My first Introduction to a Methodist Circuit Rider

Last month, I posted the marriage license of William Fletcher King, the brother of my 2^nd great- grandmother, Dora King. According to the marriage license, they were married in Oregon County by a “local elder” named Joseph M Willard. [1]

I found Reverend Joseph M Willard on FindAGrave thanks to a cousin who emailed a link to his memorial to me. From there I noted that another cousin, Mary Jo Freeman, had posted some photos of him and his wife, Rhoda. Here is a photo of them together, with permission of Mary Jo Freeman:

According to Mary Jo’s website, Joseph M Willard, her great-grandfather, was a Methodist circuit rider preacher for the districts of West Plains and Koshkonong, Missouri, and Independence County, Arkansas. Both of these neighboring towns bordered the Missouri-Arkansas State Line. Methodist circuit riders travelled around to various communities and preached to their members and tried to set up congregations.

Joseph Martin Willard was born July 14^th, 1865 in Oregon County, Missouri to John and Sarah Colyott Willard. He began preaching when he was 21 years of age. He met his bride-to-be, Susan Rhoda Spurlock at a Methodist Church in Liberty Hill, Sharp County, Arkansas where he was preaching. They were married March 19, 1889 in King’s Mill, Sharp County, Arkansas. They lived in Rover, Oregon County, Missouri until their children were grown at which point they moved to neighboring West Plains, Howell County, Missouri. In his 70s, Joseph became a Judge. Joseph and his wife celebrated their 73^rd wedding anniversary before she passed away in 1962 and he followed shortly thereafter.  [2]

The first question I had when I saw Joseph Willard’s name on my 2^nd great uncle’s marriage license was “I wonder if he is related to Posey Willard, my great-grandmother’s half brother’s father?” I wrote about Posey Willard being the father of my great-grandmother’s half brother, William Herbert Peters previously. Well Mary Jo Freeman was kind enough to write me back and she informed me that yes, in fact, Posey Willard and Joseph Martin Willard were related. They were 2^nd cousins and shared the same great-grandfather, Henry Willard (This is suggested, but not proven).

The Reverend Joseph M Willard lived fairly close by to Fletcher and Mary King in Highland Township in 1900 and Joseph was only 34 years old at the time the census was taken which means he was only 28 years old when he married Fletcher and Mary. He started preaching when he was 21. And the census lists him as a “farmer” which also threw me off, but it was him as the children and wife match up with what Mary Jo has listed for his family members.  

This was a fun experiment in looking at not just bride and groom but also the other key players like the person who married them! I am always skeptical when someone says that “the people who witness the deed are always related.” However, in this case, I was able to provide some context in which the elder and groom had some connection, if not directly related by blood, but by an extramarital affair!

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Additional resources:
[1] The marriage license between William Fletcher King and Mary A French.  And the question of who was the “local elder.”
[2] More about Reverend Joseph Martin Willard and his family on his great-granddaughter Mary Jo Freeman’s website.
[3] Read about how the mystery of my great-grandmother’s half brother’s parents was solved

William Herbert Peters, my Great-Grandmother’s Half Brother

Herbert & Emma (Dodd) Peters, 1978, Texarkana, TX sent to me by Pam, a 3rd great-granddaughter of Posey Willard, March 2012. 

In a previous post entitled “The Mystery of William Herbert Peters’ Birth” we learned that Herbert’s parents were my 2^nd great-grandmother Dora King and Posey Willard. Herbert was born March 25, 1900 in Rover, Oregon County, Missouri. He and his mother, Dora, have not yet been found on the 1900 census which was taken around June of 1900. I looked in both Missouri and Arkansas in case they might have been staying with family. I also looked under Dora’s birth name, Dora King, and her step-father’s name, Dora Watson, but found trace of neither on the 1900 census report.

In November 1900, Dora married William Edward Peters, my 2^nd great-grandfather. Herbert’s father, Posey Willard, married Matilda Judd, June 5, 1901 in Brady, Oregon County, Missouri. Herbert must have been “adopted” by William Peters because he took the Peters surname on all official documents. It was only after FamilySearch.org released a scanned image of Herbert’s death certificate did I realize his father was Posey Willard.

In 1918, Herbert had registered for the draft in Oregon County, Missouri. By 1920, he was enumerated on the 1920 US Federal Census under the Military and Naval Forces in Germany, Montabaur District, overseas Military. He was listed as a 20 year old Private from Rover, Missouri.

On July 12, 1924, Herbert married Emily Dodd in Minturn, Lawrence County, Arkansas. Lawrence County, Arkansas is just over the Missouri-Arkansas line, bordering Oregon County, Missouri so it wasn’t too far away. Many people lived on one side of the border and worked on the other.

By 1930, Herbert and Emily were living in Moore Township (Thomasville), Oregon County, Missouri. Herbert was a farmer on a general farm and a WWI vet.  When the 1940 census comes out and gets indexed, I will be able to learn where they were living in 1940. By 1943, I know they were living in Bowie County, Texas because that’s where one of their daughters was born. Another daughter, Mildred Alice Peters, had been born January 27, 1931; however she died March 5, 1931 and was buried in Joliff Cemetery in Rover, Missouri. Two of Mildred’s cousins were also buried in Joliff Cemetery: Alvy and Charley King, children of Herbert’s uncle William Fletcher King.

Herbert was mentioned in his father’s obituary in 1948. He was listed as living in Texas. Herbert and Emily eventually settled for good in Texas. Herbert died in Texarkana, Bowie County, Texas on April 20, 1979. I have a copy of his death certificate, but would love to get a copy of his obituary. He is buried in Chapelwood Cemetery in Texarkana, Texas.

I found a Findagrave memorial for him from 2011 and contacted the person who created it. Pam is the granddaughter of Posey Willard, Herbert’s father. She sent me a photo of Herbert and Emma, his wife (see above), that she received from one of his half siblings’ grandchildren on the Willard side. She also confirmed the story of a relationship between Dora King and Posey Willard prior to Herbert’s birth.

I submitted a request for a headstone photo to FAG. It told me there were 54 volunteers within a 50 mile radius of this cemetery. And the FAG volunteer who created his memorial told me I could probably get a copy of his obituary from the local genealogy society, Texarkana USA Genealogical Society, so I will try to contact them and see if I can get an obituary from them.

Stay tuned for more documents to be posted!

Not so Treasure Chest Thursday - Another PETERS death certificate from Missouri

Since working on my brick wall ancestors has been one of my goals for 2012, I thought I would highlight another death certificate from one of my brick wall ancestors in my Peters line. Last month I posted the death certificate of my grandfather’s half-uncle, William Herbert PETERS. It was a true treasure trove because it told me that Herbert’s parents were my 2^nd great-grandmother Dora KING and a man she was not married to, Posey WILLARD. Since Herbert’s last name was PETERS and not WILLARD, I can infer that my 2^nd great-grandfather, William Edward PETERS adopted Herbert as a baby and raised him as his own. William and Dora did marry, after all, only 8 months after Herbert’s birth.

Unfortunately I was not as lucky with William Edward PETERS’ death certificate. I learned from his death certificate and obituary that he was born March 10, 1874 in Thomasville, [Oregon County] Missouri and that his last wife’s name was Caroline PETERS, but none of this was a surprise to me.  His daughter Danie PENDERGRASS filled out his death certificate and next to his parents’ names she informed that she “didn’t know.” She didn’t know where his parents were born either.

Death Certificate of William Edward Peters, 3 Feb 1948, in the possession of the author. 

So my 2^nd great-grandfather, William Edward PETERS continues to be my brick wall in that I still do not know who his parents were or where they were born.

The census reports were not much help either. I entered information from the 1900-1930 census reports into a matrix so that I can compare data quickly and easily. From the matrix I can see that William was born in either Missouri or Illinois. His father was likewise born in either Missouri or Illinois and his mother was born in Missouri, Illinois, or Tennessee. Unfortunately, William was a boarder in the 1900 census, and lived with a different wife on each consecutive census reports. We do not know who informed the census taker about the people living in the house. It could have been the husband or the wife or whoever was home at the time the enumerator stopped by.

	Specific Information	Sources
Name	William Peters	1900 Census, Highland Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	William Peters	1910 Census, Big Apple Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	William Peters	1920 Census, Thayer Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	Will Peters	1930 Census, Bristow, Randolph Co., AR
	W. E. Peters	Obituary Pocahontas Star, Feb 3, 1948
	William Edward Peters	Death Certificate, William E Peters, Feb 3, 1948
Birth Date	Mar 1877	1900 Census, Highland Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	Abt 1875	1910 Census, Big Apple Twp., Oregon Co., MO, taken April 28, 1910: lists his age as 35; 1910-35=b. 1875
	Abt 1872	1920 Census, Thayer Twp., Oregon Co., MO, taken Jan 6, 1920, lists his age as 48; 1920-48 = 1872
	Abt 1873	1930 Census, Bristow, Randolph Co., AR, taken Apr 15, 1930, lists his age as 57; 1930-57=1873
	Mar 10, 1874	Obituary Pocahontas Star, Feb 3, 1948
	Mar 10, 1874	Death Certificate, William E Peters, Feb 3, 1948
Birth Place	IL	1900 Census, Highland Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	IL	1910 Census, Big Apple Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	IL	1920 Census, Thayer Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	MO	1930 Census, Bristow, Randolph Co., AR
	Thomasville, MO	Obituary Pocahontas Star, Feb 3, 1948
	Thomasville, MO	Death Certificate, William E Peters, Feb 3, 1948
Father’s Birth Place	IL	1900 Census, Highland Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	Unk	1910 Census, Big Apple Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	IL	1920 Census, Thayer Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	MO	1930 Census, Bristow, Randolph Co., AR
	Unknown	Death Certificate, William E Peters, Feb 3, 1948
Mother’s Birth Place	MO	1900 Census, Highland Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	IL	1910 Census, Big Apple Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	TN	1920 Census, Thayer Twp., Oregon Co., MO
	MO	1930 Census, Bristow, Randolph Co., AR
	Unknown	Death Certificate, William E Peters, Feb 3, 1948

One last thing of note is that I was told by the daughter of the woman who informed on William’s death that William was killed by three men who though he had sold the farm where he was a caretaker. They were trying to find where he had hid the money. Unfortunately, this story was not reflected on the death certificate which said that William died of a heart attack due to high blood pressure.

However I did write previously of a story I found in an Iowa paper about a man named John PETERS who was shot and beaten to death on his employer’s farm by a gang of brothers in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1891. I wondered if maybe this was my William’s father or close relative. The only problem is that the 1880 census report listed John PETERS as single (William was born in 1874) and living in Iowa, not Illinois or Missouri like the census reports indicated. It also said John PETERS was from Denmark and I think I would have heard about it if our family was from Denmark!

** This "matrix" was adapted from something I learned from Dr. Thomas Jones in one of his lectures at a National Conference. 

The Mystery of William Herbert Peters’ Birth

Today a mystery was solved.

It all started when a woman that I have been exchanging information with for several years now emailed me to say she would be visiting Oregon County, Missouri and wanted to know if there was anything I wanted her to look for while she was there. She said she would be looking for more documents on our Peters and King families.

It just so happens that I had updated my Peters research report back in January and she said she would look it over for me to see if she could find any gaps or offer any suggestions on my next research steps. My Peters line is my dead end or what some might call my “brick wall.” As I was creating an updated narrative report to send to her, I checked the WorldConnect online family tree of my great-grandmother’s half brother, William Herbert Peters to verify some information I had. I noticed the database had been updated in January of 2012, so I re-read his entry. It is always a good idea to re-check information, especially family tree files on the internet because if the owners are anything like me, they are updating their information all the time.

I was originally told by this family tree owner that William Herbert Peters was the son of William Edward Peters (my 2^nd great-grandfather) and Matilda Judd. He was born out of wedlock and Matilda was only 16 years old when he was born in March of 1900. In November of 1900, William Edward Peters married my 2^nd great-grandmother, Dora King who took in the baby as her own. Matilda Judd married Posey Woodside Willard in 1901. Matilda’s family knew about the baby. My family knew about the baby, however, it was believed that he was NOT the son of William Peters, in other words, he had a different father than my great-grandmother and her siblings. I put this contradiction between the two families' stories aside for a while. 

Six years later, I read in this updated family tree file that William Herbert Peters was the son of Posey Woodside Willard and Dora King and that an affair had ensued and a child had been produced and said child had been adopted by William Edward Peters. Does that name sound familiar – Posey Woodside Willard? – it should because he is the man that Matilda Judd, the woman originally thought to be William Herbert Peters' mother, married in 1901!

Usually the owner of this tree emails me when he finds new information, but I haven’t heard from him in years. So I sent him an email asking how did he learn about this new information and I CC’d the researcher I had been exchanging emails with today. I asked him had he obtained William Herbert Peters’ death certificate?

Well wouldn’t you know it but two seconds after I asked, I decided to look on FamilySearch.org to see if they had uploaded any new databases recently from Texas. Sure enough, I found “Texasdeaths, 1977-1986” which filled the gap they had previously. The previous database of Texas Death Certificates only went up to the year 1976. This one went a little further. It is not yet indexed, but it didn’t take me long to find the one I was looking for by browsing through the images. I knew that he had died 20 Apr 1979 in Bowie County, Texas. 

Sure enough, his death certificate says his parents were Dora Watson and Posey Willard. His mother’s name was Dora King; however after her father died when she was just 2 years old, her step-father, Samuel Watson, adopted her.

Here is a look at the death certificate (click to make it bigger):

So the mystery of William Herbert Peters has been solved.

Discovering divergences like this and documenting them is essential to building successful connections to your ftDNA Family Finder (or 23andMe) matches. Trying to prove connections is often difficult and discouraging because events like this happen and it appears as if even 2^nd or 3^rd cousin matches are not possible. So make sure to look for any and all kinds of diverging branches of your tree and document them well!

Citation as provided by FamilySearch.org webstie:

"Texas, Deaths, 1977-1986." ''FamilySearch'' ([http://www.familysearch.org https://www.familysearch.org]). Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics. Digital images of originals housed at the State Registrar Office in Austin, Texas. FHL microfilm and digital images. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. William Herbert Peters.