Tombstone Tuesday - Mittie A. Grace

Arminta "Mittie Ann" Grace was the daughter of Richard Grace and Lorenna Antonette Wingo of Graves County, Kentucky. She died at the age of seventeen and is buried in the Camp Beauregard Cemetery outside of Water Valley, Kentucky.

Camp Beauregard was originally a Confederate training camp during the civil war. During the six months that it was an active military installation it was decimated by diseases such as pneumonia, typhoid fever and meningitis. By the time the camp was evacuated on March 1, 1862, 1000 confederate soldiers who had never engaged in battle were dead. The United Daughters of the Confederacy placed a large memorial there at the site of a mass grave of those soldiers.

In subsequent years, it has been a public cemetery and used by the families of the community. There are local legends that the site is haunted, but I have personally never encountered any malevolent spirits there. It's a lovely quiet hilltop with a view of the surrounding countryside.

Beadles Descendant - James Luther Slayden

James Luther Slayden was born on the 1st of June 1853, the son of Thomas Allison Slayden and Letitia Ellison Beadles of Graves County, Kentucky. Both the Slayden and Beadles families had migrated from the area of Halifax and Pittsylvania counties in Virginia to the Jackson Purchase shortly after it was opened for settlement.

James was the youngest of their children and growing up in the Jackson Purchase, his early life would have been greatly affected by the Civil War. His oldest brother, Lewis Saunders Slayden, was a Capt. in the First Kentucky Brigade, known as the "Orphan Brigade" of the CSA, but became ill with what was then described as consumption from the constant exposure. He resigned his commission in October of 1862 and returned to Graves County where he died in 1864. The majority of the residents of the Purchase were southerners and their sympathies were primarily with the Confederacy which made the occupation of the area by Union forces for much of the war a distressing and difficult era.

Thomas Slayden died in 1869 after which Letitia took her younger children to New Orleans where they lived in the home of her brother James Nicholas Beadles who was a merchant there. In New Orleans James worked and attended school prior to attending Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

In 1876, he moved to San Antonio, Texas where he became a cotton merchant and rancher. On the 12th of June 1883, James Luther Slayden married Ellen McGregor Maury of Charlottesville, Virginia.

He was elected as a Democrat to represent Texas in Congress in 1896. In October of 1910, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie appointed him as one of the original trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and for several years he was president of the American Peace Society.

He continued to be reelected for ten succeeding congresses. Future Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz had originally wished to attend West Point but there were no appointments available. James L. Slayden, his congressman, told him that he had one appointment available for the Naval Academy and that he would award it to the best qualified candidate and the rest is history.

In 1918, he declined renomination to congress after receiving a telegram from President Wilson accusing him of not supporting the administration in regard to the war. The records do not reveal that Slayden actively opposed Wilson or the war effort. He did keep his head in the midst of war hysteria which was very strong at that time.

After his retirement, he divided his interests between an orchard in Virginia, a mine in Mexico and his ranch in Texas.

James Luther Slayden died on the 24th of February 1924 and is buried in the Mission Park South Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. His gravestone is inscribed - "Member of Congress 1897-1919, One who loved his fellow men and labored for universal peace". I always wonder if it wasn't his childhood in the turbulence of the Jackson Purchase during the Civil War that inspired his dedication to the cause of peace.


For more indepth information regarding the Telegram from President Wilson see Tales of the New World.

1869 Migration to Texas

The doctor in Graves County, Kentucky told Elijah Willis Wingo that if he wanted to live through another winter, he would have to go west. Taking the doctor's advice, in the fall of 1869, Elijah, accompanied by a few other Graves County families, took his young family and made the thirty-two day journey behind a team of mules to Erath County, Texas.

At times the caravan included as many as seven families along the route to Texas. Besides traveling over the rough roads, the travelers were frequently required to pay a toll for the privilege of crossing bogs and streams on piles of logs. They had decided to rent once they reached their destination, but when they arrived in Stephenville were only able to locate an abandoned log cabin with two rooms. The cabin was shared with his brother-in-law's family and each family was given one of the two rooms. In a 1927 article in the Denton Chronicle newspaper, Elijah's wife Elizabeth chuckled on recalling the memory of her husband joining the women in tears at the dismal outlook.

In another article from the Denton Record-Chronicle written in 1930 on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of Elijah Willis Wingo and Almina Elizabeth Latta, Elijah recalled that as dismal as the living conditions were in those early days in Erath County, they were not as harsh as what they had left behind in Kentucky following the Civil War. Their home on the plantation of his father Jerman J. Wingo was at first confiscated as a hospital and later burned.

Elizabeth Wingo recounted that for a year she cooked over a fireplace and slept on a bunk of limbs from trees with the bark peeled off and had neither milk nor butter for her small children.

Near Lingleville they bought a 100 acre farm for $3.00 an acre. Ordinary prairie land sold for 75 cents an acre, but this was choice bottom land. In the fall of 1870, the Wingos' house was built with logs Elijah felled and hauled to Stephenville to be sawed into planks. The house included the first glass windows in the vicinity of Stephenville - two tiny panes inserted in one room. At that time it was a daring thing to put in glass windows since the Indians were still menacing the settlements.

Having corn milled required a trip to Bremond, a center of culture and commerce five counties distant. Elijah recalled that one of the trips took 15 days. The first cookstove in the Stephenville neighborhood was brought from Bremond in 1870 and on his next trip, Elijah drove his mules 200 miles and returned with seven bedsteads. Two range cattle were added once the first grass appeared and the children then had milk. Hogs were also raised and varied the diet of venison and wild turkey.

Elijah and Elizabeth Wingo raised nine children in Erath County and after 70 years of marriage, the Wingos still recalled the days of county fairs in Mayfield, Kentucky when they were sweethearts. Elijah Willis Wingo died at age 94 on December 14, 1930 in Littlefield, Lamb County, Texas and Almina Elizabeth Latta Wingo on January 16, 1932, age 92, in Stephenville, Erath County.


(Many thanks to Suzanne, descendant of Elijah Willis and Elizabeth Latta Wingo for sharing the wonderful photos. And a posthumous thank you to my late aunt Ruby Reeves Johnson who made several trips to Stephenville to meet our Wingo cousins and in doing so obtained the source documents for this post.)

Reunion of Co. D, 2nd Kentucky

  Richard Pryor, son of
 Jonathan Pryor,Jr.

Richard T. Pryor was the son of Jonathan Pryor, Jr. and Frances Rozzell of Pryorsburg, Graves County, Kentucky. At the age of 21 on the 28th of July, 1861, Richard was enlisted by Capt. Lewis S. Slayden in the Second Kentucky Infantry, CSA, at Camp Boone, Tennessee. The 2nd Kentucky was part of the First Kentucky Brigade which in time came to be known as the "Orphan Brigade".

On December 2, 1862 he was taken prisoner at Hartsville, Tennessee. It is unclear how long he was a Union prisoner, but on the 30th of June, 1863, in Jackson, Mississippi, he received a medical discharge because of a gunshot through his right elbow which occurred during the battle in Hartsville. CSA records at the time of his discharge state that he was 5 feet 8 inches tall, with fair complexion, blue eyes and light hair.

Twenty-seven years later a reunion was held at the home of Richard Pryor. On October 1, 1890 the Mayfield Monitor published the following article:

Reunion of Company D, Second Kentucky

A reunion of the above company at the residence of Mr. Richard Pryor, four miles southwest of here, on last Wednesday, notwithstanding the disagreeableness of the weather, was largely attended and proved a great success.

The following members of the company for which the meeting was arranged were present and took part in the exercises. Their ages, post office addresses and Christian names are also given:

Henry T. Wilkerson, age 49, Mayfield; T. F. (Dock) Mason, age 51, Pritchard, Graves County; Jas. D. Watson, age 46, Mayfield; Amos West, age 53, Mayfield; R. L. Usrey, age 57, Mayfield; W. W. (Wint) Potts, age 53, Pottsville; H. L. (Los) Jones, age 49, West Plains; J. V. (Jake) Canaday, age 59, Mayfield; Thos. F. Boaz, age 53, Kansas, Ky.; A. B. (Arch) Pullen, age 47, Lynnville; R. T. (Dick) Pryor, age 50, Mayfield; D. P. (De) Coulter, age 51, Mayfield.

As far as is known the following are the names of surviving members who were not present:

Newt. Anderson, Bushnell, Fla.; Wit. Boaz, Martin, Tenn.; Jack Pryor, East Prairie, Mo.; Bill Burton, Wingo; John Bourne, Pryorsburg; Charlie Haskell, Moscow; F. M. Handley, Melbourne, Ark.; Thos. Hopkins; New Mexico; A. T. Pullen, Pryorsburg; Wm. Bridges, Arkansas; Tup. Ryburn, Viola; Marshall Sullivan, Boaz; John Williams, West Plains; Tip. Myers, Wingo; Jim Touhey, Pryorsburg; Thomas Floyd, Wingo.

The company was organized with 110 men at Camp Boone, near Clarksville, Tenn., July 13, 1861. L. S. Slayden was chosen captain; H. B. Rodgers, first lieutenant; A. J. Pryor, second lieutenant; R. L. Usrey, third lieutenant. At the end of the war 36 of the company were paroled at Washington, Ga. The officers of the company at the time of the surrender were A. J. Pryor, captain; R. L. Usrey, first lieutenant; Amos West, second lieutenant; C. A. Haskell, third lieutenant.

Capt. T. M. Curtis, Company K, 50th Tenn.; Capt. R. T. Albritton, Company C, 8th Ky.; J. L. Rickman, Company K, 47th Tenn.; L. W. Bostic, Company A, 12th Ky., were also present, together with a number of Mr. Pryor’s friends.

A magnificent dinner was spread, to which it is needless to say all did justice; in fact it is said that one gentleman not only filled his stomach, but also his pockets, with the good things that were spread so lavishly before him. For any information on this point inquire of Bob Albritton, Amos West, Bill Bostic or Dock Mason.

All who went enjoyed themselves and returned home with nothing but good words for the hospitable manner in which they were treated by Mr. & Mrs. Pryor and their popular daughter, Miss Fannie Pryor.


(Photo courtesy of West Kentucky Genealogy from the Pryor-Hogue Album)

The Children of William T. Wingo

William Thomas Wingo, the youngest child of Thomas Wingo and Mary Holt Wingo, was born on April 14th 1818 in Virginia, probably in Nottaway County. By the time he was ten years old, he was an orphan for Mary died in 1827 and Thomas in 1828. William was then cared for my his much older brother Jerman and appears to have joined him on the migration to Kentucky.

On January 10th, 1840 in Hickman County, Kentucky, William married Harriet Lochridge, daughter of James Lochridge and Rachel Hicklin. In the Hickman County census of 1850, the family was living in the Baltimore community just north of the Tennessee state line and included James T. Wingo age 6, Rachel age 5 and one year old California. By the 1860 census, the family was absent from all census listings in the area. According to Jerman Wingo's bible, W. T. Wingo died on 17 October 1857 and Harriett died on February 12th, 1860. William's cause of death was recorded as "fever" on his Hickman County death record but no record could be found for Harriet's death.

I discovered the births of two more children after the 1850 census was taken. A birth record for a "no name" Wingo was recorded on the 27th of June 1853 and Mary Ellen Wingo on 19 April 1856. The child listed as "no name" later was found to be George Newton Wingo

As I attempted to locate the children, I even began to research Harriet's Lochridge family. When the 1860 census was taken, a J. T. "Bingo" was listed in the Graves County household of William Pryor, husband of Caroline Lochridge Pryor, Harriet's sister. In the Baltimore community of Hickman County, California was living in the household of John & Sarah Coates and a few residences from the Coates, 4 year old Mary Ellen was living with the family of G. W. Sellars, a constable. Newton was also living in Hickman County in the home of Harriet's brother Marshall Lochridge. Only Rachel couldn't be found in that 1860 census. Then, by the 1870 census, none of the children could be found other than a possible John T. Wingo living in a boarding house in Mayfield who might have been James and his name listed incorrectly.

Periodically I would think about these lost children and make another attempt to find them but always unsuccessfully. I did find that the John T. Wingo living in Mayfield in 1870 really was James. At that time he held the position of the Graves County Clerk. He had served in John Hunt Morgan's Cavalry during the Civil War and was seriously injured before being captured. He died before November of 1870 possibly as a result of those injuries. From the History of the First Kentucky Brigade By Edwin Porter Thompson, pub 1868:

THOMAS WINGO, Graves County, Ky., was sick when the regiment marched to Donelson, but recovered and joined Morgan’s cavalry, with which he fought until he lost a leg in battle. He was wounded at Lebanon in one of his eyes.

Finally, I happened upon the 1952 death record of James Rudy Blalock which named his father as Levi Blalock, Jr. and his mother as Mary Ellen Wingo. From that point, I continued to find them one after the other, Rachel, then George Newton who had married Ellieander Blalock, Levi's sister, but not Callie. I used all my most successful methods, even searching by first names but could never find her. Then one day when reviewing some Graves County census pages for the Pryorsburg area, I saw the name of the wife of James Knox Polk Pryor was Callie and she was exactly the right age. On that same page Levi and Mary Ellen Blalock were listed. I had finally found Callie and once I found her obituary, it confirmed her maiden name as Wingo.

After all my searching for William Thomas Wingo's children, it seems that they were hiding in plain sight all along. In the tax records of Graves County, I eventually learned that William Pryor had been the administrator of his sister-in-law Harriet's estate and the children were all living in close proximity to him in Pryorsburg - about 5 miles from Wingo, Kentucky.


(Photos property of Raymond Wingo, descendant of George Newton and Ellieander Blalock Wingo.)

James Nicholas Beadles

James Nicholas Beadles, son of Lewis Yancey Beadles and Martha C. Vaughan, was named for his maternal grandfather Nicholas Vaughan of Amelia County, Virginia. He was born on March 6th, 1825 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, before the Beadles with their extended family migrated to Kentucky's Jackson Purchase area around 1830.

Upon first arriving in Graves County, the Beadles' family along with the Wingo and other associated families settled around the area of the town of Wingo which was named for J. N. Beadles' brother-in-law Jerman J. Wingo. Reportedly, as a young man James began work in Mayfield, Kentucky in retail.

On September 19th, 1850, he married Macerina L. Eaker. A little more than a year later on November 8th, 1851, Macerina died, leaving an infant daughter Margaret. Thirteen days later on November 21st, six month old Margaret also died.

Besides his involvement in merchandizing, James Nicholas Beadles, also served as acting cashier of the Mayfield branch of the Bank of Ashland. On April 27, 1858, he was married to Catherine Chappel Mayes of Caldwell County who died on January 10, 1862. James and Catherine Beadles had one son, Robert Mayes Beadles, born on 26 July 1859 in Graves County.

On May 29, 1861, what is referred to as the "Mayfield Convention" took place at the Courthouse there. The extensive notes of the proceedings kept by James N. Beadles who was a Unionist, were later published in the Louisville Daily Journal. Secession was the primary topic and many Jackson Purchase residents favored a sectional military alliance with Tennessee. The final decision made at the convention was that, at least for the immediate future, the western Kentucky counties would follow the rest of the state and maintain neutrality.

His third marriage on the 28th of August 1866 was to the young widow of Col. Albert Perry Thompson, Mary Elizabeth Mayes, probably a cousin of his deceased wife Catherine Mayes. Col. A. P. Thompson served in the 3rd Kentucky Infantry of the CSA organized at Camp Boone, Tennessee in July of 1861. In 1864, the 3rd Kentucky Infantry was ordered to report to General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Col. A. P. Thompson was placed in charge of the 8th Kentucky Infantry during Forrest's assault on Paducah. Col. Thompson was killed by cannon fire while leading his troops through the streets of Paducah during that unsuccessful offensive.

In December of 1866, James N. Beadles went to New Orleans where he was recorded as being a commission merchant in census records. The 1870 census lists his household as including his widowed sister Letitia Beadles Slayden and her children. His own wife and children apparently remained in Kentucky for they are not listed with other members of the household. The ability afforded by the Mississippi River to travel easily between New Orleans and Kentucky appears to have allowed him to maintain residences in both locations throughout the 1870's. He was recorded in Mayfield in the 1880 census and is reported to have returned there permanently in Feburary of 1882. At that time, with other associates he organized the Bank of Mayfield, of which he became the cashier.

He and Mary had four sons - Lewis, James Nicholas Jr., Wiltz William and Locke Beadles. James Nicholas Beadles died in Mayfield, Kentucky on September 30th, 1894 and is buried there in the Maplewood Cemetery.

Jerman J. Wingo of Wingo, Kentucky

Jerman Wingo's parents, Thomas Wingo and Mary Holt Wingo died in Pittsylvania County, Virginia in 1828 and 1827, respectively. Shortly after their deaths, sometime in 1830, Jerman with his wife Ann, their three small children and his younger brother William Thomas Wingo left Pittsylvania County migrating to the newly opened territory of Kentucky west of the Tennessee River. They came west with Ann's parents Lewis Yancey Beadles and Martha C. Vaughan Beadles, and were joined by most of her siblings.

On the 21st of November 1831, Jerman J. Wingo received 2 land patents of 160 acres each and on the same day, his father-in-law Lewis Yancey Beadles received 8 patents of 160 acres each, all located in Graves County.

Patent 2338 had previously been #2113 which was granted to Levi Tucker

Reverse side showing Levi Tucker's assignment to Jerman J. Wingo and
Lewis Y. Beadles' signature as witness.

Aunt Molly Wingo Peal, granddaughter of Jerman J. Wingo, repeated stories she had been told as a child by older slaves of the family's migration from Virginia to Kentucky. The men herded the cattle while the female slaves and children herded geese and chickens as they traveled west through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky. Jerman Wingo was an amateur horticulturist and they told her of his bringing fruit tree cuttings from North Carolina and Virginia to be planted in Kentucky.

For those who have traveled along this route even on modern roads, it is all too evident what a monumental task it must have been to travel from Virginia thru the Cumberland Gap all the way across Kentucky to the Jackson Purchase area in wagons bringing all their worldly possessions as well as livestock.

Within the next decade, Jerman's only other sibling, sister Lucinda with her husband George Bolinger and their family followed, migrating from Virginia to the Jackson Purchase.

Throughout the next 50 years, the Wingos, Beadles, Bolingers and other allied families such as the Slaydens developed prosperous farms and plantations on the Jackson Purchase land grants. The Beadles, Bolingers and Slaydens became involved in business such as banking and manufacturing in addition to holding public office. After Jerman Wingo gave right of way to the railroad as well as land for a depot, the town that grew there was first called "Wingo Station" and later shortened to Wingo.

During the Civil War, the effort to control the two great rivers, the Mississippi and Ohio, brought the presence of the Union Army to the Purchase. Ulysses S. Grant and the Union army captured Paducah which gave them control of the Ohio and the Tennesseee Rivers. Since the majority of the residents of the Jackson Purchase were southern planters and sympathized with the Confederacy, it was an extremely difficult time in the Purchase area. Many years later, Jerman's son, Elijah Willis Wingo told of their home on the Wingo Plantation having first been confiscated for use as a hospital and then later burned.

In a newspaper article from Denton, Texas in March 1930, Elijah Willis Wingo described the move from Kentucky in 1869 to Stephenville in Erath County, Texas. He said that in spite of the hardships of the 32-day trip to Texas and the dismal living conditions in the early days, it was not as bad as those they left behind in Kentucky after the Civil War.

Jerman and Ann both survived the trials of the Civil War in the Jackson Purchase. Even after the losses of the war and reconstruction, the 1870 census lists Jerman's worth in real estate property at $8,000 and $4,000 in personal property. They raised their eleven children in Graves County and nine of the eleven survived them. Jerman died in Wingo, Kentucky in 1873 and Ann died there in 1879. Both are buried in the Greer Cemetery of Wingo, Kentucky with other early settlers to the Jackson Purchase such as the Plumlees and Bosticks.