Coryell Co. TX - Painter Family

Submitted by Bobbie Ross  <bwross@htcomp.net>

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                             THE PAINTER FAMILY
                                      
    Great grandfather, David Painter came from Scotland to the United States in
    the year 1840. He first came to Tennessee, then married and came to Coryell
    County. They lived for a while at old Fort Gates, near Gatesville, TX, then
    bought a farm later on the Leon River about two miles from Gatesville. They
    had four children. The oldest was Mary Elizabeth, then Emily, George and
    Robert Davis. George was named for his uncle, who was a Presbyterian
    minister in Scotland. Robert Davis was named for Robert E. Lee, as he was
    born during the Civil War. David Painter had a good education for his day.
    He went to fight in the Civil War, but the second year, in 1862, he took a
    fever, probably malaria, but Texas doctors knew little of medicine and less
    about surgery. They called it brain fever, and operated on his head,
    removing a round piece of skull to let the fever out. He died and was
    buried on his farm. Grandmother couldn't finish paying for the farm, so
    moved to Straw's Mill. Mary Elizabeth, the oldest child, was then ten (10).
    One day she took a bucket to the river for water, her small brother George
    went along. They were leading a horse to turn into another pasture. When
    they got to the river she told George to stay there until she had let the
    horse loose, and when she returned her brother was gone. She went home
    thinking he had gone and when she returned without him her mother knew what
    had happened. His body was recovered the next day, drowned in the Leon
    River. The youngest boy, Robert, had a disease that caused him to be lame
    in one leg. He lived to be seventy-five years old and owned two farms
    located between Gatesville and Turnersville. Mary Elizabeth married Uriah
    Deloy Williams in 1870. They bought a farm six miles north of Gatesville
    and reared four sons and four daughters, Clara, Elizabeth, Emma, Robert,
    Willis and Walter (twins), Bert and Lannie. Through the encouragement of
    Mary Elizabeth, Uriah solicited money from friends and neighbors in the
    community to build the first school building. It was built at the site of
    the cemetary on Coryell Creek and was called the Coffey School. Mary
    Elizabeth died in 1892. She was 38 years old and died of blood poisoning
    after childbirth. Uriah then married Nancy Coskrey, who also preceded him
    in death. She died of cancer. He passed away in 1929, all are buried in the
    cemetary on Coryell Creek east of the home place. The oldest child Clara
    died in 1894 at the age of nineteen. She left a husband, named Shipman and
    a daughter, "Little Clara". She married a man named Burl Teague. They had
    one son, Orvis and then moved to California. By Linda Sue Reasor
    
            Copyrighted Linda Sue Reasor & Bobbie Ross Sep. 2000