Coryell Co. TX - Jane Smith Ross

Submitted by Bobbie Ross  <bwross@htcomp.net>

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                              JANE SMITH ROSS
                                      
    The Ross family shows up first in Lauderdale County Alabama between the
    1820 and 1830 census, as they state, from SC. In January of 1830 Thomas
    Ross marries Mary Hill and a new family is started. The first child is
    David Alexander Ross. He grows up in what is later to become the Greeh Hill
    area of Lauderdale County Alabama and marries Jane Smith, who is presumed,
    at this time, to be daughter of neighbor Duncan Smith from Moore Co. NC.
    The older family moves on to Pontotoc Co. Mississippi, but due to crops
    pending and Jane's family the younger Ross family stays on in Lauderdale
    Co. where they move, within the county, and therefore are enumerated twice
    on the 1860 census. However, shortly after the 1860 census, due to the deep
    unrest and discontent in the South, the younger Ross family does move to
    Pontotoc Co. MS where the rest of the extended family resides in the
    Tocopola Township. Very soon war escalates across the country and David
    Alexander joins the Mississippi troups of Captain S.E.Melson's Company of
    the 41st Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers, leaving a young family and a
    pregnant wife. Dave L. Ross is born in 1862 and there is a question about
    whether his father ever got to see him, as the father was killed at the
    battle of Perryville, Kentucky on the 8th of October, 6 months to the day
    from his enlistment, 1862. Times were hard following the Civil War and the
    widow Jane Ross was not able to keep all of her family together. On the
    1870 census, Thomas Duncan was in the household of his uncle Charles
    Lafayette Ross, older brothers John Sylvester and James F. were in the
    household of their grand parents. In Jane's household on the 1870 census
    are only the 2 younger children, Martha and Dave. It is believed that Jane
    and 3 younger children stayed in MS to be with the older Rosses, who may
    have been in ill health. Thomas Ross sold his half section of land in 1872,
    his wife Mary did not sign, so it is presumed that she has already died and
    he must have died soon after. They are not found listed in cemeteries
    there, I'm sure no one had money for tombstones. Jane and oldest son, John
    Sylvester, borrowed $312.80 using their land, which is believed to join
    that of her in laws, and a pair of mules for collateral, It appears that a
    span of mules was worth as much collateral as a half section of land. John
    Sylvester married about 1872 and had to co-sign on this note for his
    mother, remember, women had NO rights, not even to borrow money to make a
    crop. They must have made their crop and were able to repay their loan, no
    other legal records are found. About 1872 a large wagon train was made up
    of people wanting to come to Coryell County, TX. There were mostly people
    from Pontotoc, Panola and Lafayette Counties Mississippi. Jane let her two
    older sons come to TX with relatives the Farrar, Thornton, and Warren
    families. On the 1880 census they are in Bell County. This wagon train came
    on into Coryell County, to Leon Junction where the Farrar family stopped,
    and on to Levita in western Coryell County where the Sardis church was
    named after the Sardis MS area they had left. It seems that Jane and the
    rest of the family show up in Coryell county shortly after 1880. Part of
    this group apparently went on to Oklahoma and settled in the Chickasaw
    nation. Jane's death in 1904 is on the first page of Coryell County deaths,
    saying that she died of "exhaustion", family oral history says that she
    died following a run-away buggy accident. She is buried in the Seaton
    Cemetery in Coryell County, a true pioneer. By James Ross, the
    great-grandson of Jane Smith Ross, taken from the book "Ross Record" by
    Bobbie Ross, 1989

                                      
                    copyrighted by Bobbie Ross Sept.2000