Tarrant County TXGenWeb - Sansom's Chapel Methodist Church, End Notes

Tarrant County, TXGenWeb

Sansom's Chapel Methodist Church

End Notes

1.	A descendant of S. D. Sansom, Jr. is Mrs. Ruth Dunlap. At the time of the taking of the 1860 census, Sansom and his family lived in Henderson County, Texas. By the time of the first entry in the minutes of the Grapevine Circuit of the Methodist Church in December, 1864, Sansom had moved to Tarrant County. Mrs. Dunlap has files of family information and photographs dealing with S. D. Sansom and his family. S. D. Sansom and his first wife were the parents of nine children: a stillborn son (May 24, 1843); Mary Elizabeth "Mollie" Sansom (June 28, 1845-Nov. 4, 1877, who married William Riley Allen on Sept. 17, 1865); Martha Ann "Mattie" Sansom (b. April 5, 1847, who married Wesley Dial); William K. Sansom (July 2-9, 1849); John Fletcher Sansom (Oct. 9, 1850-July 15, 1895, who was unmarried); James O. Andrew Sansom (Aug. 17, 1854-Aug. 21, 1879, who was unmarried); Laura Emma Sansom (June 9, 1856-Jan. 23, 1894, who married John Lafayette Poynor); Sarah Adelaide "Addie" Sansom (Apr. 22, 1858-Jan. 17, 1938, who married William R. Morrow), and Samuel Jefferson Davis Sansom (Jan. 15, 1861-Feb. 23, 1913, who was unmarried).
2.	Sansom family files in possession of Mrs. Dunlap. Tarrant County, Texas Deed Volume K, p. 600; Volume P, p. 581. United States Federal Census, Tarrant County, Texas, 1880, Enumeration District 96, p. 190. There are two deeds to S. D. Sansom recorded for land in the Zion (Smithfield) community in the J. C. McCommas Survey. On January 18, 1878 he purchased a small tract from Mr. and Mrs. Whittenberg (K, 600). On December 5, 1879 he bought another plot from D. H. Hightower (P, 581). In the 1880 census S. D. Sansom was listed as a retail grocer living and working at Smithfield. He did not sell his Bedford acreage until 1884. Mrs. Dunlap has a photograph of Sansom's store taken at Smithfield in the late 1800's.
3.	Obituary of S. D. Sansom, photocopy of original in Ruth Dunlap's files of Sansom family information. There are no reference notes on this photocopy, but it is obviously from a newspaper printed at the time of Sansom's death in 1894.
4.	Family files of Sansom material in possession of Mrs. Ruth Dunlap. These remarkable files include several original papers which belonged to both Samuel D. Sansom Sr. and Samuel D. Sansom, Jr. Some of the papers are Republic of Texas imprints and Confederate States imprints, and there is one lengthy letter written by S. D. Sansom, Sr. to his children in 1843 from the Republic of Texas, San Augustine Co.". There is also a sketch of the family history in the handwriting of S. D. Sansom, Sr. (1776-1854).
5.	Original manuscript in the handwriting of Samuel D. Sansom, Sr. in which he details much of the family history. The original is in Mrs. Dunlap's family files.
6.	Ibid. Frances Terry Ingmire, comp., Texas Ranger Service Records, 1830-1846, (St. Louis, Mo.: Ingmire Publications, 1982), p. 131.
7.	Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Inc., comp., Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution, (Lubbock, Texas: Craftsman Printers, Inc., 1986), p. 240.
8.	Obituary of S. D. Sansom.
9.	ibid.
10.	Sansom family files of Mrs. Dunlap, including photocopies of S. D. Sansom's family Bible records. After S. D. Sansom's death, Sarah Ann (Thomas) Sansom married Louis B. Blevins on August 11, 1901. This compiler remembers seeing in his grandmother's papers a large newspaper clipping (about 5"x 7") with a photograph and caption of this Mrs. Blevins. It seems probable that the clipping came from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he believes the date was 1931. The photograph was taken at one of the Smithfield community reunions. The caption mentioned that she had come to Texas in a covered wagon with her family in 1859, and that even though her married name was then Blevins she was still widely known in the community as "Grandma Sansom."
11.	United States, Federal Census, Tyler County, Texas, 1850, p. 163; Henderson County, Texas, 1860, p. 53. In 1860, the family lived in Henderson County, Texas in the area served by the Science Hill Post Office.
12.	Original charter of the Grand Prairie Masonic Lodge, dated at Houston, Texas on June 5, 1875. Original at Smithfield Lodge #455, North Richland Hills, Texas. Photocopy in Ruth Dunlap's files of Sansom family history.
13.	S. D. Sansom obituary.
14.	"Quarterly Conference Minute Book for the Grapevine Circuit, Dallas District, East Texas Annual Conference of the M. E. Church, South, beginning December 10, 1864." Photocopies of the original volume are at the Old Bedford School, 2400 School Lane, Bedford, Texas 76021; at the Central Texas Conference United Methodist Records and Archives Collection at the Texas Wesleyan University Library in Fort Worth, Texas (hereinafter referred to as CTC Archives); and in possession of Weldon Green Cannon. Temple, Texas 76501-1926. Hereinafter referred to as Grapevine Circuit Minutes.
15.	Grapevine Circuit Minutes, p. 15.
16.	Ibid., pp. 15, 60. Glenn M. Holden, "A Partial History of Education in Tarrant County," unpublished Master's thesis for Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, 1931, pp. 38-40. Copies at Southwest and Genealogy Department, Fort Worth Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas; and at Heritage Room (Library) of Tarrant County College, Northeast Campus, Hurst, Texas.
17.	Grapevine Circuit Minutes, p. 61.
18.	ibid., 61.
19.	U. S. Federal Census, Wise County, Texas, 1880, p. 96. Wise County Messenger, Decatur, Texas, microfilm of original newspapers on file at Wise County Museum, Decatur, Texas. Wise County, Texas, Death Certificate No. 1601. Rev. Olin W. Nail, ed., Texas Methodist Centennial Yearbook (Elgin, Texas: 1934), p. 121. Macum Phelan, A History of the Expansion of Methodism in Texas 1867-1902, (Dallas, Texas: Mathis, Van Nort, & Co.: 1937), pp. 465-466. Minutes of the Thirty-Third Session of the North Texas Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, held at Honey Grove, Texas, November 23-27, 1899, (Stephenville, Texas: Eugene Moore, Pub., 1899), p. 37 (original at CTC Archives). Minutes of the Thirty-Ninth Session of the North Texas Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, (cover page of document missing with publication data, 1905), p.59 (original at CTC Archives). Samuel S. Cobb was born in Georgia. In the 1905 Minutes of the North Texas Annual Conference, he is listed in a table entitled "The Roll of Heaven." According to that table, he was born in 1834, converted in 1852, licensed to preach in 1853 and entered the itinerant ministry the same year. He died in Denison, Texas on April 21, 1901. He was a Confederate soldier. He was a member of the Trinity (North Texas) Conference by 1869, and was first appointed to the Gainesville circuit. S. S. Cobb is included in a group photograph of the North Texas Conference taken at Jefferson, Texas on October 19, 1870, reproduced in the Texas Methodist Centennial Yearbook in 1934. After that, he served on the Garden Valley, Dallas, Grapevine, and Decatur circuits. In 1876 he entered private business at Decatur. Cobb was living with his family in Wise County, Texas in 1880 when the census was taken, and there are scattered references to him and his family in the Wise County newspapers from December 23, 1881 until at least February 4, 1888. One notes the death of his daughter in 1881 at their home "near Decatur." In 1889 he was readmitted to the conference and accepted appointments until 1895. In the 1899 North Texas Conference Minutes, S. S. Cobb appears in the "Biographical Register and Directory" as a resident of Ardmore in the Indian Territory (in extreme southern Oklahoma). He served as a minister for forty-eight years...thirty-two of them in the North Texas Conference. He lies buried at Denison, Grayson County, Texas. Mrs. S. S. Cobb (her given name is not shown on her death certificate) was born in Tennessee on January 18, 1852 and died in Decatur, Wise County, Texas on January 7, 1923. She was buried in Dallas. She was the daughter of G. W. Smith, a Tennesseean. Mrs. R. E. Collins was the informant for the death certificate.
20.	Federal Census, Collin County, Texas, 1850, p. 191; Tarrant County, Texas, 1880, Enumeration District 94, p. 142; Tarrant County, Texas, 1900, Precinct 1, City of Fort Worth, Enumeration Dist. 106, Sheet 12. Phelan, A History of the Expansion of Methodism..., pp. 78-79. State of Texas, Confederate Pension Application of Lewis M. White, File no. 18885, Texas State Library and Archives, Austin, Texas. Grapevine Cemetery tombstones, Grapevine, Tarrant County, Texas. United States, National Archives, Compiled Military Service Records of Confederate Soldiers. Alice Pitts, comp., Marriages of Collin County, Texas (private printing, 1978), pp. 22, 38. Lewis M. White was born about 1837. As a boy of twelve, he appears with his widowed mother and his siblings in the 1850 census of Collin County, Texas. The family apparently spent a short time around 1840 in Arkansas on their way to Texas. In 1870 Lewis M. White, his wife, and two children were living in Denton County, Texas, where he was working as a brick maker. On November 6, 1872 when the Trinity (North Texas) Conference met at Sulphur Springs, Texas, L. M. White was one of eleven applicants admitted on trial to the ministry. In 1880, L. M. White and his family were living in the Grapevine area in northeast Tarrant County. In 1900, he and his family were living in Fort Worth at 916 Butler Street. In his 1910 application to the State of Texas for a Confederate pension, Lewis M. White was living at McKinney, Texas. He said he was 73 years old and a native of Nashville, Tennessee. He claimed he arrived in Texas as a baby on March 10, 1838, when his family settled in Collin County. White married his first wife, Alvasary G. Hall, in Collin County on September 25, 1859. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate army as a First Lieutenant and Captain in Co. C., Martin's Regiment, 5th Texas Cavalry (Partisan Rangers). White's first wife, Allie G. White (Apr. 22, 1840-Apr. 4, 1885) lies buried in Grapevine Cemetery in northeast Tarrant County. His second marriage, to Mrs. Henrietta V. Fouts, took place in Collin County on December 16, 1885. Mrs. Fouts was a widow with children, and they had at least three more of their own. In the 1900 census, the wife's name is given as Jennie. Even though he indicated in his pension application that his residence had been Collin County almost exclusively, he seems to have moved around considerably. White's Chapel Methodist Church in Southlake, Tarrant County, Texas is named for him. He had some sort of controversy with the Methodist hierarchy and lost his credentials with the North Texas Conference, but apparently went on preaching outside the church's jurisdiction. White died in 1917; his death does not appear in the Texas death indexes. On January 11, 1939 his widow, Henrietta White, was living in Los Angeles, California when she unsuccessfully attempted to get a pension and/or the right to live in the Confederate Home in Austin, Texas.
21.	R. G. Mood and J. E. Roach, eds., Minutes of the Forty-second Annual Session of the North Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, held at Greenville, Texas, November 18-23, 1908, (Dallas, Texas: Wilkinson Printing Co., 1908), pp. 38-39 (original at CTC Archives). William Sibert May was born in Virginia on April 3, 1829. He was converted in 1848, joined the Methodist Church in 1850, was licensed to exhort in 1851, and to preach in 1852. In September 1856 he was admitted on trial to the West Virginia Conference and was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Early in the same month. Bishop Early ordained him an elder in September 1860. He served through the War in the Confederate Army. In 1874 he transferred to the North Texas Conference, where the Grapevine Circuit may have been his first assignment. He traveled and preached twenty-one years in Virginia and thirty-four years in Texas. He died in Aubrey, Denton County, Texas on March 22, 1908. He lies buried there in Belew Cemetery. He was apparently not related to the pioneer May family of Bedford, Tarrant County, Texas.
22.	R. G. Mood and C. W. Dennis, eds., Minutes of the Fiftieth Annual Session of the North Texas Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Held at Greenville, Texas, November 1 to 6, 1916, (no publication date or place), pp. 104-106 (original at CTC Archives). The memorial to Jacob Monroe Binkley in this source reports that he was born February 26, 1833 in Robinson County, Tennessee [probably meaning Robertson County]. He settled with his parents, David and Rebecca (Adams) Binkley, in Grayson County, Texas about 1855. He was married twice: first on April 13, 1863 to Sarah F. Couts who died in 1874. He was next married to Anna A. Evans on May 22, 1876. He died on January 13, 1916, and was buried in Sherman, Texas in West Hill Cemetery. There is extensive material available at the public library in Sherman concerning Binkley and his descendants.
23.	Lewis County, Tennessee census, 1850, (55-785). Reid Brock, Thomas O. Brock, and Tony Hayes, Volunteers: Tennesseeans in the War With Mexico (no publication place given: Kitchen Table Press, 1986), Vol. I, p. 51. Byron and Barbara Sistler, eds., Early Middle Tennessee Marriages, Vol. 1, Grooms, (Nashville, Tennessee: Byron Sistler and Associates, 1998), p. 95. United States National Archives, Pension Records of the Mexican War. Jno. E. Roach and R. Gibbs Mood, eds., Minutes of the Forty-first Annual Session of the North Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Held at Sherman, Texas, November 20-26, 1907, (no publication date or place), pp. 37-40 (original at CTC Archives). Rev. W. H. Hughes, who also served as Presiding Elder of Sansom Chapel's circuit for a time, wrote this memorial to his old friend, John W. Chalk. Chalk was born in Maury County, Tennessee on February 20, 1826. He enlisted in the Mexican War on June 6, 1846 in a company raised in Lewis County, Tennessee, and was discharged on a surgeon's certificate on October 15, 1846. Chalk married Rowena Ricketts in Lewis County, Tennessee on April 17, 1849, and he was living there with his wife and child when the 1850 census was taken. In 1852 Chalk was appointed on trial into the Texas Conference and appointed to a frontier mission embracing Tarrant County and other outlying regions. The next year he was transferred to the East Texas Conference. He was pensioned for his Mexican War service (pension no. C16511). He died at Pilot Point, Denton County, Texas, October 10, 1907, and was buried in the town cemetery there.
24.	Minutes of the Thirty-Ninth Session of the North Texas Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1905), cover page of document missing with publication data, p. 58 (original at CTC Archives). Kaufman County, Texas census, p. 94. Phelan, A History of the Expansion of Methodism..., pp.400-401. William F. Easterling was born in Georgetown, South Carolina in 1829. He graduated from Emory College, then moved to Thomasville, Georgia where he practiced law. He was licensed to preach in 1859, received into the Florida Conference in 1860, and transferred to the Louisiana Conference the same year. He transferred into the North Texas Conference in 1873 and was first stationed at Jefferson. Subsequently he was appointed to "Dallas, the Dallas district, Paris, Terrell, Sulphur Springs, Gainesville district, Montague district, Denton, and Forney." He represented the North Texas Conference at the General Conference meeting in 1878. In 1880 Easterling, his wife, and two children were living on Rockwall Street in Terrell, Kaufman County, Texas. He died at Montague on January 17, 1895, after having served a total of thirty-six years in the ministry. He lies buried at Montague, Montague County, Texas. "He was a logical and forceful preacher and a man of sound administrative ability."
25.	R. G. Mood and C. W. Dennis, eds., Minutes of the Fiftieth Annual Session of the North Texas Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Held at Greenville, Texas, November 1 to 6, 1916 (no publication date or place), pp. 99-101 (original at CTC Archives). This record contains a memorial to Rev. William Holmes (Uncle Buck) Hughes, who was born in Stokes Co., North Carolina on January 27, 1828, the son of William and Alsie Hughes. Hughes and his parents later moved to Bedford Co., Tennessee, and then to Maury County, Tennessee where he grew to manhood. Hughes tried to enlist in the Mexican War but was refused on account of his health. He was licensed to preach in 1846, became a Deacon in 1848, and an Elder in 1850. On September 10, 1849 he married Zuleika R. Kittrell of Maury County, Tennessee; they had five children, four of whom survived their father. Hughes came to Texas in 1852 and settled north of Dallas. In the fall of 1868 he returned to Tennessee for a time to care for his parents, then returned to Texas. He died at 12:15 p.m. on October 24, 1916, but the lengthy memorial does not mention where he died or is buried. In Nail, ed., Texas Methodist Centennial Yearbook, p. 173, a photograph of Hughes is reproduced with a caption stating that he was buried in Dallas, Texas.
26.	Grapevine Circuit Minutes, various first and fourth quarter sessions, 1872-1880.
27.	ibid., p. 61.
28.	ibid., p. 65.
29.	ibid., pp. 66-71.
30.	ibid., p. 74.
31.	ibid., p. 74. Smithfield Cemetery tombstones. Smith County, Texas census, 1860, p.90; 1870, p. 241. Archibald D. Currie was born about 1832 in Alabama. He and his wife came to Texas about 1857, and were living in Smith County, Texas in 1860 and 1870. A. D. Currie probably lies buried in an unmarked grave in Smithfield Cemetery. His wife has a headstone there, and one of A. D. Currie's unmarried sisters lies buried beside her. Sarah Ann (Mrs. A. D.) Currie was born November 9, 1826 and died June 12, 1890.
32.	Grapevine Circuit Minutes, p. 73.
33.	ibid., p. 73.
34.	ibid., p. 74.
35.	ibid., p. 76.
36.	ibid., p. 80.
37.	ibid., p. 80.
38.	ibid., p. 83. There is now no standing, readable gravestone for this John Berry in any northeast Tarrant County cemetery.
39.	ibid., p. 87
40.	ibid., p. 89.
41.	ibid., pp. 91-92.
42.	The grantee deed indexes for Tarrant County were searched for the years 1876-1937 without finding any reference to this two-acre tract. No deed was made to any Methodist congregation, or to S. D. Sansom, A. D. Currie, Tilford Scott, John Mahan, or John Berry (who may have acted as trustees at that time). Neither is S. D. Sansom shown as the grantor of this tract.
43.	Tarrant County, Texas Deed Vol. 32, p. 352.
44.	Tarrant County, Texas Deed Vol. 363, p. 277.
45.	Smithfield Cemetery tombstones. John Mahan (died November 14, 1886, aged 58 years) and his wife, Adoline Mahan (April 12, 1828-July 29, 1880) lie buried in the cemetery which developed in conjunction with the Zion (Smithfield) Methodist Church.
46.	Grapevine Circuit Minutes, p. 94.
47.	ibid., p.93
48.	ibid., p. 97.
49.	ibid., p. 98-100.
50.	ibid., pp. 101, 103.
51.	ibid., pp. 105-106.
52.	ibid., pp. 108-110.
53.	ibid., p. 114.
54.	ibid., pp. 113-116.
55.	ibid. pp. 117-118.
56.	ibid. pp. 120-121.
57.	ibid. pp. 121-123.
58.	ibid., pp. 124-126.
59.	ibid., pp. 127-130.
60.	ibid., p. 134.
61.	ibid., pp. 131-132.
62.	ibid., p. 137.
63.	ibid., pp. 134-137.
64.	ibid., p. 139.
65.	ibid., pp. 139-140.
66.	ibid., pp. 142-144.
67.	ibid., pp. 145-146.
68.	ibid., pp. 145-147.
69.	ibid., p. 148-153.
70.	ibid., pp. 155-156.
71.	ibid., pp. 155-157.
72.	ibid., pp. 158-160.
73.	ibid., pp. 160-163.
74.	ibid., p. 164.
75.	ibid., pp. 167-168.
76.	ibid., p. 170-172.
77.	ibid., p. 174.
78.	ibid., p. 233.
79.	"Quarterly Conference Record Book for Smithfield Circuit, 1888." Handwritten title on flyleaf of a printed record book bearing title page: The Complete Quarterly Conference Record Book, Embracing a Period of Four Years (Nashville, Tennessee: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1884), p. 54. Original at the office of Smithfield United Methodist Church, corner of Smithfield Road and Chapman Road, North Richland Hills, Texas 76180. Copies at CTC Archives, and in possession of Michael E. Patterson at Colleyville, Texas. Hereinafter referred to as Smithfield Circuit Book.
80.	Tom Miller Acton (1908-1999), interview with Michael E. Patterson at Bedford, Texas, September 9, 1998.
81.	Texas Confederate Pension Application of Rufus P. Allen of Bedford, Tarrant County, Texas, File no. 31028.
82.	Tarrant County, Texas Deed Vol. 117, p. 69.
83.	Smithfield Circuit Book, pp. 18, 52.
84.	Tarrant County, Texas Deed Vol. 363, p. 277.
85.	Smithfield Circuit Book, p. 51.
86.	ibid.
87.	Two original copies of this photograph are known to exist. One is in the possession of Michael E. Patterson, 2205 Glade Road, Colleyville, Texas 76034. A second copy was seen and examined by Weldon Green Cannon in northeast Tarrant County in the 1970's, but its whereabouts cannot now be determined.
88.	Smithfield Circuit Book, p. 51.
89.	Michael E. Patterson, An Oral and Documentary History of the Lives of Harvey Richard Sparger (1833-1914) and his wife, Mary Ann (Hamilton) Sparger (1836-1916), (Colleyville, Texas: private printing, 1998).

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