There is a story inside my head that has long since been thrashing around in an effort to free itself and the more the years stack up, the more impatient it becomes. I have tried to suppress it by saying I will do it someday but first I must learn more about it or I am too busy doing something else right now, but I will do it before it is too late. There is no reason that I can put my finger on why I have decided to begin it now except it recently occurred to me that it could be later than I think.

This is not a tale that was born inside my imagination; rather it is one that I have heard since I was a very small child, while sitting on the front porch in the cool of the evening, or by a large open fireplace in the wintertime listening to the older ones reminiscing. Since we did not even have the media of radio, to say nothing of TV or VCR, which was about all the entertainment we had in those days. Sometimes

a visiting uncle would play the fiddle. My family had quite a few good fiddlers, or my father would play the harmonica which he was very good at. On those evenings my mother would pop corn which grew in our fields or pass around other homemade goodies at which she excelled. Sometimes the older ones would get up and dance. I loved those evenings. It certainly broke the monotony of the simple everyday life.

This, however, did not appeal to me nearly so much as did the stories they would tell. One might say something like, "Ossie, do you remember Aunt Lou Howard?" Ossie was the name that relatives called my father, who's real name was Arthur Osborne Fletcher. Papa would answer, "Oh yes, I remember her very well. She was our great-grandparents' Sarah and James Hoggard's youngest child." At that point their conversation got my attention. Just the mention of Sarah (called Sallie) Hoggard and little Louisa and I became all ears. I was not old enough to write when I first began loving that story. It started growing on me at a very early age. From the time I was three years old until I was nine we lived at Mountain View, Arkansas, about as high in the Ozarks as our team could pull our covered wagon. I have written an account of that six years already. Someone, someday, may take all that I have written and there is quite a bit of it, combine what is worth using, and blow the rest away, but right now, I will attempt to concentrate on the saga of Sarah Fletcher Hoggard.

Our Sarah was born in Lee County, Virginia, formerly Russell County, about 1817. Her father was James Fletcher and her mother was Margaret Patterson. Margaret was said to be from a fine aristocratic Virginia family. Sarah's father, James, was the third child of Drury Fletcher and Sarah Benham Fletcher. It has not yet been established for sure who Drury's parents were, but he is said to have been a Revolutionary soldier from South Carolina. He appeared on the tax rolls of Lunenburg County, Virginia in 1782.

The first record of Drury Fletcher in Washington County, Virginia was his marriage by John Frost, July 6, 1786, to Sarah Benham, the oldest daughter of John

and Mary Hobbs Benham. Mary Hobbs Benham was the daughter of Vincent Hobbs who immigrated through the port of Dover, Delaware and Mary Shelby. Sarah Fletcher Hoggard's father, James, was only about nine years old when his mother left. She eloped from Drury's bed with no provocation and ran away with one Edward Wilburn to Knox County, Kentucky and later married him. There is a very suggestive account of the divorce between Drury and Sarah Benham Fletcher. Recorded facts, however, lead me to believe that under the same circumstances I would have considered it provocation. It is not known for sure whether James and the other children ever lived in Kentucky with their mother or not. I would expect that they remained in Virginia and that their grandmother, Mary Hobbs Benham, had a role in their upbringing. James' older brother, William, may have though, he was the wild one and grass never grew under his feet.

This William Fletcher was my third great-grandfather also. How did two Fletcher brothers, James and William, both come to be my third great-grandfathers? Well, I reckon the same way James Hoggard and his sister, Elizabeth "Betsy" Hoggard, came to be my second great-grandfather and my second great-grandmother. Now, I am not forgetting about Sarah Fletcher Hoggard's story. I am just trying to let you in on where she came from, that is all. Drury Fletcher made a gift of land by deed to Sarah's father, James, on March 1, 1816. This land was in Russell County, Virginia, now Lee County, lying on the west side of Powell River. Probably Sarah's parents, James and Margaret, had lived on this land since their marriage a few years before and Drury deeded it to them when he began dividing his property. He also deeded a tract of land to his son, William, on January 28, 1817. William sold his inheritance on June 29th of that same year. Drury made a deed of land of the tract on which he lived to one Dolly Bausell during her natural life and after her death to her four daughters: Elizabeth, Nancy, Gwen and Matilda for love and affection and for other services she has done for me for some years past. There was no mention of Charlitty Parsons, who is found in the Lee County, Virginia death records. She died June 3, 1882 from old age, 85 years, parents Drury Fletcher and Dolly. It seems to me if Charlitty (which was probably a pet name for Charlotte) died at the age of 85 in 1882, she would have been born before Sarah eloped Drury's bed with no provocation.

Sarah Fletcher Hoggard was possibly the second of five daughters born to James and Margaret Patterson Fletcher. They were Mary Benham Fletcher, Sarah S. Fletcher, Martha Fletcher, Caroline Fletcher and Jane Fletcher. James sold the tract of land conveyed to him by his father, August 25, 1818, and moved to Lillard, now Lafayette County, Missouri, probably pausing a while in Kentucky en route. Our Sarah would have been a little over a year old when she made that trek across the mountains from Virginia to Missouri. Her mother, Margaret, died after they moved to Missouri. Since so many women died in childbirth in those days, I would hazard a guess that she may have died when giving birth to the fifth daughter.

On June 12, 1825, when Sarah was only eight years old, her father, James married, a second time, Nancy Nave White (a widow with two sons: William Calvin and John White). James Fletcher was a farmer who evidently grew to be very wealthy for his day. His place was located west of Lexington, Missouri. Ten children were born to that union, nine daughters and one son. They were: Tabitha, Mandy, Julia, Isabella, Katherine, Lucinda, Eliza; a son James, Emerine, and Ellen. Ellen was born in 1844. .James would have been 53 years old when the last child came. But then, perhaps Nancy got too old to bare children. We know that James was wealthy in family for in addition to the first five daughters, plus his and Nancy's nine daughters and one son, added to two stepsons; he would have had a household of nineteen persons plus the slaves that he owned. .

Please do not think that I am boasting about my family having slaves. My mother's family were slave owners, too. In that day the farmer who could purchase and raise the most slaves became the wealthiest family. Why not? Land could be had for a

song and the slaves did all the work. Getting rich was about all a farmer had to do. The fact that this James Fletcher had a lot of spare time is evident. The history of slavery in America is a fact which remains. We can neither deny nor change it. It happened.

All was not sunshine and roses in James Fletcher's life, however. We find an account of James Fletcher being appointed guardian of his five daughters: Mary, Martha, Caroline, Sarah and Jane in the courts of Lafayette County, Missouri in 1825 and it happened again in 1827. It would seem to me that someone was trying to take the girls away from him. The first time was just a few days after his marriage to Nancy and the second time he and Nancy had been married two years.

Who could it have been? Would Margaret Patterson's family have wanted to do that? Did someone believe that James and Nancy White would not be good parents? I know one thing for sure, Sarah was fond of Nancy. She named her first daughter Nancy instead of Margaret for her own mother and Nancy loved Sarah, also. She mentioned some of Sarah's children in her will. Why James needed to petition for guardianship, is one of the mysteries in my family history that will probably remain unsolved. I have been told that James' mother, Sarah Benham Fletcher Wilburn, ended up there. It is possible that she had cared for the girls since Margaret's death and felt that they belonged to her.

Sarah "Sallie" Fletcher lived and grew up near Lexington, Missouri. She married James Hoggard, the first born son of John Richmond Hoggard and his wife, another Sarah "Sallie" Fletcher. James Hoggard and Sarah Fletcher were married in Lafayette County, Missouri, March 5, 1837 when Sarah was about 20 years old. James was 27. They remained in Missouri until 1844. During those years four children were born to them: William Calvin born 1838, George B. born 1840, Granville "Grance" born

1842 and Nancy Jane born January 11, 1844. They came to Dallas, Texas in the

Peter's Colony in 1844 some say 1845. I suppose they would have begun their journey soon after Nancy Jane was born for Coho Smith, who was later to become Nancy Jane's husband, wrote in one of his many yarns. "I came to Texas in 1844. John Neely Bryan had taken up his head right of 640 acres under the auspices of the Peter's Colony, had his wagon sheet stretched for a tent and Tom Helm, Tom McLain, Jim Druse, James Hoggard, William Hoggard and myself carried the logs on our shoulders to help John Neely Bryan build the first house in Dallas."

His account was much longer, but this is Sarah's story. From Dallas, James and Sarah followed the Trinity River south to what is the present Robertson County and took up their claim near the two forks of Rush Creek just over the line from the present Navarro County. At that time; however, it was all Navarro County, Dallas and Parker County included. James and Sarah became parents of two more children down there, Martha "Mattie" and Mary "Molly". James' parents, John Richmond and Sarah Hoggard evidently lived very near them. John Richmond (or Richard) paid taxes in 1846 and then his name disappeared from the tax rolls and Sarah (his wife's name) began to be listed as the tax payer. James' mother, Sarah, appeared on the 1850 Navarro County Census as the head of the household with four single daughters. They were Rachel, Maranda, Nancy Jane and Mary. Nancy Jane married George Linney on November 5, 1851 in Dallas County. Please do not confuse this Nancy Jane with James and Sarah's daughter with the same name. This Nancy Jane who married George Linney was James' sister.

In 1854 James and Sarah sold out and moved to what was later to become Parker County, Texas. Here they became prosperous farmers, built a home, helped build a school, attended church and all seemed to be running smoothly. The Comanche were always raiding, yet they seemed to fare pretty well despite all the obstacles which beset them. Two more daughters, Matilda "Iddy" born 1854 and Louisa born 1858, came to grace their home.

Parker County was established in 1855. James and William Hoggard and many of their relatives were instrumental in getting that done.

On May 9, 1861, at the age of 17, Nancy Jane married John Jeremiah "Coho" Smith from Missouri. Coho was born in Pennsylvania December 4, 1826. His parents were James Smith, an immigrant from Rotterdam, Holland and Elizabeth Stanford. Soon after moving to Missouri Coho's father, James drowned in the Missouri River. His mother, Elizabeth then married a Mormon who already had one wife. Coho was hired out to a cabinet maker at a very young age. There he learned to speak English instead of Dutch. He soon ran away from that life; however, and began his ramblings, which as we know, had not ceased by 1890.

Coho married Nancy Haney in Missouri. Five children were born to them there. The entire Smith family was living in Dallas County, Texas in 1860. They were: J.J. Smith 32, Nancy 32 a daughter, Missouri 12, John 10, Lessenbee 7, William Hixon 4, and Amariah 2.

It is not known for sure what happened to their marriage. They returned to Missouri, there they parted ways and Coho came back to Texas. In 1869 soon after her mother's death, his daughter, Missouri was run over and killed by a train, evidently while walking on the railroad tracks.

While on a visit to Missouri in 1890, Coho wrote a letter home to his wife, Nancy Jane, in which he boasted about how well his sons were doing. He stated that Amariah has come over from Chamois. He is a fine looking man and a sharp switchman for the railroad. We are looking for Hixon to come today or tomorrow. John has 120 acres of land all paid for, all fenced and in cu1tivation except for 10 acres. He has good houses and barn, good orchard, mules and horses and is doing very well. Amariah has a good house and two lots in Chamois and is making better wages than Lessenbee.

In the same letter Coho asked his daughter Mary "Molly" to put off her wedding until he came home. Molly decided to wait, but the groom-to-be did not. The wedding never took place.

In March of 1860 George B. died of a fever which lasted 26 days. He was a healthy 20 year old youth, and there was no way then of knowing the cause of the fever which wreaked his body until he died. James and Sarah chose a quiet place to bury their beloved child. Born of the early habit when the pioneer settlers were dying much faster than they wished to advertise to the Comanche, they kept the number of their dead a secret from them as much as possible. At first it was only George's grave, but as more family members were buried there and after the Indian raids ceased, it became known as Hoggard Yard. I will have more to say about the cemetery later on in my sketch.

Then the Civil War began to rage. It seemed that no male over the age of 17 years was exempt. When you were told to enlist you enlisted. Granville probably enlisted of his own accord when he was 19 years old. He joined Company H of the Texas Mounted Riflemen at Parker County, Texas in April 1861. James Hoggard, along with his son, William Calvin Hoggard, William K. Fletcher, Jr., William King F1etcher and George Washington Fletcher were recruited at Veal Station a very few miles north of Weatherford. There is no Veal Station now, only a peaceful little community with no sign of where it ever may have been. Perhaps it was in a school or a church, who is to say?

James was 47 years old when he enlisted on April 8, 1862. Recruiters did not seem to be any respecters of age. He was taken to Camp Brazos near Millican in Brazos County, Texas. James was captured by the Union Army at Arkansas Post, Arkansas on January 11, 1863 and boarded on a steamer bound for the Northern prisons the next day.

The day of the battle was unseasonably warm and the defenders of the Fort had left their jackets in their log huts. After the battle, the Federals would not permit the prisoners to retrieve their jackets or blankets. The next day when the steamer shoved off it began to snow. Many of the prisoners were exposed to the elements on the outer decks without as much as a jacket. On January 29, 1863 they arrived at Camp Douglas Prison near Chicago, Illinois. It was due to the exposure and the winter weather in Chicago that so many men took ill and this was the cause for so many deaths in the prison. James died of disease in the prison on March 2, 1863 and is supposedly buried in the Confederate Mound at Oak Woods near Chicago, Illinois.

William Calvin was recruited at Veal Station on August 12, 1861. He was 23 years old. He was taken to Houston, Harris County, Texas for enlistment October 25, 1861. He was probably wounded in battle for he was discharged with a disability at Camp Texas, Arkansas - August 5, 1862.

Granville did return after the war was over but was very ill with a disease he had contracted during his tenure and died of tuberculosis soon afterwards. Then another grave was added to the Hoggard Yard.

The post war years were terrible for the whole family. The farm had suffered much by the lack of manpower to help keep it up. It also had not been immune to carpetbaggers who ravaged the earth and Comanche raids were not unheard of either. Uncle Cal came home with a disability and as best he could, took over as head of the household. After all, there were his mother and four unmarried sisters to care for.

Sarah's father died back in Missouri in 1860 and when his will was probated Sarah's half-brother, James Benham Fletcher, was living in Texas. He would have been about 25 years old at the time. Sarah gave him her power of attorney to go to Missouri and bring back her share of her father's property. The seventh item in her father's will read, and I quote, "All the remainder of my property of every nature and description, real, personal, or mixed I require my executors to sell and convert into money and the proceeds shall be divided among an my children and their descendants, except that my son James not be entitled to receive any portion of the proceeds thereof. The bequest to him in the third item of this will be intended by me to be in full his interest in my estate." The third item of the will stated in part "I give and bequeath to my son James the land now bequeathed to my wife during her lifetime and after her death to my son James and his heirs to have and to hold forever. I also bequeath to my son my gold watch, five shares of stock in the Farmers Bank of Missouri, five head of horses, etc. and all my books and my interest in the Lexington Library Association."

Now brother James did go back to Missouri. He attended an auction of some of his father's property and he did come back to Texas. He came to Sarah's home, did not enter, dropped off a slave boy named Jim (whom Sarah immediately gave to her daughter, Nancy Jane Smith), a trunk and a few other items, but he forgot to leave Sarah's part of the gold. What she got consisted of one bolt of calico, one bolt of domestic, one pair of shoes, two pairs of hose, 12 pounds of coffee and 100 pounds of flour. Family tradition has it that he went to Palestine, Texas and Sarah did not see hide nor hair of him after that.

It is not difficult to understand the way James was thinking at the time. I cannot condone his crookedness, but here was all this gold being divided among his 13 sisters and he was not getting a plug nickel. A Gold watch, five horses and a few other insignificant items were his immediate heritage. The land on which his mother lived and her other properties were his only after her death and if the clause in his father's will "for him and his heirs to have and to hold forever" were to hold, he never was going to get his hands on any other gold besides Sarah's. So he did what he did.

His mother, Nancy, died November 21, 1869. His father, James, had died on

February 11, 1860. His father, James, and both of his wives, Margaret and Nancy, are buried in the family cemetery on the original James Fletcher farm near Lexington, Missouri.

On March 22, 1865, Sarah launched a law suit against her half- brother, James Fletcher, in Fort Worth, Texas to regain her share of her father's gold. I do not know why she waited over four years to do so. I suppose that one reason was the war and another that she kept hoping James would somehow relent and give it to her without her having to take such drastic action against him. Sarah was required to go to Missouri for the trial, but how was Sarah to go? She had nothing left. There was not a penny to be had. I will not suggest that this did not deter Sarah, but she was a plucky little soul and her determination won over the obstacles. One old mule, the sole survivor of all James Hoggard's pre-war livestock, foraged near the door stoop. Sarah decided to ride the mule back to Missouri. Uncle Cal and the older girls were against it. They were sure that if she tried it they would never see her again.

Little Louisa didn't want to be left by her mother and begged to go with her. Sarah felt that she must go, no matter what, so she relented. The terrible war had left them desolate. With James and Granville dead, Cal in bad health, and their property laid waste by war, their existence was poor beyond our wildest imagination. So with only a hemp hackamore on the mule, Sarah loaded up what could be spared of their scant rations and with eight year old Louisa behind her, bareback, set out on the long adventurous journey from Parker County, Texas to Lexington, Lafayette County, Missouri.

There is no living person who can tell me the details of that trip. My father was only six years old when Sarah died. He did tell me all that he could remember about her. He did not know anymore about the journey, however, than what had been talked about by his mother and her sisters, that being that Sarah and Aunt Lou had ridden a mule bareback all the way to Missouri. When I asked him why she went, he told me that it was because of some property back in Missouri. I do not know whether that was all he knew or whether that was all that he cared to tell me. That was the reason I wrote in the Parker County History Book that Sarah had gone back to sell her land in Missouri, not knowing anything at that time about the lawsuit she had to bring against her half- brother. I will say here, too, that I made more than one mistake when I wrote that story, one being that my Uncle Cal Hoggard's wife was Marshall Matilda called Mary Rogers. I cannot say now how that name Caroline got in there. They had three children: James, Joe, and Clara.

I shall try to picture for you the adventure. My ideas may not agree with everyone else, but ideas are about all I have at the present. Heretofore, I have endeavored to keep the historical facts and dates as accurate as possible. My purpose is only to relate the happenings in the life of Sarah Fletcher Hoggard. History is a little dim on some of it and to tell the whole story, I may need to take a poetic license. It frightens me to think how long that trip may have taken. My father told me that a team pulling a wagon would average about twenty miles a day, and he should have known, he did enough traveling that way, but no one ever gave me an estimate as to how much distance a mule could cover carrying a woman and a child. How would she have crossed the rivers? We know she had both Fletcher and Hoggard relatives along the way. One was said to run a ferry across the Red River and more of them had gone to live with the Choctaw Indians. This is purely speculation but perhaps her mother-in-law, the other Sarah Hoggard, had gone to live there, also. We do not know. Anyway, she probably had close cousins there.

When Sarah and Louisa were not stopping over with relatives where would they have slept? Would it have been on the ground with their mule, Old Dolly, hobbled so she could graze while they rested? I am sure that Sarah was an able traveler. She was practically born on the trail. After they crossed the Red there would be even larger rivers to cross. Would she have been able to swim the mule across them? Is there a possibility that she could have had a little money for the ferries? They had to have help along the way with food. There is no way she could have taken enough with them. I am sure that they would have been treated with hospitality anywhere they would have stopped. Perhaps she would have been able to join other travelers. They could have even been offered a ride in someone's wagon and tied the mule behind, thus getting a nice respite from the bareback mule ride for a while. How do you suppose they may have been dressed? I imagine they would have been wearing dresses of homespun cloth and could have had moccasins that Sarah made herself I expect that she could have done that easily enough. It was just after the Civil War and women who survived those years were required to be resourceful.

I can also visualize them wearing their hair in braids. It would have been easier to take care of it that way. I have a mental picture I cherish of that pair astride a mule who was picking its way along the rough trail. I like to think that they may have presented a picture of an Indian woman and her child traveling through an almost uncivilized land in an effort to locate their tribe.

It is time now to put fantasy behind and get down to the hard facts. Regardless of how long it took them to make the trip and no matter how many trials and tribulations were to befall them along the trail, they somehow reached their destination. Sarah won the court case and they did come back to their home in Texas. I do not know how they came back hopefully by stage. Her triumph was short lived, however for after returning home Sarah was to learn that the Confederate money she had received in payment was worthless. Did this woman called Sarah lie down and die? No, she did not. She was accustomed to living with hardships and she had the grit to carry on despite another disappointment.

Another family tradition which has been passed down from generation to generation, is that soon after Sarah's return from Missouri a black family was traveling through the country and their young son died in the .Azle Community. He was denied burial in the local cemeteries due to the way feelings were running in the South so soon after the Civil War. Feeling compassion in her heart for the child's family, Sarah donated a plot in the Hoggard Yard for his burial.

Many changes had to be made to hold on to the original James Hoggard Survey. Sarah, Cal and the girls worked endlessly to try to pay the taxes and sometimes to

just keep body and soul together. Coho and Nancy Jane Smith purchased a tract of land just across Ash Creek from the Hoggard home site. My father related to me that he visited his great-grandmother when she lived in a house by the side of the road which would now be South Stewart Drive, and as well as he could recall, it stood a very short distance west of where the Cemetery is now. I am sure Sarah played an active roll in community affairs. She was a charter member of the Ash Creek Baptist Church in Azle.

The Hoggard daughters soon began to marry. I find evidence of some of them living very near Sarah. I believe Louisa and Matilda may have been the first ones to go. Louisa married Philip O. Howard. They became the parents of Jess Howard. I am sure that Jess Howard was my father's hero. He spoke of him so often. Checking now, I find that Jess was 11 years older than Ossie, but I know that Jess Howard was his favorite cousin. Matilda, I wonder if that name they called her "lddy" was not "Ida", married Benjamin Franklin Reynolds, who was a son of a near neighbor, John G. Reynolds, and his first wife, Frances Hamm. Frances' headstone is the earliest documented marker in the Hoggard Cemetery. Benjamin Franklin Reynolds had the distinction of being the first white child born in the new "Parker County". Martha "Matt" married Charlie Howard, brother of Philip Howard, Louisa's husband. Mary "Molly", the sixth child of James and Sarah Hoggard never married. She died in 1927 at the age of 76. As far as I know, all of Sarah's children with the exception of Martha and Nancy Jane are buried in the Hoggard/Reynolds Cemetery. Martha and Charlie Howard were living in Fort Worth, Texas when she died in 1934 and she was buried there. I have been told that Charlie came back to Azle after that and lived with Philip and Louisa Howard's son, Jess and his wife, Lucy Roe Howard. Charlie died in 1945 and is buried beside Philip and Louisa.

Members of my farnily always loved to tell the story of why Nancy Jane Smith refused to be buried in the family cemetery. It seems there was no fence around it then and she was not going to have cows tramping around on her grave. Coho Smith died January 19, 1914, and was buried in Ash Creek Cemetery. Nancy Jane died May 9, 1916 and is buried beside him. Some of their children were buried in the Ash Creek Cemetery, but Martha Paschal and Sallie Roe are buried in the Hoggard Family Cemetery. A memorial marker was placed there by my father and his sister, Maudie Henry, for Sarah and my grandmother, Louisa Smith Fletcher, who was the oldest daughter of Coho and Nancy Jane Hoggard Smith. Louisa Smith Fletcher died at Rule, Texas in Haskell County, December 26, 1916. The William Dennis Fletcher family had gone to West Texas to pick cotton. My grandmother came down with pneumonia and died the day after Christmas and was buried there. The inscription on the memorial stone reads, "In memory of Louisa Smith Fletcher, July 1, 1866 to December 26, 1916, Buried at Tanner Cemetery, Haskell County, Texas - Granddaughter of Sarah F. Hoggard, 1816 to 1896 - Who gave the land for the Hoggard Cemetery. Sarah's grave is one of the many unmarked ones in the cemetery, as I suppose are all three of her sons. I do not know where William Calvin was buried. At this point, I do not even know when he died.

William Calvin, Uncle Cal, married Marshall Matilda Rogers about 1872. She was said to be from Wise County. He would have been about 35 years old at the time and his wife 15. I do not know if this was his first marriage or not. If so, it was probably due to the fact that he felt that his widowed mother and four sisters were his first responsibility. Three children were born to Cal and Marshall "Mary". Joe, the oldest_ was born in 1876; James "Jim" was born two years later, and Clara "Clarv" about 1880. In the 1880 Census we find that Cal is head of the household, 42 years old; his wife, 22; son, Joe, 5; Jim, 3; Clary, 8 months old. In the same household is Sarah S., 63; Martha, 32; Mary, 28.

The very next year, 1881, court proceedings began to have Cal's wife committed to a psychiatric hospital for a mental disorder. She was said by CaI and other witnesses to be a good affectionate wife until she had one of her attacks and then she became insane. Cal testified that these attacks occurred about the time of her monthly periods and that he had never noticed it until about five years ago. He stated that she had tried to cut her own throat many times and that she would run away and when he tried to bring her back, she would fight with anything she could get her hands on. The tone of the testimony was that it was feared that she would harm her children. One witness testified that he did not believe that she dreaded going to the institution at all. She was committed on the 3rd day of January, 1882.

One reason for Cal being married to a 15 year old girl could be that Marshall's mother had died or the girl had run away from home, and knowing Sarah Fletcher Hoggard's compassion, she would have taken the child into her household.

On September 7, 1882 Sarah petitioned the Parker County Court for guardianship of Cal's three children. In her petition she stated that the children were two, six, and eight years old and that they had no lawful guardian. Marshall, Cal's wife, wrote the following letter to Judge A. J. Hunter, "September 18, 1882, Parker County, Judge A. J. Hunter, Sir: Please do not stop this trial if you can and let me be just as I am, for my mind is not sufficient to raise my children and I recommend my mother-in-law, Mrs. Sarah Hoggard, to be the guardian for my children. I want you to understand I have not been persuaded to write this, for I never sent anybody there to have anything done for me." Signed Marshall M. Hoggard, Widow of W. C. Hoggard, deceased. Witnessed by: C. A. Bankhart. I can find no record of Cal's death. It had to be between the dates of January 3 and September 7, 1882. If Cal' s wife were taken to an institution, I wonder where it would have been? This may not be pertinent but the heading on her letter was Parker County. There certainly are mysteries surrounding this period that I fail to understand.

From 1882 on, it would have been Sarah, Molly, and the children. How they lived and grew I do not know. Our Sarah died in May of 1896 and was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the family cemetery among her children. Cal's sons would have been 18 and 20 years old by that time and daughter, Clara, 16, but there was still Aunt Molly. Sarah's heirs sold the James Hoggard land to one J. A. Cosby on September 21, 1899, reserving 1.15 acres for the cemetery. One acre of land was later donated by Mary Schrimpshire, a Reynolds' descendant. At the present time, the Hoggard/Reynolds Cemetery encompasses 2.15 acres. The bill of sale of the James Hoggard property was signed by J. J. "Coho" Smith and Nancy Jane Smith, P. C. Howard and Louisa Howard, C. F. Howard and Martha E. Howard, B. F. Reynolds and Matilda 1. Reynolds, Mollie Hoggard, James Hoggard, Joe Hoggard, Clara Hoggard.

All of my life I have heard my family tell how Jim Hoggard, Uncle Cal's son, had just disappeared when he was very young and had never been heard of again. My idea was that he was only a boy, but when the bill of sale was signed in 1899 James would have been 21 years old. He had to be the James Hoggard who signed the bill of sale. There was no other James. So when did he just disappear? I have spoken with some of Uncle Cal's descendants and the consensus seems to have been that he just ran away. I believe that if this were true that something surely happened to him. Family ties are too strong for someone to just leave and stay gone forever. He probably would have stayed away awhile but I believe that if he had lived he would have come back eventually.

James and Sarah Hoggard left a rich legacy in the history of this area, especially in the small city of Azle. Their seeds have scattered far and wide and many noteworthy citizens have descended from them. We find many teachers, artists, musicians, ministers, doctors, nurses, politicians, attorneys, and a few of us who think we can write.

Their son-in-law, J. J. "Coho" Smith, became a legend in his day. The story of his life would certainly be one of glory. He was a self-educated man, taught school, made furniture, built coffins, too. He also was a great artist. He built his own house, rocked up his well, built a rock fort to protect his students and his own family from the raiding Comanches and wrote magnificent yarns about his adventures as an Indian fighter, bear hunter, captive of the Indians, etc. Ossie, my father, was most impressed by his puppet show. He carved the characters from wood. Nancy Jane dressed them. He then mounted them on a small stage. My father remembered that a man played a fiddle and a little girl would dance. Other characters were an old woman churning butter and a boy would put his finger around the dasher as if to take some cream and then lick his finger. The old woman would turn him over her lap and whale the daylights out of him and then resume her churning. The boy would then repeat his performance. These are only two of the happenings on Coho's stage. He worked it by turning a crank and the performers each played his roll in turn. All who had the privilege of being entertained by his show were very impressed and Coho's grandchildren never ceased talking about it as long as they lived. My father, Ossie, summed it up, I think, about as well as anyone could when he said, "I thought my grandpap could do anything in the world."

The Coho and Nancy Jane Smith homestead site has been preserved for future generations to appreciate as a historical park. The well is beautifully restored and historical plaques mark the places where the house, the school, the rock fort, etc. stood, even the entrance to the root cellar is included. Upon visiting this park, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of pride that I am part of this heritage. I can never forget the courageous little pioneer woman, Sarah Fletcher Hoggard, who was the forerunner of this family in Parker County and without whose grit and endurance none of it would have been possible.

Col. John R. Elting wrote in his ".Amateurs To Arms" that the Choctaw Indians were helping Andrew Jackson. Some of his troops were indeed Choctaw. So looks like they were among the Indians. It is logical that our ancestor could have met and married the Indian maiden, Sarah Fletcher, while there. Her father could have furnished some means of transportation for them to travel back to Tennessee.

Family historians have had diverse opinions on Sarah's background. Some argued that she was a Mississippi Choctaw while others reasoned that she was born in Virginia, lived in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas and could not have been from Mississippi and I believe I may have opined that the loudest. But now as more bits and pieces of the puzzle fall into place, I have begun to think another way.

Both Fletcher and Hoggard researchers contend that Captain James Fletcher was three-quarters Choctaw Indian. If that is true, there would have been two Scotsmen who married Choctaws before him. If his mother were a full-blood, it would have required a prior generation for him to inherit his other one-quarter from. Some say he was a brother to the Drury Fletcher we all know we sprang from, which is totally possible. One James Fletcher married Nancy Churn (certainly an Indian name) in North Hampton County, Virginia January 13, 1796. A William Fletcher married Sarah Churn in the same place on the same day. This leads me to believe the two Fletchers were brothers and the two Churns sisters. While I am speculating, without anything really concrete to go on, I will venture that James, William, and Drury were all sons of a James or William Fletcher, who was perhaps married to someone whose maiden name was King.

Richmond Hoggard's wife, Sarah (Sallie) Fletcher was shown on the 1850 Navarro County, Texas Census as being 56 years old, born in Virginia. Since I have found so many discrepancies in the census records, I think Sarah could have been only 54 years old and the person who rewrote the census taker's list may have mistaken a 4 for a 6. It is easy to do, what with some of their handwriting. Then Sarah could have been born to James Fletcher and Nancy Churn later in 1796 before they moved to Mississippi.

From Surname Search by Hunting for Bears Genealogical Society for the State of Virginia, a list, which I suppose is all the registered Fletcher marriages, dating from

1728 well into the 1880's I find that the above mentioned James is the only one who married a Nancy. It is established that Sarah was born in Virginia and that her parents were James and Nancy Fletcher, therefore I fail to understand why that pair would not be the correct ones.

Helen Hatton Moseley has come up with another possible solution. There was a James Fletcher who married Jane Black in Washington County, Virginia (a more likely location) May 14, 1788. Black can certainly be an Indian name also. Jane could have been Nancy Jane, since so many daughters have been named that down thru our generations. The marriage date fits too.

Our family traditions have always held that Sarah's mother, Nancy was of Cherokee blood. That being the case, I am persuaded that two important Indian tribes were united the day she wed Captain James Fletcher.

So Sarah was born in Virginia and grew up in Mississippi and Richmond was there among them in early 1815, what was to prevent him from marrying her and taking her back to Tennessee with him?

Besides Richmond Echols Hoggard's poem, another window into our past was William Hoggard's affidavit to the Five Civilized Tribes for George Washington Fletcher, in which he stated he knew Captain James Fletcher in Oklahoma and had known of him making several trips to Texas in search of his children and grandchildren and to bring them back. Perhaps he was speaking of Sarah and her children and even of himself. 1 never did doubt that William Hoggard spoke the truth. I refuse to believe that a man of his character would say, "I am a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," and tell a lie in the same breath.

If I have guessed correctly and Richmond and Sarah married in Choctaw Territory in Mississippi, traveled to Tennessee, then on to Kentucky and had their first child, James, all in about one year, would that have been an impossible feat for a couple of trekkers of the Fletcher/Hoggard Tribe?

By my references to William Fletcher, Sr. the first born son of Drury Fletcher and Sarah Benham Fletcher, being my third great grandfather also, I may have left too many questions unanswered. It is not as if his history does not concern itself with Sarah's story for it does in many ways as you will see. Too little is known about this William Fletcher. His feet had wanderlust and I suppose that he never stayed in one place long enough to leave a track. As previously stated, he was born in Lee County, Virginia, August 13, 1789. His parents separated when he was about 11 years old and his mother went to Knox County, Kentucky to live. It is likely that he remained with his father in Virginia until he grew old enough to want to see the world, and it is possible that he left to seek his mother when he was a teenager.

It is generally supposed that he married in Kentucky though we do not have an actual record of his marriage at this time. He probably married around 1809 when he was about 20 years old, in as much as his first son, James (some say that his middle initial was B. or C)., was born in Kentucky in 1810. Records vaguely hint that William's wife was Elizabeth (surname unknown). Actually the first documented record we have of him is when he sold the tract of land in Virginia that his father had conveyed to him in 1817. It looks as though within the five months and one day that William owned the land, he had just about enough time to get word of it, go to Virginia, find a buyer, close the deal and skedaddle. His brother, James, who was also my third great grandfather, did not keep his inheritance much longer. This is purely speculation but when James sold and left Virginia it was soon after Drury died and it is likely that those two brothers, William and James, were not very fond of Dolly to whom Drury had left their home place. Since both brothers named their daughters Sarah and both gave children the middle name of Benham, we are left with the opinion that they had feelings for their mother after all.

There are conflicting opinions as to who William and Elizabeth's children were. This is what I believe at the time. First there was James, born 1810 in Kentucky and there is little doubt that Drury, born 1817, was their child. There was Elizabeth, born 1819, who married Christopher Bedwell; Ira G., born 1822; Isaac Chrismon, born 1824; William K., Jr., born 1826; and Sarah, born 1829. Of these we are reasonably sure, but there are seven years between James and Drury that I am not sure about. Some say Lou Ann, born January 22, 1810, who married a John Hulsey in Missouri, September 18, 1827, was one of them. If so, I doubt that she would have been born the same year as James; and another they say Caroline of whom we know nothing and Mary B. "Sis" Fletcher, born 1819, who married William Henry Burrow, September 3, 1842 in Henry, Missouri. That appears to me to be the same year that Elizabeth Bedwell was born. William K., Sr., is found in the 1820 Harlan County, Kentucky Census. Harlan County was formed from Knox County in 1819, so he may have been in the same place or may have purchased land with the money he received from the sale of his property in Virginia three years before. The census records show William with a household consisting of one male 26 to 45 years old. That would be himself, 31 years. old, born 1789; there was one male under 10 that of course, would be Drury, born 1817; then there was one male 10 to 16 years old who we know was our James; Three females under 10 were listed, Elizabeth would be one of them, born 1819; and there is room for two others: Lou Ann and Caroline or Mary B. but not all three of them. Then there was one female 26 to 45 years old which would be his wife, Elizabeth, born between 1776 and 1794. She was probably 29 or 30 years old since she began baring children in 1810, but could have been much younger.

The one of William's children that concerns my line is James, the oldest, but I will tell what I think I know about his siblings. Drury may be the one who married Eliza E. Gates in Platt County, Missouri, September 5, 1839. I do not know whether there were children or not or what happened to his wife. We pick him up again in Texas after the Civil War when he married his brother's widow as I will explain later. Elizabeth married Christopher Bedwell in Cass County, Missouri on April 5, 1838. They were listed in 1850 in the Navarro County, Texas; Census with three daughters: Missouri, 11; Barbara 8; and Nancy, 4, all born in Missouri. Christopher was a wagon maker. Ira G., born 1822 in Virginia, I am not so sure about. He is said to have married Rachel Fewel in Missouri about 1847. We feel confident that Isaac Chrismon, born about 1824, was William's son. He married Sarah Calloway by March, 1847. Their first child, Mary Isabel Fletcher, was born December 17, 1847 in Andrew County, Missouri.

In Connor's Record of Peters' Colony, William K. Fletcher, Jr. was listed as a single man. He married Mary Jane Calloway March 2, 1848. She was probably a sister to Sarah Calloway who married Isaac Chrismon, his brother. William K., Jr. appeared in 1850 Navarro County, Texas Census as a 28 year old farmer with one child. At that he would have been born about 1822, but in his Civil War Record of 1861 he was shown to be 35 years old. Then he would have been born about 1826.

William K., Jr., enlisted with Company E., 10th Texas Infantry at Houston, Texas October 23, 1861. He had been recruited at Veal Station, Parker County, Texas on October 12th the same year. He was captured at Arkansas Post, Arkansas on January 11, 1863 and arrived at Camp Douglas Prison January 29th right where James Hoggard and William King Fletcher were. He was exchanged at City Point, Virginia, April 7, 1863 and died of chronic diarrhea at South Carolina Hospital, Petersburg, Virginia on May 9, 1863.

William K. Fletcher Jr's line was to touch Sarah Fletcher Hoggard's life again when his daughter, Elizabeth, born January 6, 1855 in Parker County, Texas married a Monroe Roe, who later became a Texas Ranger of some note. A son of Mon and Lizzie's (as they were called) Isaac Thomas Roe born September 17, 1876 married Sarah Elizabeth (called Sallie) Smith, the youngest daughter of Coho and Nancy Jane Smith. Now the Roe children, the oldest of whom now living is Gertie Roe Ansley, could say that they had a grandmother and a great-grandmother whose maiden names were Fletcher.

Sometime after William K Fletcher., Jr. died along came his older brother, Drury, and married his widow, Mary Jane. They lived on the William K., Jr. land in the Ash Creek Community near Azle, Texas and had more children. Drury and Mary Jane are buried in the Crow Cemetery near Azle. The youngest of William K. Fletcher, Sr. and Elizabeth's children that we have any record of was Sarah born in Missouri, 1829. She is found in 1850 Navarro County, Texas Census living with her sister, Elizabeth Bedwel1 and family. She later married J. H. Meek and is found in 1870 in Bell County, Texas and her father, 81 year old William K., Sr., is living with them. I believe that William K., Sr. is probably the one who married Rachel Burrow in Pike County, Missouri, October 13, 1831 and this could be the reason the Burrows came to be in Navarro County at the same time he was, whether Mary B. "Sis" Fletcher was his daughter or not. William Fletcher and his wife, Rachel, sold land to William D. Berkley in Lafayette County, Missouri February 6, 1839 and William Fletcher was in Lafayette County, Missouri in 1840. If William K., Sr. were the same one who married Rachel Burrow, I don't know when or where she died. Some say in Texas, but it must have been before 1850 because at that time he seemed to be without a wife as he was living with a Parris Family, William Parris and wife, Mary, born 1826 in Indiana. I have often wondered if Mary Parris were one of his daughters even though born in Indiana. It is doubtful though since William K., Jr. was born that same year. But, let us get to James who was my second great-grandfather born in Kentucky in 1810. He probably moved to Missouri with the family by 1824 to 1826 since Isaac Chrismon was born in Kentucky in 1824 and William K., Jr. born in Missouri in 1826. James married Elizabeth "Betsy" Hoggard in Johnson County, Missouri, 1833. Betsy was the daughter of Richmond and Sarah "Sallie" Fletcher Hoggard and a sister to James Hoggard who was another of my second great-grandfathers, the husband of the Sarah Fletcher Hoggard my story is about. Nothing could be more confusing I know. They could not have known what they were doing to us nor could they have foreseen what their offspring would do later on.

James and Elizabeth Hoggard Fletcher married in 1833. Five children were born to them in Missouri. They were: John Richmond Fletcher, born 1836; Mary Jane, born 1838; William King, born November 27, 1839; Jasper, born 1842; and George Washington, born 1844. They came to Texas in the Peters Colony and settled near the present city of Corsicana as farmers. Two more children were born to them there. Sarah Ann and James B. Sarah was born 1846 and James in 1849. On December 16, 1851, they sold out their claim in Navarro County near Corsicana and disappeared from the face of the earth as far as any records show.

Conflicting stories have been told, but the actual truth has not been learned as yet. One story was that they went to Dallas another that they went to Indian Territory, Oklahoma. They are said to have run a ferry across the Red River. Most agreed that they were scalped by Comanche Indians on the Red River and that Sarah Ann and James B. (the two under school age children) had been carried away by the Indians. I have also heard stories told that Sarah Ann had been found and some men traded some beads and other goods for her and returned her to her people and that James B. had been reared by the Indians. The story goes that he escaped when he was older and had gone to Arkansas. One older relative told that James had been hanged in Arkansas for horse stealing the profession the Indians had taught him. I believe that James and Elizabeth went to Cook County, in as much as, a very few years later their oldest son, John Richmond, was issued a certificate of land in Cook County and then it was disapproved later. Perhaps John Richmond, feeling that he was the head of the household for all the children, wanted to have a place for them to live, I don't know.

Sarah Ann married a Ruben Riley. If memory serves me one of their descendants confirmed the story of her capture and return. One of James and Elizabeth's sons

told his descendants that the older children had gone to live with their grandparents after their parents were scalped. I do not know which grandparents they would have lived with. William Fletcher, Sr. seemed to be widowed and living with one of his children by that time, as was Sarah (Sallie) Hoggard their maternal grandmother. We do not know where that grandmother went either. Some of her four daughters, who were unmarried in 1850 when she was living near Corsicana, married in Dallas. Some of James and Elizabeth's children did also. John R. married Eliza Bass there, March 5, 1860 and Mary Jane married John Frons in Dallas County also. William King was found as a 21 year old farm laborer, living with a family by the name of Selvidge in Dallas County in 1860 and George W. is probably the 16 year old found with Isaac Chrismon Fletcher family in 1860. They would have been his aunt and uncle.

I do not know the story of Sarah Ann's return nor when, but I wish I did and I would also like to know the truth about James B's fate no matter how sad.

I will now tell what I know about James and Elizabeth Hoggard Fletcher's children. The first John Richmond, named certainly for his grandfather Hoggard, was born in Missouri, 1836. He was issued a certificate for 320 acres of land by the County Court of Cook County, Texas in 1853. He would only have been about 17 years old. Depending on his birthday he could have been 18. As I stated earlier, I really

do believe James and Elizabeth were killed somewhere in that area and I think that it was John Richmond's intent to make a home for his siblings. His grant was disapproved in 1857 probably because he was only eight years old when he came to Texas and was not considered a bona fide colonist.

John. Richmond married three times and fathered children with each. His first wife was Eliza G. Bass, whom he married in Dallas County, March 5, 1860. Second he married Mariah Penick and third Rosa Anna Blevens. As I mentioned before Mary Jane, the second child of James and Elizabeth, married John Frons in Dallas. The third child of James and Elizabeth Hoggard Fletcher was William King Fletcher about whom I have already given a lot of information, but to go further, for the first part of his married life he was a freighter who hauled goods with wagon and team usually from train station to destinations out of reach of the railroad. When gasoline powered trucks took over the freight business I suppose he became William King Fletcher, the farmer. They are found living in several counties in Texas during the 48 years they were married, but mostly stayed in central Texas around Coryell, Johnson and Somervell Counties, but I picked them up in San Saba County in the Census of 1890, living with them were Sarah and Stanhope Paschal called "Sissy" and "Buddy", Mary Frances Paschal Fletcher's twin brother and sister who never married. Besides William Dennis, my grandfather, they had eight other children.

After William King, came Jasper, born 1842. I know nothing of Jasper since 1850. George Washington Fletcher came next. He was born March 4, 1844 in Missouri.

He joined Company E, 10th Texas Infantry at Veal Station in Parker County, Texas when he was only 17 years old. That was October 12, 1861, the same day as his Uncle William K. Fletcher Jr. He evidently went to Montague County about the same time William King did, too, for he married Susan B. Guerin there in 1865. They had nine children. George was said to have made his living by driving a salt wagon from Texas to Arkansas. Around 1898 they moved to Indian Territory, Oklahoma and remained there farming until his death in 1919. Their oldest son, Thomas Jasper Fletcher, was only keeping up the Hoggard/Fletcher tradition when he married Mary Rhoda PerIina Hoggard, daughter of James M. Hoggard, nephew of James and Sarah Hoggard. I have already recorded all I know about James and Elizabeth's two younger children, Sarah Ann and James B.

One thing I suppose I will never understand is why my great grandfather, William King Fletcher, never mentioned any of this to anyone as far as I know. He never claimed any Indian ancestry nor mentioned the names of his parents to anyone who

passed any stories down. My Aunt, Maudie Fletcher Henry, remembered that he told her one time that he learned to grow tobacco in Georgia. If he were the one we think he was, then he perhaps saw tobacco being grown in Georgia during the time he spent there after his injury in the Civil War battle of Atlanta in Ju1y 1864. The only other thing he said about his family which was passed down to me was told to my Aunt Maudie by her father, William Dennis Fletcher, the oldest child of William King- This being that he had gone to his parent's home after his return from the Civil War and they were both dead and his aunt, a Mrs. Covington was there and she had given him just a part of an old gun and told him that was all that was left of their estate. He did not say where it was or when they died. My grandfather, William Dennis, told my aunt that his grandparents were buried in the Highland Cemetery which is now in downtown Dallas, but I can find no record of that either. I have never found a record of a Covington connection in our families. I do know where William King went after the war, however, but I do not know if that was the first place he went. He married Mary Frances Paschal, the daughter of Robert A. Paschal and Mary "Polly" Ham Paschal in Parker County, Texas, August 10, 1865.

Their first child, my grandfather, William Dennis Fletcher, was born in Montague County, Texas, May 9, 1866. There were some other Fletchers in Montague County at that time also. I do not know what the connection was nor why both William King and George Washington Fletcher went there. William King Fletcher listed only as William Fletcher, age 24, enlisted with Company E, 10th Texas Infantry at Camp Brazos near Milligan, Brazos County, Texas - March 12, 1862. He was absent, sick, at Austin, Arkansas in October 1862. He was captured at Arkansas Post, Arkansas on January 11, 1863, along with his uncle, William K. Fletcher, Jr., James Hoggard, and John J. Paschal, who was the brother of Mary Frances whom he was later to marry. They all arrived at Camp Douglas Prison on the same day, January 29th. William King Fletcher was paroled there for exchange on April 1, 1863. He was exchanged at City Point, Virginia on April 7, 1863. He surrendered with Company E, Grandbury's Consolidated Texas Brigade near Greensboro, North Carolina on April 10, 1865 and was evidently discharged from there. As I have stated, they went to Montague County where William Dennis Fletcher was born ten months later.

The second child of William King and Mary Frances Fletcher was Robert Lee, born in 1870. He first married Fanny Pope. They had four sons, namely: Sam, Jack, Walter "Short" and Nathan. Nathan was a deaf mute. I met Nathan in 1969. He was a delight to know. He had come to visit my father with his brother, Jack. Fanny died with measles when she gave birth to Nathan. It was said that his deafness was due to the measles. After that Robert Lee, "Uncle Lee", married a woman by the name of Ludie Nichols. Family stories relate that Ludie thought Uncle Lee was unfaithful to her. She reported that he would dress himself up fit to kill and go out at night in that fancy Model "T" Ford and dance all night leaving Ludie at home with his four young sons. He also was said to have liked to drive fast and would tear down those roads 20 miles an hour shining his shoes with the fan belt. Once he came home and Ludie chopped the wheels right off his automobile. This evidently did not stop him to her satisfaction though, since she finally took a gun and shot him dead. Family members reported that her defense was that she had done it because she loved him. It seems to me she evidently loved those four little boys, too, or she would not have stayed home with them in the first place. I do not know when it happened but by 1910 William King and Mary Frances Fletcher had the full care of the four children.

William King Fletcher's third child was Mary Elizabeth Fletcher, born 1872. Because my grandfather, William Dennis Fletcher, married Coho and Nancy Jane Smith's first daughter, Louisa, James Potter Smith, (Coho and Nancy Jane's son) marched over to Wil1iam King and Mary Frances Pascha1's house and married their daughter, Mary Elizabeth Fletcher, thus doubly making sure that the Sarah Fletcher Hoggard and the William K. Fletcher, Sr. lines would be forever entwined. Then probably fearing that the families were not mixed up enough Thomas Paschal, brother to William King Fletcher's wife, Mary Frances, marched over to Coho and Nancy Jane's house and married their daughter, Martha or "Matt".

The fourth child of William King and Mary Frances Fletcher was Laura called "Doll" who married her first cousin, Jim Rogers. Her sister, Louisa, the eighth child of William King and Mary Frances married his brother, Bob Rogers. Jim and Bob were the sons of Susanne Paschal and Tom Rogers. Susanne was a sister to Mary Frances Paschal Fletcher. The fifth child was Marion Frank, who was born 1878. He married May Hines and the sixth was Pet. I have never learned her first name. Pet was born March 29, 1881 and married Will Lindsey. I do not know how many children they had. The two I knew were Frank and Alan. Pet died early and her children were reared in an orphanage. Alan lost an arm while there from some sort of a wringer, I think, but he could do about anything that a man with two arms could do. My great grandmother passed the story down through the generations that Pet's husband, Will Lindsey, was the meanest man who ever lived. She said that she was alone with him the night he died and that the devil came and took his soul away before he died and she knew this because she saw it. I do not know whether Mary Frances had a familiar spirit or not. She evidently did not feel that way about Will's whole family because she married his father, Ned Lindsey, after William King died.

Following Pet was another daughter, Emma, who married John Donovan. Then Louisa, born 1886, who married Bob Rogers and last Luther, born April 9, 1889.

I will only name William Dennis and Louisa Smith Fletcher's children. If you sprang from one of them, you will know who you are anyway.

William Dennis, the father, was born May 9, 1866 and died May 29, 1945. Louisa Smith Fletcher, the mother, was born July 1, 1866 and died December 26, 1916. They were married April 26, 1886 in Tarrant County, Texas. Their children were Charles Jefferson, Alec Elmore or "Dyke", Arthur Osborn or "Ossie", Maudie, Jeanette, Jessie James, William Otis, Rosa Belle, and Tracy Homer, the youngest. According to my father, Ossie, Tracy or "Trace" as he was called, died of pneumonia in 1918 after going swimming in the river in November.

I cannot leave this story without saying that my father, Ossie, was my hero. Like a lot of young men in his day he tried riding broncs. He was reported to be pretty good at it, too. But there were probably at least two he did not ride for he had his nose broken twice in that capacity. He told me that his one regret in life was that he had been born too late for the big cattle drives. He believed he would have fit in there better than anywhere. One of his brothers said, "When Ossie was young he was so wild we had to throw brush in the water before he would drink." By wild he only meant that my father liked the cowboy's life. In his young life he moved from place to place a lot, a trait that seemed to be passed down to all the generations from William K. Fletcher, Sr. Ossie tried freighting with his wagon and team. He even wanted to do that in Death Valley one time. He took our family along with him in a covered wagon until he bought his first Model "T" Ford in 1927 to bring us back from Arkansas.

Back in Texas he farmed until WorId War II, always with mules and horses, never owned a tractor in his life. During WorId War II he began working at Camp Walters at Mineral Wells in Palo Pinto County, Texas in the shoe shop. He knew how to do that well. Sometimes he put two or three soles on our shoes before we wore them out. After the war he took a job with Justin Boot Company in Ft. Worth, Texas and worked there making cowboy boots for over 20 years. He loved his work and always wore Justin boots until his death.

Early Settlers of Lee County, Virginia and Adjacent Counties by Mattie Muncy Bales

Amateurs to Arms by John R.. Elting

The War of 1812 by Donald R. Hickey

Cohographs by Coho Smith, edited by Iva Roe Logan

Hunting for Bears Genealogical Society

Parker County, Texas Courthouse Records

Texas State National Archives

Missouri State Archives

Kentucky State Archives

Scott McKay for Co. E, 10th Texas Infantry

And the following for sharing information and ideas:

Patrick Hoggard

Dorothy Cox Smith

William Patrick (Bill) Lane

Scott Lyles

Virginia Montague Ruff

Shirley Hobbs Garcia

Helen Hatton Moseley

Gertie Roe Ansley for photographs

Judy Murphree for Hoggard Cemetery History Arthur Osborne "Ossie" Fletcher for memories Maudie Fletcher Henry for memories

Amy Wiley Smith for artistic talent