My Thoughts

Bennie Hall was born in April 1865 in Cass County, Texas.  The Hall family had settled into the Northeast Texas area approximately 15 years earlier as verified by 1850 Census records for Bennie's father, Benjamin Franklin Hall.  Prior to the move, the Hall family had resided in Georgia.   Bennie married Daniel Hardy Holt in 1883 in Cass County, Texas.  The couple had 10 children:  6 girls and 4 boys.  Bennie and Daniel slowly moved eastward before finally settling in Hazen, Arkansas.  The first 4 children were born in Cass County, Texas while the remaining 6 were born in Arkansas.  This movement to Arkansas is consistent with the Holt family migration patterns.  Most of Bennie's siblings remained in Cass County and are buried there.  Bennie died in 1926 in Hazen, Arkansas.  Within three months, her husband died.  In the next year, her son Seth and daughter Erma also died.  The reasons for families to move into Texa...

I started my morning off with a cup of coffee and an intent to make a neat summary story about my great great grandmother Rebeca Lavinia Mitchell.  She died in 1944, twenty three years before I was born, and I do not ever remember hearing much about her. Rebeca was my father's great-grandmother, and he was only six when she passed. Luckily, I am in contact with a Mitchell family member who has a full collection of information, so I am getting a chance to know Rebeca. She was born in Benton County, Arkansas, May 23, 1863, and like many other families, her parents migrated into Texas for better opportunities. The Civil War was still raging when she was born.  Her birth in Benton County, AR is verified by the 1870 Census.I wonder if this woman is where the story came from about one of my ancestors being born in a covered wagon as they came to Texas. In 1879, Rebeca married Francis Marion Mitchell in Lampasas County, Texas.  The notoriety of the Mitchell fam...