52 Ancestors: #4 Rev. James Bell Watt (1820 - 1860)

I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.  Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!

Reverend James Bell Watt, a Presbyterian minister, was born in Fairfield County, South Carolina on the 4th of April, 1820.  His parents, James Watt and Margaret Bell, were both descendants of Ulster Scots pioneers who arrived in South Carolina in the mid-18th century.  He was said to have had a younger brother, and my own research so far has turned up three sisters: Martha Jane (m. James Robinson Castles), Rebecca Frances (m. David Wills), and Sarah Ann (m. Henry Carson Castles).  The Watts, like many of the other families of lowland Scottish heritage in their community, were members of the Presbyterian faith.

James Bell Watt

James began a classical education at Mt. Zion College in Winnsboro, SC but left school not long after on the occasion of his marriage to his cousin Nancy M. Bell on 31 December 1839.  Nancy's branch of the Bells were Associate Reformed Presbyterians, and sometime after they were married he also joined the Associate Reformed church.  After the birth of their first son, Frank, he picked up his studies again at Erskine College in Due West, SC and spent 1841-1842 there studying courses that he felt would be useful in his chosen field as a minister.  He did not graduate with a degree, but was licensed by the First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Synod in 1843.  Rev. John Douglas's history of Steele Creek describes him as "tall and slender, a man of much personal dignity, of great suavity of manner, of ardent piety, a good preacher, fluent and impressive, though not boisterous."  In addition to his work as a minister, he also "wrote freely for the press" as a correspondent for the Due West Telescope.

In November of 1844 this "brilliant and magnetic" minister took his first assignment at Sardis and Steele Creek ARP churches in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.  On 10 April 1854 his wife Nancy died after a long illness, and Rev. Watt remarried later that year to Louisa Angeline Neal, whose family were members of the Steele Creek congregation of long standing.  In 1858 he broke his affiliation with the ARP church over the issue of closed communion (he didn't like that his own mother wasn't allowed communion in his church as she was Presbyterian, not ARP) and returned to the Presbyterian church.  He was installed as minister of the Steele Creek Presbyterian Church, but this appointment was to last for only two years.  On 16 September 1860, Rev. Watt died of typhoid fever he had contracted while ministering to the sick of his congregation.  Eleven days later his youngest son, Walter Wellington Watt, was born.  Rev. Watt was laid to rest in his church's cemetery.

Rev. Watt was survived by six children in all: sons Frank and Charles (my 3x great-grandfather) and daughter Margaret by his first wife, and sons William Neal, James Bell Jr., and Walter Wellington by his second.  Frank died at the hospital at Gordonsville, Virginia during the Civil War.  Charles and William Neal both went to Texas.  Margaret is supposed to also have married and moved to Texas.  J. B. Jr. and Walter remained in the Charlotte area and were members of the Steele Creek church where their father had been pastor.

See also:

• The History of Steele Creek Church, Mecklenburg County, N.C. - Rev. John Douglas (1901)
• Revised and expanded edition of Douglas's history - Steele Creek Historical Committee (1976)
• The Centennial History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (1905)

52 Ancestors: #3 Marie Eleque (? - ca.1737)

I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.  Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!

The existing records for my New Orleans colonial ancestor Marie Eleque are rather sparse, so I'm going to cover what is known from existing sources first and then my proposed hypothesis regarding the origins of this particular ancestor.  I consider this one a research project still in progress.

What is known about Marie:

1. She was born in France, not New Orleans;
2. Her surname spelling in New Orleans records is extremely inconsistent.  Variants I've seen are Elecq, Eleque, Eleg, Elceq, Helceq, and Elee.  In my hypothesis is my theory on what her last name actually was.
3. The following entry in the Records of the Superior Council seems to be her first appearance in the New Orleans records: "Petition to Marry. May 5, 1725. Jean deDelmas alias St. Jean asks leave to marry one Marie, landed by LaLoire. Granted." (Records of the Superior Council, Louisiana Historical Quarterly, v. 2)  (LaLoire could have several meanings: it could refer to people in the area named La Loire, including one who was clerk of the company of the Indies who was killed at Natchez, or perhaps even more likely the ship LaLoire, which left France in 1724 with 19 girls aboard sponsored by the Company.)  This gives us 1725 as Marie's probable year of arrival in the colony. (19/5/2015 - CONFIRMED: Marie ELLECQ listed as a passenger aboard the Loire, which departed from Lorient, France on 9 June 1724.  Lorient is also located in the Morbihan département of Brittany, as is Bubry, Marie's likely hometown.)
4. That marriage appears to have taken place on 15 May 1725, when "Jean De Belmast, sailor of the Company [of the Indies], m. Marie Eleg".  (Woods, Earl C. and Charles Nolan, Sacramental Records of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, v. 1.)
5. She was widowed by St. Jean and married again 13 November 1731 in New Orleans to François Brunet, a blacksmith from Plancoët, Bretagne.  In their marriage  record published by the Diocese of New Orleans, her parents are given as Pierre and Marie Tandie, and it says she's a native of "Bibri, Diocese of Vannes" and that she is the widow of "Jean Belmar, surnamed St. Jean Patron, dec. at Natchez" (this could be a very significant clue - I'll explain below).  (Woods and Nolan, Sacramental Records, v. 1)
6. She owned land on what is now Bourbon Street.  The chains of title for the earliest records on the particular properties contain a marginal note: "To Mary Elee, widow of Jean De Belmart, called S. Jean, whom Francois Vinnet has married. She has a granddaughter".  The property owner is given as "St. Jean" in 1728 and "Brunet" in 1731, consistent with the marriage date of Marie and François Brunet.  I don't know who the granddaughter referred to in the note is, as it seems to have been written during Marie's lifetime, yet the only grandchildren I have records of were born after she had died.  At the time of her remarriage, she and St. Jean had at least one child: a daughter, Marie Jeanne.  It could be the daughter the note is actually referring to, not a granddaughter, or that portion of the note could be from a later date.

52 Ancestors #2: Robert Fagan (1852 - 1932)

I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.  Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!

My great-great grandfather, Robert Fagan, was born in Hazleton, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants from County Westmeath, Peter and Elizabeth* Fagan.  His birth date as recorded on his death certificate was the 24th of May, 1852.  What is certain is that his parents were already in Pennsylvania by the time he was born, as they are found on the 1850 census living in Hazleton with their Irish-born children, Julia, Garret and Eliza.  Family tradition says they arrived in the US overland across the Canadian border and that they arrived initially through a Nova Scotian port.  In Pennsylvania, sons Robert and Michael and daughter Mary would be born, the family's first American born citizens.

As a youth, Robert was one of the "breaker boys" or "slate pickers" who sat over chutes picking chunks of slate and other unusable materials out of the anthracite.  One of the slate pickers' supervisors at the time was a Mayo native, Edward Treston, whose niece Adelia O'Reilly would leave her home in Dublin for Hazleton sometime around 1882.  In 1883, Robert, by this time a superintendent, and Adelia were married.

1881 patent for bending railroad rails

Robert was also an inventor, holding patents on devices to bend railroad rails and to dispense powder from kegs safely, reducing the risk of explosion.  His obituary in the Wilkes-Barre, PA newspaper also mentions a "device for fighting mine fires, which was used successfully", and an industry journal noted when he had been granted a patent for eliminating rock drilling dust.  As some of the inventions he patented indicate, the safety of the men under his supervision was always a top priority.  The 1888 Report of the Pennsylvania mine inspectors contains the account of a serious fire in the Lattimer mines, and the following citation: "Much praise is due Joseph Dixon and Robert Fagan, and also to their assistants, John Burns, Oliver Rohrbach, Archie Boyd and John Carney, for the great care they took of the hundred and twenty men that were fighting the fire on the inside; and, indeed, I congratulate them on their success, as not one person was seriously injured during the one hundred and eight days and nights that they were engaged fighting this fire."  Given the number of men involved and the length of time the fire burned, it was surely no small task keeping them all safe.

He died the 30th of September, 1932 at the age of 80, having left behind three sons who all became doctors and four daughters who became teachers.

 *Robert's death certificate gives his mother's maiden name as Rogan, his brother Michael's has it as Grogan, and his sister Elizabeth's has it as Brogan.

52 Ancestors: #1 Mary Ann "Dr. Polly" (Foster) Rigsby (1816 - 1893)

I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.  Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!

My 4th great grandmother Mary Ann Foster was born 1 February 1816 in Wilkes County, Georgia, to Lewis Foster and Jane Lawson.  She married Lewis Johnson Rigsby on 9 January 1831 in Monroe County, Georgia, and in 1842 they moved to Texas.  They settled first in Angelina County, before moving to Tyler County and settling at Woodville.

The Rigsbys had 10 children, the second eldest being my 3rd great grandmother, Eliza Ann Rigsby Barclay Herring.  Doctors being scarce in the neighborhood, Mrs. Rigsby began to educate herself in the practice of medicine, taking a particular interest in women's ailments.  She taught herself through reading every published medical text and journal she could access and was known as "Dr. Polly".

When she died at the age of 77 on 8 May 1893, she was memorialized in her obituary as "no ordinary woman" whose "skill in the treatment of those diseases peculiar to her sex became widely known, and all the later years of her life were kept busy in works of humanity and charity."

My great great grandfather, James Clinton Herring, carried on his grandmother's legacy.  He became a doctor himself and practiced in Jones Prairie, Temple and Burlington, Texas.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

I'm participating in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge!

To read about my 52 Ancestors, choose the "My 52 Ancestors" link in the sidebar.

Joyeux 300ème anniversaire, Natchitoches!

2014 marks the 300th anniversary of the founding of a French colonial outpost in the wilderness of what is now northwestern Louisiana.  Originally founded as the settlement of Fort St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches, the city of Natchitoches predates the founding of New Orleans by six years, making it the oldest city in the state of Louisiana.  One of my 2014 genealogy resolutions is to make it back to Natchitoches to help celebrate the tri-centennial!

Kate Chopin House, Cloutierville 2002
Destroyed by fire, 2008

Natchitoches and its French Creole history have been a huge part of my research for years now.  My maternal grandmother would tell me about her own maternal grandmother, a first-generation Texas native who died a Presbyterian but still had the habit of saying a French rosary around the house.  Great-great grandma Emma no doubt learned it from her own mother Esilla, a Rachal from Cloutierville.  Through that family line, I can trace my roots back to the earliest history of the parish, and can even claim a connection to the writer Kate Chopin, who made her home at Cloutierville in the 1890s.  Her husband Oscar was a cousin through our shared ancestors, Julien Rachal and his wife Marie Louise Brevel.

My 5th great-grandfather
Pierre Sebastien Compere

For the genealogist with roots in Natchitoches Parish, there are abundant resources in the town to help you with your research.  Your first stop might be the Natchitoches Genealogy Library, located on the second floor of the Old Natchitoches Courthouse and operated by the Natchitoches Genealogical & Historical Association.  Or it might be the Cammie G. Henry Research Center, located on the campus of Northwestern State University of Louisiana.  Either location will provide you with a wealth of local history resources.  If you're not afraid of having to dig, the Natchitoches Parish Clerk's office contains records dating back to approximately 1732.  The last time I was there, about 12 years ago, the majority of those older records were not indexed so you had to have a pretty good idea of what you were looking for before you went.  You can also visit some of your ancestors directly in either the American Cemetery or the Catholic Cemetery, the oldest cemeteries in town.  Cemetery listings have been published and should be available at either of the research libraries listed above.  Whatever your course of action, I highly recommend checking out the bibliography I've created of books that have ranged from helpful to absolutely indispensable in doing my own research.  The more groundwork you've done ahead of time with those resources, the more time you can devote to those available only in Natchitoches.

Chapel altar, Fort St. Jean Baptiste

If you're more into experiencing the history rather than looking it up in books and documents, a trip to the Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site gives you a taste of what frontier life was like for the earliest French settlers.  Volunteers in period costume guide visitors on a tour around the site, featuring reproduction barracks, a chapel and even a large outdoor oven where the French baked their bread.  Another important historic site near Natchitoches is Melrose Plantation, which was built by the Metoyers, former slaves who became a founding family of the Cane River colony.  Today Melrose is a museum and a National Historic Landmark.  Also in the area is Oakland Plantation, now part of the Cane River Creole National Historic Park, which film buffs might recognize as the filming location of The Horse Soldiers, starring John Wayne and William Holden.  Check out the Cane River National Heritage Area website as well, for even more sites to visit and downloadable maps and a travel guide.

All photos by the author.

A Natchitoches Bibliography

The following will be of interest to anyone doing research on ancestors from Natchitoches, Louisiana.  The majority of these books are still in print and available via their publishers or an online retailer such as Amazon.  Copies of all books on the list can also be located in libraries via WorldCat.

• Burton, H. Sophie, and F. Todd Smith. Colonial Natchitoches: A Creole Community on the Louisiana-Texas Frontier. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008.
• De Ville, Winston. Marriage Contracts of Natchitoches, 1739-1803. Nashville, 1961. Print.
• Mills, Donna Rachal. Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Tuscaloosa: Mills Historical Press, 1985.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown, and Gary B. Mills. Tales of Old Natchitoches. Natchitoches: Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches, 1978.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Natchitoches, 1729-1803: Abstracts of the Catholic Church Registers of the French and Spanish Post of St. Jean Baptiste Des Natchitoches in Louisiana. Westminister, MD: Heritage Books, 2007.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Natchitoches 1800-1826: Translated Abstracts from Register Number Five of the Catholic Church, Parish of St. François Des Natchitoches, Louisiana. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 2004.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Natchitoches Church Marriages, 1818-1850: Translated Abstracts from the Registers of St. François Des Natchitoches, Louisiana. Westminster, MD: Heritage, 2007.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Natchitoches Colonials: Censuses, Military Rolls, and Tax Lists, 1722-1803. Chicago: Adams Press, 1981.
• Mills, Gary B., and Elizabeth Shown Mills. The Forgotten People: Cane River's Creoles of Color. Baton Rouge: LSU, 2013.
• Prud'homme, Lucile Keator, and Fern B. Christensen. The Natchitoches Cemeteries: Transcriptions of Gravestones from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Centuries in Northwest Louisiana. New Orleans: Polyanthos, 1977.
• Riffel, Judy. Natchitoches Baptisms, 1817-1840: Abstracts from Register 6 of St. Francis Catholic Church, Natchitoches, Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Comite Des Archives De La Louisiane, 2007.
• Riffel, Judy. Natchitoches Baptisms, 1841-1849: Abstracts from Register 9 of St. Francis Catholic Church, Natchitoches, Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Comité Des Archives De La Louisiane, 2010.