BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS

5. Samuel J. Birdwell was born about 1822-4 in Limestone County, Alabama. The 1850 federal census implies an 1824 birth year for him, the 1860 census has him born in 1823, and the 1870 census shows him born in 1822.[1] Samuel’s Civil War service papers as summarized on his Texas muster roll index card suggest an unlikely birth year of 1818 for him: the card states that he was aged 46 when he served in 1864 as a 2^nd corporal in Captain J.B. Earhart’s company for the 1^st Front District of Wise County.[2]

Samuel is a proven son of Moses and Hannah Birdwell. In the 25 August 1868 letter that Henry Landers Birdwell sent to his sister Nancy Birdwell Cunningham discussed previously, Henry tells Nancy,[3]

Tell brother Sam to write to me if he clames me as a brother tel him I will write him a long letter soon….

Since Nancy is, as noted in the last posting, a proven daughter of Moses and Hannah Birdwell to whom Henry was writing as her brother, then these statements prove that Samuel was another sibling of Nancy and Henry. Henry mentions Samuel again, again calling him brother, in the previously cited 19 May 1869 letter Henry sent his sister Nancy in Travis County, Texas, from Xenia post office in Nodaway County, Missouri.[4] The letter states that Henry’s oldest son Thomas had gotten a letter from “brother Samuel” that week, and Samuel’s letter did not state whether his family members were well or not.

As a previous posting indicates, the 1850 federal census shows Samuel, aged 26, a farmer born in Alabama, living in Hopkins County, Texas, in the household of Boney and Margaret Woods with a Rebecca and Margaret Birdwell who are evidently his sisters.[5] As the linked posting also notes, living next to the Woods household is Henry Landers Birdwell with his wife Cynthia, and next to Henry is the household of Nancy Birdwell Cunningham and husband Calvin Cunningham, with Nancy’s half-brother Abraham Marshall Birdwell in the household. Next to the Cunningham family is the family of Ritha Birdwell and husband George Madison Connally, Ritha being a sister of Marshall and a half-sister of the other Birdwell siblings living side by side on this census.

On the 1860 federal census, Samuel Birdwell was enumerated in the household of Daniel Waggoner in Wise County, Texas, aged 37, a stock hand. On the preceding census page are found Samuel’s half-brothers Marshall and Zachariah Birdwell living side by side.

I have not found a marriage record for Samuel. By 1870, he was married with a wife named Susan. A number of family trees published in various places including at Ancestry state that Samuel married about 1865 to Susannah Cummins, daughter of Alexander Cummins and Nancy Blakely.[6] The death certificate of Samuel and Susannah’s daughter Nancy Margaret, who married William Bentley Gartin and died on 27 July 1943 at Lindrith in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, gives her mother’s maiden name as Cummins.

A 21 August 1867 voter registration list in Wise County, shows Samuel with the middle initial J.[7] Listed next to Samuel on this voter registration list is John M. Birdwell (1833-1908), son of Samuel’s half-brother George Washington Birdwell.[8] On the same page is John’s brother Thomas G. (Garner) Birdwell (abt. 1814-1881).[9]

The 1870 census federal census, which lists Samuel and his family at Clinton post office in DeWitt County, Texas, shows Samuel aged 48, a farmer born in Alabama.[10] Wife Susan is 25, born in Missouri.  In the household are children Sarah Eliza, 4, and Margaret, 1, both born in Texas.  A James B. Roberts, 12, born in Missouri, is also in the household.

I have not found a death or burial record for Samuel. Published trees for him and his family which indicate that he married Susannah about 1865 state that he died 14 November 1877 in Travis County, Texas.[11] I do not spot documentation in trees offering this date and place of death for this information. Susan was definitely widowed by 19 February 1880 when she married David Christopher Riffle in Travis County.[12]

6. Henry Landers Birdwell was born 26 August 1826 in Limestone County, Alabama. His tombstone in Live Oak cemetery at Manchaca, Travis County, Texas, states only the years of his birth and death: 1826-1910.[13] An inventory of tombstones in this cemetery published in Hays County [Texas] Historical and Genealogical Bulletin in 1978 gives the 26 August 1826 birthdate as it inventories Henry’s tombstone.[14] In a 1981 article about the Birdwell family published in Buda Centennial Celebration, Jewel Barber writes that Henry Landrow [sic] Birdwell was her grandfather, and that he was born 26 August 1826 and died in Buda, Texas, on 4 March 1910.[15] A helpful set of notes about Henry compiled by Weldon J. Birdwell of Billings, Montana, in May 1999 states that these dates of birth and death were supplied by W. Sherman Birdwell Jr., a grandson of Henry.[16]

As has been discussed, Henry can be placed as a known son of Moses and Hannah Birdwell because the extant letters he wrote to Nancy Birdwell Cunningham in the 1860s and 1870s address Nancy as his sister; and Nancy is identified as a daughter of Moses and Hannah in the pre-1903 Cunningham family history for which she supplied information.

Henry evidently moved from Marshall County, Alabama, to Hopkins County, Texas, with his parents and other family members in early 1846, and then married in Hopkins County on 18 May 1849.[17] His wife was Cynthia Ann Chism Hill, daughter of Thomas C. Hill and Matilda Shropshire. As was noted in the last posting and was discussed in a previous posting, the 1850 federal census shows a number of Birdwell siblings and half-siblings all living side by side in Hopkins County: Henry, Samuel, Rebecca, Margaret, Nancy, Marshall, and Ritha.  

Between 1850 and 1860, Henry moved his family to Mercer County, Illinois, and on 4 March 1869, according to Henry’s 19 May 1869 letter to sister Nancy, the family moved from Illinois to Nodaway County, Missouri. A letter Henry sent Nancy on 2 May 1875 shows the family living at Bedford in Taylor County, Iowa, and by December 1879, the family had relocated to Travis County, Texas. By 1900, Henry and wife Cynthia had made their final move to Buda in Hays County, Texas, contiguous to Travis County.

Henry Landers Birdwell was named for the husband of his aunt Mary Birdwell, a sister of Moses Birdwell. Mary married Henry Landers, who died in Lawrence County, Alabama, prior to 1 September 1823, when his estate was probated there.[18] Why some researchers and family trees spell Henry’s middle name as Landrous or Landrow is a mystery to me.

7. Rebecca Birdwell was born about 1828 in Limestone County, Alabama. As has been noted, Rebecca is enumerated on the 1850 federal census in the household of Boney and Margaret Woods in Hopkins County, Texas, with Samuel and Margaret Birdwell also in this household, and with surrounding families being the families of siblings and half-siblings of Samuel, a known son of Moses Birdwell by wife Hannah.[19]

Researchers have not found proof that Rebecca is one of Moses and Hannah’s children, but this appears very likely. In all likelihood, the three Birdwells living together in the Woods household in 1850 – Samuel, Rebecca, and Margaret – were three younger children of Moses and Hannah Birdwell, all unmarried, who accompanied their parents from Marshall County, Alabama, to Hopkins County, Texas, in early 1846.

No clear record of Rebecca has been found beyond the 1850 federal census listing her in Hopkins County, Texas. I suspect that she died young and unmarried in that county between 1850 and 1860. Many researchers have mistakenly read the 1850 census to give Rebecca and her sister Margaret a middle initial B. The B. next to their names simply indicates that their surname is Birdwell, following the surname of their brother Samuel, who is listed first of the three.

8. Nancy Wright Birdwell was born 22 August 1830 in Jackson County, Alabama. Nancy’s date and place of birth are recorded in the Cunningham family history document discussed previously, for which there’s documented evidence that Nancy supplied information. This document states,

Nancy Birdwell was born in Jackson Co., Alabama, Apr. 22, 1830. She was next to the youngest child of Moses Birdwell….

On 12 April 1849, about a month before her brother Henry married in Hopkins County, Texas, Nancy married Calvin C. Cunningham, son of Nicholas Cunningham and Ann Morris, in Hopkins County.[20] The Cunningham family history provides biographical information about Calvin, stating that he was born on “the old homestead” in Ross County, Ohio, on 5 March 1812. After leaving home in 1835, Calvin lived at first with his brother Thomas, who was living on the Wabash River in Warren County, Indiana. Calvin remained in Indiana about 3 years, then decided to move south.  His brother Thomas had been flatboating for fifteen years carrying cargoes of farm products down the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers to the markets of New Orleans. The stories he told of the Red River country of Louisiana and Texas inspired his brother to move from Indiana to western Illinois in 1837 with his brother Luke.

The two settled near Illinois City until the summer of 1839, when Calvin and a friend traveled down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River, where Calvin secured employment on a steamboat. After about a year he then moved to northeast Texas, settling on 320 acres where the town of Jefferson was later built. Two years later he moved to Nacogdoches County. He served as a Texas ranger and when Jefferson was built in 1845, he helped to build the first house in the town. In 1847, Calvin Cunningham moved to Hopkins County.

In 1855, after having traveled home to Ohio to claim his inheritance following his father’s death on 27 August 1847, Calvin sold his land in Hopkins County and moved to Wise County, but contention with native Americans there forced him to move to Navarro County in 1856. In 1862, as the war broke out, Calvin took wife Nancy and four small children and moved to Grand Saline in Van Zandt County, where he lived until December 1863, when he built a house four miles west of that town. This is where he died 4 February 1865. A digital image of a portion of the Cunningham family history at this previous posting allows one to read the original document that I’m citing here, which is the source of these biographical details.

Nancy Birdwell Cunningham died 6 October 1909 in Lampasas County, Texas. She is believed to be buried in an unmarked grave in Center cemetery at Lometa in Lampasas County.[21]

9. Margaret Birdwell was born about 1832 in Jackson County, Alabama, and was the youngest child of Moses and Hannah Birdwell. As with her sister Rebecca, Margaret came to Texas from Alabama unmarried, arriving there, it’s almost certain, in early 1846 along with her parents and other family members. Margaret is another proven child of Moses Birdwell by wife Hannah: in his 25 August 1868 letter to his sister Nancy, Henry Landers Birdwell states,[22]

tel sister margret I have not forgotten her tell her to write to me and let me know how she is geting along….

On 9 November 1852 in Red River County, Texas, Margaret married Lewis T. Burge.[23] The last record I’ve found for Margaret is her enumeration in Lewis Burge’s household in Red River County, Texas, on the 1870 federal census, which gives her age as 34 and states that she was born in Tennessee, as does the 1860 federal census.[24] The household includes Lewis and Margaret and their children James, Martha, Mary, and Sarah. Margaret died between 1870-1880, probably in Red River County. Lewis Burge shows up on the 1880 federal census in Hunt County, Texas, with a new wife, Sarah J. Parker, whom it seems he married by around 1871.

10. Ed (Edmond?) Birdwell is a proven son of Moses and Hannah Birdwell about whom nothing is known beyond a statement in a 29 December 1879 letter from Thomas Birdwell, son of Henry Landers Birdwell, to his first cousin Walter Scott Cunningham, son of Nancy Birdwell and Calvin C. Cunningham. In this letter, Tom Birdwell tells Scott Cunningham,

Well Scott I seen Uncle Ed yesterday Ed Birdwell and told him what you said….

Since Thomas Birdwell and Scott Cunningham were Birdwell first cousins, an uncle Ed Birdwell whom they shared would have had to have been a sibling of Thomas’ father Henry Landers Birdwell and of Scott Cunningham’s mother Nancy Birdwell Cunningham. No further information has been found about this son of Moses and Hannah Birdwell and where he fits into the birth order of their children.

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[1] 1850 federal census, Hopkins County, Texas, district 8, p. 147B (dwelling/family 186; 12 October); 1860 federal census, Wise County, Texas, Decatur township, p. 319 (dwelling 203/family 205; 25 June); 1870 federal census, DeWitt County, Texas, precinct 5, Clinton post office, p. 284 (dwelling/family 16, July 1870).

[2] Texas State Library, Civil War Muster Rolls index Cards (both Confederate and Union), Ancestry database Texas, U.S., Muster Roll Index Cards, 1838-1900, available digitally at Ancestry.

[3] Letters that Henry Landers Birdwell wrote to his sister Nancy Birdwell Cunningham on 25 August 1868, 19 May 1869, and 2 May 1875 are extant. I have photocopies of these letters that were sent to me either in August 1996 by Shannon Birdwell of Houston, Texas, or in 1995 by James Bryant of El Paso, Texas. I do not have information about who owned the original letters in the 1990s or may own them now. Jim Bryant published transcripts of these letters in his Cunningham-Birdwell-Bryant Newsletter 2 (April-May 1995), and Shannon Birdwell sent me the same transcript in August 1996.

[4] Ibid.

[5] 1850 federal census, Hopkins County, Texas, district 8, p. 147B (dwelling/family 186; 12 October).

[6] See e.g. “Thomas Family Tree” of Ancestry user godslilygirl.

[7] Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Voter Registration Lists, Ancestry database Texas, U.S., Voter Registration Lists, 1867-1869, available digitally at Ancestry. Samuel is no. 101 on p. 465 of the Wise County list.

[8] Ibid., no. 102.

[9] Ibid., no. 86.

[10] 1870 federal census, DeWitt County, Texas, precinct 5, Clinton post office, p. 284 (dwelling/family 16, July 1870).

[11] See supra, n. 6.

[12] Travis County, Texas, Marriage Bk. 5, p. 257.

[13] See Find a Grave memorial page for Henry Landers Birdwell, Live Oak cemetery, Manchaca, Travis County, Texas, created by joseph lilly, maintained by Abby Streight Birdwell, with tombstone photo by Helen Boudny Fredin.

[14] Hays County [Texas] Historical and Genealogical Bulletin 12,3 (September 1978), p. 100.

[15] Onion Creek Free Press, Buda Centennial Celebration: Buda, The First Century, a Special Edition of the Onion Creek Free Press (3 October 1981). My photocopy of this article is unpaginated; the page numbers may have been cut off in the photocopying process.

[16] See also Mrs. W.S. Birdwell Sr., “Buda Once Named Du Pre,” Hays County [Texas] Historical and Genealogical Bulletin 9,2 (June 1975), pp. 22-3.

[17] Hopkins County, Texas, Marriage Record Bk. 1, p. 27.

[18] Lawrence County, Alabama, Will Bk. 1, p. 20; and Orphans Court Bk. B, p. 62.

[19] See supra, n. 5.

[20] Hopkins County, Texas, Marriage Bk. 1, p. 25.

[21] See Find a Grave memorial page of Nancy Wright Birdwell Cunningham, Center cemetery, Lometa, Lampasas County, Texas, created by joseph lilly, maintained by Carol Hoch.

[22] See supra, n. 3.

[23] Red River County, Texas, Marriage Bk. A, p. 82.

[24] 1870 federal census, Red River County, Texas, p. 45 (dwelling/family 414; 25 July).