Burt & Breazeale Texas to Indian Territory 1886

Posted 28 Dec 2018 by SHarperBurns

I was fortunate enough to speak with Daniel Harrison, the grandson of Edga Lee (Breazeale) Harrison in Grady County, Oklahoma, in July 2010.  Mr. Harrison is in his 80s and remembers his grandmother very well.  He said that Edga Lee went by the nickname of “Peggy.”

Mr. Harrison told me that the Breazeales and the Burts came into Indian Territory together during the winter of 1886.  It was so cold that year that they walked across the ice of the Red River.  He said that his grandmother had her own cattle that she brought with her, and that the families traveled in covered wagons.  He said that they first stopped north of the present town of Velma and stayed there for a while, then moved north into what is now Grady County. While near Velma, they lived in a half-dugout.  Edga Lee told Mr. Harrison that when she first saw Lewis Harrison he was a tax collector and traveled around the county “armed to the teeth.”  Lewis Harrison was also a member of the Choctaw tribe, and a Lighthorseman.   Edga Lee met Lewis, then told her “Uncle Burt” that Lewis was the man she was going to marry.  She did indeed marry Lewis some years later.

The Burt boys, Evan and Orran, rented a store from Lynch B. Cochran in section 27, T3N, R5W.  They built the store and Mr. Cochran named it after them.  It contained a post office from about 1890 until 1900.  Mr. Harrison showed me the hill that the store once sat on.  He said that the old timers around here still know it as “Burt Mountain.”  It is just about the rockiest hill around and is located about 2 miles south of Cox City and one-half mile east of the Cox City road that runs north & south.

Although some accounts place Burt, I.T. in section 30, Mr. Harrison assured me that it was definitely in section 27 and said that his father showed him the location himself. There is little there today besides rocks and a few trees in a 40 acre cattle pasture.  One would never know that a building ever sat on the site.

Mr. Harrison’s grandmother Edga Lee was the younger sister of Cynthia Ann Breazeale who married Orran Oscar Burt.  Mr. Harris showed me pictures of his grandmother with two of her daughters, and then showed me her traveling trunk which he still has.  He said she was a very tiny woman.

Mr. Harrison said that the Breazeale children lost both of their parents and they were “farmed out” to other families in Texas.  I found several of the children in separate households on the 1880 census, as their parents both died in 1872.

The Breazeales I could find that made the move into I.T. were Cynthia, Rose, Edga Lee, (Patsy) and John Riley.  Cynthia and O.O Burt moved up to Custer County, Oklahoma.  John Riley Breazeale married and eventually moved to New Mexico.  Edga Lee married L.H. Harrison, a Choctaw, and Rose married John Henry Hicx.  They both ad several children and lived out their lives in Harrison Township near Bailey, Oklahoma.

Edga Lee (Peggy) and L.H. Harrison lived in a fine two-story frame house situated on a hilltop in section 30 that is still in the Harrison family to this day.  It overlooks many acres of nice bottom land adjacent to Rush Creek.

About the town of Burt…

Mr. Harrison said that there never was much to the town of Burt.  He said the store was there, and people who lived around the area.  There is no graveyard and was no formal school although contemporary newspaper accounts say that “Mr. Burt” taught school at Burt.  There was enough of a population in the 1890s for Burt to have 30 pupils in school and have a men’s baseball team.  Presumably those were farmers and their children living in the nearby areas.

William Harper, Ireland to Fleming County, Kentucky…

Note:  9 Dec 2017.. Another update due to new information coming into my hands… I ran across a letter written in 1922 by one Alma Hurst, a descendant of William through his son Robert.  She stated the following paraphrased..:  That William was Scot but living in Ireland, that he was trained for the Presbyterian ministry, but did not go into that as he married Mary Harper, his cousin, causing the family to feel they had disgraced them.  William and Mary then emigrated to America with their baby son Robert and spent some time “back east” (we know this was Pennsylvania) then went into Kentucky where William became a farmer.  Alma states William was “mysteriously murdered” at aged 49.

Note:  This post was updated to include information from Fleming County Court documents regarding William Harper that were kindly scanned and forwarded to me by my sister Cindy.  12/31/2011

I would normally post a picture of the subject of my post here… However… to my knowledge, there are no pictures of William Harper in existence.  If this is in error, and some relative somewhere has such a picture, please have mercy and send me a copy!

The oldest confirmed photograph I have of any of William’s descendants that dates back the farthest is this one of his grandson, William W. Harper, and his wife, Nancy (Stoops) Harper.  William W. was the son of Alexander, William Harper’s youngest son.

William W. and Nancy (Stoops) Harper, Circa 1880s

By far the most mysterious of my ancestors was my father’s 4th great-grandfather, William Harper.  There are more convoluted stories and rumors connected to William than you can shake a stick at.

Some of those stories are purely rumors; some are factual, based on county and court documents.  Taken all together, they show that William was a pretty interesting man.  He was a successful farmer, a family man, a bit of a rascal, occasionally a curmudgeon, and a man bent on at least one form of long-lasting vengeance for a wrong done to him.

The rumors are varied and some are completely wild.  They include claims that he came from a wealthy  background in Ireland, that he was a preacher, that he was a teacher at William & Mary College, that he had a son named William (who is absent from any records that I can find,) that he was the owner of the infamous Harper’s Ferry,  that he was a drunkard who stabbed one of his sons-in-law, and that he was murdered brutally in his old age.

Before expounding on those rumors, I’ll tell you what I do know about William, and what is actually based in truth and backed up by contemporary documents.  I’ll also throw in some of my conclusions or suppositions that seem to fit with what we do know.

William was born in Ireland, around 1765.  This is backed up by census records and matches some of the stories that the family has passed down.  Based on his Presbyterian upbringing and the stories handed down, I’d say it’s a pretty good bet that William was indeed from Belfast, although some claim he came from Cork.

* Note here that the “accepted” story is that William came from Belfast.  I tend to agree since Belfast is in Northern Ireland which does make sense, all things considered.

William was of the Presbyterian faith. Based on that, and the old Scottish surname of Harper, I also strongly believe that William was of Scottish descent.  If my history is correct, his ancestors probably migrated to Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne, when Northern Ireland was heavily colonized by the English and Scots.

Why William decided to leave Ireland was a complete mystery to me until recently.  Some family researchers like to say that he was the son of a wealthy horse breeder, but no explanation is given for his leaving Ireland. I tended to think that he was probably a younger son who inherited money but no land, and who left to find more opportunity, and land, in America.  As it turns out, it was neither.  According to Alma Hurst’s letter written in 1922, William and Mary left Ireland after marrying and being considered in disgrace as they were cousins.   Who would have thought!

What is clear is that William did have some money when he came over, as he was able to purchase quite a bit of land when he settled in Kentucky.  Before that though, they went into southwestern Pennsylvania where they either met up with, or continued to travel with a group of people who all eventually ended up in Fleming County, Kentucky.

Some of these associated families were the McAtinnie’s, the Burks, the Prices, the Cowans, the Faris’s, the Sousley’s, and the Shockeys.  Many of these families also married into the Harper family, as William and Mary eventually had at least eight children, three sons and five daughters.

An interesting side note here is that Alexander Harper, William’s youngest son, (and my father’s 3rd great grandfather) married a girl by the name of Sarah Burk.  Her mother was Caty Sousley.  Caty was a member of the same Sousley clan that eventually produced the WW2 US Marine, Franklin Sousley, who was immortalized in the iconic photograph of Marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima, Japan.  Franklin, then just a young man of 19 years, died at Iwo Jima and is buried in Elizaville in Fleming County, Kentucky, not far from the Harper farm.

The story goes that when she learned of Franklin’s death, his mother could be heard screaming all night by neighbors who lived a quarter of a mile away.  It’s a sad story all the way around.

Although Caty must have been a great-great aunt or cousin to Franklin, and they were separated by at least two generations and one century, it’s kind of neat to think that some of the same Sousley blood runs through our veins today…

But back to William…

William’s Last Will and Testament lists his wife Mary, and their children who were living at the time the will was written, somewhere around 1814.  The sons listed were Robert, the eldest, John, and Alexander.  The girls were Peggy, Polly, Jenny, Letty, and Sally.

Interestingly, there are old microfiche records that claim all but Robert were born in Albemarle, Virginia.  I don’t know if this is accurate or not, but tend to disbelieve it.  They may well have been born right there in Fleming County, and I believe that they probably were.  To confuse the issue though, that part of Kentucky was a part of Virginia until about 1792 when Kentucky became a state.  Until then, it was Kentucky County, Virginia.  So I’m not sure where Albemarle would have come into the picture, as it’s clear that William settled directly in Fleming County after leaving Pennsylvania according to contemporary accounts.

William was undoubtedly a farmer.  He was also a slave owner, which is particularly interesting in the context that some of his grandsons would take up arms for opposing sides during the Civil War.

He had at least two decently sized farms or “plantations,” one of which he lived upon (and left to his son Robert) and another that he left to his second-born son, John.  I suspect strongly that part of his farming operation had to do with horse breeding, as this seems to have been carried on down through at least a few generations of Harpers that followed.  William’s grandson, William W. Harper, in his old age, was killed while training a horse at his farm near Ponca City, Oklahoma.

From what I have found in the absence of many records concerning William’s early life in Kentucky aside from deeds and land purchases, William must have lived in relative obscurity and presumably in relative peace there in Fleming County, at least until his daughter Sally married a man by the name of Edward Callahan in the early 1800s.

For whatever reason, Edward “greatly incurred William’s displeasure” and apparently William held a grudge against Edward Callahan.  According to records, he was “reconciled” with Edward for some time before his death, but his will was never changed.

What exactly transpired between the two men is now lost to history.  But we do know from court records that William liked his whiskey now and then, and that he must also have had a bit of a temper (which would make sense, as the Harper temper is nearly famous); as proof of this, documents show that he was once prosecuted for swearing in his own home.

If memory serves me right, William was convicted and fined but I don’t recall the sum.

* Updated with transcription of documents provided by my sister 12/31/2011.

“Greeting we command you to summon William Harper to appear before the (??) Judges of the Fleming Circuit Court at the Courthouse in Fleming County on the first day of the next September Term to answer of the following presentment of the Grand Jury, to wit, The Grand Jury impannelled [sic] and sworn for the body of the Fleming Circuit composed of the County of Fleming at a Circuit Court holden [sic]  therefore at the June term thereof in the year 1813 in the name and by the authority of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  

Upon their oath present William Harper (farmer) for profanely swearing two oaths using profanity in each, the words, “By God,” at his own house in the County of Fleming on the 4th day of June 1813 contrary to the statute in that case made and provided and against the peace & dignity of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from the information of Richard Moore (farmer) living in Fleming County and not of the Grand Jury but summons to give evidence before (them??)  Benjamin Broward, Foreman

And he shall innowise [sic] omit under the penalty of [100 pounds] and have them (here) it is writ. Witness Thomas Dougherty Clerk of arms and Court at the Court at the Courthouse as of the 16th day of June 1813 and the 22nd year of the Commonwealth.  Tho Dougherty

Summons Richard Moore to support the foregoing presentment.  Tho Dougherty”

A second similar document shows that William was also summoned to Court for being drunk on the 11th of June, 1813.  The witness in that case was the same Richard Moore.

I don’t know what it would have taken in the early 1800s to be publicly taken to task for cursing or drinking alcohol at home, in one’s own castle, so to speak, but as a retired cop, I can imagine that there was a lot more to that story than documents show, and that might have been the very least of whatever happened at William’s house that brought out the law for a visit.

Taking all of this into consideration, it may just be that  William could have been a little mean and testy when he was drinking, and that may or may not have had something to do with the problems he had with Edward.

Whatever started the feud between the two men, when William wrote his will, he put in a specific clause regarding Edward Callahan and his daughter, Sally, and what they were entitled to receive from his estate, which was just next to nothing.  The clause itself seems funny to me because of the way it is worded.

But I’m certain it was no laughing matter to Edward or Sally, particularly when William had left very generous sums to his other daughters, who received $500 each at his death.  And I’m sure it would have been particularly disheartening to Edward and Sally to learn that they had no inheritance if  William and Edward actually did make up their differences before William died as other documents claim.

This is excerpted from that will: (I’ve added some punctuation and corrected some misspellings to make reading a bit easier…)

“Item 8th

And Lastly I will and Bequeath to my Daughter Sally who is married to Edward Callahan
the Sum of one Dollar, and to Edward Callahan I Will and Bequeath twenty five cents.

And it is to be fully understood by this my last Will and Testament that it is my Will and desire that my
Sons Shall have my land as Stated and that my Daughters shall be paid their respective Legacies
out of the proceeds of my household furniture, farming Utensils, Stock of every kind and grain
that may be on hand, my Negro Boy Bosin, and my Stills and Shilling Utensils, as well as all money
and Outstanding debts that may be Coming to me.  

Likewise all my personal property of every kind Excepting only what is already Bequeathed and mentioned by me in this my last Will and Testament. 

And further it is Will that in Case any of my Daughter Shall Marry She shall not be
entitled to the before mentioned legacies befor the death of their Mother unless such part as
She shall think proper to spare them taken Strict account of the Same and at the death of my
wife all the before mentioned property which I have allotted for the payment of my Daughters
Legacies is to be sold and Equally Divided amongst Peggy, Polly, Jenny, & Letty in manner
aforesaid, and if the proceeds of such Sale Shall not amount to more than two Thousand Dollars
including all charges exhibited aginst any of them for any thing recived after their Marriage
from their mother out my Estate and before my wifes death ,Then and in that case the overplus if
any there Shall be equally divided between Robert, John, Alexander, Peggy, Polly, Jenny, and
Letty. 

And in Case John, Polly, Jenny, Alexander and Letty shall die before they Come of age or
any of them then the sums herein Bequeathed to such as shall decease shall be equally divided
amongst my Surving Children as well under as of full age with this Exception paying to Daughter
Sally one dollar and to her Husband Edward Callahan twenty five cents at every such death as
Shall happen in my family. 

Furthermore it is my Will that my wife Mary and my Son Robert Shall be
my Executors to this my last Will and Testament”

Even though it may not be nice, I can’t help but think of Edward as “Two-Bit Callahan” based on that clause in William’s will.

After William died, you guessed it, Edward Callahan made the claim that William was incapable of being in charge of his own business when he wrote his will, and Edward challenged the will and must have won in Fleming County Court.  Unfortunately I haven’t found that particular court record.  Robert, William’s son and executor, then had to take the case to the Kentucky Court of Appeals to settle William’s estate.

The Appellate Court asserted (in a nutshell) the opinion that although William was known to be a little too fond of his whiskey on occasion, and the fact that in his later years he wasn’t as sharp of a manager as he had been when younger, he was also obviously capable of making his own decisions regarding his own property.  Even though they recognized that Edward and William had apparently made up, they upheld the will and sent “Two-Bit Callahan” home empty handed.

Now to address the rumors I listed at the top of this post, I think I can definitively state that William was neither a preacher nor a teacher, although he had trained to the minstry.   I checked myself with William and Mary College several years ago and they have no record of any William Harper on the faculty in that era.  William may have very well been the son of a horse breeder in Ireland, since it appears he knew his way around a farm and was successful enough to expand his operations during his lifetime.  And let’s just permanently lay to rest the rumor that William was the owner of Harper’s Ferry.  He never was and there’s no connection whatsoever between our William and that particular part of the country.

I think it’s been proven out by William’s will and the other court documents that he probably was a handful, at times a curmudgeon, probably a bit mean-spirited when he felt he had cause to be so.  But it also appears that he was not consistently drunk, or mean, or a pain in the neck.  It looks like he was probably a fairly normal person who had a bit of a temper and who hit the bottle on occasion a little bit too hard.

As to the rumor that William ever stabbed Edward, it’s absolutely true.

**As of 12/31/2011, again thanks to my sister, we now have information proving that William did indeed stab Edward Callahan…

Transcription of the records show an arrest warrant issued on October 10, 1813 by Fleming County Justice of the Peace, Henry Bruce.

“Fleming County for Commonwealth of Kentucky to any sheriff or constable of said County Greetings whereas Edward Callahan this day made oath before me the subscriber a Justice of the Peace for said County that William Harper (Farmer) of said County did on the 9th Inst at the house of said Callahan in the County also willfully and maliciously stab him with a large knife commonly called a butcher knife of the value of three shillings with the intention to kill him the said Callahan but death has not yet ensued.

These are therefore in the name and by the authority of said Commonwealth of Kentucky to require you to forthwith apprehend said William Harper and then bring him before me or some other Justice of the Peace for said County to answer the (presentment??)  which is against the peace & dignity of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and contrary to the form of the Statutes in that each made and provided.

Given under my hand the 10th day of October, Henry Bruce”

William’s daughter, Polly Harper, was deposed in the case.  According to Polly, William came home and told her that what he feared had happened, he had stabbed Edward, and that he had done it in self-defense due to Edward coming at him in the road and threatening him with a club.

Whatever led up to the confrontation is also a mystery, and unless further documentation is found it will likely remain so.

At any rate, Edward Callahan eventually asked the Court to dismiss the charges against William, which apparently, the Court did do.

The final mystery is that of William’s death.

One relative a few years back made the startling claim that William was murdered out on the road near his house by being bludgeoned to death and left laying there.  Now, I think this would have made some court document or newspaper even back in 1815 when it allegedly happened.  At the very least, I would think it would have been mentioned in the Appellate Court decision, considering that they did look into William’s history a bit.

Amazingly enough although I can’t find any major details on it, it’s true.  Talley’s Kentucky Papers state that William died from a “broken skull.”  Alma Hurst’s letter states William was “mysteriously murdered” at age 49. One other source (which is a little suspect as it paints William as a saintly man) claims (paraphrased) that he was killed by an Indian on the way to the Upper Blue Lick store.

Although there is no mention I can find in the court records, it seems to me that all of the suspicion would have had to have fallen directly on Edward Callahan, who was the only person we know for a fact that William had trouble with, (aside from Richard Moore, the witness in the swearing and drinking cases) and who we know William had claimed he stabbed for threatening him with a club in the road a year or so before William ended up dead in the road with a broken skull.

For whatever reason that may forever be lost to us, Edward Callahan appeared not to have any suspicion cast upon him, and lived apparently mostly in peace to the elderly age of 72 years, outliving William’s daughter and marrying a second time.

William’s widow, Mary, lived until about 1853 according to Alma Hurst’s letter, and after William died, she lived with her son Robert and his wife Margaret per the census records.  According to relatives back in Kentucky, both William and Mary were buried on their farm and marble monuments were placed on their graves.

At some point, it is claimed that the markers were taken down and used as cornerstones for some building or another, but one relative still living in that area also claims to have found the missing tombstones “lying in a ditch” alongside one of the roads in Fleming County.  This relative said they took the stones home with them and stored them in the basement.

Despite requests from me for at least a picture of these stones, I haven’t heard from this particular relative again.  It wasn’t until after I had corresponded with this person that I recalled it may have been the same relative who told me about twenty years or so earlier that they had a chunk of William’s broken marble tombstone in their possession, so at this point I have to discount both of those versions of what might have happened to the markers that once stood over William and Mary’s graves.

It’s probably true that they were simply taken down and re-used as building stones.  As much as I think that’s just about as low as a person can go in finding building materials, it has been known to happen.

A couple years ago my sister and I did make the trip to Frankfort, KY and we went through every mention of William Harper in the archives we could find.  Much of that was his legal troubles and makes for some difficult but interesting reading.   We also went into Fleming County, tracked down William’s house, which is still standing and is still inhabited to this day.  We got a couple of poor photographs, but it is indeed a “good brick house” just as the records state.

  William Harper’s “good brick house”

We also checked the Flemingsburg Cemetery again and came up empty.  I believe that William and Mary were buried on their own land and their gravesites have been apparently lost to history, as the owner of the property now stated to me that there are no burials at that site that they know of.

Until something new may appear, this is pretty much everything I know about William Harper, and I hope this is at least of interest to other Harper descendants.

 

© SMBurns, Keeper of the Dead, Copyright 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.

Stephen Evan Burt, Weogufka, Alabama – Rush Springs, Oklahoma

Stephen Evan Burt, 1854-1919

Stephen Evan Burt was my Grandpa’s Grandpa.  He was the son of Sarah Ann Amanda Calfee and John William Burt.  His grandfather was Evan Adair Calfee.

He shows up in some of the local history in Grady County, Oklahoma, known by his middle name of Evan, which is how I think of him as well.

Evan was born in Coosa County, Alabama, and was just a small boy when the Civil War began.  His father, John William, joined the CSA and fought throughout the war, finally being captured at the Battle of Atlanta.  He died a week before the war ended at Camp Chase, Ohio.

Evan’s mother remarried after the war.  Her second husband was David Crockett Coffman, and according to my Grandpa who knew him, he was a kind and sweet old man.  Mr. Coffman helped Sarah raise the children she already had, and they had three more children of their own.  Evan moved with the family from Alabama to Arkansas, to Texas, and apparently back to Arkansas when he came of age.

Evan married a young widow in Boone County, Arkansas, by the name of Minerva.  There was a lot of confusion about Minerva for many years.  Family rumors said she might have had a child out of wedlock, and others said that she was the first person buried at the cemetery in Rush Springs, Oklahoma.

It took a lot of searching, but I finally found a Minerva Summers who was listed as living with her family in Boone County before she and Evan married.  Although listed as “Summers,” Minerva had been married to a man named William Carter.  They had a daughter, Georgia Ann Carter, who was listed in the household with Minerva and her family in 1870.  She was, however, listed only as G.A. and her last name was not listed as Carter.  Evidently William Carter died prior to 1870 and Minerva took her daughter and moved in with her parents.  How she and Evan met, I have never heard.  However, they did, and married, and had seven children of their own.

Evan and Minerva moved to Texas after they married.  They lived in several areas of eastern and northern Texas between 1872 and 1886.  The last place in Texas they lived was near Denton.

In about 1886, during the winter, the family migrated north into Indian Territory.  I came across a relative near my home who is the grandson of Evan’s sister-in-law’s sister (Cynthia Breazeale was married to his brother, Orran, and her sister Edgalee was the relative’s grandmother.)

A note on Orran Burt:  My mother recalls his name being pronounced as Ahrn by her father and grandfather.  They were all from the deep south after all!

This relative told me that when the families came north, they did so in the middle of the winter and rode right across the Red River as it was frozen over that year.  Apparently it was a very harsh winter.  He also said that his grandmother, Edgalee, had her own herd of cattle when they moved north, and that they also had covered wagons for the journey.  He said that the families settled first just north of what is now Velma, Oklahoma where they stayed in a “half-dugout” shelter.  Later on, (by at the latest, 1888 or so) the family moved farther north, to an area near modern day Rush Springs, in Grady County.

Around 1890, Evan and Orran went to work for a Mr. Lynch B. Cochran who was married to an Indian lady and who owned land in I.T. just south of where Cox City, Oklahoma is today.  On a hill on the west side of a creek that runs into Rush Creek, Evan and Orran built a store for Mr. Cochran.  The settlement there was known for years as Burt, I.T. and there was a post office in the store from about 1890-1892.  Mr. Cochran was the postmaster.  Some printed sources confirm that the town of Burt was named after “the Burt boys, Evan and Iron” who were carpenters in the area.

The same relative told me that the hill where the store once stood is known to the old timers’ here as “Burt Mountain.”

I went there with my husband and we looked around but could not find any sign that anything had ever been built on that site.  It is a rocky hill flanked by scrub oaks and cow pastures today.

Some stories from historical newspapers from the era list a “Mr. Burt” as being the school teacher at Burt.  I believe this was likely Evan, as Orran was known by that time as being a farmer.  Orran later moved to Custer County where he spent out the remainder of his life.  Evan stayed in the area for many more years.

Sometime around 1890, Minerva died.  I believe two of Evan and Minerva’s daughters also died around that time.  There is no written record I can find, but I believe them all to have been buried in the Rush Springs cemetery.  My Grandpa took me there in 1972 to show me his mother’s grave and also showed me a concrete curb that he and his father, John Oscar Burt, built around the family grave site.

The curb is large enough to enclose up to about twelve graves, and only three of those graves bear any markers.  The Burts were poor enough in those days not to have been able to pay either for funeral homes to bury their dead, or the stones to mark them.  It was in 1972 that my Grandpa was able to finally put a stone on his mother’s grave.

After Minerva died, Evan moved to another small community in the area called Pearle, which is just west of present day Doyle, Oklahoma.  He lived there at least until 1895 when he married his second wife, Lorena Jennie Crawford, the widow of a Dr. Linthicum.  They moved around a bit and, in 1900, were shown in Springer Township (northeast of modern Oklahoma City) where Evan was listed as working as a clerk.

It must not have been a happy second marriage, as by 1910, Evan was shown living with one of his daughters in Custer County.  Lorena was living in Rush Springs with one of her sons.  Interestingly, Lorena’s other son married the sister of my Grandpa’s mother.  I suppose they met while Evan and Lorena were in Springer Township as it was near Harrah where my great-grandmother was living with her parents at the time.

Evan’s lived with, and died at John Oscar’s home in 1919 in Rush Springs, Oklahoma.  He had been ill for two weeks, according to his obituary, and was buried in the Rush Springs cemetery. His obituary stated that family did all they could to help him but it was not enough. What his illness was is lost to time as everyone who was living then is now gone.  I do know from newspaper reports that this was a bad time for the influenza that killed thousands during that era.

Oddly enough, my Grandpa never mentioned Evan to me.  It could be he was just too young at the time to remember, especially if Evan was only there for a short while before he died.  Evan’s step-father (David Coffman) also lived with my Grandpa’s family during that time period, and he died in 1920.  Grandpa’s mother died in 1919 a few months before Evan passed away, and her infant daughter also died shortly before.  It must have been a sad time in the Burt home for quite a while after all of the deaths in so short a time span.

Lorena outlived Evan and shows up in the 1920 census living in Lawton with her son.  She must have died before 1930, as her son is listed that year with a wife, and living in another town.  I have never been able to find any record of her death or burial place.

Evan Adair Calfee, Weogufka, Alabama

One of my hobbies is genealogy. I have this burning desire to know who came before me and what their lives were like. I want to know it all, good and bad, and be able to envision the real people my ancestors must have been.

One of my ancestors whose life I have been able to flesh out a tiny bit is Evan Adair Calfee. I wish I knew more about Evan than I do now, but at least I have a clear picture of his face, which shows him as a stern, lean, disciplined looking man with strong features and a steady gaze.

Evan was born in 1802 in Adair County, Kentucky. I can trace his movements with the census from Kentucky to Tennessee to Alabama, and can see that he moved with his father, John C. Calfee, and his siblings, eventually settling in Coosa County, Alabama.

His father and most of his siblings settled in nearby Bibb County. Rumors have it that Evan was married three times and had sixteen children. What I have found in the records is that Evan married only twice at most, and was married to his first wife Elizabeth from his early 20’s until she died in 1866. They had thirteen children that I can confirm. I think the rumors have been transferred from Evan’s father, John, who did have three wives and may well have had sixteen children.

At any rate, they were definitely patriarchs of large broods of children!

Evan spent most of his adult life amassing parcels of land and farming. He had, as nearly as I can determine, about 400 acres in two counties. His home place was nestled on the southeast side of Hatchet Creek surrounded by hilly, forested terrain.

As Evan settled in Alabama in the early 1820’s, it is likely that his home was a large cabin, or set of cabins connected with a dog-trot. He may well have improved the homestead over the years to accommodate his growing family, and by 1857, he was well known and well off enough that he ran for, and was elected as Coosa County’s state representative where he served in 1857-58. Evan also served as a Justice of the Peace in the early 1830’s. Several marriage records still exist showing Evan as the officiator of the wedding ceremonies. Apparently he was deeply involved in the local social and political scene.

Federal census records show that Evan was a small planter who owned about eight slaves. Rumors abound that he owned upwards of forty souls, but records indicate otherwise. Unfortunately these records do not give much information about the individuals Evan owned. They are listed only by sex and age.

When war came to the South, Evan’s two oldest sons enlisted in the Confederate States Army immediately. John Lewis Calfee, the oldest son, died early in the war in Mississippi, most likely from measles. Robert Evan Baylor Calfee, the second son, died at the Battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland, and I have never been able to determine if he was buried there in a mass grave or if they somehow were able to bring his remains home to Alabama.

Two of Evan’s sons-in-law also died during the war, John William Burt, my grandpa’s great-grandpa, died just a week before the end of the war in a dirty prison camp in Columbus, Ohio. He contracted Typhoid Fever and is buried in the old Camp Chase graveyard in that town.

Unfortunately, John’s grave is mis-marked with the name of JW Burk due to an error in the paperwork from Camp Chase.  I am hoping to one day have this error fixed.

John’s widow, Sarah Ann Amanda Calfee Burt, remarried after the war a kind gentleman and veteran of the CSA by the name of David Crockett Coffman. He and Sarah went on to add three more children to their family and David raised John Williams children as his own, eventually settling at Rush Springs, Oklahoma.

It is apparent by the naming of Evan’s descendants that he was loved and revered by his children and their children. There are no less than five of his grandchildren who bore his name in some form. Even today, there are Calfee descendants named after Evan.

The records are a little sketchy in the years following the war. Some say he remarried after Elizabeth passed, that may be true. All I know for certain is that Evan was listed on the tax roles in 1866 and died in 1869.

Evan was buried with Elizabeth (known as Betsy to the family) in a church graveyard in an unmarked plot in Weogufka, Alabama. At some time in the past decade, Evan’s descendants placed a simple stone on Evan’s grave marking his and Elizabeth’s final resting place.

Rush Springs Cemetery, Rush Springs, Oklahoma and the Burt Clan

My Grandpa, Guy E. Burt, 1908-2006

I’ve posted some on this blog about genealogy being my personal favorite cold weather pass time, and I’ve probably already said I’m sort of the family “Keeper of the Dead.”  It’s not really as macabre as it sounds.  I just do a lot of ‘digging into our family past and try to get at least reasonably accurate answers to old questions.

My most recent excursion into the past took me back to around 1900 in what was then Indian Territory looking to confirm the fate of two of my great-great aunts.

The driving force behind this particular search is the fact that there is a group of graves bounded by a concrete curb at the Rush Springs Cemetery that holds the mortal remains of several of my Grandfather’s relatives, and only three of those graves are marked.  My ultimate intention is to confirm the identity of everyone who is buried in that group of plots, then to place a marker to memorialize their final resting places, and I think I have finally accomplished the first half of that goal.

My interest in this particular cemetery started back in the 1970s when my Grandpa, Guy Burt, took me there to show me where his mother, Lizzie Viola (Summey) Burt was buried.

Lizzie Viola (Summey) Burt, 1883-1919

On that trip, he pointed out to me the concrete curb that surrounds a piece of ground roughly 12′ wide by 45′ long.  At the south end of the plot there is a headstone marking the graves of David Crockett Coffman who was my Grandpa’s step-Great Grandpa.  His wife, and my 4th great Grandmother, Sarah Ann (Calfee) Burt Coffman is buried by his side.

David Crockett Coffman and Sarah Ann (Calfee) Burt Coffman, Step Father & Mother of S.E. Burt

At that time, my Grandpa had placed a grave marker just south of the middle of the large curbed area to memorialize his Mama’s grave.  He told me that she died when he was only about ten years old, and that he and his father, John Oscar Burt, built that concrete curb around the family graves.  Grandpa said that the family was too poor to buy Lizzie a stone marker, but that his father etched Lizzie’s name into the curb to mark her burial site.  When Grandpa and I looked that day we couldn’t find where it was etched.

Burt family burial plot before being tidied up.

Fast forward 40 some years… The family plot has been left alone for decades since all of the family has moved away or passed away.  A few years ago, my husband and I moved back to Oklahoma and now live near Rush Springs, so we went up to investigate and to visit the graves.

What we found was a plot that needed some TLC, so we decided to tidy things up a little bit.  Not that the city has neglected the place, it just needed a little more attention than simple mowing.  We went back up with shovels in hand and cleared the gnarled Bermuda grass shoots from around the concrete curb.  In the process, we found Lizzie’s name clearly marked on the north-west corner of the concrete curb.

Lizzie’s name etched into the curb by my great grandfather, John Oscar Burt in 1919.

Lizzie’s grave marker relocated to her actual burial site.

We debated about moving her head stone, but finally decided that if Grandpa was still living it would have been something he would have done himself.  I know it bothered him that he didn’t know exactly where to place it back in the 70s.  I double-checked with my mother who agreed, so we did move the stone to match with the name on the curb.

Now, as a side story, the day we moved the stone something very odd happened to me that I can’t explain.  We got fairly dirty clearing the grass from the curb, and there is a running spring in the park across the street from the cemetery.  We stopped there to wash our hands and while I was doing just that at the spring, something pushed on my lower back.  I can only equate it to having a big dog push on you with it’s nose.  It was just a gentle nudge, nothing more, but when I looked, there was nothing behind me at all.  Like I say, I have no explanation what this may have been, but let’s just say I took it as a sign of approval that we did right in moving Lizzie’s stone…

But back to the main story…

Stephen Evan Burt, John Oscar Burt, (S.E.’s son and my Grandpa’s father) Orran Oscar Burt (S.E.’s brother)

Over the past few years I’ve been trying to piece together the rest of the Burt history.  I have found evidence that several of the Burts were also buried in that plot at Rush Springs, including Stephen Evan Burt, my Grandpa’s Grandpa.  I also believe that S.E.’s first wife is buried in the same plot.

According to the history that has been passed down in the family, Minerva (Summers) Burt was the “first white woman” buried in the Rush Springs Cemetery.  According to written records on the topic, the first burial recorded at Rush Springs was another woman.  Now, whether the distinction there is if the burial was recorded, both of these may be true stories.  I do know that Minerva’s burial was unrecorded.  In fact, all of the Burt burials were unrecorded.

It turns out that the Burts took care of their own and that included doing their own burial of deceased family members.  At that time, the family had next to nothing after having gone through the Civil War and having lost everything.  They had moved from place to place during the years of Reconstruction, living in Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and finally settling in the Indian Territory in the late 1880s.

The family story has it that Minerva died in 1893 and was buried at Rush Springs.  It is also believed that two of Minerva and S.E.’s daughters died in the late 1890s. These are my great-great aunts mentioned above.

Valley Burt and Lula Burt were Minerva and S.E.’s youngest daughters, born in 1883 and 1890, respectively.  By 1900 they have both vanished from any census records.  They aren’t living with S.E., who by 1900 had remarried, they weren’t listed in the household of their grandmother or sisters, or their brother, John Oscar Burt.  There is no record that Valley ever married, and Lula was far too young in 1900 to be married, so the only logical conclusion is that they had both perished before the turn of the century.    Some family members show the girls dying in 1898 and 1896, but finding hard proof has been impossible to date.  All of this leads me to believe that they probably did die before 1900, and that they would have been buried near their mother in the Rush Springs Cemetery.

In 1919, both Lizzie and Stephen Evan died.  I couldn’t find the particular edition of the newspaper that would have listed Lizzie’s death, but did find Stephen Evan’s obituary that stated he was buried by the family in the Rush Springs Cemetery.

You would think this might be the end of the story, but it’s not.  While doing this research I found one last, sad notation in the records.

Lizzie and John had a total of eleven children before Lizzie’s untimely death at the age of 35.  Of these eleven children, they lost five as infants or toddlers.  These poor babies are buried far from their mother and father, in places where the Burt family wandered during the early years of the 20th century.  One is in western Oklahoma, one in Holly, Colorado, and two are in Harrah, Oklahoma.

Only one of John and Lizzie’s babies lies in the Rush Springs Cemetery.  Vita Rae Burt was born in 1917 and died in 1918, only a year before Lizzie herself succumbed to gall stones and died.   I am as sure as I can be that John would have buried Lizzie next to her little lost daughter.  John Oscar never remarried, but did continue his wandering and is buried in Oregon.

After all of this research, I’m pretty certain that these are the members of the Burt clan who lie in repose at Rush Springs…

Lizzie Viola (Summey) Burt and her daughter Vita Rae Burt, Stephen Evan Burt, his wife Minerva (Summers) Burt, their daughters Valley and Lula Burt, and finally, Stephen’s mother, Sarah Ann (Calfee) Burt Coffman and her second husband, David Crockett Coffman.

All of this makes me wish I had asked my Grandpa more questions when he was here.  Then again, I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things.  We all live, and we all die.  I suppose it’s more important that we try to live a meaningful life in obscurity, then simply vanish, than to settle for living in mediocrity, but be guaranteed a marked grave to lie in.

Having said that, I’d personally rather have it both ways… a great life, and a marked resting place to declare to those who follow that I was here.

Which, I guess, is probably why I want to mark the graves of my people when I find them unmarked and forgotten;  I want them to be remembered too.