthdate is suggested by the 1850 federal census in which, as stated previously, he appears in his parents’ household in Trigg County. On 18 August 1861 at Camp Trousdale in Sumner County, Tennessee, Thomas enlisted in Capt. J.W. Helm’s Company B of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry (CSA). His service papers in this company (which give his name as T.W. Bryson) contain a 5 July 1862 statement written by W.A. Elliott, a 1st lieutenant of the company, stating that T.W. Bryson was aged 22 at the time of his enlistment at Camp Trousdale and was born in Trigg County, Kentucky.[26] This document describes T.W. Bryson as 5’8” with dark hair and eyes. It has T.W. Whitlock’s signature dated 10 July 1862 stating that he had transferred his pay certificate to W.A. Elliott and authorized Elliott to receive payment. T.W. Bryson’s discharge dated the same day with W.A. Elliott signing for Bryson’s payment of $171.46 is in the service packet. Note the reference to Sumner County, Tennessee, here: as we’ve seen, Thomas had relatives there. A sister of his grandmother Nancy Whitlock Bryson married William Hannah, and by 1806, the Hannah family had moved to Sumner County.
At some point after this — the service packet has only a cover card — Thomas W. Bryson enlisted in Cobb’s Company of Kentucky Light Artillery, in which his brother James also enlisted.[27] According to Ray Todd Knight in his previously cited roster of men serving in this company, Thomas W. Bryson was wounded in his right leg while serving in this unit and captured at Missionary Ridge.[28] The battle of Missionary Ridge occurred on 25 November 1863 at Chattanooga, Tennessee. I have not found a record of what became of Thomas Whitlock Bryson Jr. after this date.
Most Confederates captured at Missionary Ridge were sent to the Union prison camp at Rock Island, Illinois.[29] Prisoners first arrived at the camp in December 1863, and by early 1864, nearly 700 prisoners and guards had died of smallpox.[30] During the two years the camp was in operation, 12,192 Confederate prisoners of war were held there, of whom 1,964 died.[31] Those who died were buried in a Confederate cemetery whose graves were marked with names in 1908.
I’ve checked the records of prisoners held in Rock Island Union prison camp without finding Thomas W. Bryson, and I don’t find him listed in burials in the Confederate cemetery at Rock Island. I find no record of either him or his brother James following the Civil War. A number of online family trees have confused him with a Thomas W. Bryson who served in a Union Army unit in Pennsylvania and whose widow received a pension for that service. Between 1856-8, their father had moved with his second wife to Missouri. When he made that move, it seems to me he left his three adult sons — Cyrus, James, and Thomas — by Mary Mackey behind in Tennessee and Kentucky. James and Thomas may have been in Tennessee by the early 1860s, per their CSA enlistment records. Cyrus was in San Francisco by 1867. I suspect that both James and Thomas died during the war, but do not have proof of this conclusion. Or it’s possible Cyrus’s brothers went to California with him, but, if so, I do not find records showing this.
Children of Thomas Whitlock Bryson and Cynthia Ann Frizzell
The children of Thomas Whitlock Bryson and Cynthia Ann Frizzell were as follows:
a. Florence J. Bryson was born about 1854 in Trigg County, Kentucky. After her listing in her parents’ household on the 1870 federal census in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana, I have not found a clear record of her.
b. Nancy W. Bryson was born about 1855 in Trigg County, Kentucky. On 22 April 1879 in Floyd County, Indiana, she married John William O’Connor. His tombstone in Fairview cemetery at New Albany in Floyd County shows him born 18 February 1854 and dying 14 May 1932. In 1880, the federal census shows Nancy’s brother Charles living with her and John William O’Connor. I think Nancy’s full name was likely Nancy Whitlock Bryson.
c. Frances or Fannie A. Bryson was born about 1857 in either (Clark County) Missouri (1860 census) or (Trigg County) Kentucky (1870 census). I have not found a record of her after her appearance in her parents’ household in Floyd County, Indiana, in 1870.
d. A. Franklin Bryson was born about 1859 in either Clark County, Missouri (1860 census) or Iowa (1870 census).
e. Sarah Bryson was born about 1861 in Iowa. I have not found a record of either Franklin or Sarah Bryson after their appearance on the 1870 federal census.
f. Charles Bryson was born about 1864 in Kentucky. As noted previously, in 1880, he was living at New Albany in Floyd County, Kentucky, with his sister Nancy and her husband John William O’Connor. After this, I lose track of Charles.
Catharine Bryson and John Wilson Williams
2. Catharine Bryson, the second child of Abner Bryson and Nancy Whitlock, was born 29 January 1804 and died 3 December 1880, according to her tombstone in Old Washington cemetery at Washington in Hempstead County, Arkansas.[32] Catharine was, I’m fairly sure, named for her grandmother Catherine, wife of James Bryson. As a previous posting indicates, there’s uncertainty about whether James Bryson’s wife, Abner Bryson’s mother, was named Catherine or Margaret. In my view, the fact that Abner Bryson and Nancy Whitlock named their first daughter Catherine suggests that Abner’s mother was, in fact, named Catherine. Abner and Nancy’s daughter appears to have used the spelling Catharine for her name, and that spelling is inscribed on her tombstone which was no doubt erected by her son Abner Bryson Williams, with whom she lived in the latter part of her life.
The 1850 and 1880 federal censuses report Virginia as Catharine Bryson’s birthplace.[33] In 1860, the federal census says that she was born in Georgia, and the 1870 census gives Kentucky as her birthplace.[34] All of these census enumerations were made in Hempstead County, Arkansas. As a previous posting notes, in all likelihood, Catharine was born in Wythe County, Virginia, as her brother Thomas Whitlock Bryson had been a year or two before her birth.
Cumberland County, Kentucky, Years
I have not found a marriage record for Catharine Bryson and John Wilson Williams. Their son Abner Bryson Williams was born 9 April 1828, so they had evidently married by or prior to July 1827. John W. Williams had a wife prior to Catharine; on 15 November 1808, he married Sarah Hunter in Wayne County, Kentucky.[35]Numerous family trees give John a subsequent wife named Levinia Bertram, but in my view, the only wives John had were Sarah Hunter and, after Sarah died, Catharine Williams.
The 1820 federal census shows John and his father James enumerated at Paoli in Cumberland County, Kentucky,[36] where Thomas Whitlock and Abner Bryson are also found on the 1820 census. The older female in John’s household in 1820 was aged 26-44, giving her a birth range of 1776-1794. John himself is in the same age range in this census listing. The tombstone of John Wilson Williams in Old Washington cemetery at Washington in Hempstead County, Arkansas, which gives his full name as John Wilson Williams, states that he was born 18 March 1790.[37] The 1820 census shows the couple with one son and two daughters under 10 years of age. It’s clear to me that the female in John Williams’s household in Cumberland County, Kentucky, in 1820 is his wife Sarah Hunter Williams, and that she died at some point between 1820 and 1827. By 1830, John had a younger wife when he was listed (as John W. Williams) on the federal census in Cumberland County, Kentucky: on this census, his wife is aged 20-29 — born 1801-1810.[38]
As noted above, on 15 May 1824, John W. Williams of Cumberland County sold John B. Jackson of Wayne County 47½ acres on Indian Creek, with Thomas Whitlock Bryson (Thomas W. in the deed) witnessing the deed.[39] The other witness to the deed was William Savage. All three men signed. John W. Williams proved the deed on 10 January 1825 and it was recorded 10 July.
On 3 November 1825 John’s father James Williams sold him 75 acres on Indian Creek in Cumberland County out of a grant of 200 acres to James.[40] As we’ll see in a moment, John and wife Catharine two tracts of land in 1830 as they sold their homeplace and moved to Hempstead County, Arkansas. I suspect that this 75 acres was included in the 147½ acres John and Catharine sold in 1830, and I think it’s possible John was buying this land from his father in 1825 as he and Catharine married.
According to Joseph W. Wells in his history of Cumberland County, J.W. Williams served as a justice of the peace in Cumberland County, Kentucky, from 1820 to 1828.[41] The biography of John and Catharine’s son Abner Bryson Williams in Fay Hempstead’s Pictorial History of Arkansas places the Williams family at Burkesville in Cumberland County when Abner was born on 9 April 1828.[42] This source identifies Abner’s mother as Catharine Bryson Williams.
Move to Hempstead County, Arkansas
According to Hempstead, the Williams family moved from Kentucky to Hempstead County, Arkansas, in 1830, with the family settling at Washington.[43] On 27 October 1830, John and Catharine Williams sold to Thomas Allen of Russell County, Kentucky, for $400 two tracts of land, one containing 100 acres and the other containing 47 acres, on Indian Creek in Cumberland County, Kentucky.[44] John and Catharine both signed with no witnesses, and on the day the deed was made, they affirmed it with Catharine relinquishing dower. The deed was recorded 12 December 1830. John and Catharine were selling their Kentucky holdings to move to Arkansas.
A record of John W. Williams’s stock mark recorded in Hempstead County, Arkansas, court order minutes on 4 May 1831 confirms Fay Hempstead’s information that the family moved to Hempstead County in 1830.[45] After arriving in Arkansas, John built a house seven miles from Washington at Marlbrook on the Southwest Trail.[46] The house functioned as an inn and stopping point providing food and lodging for those traveling on the Southwest Trail, which ran from St. Louis through the southwest corner of Arkansas near Texarkana to the Red River Valley in northeast Texas.[47]
John W. Williams’s house is still standing and is now operated as a restaurant, Williams Tavern, by Historic Washington State Park. The house was moved to the park in 1985 by the Pioneer Washington Restoration Foundation and restored by Arkansas State Parks.[48]
As a search of the BLM GLO site shows, John W. Williams acquired numerous federal land grants in Hempstead County during the 1830s. An original federal land grant document John obtained in Hempstead County on 10 April 1836 is in the L.C. Gulley Collection of the Arkansas State Archives, which has placed a digital image of this grant online in its Digital Heritage collect ion.
By 8 August 1838, when he gave an affidavit in Hempstead County applying for a transfer of his Revolutionary pension benefit from Cumberland County, Kentucky, to Hempstead County, John W. Williams’s father James Williams had joined his family members in Hempstead County.[49] James Williams had given affidavit to obtain his pension in Cumberland County on 11 February 1833, stating that he served several consecutive tours of duty from 1778-1780, having entered service in 1778 in Sullivan County, which he placed in Virginia, though it was at his point part of North Carolina and later in Tennessee. He lived in Sullivan County up to 1802, when he moved to Cumberland County, Kentucky.
A letter of James W. Ellis of Saratoga, Arkansas, in the 14 June 1911 edition of Nashville [Arkansas] Newsstates that he was a great-grandson of James Williams and had attended the funeral of James Williams, who died at the house of his son John W. Williams in Hempstead County in 1851, aged 89.[50] A eulogy of James Williams written by S.T. Sanders, secretary of James’s Masonic chapter in Hempstead County, appeared in the Washington [Arkansas] Telegraph on 7 May 1851.[51] It, too, notes that James died at the house of his son John W. Williams on 2 May 1851, and provides details of his Revolutionary service.[52]
The 1840 federal census shows the family of John W. Williams living in Ozan township of Hempstead County, where they’re also found in 1860, the last federal census on which John W. Williams appears, with the 1860 census giving their post office as Washington.[53]
As a previous posting has noted, Catharine and John W. Williams are named as heirs of Abner Bryson, and Catharine as Abner’s daughter, in documents regarding the division of Abner’s land following the May 1842 her sister Elizabeth and husband John Strode Lander filed suit against the other heirs in Christian County, Kentucky.[54]
Final Years of John and Catharine
John W. Williams died at Marlbrook in Hempstead County on 30 December 1869 and is buried with wife Catharine in Old Washington cemetery with a tombstone giving his name as John Wilson Williams and his dates of birth and death.[55] In a volume of essays originally published in The Washington Press and later gathered as a collection entitled Printer’s Devil, Memorabilia, Sam Williams offers a sketch of his uncle John W. Williams:[56]
As stated in a previous paper, the Marlbrook settlement is full of historic interest. It is especially so to the writer, for clustered about it were many of his kindred. John W. Williams, his paternal uncle, located there in 1831, having removed to the country in the fall of the previous year, and made his first crop on the place settled by Col. John Wilson then owned by Judge Cross, who at that time was in public life and did not live on his form. During the year 1831, he bought from William Hickman the Holman tract and the land which Hickman had entered, and moved to and became the sole resident of the old county seat — paying for the land, I am told, as much at that early day as such lands can be purchased for now in the same vicinity.
After living one year at the old courthouse, he erected on the ridge, near the military road, the commodious homestead in which he resided to the day of his death, on the 30th day of December, 1869, a period of thirty-eight years.
There he opened up an extensive farm which is now owned by his youngest son, Judge A.B. Williams. He kept what was called in that day “a stand” on the road — that is, he kept open house, where, for pay, he entertained travelers, and perhaps there was no place between Memphis and Red River better known. None was more popular with travelers, who were always sure of plenty to eat, good bed to rest upon, and abundance of provender for their beasts of burden.
Uncle John Williams was an ardent Union man up to the breaking out of war. He loved the stars and stripes as he loved his own soul, and he could not discuss the subject of secession, or hear it discussed, without getting as mad as a hornet. His father had been a soldier of the Revolution and of the war of 1812, and he himself had fought in the latter struggle, and I have often seen him shed tears when talking about the probability of the dismemberment of the Union. He was firmly convinced, before the opening of hostilities that the South would be overmatched, and some of his words, as I remember them, seem like inspired prophecy.
The winter before the war I spent beneath his roof, and he and I often talked over the situation. The North, he said would overwhelm the South by sheer force of numbers, that they would take the whole of Europe to draw recruits from, and that for every Yankee slain in battled, there would be an able bodied Hessian from across the ocean to take his place; that the South would in the end succumb, and that slavery would be swept out of existence. These, and many other predictions that I heard him make in those days, were literally fulfilled.
Uncle John was warmhearted, generous and confiding as a child — too much so for his worldly good. His inability to say “no” to a neighbor led him into endorsements that handicapped him financially for the last thirty years of his life.
As noted previously, following her husband John’s death, Catharine lived with her son Abner Bryson Williams. She appears on the 1870 and 1880 federal censuses enumerated in Abner’s household at Washington post office in Hempstead County.[57] The latter census erroneously gives her race as Black, though it states that she was the mother of Abner Bryson Williams. She is listed following a Black family with the surname Williams living in Abner’s household.
As stated above, Catharine Bryson Williams died at Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas, on 3 December 1880 and is buried with her husband John in Old Washington cemetery with a tombstone inscription stating that she was Catharine Bryson, wife of John Wilson Williams, and giving her dates of birth and death.
Abner Bryson Williams (1828-1896) was a judge at Washington who served as a state senator in 1862, 1864, and 1866. As noted previously, Fay Hempstead places Abner’s birth in Burkesville, Cumberland County, Kentucky, while a biography of Abner’s son Robert Brady Williams in Goodspeed’s Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas has Abner born in Christian County, Kentucky.[58]
The Woodlawn House in Historic Washington State Park, which dates from the 1850s, is built on the site of a previous house built by Abner Bryson Williams, and is said to be a more or less exact replica of Abner’s house.[59] The Arkansas Archives holds a collection of family papers from the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives entitled “Abner Bryson Williams Family,” and the Kie Oldham Collection at Arkansas Archives has two letters written in 1865 by Abner to John R. Eakin, editor of the Washington Telegraph, and Governor Harris Flanagin, both now digitally available through the Digital Heritage program of Arkansas Archives. Lucy Marion Reaves’s Arkansas Families: Glimpses of Yesterday, Columns from the Arkansas Gazette (Conway: Arkansas Research, 1995, 2000) also has biographical information about Abner Bryson Williams extracted from material in the Arkansas Gazette.
[1] Christian County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. 30, pp. 80-95; and Christian County, Kentucky, Circuit Court Order Bk. W, pp. 42-4.
[2] See Find a Grave memorial page of Catharine Bryson Williams, Old Washington cemetery at Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas, created by Laura, maintained by Arkieologist, with a tombstone photo by Steve and Mary Copeland. See also the close-up photo of the tombstone by Debbra Szymanski at the Arkansas Gravestones website.
[3] 1850 federal census, Trigg County, Kentucky, district 2, p. 363 (dwelling/family 531; 13 September).
[4] 1860 federal census, Clark County, Missouri, Folker township, Acosta post office (dwelling/family 32; 15 August).
[5] 1870 federal census, Floyd County, Indiana, New Albany post office, p. 317B (dwelling 131/family 145; 12 July); 1870 federal census, Trigg County, Kentucky, p. 25B, Cadiz post office (dwelling/family 333; 31 August).
[6] Trigg County, Kentucky, Marriage Register 1853, p. 1; and Trigg County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds Bk. 1, p. 153.
[7] Cumberland County, Kentucky Deed Bk. E, pp. 390-1.
[8] Everette Mackey, Barbara M. Grider, and Hazel Wells, Founders of the Mackey Clan in Kentucky (Albany, Kentucky: Gibson Printing Co., 1980, 1988), p. 4. The authors say they are citing files of Barbara Grider and Sam Brents. Note that James Mackey’s wife Mary was née Mackey, according to this source.
[9] 1830 federal census, Cumberland County, Kentucky, south of Cumberland River, p. 134.
[10] Christian County, Kentucky, Will Bk. K, pp. 550-3, 577-581.
[11] 1840 federal census, Trigg County, Kentucky, p. 283.
[12] Christian County, Kentucky, Will Bk. K, pp. 426-8.
[13] See supra, n. 1.
[14] See supra, n. 3.
[15] See supra, n. 6.
[16] See supra, n. 4.
[17] See supra, n. 5.
[18] See, e.g., San Francisco Call (21 January 1897), p. 10, shows Cyrus and Susetta selling a lot on Welch Street; and ibid. (9 May 1898) p. 10, col. 4, showing Cyrus and Susetta selling a lot on 30th Avenue and J Street.
[19] “Is She False to Both? A Scandal Aroused by Peter Roetti’s Attempt to Suicide,” San Francisco Examiner (8 May 1892), p. 3, col. 4.
[20] “Police Asked to Find S.E. Bryson: Peculiar Disappearance of a Castro-Street Stationer — Friends Fear He Has Committed Suicide,” San Francisco Examiner (15 October 1898), p. 3, col. 6; “An Aged Man Missing: Disappearance of C.W. Bryson While Collecting Debts,” San Francisco Chronicle (15 October 1898), p. 14, col. 6. The Examiner report mistakenly gives C.W. Bryson the initials of his wife Susetta.
[21] In June 1898, Pearl Bryson was operating Miss Pearl Bryson’s Juvenile Dancing Academy at 24th and Church Street in San Francisco, according to a report on a benefit recently sponsored for the academy in The Philosophical Journal 34,26 (30 June 1898), p. 408.
[22] “Died,” San Francisco Call (17 October 1898), p. 9, col. 7. The Call reported on 19 July 1899 (p. 11, col. 3) that Harry Lee Bryson died 17 July 1899 in San Francisco, aged 17 years, 11 months, and 7 days.
[23] “Coroner’s Inquests,” San Francisco Chronicle (20 October 1898), p. 7, col. 3.
[24] San Francisco Call (17 October 1898), p. 9, col. 7.
[25] On J.M. Bryson’s enlistment in Cobb’s Company on 4 April 1863 in Manchester, Tennessee, see Kentucky Adjutant General’s Office, Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky: Confederate Kentucky Volunteers, War 1861-65 (Frankfort: E. Polk Johnson, 1891), p. 472. Ray Todd Knight provides a roster of Cobb’s Company that includes both J.M. and Thomas W. Bryson, at Geoff Walden and Laura Cook’s “First Kentucky ‘Orphan’ Brigade” webpage.
[26] NARA, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Kentucky, RG 109, available digitally at Fold3.
[27] NARA, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Kentucky, RG 109, available digitally at Fold3.
[28] See supra, n. 25.
[29] See SCblogger, “The Mystery of James T. Reeves, Confederate Prisoner,” at the website of Davenport, Iowa, public library
[30] Corinna Baltos, “Arsenal of Democracy: A History of Rock Island Arsenal from its beginnings through the Civil War,” at the US Army website.
[31] Ibid.
[32] See supra, n. 2.
[33] 1850 federal census, Hempstead County, Arkansas, p. 250B (dwelling/family 69; 8 December); 1880 federal census, Hempstead County, Arkansas, Ozan township, Washington post office, p. 483D (ED 112; dwelling 68/family 72; 12 June).
[34] 1860 federal census, Hempstead County, Arkansas, Ozan township, Washington post office, p. 727 (dwelling/family 283; no date other than 1860); 1870 federal census, Hempstead County, Arkansas, Ozan township, Washington post office, p. 433B (dwelling/family 597; 2 July).
[35] See Joseph W. Wells, History of Cumberland County, Kentucky (Louisville: Standard, 1947), p. 45.
[36] 1820 federal census, Paoli, Cumberland County, Kentucky, p. 152.
[37] See Find a Grave memorial page of John Wilson Williams, Old Washington cemetery at Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas, created by Laura, maintained by Arkieologist, with a tombstone photo by Steve and Mary Copeland.
[38] 1830 federal census, Cumberland County, Kentucky, p. 122.
[39] Cumberland County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. E, pp. 390-1.
[40] Cumberland County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. F, pp. 5-6.
[41] Wells, History of Cumberland County, Kentucky, p. 113.
[42] Fay Hempstead, Pictorial History of Arkansas, From Earliest Times to the Year 1890, etc. (St. Louis: Thompson, 1890), pp. 866-7. Note that a biography of Abner’s son Robert Brady Williams in Goodspeed’s Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas (Chicago and St. Louis: Goodspeed, 1890) states that Abner was born in Christian County, Kentucky (p. 448).
[43] Hempstead, Pictorial History of Arkansas, pp. 866-7.
[44] Cumberland County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. G, pp. 148-9.
[45] Hempstead County, Arkansas, Court Order Bk. A, p. 17.
[46] See Steven Brooke, Historic Washington, Arkansas (Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican, 2000), p. 26.
[47] Scott Akridge, “Southwest Trail,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas
[48] A photo of Williams Tavern from Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division is at “Williams Tavern Restaurant,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
[49] NARA, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, RG 15, file of James Williams, S32607, available digitally at Fold3.
[50] Nashville [Arkansas] News (14 Jun 1911), p. 2, col. 2.
[51] Washington [Arkansas] Telegraph (7 May 1851), p. 3, col. 4.
[52] James Williams is buried in the Pioneer cemetery at Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas: see his Find a Grave memorial page, created by Annie202, maintained by SNOWAngleStandingBy, with tombstone photos by D.C., TimD, and Kyroots.
[53] 1840 federal census, Hempstead County, Arkansas, p. 166; and see supra, n. 34.
[54] See supra, n. 1.
[55] See supra, n. 37.
[56] Sam Williams, Printer’s Devil, Memorabilia: Some Ante-Bellum Reminiscences of Hempstead County, Arkansas, Embracing Pictures of Social Life, Personal Sketches, Political Annals, and Anecdotes of Characters and Events, ed. Mary Medearis (Hope, Arkansas: Etter, 1979), pp. 194-6.
[57] See supra, n. 33-4.
[58] See supra, n. 42.
[59] See “Woodlawn House,” at the website of Arkansas State Parks system; and “Woodlawn House,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas,offering a photo of the house from the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division.
Begats and Bequeathals 
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