John and Nancy Scott Family History Revision
This is for the descendants of John And Nancy Kirkland Scott and
other interested Scott/Kirkland/Blackshear researchers.
Before going any further I should explain that John and Nancy
Scott bought and settled land on the very border of Panola and
Shelby counties in Texas and that a county line sign sits atop
the southwest corner post of the Sholar cemetery fence. The Scott,
Sholar, and Whiddon properties could straddle the county line so
that looking at county records, one might assume that there was a
lot of moving between the two counties when, in fact, a father's
house might be in Panola county and a son's home next door could
be in Shelby county.
This discussion is to present my reasons for declaring that the
maiden surname for Nancy Scott was not Perkins, as assumed for
over one hundred years, but in fact was Kirkland.My proof of
this does not involve the discovery of a birth certificate or
other official documentation for Nancy but I am certain that
my proof is absolutely adequate. I would never attempt to change
something as important as a surname of my gggrandmother unless I
was absolutely convinced that the previously assumed surname was
incorrect. I believe that after this presentation, the reader
will be led to concur with my conclusions.
Here is my story:
In the 1960's my mother, Jessie Scott Walker and Gay Ferguson Topping
were looking at the headstones in the Sholar cemetery near Joaquin,
Shelby County, Texas and there was one that had the inscription,
"WM SCOTT BORN ABBEVILLE AL NEAR THE CHATTAHOOTCHIE RIVER 1834".
My mother left me a recording asking me to, sometime in the future,
see if I could find out if that WM Scott was one of our Scotts.
That request stood dormant for a long time. Much later, I located Gay
Ferguson Topping (a descendant of Eliza Scott Sholar and David Sholar)
in Hot Springs, Arkansas and paid here a visit. I learned some stuff but
nothing about that WM Scott.
Some years later, a Walker cousin, Charlene Walker Brazell, sent me a
copy of an article that appeared in the Center,TX newspaper and was
entitled "Southern Hospitality". The story was a recollection of Altonie
Walker, daughter of Samuel Walker, of an incident that happened on a
cold and snowy night in January 1886.
To shorten that story, Samuel gave a large family travelling in two
wagons on that cold and snowy January night shelter for about a
week. The father's name was William Scott and with him were his wife,
8 children,and two wagon drivers. This family settled on a nearby farm
in Shelby Co.,Texas.
The story bothered me because no one seemed to know where this family
fit into our Scott family although I knew, from photos of some of that
family, that they were related to us. My mother simply said that they
were cousins of my Scott grandfather, John Jackson Scott. I went to
Shelby county eventually and interviewed all of the old timers that I
could find and managed to obtain the names of William's wife and
children but this did not solve the problem of how they fit in with
the John & Nancy Scott family because no one had any better idea than
did I.
That problem also hibernated there until I received queries from two
researchers, Eddie Loyd and Gerald Whiddon, both of Henry County, AL.
Their emails follow:
Eddie Loyd wrote:
Hi I am working the JOHN SCOTT b.13 jan 1799 VA. line and I found
where a JOHN SCOTT m. 14 mar 1822 in Henry co. AL. to a NANCY KIRKLAND
b. 27 jan 1805 SC. GERALD WHIDDON said you have another maiden name
for NANCY.
can you email me,
thanks Eddie
Lannie,
How are things with you? I came across a question abt John and Nancy
Scott. You have that Nancy's maiden name was Perkins. How sure are you
of that? The reason I ask is there is a John Scott marrying Nancy
Kirkland in Henry Co. Al. March 14, 1822. Their first child was born
July 21, 1823 and you say all were born in Henry Co. Al. Do you have
something to back up the Perkins name? If so, I'd sure like to see it.
Another descendent of William E. and Ethalinda Scott Whiddon posed the
question to me and I couldn't answer it.
Thanks so much.
Gerald
I had never, and no one in my family had for over one hundred years, ever
questioned the Perkins name. It had never even occurred to me even though
there is not and had never been a single piece of official documentation
that points to the name Perkins. On the other hand, I had never had a
reason to question it either, until I received these queries.
I decided to attempt to clear up the question about Nancy's maiden
surname and so I began searching Henry County,AL and South Carolina
(the family bible says that she was born in S.C.) for Perkins and Scott.
Gay Ferguson had given me a compilation of Henry Co. cemeteries and
there was not a single Perkins in it, but many Kirklands. Since Nancy
was married when she was 17, it would have seemed that her parents would
have been there also. Still nothing definite, so I started looking
through Kirkland family websites and contacting Kirkland family members
that were connected with Henry County. From Henry County records I found
only one John Scott marriage in Alabama, none in South Carolina, or Virgina.
In Henry County, though, I found the marriage of a William Scott to a Nancy
Kirkland in 1844. John and Nancy's William would have been 21 and that
Nancy Kirkland was 22. I made a mental note to try and trace this William
and Nancy Scott later.
In the meantime I began receiving infornmation from several
Kirkland/Scott researchers, Elroy Christenson who pointed me to Dr. Jim
Peacock, Winnie Savage Smith (a descendant of Eliza Scott Sholar),
Valerie J. Adams, Kim Foster, James Sholar, and several others. From
each these I received information that helped make the pieces fit
together later.
The current situation is that I have become absolutely convinced that
my Nancy Scott was a Kirkland and not a Perkins due to the "trigger"
information from Kim Foster that she is a descendant of the Nancy
Kirkland Scott Blackshear marriage and she named off the children of
the "Southern Hospitality" story , including Randal Blackshear, as
William Scott's half brother, with facts to prove it. Added to that
was the fact that my mother had two photos of women, one was the wife
of Applet Scott who mother identified as a cousin of my grandfather,
and the other photo was of Bessie Wood, whose father had married
Arkie Scott, Applet Scott's sister.
Assuming all of that to be true, going backwards to Henry county
presented a family personnel gap that I just could not bridge with only
the known facts. There was absolutely no way of connecting that bunch
to my John and Nancy except by looking at some more Henry county census
data and making some absolutely necessary assumptions. Let me give
the facts first,then the assumptions, going backwards in time.
The 1870 H.C. census lists Nancy Kirkland Scott Blackshear in her
household with four children by her then deceased husband, Randolph
Blackshear. One of these children was Randal Blackshear.
Living on property adjoining Nancy and her children was her son, William T.
Scott and his wife Mary Windsor and two daughters, Laura age 2, and Mary
Annie, age 1. Nancy had married Randolph in 1854 and he had died in 1864.
The 1850 census showed Nancy Kirkland Scott and a four year old son.,
William living in the household of Sanders Kirkland, her husband, William's,
uncle a brother of the elder Nancy Kirkland Scott (the one that married John
Scott). No mention of what happened to the younger Nancy's husband,
William Scott (the elder William.)
Now comes the assumption and it is the ONLY one that will fit it all
together logically. Henry County records shows two Nancy Kirklands (and
only two) that married Scotts. One married John in 1822 and the other
married William in 1844. From these facts, I assumed that this William
was the son of John and Nancy (and the dates from the Scott Family bible
show a William being born in 1823 in Henry County) and that in 1844, at
the age of 21, he married a cousin, Nancy Kirkland, age 22 in Henry County.
Now, our John and Nancy left Henry County in 1846 for Shelby County
(documented in the Scott family bible). I am assuming that William
(the elder) came with them, leaving his pregnant wife Nancy (or Nancy
with infant, since in 1850 census, William T. was age 4). I don't believe
he came to Shelby County just in time to show up in the Shelby County
census of 1850 as alone at age 26 and in the household of John and Nancy
Scott. He also shows up in the 1860 Panola County census in his own
household with a wife, Catherine, a 4 year old child, and six month
old child.
Factually, William T. stayed in Henry County,AL until 1886 when he,
his family, his half-brothers Randal Blackshear and Bryant Byrd
Blackshear (according to Kim Foster) all moved to Shelby county.
According to Kim, William T. and Mary (don't know if any of the children)
moved to Texarkana and that is where they are buried.
UPDATE: We now know that Mary died and was buried in Texarkana, but
we also now know that William T. returned to Shelby County where he
is shown in the 1920 Shelby county census as a widower and boarder
in the household of A.G. Rushing. We also now know that he died later
in 1920. The only thing still uncertain is what his son-in-law, Levi
Marion Wood did with his body since the mortuary warrant shows that
no funeral home was involved. Levi could have transported William T.'s
remains to Texarkana or could have buried it in a local cemetery.
A John and Nancy Scott descendant, Winnie Savage Smith, obtained a
copy of William T. Scott's application for a pension based upon his
Civil War service.
It almost has to be true that William (the elder) accompanied his
parents to Shelby County,because otherwise there would more than likely
have been one or two more children if he had waited until just prior
to the 1850 Shelby County census to come to Shelby County.
Nobody had just one child in those days, but Nancy just had one child
by William (the elder) and that child was William T. (the T. is shown
in the 1900 Shelby County Census where he is shown to be living near
to my grandfather, John J. Scott and my ggrandfather, Thomas Jefferson
Scott)
One more assumption. The headstone that my mother and Gay Ferguson
Topping were discussing would have to be the elder William. There were
no other William Scotts in that area to be buried in the Sholar
cemetery. No other explanation makes any sense. The headstone also must
have been an amateur job considering all of the writing on it except
that there was only one date on it and as a date of birth, 1834 was
incorrect.
Update: Knowing now that William T. Scott died in Shelby county
and that his body was released to his son-in-law, Levi Marion
Wood, it is possible that Levi could have interred William T.
in the Sholar cemetery, but I personally do not think so.
Now, the strangest part of all of this (hindsight is really an eye
opener) is the fact that not ONE of the Scott family ever mentioned
William (the elder) that I know of. There was much written and many
oral accounts of the other children of John and Nancy.
Why didn't I ever notice the omission of his name from ever being
mentioned? I looked at his name in the family bible many times and
it never once occurred to me to ask or wonder whatever happened to
him. Even after I received the "Southern Hospitality" story I kept
trying to make William T. John and Nancy's son instead of their
grandson. Gay was a serious researcher as is Winnie Savage Smith
and never a word or question from them about him. It appears that we
all had a blind spot when it came to William (the elder).
Also, why did William T. come to Shelby County in 1886 and leave his
mother, Nancy in Henry County Alabama? She stayed in Henry County
and lived until 1900. William (the elder) would have been 63 yrs of
age in 1886 and could have been still living. Did William T. and
William (the elder) have a relationship after William T. moved to
Shelby County?
Update: We now (Oct 2003) know that William, the elder, died in 1869
in Panola county, 17 years before William T. came to Texas.
I am going to make one assumption here that, to me, would account for the
erasure of William (the elder) from Scott family history (except for his
birth). There may have been some sort of incident that happened in
William's marriage so that he left his wife and son in Henry County and
moved to Texas with his parents. His wife, Nancy married about 10 years
later so I assume that she was considered to be abandoned and eligible
to remarry. William T. also later remarried and had at least two children
with his second wife, Catharine.
Update (Oct 2003): We now know that William and Catherine
had 5 children; Robert, Madison (Matt), Emma, Elizabeth (Lizzie)
and Samuel H. They are shown in the 1870 Shelby Co. census living
in the household of their grandmother, the twice widowed Nancy A.
Upton Stephens.
Finally, recognizing that we are now Scott AND Kirkland descendants,
we can discard the non existent Nancy Perkins and welcome Nancy
Kirkland and all of the Kirkland family that we now recognize that
we are a part of.
One additional note. In the Shelby County Texas history book, I wrote
that John Scott and his son John Scott died one day apart in August 1859.
I now belive that to be untrue. The reason is that I recently
learned that in the 1860 Shelby County census, there was a John Scott,age
22, living in the household of Wiatt(sic) Southern. This Southern was the
husband of young John's older sister Melvinah Scott Southern. My statement
in the Shelby County History book, Vol 1, was an attempt to explain two
entries in the family bible listing the death of John Scott and John Scott
Sen(sic) that had dates just one day apart. I now believe that the second
John Scott entry was merely a date correction for the death of the elder
John Scott.
Lannie Gene Walker,Sr.
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