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.
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