Family Ancestry
Describing the early days of our country
and the pioneers who settled Tyler County, Texas
Including the surnames:
HAMERLY (HAMMERLY) / RUDD / BARNES / SIMMONS / WATTS / BARCLAY / TIPTON / COCKERHAM / TARVER/ JONES
PEARCE / SIMS (SYMES)
and others (with more on the way)
By Dave Hamerly
In recording the events found here, the author acknowledges years of genealogical
research and preparation graciously made available to him. Especially to my cousins,
Pauline Bird and Edna Earle Weatherly McCluskey, whose stories of family history I
only wish I'd paid more attention to as a boy, and whose work inspires what follows. Both
are granddaughters of Mary Ann Elizabeth Barnes Simmons, granddaughter of James
"Panther" Barnes.
Also to "new cousins" found along the way including La Vera (Brasuell)
Caruthers, Kay Barnes and Carolyn Willson.
A note to researchers: This collection of
genealogical information has been gathered from many sources. Some of it
is documented and some of it is not. Not all of it has been sourced. If
there is any question, or if you have additions or corrections, please
contact me.
David Rudd Hamerly
Austin, Texas
Table of contents:
In researching the ancestry of my family as it is today, it is possible to follow the
history of the United States all the way back to the early colonists. It is a fascinating
story of pioneers, Manifest Destiny and the mission "to establish schools and
churches in the fatherest regions of civilization." Much of what follows centers
around James "Panther" Barnes. His life and how he became known as
"Panther" is as fascinating as Texas.
In [1639], in Pontesbury, Shropshire, England, Jonathan Tipton I was born to Edward and
Amy Phillips Tipton. Edward was the son of Richard Tipton; born June 16, 1572, he married
Joyce Lester on December 3, 1601, and died December 15, 1617, in Shropshire, England.
Jonathan Tipton is the first in our story to cross from the Old World to the New.
Jonathan Tipton would cross the Atlantic Ocean and eventually marry Sarah Pearce. Sarah
was the daughter of William Pearce Sr. (born in 1719 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland),
and his wife, Elizabeth Anderson Pearce (born October 15, 1694, also in Anne Arundel
County, she was the daughter of John and Elizabeth Anderson). Little else is known about
Jonathan and Sarah except they had a son, Jonathan Tipton II, on March 25, 1699, in Anne
Arundel County, Maryland.
The old county of Shropshire lies in south England, marked by the eastern edge of the
Cambrian Mountains with the Severn River valley to the east. East of the Servern River,
south of the city of Woolverhampton, lies Tipton, England.
In northern England, on the Irish Sea coast north of Liverpool, is the small community
of Cockerham, and, perhaps, the tip to another branch in the family tree. Though no direct
link to Cockerham, England has yet been established, we know that John Cockerham Sr. was
born about 1735, married sometime later in South Carolina, and died in September, 1844, in
Amite County, Mississippi.
We know little about John's wife, Bramley, though it's a name that will remain in the
family for a long time. John and Bramley had nine children. On the Amite County census of
1830, John Sr. was listed as between 90 and 100 years old. He died between August 22 and
September 23, 1844. His estate, settled on January 9, 1845, amounted to about $23,000 (a
modest fortune in those days).
One of the nine children, John Cockerham Jr., married Nancy Tarver and they had seven
children including Bramley Cockerham, born in 1814 in Mississippi. Bramley would marry
Christopher Columbus Simmons in 1833 in Amite County (or in Calcahoula Parish, Louisiana).
Bramley Cockerham Simmons would live until sometime after 1860 and died in Rapides Parish,
Louisiana. Sadly, we know that both John Cockerham Jr., and his wife Nancy Tarver
Cockerham, died before 1845 along with six of their siblings, as indicated by the will of
John Cockerham Sr. in Amite County executed on January 9, 1845.
We know little about the origins of the Barnes family. What we do know is that Josiah
Barnes was born about 1755 to Abram Barnes (1730-1794) and Martha Forte Barnes. Though we
know nothing of Josiah's wives, we know that he had 13 children - six boys and seven
girls, including James Barnes, born in a "fort" in Bladen (now Robeson) County,
North Carolina during that bitter winter of 1780-81 when Nathaniel Greene was leading a
weary band of Continentals and militia against Lord Cornwallis and the British Army in
some of the most savage fighting of the revolution.
We know from family history that James Barnes lost his natural mother early in life. As
a young boy growing up, it has been told, he did not get along with his stepmother, and he
left home when he was nine years old traveling with a bachelor friend of the family. The
pair headed for the frontier - the Northwest Territory. They traveled through what we now
know as Tennessee and wandered down into Alabama. In 1803, as Lewis and Clark began their
travels west along the Missouri River, President Jefferson's emissaries to Paris closed
the deal on the Louisiana Purchase for about $15 million.
As the more famous pioneers continued on their expeditions to explore new territories
and find a route to the Pacific Ocean, James Barnes and his traveling companion were
helping to settle the Northwest Territory. It was during these travels that James Barnes
nearly froze to death, but was revived.2
We know that by 1807 the Barnes family was living in the Choctaw Indian Territory (now
Mississippi). James wrote a letter to President Jefferson regarding the appointment of an
appropriate man to administer territorial affairs there. This letter is preserved in
Mississippi state records.2 At about this time, he met Tabitha Hough, of Scottish descent.
They were married about 1810 in Claybourne or Wayne County, Mississippi, and had ten
children who lived to adulthood. The first son, William Robert Barnes, was born January
28, 1813, in the Choctaw Territory.
Mississippi gained statehood in 1817 and the next year James Barnes helped survey the
site of Jackson as the new state capital. The family lived in Dixon, and the farm is
easily located from records in Jackson. 2
The Barnes family remained in Mississippi through the War of 1812 and the military
campaigns of Andrew Jackson in 1813-1814 that broke the power of the Creek Indians in the
South. They remained as the young state grew in population and were there in 1828 when
Jackson was elected President.
While living in the wilds of Mississippi, James Barnes left on one of many, frequent
hunting expeditions. In his absence, Tabitha was captured during a Creek Indian uprising
and "forced to dance the war dance under scalps of whites," but later was
"released through the friendship of husband and Indians."
William Barnes became the first chancellery clerk of Neshoba County, Mississippi, in
the former Choctaw Territory. In 1835, the first records of the county (Deed Book A) were
established from the Barnes family diary, given to his oldest son by James Barnes. Among
the hand written family notations contained in the book are the birth dates of all the
Barnes children. The book has been rebound and kept in good condition in the county
courthouse.2
By this time the elder Barnes had already begun seeking new frontiers. In 1834-1835, he
ventured west again, crossing the Mississippi, Sabine and Neches rivers into a new
frontier called Tejas by the Native Indians, a land that belonged to Mexico. He apparently
liked what he saw and began to set the foundation for his family's new home.
On his return to Mississippi, he closed out his business there (a matter of record)2
and prepared for his return to Texas. According to an account by Bascom Barnes, grandson
of James, his grandfather had freed most or all of his slaves in Mississippi. Some,
however, chose to travel to Texas with Barnes, and, because they could not travel the
territies as free men, were declared slaves again.
One son, Samuel Hough Barnes, had fallen in love with Lucinda McKee, a young lady
recently arrived from Charleston, South Carolina. Lucinda did not like the idea of a new
wilderness home, so she and Sam bought a home in Mississippi and on October 6, 1836, were
married.
The day after the wedding, October 7, 1836, seven months after an imperiled convention
at Washington-on-the-Brazos created a declaration of independence for Texas, James Barnes
and and a group 11 slaves, including their kids left the old Choctaw Indian
Territory, now Mississippi, heading west. It was time to settle a new frontier..
It was about this same time that William Barnes married Isabella C. Tipton, daughter of
Eli and Peggy (Margaret) Walker Tipton. They remained in Mississippi with the rest of the
Barnes family, where their first two children, sons William E. (1837) and Eli J. (1838),
were born. In 1839, the family joined their father in Texas.
It was during the journey to East Texas that one of the most often recalled anecdotes
of family history occurred. When the family of pioneers left Mississippi headed west, they
carried $3,600 in gold. It was while they were camped west of the Mississippi, somewhere
in Louisiana that they discovered the gold missing. Someone recalled it had been placed in
a stump at a camp back in Mississippi. One of the sons (one version says William, another
James Jr.) was sent hurrying back to retrace the trail and try to recover the family
money. He told his mother to tell anyone they owed for accommodations that "in a few
days a tall red-faced fellow on a horse will come along and pay your bills."
All the way back to Mississippi he traveled but did not find the money. He borrowed
enough to get the family west of the Neches, where they were to establish a home and the
names of Barnes.
James Barnes built his first Texas log cabin in Angelina County, near the banks of the
Neches River along the edge of the Big Thicket between Buck and Biloxi creeks. It was
while living there that, on one hunting expedition, he killed 14 panthers. He was to be
known as "Panther" Barnes thereafter.2
In his pursuit of a more suitable home for his family, James "Panther" Barnes
discovered an area of black hills near two freshwater springs, not far from a site often
used as an Indian village. The Native Indians called their village by a name which meant
"peach tree." Peach Tree Village, as it became known by the white settlers, was
near a crossroads surveyed by the Spanish and near old Fort Terán.
This is the story of Peach Tree Village, in the words of pioneer John Henry Kirby, as
displayed on a signboard in the center of the community:
"In the early Nineteenth century the Alabama Indians, then a numerous tribe, made
their headquarters at this point and called their village by a name which meant 'Peach
Tree.' At this point two trails blazed by the early pioneers crossed each other. A north
and south trail leads from the Gulf at Sabine Pass through what is now Beaumont, Kountze,
and Woodville, on the south and passing north through Moscow, Sumpter, and Crockett and
onward across the Trinity and into the heart of central Texas. The other trail ran east
and west, beginning at Alexandria, Louisiana, passing through Jasper on the east, and what
is now Livingston, Huntsville, and Brenham to San Antonio on the west. From this trail
other trails diverged into South Texas and notably to the Galveston Bay district. The
crossing of these trails here made this point an early trading center of considerable
interest.
"With the coming of white settlers the Alabama Indians withdrew and what remains
of that tribe is now located in Polk County. While this locality has always been known as
Peach Tree Village, there has never been anything of the nature of a village since the
Indians withdrew."
(Many Alabama Indians still live in Polk County, on the Alabama-Coushatta Indian
Reservation, established by Sam Houston during the Republic.)
Barnes, reunited with his wife and family, would established his new home near Peach
Tree Village, at what would become known as the community of Mount Hope. The two springs
were later known as Barnes Spring and Whitehead Spring. They remain accessible today.
In 1835, the publisher of the New York Christian Advocate received a letter from Col.
William B. Travis, calling for the establishment of a Methodist presence in the Mexican
colony of Texas, where settlers were beginning to revolt against the repressive government
of Santa Ana. After Texas became a republic, church leaders acted.
In 1837, three missionaries, including Martin Ruter from Pennsylvania, were dispatched
to Texas. Ruter found Texas to be less than hospitable, and in the midst of wars with the
Comanches. He wrote, "Texas is a country where darkness, ignorance and superstition
have long held their dominie (sic). Profaneness, gaming and intemperance are prevailing
vices against which we have to contend." Ruter would found Rutersville College in
1840 six miles north of LaGrange.5
Not long after the family settled in Mount Hope in 1837, James invited two traveling
Methodist preachers to stay awhile and preach in his home. The two Englishmen held
services and helped organize the Mount Hope Methodist Church in Barnes' home. Eight
members of his family were charter members of the church. (Other members were likely from
such families as the Felders, Enloes, Barclays, Platts, Futchs, Willsons, Priests,
Tarvers, Hallmarks and others, as noted from authentic traditions.)4
In another fond family anecdote, Sam and Lucinda Barnes hitched an ox and a mule to a
covered wagon and left Neshoba County in Mississippi to visit his father and mother in
Texas. The day they arrived, Mount Hope was alive with revival, a Methodist camp meeting
was underway. As James and the two English preachers were holding forth with the service
at the Barnes cabin, in steps Aunt Mary, the venerable servant, a favorite of the family,
serving the cornbread and collard greens she prepared and seeming to officiate over the
entire congregation.
It was a memory Sam and Lucinda would carry back with them all the way to Mississippi.
And a memory that would in 1845 cause them to pack up and move their family to Texas.
The Barnes family grew at Mount Hope. John H. Barnes, third son of William and
Isabella, was the first born in Texas, in 1840. The hilly, densely timbered northern
stretches of the Big Thicket where Mount Hope is located was originally in the far
northern stretches of Liberty County, one of the original counties created in 1836 and
organized in 1837. For practical purposes though, business was completed across the
Angelina River in nearby Nacogdoches County, also one of the original Texas counties.
Named for a Native American tribe, Nacogdoches is considered by some the oldest town in
Texas. It was in Nacogdoches County that the following was recorded:
The Republic of Texas No. 423
County of Nacogdoches
2nd Class
William R. Barnes is entitled to six hundred and forty acres of land by virtue of
Certificate No. 364 dated Dec. 5, 1839, granted to him by the Board of Land Commissioners
for the County of Nacogdoches, by having proved to us that he has resided in the Republic
for three years prior to Jan. 1 1845 and performed all the duties required of him as a
citizen.
Given under our hands at Nacogdoches this 1st day of September, 1845.
Attest: L. Holmes, clerk County Court and ex-off, Clerk Board of Land Comm.
W W. Winfield, C.J.N.C. & ex-off P.B.L. Comm.
Bennett Blake Assoc. Comm.
There is also record of James Barnes receiving 640 acres (Certificate No. 387).
On February 1, 1845, at Mount Hope, Texas, the fifth child of William and Isabella
Barnes, Margaret Ann Elizabeth, was born. It was in this same year that Isabella's
parents, Eli and Peggy (Margaret) Walker Tipton, moved from Mississippi to East Texas. The
Tiptons would later move to a site between the Neches and Trinity rivers in what is now
Trinity County, where Peggy Tipton died.
On November 13, 1853, Eli married Catherine Johnson in Tyler County then moved to
Walker County. Eli died there sometime before September 2, 1864, because on that date
Isabella and William Barnes and the other Tipton children signed a property settlement
with Catherine at the Walker County courthouse.
Tyler County, named for U.S. President John Tyler, was organized in 1846. William and
Isabella lived in Tyler County until after 1870. His name appears on county records of the
time, and he was an elected officer of the county.
A formal deed, as shown by the records, to the land where Mount Hope Church stands was
given and written by Dr. Hamilton W. Carter on October 13, 1852, to the following named
trustees: James Barnes, Samuel H. Barnes, John Davies, G. B. Wallace and William Sterling.
Then, on April 1, 1853, the same Dr. Carter gave a deed of land near Mount Hope for the
purpose of erecting a parsonage. This was deeded to the following named trustees: James
Barnes, William R. Barnes, Harmon Frazier, Davis Barclay, and John J. Pemberton,
"Trustees for the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Woodville Mission or Circuit, to
be held by the church as a parsonage and for no other purpose." Witnesses to the
signatures were J.W. Rotan and A.L. Davanaugh, pastor of the church who would later become
a bishop.
The deed to the church also states, "The Mount Hope Methodist church building is
also to be used for school and Masonic Lodge."
Mount Hope was a prospering town by this time consisting of the Mount Hope Post Office,
the church and parsonage, and Masonic Lodge No. 121. Businesses included a drug store, two
cotton gins, two grist mills and a blacksmith shop. Mount Hope was also home to three
physicians: Dr. Hamilton W. Carter, Dr. Johnson and Dr. W. W. Whitehead.
There is record of James Barnes having sold his land claim certificate to an M. Yill
for $200 on January 31, 1846. William witnessed his father's "X" mark, as did
J.G. Hardin. There is also record of William Barnes selling land to James Drake of
Jefferson County on October 15, 1849, for $50.
By the deed dated August 16, 1855, and recorded in Volume C, page 94, of the Deed
Records of Tyler County, Texas, there is shown a deed from James and Tabitha Barnes to
Isabella C. Barnes which recites, among other things, that, "For and in consideration
of the love and affection we have for our daughter-in-law, Isabella C. Barnes, we give and
grant the following described land, to-wit:
Beginning on the east line of the Peter Caubel Land thence east 850 vrs; thence south
664 vrs; thence west 850 vrs; thence north at 120 vrs; S.E. corner C. Caubels survey, 664
vrs. to the beginning; containing 100 acres; reserving, however, 30 acres off the west end
of said survey that was deeded to Sam H. Barnes, leaving 70 acres herein conveyed.
(This was the original Barnes home at Mount Hope)
We also know from a copy of the official records that during the Civil War, a Mount
Hope Home Guard was formed under F.M. McKee of men over 45 years of age and a few boys
under 18. William R. is shown as a member.
In another family anecdote of the time, Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes was home alone
when a white-tailed deer wondered out of the thicket and into the Barnes field. Margaret
Ann called the hounds, who managed to "stretch" the deer allowing the young
woman to club it to death. When her father, William, returned home, Margaret Ann was
severely reprimanded for placing herself in danger. Her suitor at the time, James Wesley
Simmons, took the deer hide and made her a pair of wedding shoes.2 Margaret Ann Elizabeth
Barnes and John Wesley Simmons were married September 4, 1865, in Walker County, probably
at the home of her step-grandmother, Catherine Tipton. Her grandfather, Eli Tipton, had
died there the year before.
As critical as it is to family ancestry, proving the marriage between Margaret Ann and
John Simmons was the subject of a 15-year search by Edna Earle Weatherly McClusky, and is
described as the highlight of her genealogy research.
The marriage of Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes to John Wesley Simmons was a vital link
in establishing family ancestry. All the Barnes children had been married in Tyler County,
but there was no indication of the Simmons-Barnes nuptials. The search led to other likely
counties in East Texas and many parishes of Louisiana. Finally, looking over her notes one
day, Edna Earle noticed that Margaret Ann's grandparents, the Tiptons, had lived in Walker
County. She had not looked there.
In a long distance telephone conversation to the county clerk in Walker County, she
inquired about a Simmons-Barnes marriage. "No," the clerk replied. But they did
show a John Wesley Simmons marrying a Margaret Ann Elizabeth Brown. The next day at the
county courthouse in Huntsville, Edna Earle saw the record for herself. "Could they
have the name wrong?" she asked of this critical piece of information. Perhaps, the
clerk replied asking, "Do you think she could have been married before?"
The question bothered Edna Earle, so soon another trip to Woodville was made to check
the Tyler County records. There it was. On June 4, 1861, Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes had
married James V. Brown. He is never mentioned again. It is easy to imagine two young
sweethearts marrying hastily before departing ways. Perhaps he went off to the war raging
in the east and never returned.2
Both James Barnes and his wife, Tabitha Hough Barnes, died during the Civil War. The
date on the large monument in the center of the Mount Hope Cemetery is 1863.
On the census records of 1870 for Tyler County, William Barnes is listed as
"blind," though we know he traveled between Mount Hope and Grant Parish,
Louisiana. Records indicate that in 1875 he returned to Tyler County to sell some land. On
the 1880 census records for Grant Parish, he and Isabella are listed with their last two
sons, Francis and Isaac, a daughter, Vasti Anderson, and her two daughters, Martha and
Georgia.
Mount Hope church records show that William Robert Barnes died November 15, 1889, at
Mount Hope. Isabella went to live with her family in Angelina County until 1898, and is
buried in a small cemetery near Diboll.
Of the old town of Mount Hope, only a church and cemetery remains today. And a memorial
from the family, erected in 1966.4 Three sides are inscribed:
James Barnes, Pioneer
Born in Fort, 1776
Died at Mount Hope, Texas 1863
Father
Founded Mount Hope Church in 1837
Laid off townsite of Jackson, Mississippi 1820
A friend of the Indians, Loved by his family
His Mission: To establish schools and churches
in the fatherest regions of civilization
Advice: Cultivate Good Soil
Observation: Honest labor is always rewarded
And,
Tabitha Huff
Wife of James Barnes
Born in Scotland during the Revolutionary Period
Married James Barnes at the opening of the new century.
Captured by the Indians and forced
to dance the war dance under the scalps of whites -
released through the friendship of Husband and Indians.
Died at Mount Hope 1863
Aggressive, Modest pioneer that never shirked.
The third side listed the names and birth dates of their ten children.
James Wesley Simmons was a religious man who often served area churches which had no
preacher or superintendent, regardless of denomination. His father was Christopher
Columbus Simmons, born between 1807 and 1810 in Mississippi. In 1833, he married Bramley
Cockerham and, on September 20, 1846, James Wesley was born in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.
James Simmons would marry Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes, daughter of William R. and
Isabella Barnes, on September 3, 1865, in Walker County, Texas. James and Margaret Ann
moved frequently about East Texas and Louisiana following railroad construction. Their
first child, Georgia Ann Bramley Simmons, was born March 19, 1869, in Louisiana. In 1877,
they were living in Winnfield, near Grant Parish, with her mother and father, William R.
and Isabella. In 1879, on the move again, their youngest daughter, Sarah, was born in a
church on a Texas county line following services.2
They returned to Tyler County by 1872 and remained. James was County Treasurer, and
also Justice of Peace. Widely known as an expert carpenter, he built many early buildings
in Woodville. The third Mount Hope Methodist Church, which remains today, was built in
1910 by James, Walter Taylor and others. This church replaced the large two-story building
that was used by the Mount Hope Masonic Lodge No. 121 for 40 years. The lodge moved in
1891 to the new Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad Station at nearby Chester, after much
controversy. The railroad line was built from Trinity to Colmesneil in 1881.2
James Wesley Simmons and Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes Simmons had eight children
between 1869 and 1882. In later years, James would contract tuberculosis and, at one
point, traveled to Corpus Christi for treatment. Postcards sent from Corpus Christi to his
family back in East Texas remain as family keepsakes.2 He returned to Woodville, where he
died on July 4, 1912. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery.
Margaret Ann lived on in the family home in Woodville for awhile. She then spent her
later years living with her daughter, Georgia Ann Simmons, in Rockland. She died there on
April 28, 1928, and is buried next to her husband in Woodville's Magnolia Cemetery.
Sometime before 1880, D. C. Hamerly moved his family of eight kids from their home in
northern Pennsylvania (Spring Creek Township, Warren Co.), to Walker County, Texas. It was
there in 1878 that D. C.'s fourth child, S.C.E. Hamerly, married George C. Richardson. One
day less than a year later, on September 25, 1879, big brother Silas Syd Hamerly married
Mary Humphreys in Walker County. Perhaps one other marriage occurred in Walker County.
That of oldest daughter Emily, to Christopher McGindy, though the date and location are
not documented.
By 1886, however, the Hamerly family had moved into Tyler County. It was there that
oldest son "Jake," married Mary Elizabeth "Lizzy" Barnes,
granddaughter of James Barnes, on October 14. Parents of the bride were Calvin A. Barnes,
seventh child of James and Tabitha, and Levicy A. Crawford. Seven months later, John
Washington Hamerly married Sarah Adaline "Addy" Barnes, Lizzie's little sister,
on May 30, 1887. It would not be the last time the two families held a wedding.
Georgia Ann Bramley Simmons, the great-granddaughter of James Barnes and the daughter
of James Wesley Simmons and Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes, married Grant Sherman (G.S.)
Hamerly on December 25, 1887 at eleven o'clock in the morning. Robert Mann officiated.
Most in East Texas at that time followed the logging industry to sawmill towns like
Pineland, Old Hyatt, Village Mills, Doucette and Remlig. The Hamerlys were no different.
Georgia Ann and G. S. Hamerly had one son, Earnest Hamerly (born in Chester, October 30,
1888), and one daughter, Clara, (born March 14, 1891 in Colmesneil). G.S., a steam
locomotive engineer, was killed in a lumber mill train steam boiler explosion in 1896. He
is buried in the Doucette cemetery. The railroad watch he carried, mangled from the
accident, is still in the family.
Georgia Ann moved to Rockland where she lived in a home near a hill where a spring of
delicious water was a gift to her from John Henry Kirby. She would later marry Mr. W.J.
Powell (March 2, 1898 in Tyler County). She then married Mr. William Ward on September 7,
1900, also in Tyler County. Later the spring would furnish water to the eastern half of
the town.2 It is another family topic for speculation why Kirby would give Georgia Ann
Bramley Simmons this natural spring. But consider that Margaret Ann Simmons had come to
live with her daughter there, and they had been neighbors with Kirby at Mount Hope since
the 1830s.
Georgia Ann remained in Rockland where she lived near her sister, Mary Jane Simmons
Weatherly, and a close friend, Jessie McGovern. The trio loved to fish and kept a rough
camp on the spot where Billums Creek runs into the Neches River. Their most memorable
moments were spent either at this camp or at Rocky Ford, a beautiful spot on the Neches
where the river poured over solid rock then ended in a waterfall. None of the three could
swim, and despite the high, steep banks at Rocky Ford, which could only be navigated with
the aid of a rope, the three would frequently hang out over the water by a small tree limb
to get their hooks into a desirable spot.
Georgia Ann died May 25, 1951, in Saratoga, Hardin County, Texas. She is buried in
Magnolia Cemetery next to her mother, Margaret Ann Elizabeth Barnes Simmons, and father,
James Wesley Simmons. Another sister, Sarah Bird, and her husband, Dave, are buried a few
feet away.
Ernest Hamerly would carry much of the pioneer spirit in his blood, apparently, as he
left East Texas and North America and traveled to Panama, in Central America, where he
worked as a young man. He later married Jewel Irene Rudd, of Hillister, in Tyler County,
Texas. She was the daughter of Walter L. and Mary Frances Jones Rudd.
Ernest and Jewel ventured out to the preacher's cornfield, where they found him
plowing. Interrupting his work, the preacher married the couple, them on one side of a
fence and him on the other. The couple had three children: Sherman Hortense (Sherrie);
Bobbie Ward; and Eddie Ray. Eddie Ray would be killed in his youth in a shooting accident
in Woodville (1936).
Ernest, or "Ham" as he was widely known, worked in the sawmills and later he
and Jewel ran a diner and pool hall in Woodville. He was killed in 1954 in an automobile
accident. Jewel would continue living in Woodville until late in her life. She became ill
and passed away in 1983 in Marshall, Texas, and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Woodville,
Tyler County.
To be continued ...
Notes:
1. Hamerly Family Bible
2. Edna Earle Weatherly McClusky's family history and genealogical research
Barnes Genealogy, by Matt Wilson and Howell Woodfrin
"Mrs. Cade Recounts Early Day Events," by Emma Barnes Cade, Beaumont Enterprise,
May 6, 1954
"James Barnes, One of East Texas' Famous Pioneers," by Dean Tevis, Beaumont
Enterprise, October 2, 1932
Notes of Pauline Bird from conversations with Margaret Elizabeth Barnes Simmons
Edna Earle Weatherly McClusky's memories
Noma Bradshaw Weatherly memories
"We Tiptons Our Kin"
Sarah Simmons Bird Bible
3. La Vera (Brasuell) Caruthers genealogical research
4. Carolyn JoAn Willson's family history and genealogical research
5. History of Southwestern, Southwestern University website, 1997
6. Kay Barnes family history and genealogical research
The Barnes Book, by Matt Willson
Pauline Bird's Daughters of the American Republic (DAR) application
Neshoba County, Mississippi records, Book 1
7.Memoirs of Pitt Simms
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