Ancestry

As WWII ended, spending most of my summers at my Grandma Bryan’s house, outside of Marlin, was an exciting time for me.  But, as boys in a rural setting will do, we decided that we needed more excitement than just catching crawdads.  

One afternoon, my cousin, Dan, said that he thought stealing some watermelons would be fun.  I quickly agreed with him.  Our first job was to find a patch with some ripe melons.  He figured that down the lane from Grandmas, Uncle Tom Norwood’s patch would be just about ripe.

To both of us, being 10 years old, Uncle Tom was a menacing figure.  Tall, erect, a retired school teacher and, we later discovered that he was also a former slave.  Before, or during, the Civil War, he was born into slavery and at the time he must have been over 85 years old.  His wife, Betty, approximately the same age and a former slave too and when we were younger, she was a very caring nanny to both Dan and I.  Being the closest patch around, we picked Uncle Tom’s.

We figured that it would be better if we stole the melons during the afternoon since the high temperature then would probably keep Uncle Tom inside.  Down the lane, short pants and tennis shoes clad, we snuck and ahead, spotting the melon patch.  Climbing through the fence we noticed some sticker kind of low, bushy flowers growing among the melons.  We soon found out that these harmless looking “flowers” were really bull nettles, or stinging nettles, a very poisonous plant known to kill small animals, even dogs.  The little hairs along the leaf packed a wallop, especially on bare legs!

Finding two ripe melons was easy.  The hard part was getting them out of the patch.  The first thing I did was to brush against a nettle.  Wow, that stung as bad as a yellow jacket!  Then Dan brushed against one, howling, and the race was on!  Our goal of stealing melons was quickly forgotten as we dropped ‘em and scrambled out of the patch and hightailed it home.

Our legs were on fire as we told our Grandma what we’d done.  In no uncertain terms, she scolded us for even thinking of taking one of Uncle Tom’s watermelons, but, kindly, she told us of an old Texas remedy for bull nettle stings, pee on the sting.  We peed on each other’s legs and the stinging abated and we never thought again about stealing watermelons again!

Today we take time to honor and recognize our troops who have died while defending our way of life.  In the North, tradition was that Decoration Day began in New York in 1868, but, in reality, it really started in Virginia soon after the end of the Civil War.  This is one of my favorite stories!

Now, enter my Grandmother, Linnie Ross Sanders Wallace, born in 1866, , who I wrote about on May, 27, 2007, in "A True Texan".  She was a Civil War baby boomer, and a rebel’s daughter.  Her Father, Levi Sanders, had  spent four years fighting with the 6th Texas Cavalry across Indian Territory, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.  She made sure that I knew what “Decoration Day”, now known as our Memorial Day, was and just what it meant.

Within a month after the end of the Civil War, May 1865, ladies in Winchester, Virginia, formed a Ladies Memorial Association, (LMA), with the single purpose to gather fallen Confederate soldiers within a fifteen mile radius of their town and provide them burial in a single graveyard.  Once that task had been done they hoped to establish an annual tradition of placing flowers and evergreens on the graves.  There were Federal troops buried along with the Confederates and they received the decorations also.  Within a year, ladies across the South had established over 70, LMA’s.

In the first year, these LMA’s had assisted in the recovery of over 70,000 Confederate dead!  The ladies of Lynchburg chose May 10 as their Decoration Day.  This was the day that Lt. General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson had succumbed to wounds.  The Richmond LMA had chosen May 31 because that was the day the populace of that town had first heard the guns of war in 1861.

Vicious Reconstruction laws not withstanding, by 1867, Decoration Day flourished across the South and it was a day that southern spirit and pride surfaced. Alabama, Florida and Mississippi celebrated it on April 30; North and South Carolina on May 10 and Virginia finally compromised on May 27.

Then in 1868, in the North, May 5 was officially designated Memorial Day.  This was later changed to May 30, because no significant battle was fought on that day.  In May 1968, at Waterloo, New York, Pres. Lyndon Johnson “officially” recognized Waterloo as the birthplace of Memorial Day.  Still later, our government intruded and made the last the last Monday in May, Memorial Day, a Federal holiday.

LBJ should have studied his history better!  He began his career as a history teacher at San Jacinto High School in Houston, and taught Linnie Ross’s youngest, daughter, Hazel.  He soon switched to teaching civics, government studies.  Maybe he was deficient in American history? 

Growing up, my Grandmother, Linnie Ross Sanders Wallace, told me several times (in no uncertain terms) that the Sanders were SCOTS-Irish, with the emphasis on "Scots".  I heard her and remembered it, but like all youth, I didn’t realize the importance of it until last week!

Digging through the Sanders’ family’s genealogy, I’ve come across a mystery of sorts.  The mystery being, was William and/or Lewis Sanders involved in the capture and slaying of Edward Teach, better known as, Black Beard the Pirate.  Lewis Sanders was my 6G Grandfather and William was my 6G Uncle.

The plot started when I read an old letter, written in 1895 by Thomas Bailey Saunders and sent to one of his nephews.  The letter was posted on Gary B. Sanders website, “Sanders, of Randolph and Montgomery Counties, North Carolina, and Jackson County, Alabama, and other counties in Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas”, and I quote,

"There were two Saunders brothers who came from England long before the Revolutionary war. At that time the Pirates were very bad on the North Carolina coast. The governor of N.Carolina outfitted a vessel to catch them, and in making up the crew he took one of these brothers, and they caught old Black Beard the pirate and hung him to the mast arm. The crew got a good deal of money, and when that brother came back he left the U out of his name. This the reason so many spell their names Sanders”.

Spending a good deal of time researching the events, I was surprised that, actually, the Governor of North Carolina was in league with Black Beard.  In fact his Secretary was captured and convicted of accepting funds from the pirate.  In reality, the Governor of Virginia gave two unarmed sloops, Ranger and Jane, to Lt. Maynard of the Royal Navy.

On November 22, 1718, Black Beard, engaged the two, unarmed sloops in Oracoke Inlet off the coast of North Carolina and opening fire on them with his cannons, he almost destroyed both ships. Teach closed in on Maynard's ship, Ranger, boarded it and engaged Maynard  personally in combat.  Maynard shot him and both men swung their cutlasses, Teach's shattering Maynard’s and as Teach was going to deliver the death blow, according to an Autumn, 1992 article in the "Colonial Williamsburg", magazine, now online, his throat was slashed by a stout Scot among Maynard's crew.

To claim the reward Maynard cut off Teach's head.  Returning to his homeport of Hampton, as a warning to other pirates, Teach's head was placed on a stake near the mouth of the Hampton River.

Another quote from Gary B. Sanders website, further whetted my appetite for intrigue, “… I think it's likely that William Sanders of Anson County, North Carolina may be the brother of Lewis Sanders of Fairfax County, Virginia.  William and Lewis appear to be of the same generation.  DNA tests show William was related to Lewis.  These two may well be the two emigrant brothers described in a somewhat jokingly fashion in the 1890's letter of Thomas Bailey Saunders."

Being left with questions that, in all probability, will never be answered, I can only make some assumptions and ask a few more questions.  Both brothers were of Scots-Irish ancestry. Both brothers also took the "U" out of Saunders.  Was one of the Saunders boy’s a part of Maynard’s crew?  Was one of them the stout, Scot?  

What if the old story is really true?

This week, after forty-four years in hiding, a piece of my family’s history finally turned up in, very fitting, a gun case.  In 1966, Sam W. Bryan, at the time, eighty years old, dictated the following stories about Brinson Bryan, his Father, my Great Grandfather, to Lenora Bryan Peters, his Niece.  This correspondence filled a gap in Brinson’s life and is also very interesting.

In 1847 Brinson Bryan riding a formerly, wild mustang horse and packing a .36 cal. pistol, joined a wagon train heading for California.  His pistol, a Paterson Colt with a nine-inch barrel was issued to him when, as an eighteen, year old, in 1845 he joined the Texas Rangers.

Brinson had just completed service in the Mexican War with Bell’s Rangers.  They served along the Texas/Mexican border and their job was keeping the supply lines open to General Zachary Taylor’s army encamped south of Monterrey.  Regularly they had scrapes with Mexican soldiers, Mexican guerillas and marauding Comanche and Apache Indians.

The wagon train, driving a herd of oxen along with them, averaged about twenty-five miles a day and all the way out and back they had scrapes with Indians.  One funny, but dangerous, story was when a lone, young Indian jumped Brinson, threw a tomahawk at him and charged.  He subdued him, just as the main body of the Indians arrived. Brinson wanted to fight the tomahawk thrower, but the Indian Chief said the young, Indian’s Father would whip him.  Which he did, leaving the young Indian some major whelps!

On another occasion, as the wagon train was lumbering along, Brinson was out hunting, he shot a bear, took it back to the train, skinned it and the folks enjoyed the bear steaks.  At the same time, he and the other hunters came across a bee cave, robbed the hive, put the honey in the bearskin and enjoyed it all the way to California.

In 1849, coming back from California, he stopped for a drink of water at a spring west of Waco, Texas. Up rambled a bear, Brinson wasted no time, shot it with his pistol, got his drink and headed on into Waco.  At the time Waco had one saloon and one log cabin house.

Family stories have Brinson guiding wagon trains to California, but we “lost” him until 1855 when he purchased land in Hill County, Texas, after that, a blank until 1862 when he enlisted as a sharpshooter in the 40th Alabama Infantry Regiment.  Sam’s stories also make no mention of the 1850-66 time frame.

Back then, things weren’t very easy, manual labor and hard work was the norm.  Just think about walking and riding a horse from Texas to California!  Men and women were tough and had to be strong just to exist from day to day.  Where has all of that strength and toughness gone?

Buck Barry, my 2G Uncle, came to Texas in 1845 and this past Saturday, in Walnut Springs, Texas, I attended a presentation, "Character In Action" about Col. Buck Barry and Capt. Jack Cureton.  Cureton, like Buck, was also a Texas Ranger and fought Indians, rustlers and thieves with him.  Both men made their homes in Bosque County, in what later became Walnut Springs.  Much more had been written about Buck so most of the presentation was about him.

Bryan Sowell, author of 'TEXAS CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS, Walnut Springs", gave the talk and spoke about what it is that makes one man’s life endure and another forgotten?  What makes us cherish Buck’s memory; his courage, character, compassion, rugged individualism, the common good or his love of democracy?

This picture, a Daguerroetype, was made in Corsicana in 1853.  It’s probably not the first of this type made in Texas, but it may be the oldest surviving one.

He cited quotes that highlighted these characteristics.  A few of these quotes follow.

From the Meridian Tribune on April 9, 1909, a Walnut Springs pioneer, R.W. Aycock described Buck as “One of the best men that ever lived when treated right, but if a man didn’t want to do the right thing, or wanted to pick a scrap, he could get it out of Buck any time!”

According to Dr. James Greer, his biographer and long time family friend, “As a Ranger with Hays, he met the Mexicans; as a sheriff, he encountered outlaws; as a frontiersman, he fought Indians; as a ranchman in Bosque County, he was the nemesis of horse thieves and experienced the annoyance of fence cutting; as a Texan and Southerner during the Civil War, he saw four years of the most grueling and the most undesirable type of military service protecting the Texas frontier from Indians.”

According to Buck, in an article he wrote titled, “Why Do Christians Believe and Atheists Disbelieve In The Bible”?  He writes, “God being a spirit without body or form, yet possessing the greatest power known to man; possessing the power of all the elements that are necessary to create; possessing all the power of an infinite and perfect being.”

His biographer sums up Buck Barry very well, “No writer of western stories has created better fiction of adventure that this quite, early settler lived.”

Enough said!

“Webster’s Dictionary” says a trustee is, “A person, usually one of a body of persons or group, appointed to administer the affairs of a company, administration, etc.” In Texas, a Prison Trustee is an inmate that performs certain functions outside of the inmates normal prison duties. A definite position of trust!

In January 1951, my Dad, John H. Bryan, went on, it turned out, an unusual quail hunt, on some very private property. The property in question was owned by the State of Texas, and on it was a State Prison Farm. My Dad’s Brother-in law, and my Uncle, was Rehabilitation Director for the prison system and he had arranged for my Dad to hunt birds there.

Another unusual item was that the State’s bloodhounds would hunt quail, and wouldn’t you know it, the Warden of the prison farm assigned a “special” Trustee, along with two dogs to accompany my Dad. The Trustee in question, the Warden’s favorite, was in for robbery and would soon be paroled.  His prison job was training the dogs to track escapees and, for visiting dignitaries, he had also trained them to track quail.

Returning from the hunt with a nice mess of birds, my Dad said, “We had a great time today!” I questioned him, “What’s this “we” business? You went hunting by yourself.” He grinned and said, “Me and the Trustee. His dogs did such a good job that I let him shoot a couple of birds.” My Mom was horrified. She exclaimed, “Bryan, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. He could have shot you and been half way to Dallas before they missed him or you!” He grinned again and said, “Aw Honey, he’s getting out in three months, was really a nice young man and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to mess up his parole.”

The incident passed, but two weeks later the hunt was brought vividly back to our minds. The headlines of the afternoon newspaper, “The Houston Chronicle”, blared, “Trustee Escapes From Prison Farm.” Wouldn’t you know it, the dog trainer Trustee was the escapee. My Dad called the Warden of the prison farm, who was just as surprised as my Dad was by the event.

The Warden told my Dad the story (which wasn’t in the paper) of how the dog trainer Trustee just walked off and when the officers sent the dogs after him, he just told them to “kennel up” and they went back to their kennels. Three times the dogs were sent out and three times they returned. By then the officers figured he was long gone and he was!

Years later I asked my Uncle whatever happened to the dog trainer Trustee. He laughed and said that he was never found.

Maybe the State of Texas didn’t look for him too hard?

Below, we pick up Howard Bryan’s tale of another turkey that succumbed to his muzzle loader.  At the time of this story, Howard still lived on his farm in Appomattox County, Virginia.


“Turkey Stories
      By Howard Bryan

A few years later I was headed to the back of our farm, hoping to get some tender venison for the freezer.  Again I was carrying the flintlock.  As I approached the edge of the mature oak woods that covered the Western part of the farm a flock of turkeys flushed, and flew to the West.  

I thought that they would fly across the creek bottom behind the ridge where I flushed them and that they would go to the next ridge over, so I ran as quickly as possible to the Northern edge of that ridge.  I had no sooner settled between a large oak and some thin cedar scrub when I heard the turkeys talking to each other.  I did have time to get rid of the bright orange scarf I wear when moving about during hunting season before a doe and a young, slightly spotted fawn approached in company with the leading turkeys.
 
Now turkeys, with their keen eyesight and sensitivity to color; and deer, with their keen sense of smell and their acute hearing; are a bad combination for a hunter. Either will give an alarm, and everything close around the alerted animal will flee.  Fortunately the slight breeze was in my face, and I had not walked into the area where the deer were moving, so scent was not a problem.
 
As I raised the rifle barrel the lead turkeys veered slightly away, just over the ridge, so all I could see were bobbing heads.  The doe and her fawn saw the movement and froze.  None of them spooked.  The decision was, doe or turkey, since both were in season then.

I decided on the turkey, since I would have to shift about 30 deg. left to cover the deer, which was already alert.  Sure enough, one turkey's head and neck bobbed right into the line of the barrel.  I aimed and shot, breaking the turkey's neck.  The distance wasn't great, about 35 yards, but it was one of the most difficult shots I ever made; one that my wife still calls the luckiest shot she ever heard of.   It's difficult to impress some women!"

Besides blogging, I have spent time researching my ancestors and particularly intriguing, was why my 2G Grandfather, John Bryan, sometime prior to 1847, changed his surname from Bryant to Bryan.  Having drawn to a dead end trying to trace his forebearers I stumbled onto an old Bryan, family tree, then researching various wills, probates and other family trees, surmised that indeed, he changed his name.  

Posting a story on Ancestry about the name change, soon I received a note from Howard Bryan in Virginia thanking me for clearing up a similar problem he had with John’s Father, Benjamin Bryant.  It turned out that Howard and I, besides a common ancestry, enjoy hunting.

He sent me two excellent, stories about his turkey hunting exploits with a muzzle loader!   Each is a neat story and I want to share the first with everyone.


"Turkey Stories

One year while we were living on our farm in Appomattox County, VA, I was doing taxes on the last day of deer season.  Needless to say, it was an irritation.  While the old computer was digesting the expenses for the winery we were operating at the time, I was preparing to clean my flintlock rifle so I could put it away until the next year.  It still had a charge in the barrel from the previous day's hunt.  As I was about to discharge the weapon to clear it, I decided that taxes could wait for a few minutes, and I walked into the woods about 200 yards from the winery.
 
I went into the woods a few yards to a small stream and leaned against a tree  where I had been seeing deer.  In a very few minutes I heard some scratching, and a turkey flew down off a ridge to the South and landed in a tree.  She was followed by several more - I counted eleven in all, and all of them were looking at me, in my blue sweater and red shirt.  The closest bird was about 110 yards away, which is a very long shot for a flintlock, even one as good as the one I was carrying.
 
Jim Hash of Appomattox County, had made the rifle for me a few years before, and he had stocked it with part of a wild cherry log from our farm that I had given him.  It is a .50-caliber weapon with a 41-inch half round, half octagon barrel rifled for round ball.   I have shot 3-shot groups at 50 yards with that rifle that overlapped like a clover leaf.  All the mountings are iron except for a thumb piece of coin silver so it is a real hunting rifle, not a flashy thing.

I watched the turkeys for a minute, trying to decide how to sneak up on them while they watched.  Finally I decided to be brazen about it, and walked towards them, zig-zagging my path, whistling a tune.  I was able to nearly halve the distance before the nearest bird started acting anxious.  By the time she started shifting like she was going to fly, I was behind a large poplar that served as a rest for the rifle.  I needed that rest, for I was no longer exactly calm.

The 13-lb hen started moving at the flash from the pan, but the ball caught her at the wing roots, and she fell at the base of her pine tree.  Needless to say, I went back to the taxes with a better frame of mind once the bird had been cleaned."