More about Waightstill Avery Montgomery

Photocopy of a photocopy
W. A., Mary, and Hugh
Montgomery

(This information was found in Collin County Families, in an article written by James Ray Montgomery, W.A. Montgomery’s great-grandson.)

Waightstill Avery Montgomery left Burke, North Carolina, in 1857. He was 23. He left North Carolina because the best farmland had been taken and he could buy land in Texas at low prices.

Frying Pan Ranch
--upon which at least a part
of the Montgomery family farm was located

Waightstill settled near his relatives, the Largents, east of Pot Rack Creek (south of Blue Ridge). He married Mary Elizabeth Largent on 6 September 1858 and raised eleven children there.

After the Civil War (see the post Waightstill Avery Montgomery—Civil War Veteran), he resumed farming until 1886. He and his eldest son, William (Billy), opened a mercantile store in Fayburgh. (My granddad Carl Buford Gaines was born in “Fayburg”. That probably means he was born on the farm just a couple of miles east of Fayburg. This article also reveals that Carl Buford's nickname was "Tom".)

Montgomery Family Cemetery

Mary died 6 May 1897 (she is buried in the Montgomery Family cemetery). Waightstill moved to Durant, Indian Territory, where he owned some lots. He helped lay out some of the town sites. (My question about this is: did he go to Durant and then have his family follow him there, or did he follow his family there? Several of his children were living in the Durant area when he died. And my mother and her sisters were born in this area, Bryan County: Lillie and Bonnie in Kemp, Helen and Esther—Mom—in Albany.)

James Montgomery relates that Waightstill like to get maps and go treasure hunting, looking for gold that had been buried during the Civil War.

Waightstill's and Mary's
monument

Waightstill died 30 March 1908 at his daughter’s home in Durant. “He was returned by wagon to the farm near Fayburgh, a trip of about seventy miles over very bad roads.” He was buried in the Montgomery Family cemetery, beside Mary, two daughters (Martha and Mary) and his son Dudley, all of whom died before he did.

[Fayburgh was a community south of Blue Ridge, named by a Captain Bristol when he applied for a Post Office. He named it after his daughter, Fay. The Post Office was established 4 Mar 1884. The spelling of the town was changed to Fayburg, 6 Nov 1893. The Post Office was discontinued on 15 May 1926 and Fayburg disappeared.]

The sadness of headstones

W. A. and Elizabeth
Montgomery's monument

That's me--
self-consciously

I don’t know why finding the graves of my ancestors is so fulfilling. Perhaps there is a connection established that says, “This is partly who I am.” Standing in the Montgomery Family cemetery south of Blue Ridge was a moving experience for me. The cemetery is almost ruined; the headstones are weathered almost beyond recognition; thorns are growing so thickly that one can barely walk through them; trees are rotting and falling over into the fenced-off plot. (If someone doesn’t clean it up soon—and keep it relatively clean—I am afraid the owners of the land will soon decide to sweep away the fence and plow it under.) Nevertheless, I straightened up the monument that marked the graves of my great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother (Waightstill Avery and Elizabeth Montgomery) and ran my fingers over the letter cut into the weathered rock. It was almost as though I could feel their living presence.

Old Liberty Cemetery

You can imagine the disappointment I felt when I came to the Old Liberty cemetery north of Farmersville. It is a beautiful old graveyard, with green grass and shady trees. However, out of over 150 graves, only about 30 of them have headstones remaining on them. Some of them have fallen over and were broken; others were shattered by vandals; others were probably never marked or marked only by wooden crosses. I know that my great-great-great-uncle, Drayton Lough, was buried here, but no evidence of his grave remains. I suspect that my great-great-grandfather and –mother, J. R. and Mattie Lough, were buried here, but neither proof nor monuments exist. I felt rather sad at losing them—as though they had recently died.

I tried to imagine all the reasons their graves might not have been marked. Perhaps they were simply too poor to afford a decorated headstone. Perhaps there was no one left in the area when they died to mark their graves. (J. J. and Drayton, their sons, were both dead; Lexenia has no doubt left home; Lennie is still in the area—I think—but I wonder what her relationship is with her father after the births of two illegitimate children…) J. R. had remarried the year before he died, to Emma Bradberry, but who knows whether she was in good enough health—or wealthy enough—to mark his grave?

Linnie and Charles Garrett's graves

If that was sad enough, I was particularly struck when I sought the grave of my great-grandmother Linnie and her husband Charles Garrett. The Laurel Land Funeral Home had records that showed both of them were buried in Section 10, Lot 141, graves 1 & 2. I found the graves without much trouble. On one side is buried a Catholic priest; on the other another Catholic priest. Both of these graves had headstones. But the grave of my great-grandmother and her husband was only grassed over.

I wondered why? Too poor to afford headstones when Linnie died? Was Charles too ill to worry about that sort of thing? Were their families alienated from them and no one cared to put up monuments? (Charles was divorced, with one daughter, who might not have been well-disposed toward her father; similarly Linnie’s children were both born out-of-wedlock and may not have desired to oversee the setting of gravestones.) I almost cried at the loneliness of it all; not that one is less significant without grave markers, but there is a sort of loss at looking at these other graves, all with monuments, and these without.

I am, by the way, intending to set a gravestone on the graves of Linnie and Charles, as soon as I save the money: $1331. If anyone else wants to go in on it with me, you would be welcome.

Research on James Randolph Lough

I learned a ton from my day or so in Collin County searching for our roots. The McKinney library is a great place to do research. I wish every library was that well equipped!

1. J. R. Lough: I think that James Randolph must have gone by “J. R.”. This is the way his name is consistently used on all his legal documents. Of course, he could always have been referred to as “James” or “Jim”, “Jimmie” or even “Randy”, but the way his initials were used on tax records, in the deed I found, and on his marriage license makes me think that he went solely by his initials, “J. R.”

2. When and why J. R. came to Collin County: I can find no record of J. R. in Collin County before 1877, when he married Mattie McCown (or “McCowan”). His first appearance on the Collin County tax rolls was also in 1877. He bought land from Walter and Margaret Yeary on Pilot Grove Creek in 1878. From then on, he farms on a 40-acre plot until his death in 1918. (I don’t know where that farm is.) J. R. probably came to Collin County in the 1870s as a result of the completion of several railroads into the area. I have no information about him between 1860, when he is living in Jefferson, Indiana, with his parents, and 1877, when he appears in Collin County.

3. J. R.’s and Mattie’s marriage: they were married in Collin County sometime after 28 August 1877. This is when the license is issued; there is no date filled in by the minister when he married them. The minister’s name is Benjamin Watson. He is the pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church, which is southeast of Blue Ridge. Were J. R. and Mattie members of this church? (It would be interesting to find out if there are any membership records for the Bethlehem Baptist Church.)

J. J., their first son, was born a couple of years later in 1879. In the 1880 Federal Census, J. J. is listed as suffering from “appoplexy”. It is difficult to know what this means. Historically it meant a stroke or some sort of ailment from which one simply drops dead without warning. Maybe J. J. was subject to fainting fits of some sort. Since “apoplexy” also means “being enraged or excited”, maybe the baby had periodic spasms, perhaps epileptic fits or some other type of seizure.

4. Where did J. R. and Mattie live: In 1878 J. R. purchased 6 acres of land from Walter and Margaret Yeary. That land was on Pilot Grove Creek; it originally belonged to T. C. Bean. Pilot Grove Creek is to the southwest of Blue Ridge and to the northwest of Farmersville. “T. C. Bean” is “Thomas Bean”, a resident of Bonham who was a surveyor who donated land in southeastern Grayson County for the construction of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway. The town of Tom Bean grew up on that land. Pilot Grove Creek runs south from around Tom Bean to Lavon Lake, about 10-20 miles. I figure J. R. wanted land along the creek for access to water; maybe he wanted it to build a home on.

Drayton Lough is buried in the Old Liberty Cemetery. I don’t know for sure where J. R. and Mattie are buried, but I would think J. R. would have buried his son somewhere near his home and probably in the same cemetery he had buried his wife a few years before. (I don’t have a death certificate for Mattie Lough—that might tell where she was buried.) Old Liberty is just north of Farmersville, about 4-5 miles east of Pilot Grove Creek. Perhaps Drayton had gone to the Old Liberty school. (Interestingly, for us Church of Christ people, Old Liberty was the site of one of the oldest Restorationist churches in Texas, established in 1845 by J. B. Wilmeth and descendants of Collin McKinney.)

The Bethlehem Baptist Church, where J. R. and Mattie were probably married, is only a little farther north and east of Old Liberty, a couple or three miles.

My inexperience with tax records and deed records and a general failure to take good notes buffaloes me right here. Collin Country tax records have a slot for “grantor”—which I take to be the person who originally sold the land another person owns. In 1897, J. R. lives on land for which the “grantor” is Mrs. E. C. Cameron. This may show that J. R. had moved to a different farm between 1878 and 1897. (I ran out of time for the research on tax and deed records.)

5. Other interesting things about J. R.: J. R.’s death certificate is a wealth of absorbing and contradictory information. He died on 24 February 1918 at 1 p.m. of “influenza and acute cystitus”, according to Dr. J. B. Wright, the attendant physician. Dr. Wright had treated J. R. for 4 days. He also says that J. R. had been suffering from “neprhitis calculis(?)” for the past 3 years and 2 months. I figure his kidneys were failing. This problem was a contributing factor to his death.

The person who provided the demographic information on J. R.’s death certificate is Dr. Wright. This may indicate that the Loughs had moved into Farmersville before J. R.’s death—or that J. R. was living in some sort of nursing facility. What is funny is that he gives J. R.’s date of birth as 30 February 1852 (J. R. was born in October 1846); he says that J. R. was born in Michigan (he was born in Ohio); he gives J. R.’s father’s birthplace as Michigan; he says that J. R.’s mother’s name was Jefferson (born in Michigan—her name was Coberly and was born in Ohio). It is evident where “Jefferson” comes from—that was J. R.’s place of residence in 1860 before he moved to Texas. But where the rest of the information comes from, I don’t know. Perhaps J. R. suffered from some sort of dementia and gave confusing information to his doctor.

What is truly funny is that J. R.’s age at the time of his death is “76 years and 4 months”. If he WAS born in 1852, that would make him 66; so you can see how this might happen—a mistake of a round 10 years. J. R. was actually 71 when he died.

The Lough Family—Across the Country

Nearly every family in the United States migrates across America. The Lough family is no different. From origins in Germany, we came across to Pennsylvania, pioneered in Virginia, into the Northwest Territory (by then the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois), to Texas, to Oklahoma, to Oregon, to New Mexico, and back to Texas. We’ve put a lot of miles on our moccasins.

Johan Peter Loch and his small family moved from the Palatinate in Germany in 1739 to Philadelphia, PA, migrating on the ship The Loyal Judith. He moved to the Tulpehocken Valley in Pennsylvania, where a large number of German immigrants lived.

In 1783, after his service in the Continental Army, George Lough moved his family to Pendleton County, Virginia, a trip of about 275 miles. He moved to the Hacker Valley in Virginia a short time later (100 miles, across the mountains). This part of the state became central West Virginia during the Civil War.

George’s son John settled in Champaign, Ohio, during his lifetime (about 300 miles from Hacker Valley). Philip, son of John, remained in Ohio until at least 1860, when he has moved to Jefferson, Indiana (200 miles). He remained in Clinton County for the rest of his life.

Sometime after the Civil War, James Randolph moved to Texas. He married Mattie McCown in Collin County, Texas, farmed in Farmersville, and died there in 1918. He came by one of two routes: from Indiana through Missouri, down through either the Indian Nations or through Arkansas and into Texas. It is possible that he came down the Mississippi River into Arkansas and crossed into Texas from there. A lot of Tennesseans migrated to Texas along this route. Either way, it was quite a trip, about 1000 miles.

His daughter Malinda, or Linnie (Isn’t that a coincidence, since most everyone insists on calling my wife Lynette “Linnie”?) was probably born in Farmersville. She later moved to Fort Worth, made a short stay in Oklahoma after (maybe before) her marriage to Charles Garrett (Charlie’s WWI draft card shows they lived in Morris), and returned to Fort Worth, where she died in 1946.

James Carey Lough, Linnie’s son, was raised in Farmersville, TX, and later, when he was 16, moved to Fort Worth. After living there, he moved to Oklahoma, where he met and married his wife Susie in Bristow in 1924. The family lived in Brown, Oklahoma, according to the 1930 Federal Census. Jim Lough died in Wewoka in 1949.

Jim’s son Dan (my Dad) began in Wewoka, where he married Esther Gaines in 1951. They moved to Curtin, Oregon, then back to Oklahoma. When Dad was drafted, he lived in Camp Chafee, Arkansas, and Fort Sill/Lawton, Oklahoma. After his release from the Army, he returned to Cromwell, OK, then made his way to Maljamar, New Mexico, then to Hobbs, then to Lovington. After retiring, he moved to Bandera, Texas. And he now lives in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Then there's me, who began at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Cromwell, to Maljamar, to Hobbs, to Lovington, to Las Cruces, NM, to Laramie, Wyoming, to Clifton and Morenci, Arizona. Then to Sweetwater, Texas, back to Fort Sumner, NM, then to Abilene, TX, to Aspermont, to Early, and now in Canyon, TX.