Tennessee Kin and Kitty

These Unknown's may only ever be known to Great Grandmother MJ Carroll.  However, I will continue to scrutinize, dissect, and research them from their facial features, clothing styles, photography studio sets and profile portfolios until.....whenever!  I do have some idea about the couple in the bottom right corner, and have narrowed their identities down to Great Grandfather Stephen B. Carroll's relatives.  Possibly his Aunt Palmyra with husband John Anderson Thedford and daughter Naomi. 

The most mystifying and I must admit, the most frustrating in finding even one clue as to who they are is the top left photo I have named 'Tennessee Kin'.  Because it was taken in the same studio, at the same time, and was included in the same Family Album, I feel confident they are related to Great Grandfather Carroll.  It's another 'Unknown' photo I have turned inside out, upside down, and every which way in researching possibilities that fit the ages and relationships of these three women.  Perhaps, one day a hint will turn up in the most unexpected place....like Kitty's did.

"Frank Carroll -Tennessee (probably) brother of Steve Bennitt Carroll, visited M.J. Carroll in Treadway, Texas.  He was selling white Rotary Sewing Machines.  He had a handwriting as that in a penmanship school book.  Frank Carroll, on this visit, spoke of sister 'Kitty' whom Mary Ella Carroll favored - (physical resemblance)."

There it was, the name 'Kitty'.  I have read and re-read that paragraph many times.  It was from notes my Family Historian Aunt Irene wrote on a visit with MJ and Steven Carroll's oldest son, Othello. I missed 'Kitty' perhaps because I was so intent on researching and trying to identify Abner Franklin Carroll, who Irene referred to as Frank Carroll.

What a priceless piece of information about Frank being a Rotary Sewing Machine salesman.  The statement about his penmanship...a keen and personal observation that gives insight to Frank's character and person from his nephew, Othello.

As for Kitty being the sister of Frank...I'm afraid either Othello was misinformed or Irene misinterpreted Kitty's relationship to Frank.  Never the less, after digging in Frank and Steven's Tennessee families, I have not found a single Kitty.  Frank and Steven were two of four brothers with Steven being the oldest, twins Eli and Charlie next, and Abner Franklin the youngest.

Could there have been a sister Kitty?  Is it possible I have missed her more than once?  Will I go back and scrutinize my Tennessee ancestors more closely?  Is it possible that Kitty is the woman in the photo 'Tennessee Kin'?  I aim to find out!!!

Great Grandmother's 'Brick Wall' Maiden Name

Come to find out Great Grandmother Martha Jane Carroll's maiden name was not the proverbial 'Brick Wall' I had made it out to be.  After inheriting her 1890-1910 Photo Album full of unidentified pictures...except for one where she had written her name and the names of her children, the search to identify these obviously related people began. 

After long hours of online searching for a birth record, marriage record and even a death record...none of which were found, I turned to my Aunt Irene's somewhat all over the place in time, hand written family history notes.

There it was...Martha Jane Marley (daughter of E.S. Marley and Mary Josephine Leatherwood ?)  Thankfully...no question mark after the name Marley. In addition...Married in Cleburne, Texas, Jack County.   Her notes included the names of Martha Jane and Steven B. Carroll's children, their birth dates, and the death date of great grandfather Steven and the fact that he was buried in Cleburne.

At last I had not just one maiden name, but two...Marley and Leatherwood.  Both names opened a flood gate of Family Histories dating back to the American Revolution and the establishment of

The Pittman-Carroll-Marley-Leatherwood Family Tree

 Tracks of My Texas Ancestors

and a greater respect for

Irene's Old School Genealogy Record Keeping!

Born On The 4th of July

Finding an ancestor born on the 4th of July took me back to Colonial America and my paternal 2x great grandmother's maiden name.  The name is fourth in line in my Pittman, Carroll, Marley, Leatherwood Family Tree on ancestor.com.  Out of 1,550 names there was just this one person born on the 4th of July.

Fannie Frances Leatherwood was born in the midst of turmoil leading up to the Revolutionary War.  Her parents, Zachariah and Mary Nancy Stone Leatherwood of Prince William, Virginia Colony, had endured the effects of the French and Indian War, the Sugar and Currency Acts of 1764.

 Five years before her birth violent demonstrations against the Stamp Act occurred.  These demonstrations resulted in the Virginia Resolve and ultimately in the Stamp Act Congress which petitioned Parliament and King George to repeal the Act. 

In the months before her birth in 1770, were two major conflicts between the Colonist and the British in what would become the American Revolution.  The Battle of Golden Hill in January 1770 between British soldiers and the colonists known as the Sons of Liberty took place in New York. The second incident which was widely propagandized by leading Patriots like Paul Revere and Samuel Adams was the Boston Massacre.  On March 5, 1770 British soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others after a mob formed in protest of Parliamentary Legislation. 

The Leatherwood family survived the American Revolution as residents of Prince William, Virginia, and in the late 1790's migrated to Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Frances along with husband John Edwards and their children followed her parents to South Carolina then to North Carolina and eventually settled in Jackson/Bartow County, Georgia.

Their settlement in Jackson County is somewhat of a Family Tree coincidence as this was one of the home counties of the Pittman's, who five generations later would become related through the Texas marriage of my paternal Leatherwood-Marley-Carroll grandmother to my Georgia born Pittman grandfather.  Jackson County was changed to Bartow County in 1861 in honor of Colonel Francis S. Bartow.

Frances Leatherwood married John Edwards on October 6, 1871 in Prince William, Virginia, a veteran of the American Revolution.   Frances and John had eleven children.  John died in 1838, just three years after settling in Georgia.  Frances was last listed in the 1850 US Census when she was 81 years of age.

Although her exact death date is not known, she and John's burial markers are most likely lost in the abandoned grave yard at Pettite Creek Cemetery near what is now Bartow County, Georgia. 

Only one grave marker remains...that of their son Colonel Zachariah Edwards who was celebrated as the most popular man in Spartanburg on July 4, 1832...his mother's 61st birthday. 

On this July 4, 2016 I honor and celebrate my 6x Great Aunt Frances' 246th Birthday.  Thanks for the remarkably patriotic Family History, Fannie Frances Leatherwood Edwards.  Rest in Heavenly Peace and know you are remembered in the Pittman-Carroll-Marley-Leatherwood Family Tree.

PS...As was the tradition, children were often named after family members.  Fannie and Frances/Francis were given names of both girls and boys in the Leatherwood Family.  In the realm of the 'Meaning of Given Names',  Fannie/Frances/Francis means FREE, and people with this name value truth and justice.  What a fitting name for a child 'Born on the 4th of July'.

Behold The Rumbling Clods

Another REVOLUTIONARY Patriot Gone!

He was a brave soldier in the Revolution, participating in a small skirmish at or near the Cedar Springs in this District, as well as the siege of Stoney Point, Savannah and Augusta, Georgia. 

The writer of this imperfect tribute of respect, constituted one of the number that surrounded his grave at his interment, and while he behold the rumbling clods, as they fell upon his coffin, he thought how strong the admonition to prepare for death,  judgement and eternity. (OBITUARY-Greenville Mountaineer Newspaper, Greenville, S.C. Friday, June 25, 1841)

Never in his wildest dreams would the writer of my 5x Great Grandfather's Obituary have thought that his words written in 1841, would be read through a media that had the potential of reaching millions 175 years later.  His words of respect were certainly meant to comfort the family and friends of one of Spartanburg's earliest settlers as he wrote...
...was an affectionate parent, kind master, a good neighbor, and for many years a pious member of the Baptist Church.  He died in full assurance of a blessed immortality beyond the grave, giving full and clear evidence to his surrounding friends that his soul would be happy after death.

"The writer of this imperfect tribute"....such humble and thoughtful writing...it struck such a cord with this writer and 5th Great Granddaughter of Paul Castleberry. 

Paul was born on March 1, 1761, in Tar River, Virginia, to William (25) and Sarah Elizabeth Martin (20) Castleberry.  As American colonists they were setting the foundation of a burgeoning new country in the years before the American Revolutionary War.  Paul was only four years old when the Stamp Act of 1765 spurred the colonies to revolt against British rule.

As referenced in his Obituary, Paul at the age of 18, fought in the Battle of Stony Point.  He was part of a well planned and executed nighttime attack of high trained select group of George Washington's Continental Army under the command of General 'Mad Anthony Wayne'.   The quick and daring assault on the British took place about 30 miles north of New York City at the British outpost in Stony Point, New York.  Victory over the British not only gave Washington's Continental Army a much needed morale booster, but gave them a key crossing site over the Hudson River and their victory over the British.

Within my 'Monthly Theme' this year, I have included at least one ancestor who in someway related to the month.  My 5x's Great Grandfather Castleberry's March 1st birthday made him my 'Ancestor of the Month' and an opportunity to reveal why my ancestor.com tree is named...Pittman, Carroll, Marley, Leatherwood Family Tree.



The union of Paul and Agnes Chesney in 1785 began the line of descendants through the women in my Pittman, Carroll, Marley, Leatherwood Family Tree.  Paul and Agnes' eleventh and last child, Agnes S. Castleberry became the first Leatherwood with her marriage to Zachariah in 1828.  Her granddaughter, Mary Josephine began the Marley line when she married Elisha in 1876.  Mary Josephine's daughter Martha Jane's marriage to my Great Grandfather Stephen Bennett Carroll contributed the last of the female line in their daughter Effie Estella Carroll, my paternal grandmother. 

Estella married C.C. Pittman on August 11, 1916.  From this union, six children were born with the youngest being my father.  He would be the only child through all the generations to be named a matrilineal surname...Willard Carroll Pittman, born March 6, 1927....5 days and 166 years after his 4x Great Grandfather Castleberry.

Time marches on as we prepare for death, judgement and eternity.

 Behold the rumbling clods.

January Born 9x Great Grandmother

Martha 'Mollie' Kitteu Leatherwood
 Jan.19, 1658-Jan.20,1705
9th Great Grandmother born in Brenchley, Kent, England

"Miss Mollie Kitteu/Kitten, a half Indian girl, married John Leatherwood in 1679 in Ann Arundel, Maryland.  John and Mollie's livelihood was sustained by raising wheat and corn enough to bread the family and feed the hogs for meat and the horses while raising another crop."  (letter written in 1892 by William Leatherwood)

Martha Mollie Kitteu was born Jan. 19th...the day before my birthday on Jan. 20th...289 years later.  She died on my birthday at age 47...242 years before my birth.

 I met Mollie through research on my Family Tree on Ancestry.com where 'Discovery US' is my limit.  Thanks to Ancestry's 'Lifestory, Gallery and Leaf Hints, I can share the 'Facts' recorded on Mollie's life.  With those facts, and my fact to fiction writer's license, here is my version of my January, 9x Great Grandmother.

On January 19, 1658, Martha, age 20, gave birth to her namesake. Her husband Peter, age 28, called his daughter Mollie, a nickname she had for the rest of her life.

Mollie's father Peter, lived in Scotland in the mid-1600's when Royalists and Parliamentarians raised arms in one of the bloodiest battles in British history. 

Peter Kitteu, age 19, a Scotsman and supporter of Charles I, found himself at odds with Oliver Cromwell's newly established Commonwealth of England.  With the beheading of Charles I in January 1649, Peter, along with his Scottish countrymen, found themselves under the rule known as a Council of State.  Fighting continued particularly in Scotland and Ireland between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, as part of what is now referred to as the Third English Civil War.

By 1653 when Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of the united Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, Peter fled Scotland.  After a long and arduous trip across the Atlantic, Peter landed in America.  There he married a young Indian girl who he called Martha.  Still loyal to his Scottish roots and political ideals, Peter yearned for his homeland.  In 1657 he booked passage for himself and Martha who was with child. 

They arrived in England on January 19, 1658.  Mollie was born aboard the ship 'Janus' just before they embarked.  Peter Kitteu returned to Scotland with his wife and new daughter.  Life in Scotland was vastly different under the Commonwealth rule, and even after the Monarchy was restored in 1660, Peter decided America, the homeland of his wife, was where their future lay.

Once again, Peter and Martha made the journey across the Atlantic to the land of freedom and opportunity. This time with their young daughter Mollie, who's Scottish-American Indian bloodline would flow through the veins of future generations.

Mollie Kitteu and John Leatherwood's first born son Samuel (2-13-1681) began the line of my Direct Descendants 152 years later with the birth of my 3x's Great Grandfather John More Leatherwood.  With the birth of his daughter Mary Josephine, the Direct Descendant line continues through female descendant Martha Jane Marley Carroll, my Great Grandmother whose daughter Estella Carroll married C.C. Pittman.  My father W.C. Pittman was their youngest son.

Bronc Buster~Fly Boy and Ditch Rider

The Bronc Buster...W.C. Pittman

The Fly Boy...MD Pittman

The Ditch Rider...C.C. Pittman

This recently...September 2013... found photo taken about 1943-44 is one of three existing early photos of my Dad, Uncle and Grandfather.   In November 2011 on Tracks of My Texas Ancestors, I wrote and posted Rattlesnakes, Sidewinder and Flying Contraptions...a story about these three men at the exact time in their lives as when the photo was taken.

CollectInTexas Gal, Family Genealogist and Psychic Ghost Writer