BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS

7. Joseph Birdwell was born 19 February 1767 in Augusta County, Virginia. This date of birth is recorded in the register of the Birdwell family bible that passed down (and see here) in the family of George Birdwell’s son John Birdwell (1770-1854).

About 1788 in Sullivan County, North Carolina, he married Rachel Russell, daughter of Brice/Bryce Russell and Rachel Thompson and a sister to Jane Russell, wife of Joseph’s brother George Birdwell. In 1787, along with brothers George and Benjamin and his father-in-law and brother-in-law Bryce Russell Sr. and Jr., Joseph signed the petition of the inhabitants of the western country of North Carolina to erect a separate state, the state of Franklin, out of the western parts of North Carolina.[1]

By July 1793, Joseph began appearing in Hawkins County, Tennessee, records when he had a grant in that county for 200 acres on 27 July 1793.[2] The grant is recorded in a book of North Carolina Revolutionary grants, though Joseph did not serve in the American Revolution. The land granted to Joseph had been transferred to him in July 1791 by his father-in-law Bryce Russell.

Joseph appears in Hawkins County records for a number of years after that, and not long before his death in 1801, he moved his family from Hawkins to Knox County, a few counties south and west of Hawkins, where, as we’ve seen previously, his brother George had settled by 1798.

The previously cited collection of DAR records compiled by Texas Daughters of the American Revolution in 1955 states that Joseph Birdwell died 1 August 1801 in Knox County.[3] This source does not name a document verifying this date of death, but appears to be citing a collection identified as “Brice Russell Data,” compiled by Hazie Davis LeFevre from manuscripts of Russell Birdwell of Gainesville, Texas. The 1 August 1801 date of death for Joseph also appears on his Find a Grave memorial page, again with no source cited.[4]

Joseph Birdwell had definitely died in Knox County by October 1801, since at the court held that month in 1801 in Knox County, his widow Rachel and her brother Andrew Russell applied for administration of his estate.[5] An account of the sale of Joseph’s estate with no date given for the sale was recorded in January 1804, and an estate settlement was filed in April 1807.[6]

Following Joseph’s death, his widow Rachel remarried in Knoxville on 18 July 1803 to Lewis Hill.[7] Rachel died in Knoxville on 21 September 1824, with the following obituary appearing in the Knoxville Register on the 24^th:[8]

On Tuesday Sept. 21^st 1824, Mrs. RACHEL HILL, aged sixty two years. She has left a numerous connection to lament her loss; yet they mourn not as those without hope, being fully persuaded their loss is her infinite gain. She adorned the gospel of God her Saviour for many years by a godly walk and conversation, and died in full assurance of happy immortality.

To the best of my knowledge, the burial place of both Joseph and Rachel is not known, though Find a Grave memorial pages have been created for both of them suggesting that they may be buried in the historic cemetery of First Presbyterian church in Knoxville. Rachel’s Find a Grave memorial page gives her a birthdate of 17 February 1764, with no source cited for the date.[9]

8. Moses Birdwell was born 15 October 1769 in Augusta County, Virginia. Since Moses is my direct ancestor, I’ve done a series of postings documenting his life in detail — here, here, here, and here. As these postings note, after having been born at his father’s homesite in Augusta (later Botetourt) County, Virginia, he moved with his parents in 1779 or 1780 to Sullivan County, North Carolina (later Tennessee), and by November 1791, having married his first wife whose name is not known, had settled in Franklin County, Georgia.

In the latter part of 1811 or early in 1812, he moved from Franklin County, Georgia, to Madison County, Mississippi Territory (later Alabama), and by February 1818, had settled in Limestone County, Alabama, his first wife having died in Madison County and Moses having married a second wife there, Hannah Folkinson, on 8 August 1816. By 1830, Moses had moved from Limestone to Jackson County, Alabama, and when Marshall County was formed from Jackson in 1836, his land fell into that county, where he lived until January or February 1846. He then made his final move with wife Hannah and some of his children to Hopkins County, Texas, where he died in 1849.

9. John Birdwell was born 24 September 1770 in Botetourt County, Virginia.[10] This date of birth is written in the family bible that records the dates of birth of George Birdwell’s children by his second wife Mary. As a previous posting notes, John Birdwell brought this bible to Texas and it passed down among his descendants. As the posting I’ve just linked explains, it appears to me that John Birdwell wrote the names and dates of birth of George and Mary Birdwell’s children in the register of this bible, copying them, I suspect, from George and Mary’s family bible. I think that the Birdwell family bible which passed down in the family of John Birdwell originally belonged to John Birdwell himself.

As previous postings have noted, about 1794 in Sullivan County, Tennessee, John Birdwell married Mary Allen, daughter of Hugh Allen and Anne Hunter. As the first posting linked in this paragraph indicates, Mary Allen’s grandfather Malcolm Allen lived adjacent to Moses Birdwell in Augusta/Botetourt County, Virginia.

By 1802, John had moved his family to Roane County, Tennessee, adjacent to Knox County, where his brother George had settled by 1798 and, as stated above, where his brother Joseph died in 1801. As we’ve also seen, another brother, Joshua Birdwell, also settled in Roane County, having gone there with his older brother John.

Previous postings here contain quite a bit of biographical information about John Birdwell and his family after John moved from Roane County, Tennessee, to Madison County, Mississippi Territory, in or around 1805 — at least, 1805 is the date his descendants have traditionally given for his move to Madison County, though John remains on tax lists in Roane County as late as 1808. This posting discusses the ties between John and his brother Moses, who followed John to Madison County. As the posting notes, John Birdwell was one of the organizers of Enon Baptist church (now First Baptist of Huntsville) and its first clerk when the church was established in 1809, and when the first meeting house for Enon was built in 1813, the meeting house was built partly on land owned by John. John Birdwell’s brother Moses joined this church on 1 April 1812.

The posting linked in the previous paragraph also notes that John Birdwell moved his family to Lawrence County, Alabama, in January 1819, where he organized a Baptist church that began its meetings in June 1819, with the initial name of Birdwell Springs Baptist church. The church later took the name of John Birdwell’s previous church in Madison County, Enon Baptist church. After this, John became an elder and constituting member of Hopewell Baptist church two and a half miles east of Danville in Morgan County, which was constituted in December 1824 with John as an elder.

According to a number of sources, John Birdwell’s son Allen B. Birdwell, who moved to Texas with his father, stated in a diary or ledger he kept for a number of years that he and his father moved to Texas together in 1842, settling first in Nacogdoches County and then in Rusk County.[11] I have not seen this document. According to Ray Isbell, in August 1944, it was in the possession of L.G. Ross, who found it in the old log house built by the Birdwell family on Wooten Creek near Mount Enterprise in Rusk County, Texas, on land that L.G. Ross bought from the Birdwell family in 1904.[12]

The 1842 relocation from Alabama to Texas may have been preceded by at least one back-and-forth trip between the two states, since Allen Birdwell’s son George Preston Birdwell states in a memoir he wrote in 1912 that his father (and, evidently, his grandfather John Birdwell) first came to Texas in 1838, before returning to Alabama and moving to Texas permanently in 1842.[13] As Ray Isbell notes, we can deduce that John Birdwell accompanied his son Allen to Texas in 1838, since John wrote a letter of recommendation for George Nixon in Houston on 8 July 1838.[14] Ray Isbell indicates that this letter is now held by the George Antonio Nixon manuscripts collection at University of Texas, Arlington.[15]

Note that in 1839, John Birdwell’s nephew James Birdwell, son of Moses Birdwell, sold his land in Marshall County, Alabama, and moved to Natchitoches Parish in northwest Louisiana, with his father Moses moving several years after that to Texas to join other of his children who had preceded him in moving to Texas. As the two postings I’ve just linked state, farmers and planters in north Alabama, where the families of John and Moses Birdwell lived, were in straitened economic circumstances due to the economic depression of the latter part of the 1830s and were moving in large numbers to Texas, leaving debts behind and seeking to make a fresh start in Texas. Jennifer Eckel’s biography of Allen Birdwell in Handbook of Texas suggests that part of what motivated Allen to leave Alabama for Texas was that he had incurred serious debt after giving security for a debt of an Alabama friend who defaulted on paying the debt, causing Allen to lose all of his property in Alabama.[16]

According to Ray Isbell, before John Birdwell and his son Allen removed from Alabama to Texas, John’s wife Mary Allen Birdwell died in Alabama in 1840, and that event, too, likely paved the way for John’s final move to Texas.[17] Mary is buried in the cemetery of Enon Baptist church at Oakville in Lawrence County, Alabama, with a grave marker stating that she was born in 1780 and died in 1840. Enon is the Lawrence County Baptist church discussed above, which John Birdwell organized in June 1819 in Lawrence County, with the church originally being known as Birdwell Springs Baptist church.

The memoir written by John Birdwell’s grandson George Preston Birdwell in 1912 states that when his father Allen and grandfather John Birdwell came to Texas in 1842 (the memoir actually gives the year as 1841), they settled first near Old North church in Nacogdoches County, making two crops there before Allen Birdwell built a house south of Mount Enterprise in what became Rusk County. This was all Nacogdoches County in 1842, Rusk having been formed in 1843 from several other counties including Nacogdoches.

After coming to Texas, John Birdwell lived with his son Allen up to John’s death at Allen’s house on 24 April 1854. Allen B. Birdwell became an affluent planter and represented Rusk County in the Texas legislature in 1853-5 and 1863-6. George Preston Birdwell states,[18]

My grandfather, John Birdwell … died at my father’s house near Mt. Enterprise, Texas, at the age of 84 years. He was never sick in his life, never had a chill nor a fever.

John Birdwell died testate with a will dated 24 January 1854.[19] A digital image of this will is found in a previous posting, which notes that the handwriting of John’s signature on this document appears to me to match that of the entries of the birthdates of George Birdwell’s children in the family bible that John brought to Texas.

The log house that Allen Birdwell built south of Mount Enterprise in or about 1844, mentioned previously, which was the house in which John Birdwell died, has been preserved as a Texas historical site (see the photo at the head of the posting). It has been moved to the Monte Verdi plantation in Rusk County to preserve it.[20] An historical marker placed by the Texas Historical Commission at the house states,[21]

Built in early 1840s for Allen Birdwell, 1851 county commissioner; member Texas Legislature 1853-54 and 1863-64. House is excellent example of “saddle bag” architecture–story-and-half double house. Built of hand-hewn logs with squared morticed corners. Later “boarded over.” Has four main rooms, two on each floor. First floor rooms have exposed beam ceilings. Moved to Monte Verdi plantation. Restored by Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Lowry, 1965-66.  

The Texas Historical Commission Historic Sites Atlas page for the Birdwell house says,[22]

House is excellent example of “saddle bag” architecture-story-and-half double house. Built of hand-hewn logs with squared morticed corners. Later “boarded over.” Has four main rooms, two on each floor. First floor rooms have exposed beam ceilings. Moved to Monte Verdi plantation. Restored by Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Lowry, 1965-66.

This log house is, unless I’m mistaken, the house in which L.G. Ross found Allen B. Birdwell’s diary or ledger after Ross bought the house from the Birdwell family in 1904.

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[1] See Walter Clark, ed., State Records of North Carolina, vol. 12 (New York: AMS, 1970), p. 712.

[2] North Carolina Revolutionary Land Grants, Bk. 9, p. 34, no. 460.

[3] Daughters of the American Revolution (Texas), Genealogical Records Committee, Family Genealogical Records, Birdwell, 1721-1900 (1955), available digitally at FamilySearch, “George Birdwell,” p. 3.

[4] See Find a Grave memorial page of Joseph Birdwell, First Presbyterian church cemetery, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, created by Ray Isbell.

[5] Knox County, Tennessee, Estate Bk. 1, p. 83.

[6] Ibid., pp. 136-7, 228-230.

[7] Knox County, Tennessee, loose-papers marriage files.

[8] Knoxville Register (24 September 1824), p. 3, col. 4.

[9] Find a Grave memorial page of Rachel Russell Hill, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, created by Ray Isbell.

[10] Biographical information about John Birdwell is found in Dennis Grizzle, “John and Mary Allen Birdwell,” in Families and History of Sullivan County, Tennessee, ed. Holston Territory Genealogical Society (Marceline, Missouri: Walsworth, 1992), pp. 349-350; Evelyn Grizzle Gray, “James Isbell and Elizabeth Birdwell,” in The Heritage of Jackson County, Alabama, ed Jackson County Heritage Book Committee(Clanton, Alabama: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 1998), pp. 207-8; Odessa Morrow Isbell, Isbell Country: Genealogy of an Isbell Family, with Brief Data on Allied Families of Birdwell, Cox, Little (Gainesville, Texas: Gainesville Printing, 2000); Aeone Marshall Mitchell, The Mitchells of Linn Flat (Austin, Texas, 1981); Jennifer Eckel, “Birdwell, Allen,” Handbook of Texas Online; and Carolyn Murray Greer, “Will you be my hero?,” at Remembering the Shoals blog, writes. Mitchells of Linn Flat reproduces a 1912 article entitled “For My Children: Memoir of Rev. George Preston Birdwell” written by George Preston Birdwell, a son of John Birdwell’s son Allen B. Birdwell.

[11] See Find a Grave memorial page for John Birdwell, Birdwell cemetery, Mount Enterprise, Rusk County, Texas, created by Ray Isbell; Eckel, “Birdwell, Allen”; and Greer, “Will you be my hero?”

[12] See Find a Grave memorial page for Col. Allen B. Birdwell, Birdwell cemetery, Mount Enterprise, Rusk County, Texas, created by Ray Isbell.

[13] “For My Children: Memoir of Rev. George Preston Birdwell,” in The Mitchells of Linn Flat.

[14] Find a Grave memorial page for John Birdwell.

[15] Ibid., citing University of Texas, Arlington, Special Collections, George Nixon Collection, box GA122, document 00189.

[16] Eckel, “Birdwell, Allen.”

[17] See Find a Grave memorial page of Mary Allen Birdwell, Enon Baptist church cemetery, Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama, created by Ray Isbell. The photo of Mary’s grave marker here suggests to me that it does not date from her death, but was placed in the cemetery much later than 1840.

[18] “For My Children: Memoir of Rev. George Preston Birdwell,” in The Mitchells of Linn Flat.

[19] A copy of the original will, with no indication of the will book in which it appears, is in Isbell, Isbell Country, p. 227.

[20] See John and Cecilia Koch, “Monte Verdi Plantation,” at the Monte Verdi Plantation website.

[21] See “Old Birdwell Home,” at the Texas Digital Archives website.

[22] “Details for Birdwell House,” Texas Historical Commission, Texas Historic Sites Atlas website.