Travel Blog 0123 - Town Bluff, TX

Town Bluff

Town Bluff, TX is the town that John’s 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Rivers Hicks and her children settled in Texas after her husband, William Jackson Hicks, died from a wound received in the Civil War. They came to Town Bluff from Cotton Hill, GA. Town Bluff was supposed to be a large port on Neches. River. Instead, Houston became the port. 

If you’d like read about the town of Town Bluff, visit this site:

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/town-bluff-tx

We didn’t get to explore the area as it was almost sunset so I don’t have any pictures to really share but it was a pretty area surrounded by pine trees.

Here is a story from Dr. Peter Bundgard’s research about how Sarah arrived in Woodville with her six children.

Sarah’s Quilt

by Anne Chappell

As the quilt grew under her capable fingers, Sarah had no notion that of all of her many fine quilts, this one would one day serve a very special purpose. Instead, Sarah’s thoughts possibly drifted back to that tragic time nineteen years earlier when her William fell, another statistic in a fight he had not planned to join.

It had been thirteen years now since she had sold their Clay County, Georgia farm and brought her family to the Town Bluff community in Tyler County, Texas. All their children were married with growing families of their own, and they all lived nearby.

Life had held such promise on that day in 1849 when she and William had joined hands and hearts. Surely John H. Hicks, an old War of 1812 veteran, and Lewis Rivers, former state senator from Randolph County, shared their children’s joy as this union was pronounced.

By 1852, they owned their own farm in a part of Randolph County that would soon become Clay County just a short distance south of their little community of Cotton Hill.

Their family grew rapidly. In 1850 William Lewis was born. At about two year intervals three more boys were born, John Thomas, Richard Joel, and James Jackson. In January, 1859, Sarah gave birth to their only girl. Two years later Charles Columbus completed the family.

For years, far from their snug little home, ominous hatred had begun to erupt in remote places. Just before the birth of little Charlie, William and Sarah and neighbors learned that they had become citizens of a new nation, the Confederate States of America.

William was a member of the local militia and held the rank of first lieutenant in the 749th District of the Georgia Militia. A story circulated around Cotton Hill that militia members would be conscripted. William enlisted in Company F, 32nd Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, “Clay County Guards.”

By January 1863, William had suffered a shoulder wound. He wrote Sarah that it was improving. At about that time he heard that the rumor had been false; militia troops had not been automatically subject to the draft. He wrote the adjutant general requesting a discharge on the grounds that he had enlisted under “false impression.” No response was forthcoming. In March 1863, he became a grim statistic among the many thousands.

After William’s death, young Richard Joel decided to leave for Texas, following his uncle Dick Rivers to the Waxahachie area.

In 1870, Sarah put her farm, livestock, and equipment up for sale. The whole lot brought $2,968.75, enough for passage to and a start in Texas. In October of that year, William Lewis had wed Mollie Boyette, and they were eager to make a new home in Texas, also. In December the family arrived in Tyler County, and in April of the following year, Sarah paid $1,600.00 for eight hundred and thirty eight acres on the banks of Beech Creek near Town Bluff. William Lewis and Mollie settled nearby.

Two years later, Sarah married Mr. William H. Bower. The next year, James Jackson married Louissa Holland, and a year later, Emma Catherine Tucker became Mrs. Richard Joel Hicks. By 1880, all of Sarah’s children had married Charles that year to Blanche Kathryn Ratcliff, sister of Eliza Abigail, and the year before Laura married Jackson Collier, second cousin of the Ratcliff sisters.

Soon there were many grandchildren. And then, she was widowed again. When after a time a prominent respected minister J. G. Masterson asked her to be his wife, Sarah accepted, and in 1885, they exchanged vows. This match brought another sorrow to Sarah. Mr. Masterson’s children resented their father’s new wife. In the summer of 1888 while not yet fifty-eight years old, Sarah died. She was buried beside three infant grandchildren in Town Bluff cemetery, her grave marked by a delicate white marble monument inscribed simply, “In Memory of Our Mother Dec. 9, 1830 July 31, 1888.”

Over two decades earlier, Zachariah Cowart Collier worked for the state and was paid in land in the Panhandle. He and his son Jackson, Laura’s husband, had made trips up to survey their new lands. They had made some improvements, and by the turn of the decade, Z. C. was eager to challenge a new frontier and Jackson wanted to go also.

How did Laura view this venture? All her brothers were firmly planted in East Texas with their dozens of children. But going west with Z. C., Jackson, and Laura would, of course, be her own little ones, May, Lizzie, and Zack. Z. C.’s Mary Elizabeth would soon follow. So Laura would not have to live among strangers. If Jackson and family were determined, she was content to follow.

There was communication back and forth with family, even rare, long visits. The years sped by, taking their toll on Jackson and Laura. When Jackson was taken suddenly by a stroke in 1931, Lizzie came from New Mexico to be near Laura until four years later, Laura joined Jackson.. For years, Lizzie ran the ranch.. It was during this time that I first read William’s three Civil War letters saved by Sarah, Laura, and Lizzie. With each reading, the tears would come because I knew the story’s end. When Lizzie died these letters and other keepsakes passed to Lorean, my mother.

A century had passed since Sarah’s death when Mother and I first stood beside Sarah’s grave. How long would there be those who know who “Our Mother” was? Sarah needed a name again. Mother and I discussed adding a little stone for that purpose, but we felt that might be an intrusion without permission of family who had always lived close, and we knew none of them.

Then suddenly Mother joined her parents, and for a time, I did not think of a name for Sarah. But eventually C. T. and I went back to Tyler County, and an encounter led to our discovering family. While researching in Whitmeyer library, I met Dottie Johnson who inquired about my family lines and, unknown to me, included my connections in her newspaper column. After our return home, I received a letter from Edna Hicks Kelley, a descendant of James Jackson, inviting me to the annual Hicks’ reunion at Town Bluff, Tyler County, Texas. Edna shared memories she had heard of Laura, and she told me her father had urged her never to cease trying to locate Laura’s family.

On the second Sunday of June, 1997, I brought to the family gathering at Town Bluff my pictures of William and Sarah, his little book of John, and the bullet from his shoulder wound, and my wish to place a second little monument.. The family gave their approval. Jeannine, wife of Tom, a descendant of John Thomas, was chosen to select the stone.

As we drove home, I began to think of how nice it would be to include William and their children on a larger monument. As I mused over size, shape and inscription, an idea began to form in my mind. How great a tribute to Sarah if this memorial were to come through a creation of her own skilled hands. If I donated one of her quilts as a fundraiser, another of her descendants could have the pleasure of having something from Sarah.

At the reunion while discussing family connections, Jeannine and I had discovered we were Collier kin. I told her I would be glad to share my research, and so they planned a September trip to visit us. When they arrived, I shared my idea, showed them the quilt, and asked if they would take it back to Tyler County for me. Jeannine was thrilled with the idea, and she declared she would buy all the tickets because she wanted that quilt! So a raffle or auction was not necessary, she would purchase the new monument and become the new owner of the quilt.

At the reunion in 1998, it was decided that Sarah’s name should be inscribed on the back of her original marker, and the new gray granite stone would be placed just beneath Sarah’s feet inside the old curbing. And by the reunion in 1999, the new monument was in place and Jeannine had planned a lovely little dedication for it.

So that is how just one of the many quilts stitched by Sarah was unique among all the others, for it became a memorial to Sarah and William and their family and their love and courage and strength and endurance in the face of extreme grief and hardship.

Here is what Sarah’s monument looked like. Below is what it looks like today. It is in need of cleaning.

Photos courtesy of Peter Bundgard

Town Bluff Cemetery

It was a lovely little place tucked in off the road under large trees.

Pictures taken from Find A Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/502506/town-bluff-cemetery#view-photo=9168007

To try to make this less confusing when I’m referring to my John, John Little, I’m going to bold his name.

Our first stop was the Fairview Cemetery where there are 12 Hicks relatives buried.

Here are some of the ones who are most closely related to John:

• Sarah Ann Rivers Hicks Bower Masterson - John’s 3rd great-grandmother and a memorial to his 3rd great-grandfather is there as well.

• Cornelius Marcellus and Catherine America Carroll Middleton - John’s 3rd great-grandparents

• Thomas “Tom” John Collier, Ella Middleton, John’s 2nd great-grandmother’s second husband.

• Richard Joel and Emma Catherine Tucker Hicks - John’s 2nd great-granduncle and aunt.

• The children of John Thomas and Eliza Hicks who passed away at a young age - John’s great-grand uncles and aunt: Horace Quinton, James Richard and Lucy Ann “Annie”

The other three are 1st cousins 3x removed.

From findagrave.com “Descendants of William Jackson Hicks placed a tombstone marker next to the grave of his wife in Town Bluff Cemetery about 1999. This stone marker does NOT indicate that he is buried there.”

Photo credit - Author