Owlet Green Community, Van Zandt County, Texas

Owlet Green, also known as Marvin Chapel, was a rural community in southwest Van Zandt county thirteen miles southwest of Canton at the headwaters of the Neches River on Farm Road 1995 and Farm Road 314.  It was founded by immigrants from southern states about 1852 and named for the small green owls that populated the river bottom.  The community was first known as Marvin Chapel and had a post office as early as 1878 and continuously from 1897 to 1905.  In the 1890s the community was a shipping and supply point for area farmers and had a population of 300, two blacksmith shops, several gristmills and gins, general stores, a school, a church, a sawmill, a syrup manufacturer, and a saloon.  The local school reached an enrollment of thirty in 1905 and was consolidated with the Van Zandt Independent School District in 1848.  In the 1930s, the town had a population of twenty-five, a church, a school, a seasonal industry and scattered dwellings.

The first comers settled open, untilled, rich, fertile land and many of them were extended headright grants by the State of Texas for settling it.  A man could obtain 300 acres of good, rich land for $30.00 and three years in which to pay for it.  He usually paid off the mortgage after harvesting one crop.

Owlet Green was also the first religious community in the area, pre-dating Colfax, which later became the site of the famous mass-attended camp meetings, and ultimately the religious center for that part of the county.  Other churches were subsequently established, after the Civil War, when thousands of people left the southern United States and migrated westward.  One of these was Marvin's Chapel Methodist Church, the cemetery of which contains many of those who settled in or near Owlet Green.

Information relating to Owlet Green had been hearsay, handed down by old timers, until 1962 when Truman Tunnell, of Van, Texas, uncovered an old ledger in a trunk at the home of his aunt, Mrs. Sam Wilson, nee Birdie Tunnell, that it became possible to establish factually and accurately the scope of activity in the community of Owlet Green.  The ledger was kept by the various Justices of the Peace and Notaries Public as the official record of the community.

By 1884, about 32 years after being settled, the community was fairly well developed.  And it did not go out of existence overnight.  First, a few families pulled away, and so did a business.  Business continued falling off until the last one closed up his shop and moved away in the 1940s.  Today, all that remains of Owlet Green is the ruins of a concrete foundation in the corner of a pasture.  The ledger contains, in original hands of the various Justices of the Peace, the affidavits, estrays deeds, oaths, marriages, and mortgages executed in this community.  The ledger is an excellent source for the original inhabitants of Owlet Green.  It is rich in genealogical information.

A lot of mighty good people made up this community which was the flourishing center of trade in the last years of the 19th century.  Most are gone now, but are not forgotten.

My sister, Jean and I, visited the area where our Martin ancestors lived and raised families in the Owlet Green community during the late 1800s and early 1900s.   We had a map of the area marking the locations of all the Martins homesteads.  The map was provided by Nell Everett, whose husband, Billy J. Everett, was a Martin descendant.  She had done years of research on the Martin family and Van Zandt county.  Below is a picture I took of the ruins of a concrete foundation in the corner of a pasture on property that was our great great grandfather's homestead and believed to be the remains of Owlet Green.

Bibliographies:

Van Zandt County History Book Committee, History of Van Zandt County (Dallas, 1984).

The Colfax Homecoming Committee, Colfax, Edited by Jack Geddie (Henry L. Geddie, Pub., 1963).

John Thomas Martin (1848-1914) - Cherokee Blood, Fact or Fiction

All of my life I heard family stories of the Cherokee blood that was passed down through my 2nd great grandfather on my mother's side, John Thomas Martin.  Every time his name was mentioned to any one in the family the first response was always "he was the Indian".  According to one of his sons, John Thomas was probably three-eighths (3/8ths) to one-half (1/2) Cherokee but no one knows if this Native American heritage was through his father or through his mother.  A few descendants have related stories that Grandpa Tom was of a very, very "different culture".  A grandson of John Thomas visited Georgia and did some research on the Martin family in Bibb County.  He is now deceased, and apparently no written records exist.  It seems there have always been more questions than answers regarding John Thomas.  No pictures have ever been found of him which is a bit unusual given the time period in which he lived.  Since I cannot find or prove who his parents are I have hit a brick wall.  I am no closer to whether the family story is fact or fiction.  This is the ancestor who started my journey into our family history and genealogy research over 20 years ago. He is also the one who has been my most elusive ancestor.

John Thomas was born in Georgia but the year is not certain.   According to the 1900 census, he was born in February 1850, but according to the 1910 and 1880 census, he was born in 1848.  Since his grave stone also has 1848, the family has accepted this as his date of birth.  Family tradition, which is almost all I have regarding my great great grandfather, has been that he was the eldest of six children. His father is believed to have been James Martin, born about 1828 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia and his mother's identity remains unknown.  The 1900 census shows that she was born in Tennessee but the 1900 and the 1910 census states that she was born in Georgia.  There is a marriage record for one James Martin who married Mary Scott in Bibb County, Georgia, on 18 April 1847.  I have searched census records for this couple as well but have not been able to locate them again.  It is believed that some of the family migrated from Georgia to Texas during the 1860s possibly due to the Civil War and worsening economic conditions in Georgia.

The 1880 census is the earliest census in which I have positively identified John Thomas Martin as head of household, with wife Fannie, and three children - the oldest being my great grandfather.  I also have him on the 1900 and 1910 censuses.  The 1910 census clearly shows that he was a survivor of the Confederate Army.  He would have been between the ages of 13 years old and 17 years old during the Civil War.  It is not impossible for him to have served because many young men gave the wrong age in order to enlist, or he could have enlisted near the end of the war.  This has proven extremely difficult to research because I don't know where he was living in 1860.  John Martin is such a common name that it is almost impossible to search Civil War records, or any other records, without more information.  I found a Thomas Martin, age 19, born about 1851 in Georgia, working as a farm laborer, living in the household of George Spruce, age 46, born in Georgia, his wife Carrie, age 40, born in Georgia, and six children in Troupe, Canton Beat, Smith County, Texas.  There are a couple of reasons why I believe this to be my 2nd great grandfather:  George Spruce was born in Georgia as was John Thomas and his father; they lived near Fannie Rushing, his future bride and his age is close enough (ages often differ).  George Spruce was about the same age as John Thomas's father and could have been a friend of his in Georgia since I have found the Spruces in a Georgia county which was near Bibb county.

According to a handwritten memorandum written by one of Grandpa Tom's grandsons around 1956, he had a younger brother named Morgan who went to Cleburne, Johnson County, Texas, to live with another family.  There is a Morgan Martin, age 16, born about 1854 in Georgia, in the household of G. B. Turner, age 31, born in Georgia, wife Mattie J., age 28, born in Georgia, and two sons, in Grandview (small community near Cleburne), Johnson County, Texas.  I believe this is probably the brother of John Thomas because of his age, location, G. B. Turner was born in Bibb County, Georgia (Find A Grave), and G. B. Turner's wife's maiden name was Scott (Georgia Marriages, 1808-1967), and last but not least, John Thomas's third child was born in Cleburne.  G. B. Turner enlisted in the Confederate States Army in Georgia on 1 May 1862.  Could this be another connection?   Is it possible that the above mentioned Mary Scott who married James Martin is related to Mattie J. Scott in whose household Morgan Martin was living?

Marriage Record of J. T. Martin and Fannie Rushing

John Thomas Martin married Frances Ann (Fannie) Rushing in Rusk County, Texas on 20 June 1874. In 1886, Tom and Fannie purchased an 81-acre farm for $326.00 which was located about five miles south of Van.  They had eleven children but one of them died at age four and another one died in infancy.  The other nine children built their homes and raised their families in the same area in which they were raised.  It was known as the Owlet Green and Watts communities.  John Thomas died in October of 1914 and is buried in the historic Marvin's Chapel Cemetery just a few miles down the road from where he lived, farmed and raised his family.  I visited the Van Zandt county courthouse and found no death certificate for John Thomas Martin nor have I been able to find an obituary.  Tom and Fannie's modest frame home is gone and all that remains on their land as a reminder is a concrete foundation in the corner of the pasture at County Road 4901 and Farm-to-Market Road 314 just a few miles south of Van off Interstate 20.

Concrete foundation in the pasture of the homestead of
Tom and Fannie Martin.

Cemeteries - A Necessity!

Trevat Cemetery in Trevat, Trinity County, Texas

My husband thinks there must be something wrong with me because I visit so many cemeteries with a backpack stocked with camera, notepad, water, bug repellent, people repellent (Mace), walking stick (useful for many things), and requests from other genealogists for photos.  He is not too happy with this pastime but has given up trying to persuade me otherwise and sometimes I go to a location and I don't need any persuasion to leave.  I am a photo volunteer for Find A Grave website and some of these cemeteries are in strange, isolated locations with questionable surroundings.   I love the ones that are fenced (don't have to worry so much about dogs)!  I have been pretty lucky in locating the cemeteries and so far none of them have been so huge that I had to walk forever to try and locate the grave - sometimes there is no office or map of the cemetery.  My goal is to photograph the requested tombstone first and any others with the same surname.  After that I photograph as many tombstones as I have time for but I lean toward photographing the interesting and unusual ones as well as the older ones and children's.  I find that the children are important to photograph because they may not show up in a census (if they were born and died between censuses) or maybe it was before birth and death records were required and a family may not even know about them.  Even after laws required recording these vital records, it wasn't always done.  I have been trying to find the parents of one of my great grandfathers for years.  He died in 1914 (recording deaths were required beginning in 1903) & I can find no record or obituary on him.  He had a large family and I can find all of them, so guess somebody dropped the ball on this one.  I have to wonder if I am the only one who stands beside the grave of an ancestor and wishes they would just talk to me and answer my questions!

Here I am listing a few of the cemeteries of my ancestors and my husband's - some I have visited and others were researched or photographed by family members and others. I grew up in East Texas and do not live in that area anymore but visit often.  If anyone is familiar with any of these cemeteries and has requests or questions, please contact me and I will do what I can to help.

Colfax Cemetery - Colfax, Van Zandt, Texas
Grace Hill Cemetery - Longview, Gregg, Texas
Greenwood Cemetery - Longview, Gregg, Texas
Marvin Chapel Cemetery - Van Zandt County, Texas

New York Cemetery - New York, Henderson, Texas

Rose Hill Cemetery - Tyler, Smith, Texas

Trevat Cemetery - Trevat, Trinity, Texas
Tyler Memorial Park and Cemetery - Tyler, Smith, Texas
Union Chapel Cemetery - Garden Valley, Smith, Texas

Harvey David Trevathan (1892-1960), Orphaned at Young Age

I remember my father saying that his father had a sad life.  Unfortunately, my grandfather's early life was very much like his father, James Augusta Trevathan's life.  Fortunately, he didn't die young and tragically. I was only seven years old when my grandfather died and remember very little about him. I have memories of riding piggyback on him while he worked in the gardens.  I don't know how he did this since he was in his early to mid-sixties at the time.  I know he loved to pour cream over his peach cobbler - guess it was no different than ice cream really.  I used to go with him on errands to the icehouse near the town square in downtown Tyler, Texas and the lumberyard to get supplies. He was strong in his faith and active in Calvary Baptist Church from teaching Bible classes to delivering boxes of food to people in need. And I have memories of him reading his Bible at night and he seemed to always have it with him. He was a gentle and kind man.

My grandfather was born in 1892 in Trinity County, Texas to James and Lucinda (Richardson) Trevathan. He was their third child but the first to live beyond infancy.   He and his younger sister, Mae, were raised by their Aunt Kat (Katherine Roberta Trevathan) and her husband, George Jones.  His mother died in childbirth when he was four years old and his father was killed in a shoot out when he was six years old.

Harvey & Narcia (Mericle) Trevathan

Harvey grew up to be a tall, handsome man and on 1 October of 1911 married the beautiful Narcia Vivian Mericle.   Their first son, James Augusta Trevathan (Sonny), was born on 27 September 1912 but died on 22 November 1912.  Their second child, Paul Levier Trevathan was born 29 October 1913 but he too died in November 1913.  This was a great disappointment for Harvey and Narcia but he told her that next time she would have twins.  By the fall of 1914, they were again expecting a child.  On 5 June 1915, they were blessed with twins, a daughter, Ora Nell and a son, Olen.

Harvey, Velma & Curtis Trevathan

Harvey and family moved to Woodville, Texas, a sawmill town where Narcia's sister and husband lived. His WWI Draft Registration Card states that he was a sawmill laborer for West Lumber Co. in Westville, Texas. 

In January 1918, Narcia had the measles that turned into pneumonia. She died and was buried in Bennett Cemetery, Apple Springs, Texas. Like his father, Harvey was alone with two small children to raise. The twins went to live with their grandparents, the Mericles, who lived in Apple Springs and were quite happy there.  They lived there until they were 5 years old.

Harvey is listed on the 1920 census living in the household of H. W. and Annie Day as a boarder in Lufkin, Angelina County, Texas, not far from Trevat or Apple Springs.  His profession is listed as a machinist in a foundry and mechanic shop.  He married my grandmother, Laura Velma Cobb, daughter of John Franklin Cobb and Susan Jane McCullough of Lufkin, Texas, on 1 February 1921.  After he remarried, he brought Olen and Ora Nell (the twins) back home to live with him and Velma.  Harvey and Velma had one child, Curtis Day Trevathan, my father, who was born on 8 November 1922.  Curtis's middle name, Day, was in honor of the family Harvey boarded with while working in Lufkin.

In 1930, Harvey, Velma, the twins, and Curtis were living in Tyler, Smith County, Texas.  He worked for the railroad until he retired.  In the late fall of 1960, Harvey went into the hospital for surgery and developed complications.  He died on the 20th of November at the age of 68 years.

James Augusta Trevathan (1862-1899), Killed in Texas Shoot-Out

James Augusta Trevathan was born on 19 February 1862 to Thomas Leander Trevathan and Sena Roberta Gallion in Trevat, a small farming community in Trinity County, Texas, which was settled by Thomas Leander Trevathan and his mother, Rhoda Leander, sometime around 1844-1845. Trevat was named for the Trevathan family and was in East Texas, along the Alabama Creek which had previously been inhabited by Native Americans.

My father told me that his father's father was shot in the back and killed in a dispute over a quarter in a mercantile store in Trinity County and that his grandfather killed the man who shot him before he died. Unfortunately, that was all the details he remembered about the incident.  This story always stayed with me, and I hoped someday to find more information.  My grandfather was not yet seven years old when his father was killed, so I doubt he was told all the details, and maybe never asked.  I was only seven years old when my grandfather died, therefore I never had the opportunity to talk to him about it.  So...I finally got around to researching James' death.  My sister, brother and I visited the area and did some research at the courthouse looking for information and records.

James & Lucinda (Richardson) Trevathan

James married Lucinda Elvira Richardson on 27 February 1887 in Groveton, Trinity County, Texas.  They settled in Trevat since that was where the Trevathans and Richardsons had their homesteads.  James and Lucinda's first child was born in 1889 and died shortly after birth without being named.  They were soon expecting their second child who was born in 1890 but they were once again saddened by the death of this infant.  Two years later, they were blessed with the birth of a healthy son, Harvey David on 12 November 1892.  On 14 July 1894, James and Lucinda were happy to welcome their daughter, Mary Frances (Mae), into their world.

In 1897 Lucinda was expecting another baby but this time the sadness and tragedy doubled.  Lucinda, at the age of only 27, died in childbirth, as did the baby.  They are buried together in the Trevat Cemetery with the other two babies who died.  James was now alone with the responsibility of raising Harvey, who was five years old and Mae, who was only 3 years old.  Since there was a lot of extended family living nearby,  he probably had help from his siblings, but it must have been a very difficult time.

In the 1880 census, James is still in the home of his father and working as a farm laborer.  Since there is no 1890 census I don't know if he was still farming but I do know he still lived in the same area because his father had given him some land.  The biggest industry during this period was lumber and it is possible he worked at a sawmill.  The sawmills brought many people to the area for work, as well as an abundance of saloons, and conditions grew worse for the citizens at the close of the century in Trinity County.  At this time, Groveton was the county seat, and where people came to buy supplies but it was also the only town that permitted saloons.  Drunkenness was common, as was fighting, and killing was one of the fine arts of the gunman.  It reached a point at the close of the century that women and children never appeared on streets on Saturdays, and many Saturdays the merchants closed their places of business at noon and went home.  There are no records left to tell me if James and his children were living in Trevat or Groveton but I'm sure he had to go into town for supplies.  On Saturday, 22 April 1899, James went into one of the stores and had some sort of disagreement with the merchant, L. C. Harding.  Edwin Harding, the brother of L. C., overheard the disagreement and went to his brother's assistance, and during the course of the argument, James was shot in the back by Edwin.  According to the papers, during the scuffle, James got L. C. Harding's pistol and shot Edwin Harding, killing him almost instantly.  James then turned and began shooting at L. C. Harding, striking him above the right temple.  Apparently, the ball just grazed his head and he was not seriously hurt.  James was shot a number of times in different parts of his body and died that day at the age of 37.  He left a young boy of six and a little girl of four orphaned.  None of us will ever know the truth of what happened that fateful day.  I wish I knew for sure that James was completely innocent and only acted in self-defense.  This is what I want to believe of my great grandfather because his son grew up to be a gentle, kind-hearted man, as did his grandson, my father.  We found no records at the Trinity County courthouse regarding the incident.  The only thing I have found was a newspaper account which is where I got the names of the other two men involved and the few details.

Laredo Times

Dallas Morning News

Fortunately, James had a very generous and loving sister, Katherine Roberta Trevathan (Aunt Kat) who took Harvey and Mae into her home and raised them.

On a side note, a lot of the records for Trinity County, prior to 1900, are in a huge warehouse room in the back of the county clerk's office in Groveton and in a complete state of disarray and deterioration. The clerks were hesitant to allow us in because the metal file boxes were stacked up high on unstable shelves in some areas and strewn in piles in other areas.  They were apologetic and explained that there had been a fire some years before and apparently these were saved and put in this room but nothing more was ever done.  There is a wonderful Trinity County Museum in Groveton which is a very good source of information and for research.

My source of information on Trinity County during this period of time was A History of Trinity County, Texas, 1827-1928 by Flora Gatlin Bowles.

A New Year & a New Challenge

I am not a journalist or a storyteller and have never blogged anything in my life so this will truly be a challenge for me.  The purpose of this blog is to record and share my family history as I research and struggle to uncover new information and insight regarding the people of my past.   Maybe in the process I can become better at writing stories, short biographies, and even leave something of interest to my children and grandchildren.

I started genealogy research over 20 years ago but I have had periods of time that I didn't work on it because other things in life needed my attention.  Sometimes this can be a good thing because you come back with a different perspective.  The down side is that you have to review so much and I would find myself researching data which I had already researched.  I have since learned to keep better notes and research logs!

I wish I could say that I had an epiphany one day and decided genealogy research was my destiny but my reasons are probably the same as most anyone - family stories.  My mother always talked of the Native American blood that supposedly ran through our veins from Grandpa Tom.  This must be the most common family story out there!  I remember my father telling me that his grandfather was murdered over a quarter!  These stories and the fact that I am a sixth generation Texan peaked my curiosity enough that I just had to find out all I could about Grandpa Tom, learn who was the first of my ancestors to make Texas their home, were there any Civil War veterans, who were the first immigrants to America, and all the others in my past.  My husband's mother is a great storyteller and I love to hear her tell about her childhood and events in her life.  Her maiden name is Zeigler and she was told they immigrated from Switzerland.  I knew I had to find out more and share it with her.  And last, but not least, I wanted to research the Hilliards since I married a Hilliard and my children were born with that name.

And so the journey began.