The Cagle Estates

In researching the history of the land that became the Wilks Cemetery, and in trying to definitively identify the Cagle family members marked only with small stones bearing initials, I haunted the Fannin County Clerk’s office in the days before our current pandemic combing through deed and probate records. I’ve found several treasures there that I will be sharing here, and I look forward to being able to return to the stacks in search of more. Today’s post centers on the records I found regarding the estates of Susan, Robert, and Edward Cagle. These records established the fact of the early deaths without issue of Cagle sons Robert and Edward and confirmed that the land containing the Wilks Cemetery had remained in Cagle hands from 1846, when Martin Gaines Cagle first became responsible for the property taxes on the parcel, to 1873, when the parcel was sold to the Wilks. They are also interesting in what they tell of us notable property and property values in those years. The documents are transcribed in part below.

In Probate Book E, page 260, there is this (with some minor punctuation added for readability):

“Guardianship of the minors Mary C Cagle and John H Cagle. It is ordered by the court that Thomas C Hale be appointed guardianship of the persons and of property of John H Cagle and Mary C Cagle (the said Mary C having chosen in open court the said Thomas C Hale) and that he give Bond in the sum of $1000 (one thousand dollars) each and that letters issue.”

This entry is included in a list of several entries regarding guardianship issues before the County Court “at the Court House in the Town of Bonham on Monday the 24th day of November AD 1862”. Members of the Court present were W. A. Davis, R M. Cook, and Samie J. Galbraith. Susan Cagle, surviving parent of the minors had died in 1861. The elder Cagle sons, siblings to the minors, we now know from their Confederate Army military records had died earlier in 1862, Edward in March, and Robert in August. At the time of this court order, Mary was 16 years old and John 11.

In Probate Book E, page 421, we find the final report of Thomas C. Hale, administrator, to the Probate Court of Fannin County of the estates of Susan, Edward, and Robert Cagle (with minor punctuation and spelling added for readability).

“To the Hon. W A Davis, Chief Justice of Fannin County. Thomas C Hale, the administrator of the estates of Susan C Cagle, Edward C Cagle, and Robert Cagle, dec. would file herewith his final report for a settlement of said estates and ask to be discharged from all further liability as administrator. He states that there are but three heirs to said estates, viz. Frances D. Hale, the wife of this administrator, & the minors Mary C Cagle and John H Cagle, and that this administrator is their guardian (the two last mentioned). He asks that there be a partition and distribution of the property among said heirs or the same turned over to him as guardian for the two minor heirs - that is their portion of the property.”

The report goes on to list Susan Cagle’s property as a Sale Bill in the amount of $275, 1 yoke of oxen appraised at $50, 3 head of cattle valued at $20, 2 negroes valued at $400, 1 tract of land (214 acres) valued at $535, 1 tract of land (320 acres) valued at $640, and 1 hand saw & [?] valued at $20. The total listed is $1930, though when I add it up, I reach a sum of $1940.

Edward Cagle’s estate includes 7 head of cattle appraised at $42, 1 saw drawn knife and c[ase] valued at $5.25, 1 note on [?] of $10.50, 1 note on John Lankford of $15.00, and the estate of Susan Cagle in the amount of $1930, for a total of $2003.25

Against the estates of Susan and Edward, payments were made to settle the claims of J. J. Able ($50) and Dr Broom ($20), and to pay court costs of $30.

The only property listed for Robert Cagle is that passed on from his mother and brother, Thomas’ approach in settling the estates being to pass all of Susan’s property to Edward, all of Edward’s property to Robert, and then to pass Robert’s estate to the remaining three siblings.

An interesting aside is that in their military records, both Edward and Robert are listed as having enlisted with their own horses and saddles. It is curious that no horses are included in the estates. Robert died away from home and perhaps it would have been too much trouble to try to reclaim his personal effects in a time of war, but Edward died at home, apparently on furlough. Would he not have come home on horseback? Did the animals become the property of the Confederate Army when the boys enlisted?

Another interesting aside provided by the probate records is the value placed on the two slaves owned by the Cagles. In the tax records, beginning in 1846, the two are consistently valued at or near $1000. In November, 1864, as the estate is being settled, their value is listed as $400. Is this devaluation based on the declining fortunes of the Confederacy? Is it based on the advancing age of the two individuals? Why the sudden and dramatic difference? Even with that steep devaluation, however, each slave is worth the equivalent of 80 acres of land, illustrating the degree to which the economic base of the south was dependent on human chattel. It is shocking to confront the every day detail of human beings owned, traded, and handed down. This economic realization strikes to my core and bearing witness is painful.

The final chapter in the story of the Cagle estates is the sale, in August of 1873, of the 214 acres containing the Wilks Cemetery site to Madison, Newton and Milton Wilks. In the sale, recorded in Book V of the Fannin County Deed records, page 492, only Frances and Mary (and their husbands) are listed as sellers. John has either relinquished his rights to his sisters or has passed away. The land, valued at $535 in 1864 is sold to the Wilks brothers for $412, a reduction in value of 23%, perhaps a further indication of the decline of fortunes after the war.

Copies of original documents on file at the Fannin County Clerk’s office.

Story by Wanda Oliver.

Picking Up The Threads, Again

I wrote on January 21, that I was ready to pick up the threads of my research on this project. Two days later, Wuhan, China was locked down. Needless to say, as the novel coronavirus has turned the world upside down, I have focused little attention on the story of Bois d’Arc Lake and the Wilks and Bonham Cemeteries. Today, I am making another attempt to pick up the threads and regain momentum. I’ve decided that I might best serve myself and my readers by starting this reboot of my reboot with a summary of current status, open questions, and lines of investigation.

In terms of status, the two cemeteries have been completely evacuated and the area in which they were located incorporated into what will be the basin of the new lake. In total, 34 graves were evacuated at the Wilks Cemetery site. Of those, 21 were marked and 13 were unmarked. Of the 21 marked, the identify of 16 are well documented. A well-informed assumption can be made about 4 other graves that were marked with stones bearing only initials. The grave in the Cagle family row marked SHH remains a mystery. Nine of the unmarked graves were found to the east of the Cagle family row, and appeared in initial assessments by the archeological team to be older than the Cagle burials (the first known Cagle burial was in 1850, the last in 1861). One of the unmarked graves was found at the end of the Cagle family row, and the remaining three unmarked graves were found between the Cagle family row and the Wilks family row (the first Wilks burial occurred in 1869, the last in 1932). At the Bonham Cemetery site, 23 graves were excavated. Only two were marked (dating from Dec., 1865 and Jan., 1866). The scientific assessment of all the remains is now underway. In addition to gender and approximate age, I hope science will shed light on how and when many of the occupants of the unknown graves perished. I also hope it will allow them to be placed in family groups. While waiting on the results, my research has centered on the following open questions and lines of investigation.

Is the grave marked JHC that of John Cagle, youngest son of Susan and Martin Cagle? The last record I have found of John is in the 1870 Census. At that time, he was living in the household of Henry Black and serving in the occupation of Stock Driver. In Oct of 1864, the estates of Susan, Edward, and Robert Cagle were probated. The heirs were the three remaining children of Susan and Martin Cagle, Frances Cagle Hale, Mary Cagle, and John Cagle. The land containing the Wilks Cemetery site was part of their inheritance. In August of 1873, the Cagle heirs sold the land to the Wilks brothers Madison Solomon, Newton, and Milton. The signatories to that sale included Frances Cagle Hale and her husband and Mary Cagle Russell and her husband. John is not mentioned.

Who is SHH? Lying in the Cagle row, with Cagle family members to either side, SHH must be an extended family member. Could SHH be a Hale? As yet, I have found no records that shed any light on these questions.

Where is the child, Susan Cagle? This daughter of Susan and Martin Cagle, mentioned in family memoirs written by Thomas C. Hale, husband of Frances Cagle Hale, is missing from official records. Could she be the unmarked grave in the Cagle row? If so, why is there no marker for her? Could she be SHH? If so, she must have lived to marry, but she is not included in any of the census records that clearly document other members of the family.

Who owned or occupied the land from the time of James Kerr’s patent until it came into the hands of the Cagles? The deed records are oddly silent, and if the nine easterly graves are older than the earliest Cagle burials, this silence begs to be broken.

Do the three graves between the Cagle and Wilks rows belong to either of these families?

Where is little Alvie Wilks? Her death certificate states that she was buried in the Wilks Cemetery, but unlike the beautifully marked graves of the other Wilks family members, there is no stone for Alvie.

At the Bonham site, with only two marked graves to go on, the questions loom larger. Could these graves represent a migration cluster caught by an epidemic at the end of their migration from Arkansas to Texas? The excavation did yield some evidence of these graves being more hastily executed. And while I have done lots of research into the chain of ownership of the land containing the Wilks Cemetery site, I have completed very little research on the chain of ownership of the land containing the Bonham site. Perhaps there are uncovered clues waiting for me there.

Bonham Cemetery Site, July 2019. Photo by Wanda Oliver.

Bois d’Arc Lake Dam Construction, viewed from approximate location of Wilks Cemetery, July, 2019. Photo by Wanda Oliver.

Story by Wanda Oliver.

Picking Up the Threads

In the weeks since my last post, I have retired from my profession and found myself busier than ever adjusting to my ‘life of leisure’. My work on this project has been interrupted and my New Year’s pledge is to pick up the threads and move forward with it again. While I have new research to organize and plenty of research yet to do, a good place to reengage, I think, is to share some research already completed about the life of Milton Wilks.

When Milton died on August 8, 1927, he was not the last of his generation - his sister-in-law, Mary Wilks, wife of brother Newton Wilks, would live until 1932 and sister, Rebecca Wilks White would live until 1940 - but the details we have of his life provide fitting bookends for the beginning and ending of an era. Milton arrived in Texas in 1865 or 1866 with his parents and four of his siblings. He was the baby of the family and would have been nine in 1866. We have to believe that moving from Iowa to Texas in the aftermath of the Civil War had to figure as something of an adventure to a young boy, and northeast Fannin County something of a wild frontier. It had only been 30 years since Daniel Rowlett and his band of families had become the first permanent anglo settlers to make their homes west of Bois d’Arc Creek. The Treaty of Bird’s Fort ending hostilities with the Native Americans was only 23 years old at the time. At the other end of the spectrum, as Milton’s death approached, the industrialism and economic growth of the Roaring Twenties were drawing to a close. Cotton was King and Fannin County had seen years of booming agricultural production and wealth creation.

Eldest brother, Jefferson Wilks, died in 1864, a victim of the war, and though that death was no doubt deeply felt within the family, Milton, a child of six or seven, may have felt the loss less severely. And it must have been with great optimism that his parents left behind married daughters and grandchildren to make a new home in remote Texas. However bright the future had appeared when the family arrived in Fannin County, repeated loss would sadly mark Milton’s life. He was not quite 12 when his mother was laid to rest in 1869, and only 14 when his father joined her.

That the siblings remained close is evident in family correspondence (which can be seen here), and further corroborated by the purchase by the Wilks boys, Madison Solomon, Newton, and Milton, of the 214 acres containing the Wilks Cemetery in August of 1873 from the heirs of the Cagle estate. Milton was only 16 at the time, Newton 18, and Madison Solomon not yet 22. Again, they must have had high hopes and grand plans for their future as they made their investment. At $412 (approximately $8,800 today) the land was acquired at considerably less than the $535 it had been valued at in 1864 when the Cagle estate was settled. When the boys sold the land to George Buchanan in Oct, 1879 for $500 (just under $13,000 today), they realized a nice profit. Perhaps Milton’s good fortune set him up to pursue marriage as he became a married man the following year.

In November of 1880, at the age of 23, Milton married Betty Moore. He laid her to rest in January of 1887 just over six short years later. In those six years the two of them had buried 3 baby boys. Milton and their only surviving child, a son not yet 2, were left to grieve Betty’s passing.

In June of 1888, Milton married for the second time. His bride was Florence Ester French, a girl still a couple of months shy of her 16th birthday. With his young bride, Milton must have once again looked to the future with bright hope. Their first child, a daughter, was born in August of 1889 and buried that October. In January, 1898, they were graced with a second daughter who would live to adulthood, but in February of 1901, Milton would lose his wife, Florence, and his brother, Newton, within two weeks of one another. A widower for the second time, Milton had to bear up under the load of life with two children, Frank, not quite 16, and Winnie, barely three.

1908 would see the death of a granddaughter, tragically burned, and Milton’s third marriage. Milton and Raymond Bill Holiday Clark were married on November 18, 1908. Milton was 51, Raymond 47, and Winnie 10. Raymond was a widow with an 11 year old son. Just shy of ten years later, Milton was again left a widower, when Raymond died in September, 1918.

In August of 1920, Milton married for the 4th time. His bride was Mattie Cornelius Jones McConnell. Mattie was the widow of Ellis Thurston McConnell.  At their marriage, Milton was 63, Mattie was 46.  Mattie had several adult children and a young daughter of 10. In an interesting side note, George, son of Ellis and Mattie married Milton’s great-niece, the granddaughter of Rebecca Wilks White.

In July of 1927, Milton sat down to write his last will and testament, a document you can see here. It is easy to speculate that he felt his time drawing near as he died within a few weeks of the writing, on August 6, 1927, just shy of his and Mattie’s 7th wedding anniversary. His will reads to me as the testament of a stalwart and dutiful man, taking great care to leave his affairs in order and his loved ones sharing fairly in the estate he left behind.

The inventory of his estate lists $2,671.00 in separate property, and $661.00 in community property, for a total of $3,332.00. The equivalent in today’s dollars is just over $47,000.00.

From left to right, Julia, Milton, & Rebecca Wilks. Photo courtesy of Donald White.

Story by Wanda Oliver.

The Cemetery Families & The Civil War

As reported in a previous post, I found confirmation of the deaths of Edward and Robert Cagle at a date prior to November, 1864, in the Fannin County Probate Minutes, Book E, page 421. Thomas C. Hale’s appearance before the Court on that date is documented there. He made a report to the court on his efforts to settle the estates of Susan C. Cagle, Edward C. Cagle, and Robert Cagle, and asked to be discharged of any further duties. Knowing that these Cagle boys had died young and without descendants provided some closure, but left many unanswered questions. On the advice of a fellow researcher, I turned to Laura Douglas, Special Collections Librarian at the Emily Fowler Library in Denton. Laura was my much appreciated guide into the rich world of Civil War military records. There I found true closure for Edward and Robert Cagle.

Edward & Robert pledged themselves to fight for the Confederate States by enlisting in the 22nd Texas Cavalry on Dec. 17, 1861 in Honey Grove, Texas. Edward was 19 years old, and is described in his military records as 5’ 10” tall, with fair complexion, light hair, and grey eyes. Robert was 24 years old, 5’ 8” tall, of dark hair and complexion, but sharing with his brother the trait of grey eyes. Both listed their occupation as ‘farmer’. The young men mustered in on Jan. 13, 1862, at Fort Washita, Oklahoma. They each came with their own horse and rigging, and the value was duly noted in their records. Edward mustered in as a private and Robert as a sergeant.

The 22nd Texas Cavalry was organized under Colonel Robert. H. Taylor and included recruits from Fannin, Grayson, Collin, and other North Texas counties. In July of 1862 the 22nd joined the 31st Texas and the 34th Texas to form a cavalry brigade. The combined troops saw their first engagement on Sept. 30, 1862 at Newtonia, Missouri in a successful skirmish against Union forces. Edward, however, did not see any of this. While the military records do not supply any detail, they do document his death at home in Fannin County on March 22, 1862. Robert’s military career did not long outlast his brother’s. He also died prior to the brigade’s first action, succumbing to accident or disease on August 24, 1862, at Ft. Gibson, Okla.

After their early success at Newtonia, the troops fell back into Arkansas where illness, changes in command, and reclassification from cavalry to infantry demoralized the men. The Handbook of Texas Online states that the struggling troops fought as a “dismounted cavalry” at Prairie Grove, Arkansas on December 7, 1862, before moving to Ft. Smith in Jan., 1863, and then marching through snow to the Red River in Feb., 1863. Glory continued to elude the 22nd during the remaining years of the war. The surviving troop returned to Texas in March, 1865, where it was disbanded in May of that year.

Pages from the Fold3.com military records of Edward and Robert Cagle.

Based on this early success researching the Cagle family, I eagerly began seeking details on John Bonham’s Civil War history. His story proved more elusive. I had two references to work from. The first being a family history written by John’s granddaughter. Pine Cones and Cactus, by Eddie Gist Williams Addison (As told to Thelma Lacy), was published in 1980, at San Angelo, Texas. In it, the author states,

“My mama, Charity Josephine (called Tatty by the younger children) Bonham, was born in Arkansas on May 19, 1862.  Her mother was Penelope Edward Boone, and her father was John Bonham.  Grandma Penelope (Penny) was born in 1827 in Tennessee.  Grandpa John was born in 1817 in North Carolina.  Grandma’s parents were born in Tennessee and Grandpa’s in North Carolina.

Mama told me about living in Arkansas during Civil War days.  She remembered when Grandpa rode off to fight for the South.  She said he managed, somehow, to slip home and help with the planting in the spring and the harvesting in the fall and then make his way back to the front lines, leaving Grandma and the children and a few slaves to manage the big farm.

She remembered when he came back after the defeat of the Confederate troops, battered and beat - with nothing left to do but pull up stakes and move on to another place, another beginning.”

The problem with this recollection is that Tatty could have been no more than an infant when her father enlisted in the Confederate Army, as she was only 3 when the war ended.  It seems likely that she related family stories to her daughter, not her personal memories. In any case, the account provides an evocative glimpse of how the War affected the Bonham family.

The second reference I had was an article in The Bonham News (Vol. 44, No. 100, Ed. 1, Tuesday, April 12, 1910), found on The Portal to Texas History. In the column, Observations by the Way, Ashley Evans recounts a visit with John Bonham, stating,

“…Stopped first at John Bonham’s. He is 88 years old. He wore the grey four years and was with Shelby. At the close of the war he cast his lot with the good people of this county.”

Despite these tantalizing tidbits, I found nothing in the official military records that I could definitively attribute to ‘our’ John Bonham. I had hoped the Muster Rolls might provide a fix on when his service to the Confederacy ended, thus providing a more defined window for the migration of the family from Arkansas to Fannin County, Texas. That hope was disappointed and will have to wait for another day.

Charity Josephine (Tatty) and John Posey Gist, from Pine Cones and Cactus.

Turning to the Wilks family, I was able to find the service records of eldest son, Jefferson Wilks (the younger sons were children during the war). He was a member of the Union Army, serving in Company E of the 30th Regiment of the Iowa Infantry. He began his military career as a private and ended as a sergeant. The Regiment was mustered in on Sept., 20, 1862, and served in a number of distinguished campaigns, including the siege of Vicksburg, the battle of Lookout Mountain, and the battle of Missionary Ridge, prior to marching to the relief of Knoxville on Nov. 28, 1863. In Dec., 1863, the Regiment was assigned garrison duty in Alabama, an assignment that lasted until late spring of 1864. Jefferson Wilks died on April 10, 1864 in Claysville, Alabama at the age of 23 or 24.

Find-A-Grave provides the following information about Jefferson,

“Killed in action April 10, 1864, Claysville, Ala. … Would have been buried close to death site. Then possibly moved to a national cemetery as an unknown abt 1867.”

I have not been able to find confirmation in the military records of Jefferson dying in action. Nor have I found a record of a battle corresponding to the date and location of his death, so I have some reservations about the accuracy of this report. However, Claysville, Alabama was a strategic location due to the ferry there across the Tennessee River. It is possible that Jefferson died in a skirmish defending the ferry. It is also possible that Jefferson died of disease. Within the Regiment, eight officers and 65 enlisted men were killed in battle or mortally wounded during the course of the war. Three officers and 241 enlisted men were lost to disease (https://military.wikia.org/wiki/30th_Iowa_Volunteer_Infantry_Regiment). This sad statistic speaks volumes to the conditions the enlisted men suffered outside the immediate threat of battle.

Union Cavalry Camp, Library of Congress.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Unidentified & The Bonham Mysteries

In 1860, John William and Penelope Bonham were living in Mountain Township, Polk County, Arkansas. Included in their household were their children, Mary, Frances, Nancy, and John, as well as Salitha Bonham (age 64) and Mack Bonham (age 18). John was 37 and Penelope 30. John and Penelope had married in Tennessee in 1847. In 1866, their baby girl, Louisa, was laid to rest along side Charity Bonham (a woman of 53) in what has come to be known as the Bonham Cemetery in Fannin County. Charity and Louisa died one month apart and share a headstone. The headstone establishes Charity as the wife of David Bonham and Louisa as the daughter of John and Penelope. John & Penelope Bonham are buried in Smyrna Cemetery and their descendants are the source of the family references stated here. These are the facts we can verify.

Family records indicate that the Bonhams left their home in Arkansas at the end of the Civil War and made their way via the Military Road to Fannin County where a sister of John’s was already living. This sister could be Casepha Bonham Cosner Allen, the 2nd wife of Wilson Bruce Allen, founder of Allen’s Chapel, though there are no definitive records establishing her relationship to John, and Casepha’s birthdate has been impossible to pin down. Some references place her birthdate in 1835, some in 1849. The first date places her in alignment as a possible sister to John, the second would make her more probably a daughter. In 1861, Sarah A. Bonham was married in Fannin County to James A. Wilson. She could also be the sister referred to. The family records indicate the sister was married to a doctor and James A. Wilson was a physician. These questions about the sister reflect the difficulty of pinning down information about John’s family. Was Salitha his mother? Mack and David his brothers? Charity’s birthdate precludes her being John’s mother, but John’s father was also named David, so Charity could be a step-mother, though she is generally accepted as a sister-in-law.

We are also left to wonder who was in the party that migrated from Arkansas to Texas. I cannot account for Salitha and Mack after the 1860 census. Mack, being in his prime, could easily have stayed behind or struck out on his own. Salitha would have been nearing 70. Did she make the journey? Had she died in Arkansas in the intervening years? Did she stay behind with Mack? Do she and Mack account for two of the unmarked graves in the Bonham Cemetery?

David and Charity’s story is another mystery. I have not been able to discover where they were living prior to Charity’s death here in Dec, 1865, despite scouring the census records for all Bonham’s in Arkansas and surrounding states for 1850 and 1860. Clearly Charity made the journey with the family from Arkansas. Did David come or had he died elsewhere? Could he be one of the unmarked graves? Though, if other members of the family were buried in the Bonham Cemetery why were there no markers for them, given the obvious love and care given to Charity’s and Louisa’s graves? Having exhausted all the clues and avenues that I could find or think of, I turned from the Bonham family to the question of what other families the unmarked graves might represent.

Local lore has it that the burials at the Bonham site were made by folks ‘passing through’. The burials themselves suggest the possibility of a group struck by catastrophe in what might be a temporary location. The graves are shallower and less sophisticated than those at the Wilks site, even though they are contempororary. It seemed clear that the migration from Arkansas might have been a group of several families traveling together, but it took a suggestion from a fellow history buff to give direction to that notion. He mentioned that traveling parties would often be made up of neighbors, the neighbors often being connected by marriage. His suggestion sent me back to the census records. Assuming that the census takers would work in an area, completing it before moving on to the next, I focused on the entries to either side of the Bonham’s in the 1860 Arkansas census. I searched the 1870 census for Fannin County for the surnames I found. I was hoping to find some of the people known to have been living near the Bonham’s in 1860 living in Fannin County in 1870, giving me a set of families to research further. Despite casting a wide net, I essentially struck out. I did find some of the same surnames, but none of the same individuals. For the moment, I am stymied and will have to let the mysteries be.

The grave of Charity & Louisa at the base of an enormous oak, decorated in the spring of 2018 by Ginger & Wanda, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Reinterment Site in Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Unidentified & The Wilks Mysteries

The overwhelming surprise when the Wilks and Bonham Cemeteries were disinterred was the number of unmarked graves found. What we had assumed to be the resting place of two well-marked families became a much more complicated situation. Like the Cagle family (see previous post) the outline of the Wilks family emerged early and seemed complete.  But again, my assumptions were called into question.

With the exception of Mary Wilks, whose grave was marked only by a metal funeral home stake, the Wilks graves had lovely tombstones - richly decorated and graceful, with touching symbols of birds, lambs, twining ivy, and clasped hands. Each stone was also graced with loving sentiments carved in script. Mary died in 1932 and was presumably the last of the family to be buried in the cemetery. While her grave was not given a stone, it remains hard to imagine any prior Wilks burial remaining unmarked given the beautiful tombstones standing witness to a family who honored their dead with great care.

But there are mysteries to be solved in the Wilks family just as there are in the Cagle family. The information in the historical record poses questions and the three unmarked graves lying between the Wilks and Cagle rows (see schematic below) beg explanation. These graves could be from either family or from neither family. Only the results of the scientific assessment of the remains will provide true closure. In the meantime, we can work to develop educated guesses as to who these souls might be and the records do provide some possibilities.

Gray markers indicate the relative position of the unmarked graves found. Yellow markers indicate the Cagle row. Green markers indicate the Wilks row.

Though the Wilks family did not buy the Cagle farm from Susan and Martin Cagle’s heirs until 1873, clearly the Wilks developed some association to the farm or the immediate surrounding area soon after arriving in Fannin County in 1865 (see newspaper article here regarding Fannin County Old Settlers Association meeting in Dodd City, Texas on Aug. 1-2, 1917, in which Milton Wilks is listed as having arrived in Texas in 1865). Margaret Wilks was buried in the Wilks Cemetery in 1869 and Thomas Wilks joined her there in 1871. Perhaps the Wilks were tenants of the Cagle heirs. Perhaps the cemetery was already in use at the time of Margaret’s death as a community cemetery rather than a private family cemetery. We do know that when the land was sold to the Wilks sons in 1873, 1/4 acre was held out of the original 214 acre land grant. Perhaps this quarter acre holdout is a reference to the cemetery.

The 1870 census for Thomas Wilks includes Cornelius Edwards, age 27, working as black smith, Sarah Edwards, age 26, keeping house, and Warren Edwards, age 3, in addition to sons Madison, Newton, and Milton Wilks, aged 19, 16. and 14, respectively. Thomas is listed as a farmer and the boys as farm laborers. The three graves between the Cagle and Wilks rows are those of children. With Cornelius and Sarah in their prime child bearing years, and given the rate at which young children were lost in that era, these could be Edwards graves.

Poking deeper into the census records related to the adult Wilks children, I found a reference in the 1880 census to Mattie Wilks, one-year-old daughter of Newton and Mary Wilks.  The 1890 census is missing and Mattie is not mentioned in the 1900 census, though she would have been 21 by this time and perhaps married. I’ve not found any reference to Mattie other than that one census entry. If Mattie died as a baby or young child, she could be lying in one of those unmarked graves. However, it would seem strange for her resting place to remain unmarked when the resting places of her little brothers are so beautifully marked.

In that same 1880 census record, the Newton Wilks household includes Tenny Martin, white, servant, age 7. Setting aside the heartache of imagining a seven year old servant, Tenny must be added to the list of possibilities. If she died young, an unmarked grave would seem consistent with the sad circumstances of her life.

Finally, we have the tragic case of Alvie Wilks. Alvie died at the age of 8 after being severely burned in an accident. Her mother also suffered severe burns while trying to save Alvie. The mother lived, but little Alvie succumbed. Alvie’s death certificate places her burial at the Wilks Cemetery but her grave was not among those marked. Either there is an error in her death certificate or she is one of our unidentified children. It stands to reason that she will be identified during the scientific assessment of the remains given the abundant family DNA available from well-marked close relatives disinterred, and the availability of living descendants of her family. It would be comforting to see her placed in a marked grave among her family when the remains are re-interred.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Unidentified & The Cagle Mysteries

In the Wilks Cemetery there was a beautiful monument to the “Family of S. C. and M. G. Cagle”.  Tall, monolithic, beautifully carved and inscribed all round, it marked what we came to term, “the Cagle Row”.  To the north of the monument were four small foot stones with the initials, “MSC”, “SHH”, “ESC”, and “MVC”.  To the south was a foot stone marked, “JHC”, for a total of seven expected graves.  The disinterment revealed eight graves in this row, only two of which we could be certain about - the graves of Susan Catherine Barkley Cagle and Martin Gaines Cagle.

Rubbings from the Cagle monument.

Based on the inscription on the monument, the ready assumption was that the foot stones with initials ending in “C” were Cagle children.  It also seemed certain that SHH, resting between MSC and ESC, was a family member. I set out early on to discover as much as I could about the Cagle family, and align the facts with the evidence in the Cemetery.

I was able to use familySearch.org to zero in on an 1850 census that seemed to establish the nuclear family as parents Martin and Susan, along with children Robert, Frances, Edward (or Edmond), Martin, and Mary.  Then I discovered an entry in the 1850 Fannin County Mortality Index, that established the existence of little Martha, dead in Sep, 1850 of scarlet fever, and my definition of the family expanded. 

In the 1860 census, Susan, age 44, Robert, age 23, Edward, age 19, Mary, age 13, and John, age 9, are listed. Martin Cagle (the senior) had died in 1852.  I had found uncorroborated evidence that Martin (the son) died at age 16, placing his death in 1860, though he is not listed in the 1860 Fannin County Mortality Index. His absence from the census seemed to support an early death, perhaps earlier than 1860. Frances had married in 1956 which explains her absence. John was not yet born at the time of the 1850 census. His presence in the 1860 census led me to expand my definition of the family again. (As a side note, the 1860 census also includes Willis Escue, age 21, a farm hand.)

I worked for months with this family roster - Martin and Susan and seven children, mapping the family members onto the marked graves in the “Cagle row” with a sense of certainty.  MSC and MVC I ascribed to Martha and son Martin. ESC and JHC I presumed to belong to Edward and John. SHH remained a mystery.

Then, months later, I found a memoir written by Frances Cagle’s husband, Thomas Hale, which stated, “…. To Mr. and Mrs. Cagle were born eight children: Frances, who is now Mrs. Hale; Robert; Edward; Martha, who died in childhood; John; Martin; Susan, deceased; and Mary, the wife of R. Russell.”   My conception of the family had to expand again to include Susan, who must have entered and left this world in between census years. This bit of information had the advantage of providing closure in a reliable way - there were eight children, a fact confirmed by a close and contemporary family member, well after the death of the parents, Martin & Susan.  The family roster was complete.  However, I still had no information on little Susan other than the fact of her existence. And I had found almost nothing about the sons that appeared to reach manhood - Robert, Edward, and John.

Martin and Susan married in May, 1836.  Robert was 12 years old in the 1850 census, placing his birth in 1838 or thereabouts.  Frances was born in May, 1839.   In the 1840 census for Lafayette, Arkansas, which does not list by name anyone other than Martin, the family consists of an adult male between the ages of 30 and 39, an adult female between the ages of 20-29, two children under the age of 5, and a female aged 15-19.  The teenager is a mystery, but the adults correspond to what we know about Martin and Susan, and the two children to what we know of Robert & Frances.  It is possible that daughter Susan was born in 1837 and died before the 1840 census was taken, however there is a user-submitted family tree on ancestry.com that places her birth in 1847.  If this is Susan’s correct birth year, she presumably died in Fannin County, though we have no record of her death.  If she had died in the same epidemic as Martha, surely she, too, would be listed in the 1850 Fannin County Mortality Index.  Why is there no foot stone in the cemetery corresponding to her initials?  Had she already been laid to rest when Little Martha died?  Could she have been laid to rest elsewhere?  It saddens me to think of the little sprite all but lost to history.

Tax records also provided valuable insight into the family circumstances.  After Martin’s death in 1852, the records clearly show that Susan continued as head of household and might even have expanded the family holdings.  The Fannin County tax rolls for 1857 show Susan assessed for 320 acres on the Sulphur River in addition to the 214 acre tract that held the Wilks Family Cemetery.   The 1864 Tax Rolls list the tracts as “Cagle, Susan, by T. C. Hale, Admin”, indicating that the land is still held by the family despite Susan’s death in 1861.  In 1865, both tracts are listed under Thomas C Hale. 

This was the extent of my information when I began looking at the Fannin County Probate Minutes. In Book E of the Probate Minutes, page 260, there is an entry dated, November 24, 1862, which states

“Guardianship of the minors Mary C. Cagle and John H. Cagle. It is ordered by the court that Thomas C. Hale be appointed guardian of the persons and property of John H. Cagle and Mary C. Cagle ( the said Mary C. having chosen in open court the said Thomas C. Hale) and that he give Bond in the sum of $1000. One thousand dollars each and that letters issue.“

At the time of this entry, Mary Cagle would have been sixteen years old and John eleven. Then on page 421 of the same book, minutes dated November 28, 1864 address the settlement of the estates of Susan Cagle, Edward Cagle, and Robert Cagle. The entry reads in part

“Thomas C Hale the admin of the estate of Susan C. Cagle, Edward C. Cagle and Robert Cagle dec’d would file herewith his final report for a settlement of said estates and ask to be discharged from all further liability as admin. He states that there are but three heirs to the said estates viz Frances D. Hale the wife of this admin & the minors Mary C Cagle and John H Cagle.”

With this document we have confirmation of the deaths of Edward and Robert at some point prior to November, 1864, and a strong indication that they died without descendants, their siblings being their only heirs. The absence of any mention of son Martin, is a strong indication that he, indeed, died sometime prior to the death of his mother. Furthermore, we have confirmation that John H. Cagle is still living in late 1864.

In Book V, of the Deed Records, page 492, in an entry dated August 11, 1873, the sale of the 214 acres of the Wilks Cemetery tract by the Cagle heirs to Madison, Newton, and Milton Wilks is recorded. The signatories to this document are Thomas C. Hale, Frances D. (Cagle) Hale, R. F. Russell, and Mary C. (Cagle) Russell, leaving us to wonder still about the fate of young John. In 1873 John Cagle, if living, would have been a young man of 22. Does his absence as signatory to this deed indicate that he had died sometime between 1864 and 1873? Hoping to find more of his story I returned to the County Clerk’s Office to investigate the death records - records I had not yet dipped into. I went prepared to carefully search the death records from 1844 - 1873 - from a year prior to the date I believed the Cagles to have arrived in the area through the year of the sale of the Cagle property to the Wilks. I hoped to find more information about the deaths of the Cagle children. I hoped to find references to the burial place of Martin Gaines and Susan Catherine, a reference that might prove useful in understanding the history of what became the Wilks Cemetery. Sadly, what I found was that we do not have death records in Fannin County prior to 1903.

Regarding the foot stones in the Cemetery, the assumption that those with initials ending in “C” line up with children Martha, Martin, Edward, and John is not disputed by the facts, though the facts do not provide certain proof either. “SHH” is still a mystery - perhaps a member of the Hale family - and the unmarked grave even more obscure. Unless some unexpected breakthrough comes my way in my research, we will have to wait for what science and DNA can tell us.

There is an interesting side note that came out of this research. In the record of the transfer of the land to the Wilks, the document describes the property as

“…on Bois D’Arc Creek containing two hundred and fourteen acres less one fourth of an acre surveyed by virtue of the headright certificate of James Kerr…”. 

I can’t help but wonder if that 1/4 acre exclusion is our cemetery, and whether that indicates that it was, in 1873, seen as a community cemetery rather than a family cemetery on private land.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Unidentified

As we wait for the first bit of scientific information to emerge from Dr. Whitely and her team about the remains removed from the Wilks and Bonham Cemeteries, I want to explore several lines of inquiry that could shed light on the unidentified remains found. These lines of inquiry include looking at the occupation of the land, the families on the surrounding properties, the early road systems in the area, and further details and gaps related to the information we have about the Cagle, Wllks, and Bonham families.

To begin that effort, I pulled all the known burials in Fannin County dating from 1838 to 1852 from the Fannin County GenWeb site. I used these dates because 1838 is the earliest recorded burial in Fannin County and Martin Cagle, the first fully documented burial in the Wilks & Bonham Cemeteries, was buried in 1852.  The initial on-site assessment of the removal team was that the burials to the east of the Cagle row in the Wilks Cemetery were older graves, so my focus was on the period prior to Martin Cagle’s death. My intent was to map the ‘hotspots’ of early Fannin County settlement by locating where the known burials were, hoping that the pattern produced might provide clues as to these early Wilks Cemetery graves. The surnames of other early burials in the area would, I thought, provide good starting points for further research. I used the map of all known cemeteries in Fannin County from the GenWeb site as my starting point. The result for the northeastern part of the County is show below, with the current path of Bois d’Arc Creek highlighted.

There are a few scattered locations along Red River, and then a concentrated area south and east of Bois D’Arc Creek.  The only known burials in the 1838-1852 time frame along the western side of Bois D’Arc Creek are those at the Wilks Cemetery itself (dark red dot on the map).  The Wilks Cemetery stands conspicuously alone. Certainly there are burial grounds we will never know about where the only markers were wooden posts that have completely disappeared, but it seems likely these would be in proportion to the marked graves that have remained. And perhaps this pattern should not be surprising, illustrating early settlements spreading into the area from the more established communities to the east, overland and along the River.

Studying this map, I began to think about how one would choose a burial ground for a loved one in frontier conditions. If there was a community cemetery in a given location, how wide an area was it likely to serve? What distance was considered nearby, what distance a long journey? To what extent would the area creeks limit travel in a time of few roads? These sorts of questions led me to the creation of another map.

Base map from “Texas Land Survey Maps for Fannin County”, by Gregory A. Boyd, J. D., used with permission of the publisher.

In this one, I highlighted the major creeks (in red) on a map of original land grant awardees, estimating the original course of the creeks prior to the creation of Coffee Mill Lake (in light purple). A ‘basin’ of sorts emerged (highlighted in pink) around the Wilks & Bonham cemeteries. The headright names provide a starting point for the original claimants of the land, and the creeks a reasonable boundary of an extended community.

In an attempt to put the ‘basin’ in context within the larger land area and the earliest settlements in Fannin County, and to explore the distances between them, I created a third map. Using the Google Earth app, I drew a five mile radius around key areas. I am told by old-timers from the Carson area, that even in the early 20th century a trip to Bonham was a two day affair in horse-drawn wagon. One day was dedicated to the drive into town and taking care of business. By then it was late, and folks would stay over night then start the journey home the next morning. Given the well established road system at that time, I felt safe in assuming that a five mile journey in an area of few roads would be a significant distance.

These maps have given me a lot to think about and a wealth of questions to pursue. They will guide and inform my research going forward as we piece together as much as we can of the story of the Unidentified.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Disinterment of the Graves, Part III

On March 6, 2019, we return again to the Cemeteries. The work is complete at the Wilks site and the Bonham site is now yielding up its own set of surprises. The Bonham site holds not two graves, but twenty-three graves. Charity and Louisa Bonham have not been alone after all. We arrive in the early morning to an enormous work area from which twenty-one burials have been recovered. A recovery is underway under a pavilion, and one last burial shaft remains to be addressed.

Bonham site in early light, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The remains at the Bonham site are not as well preserved as the remains at the Wilks site, tending to be bone fragments rather than whole skeletons. The soil at the Wilks site is better drained and less acidic, and there was less damage there from the overgrowth of forest. As at the Wilks site, many of the burials are of infants and children. The graves, generally, are more shallow, and in one case an adult and two children were found in the same grave shaft. It is easy to read these as hasty burials and to speculate that perhaps they are the result of an overwhelming epidemic of some sort. The DNA work on these remains will be more difficult due to the deteriorated condition of the bodies, and we must hope that sufficient information can be retrieved to shed some light on these families. Some grave artifacts have been found, including ruby red beads, some buttons, and some pins. In one of the better preserved cases, the individual found is estimated to have been about 6’ 3” tall, unusually tall for the era.

The graves at the Bonham site are more randomly placed, but there is some organization along 6 irregular rows. Charity and Louisa are the westernmost burials. Then in a staggered row to the east of them are 4 graves, one to the north and three to the south. Continuing to move to the east, the next row has 4 graves - 2 at the northern end of the perimeter and 2 to the south beyond a sizable gap. The next row is the most regular with 8 burials in a line. The next row has 3 widely spaced graves, and the final row has one grave. The following schematic is illustrative, but not to scale.

For illustrative purposes only.

In the final count, 34 graves were recovered from the Wilks Cemetery, 23 from the Bonham Cemetery. Of 57 graves, 34 were unmarked. The 23 burials at the Bonham site included 8 adults, 3 juveniles/adults (could be teenagers or small adults), and 12 infants.  At the Wilks site there were 13 adults, 9 juveniles, and 12 infants/toddlers.  (These numbers are courtesy of AR Consultants and are based on what they observed in the field. They may change after they conduct their complete analysis.) Perhaps the biggest job is only just now beginning with the effort of trying to identify as many of the unknown remains as possible.

Emptied grave, Bonham Site, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Ginger documenting the Bonham Site, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Bonham Site, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

After visiting the Bonham site, we walk down to the Wilks site. In the relentless march of time, it is no more. The Texas Historical Commission has been asked to release the site, and once this release is given, the clay soil found there will be harvested for use in building the dam.

Final view of the Wilks Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Walking from the Wilks Site out towards what will be the basin of the lake, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Looking to the future, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The re-interment of the recovered remains will not begin for some months - not until the scientific work back in the lab is complete. So we leave our friends in Dr. Whitley’s capable hands with a whispered blessing. We will remember.

Wilks Cemetery as we knew it, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Bonham Family Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Disinterment of the Graves, Part II

On December 6, 2018, Jeff McKito arranges another visit to the Wilks Cemetery disinterment. In the weeks since we were last on site in October, the number of unmarked graves has grown from ten to thirteen. There is an unexpected grave in the Cagle family row, and there are two additional burials to the east of the row of unmarked graves previously discovered. These plus the 3 burials between the Wilks & Cagle rows brings the total to thirteen.

In addition to the unmarked graves, there are a couple of other surprises. The grave marked by the Bois d’Arc posts - the grave that we had speculated might be that of Alvie Wilks - was found to be empty. I asked Cody if it was possible that the remains had decayed to dust and he did not think that likely. The remains of one-day-old, Infant Son Wilks, had been found in excellent condition. If the remains of a newborn buried in 1881 were intact, then any burial in the cemetery should have some discernible remains. He thinks it truly was a false grave. We are left to ponder when the Bois d’Arc markers were added, by whom, and why they believed they were marking a grave. Who did they intend to honor and why had the true location of that person’s burial site been lost?

In the Cagle row, one of the graves marked by a foot stone was also empty, though the total number of graves in the row was one more than expected. This an indication that perhaps the Cagle monument and markers were also added at some later time, as they are out of alignment with the actual burials. 


Second visit to excavation, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Recovery team at work, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Taking measurements, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

At this point the layout of the cemetery precedes from east to west in five irregular rows. At the extreme east are two graves, followed to the west by a row of seven graves. Then we have the row of marked and unmarked Cagle graves, eight in total. Wedged between the Cagle row and the Wilks row, the westernmost, are three graves, all of children or babies. The Wilks row contains fourteen graves as expected, all marked, making a total of 34 graves at the Wilks Cemetery site.

For illustrative purposes only.

The easternmost graves are thought to be the oldest burials. Moving from east to west the burials are more decadent - fancier caskets and coffins, more buttons, etc. Coffin and casket screws, found in abundance, and very identifiable right down to the manufacturer, will provide important details about the approximate timing of the unexpected burials once the team is back in the lab and can analyze them. The timing of the burials will be a critically important clue when forming hypotheses about who these people might be and how their story fits into the overall picture. Imagine - something as humble as the screw that affixed the lid may hold an answer to some of the mysteries here. The idea fills me with a sense of wonder and irony.

Other details serve to bring into focus the living people who were resting here. One of the children from the Cagle row shows severe remodeling of the bones, indicating a serious, long-term infection. One of the adults from the Wilks row suffered from gall stones. Thomas Wilks had broken his leg at some point well before his death, and most probably walked with a limp, one leg being noticeably shorter than the other. The hair of Margaret Wilks and of an adult female in the Cagle row were dressed with hair pins. Florence Wilks’ hair was arranged with a decorative comb. One of the coffins showed clear traces of white paint. But the most heart breaking of all the grave artifacts is the little red pocket knife in the shape of a dog buried with 8-year-old Charles Jefferson Wilks. It so embodies the love and the grief with which his parents laid him to rest and reminds us all of our common humanity.

Though there is some scraping still to do to the south and west, we are told that the pattern of graves found so far makes it unlikely that more graves will be found at the Wilks site. Furthermore, no graves have been found outside the fenced area of the Cemetery. Strangely enough, before the disinterment began, that was precisely where we thought we might find unmarked graves.

Detail of scraping, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Sections cleared, section remaining, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

As we are preparing to leave, Cody gives us an update on the Bonham site. The work there has not yet begun. With reassurance from Jeff that he will keep us posted, we drag ourselves away.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Disinterment Of The Graves, Part I

On September, 12, 2018, Jeff McKito, Public Relations Specialist for North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) invited Ginger & I, along with Larry Standlee, representing the Fannin County Historical Commission, to visit the Wilks Cemetery site. We were escorted by Fain Butler, Assistant Construction Manager, NTMWD. The detailed mapping of the cemetery had been completed, and the tombstones were scheduled to be removed the next day in preparation for the beginning of the disinterment. This would be our goodbye visit.

The disinterment would involve a number of steps, moving from the use of chainsaws and tractors to painstaking work done with gentle brushes. The first step would be to cut all vegetation at ground level and remove it in a perimeter extending 25 feet from the line of the existing fence in all directions. Then, section by section, the earth within that cleared area would be removed in progressive layers using heavy equipment to scrape off a few inches at a time. During this scraping process, the team would be watching for telltale changes in the color of the earth indicating a grave shaft. Once one or more grave shafts in an area were found, the scraping would stop. All grave shafts identified would be flagged and covered by a plastic tarp, to be addressed one by one. As each grave became the target of work, a sheltering pavilion would be erected over the area, the shaft carefully measured, and the soil slowly removed by shovel. Once coffin wood was struck, the work would shift again - to finer tools and yet more careful processes of slowly working deeper into the grave using archeological recovery methods. As the work progressed, all coffin hardware, coffin wood, artifacts such as buttons, fragments of clothing, jewelry, etc, and skeletal remains would be painstakingly documented, gently removed, and carefully stored. Even burial dirt would be saved to be reinterred.

As we stood in the cemetery, cleared of all small vegetation and peppered with pink flags, the realization that this really was the beginning of the end pressed in on me. The reality of this transition had been sinking in by degrees for weeks, and now the day had finally come.

Graves surveyed and marked in advance of removal of the stones, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Our last view of the Wilks Cemetery intact, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

In mid-October, we received the news that, though the scraping was not yet complete at the Wilks Cemetery site, ten unexpected and unmarked graves had already been discovered. This was our first indication that so much of what we thought we knew about the Cemetery was about to be turned on its ear. On October, 23, Jeff invited us back out to the Cemetery to visit the disinterment in progress. Mitch Harrison, Senior Construction Inspector, NTMWD, is our guide for this visit and we pile into his pickup for the drive from the Foremen’s barn to the site. It has been raining incessantly, and there is standing water in the bottom. The fields are wet and we almost get stuck in one place. Then suddenly we are there. The Cemetery is an exposed spot now - not a hidden glade - and I don’t realize just how close we are until we are on top of it. 


First glimpse of the disinterment, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

A pit encompasses the northeast section of the cemetery. Around its edge are heaps of excavated dirt and heavy equipment. In the pit, there are canopies covering work areas and plastic sheeting covering exposed grave shafts yet to be worked. My first reaction is shock and I find myself near tears, but as I walk up to the edge of the excavation, sadness gives way to scientific wonder.

The initial excavation, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

The pit itself is terraced somewhat due to there being grave shafts discovered at differing depths.


Detail of terraces, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Cody Davis, Project Manager and Principal Investigator, AR Consultants, who is responsible for the cemetery removal and relocation effort, greets us as we approach and leads us into the pit. Under the canopies two graves are being painstakingly emptied by teams with hand tools. Another grave is being reduced by thin shovelfuls of dirt from exposed grave shaft to burial site. The graves being emptied are those of Mary Wilks (d. 1932) and Margaret Wilks (d. 1869). Charles Jefferson Wilks (d. 1896) has already been removed and his grave shaft is now a shallow, rectangular indentation in the ground. Cody tells me that his body was very well preserved, that the clay soil enhances preservation. The bodies of Mary and Margaret are also in exceptionally good shape. Mary was buried with her glasses on her face and they are in perfect condition. The shell buttons from Mary’s dress are visible as scattered points of white against the dark earth.

Recovery team at work, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Recovery team at work, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Recovery team at work, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The empty grave of Charles Jefferson Wilks, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Outline of grave identified, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The ten unexpected graves found so far are in two rows. The graves of three children lie between the Cagle family row and the Wilks family row. Seven graves lie in a row to the east of the Cagle family row. Are these additional families? Are they additional members of the Wilks and Cagle families that our research has not revealed? Dr. Catrina Whitley, a bio-archaeologist from Southern Methodist University, is the leader of the team removing the remains. In addition to the disinterment, Dr. Whitley's team will be doing the scientific analysis and DNA work on the remains found here. The value of that work has taken on a whole new significance with the presence of the unmarked graves. With luck she will be able to pinpoint gender, age at time of death, cause of death, when the burial occurred, and family affiliation.

The work is fascinating and the care with which it is being done reassuring. As we walk around and talk to the team members, it is abundantly clear that everyone on the site is engaged in a labor of love and deeply respects the nature of the work they are doing. Despite the cold, wet conditions they have been working in almost from the beginning, everyone is cheerful, friendly, and eager to share their findings. We leave with a tentative plan to be back before Thanksgiving, weather and schedules permitting.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Land that Became the Cemetery

The story of the Wilks Cemetery is a story of the Kerr, Cagle, and Wilks families.  It begins in the earliest days of the Republic of Texas with the arrival of Robert Kerr.

On the basis of his 2nd Class headright, Robert Kerr arrived in Texas with his family between March 3, 1836 and September 30, 1837.  The family included three sons that would claim their own grants.  Yelverton (b. 1814) and Levi (b.1815) were in their early twenties in 1837, and each received 2nd Class land grants themselves as single men.  The grants to Robert, Yelverton, and Levi are recorded in Abstracts #609 (1280 acres), #610 (640 acres), and #606 (640 acres), respectively.  The three tracts are located north of an imaginary line from Ivanhoe to Telephone.  Yelverton’s and Levi’s tracts are adjacent to one another, and Robert’s is a bit to the north.

Son, James (b.1821), would have turned 16 at some point during 1837 - too young to meet the requirement to file as a single man for a 2nd class grant. His is a 3rd class grant issued to single men, 17 years or older, who resided in the Republic of Texas prior to January 1, 1840.  That he claimed his land rights later is also reflected in the fact that the land he gained title to is in multiple parcels, both miles distant from the lands of his father and brothers. James was issued Conditional Certificate #142 on January 2,1840.  Under this certificate, he was entitled to 320 acres of public land in Fannin County.  Conditional certificates were not issued for particular tracts of land, were not negotiable or transferrable, and were predicated on the grantee demonstrating three years of responsible citizenship before applying for the Unconditional Certificate that freed them from all restrictions on ownership.  The grantee had to locate the land he wanted to claim and have it surveyed himself.   Apparently he could stake his claim and exercise all ordinary rights of ownership during the three year conditional period.  As a 3rd Class Grantee, he could also just hold onto the right without having identified or invested in any particular piece of land (4th Class grants required that at least 10 acres of the claimed land be cultivated).

We don’t know when James identified the land he would claim, but he received Unconditional Certificate #150 on May 5, 1845, some five years after receiving his Conditional Certificate.  Under Certificate #150, he was granted patents (title) to two tracts of land at two different times, the first title not being granted until some months after he received his Unconditional Certificate.  It is easy to read into the delay of the Conditional Certificate, and the further delay between it and the first patent, the behavior of a young man growing into adult responsibilities.  But it is equally possible that he had actively claimed and worked his land  from the date of the Unconditional Certificate in 1840.

James’ first patent was to 106 acres located six miles southwest of Bonham.  James received patent to this tract on November 9, 1845. It is recorded in the County records as Abstract #613.  Patent was granted to the remaining 214 acres he was due on February 9, 1846 under Abstract #614.  The Wilks Cemetery is located on this tract, and using the abstract number and the tax rolls, it is possible to trace the ownership of the land that would eventually contain the cemetery as it changed hands over the years. 

Abstract data overlaid on Google Earth image, abstract data from EarthPoint.

James Kerr first appears on the tax rolls of Fannin County in 1843 when he was assessed a poll tax.  In 1845 he was taxed for 320 acres of land and two head of cattle.  He disappears from the rolls in 1846.  His 106 acre tract is, in 1846, in the possession of his brother, Yelverton.  Martin Gaines Cagle is assessed the taxes in 1846 for the 214 acre tract originally patented to James.   I haven’t been able to determine what happened to James after 1846.  While his father and brothers continue to figure prominently in the records of Fannin County, there is no record of him marrying, establishing a family, or owning other property in the county.  He was a young man of 25 - he might have simply sold out and moved on in a quest for greater opportunities. 

The 214 acre tract which now holds the Wilks Cemetery continues to appear on the tax rolls under Martin Cagle’s name for the next several years, passing to Susan Cagle after Martin’s death in 1852.  Though Susan died in 1861, the land is still on the tax rolls under Susan’s name in 1864, with a note that it is registered by her son-in-law, Thomas C. Hale (husband of daughter Frances) as administrator of her estate.  In 1865, the land is listed under the name, Thomas C. Hale, without any additional notes referencing Susan. Susan and Martin Cagle’s sons disappear from the records during the years of the Civil War. Perhaps in 1864 there was still some hope of at least one of them coming home to claim his inheritance. By 1865, the estate had apparently been settled in favor of Frances and her husband.

There is then a gap in the records.  The 1866 tax roll is silent for Abstract #614 and the records for 1867-1876 have not been available for search.  The tract reappears in the rolls for 1877-1879, registered to Matt Wilks and brothers, Newton and Milton Wilks.  This leads to conjecture that the land was sold by Thomas Hale to Thomas Wilks when the Wilks arrived in the area in 1865-866, Thomas’ sons inheriting it from him when he died in 1871.  In the 1880 tax roll, the three brothers are listed as tax payers, but with no land.  Tax is assessed to them based on personal property, horses and cattle.  In 1885, Newton owns a tract out of the M. J. Evans Survey to the southwest of the Wilks Cemetery site.  By 1894, all three brothers own small tracts in that area.  

The next steps in this process are to 1) address the gap mentioned above to confirm the transfer of the land to the Wilks, and 2) to identify who purchased the land from the Wilks. Addressing the gap is going to take some extended legwork. Then there is the 1880 tax roll to search. It comprises some 400+ pages, and the search by abstract number is one I have to do with my eyes, so it must wait for another day as well.  In any case, by 1880, the Cemetery was a well-established burial ground so the specific land ownership is perhaps less informative.  From the point of government owned wilderness to cemetery, the tale of the land is the tale of the Kerrs, the Cagles, and the Wilks.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Contacting NTMWD

Ginger and I had been shown where the Wilks Cemetery was by Mike Barbaro, and been given access to his land for our cemetery visits.  On some level we knew that the cemetery was, at that point, actually owned by North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD), but until construction started Mike seemed to remain in control of what had been his land and his permission to visit seemed relevant and sufficient to us.  After construction began, we knew that we had to gain the support of NTMWD if our project was to be successful.  And, as the clearing of the dam and basin area continued, the need to ask for that support became increasingly more urgent.  I had reached out early on to Larry Standlee, member of the Fannin County Historical Commission and local graveyard expert, for information about the Wilks Cemetery.  In mid-July, we learned from Larry that NTMWD would be presenting a petition to the Fannin County District Court regarding the removal of the remains - that, in fact, a court order was necessary to begin the disinterment process.  We attended that hearing and while waiting for it to begin were introduced, for the first time, to folks from NTMWD.  They were open, welcoming, and friendly, and we left the hearing optimistic about gaining official support for our project.  We also learned at that meeting that the removal would be handled by a professional bio-archaeology team under the direction of a respected professor in the discipline from SMU.  Having had no idea what to expect, we were relieved to learn of the detailed legal requirements and the great respect, care, and scientific rigor the team intended to bring to the relocation of the burial sites.

Judge Blake did not grant the court order at that hearing.  She asked for additional information and scheduled a follow-up hearing for August 1, 2018.  Ginger and I attended that followup hearing, and again were able to visit with NTMWD staff while waiting for the case to be called.  We met Cody Davis, the NTMWD consultant who is in charge of both the cemetery removals and the Riverby mitigation project, along with his colleague, Dr. Allen Skinner.  Cody talked to us about having worked on the reservoir project for close to ten years.  From him we learned a bit about the lab work and DNA analysis that will occur in the lab at SMU before the disinterred remains are reburied, work that would be especially important if any unmarked graves were found.  He also explained that the disinterment process itself would take weeks, perhaps months. 

Ginger and I left the hearing and drove out to Carson to check on the progress of construction. The images below are from that drive. They illustrate how quickly the area had changed from the beginning of June to the beginning of August, and perhaps evoke the sense of urgency Ginger and I were feeling. The pace of change was accelerating rapidly.

First sight of dam being built across from Mr Foreman’s land, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Along FM1396 towards Carson, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Along FM1396 towards Carson, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Along FM1396 towards Carson, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

On CR2705, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Tranquil still, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Encouraged by the two casual visits we’d had with NTMWD staff and consultants at the hearings, Ginger and I drove to NTMWD headquarters in Wiley on Aug. 27, 2018 to discuss our project with Jeff McKito, Public Relations Specialist.  We laid out our vision and asked for permission to continue our work.  Jeff gave generously of his time, asked engaging questions, and seemed genuinely interested.  He asked for time to circulate our plans a bit internally and get back to us. We left feeling buoyed by a good meeting and a hopeful prospect. 

On Sept. 10, 2018, a Monday, we learned that the District would support our project.  We also learned that the disinterment would begin on Wednesday, Sept., 12, with the removal of the tombstones for safe keeping.  We were invited to go out to the Cemetery with Jeff on the 12th for our last visit to the intact site - the closing of an important chapter in our journey had arrived.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Day Reality Bit

Earlier in this series of stories, I recounted the ritual Ginger and I observed in early June of 2018 of decorating the graves in the Bonham and Wilks Cemeteries.  I mentioned that we were following in the path of rituals we had been a part of as children as our elders gathered at the cemetery to clean and decorate the family graves, but I did not mention another factor that prompted our own ritual.  Ginger and I were first introduced to the Wilks Cemetery at the end of March.  By the end of May, we had been spending nearly every Sunday morning there, taking pictures, videotaping the walk into, through, and out of the cemetery, drawing a schematic of the layout, making rubbings and impressions of the stones, and simply communing with one another, Mother Nature, and the departed.  We knew that construction of the Lake was imminent and we wanted to absorb the place into our souls while it was still intact.  In fact, on some level the lake remained a distant possibility for me.  Even though we had seen survey stakes since mid-April and orange fencing had gone up around the cemetery sites in late April, I could not fully grasp the concept of this glade giving way to a lake. 

First Sign - Wilks Cemetery, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Survey Stakes Begin to Appear, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Orange Fencing Around Bonham Site, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

On June 1, 2018, we drove out for a visit - it was a Friday, and I don’t recall why we had picked that day to go.  It must have simply fit our schedule for that week.  We went very early in order to beat the heat, arriving at Mike Barbaro’s gate just after 7am.  We immediately noticed what I thought was fog or mist wafting up just over the rise beyond Mike’s barn.  I thought it must be moisture rising from the pond that lay in that direction, but as we closed the gate and pulled up a bit further we gained a view to what it actually was.  It was smoke from smoldering piles of uprooted trees.  A great swath of land had been bulldozed.  The construction of the dam had begun in earnest.  The reality hit hard.  Suddenly the construction of the lake was not an abstract conjecture, but an overwhelming reality.

It Begins, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Side by Side, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

In juxtaposition to the devastation cutting widely through the land, Mother Nature was unfurled in all her glory.  The wild flowers were beautiful, especially the Queen Anne’s Lace and Black Eyed Susan gracing the meadows.  We saw several skunks, a squirrel, a hawk, and a great blue heron.  A woodpecker was busy at work in a tree in the cemetery.  Birdsong surrounded us as we quietly worked.

Looking back toward Wilks Cemetery from Hillside, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wilks Cemetery Road, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Road from Wilks Cemetery, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Near Wilks Cemetery, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

In the car on the way home, Ginger suggested that we decorate the graves, and began to outline her ideas for doing so.  We were back on Sunday, June 3, with ribbon, stakes, wire, and tools, and with letters to the departed.  We gathered wildflowers from the meadows to make the bouquets, and used the staked bouquets to pin the letters to each grave.  It was our way of acknowledging that we had to say goodbye, and likely very soon.

Today, anyone driving along FM 1396 or CR 2700 is familiar with the clearing that has taken place in what will be the basin of Bois d’ Arc Lake and with the active construction of the dam.  That day in early June marked a pivot point in our story, and in the story of Fannin County.  As it turned out, we would continue to have unfettered access to the Cemetery until early September, much longer than we anticipated on that June morning, but we have had to say goodbye.  By early September, the close encroachment of heavy construction activities to the location of the cemetery made safety a legitimate concern, and the beginning of the disinterment made securing the site necessary.  Our visits since then have been at the gracious invitation of North Texas Municipal Water District - visits we’ll outline in upcoming posts.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

The Cagle Family

In mid-October, 2018, I was contacted by Julia Cagle Ryder who thought she might be descended from the Cagle family buried in the Wilks cemetery.  She filled me in on her family history as I took careful notes.  Then I jumped into the genealogy databases to see what I could find.  Her line was fairly easy to trace - the family information she had provided was very detailed and corroborating records plentiful.  I traced her line to a Charles Cagle, born in 1791 in Cabarrus County, North Carolina.  Martin Gaines Cagle, the patriarch of the Wilks Cemetery Cagles, was born in Cabarrus County, North Carolina in 1809.  It seemed likely that there had to be some tie between the families, but Martin’s line was harder to trace with certainty. After hours and hours of research I still cannot pin down the parents of Martin with complete confidence, though I believe him to be the child of Jacob and Catherine Cagle, and Jacob to be the child of John Francis and Mary Cagle. If these connections are correct, Julia is descended from an uncle of Martin.

Julia’s family history is fascinating. Her great-grandparents were Gertrude Cagle and William Griffin Sandeaux, a French Canadian. William anglicized his name to Sanders, and then, after he killed a man stealing from his coal supply, took his wife’s maiden name as his surname. Gertrude and William’s son, Charles Cagle (aka, Charles Lee Sanders) was killed in the Centralia, Illinois mine explosion on March 25, 1947, and the Cagle family name is mentioned more than once in the annals of Bloody Williamson County. In addition, family lore places Julia’s grandmother, Mary Langan, wife of Charles Lee Cagle, as a descendent of Geronimo.

From left to right, grandfather, Charles Cagle, grandmother, Mary Langan Cagle, and father, Roy Cagle. Photos courtesy of Julia Cagle Ryder.

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The search for links between Julia’s family tree and the family of Martin Gaines Cagle eventually led me to a more detailed understanding of Martin’s story. Martin appears on the Madison County, Tennessee tax rolls in 1827, the first record I found of him outside his birthplace in North Carolina. He wed Susan Catherine Barkley in Hardeman County, Tennessee on May 25, 1836. By 1838 he had again migrated west. He was appointed postmaster of Dalton on Red River, Hempstead County, Arkansas Territory in that year. Combing through the records, I found family stories that further portray him as a man of standing and enterprise, stating, “[He] built a house on bluff of the Red River. His interests included a hotel and operating the Red River Ferry, operating a tavern, also serving as a Justice of the Peace.”

Though possibly there somewhat earlier, by 1845 he had taken up residence in Lamar County, Texas, his presence there marked by the birth of this daughter, Martha. The next year, he made his final move, to Fannin County, Texas. His daughter, Mary, was born in Fannin County in 1846 and he was laid to rest in the Wilks Cemetery in 1852 at the age of 43.

From a biography written in 1906 of Thomas Hale, Martin’s son-in-law, we learn:

“ [Martin] was an early settler of Arkansas. For a number of years he operated a ferry boat and warehouse at Fulton, Arkansas, and subsequently removed to Lamar, Texas, where he developed a good farm. A number of years later he sold that property and took up his abode in Fannin county, where he purchased a fine tract of land, on which he made his home until his death. He was a leading member of the Methodist church, served as a local minister for many years and lived the life of a devoted, upright Christian gentleman. His political allegiance was given [to] the Democracy. His business affairs were so capably and energetically managed that he acquired a competence for old age and at all times he enjoyed the respect and esteem of his fellow men by reason of his upright business methods. His wife was a daughter of Robert Barkley, a farmer of Tennessee, who removed to Arkansas, and was killed in the Mexican war. He died in the faith of the Methodist church, of which he had long been a member. …. To Mr. and Mrs. Cagle were born eight children: Frances, who is now Mrs. Hale; Robert; Edward; Martha, who died in childhood; John; Martin; Susan, deceased; and Mary, the wife of R. Russell.”

Migration of Martin Gaines Cagle. Map via Creative Commons license (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki).

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Finding Living Descendants - The Bonham Family

Shortly after our project went public with the launch of this web site, I was contacted by my friend, Nancy Vermillion, to tell me that she was related to the descendants of John & Penelope Bonham, the parents of little Louisa Bonham. It was a thrilling breakthrough after weeks of unsuccessful research. On October 14, Ginger and I met Nancy at Willow Wild and she took us on a tour of the Bonham family burials there. We started at the plot that James Bonham had purchased for himself, his late wife Elaine, and the reburial of Louisa and Charity Bonham. Elaine’s body had already been moved to the new plot from her resting place in California. The tombstone commemorating Charity and Louisa had also been relocated from the Bonham Family Cemetery though their bodies had not yet been disinterred.

James Bonham plot in Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Charity & Louisa Bonham headstone and foot stones in Bonham plot in Willow Wild, to the right of the headstone of Elaine and James Bonham, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Charity & Louisa Bonham headstone, cleaned and in its new location, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Visit to Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

While at Willow Wild, we also visited the burial of James Bonham’s parents, Willam A. and Marye M. Erwin Bonham. William Arthur Bonham was the son of John William Bonham Jr., and grandson of John and Penelope Bonham. Though none of the children of William and Marye currently live in Texas, Nancy mentioned that the family was planning to gather in Bonham in November for a memorial service for Elaine, Charity, and Louisa. She agreed to make introductions and try to arrange a meeting for us with them. We were very hopeful, but also mindful of the fact that the family would be here for a short time and for a specific purpose. We said goodbye to Nancy with fingers crossed.

Resting place of Marye Erwin and William Arthur Bonham in Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

On Nov. 3, 2018, I had the immense pleasure of meeting with the Bonham family around the dining room table at Granny Lou’s. James and John Bonham, sons of William and Marye were present, as was the widow of their brother Arthur Erwin Bonham, along with wives and cousins of their generation. The next younger generation of the family was also generously represented. We shared research, family stories, photographs, and fellowship. The family has a treasure trove of history, first compiled by William Arthur Bonham in the early 1980’s and updated by Arthur Erwin Bonham in 1992. One of those treasures, Arthur Bonham’s memories of the farm south of Bonham can be read here. The farm was near Bonham State Park. The house was built by Arthur’s father, John William Bonham Jr, son of John and Penelope Bonham, and brother of Louisa Bonham.

Photos courtesy of Janice Bonham West.

Bonham Family Farm in 1914-1915, photo courtesy of the Bonham family..

Bonham Family Farm as it appeared in 1992 during a previous family reunion, photo courtesy of the Bonham family.

Marye Erwin and William Arthur Bonham on their honeymoon in 1925, photo courtesy of the Bonham family.

The family lore shared around the table was fascinating. John Bonham was born in the early 1800’s (the family pegs the date as no later than 1820) in North Carolina, the son of David and Charlotte (aka Charity) Bonham, who had arrived in North Carolina in approximately 1810, coming from Europe as a married couple. In addition to John, their children included Sam, Bill, and an unnamed daughter. David Bonham was lost in the Seminole Wars and his body was never recovered. Sam was similarly lost near the Great Salt Lake in another, later, encounter with hostile Indians near the end of the Civil War. Curiously, there is a reference in 1832 to a Charity Bonham in a Bastardy Bond registered in New Hanover County, North Carolina, indicating that she might have had a child with no confirmed paternity or family support. Was the child truly born out of wedlock, or did this stem from the loss of her husband, and therefore her means of support? Charity’s fellow bondsmen were Joseph Eakins and Williams Moore, neither of whom can be directly related to the Bonham family, and the record provides no other details.

John and Penelope Boone Bonham came to Texas at the end of the Civil War from Mena, Arkansas by way of the Military Road. They owned several slaves, but expected to be separated from them at the first military checkpoint, and so left them behind. They chose their Fannin County destination because a sister of John Bonham was already settled here, married to a Dr. Allen.

When asked the obvious question about our namesake Alamo hero, the family says no kinship to James Butler Bonham has ever been found, though John’s wife, Penelope, was a relative of Daniel Boone.

The family history is rich and detailed, but not without its contradictions. The tombstone of the Charity Bonham buried in the Bonham Family Cemetery states a birthdate of 1812. If correct, this Charity would have been much too young to be the mother of John Bonham. Some of the family records refer to a David Bonham dying in the Gun (Gum?) Springs area. If this is correct, then he is not the David Bonham who disappeared in the Seminole Wars, but perhaps the son of that David. And if the son, perhaps the Charity born in 1812 is his wife, and a sister-in-law to John and Penelope.

Then there is what we know from public records. John & Penelope married in Stewart County, Tennessee in 1847. Their first child, Mary, was born in Tennessee in 1849. By the time their third child, Nancy, was born in 1857, they were living in Arkansas. They are recorded in the 1860 Census living in Mountain Township, Polk County, Arkansas with four children ranging in age from 2 to 13 years. John’s age is stated as 37 (placing his birth year in 1822-1823) and Penelope is listed as 30 years old. There are two other family members in the household, Saletha Bonham, a female of 64, and Mack Bonham, a young man of 18. Saletha is of an age to be John’s mother, though if she is the mother of Mack, he was born when she was in her mid-forties - less probable, but not impossible.

In the 1870 census, the family is living in Fannin County, Texas. Josephine, age 8, is listed as having been born in Arkansas. Little Louisa is not represented as she was born and died in the interval between the census years. George is 3 years old and Hesakiah is an infant. George and Hesakiah are reported as having been born in Texas. Saletha and Mack are no longer members of the household. Neither the public records or the Bonham family have any additional information on either of them. The two are a mystery, as is the whereabouts of David and Charity Bonham in 1860, how Charity came to be in Texas in December of 1864 when she died, whether David had come to Texas with her, and what their relationship was to John & Penelope. That she shares a tombstone with their baby daughter who died one month later than she is certainly an indication of a close relationship, but we can’t say with certainty what that relationship was.

Perhaps Saletha was John’s mother. If we assume that she was the wife of the lost David Bonham rather than Charity, and we further assume that the David who was the husband of Charity was another son, then some of the pieces do fit together more cleanly. But this is a web of speculation with no supporting evidence.

Then there is the reference to the sister of John married to Dr. Allen - the reason for the family choosing Fannin County for their destination. Capt. Wilson Bruce Allen, founder of Allen’s Chapel, was married to Cassipha Bonham. It was a second marriage for both of them. Cassipha was the widow of C. D. Cosner. However, neither Mr. Allen nor Mr. Cosner were doctors, and the marriage to Mr. Allen did not take place until 1880. There are references to C. D. Cosner being a merchant in Honey Grove in 1865, so it is possible that Cassipha was the sister living in Fannin County and the details have become jumbled over time. There is also a record of Sarah Bonham and James A. Wilson being married on 7/10/1861 in Fannin County. James A. Wilson was a doctor, so perhaps Sarah is the sister who anchored the family here. The marriage record stands isolated as a single fact with no corroboration.

We may be forced to “let the mystery be”, but we will always be delighted to be a part of the journey with the Bonham family.

Photo courtesy of Janice Bonham West.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Continuing the Search for Living Descendants

Shortly after meeting Beulah Hipp for the first time (see the Nov. 22 entry in this blog), I was doing geneaology research one afternoon when a name leaped out at me. Rebecca Wilks married Martin Putnam White on April 4, 1869 and I had begun tracing their descendants. The name of one of their grandsons seem very familiar. In fact, I was sure that the grandson was the patriarch of the While family I had known most of my life. A few text messages and a visit with my high school friends, Johnnie and Brenda White, served to confirm my hunch. A couple of days later Johnnie and Brenda came over to show me the White family history that Johnnie’s brother, Donald White, had compiled some years back. We spent a couple of delightful hours paging through the notebook and the treasures it contains, some of which are depicted below. Donald has since contributed priceless family photos and correspondence to this project.

Marriage License, Martin Putnam White & Rebecca Wilks, courtesy of great-grandson, Donald White.

Martin Putnam White & Rebecca Wilks, courtesy of great-grandson, Donald White.

Having discovered Beulah, and then so shortly after, the connections to the White family, I felt I was on a roll. As Ginger and I continued to flesh out our plans for this project and as I got deeper and deeper into the research, the Wilks, Cagle, and Bonham families of the mid-1800’s became more and more real to me. Connecting with Wilks grandchildren and great-grandchildren intensified that feeling and the goal of finding living descendants of each branch of each family took hold. I was naively enthusiastic about the prospect and that’s when I made the discovery that any more experienced genealogist might have warned me of. The records are spotty, they can be maddeningly silent, they can be tantalizing with possibilities and probabilities that you can’t prove. It would be months before I made another connection despite relentless searching.

In the meantime, Ginger and I had been putting this project web site together. We launched the site on Oct. 8, 2018. Shortly after, I was contacted by a friend who had learned of our project via the web site and our announcement of it in the Fannin County History facebook group. Nancy told me that she was a first cousin, through their mothers, to descendants of the Bonham family, and though none of them lived in the area, they were planning to gather in Bonham in November. Nancy agreed to give Ginger and I a tour of the Bonham family burials in the Willow Wild Cemetery and to try to arrange for us to meet the family while they were in town, plans that worked out beautifully as a future story will detail.

From that point, things began to happen quickly. In mid-October, I was contacted by Julia Cagle Ryder, who had seen one of our project posts and thought she might be related to Martin & Susan Cagle. She and I collaborated on the research that followed, working backwards from her line and searching for ties. The story of her family proved very interesting, and our search will also be the subject of a future post.

In late October, through facebook, I was able to contact Kimberly Wilks Haley, GGG granddaughter of Thomas and Margaret Wilks through their son, Newton Wilks. I was able to share with Kim the pictures and postcards I had received from Donald White, her distant cousin but someone she did not know.  The pictures of Thomas, Margaret, Milton, and his sisters are photographs she had never seen (see them here).  It was a very rewarding moment for me as these bits of the puzzle came together. Of the five Wilks children who came to Texas with Thomas and Margaret, we now had made contact with the descendants of three.

At about the same time that I made contact with Kimberly, I had reached out to another facebook user who I thought might be the Betty Vick I had heard mentioned as a Wilks family member. I got no response initially and assumed I had been wrong. Just recently, Betty got back to me. She is descended from Thomas & Margaret via their daughter, Julia Wilks Little, adding another branch of the family tree to our living history.

In future posts, I hope to give voice to the family lore of each of these descendants, all of whom have welcomed the work that Ginger and I are doing. A fact that we are eternally grateful for.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Finding Living Descendants - Beulah Hipp

By late April, a month into our project, Ginger and I had made several trips out to the Wilks Cemetery and were equally charmed by that lovely spot in the woods and apprehensive of what we knew the future held. Our work had been focused on photographing the cemetery, mapping its layout, and finding out as much as we could about the people buried there. Coming home from a visit on 4/20/2018, I decided to see if I could find any living descendants of the Wilks. It seemed the next natural step.  I began my search on Saturday, 4/21, and hit pay dirt almost immediately. Not only did I find a reference, I found a phone number.  Mrs. Beulah Olive Dizmond Hipp, a daughter of Winnie Wilks Dizmond, and her husband, Mr. Ken Maynard Hipp, were apparently alive and well and living in Bonham.  My heart raced with excitement and yet I debated with myself for some time before I picked up the phone - could I call someone out of the blue, tell them that I was researching their history, and brazenly ask to come visit them?  Apparently, I could. Even though I had to screw up my courage to do it, I called.

Mrs. Hipp was very nice, confirmed that Winnie Wilks was her mother, and agreed to visit with Ginger and I.  After conferring with Ginger, I called the Hipps on Sunday to arrange a date.  Mr. Hipp answered the phone this time, and I could tell he was a bit skeptical of the whole situation, but he was kind, and the meeting was arranged.  On Monday, 4/23, Ginger, David Cook, and I went to visit the Hipps in their home north of Bonham.

What a wonderful visit!  They allowed David and Ginger to videotape while we chatted about the Wilks family, memories of growing up in Lamasco and Fannin County, the coming lake, and the cemetery.  Mrs. Hipp mentioned early on that of her siblings only she and her older sister, Florence, remained living.  While we were chatting, the phone rang.  The caller turned out to be Florence and we had the pleasure of speaking to her as well. 

After spending so much time in the cemetery and doing so much research, I felt such a kinship for the Wilks family, and speaking to actual members of the family was a special treat.  We parted with plans to speak again and to take the Hipps out to the cemetery.  Mrs. Hipp’s last visit there having been in the 1970s with her mother.

Visiting with Beulah in Her Home, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

The following Sunday I called the Hipps to arrange the trip to the cemetery and was told that Florence had passed away on Friday night.  It was an unexpected blow after having just chatted with her a few days before. I felt sad down to my roots and could only try to imagine the terrible loss that Beulah felt. Our chat was quick and somber, but we did arrange the visit to the Cemetery for the next day.

At the appointed hour, I picked up Beulah and drove her out to the cemetery where Ginger and David Cook were to meet us.  Mr. Hipp did not feel well enough to join us, so it was just the two of us driving out to Carson. We chatted as if we had known each other for years. Arriving at the Cemetery, David & Ginger were able to videotape Beulah talking about her family and previous visits to the cemetery with her parents.  She recalled her father driving a wagon hitched to a team of horses - everyone crowded in the wagon bed - down to the cemetery for a day of cleaning and tidying the graves and the grounds.  Looking up in wonder at the towering trees around us, she told us that In those days there were no trees in the cemetery.  Any sapling that tried to get a start was promptly removed. She also talked about there being a different way of coming into the cemetery than the way we had come, skirting the grounds and entering from the east side. Mr. Hipp had also mentioned there being a well traveled road down into the Bottom that served the family farms in the area and that passed by the cemetery. it seems there was once a much more established road and a formal entrance to the grounds on the west. There are some fallen timbers and remnants of a fairly substantial fence in the area to the west of the cemetery today, but it is hard to say what they are. They could mark the old entrance or they could simply be an abandoned cattle corral.

Beulah and Wanda at Beulah’s Grandmother’s (Florence Wilks) Grave, video still by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wrapping up that day, I assumed there would be more visits with Beulah in future, but I had a long stretch of demanding work days, Ginger was also juggling a full schedule, and the one time I called to see if I could drop by, I caught Beulah on a busy day. The weeks slipped away into months, and one morning my husband drew my attention to an obituary in the paper. Beulah had passed away in her home on Oct. 30, 2018, at the age of 81.

The visit we made to the cemetery was not Beulah’s last visit however. North Texas Municipal Water District arranged a visit to the cemetery for family members in late July. Ginger and I were not part of that event, but it was captured by a member of the Fannin County Historical Commission who did attend. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall that day as the family members gathered and reminisced. I’m sure it was a happy day. As I write this post on Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful for my brief acquaintance with Beulah Hipp.  May you rest in peace, Sweet Lady.

Wilks Family Visit to Wilks Cemetery, photo by Larry Standlee.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Letters to the Departed - Wilks Family

This post completes the story of the decoration of the graves with the letters written to the Wilks family. (If you haven’t read the previous posts, Ginger and I conducted a ritual in early June of decorating each grave with a wildflower bouquet and a letter expressing what we might say to the recipient if we could.)

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Thomas,

Of all those lying here, only you and your daughter-in-law, Mary, lived to old age.   When you arrived in Texas in approximately 1866, with your wife and youngest children, you were already a man of 65 or 66.  I wonder what prompted you to make the move.  You had already migrated from Virginia to Iowa, and had been long established in Iowa.  Were you a rolling stone, always looking for new opportunities farther west?  Was your decision related to the aftermath of the Civil War? You left behind adult daughters, married with children, and four deceased children, one of which was a son apparently lost in that War.   Did you expect to ever see your older children again as you said your goodbyes and headed to Texas?  

How did it happen that when death claimed Margaret three years later you laid her to rest in what, at that time, had to be considered the Cagle family cemetery?  Was there some connection between the Cagles and Wilks?  I can find none.  Had the Civil War left the Cagle family hollowed out and dispersed from the area, and the only connection the fact that you were, by chance, the one to settle on or near their old homestead?  With Margaret’s death, did you regret coming to this remote place?  How I wish you could tell me your story.

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Margaret,

Did you dream with Thomas of a new start in Texas or did his desire to move break your heart?  Your daughters and grandchildren formed a large family nucleus in Jefferson County, Iowa.  You had buried other children there, and you still had four youngsters to raise - Rebecca almost a young woman at 16, Madison on the cusp of manhood at 15, Newton and Milton youngsters of 12 and 10.  Did you fear for their health and safety on the frontier, or did you eagerly look forward to new adventures? Not yet old, but already past 50, did making a new life on the frontier break you? Three years after arriving in Texas you were gone.  

Your death on 2/24/1869 begins the story of the Wilks in the cemetery that would cease to be known as the Cagle burying ground and become known as the Wilks Family Cemetery.  Rebecca married less than two months after your death, so perhaps she had her sweetheart to support her in her grief.  Thomas and the boys, still teenagers, must have felt your loss acutely.  Your tombstone is lovely and the inscription on it achingly sad,  “Sleep Mother while your children round you weep.”  May your sleep be undisturbed even as this place, so important to the family, is lost.

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Newton,

Sixteen when your father died, leaving you and your brothers orphaned,  how did you live?  Did Rebecca take you and your brothers in?  Did you strike out on your own?  Did you try to look after Milton? When you married Mary in 1878 at the age of 23, did your marriage help to make you whole again after losing your parents so early in life?  

Your two eldest sons, and your youngest, a daughter, lived to adulthood, but you and Mary laid three sons to rest in the Wilks Family Cemetery.  Two of those lost boys died as toddlers; one lived to the age of 8.  How did the two of you face the grief of these losses? 

You passed from this earth in your prime at 46 years of age, leaving Mary with two adult sons and a three year old daughter.  You died 13 days after your sister-in-law, Florence, in Feb of 1901.  I can’t help but wonder if some epidemic might have carried you both off.  Perhaps one of the flu epidemics of that time.  Today you lie beside Mary, and your two graves seem to tell a story of a family in decline.  You have a lovely tombstone, solid, enduring, beautifully carved.  Mary’s grave is marked only by the metal marker a funeral home would typically leave behind on a fresh grave.  Your stone reads, “Come Ye Blessed”, and reunited in paradise, you are blessed and certainly well beyond such earthly matters.  

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Mary,

Like your father-in-law, Thomas, you lived a full complement of years, passing away at 77.  You have no tombstone and that troubles me a great deal.  I believe that you have living descendants in the area still, though I haven’t succeeded in finding and contacting them.  Perhaps once you are settled in your new home in the Lamaso Cemetery, we can rectify the situation and see you given a proper monument.  You may be resting in peace despite the absence of such earthly trappings, but I am not at peace with you lying in an unmarked grave.

As sad as I feel about the Cemetery being disturbed, in the Lamasco Cemetery, you and Newton and your lost boys will lie together with your older sons and your daughter, the family circle complete.  There is some comfort in that.

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Mary’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

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Fredrick,

Just past your first birthday, you left this world behind.  Your parents were undoubtedly devastated.  And, sadly, they were destined to bear and bury two more sons.  You lie next to your grandmother, the first of your immediate family to be buried in the family plot.  Already three of your little cousins lie beyond your grandfather’s grave, and within three years a little brother will be laid beside you, the two branches of the family extending to the left and right of your grandparents as the death of babies mark the years.  Rest well, Sweet Boy.

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Fredrick’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

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Elizia,

Sweet boy of 22 months, the second baby for your mother to bring into the world only to have to kiss goodbye in the space of a few short months, may you rest in eternal peace among your loved ones.

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Charles Jefferson,

You left this earth at the age of eight, carried off by illness or accident after having survived the treacherous infant years.  I can only imagine the tears your mother must have shed, and how your father and older brothers grieved.   Your tombstone is graced by a beautifully carved lamb.  Sweet dreams, Little Lamb.

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Milton,

Certainly your story is one of the saddest in a family that saw much loss.  After burying three infant sons, you and Betty have a son that lives, though Betty will not.  Less than two years after the birth of this surviving son, she is gone at the age of 34, leaving you with a toddler.  A year later you marry Florence.  She gives you a daughter, Cora, who lives less than three months.  It is more than 8 years later that the two of you are blessed with another child, another daughter.  And yet, Florence will be gone just three years later, at the age of 29.  Thirteen days after Florence’s death your brother, Newton, will die in the prime of life.  You will marry and lose yet another wife, and you will lose your brother Madison, before your own death in 1927.  Your sister, Rebecca, the last of the family who journeyed to Texas in 1866 will pass away in 1940. 

From the beginning of my research, I have been drawn to you, and perhaps that was in the stars, because I have found your granddaughter, Winnie’s child, spoken with her, and come to treasure her.  She will stand as a living witness to the transfer of the family to the Lamasco Cemetery, and, if for any reason she cannot, I will stand for her.  You are not forgotten.

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Milton’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

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Betty,

I imagine you and Milton, newly wed, happy, completely unaware of the sorrow you will face.  You bury your first three children as infants.  You bear a fourth child, and though he will live to adulthood, you will not live to raise him.  Before he is two, you will have passed from the earth. I’ve recently read a book that emphasized for me that though every woman has a unique story, the story of women is somehow universal in that we all share the same fundamental sorrows and joys.  I hope your joys in life were deep and abiding and offered some measure of balance to the losses you had to bear.

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Infant Son,

You entered this realm and left it on the same day.  Were you stillborn or did your parents hold your breathing body for a few hours before having to let you go?  Did they get to hear your cry?  Sleep softly, Sweet Spirit.

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Noah,

You did not live to walk, to run, to play.  I’m sure you laughed and smiled and delighted your parents.  You cut a few teeth, and perhaps you spoke your first one or two words - you certainly gurgled a few sounds that your eager parents probably took for words.  The joy your parents felt holding their baby boy had to be deep and full.  The grief they felt in losing you had to be staggering.   Rest well, Little Cherub.

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Noah’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

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Emsy,

You never saw your first birthday.  I cannot imagine how broken your parents felt as they laid you to rest beside your brothers, each eagerly welcomed and torn from their breasts in turn.  Their world had to seem devoid of all hope, all joy as they remembered your laughing smile.  May your dreams be forever sweet.

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Florence,

You were only 16 when you married Milton, a widower almost twice your age with a very young son.  Was it a love match, or a more practical arrangement?  Today, we might be inclined to look askance at such a match, and wonder if the girl had been taken advantage of, but the times were different then.  At 16 you could have been seen by everyone in the community as a woman grown.  I think of the wonder with which you must have first looked into the face of your infant daughter, Cora.  How you must have raged against fate when she died within weeks.  I wonder that, given your age and the lack of birth control, there were no more children for more than 8 years.  What story lies hidden between the lines - were you and Milton estranged, did you suffer miscarriages, was your health failing?  When Winnie arrived, you must have imagined watching her grow into a women with children of her own, yet you were not given that opportunity.  You passed from this earth while she was still a toddler.  Winnie grew up and had a large family.  I have met your granddaughter, the last of Winnie’s children living today.  I have seen a picture of Winnie as a bride.  I have heard happy recollections of Winnie and her family told by her loving daughter.  I feel attached to you by a thread of kinship, though we share not a drop of blood.  I hope you are smiling your blessing from above as Ginger and I pursue this project.

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Cora,

Dear baby, your sojourn on this earth was much too short.  The inscription on your stone says it all, “Earth has one pure spirit less, Heaven one inmate more”.  The medallion on the stone shows a bird in flight.  May you fly high for all of time.

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Unknown Grave,

From the Bois d’Arc post that marks your head to the one marking your feet, there is room for four repetitions of my size 8 tennis shoes.  I believe you must be among the many infants and children lying in this grove.  Another testimony to the odds of growing up under frontier conditions.  Are you a Cagle, a Wilks, or from another family altogether?  Did the Cagles lay Martha to rest here because the location was already laid out as a burial place with you the first occupant, or had the place been long used at the time of your burial?  Are you little Alvie Wilks, age 7, burned to death when your clothes caught on fire as you played near the fireplace, and recorded as being buried in the Wilks Cemetery?  There is no other grave that I can find that might be hers, and yet four repetitions of my shoes seems inadequate to describe the grave of a child of seven.   You are our little Unknown Soldier, and we cherish you for it.

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Unknown Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

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Row of Wilks Graves, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Letters to the Departed - Bonham Family

This post continues the story of the decoration of the graves with the letters written to Charity & Louisa Bonham. (If you haven’t read the previous “Letters to the Departed” posts, Ginger and I conducted a ritual in early June of decorating each grave with a wildflower bouquet and a letter expressing what we might say to the recipient if we could.)

The Bonham graves date from Dec, 1865, some fours years and a few months after Susan Cagle was laid to rest. Since we do not know the dates of the deaths of several of the Cagle family members, we cannot say whether the two burial sites were active at the same time or what their relationship, if any, was to one another.

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Charity,

Your history is hard to piece together.  Your tombstone declares you to be the wife of David Bonham.  You lie next to the little daughter of John Bonham, the son of a David and Saletha Bonham.  I do not know when Saletha Bonham died, though I do see evidence of her being alive in 1860.  I take you to be David’s 2nd wife, much his junior, as your step-son appears to be only about 5 years younger than you.  I cannot tell how long you and David were married, I cannot find any record of David’s death, and I can find no evidence of children borne by you.  Your marriage might have been a short one, yet clearly at your death you were living with or nearby your step-son, his wife, and his children.  You were carried away just before Christmas in 1865.

How did you come to be buried so close to the Cagle family plot, already well established, and yet separate from it?  Perhaps at that time each family kept a burial plot on their land, rather than the community collectively setting aside a location for a shared cemetery.  Perhaps the Cagle plot was somewhat abandoned - both Martin and Susan Cagle had died, the boys perhaps lost, and Mary, nearing womanhood, might have been living elsewhere with Frances and her husband.  It seems unlikely that the Wilks had yet arrived in the area at the time of your death. 

How is it that, of all the Bonhams, only you and little Louisa lie here?  I will have to let the mystery be.  Rest well.

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Louisa,

It appears that your parents and older siblings migrated to Texas from Arkansas sometime after May of 1862.   I am basing that on the record of the birth of your sister, Charity, in Arkansas in 1862, and the record of your birth in Texas in 1864, though your brother John’s obituary states that he came to Texas with his parents in 1865.    If that is the more accurate date, then you made that trip from Arkansas with your family.

You were a bright toddler approaching your 2nd birthday when you left this earth on Jan. 4, 1866, and were laid to rest next to your grandmother, who had died only two weeks before you.  There could have been no joy for your family in this holiday season.   I have been told an old story of your family passing through and leaving the graves there in the woods in their wake as they moved on, but this seems unlikely.  I see much evidence of your parents and siblings in the annuals of Fannin County for years to come.  I have even found a photograph of your brother, John, as an old man.  However, you and Charity do lie here alone, so perhaps there is some kernel of truth in the old story - your family did not put down roots here, even if they did so elsewhere in the County.  

I am told that the two of you will be moved to a Bonham family plot in the Willow Wild Cemetery.  You will be in the bosom of family at last, though I might have wished that you were to be placed in Smyrna with your parents.  It is lovely there, and Willow Wild seems such a big and bustling place compared to your intimate place here among the trees.  May your dreams be sweet wherever you lie.

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Bonham Family Gravesite, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Lovely Basket Ginger Made to Honor Charity & Louisa, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.