Greene County AlArchives Biographies.....Horton, Amos September 16 1847 - living in 1893
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 26, 2004, 12:14 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
  AMOS HORTON, an extensive farmer and stock-breeder, living at Pleasant Ridge,
was born in Greene county, Ala., September 16, 1847. He is a son of William and
Marcia (Ford) Horton. The Horton family is a very ancient one, and its genealogy
is as follows, with, however, a missing link between the family of Amos Horton
and the ancient family of Horton, which it is believed possible to supply.
Robert De Horton manumitted a bondman to his manor of Horton, long before the
time of Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln, who died in 1310. It has also been
ascertained that the Hortons had a manor house in Grant Horton, at a remote
period. The word Horton, in Anglo-Saxon, means a vegetable garden. It is said to
be derived from "ort" and "tun", "ort" meaning "plant" and "tun", "enclosed" or
"an enclosure." It has been known in England ever since the conquest by Julius
Caesar. The Horton coat of arms in England is as follows : A stag's head,
embossed in silver and gold. The motto, "Quod vult, mile volt" (What he wills,
he wills cordially), expresses a sentiment which can be traced in the present
generation of Hortons, as one of their chief characteristics. William Horton, of
Frith House in Barksland, Halifax, descended from the above named Robert De
Horton. Barnabas Horton, the ancestor of the Hortons in America, came to
America, in the ship Swallow, between the year 1633 and 1638, and landed at
Hampton, Mass. William Horton, the father of Amos Horton, was born near Raleigh,
Wake county, in 1812. He was a wealthy planter and large slave-holder owning 100
slaves. He emigrated to Alabama at an early age and settled in Blount county.
Miss Marcia Ford, whom he married, was born in Alabama, and spent her life in
Greene county. They were married about 1836, and became the parents of six
children, three only of whom are living, viz.: Henry A. Horton, a farmer in
Greene county, Amos Horton, and Mattie Snedicor, widow of J. W. Snedicor, of
Birmingham, Ala. His first wife having died, Mr. William Horton married Mrs.
Mary Tillman, by whom he has had eight children-seven sons and one daughter-as
follows: Rufus K. Horton, a wealthy and progressive planter, living near
Pleasant Ridge; Robert L. Horton, a resident of Meridian, Miss.; Moses B.
Horton, unmarried, and living near Pleasant Ridge, on a farm; William Manassas
Horton, born on the day of the first battle of Manassas, hence his name; he is a
dentist at Tuscaloosa, Ala.; John R. Horton, a farmer of Greene county; Clarence
S. Horton, physician in the hospital in New Orleans; Fred Horton, who died in
1878; and Mary E. Horton, unmarried, and living near Pleasant Ridge, with her
mother. Amos Horton is the grandson of Jesse Horton, a native of North Carolina,
and a great-grandson of Amos Horton, a captain in the Revolutionary war, under
Gen. Marion. Amos Horton was married to Miss Sallie Richardson, a native of
Greene county, Ala., and a daughter of Grief Richardson and Drusilla (Taylor)
Richardson; both were born in 1808, the former in Lunenberg, and the latter in
Pendleton, S. C. She was a daughter of Samuel Taylor, who was among the first
settlers of Greene county. He was a son of Samuel Taylor, who was a colonel in
the Revolutionary army, and quite a distinguished soldier, having been the first
to fight the British in South Carolina. He lost a leg during the war, and fought
with a price offered for his head by the British governor, and consequently
could not be properly considered a prisoner of war. He received a large
Revolutionary bounty, which placed his family in affluent circumstances. James
Taylor, the father of Col. Samuel Taylor, came over from England as one of the
king's officers, and settled upon a farm upon which the city of Philadelphia now
stands. The place was known as the Stone House farm. Mrs. Horton's parents were
married in 1830, and to them were born seven children; four are living, as
follows: John T. Richardson, a real estate-dealer in Birmingham, Ala.; Leonora
Richardson, wife of C. McAdory, of Bessemer, Ala.; Ida Richardson, wife of J. R.
Rocket of Birmingham, Ala., Sallie Richardson, wife of Amos Horton, of Pleasant
Ridge, Ala. Three are dead, as follows : Mary Virginia, wife of B. T.
Higginbotham, died in 1853; Dr. William H. Richardson was killed at
Spottsylvania Court House, Va., in 1864, while in command of a company in the
Eleventh Alabama regiment Confederate States army; infant son, died at an early
age. Mrs. Horton's maternal great-grandfather was a well known and able minister
of the Presbyterian church; Rev. Dr. Thomas Reese, born in Pennsylvania in 1742,
graduated from Princeton college with great honor, and the degree of D. D.; was
licensed to preach in 1773, and was the first Carolinian to be so honored by
Princeton. He was a thorough scholar, and was well versed in mental and moral
philosophy, as well as in theology. He was the author of the work entitled ”The
Influence of Religion on Civil Society," which, if it had been written from the
other side of the Atlantic, might have done credit to the pen of a Warburton or
a Paley. He died near Pendleton, S. C., in 1799, and was buried near the old
stone church. To Amos Horton and his wife have been born six children, of whom
three sons are living, viz: William Taylor Horton, born December 12, 1871, Hugh
Clifford Horton, born November 7, 1872, graduated from the university of
Alabama, in June, 1892, having taken a classical course; Charles Richardson
Horton, born January 5, 1875. Amos Horton was a cadet during the late war,
subject to state orders, and served a short time in Mobile, Ala. He owns 1,800
acres of land in Greene county, which is in a high state of cultivation, and
lies on Sipsie river. He makes a specialty of raising Jersey cattle. Mrs. Horton
is a member of the Presbyterian church, and both Mr. and Mrs. Horton are highly
respected citizens.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 1045-1047
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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