Sharon Anne Dobyns Moehring - The Gonzales Connection: The History and Genealogy of the Dewitt and Jones Families

The Gonzales Connection

The History and Genealogy
Of the DeWitt and Jones
Families

Sharon Anne Dobyns Moehring

With Illustrations and photographs by John A. Moehring

Trafford Publishing

2003

Copyright 2004 Sharon Anne Dobyns Moehring. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Cover design by John A. Moehring

COVER ILLUSTRATION:

John A. Moehring took a photograph of Gonzales sign at U.S. Highway 183 near State Highway 97.

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ISBN 1-4120-1788-2

ISBN 978-1-4122-1953-2 (ebook)

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Contents

Over the Years I, Sharon Anne Dobyns Moehring, asked my mother about my grandfathers relatives who I had never met. She always told me that she did not want to discuss issues about her fathers family. I continued asking her again and again because her refusal to discuss anything about these relatives bothered me for a long time. I told my husband, John, that I still wanted to know who my grandfathers relatives were and John became interested also. He offered to help me research their lives and histories. I knew Buck and Cora Jones, my grandparents, and my aunts. With this information we began the research and found whom his family was.

In early July of the year 2000, at home in our family room, John and I were discussing my family genealogy. John went into his home office and looked through his own genealogy papers and found a copy of my mothers birth certificate on bottom of the file box. With this we were able to find her mother and fathers full name. My mothers full name was Minerva Leona Jones, which was legally changed to Mickey Minerva Jones. On her birth certificate we found that her fathers full name was Buckner H. Jones and that he was born in Gonzales, Texas. So John and I decided that we would do the research by ourselves, without the help of my family, and that we would make a trip to Gonzales on the first Friday of that month.

We departed home on Friday morning heading west along I-10 from Brookshire, Texas, and two hours later we turned south on Texas Highway 97. Along the way we saw many live oak trees and Chinese tallow in the fields covered with tall grasses. There were black and brown cattle grazing the fields along side chicken and turkey metal ranch buildings, oil tanks and horse head pumps. We even saw a few very old cemeteries.

We entered old downtown Gonzales and saw a lot of historical buildings built in the 1880s, and stopped at the Chamber of Commerce office which was in the old Gonzales jailhouse. On the second floor, above the office, was an old wood frame with a rope that had been used for hangings. We met a nice elderly woman and discussed my Jones family with her. She took a handbook of History of Gonzales County Texas, Volume 1 from her desk and turned to page 373. Her finger pointed the title, Jones, DeWitt D. F339. We read the whole paragraph and found the names Isham G. Jones and Minerva DeWitt Jones a daughter of Green DeWitt and Sarah Seely. We looked at each other with surprise and asked where we could find additional genealogy archives and records. She suggested Gonzales County Record Center and Archives in the Gonzales County Courthouse Annex Building located on Sarah DeWitt Blvd. (U.S. Hwy 90 and Texas Hwy 97). We thanked her for her help and information. We drove around old Gonzales for a while then left for home as the darkness approached.

The following Friday, John and I walked into the Gonzales County Record Center and Archives. A volunteer worker introduced herself to us as Pat Berger and explained how to find records and documents in the building. We returned on several occasions to continue our research until we got the information and copies of documents we needed. Then in early September we obtained additional information at the Texas State Library in Austin, Texas. Here we found many other interesting books and records in their genealogy and archives departments. By late October 2000, we began writing this book. All of the information contained in the book is very credible and is backed up with documents, birth certificates, probate wills, court records, and books, etc. We are very proud of my ancestors and much of what is written is with tears in our eyes.

Our book will provide information about what our ancestors were doing in the 19th century, what wars they served in, what stocks and crops them raised, and in what Texas public offices they worked. Some of their histories in Texas handbook and descendants books do not match the documents and records we found in the archives and records centers in Austin and Gonzales. We want to straighten out as much of this as we can in this book, and have included documents and records in our effort to do so.

We express sincere appreciation to the volunteers and clerks of Gonzales County Record Center and Archives in Gonzales, the Texas State Library in Austin, the Clayton Genealogy Library in Houston, and to Gaylan Corbin of the Archives of the Big Bend Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library at Sul Ross State University for their help in compiling most of the materials in this book on the DeWitt and Jones and future volumes. Their help and encouragement is greatly appreciated. A personal note of thanks is extended to Kay Oatas of Northridge, California, Candice DuCoin of Boerne, Texas, and Grady Singletary of Alto, Texas, the descendants of Augustus H. Jones, Isham G. Jones brother.

Green C. DeWitt was born on February 12, 1787 in Lincoln County, Colonial Virginia before Kentucky became separate state, and was a son of Walter and Sarah DeWitt. Walter and Sarah had three other children, Sylvia, Walter Jr., and James C. Walter DeWitt owned 700 acres in Lincoln County. His grants were recorded in The Kentucky Land Grants Volume 1 Part 1, Chapter II Virginia Grants (1782-1792) The Counties of Kentucky page 43: Book 1 page 413 and 416: Date of Survey 3-4-1783. He obtained these grants for his military service in American Revolution War.

In 1803 his family moved to the St. Louis County of Missouri Territory. At this time Missouri was a part of Louisiana Territory purchased from France by the United States of America. Green was schooled in both Missouri and Kentucky to which he returned for two years at age 18. The Land Claims in the Missouri Territory record shows Walter DeWitt to obtain his claim in Joachim, St. Louis County. Act of ownership was some of his work done for Missouri Territory in 1803.