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.