House of David

David Bobo Stewart was the seventh and last child of Walter Stewart, Sr., his second child by his second wife, Isabel Bobo. He was born in 1818 in the Bethany community in lower Laurens County, SC.

David was about six years old when his parents left the Bethany community and settled in Gwinnett County, Georgia a few miles northeast of the present site of Atlanta. The next year, in 1825, Walter died, leaving his widow Isabel with little David and his twelve-year-old full brother 6 Clark.

Like Clark, David appears to have left Gwinnett County as a young man. He went to Cass County (later Bartow County) in northwest Georgia, which at that time had the reputation of being gold country. The land had recently been acquired from the Cherokees, and eager settlers were flocking in for "gold lots" being distributed to the citizens of the state through Georgia's unique land lottery system. An ambitious young man could acquire land for very little cash, and if he found no gold he could always farm it. This prospect appears to have attracted David. He settled near Cassville, the county seat, which had been laid out shortly after the county was created in 1832.

In the summer of 1837, 18-year-old David visited his young schoolmaster brother Clark in the Bethany community in South Carolina. Clark had not seen his brother for some years, and was shocked to find that he did not recognize the young man who now appeared before him.

About the last of July my Brother Came in from Cassville and I did not know him at first sight; he remained for 8 or 10 days and then left on Sunday the 6" of August I went one days travel with him and Mr. Perry Craig Stayed at Rob.t Davenports in Greenville Dist.

Not a great deal is known about David's life. Four months after his visit to his brother Clark in the Bethany community, he married 19-year-old Virginia Phillips. We have no information on where she lived before marrying David, but the two of them appear to have lived in Cass County for several years. The Cass County Census of 1840 lists David B. Stewart as head of a household that included two males, two females, and three slaves, which suggests remarkable affluence in a young man not more than twenty-two years old. (An adult male slave could cost $2000 or more in Cass County.)

The David B. Stewart of the 1840 Census has been accepted as David Bobo Stewart by family historians for many years, although there is no certain proof that he was still living in Cass County at the time. Several entries in Clark's journal indicate that he visited David and his young wife in Cass County from time to time in 1837 and 1838, in the months after his friend Henry Hitch hanged himself. In Cass County on June 22, 1838 David signed (with an "X" mark) a document giving Clark his power of attorney in settling their father's estate. The two brothers were obviously very fond of each other; David named his eldest son after Clark, and up until their mother's death in 1843 they often met at her home - together with their half-brother 4 James from nearby Hog Mountain - for Christmas reunions. However, they appear to have lost contact with each other for long periods of time in later years. One of Clark's last references to David in his journal during this period is tinged with rare exasperation:

October 15, 1841 Last Tuesday received a letter from my mother all was well; stating also that my brother had gone to Griffin This seems strange that he should continue so long in a rambling mood when he has a family. May the Lord Direct them.

The next we know of David is that his first wife Virginia died in 1861, shortly after the birth of their ninth child. David subsequently married a widow named Mrs. Nancy Jones, by whom he had two more children, last reported living around Gadsden, Alabama (Etowah County), in northeast Alabama not far from the Georgia line. David himself is thought to be buried there, as are several of his children by his first wife. Most of our current information on the family comes from the descendants of his oldest son Clark Berry Stewart, his brother's namesake, who settled in Texas not long after the Civil War.

In recent years a remarkable letter written by David Bobo Stewart came to light among papers from the household of 31 William Stewart of the Durbin community near Fountain Inn, SC. Written a few days after the death of his brother Clark, it was probably addressed to Clark's oldest son, 62 Wistar Stewart of the nearby Fairview community. (The envelope is lost.) Why the letter should have been found among 31 William Stewart's papers is not certain, but it is reasonable to suppose Wistar took it along to show to Squire Bill on his visit to him on January 27, 1901, when the two of them put their heads together and compiled the first records of the Walter Stewart Family (see Introduction).

Gadsden Ettowah co ala

May 18 1890

dear nephew

it is once more i take my pen in hand to rite you a few lines an answer to your letter which i received the other day i was glad to hear from you But sorry to hear that my onely whole Brother was ded i was expecting to hear the sad news But it all most shocked me when i heard he was dead i would have been the proudest man on earth if i could have went to see him Before he died But i was not able to come i have Been in Bad health for 4 or 5 months, i have no news of importence to write to you the rest of the family is all well and i hope the same By you everything is powerful Backward corn an cotton looks Bad we had a white frost the 8 of May the prospects for a crop is Mighty Bad i would like powerful well to see you i try to imagine how you look i imagine how your father an mother looked But i cant locate how you look i ust to lik your father Better than any Body ele on earth he all ways hated me an all ways give me good advice probly kept me out of the pinitentry or the gallos an made a morel man of me i think now if my health gets Better i will come out there this year some time if i am well i will close i would rite more But i want to send the letter to the office i send My Best respects to you an your family an all of the conection i want you to rite to me as son as you get this Badily writen letter yours as ever

D B stewart

Ps in looking over my paper the other day i see where Walter stewart was roun over an killed By the oxford dummey [street car] at aniston i supose it to Be your uncle James son your cousin Walter i send the piece of paper i cout out of my newspaper

So far as is known, no other letters survive from David Bobo Stewart to his brother Clark, although Clark occasionally mentions a "letter from my Brother" in his journals (no other details). David must have sent him pictures of his family, since the pictures on preceding pages of himself, his daughter 74 Lucetta Frances Stewart and his son 79 Robert Walter Stewart were preserved in the household of 6 Clark Berry Stewart.


7 David Bobo Stewart

72 Clark Berry Stewart

Clark Berry Stewart was the second child and oldest son of David Bobo Stewart and his first wife, Virginia Phillips. He was born in 1841, probably in Georgia. Clark's father later settled in Gadsden, Alabama, where other descendants of the family still live. So far as is known, Clark was the only child of David Bobo Stewart to settle in Texas.

Clark was named after his father's only full brother, 6 Rev. Clark Berry Stewart of Fountain Inn, SC. He was twenty years old when the Civil War began. He enlisted May 22, 1862 at Fort Pillow, Alabama, and served as a private in Company A, 51st Alabama Partisain Rangers. Family tradition says he was captured by the Yankees, but managed to escape by crawling through a cornfield among the hogs.

Clark survived the war safely, and married 19-year-old Rosa Gadys Bowman, whose parents (names unknown) are said to have lived in Anadarko, Oklahoma (Caddo County). In 1866, two years after they were married, Clark and Rosa moved to Texas. They settled first near Hamilton in central Texas (Hamilton County, about 100 miles south of Fort Worth). Later they moved to the Mt. Zion community in Erath County about fifty miles west of Forth Worth, where Clark cleared the land for farming with the help of his two young sons, James Louis (Jim) and Henry Hamilton (Ham). In 1888 they moved to north Erath County and settled on what was later known as "the old Stewart homestead," originally 80 acres of the A. Ewing 640 acre survey. Their homestead was located in the Highland community, later known as the Russell Chapel community, about ten miles southeast of Gordon, Texas (south Palo Pinto County). The Russell Chapel community was probably named after rancher Richard Russell of north Erath County.

Clark and Rosa reared a family of two sons and five daughters (one of whom died as a child) on their homestead in the Russell Chapel community. Later descendants say they had to deal with Indians every day, along with the regular routine of farming. There is evidence now of a past Indian tribe on the south end of their homestead in Erath County, not far from Lost Creek which runs through the property.

Clark died in 1891 at his homestead at age 44. Tradition says that he and all his children except his son Ham died untimely deaths of tuberculosis - the same disease that claimed several members of the family of his uncle, 5 Walter Stewart, Jr., back in the Bethany community in South Carolina many years earlier.

Rosa and her children lived on at the old Stewart homestead in Erath County after Clark's death. In 1895, Rosa married their neighbor, Daniel Boone Miller (1853-1928). The two of them lived in the Russell Chapel community the rest of their lives. Later descendants say the children in the family enjoyed Rosa's stories of the past.

Rosa and Clark were members of the Methodist church which met at Russell Chapel School in the community. Both are buried at the Russell Chapel Cemetery in Erath County, as are numerous other members of the family.

None of Clark Berry Stewart's living descendants remember him, since he died before any of them were born. Several of his grandchildren are living in Texas in 1982, among them his grandson 7237 Carl Jones Stewart and his wife Fannie Ruth High of Garland, Texas (Dallas County). Carl well remembers his grandmother Rosa, who married Dan Miller after Clark Berry Stewart's death. Says Fannie:

I have Rosa married in Anadarko, Oklahoma, so I assume that was where her parents lived. Rosa was born 8/14/1846, Alabama.

When Rosa and Dan married (Carl thinks that was the time) a house was built for her across a little rock knoll or hill just south of (her son) Ham's house. Rosa died before Dan Miller did. When she died, Dan moved over with his brother, N.R. Miller, in the Dillard community. There was only a little store and blacksmith shop there.

We lived in the house built for Rosa just south of Ham and Ollie's home. (7233) Stella and Joe Heath lived in Rosa's house at one time, and (7236) Clark and Dorothy when they married. I don't remember about the Indians being in that area, but there were rocks close to this house that the Indians had used to grind corn, also rocks used to tan animal hides.

Gordon, Texas was the post office for the following: Mt. Zion, Russell Chapel, Dillard and Lyra communities.


7 David Bobo Stewart

72 Clark Berry Stewart

721 James Louis Stewart

James Louis Stewart was the oldest child of Clark Berry Stewart and Rosa Gadys Bowman. He was born February 12, 1866, probably shortly before his parents left Alabama and settled in Hamilton County, Texas, south of Fort Worth. In a later Erath County court document relating to his father's estate, Jim's mother stated that she married his father in Alabama in 1864 and came with him to Texas in 1866.

When Jim was a boy, his family left their original homestead in Hamilton County and moved about sixty miles north to Erath County, which was attracting new settlers after having at least partially quelled the resident Commanche and Kiowa Indians. Jim's family settled first in the Mt. Zion community in north Erath County, and a few years later in the nearby Russell Chapel (Highland) community not far from Gordon, Texas.

As a young man, Jim married 17-year-old Mary Elizabeth Russell, of the family of Russells who donated land for the Russell Chapel cemetery and school. Mamie's parents were Bettie H. Clay and Civil War veteran James Russell, Jr., originally of Richmond, Virginia. Mamie was born in Virginia and moved to Texas with her parents.

Jim and Mamie settled on a ranch at nearby Strawn, Texas in south Palo Pinto County, just across the line from Erath County. They had a family of one son and three daughters one of whom died as an infant.

Jim died in 1903 at age 37, leaving Mamie with a 12-year-old son and two daughters, the youngest of whom was less than a year old. After his death, Mamie and her children lived with her father in the Russell Chapel community. She died in 1941 at age 69 and is buried in the Russell family cemetery on her father's property. Her husband Jim is buried with other members of his family in the Russell Chapel Cemetery in the same community.


7 David Bobo Stewart

72 Clark Berry Stewart

723 Henry Hamilton Stewart

Henry Hamilton Stewart was the third child of Clark Berry Stewart and his wife Rosa Bowman. Ham, as he was called, was born in 1871, five years after his parents moved to Texas from Alabama. He grew up in the Erath County community of Russell Chapel near Gordon, Texas.

Ham and his older brother Jim helped their father clear the land on the new frontier for farming. As a boy of twelve, Ham was sent from Erath County back to Hamilton County where the family first lived after moving to Texas (a round trip of about 150 miles) to bring horses to the new homestead.

Ham was 19 years old when his father died. Since his older brother Jim was already married and rearing a family of his own, Ham was the "man of the family" for his widowed mother Rosa and his four sisters until his mother's second marriage to Daniel Boone Miller four years later.

Ham married 16-year-old Ollie Emmaline Reasoner, daughter of Jessie Sam Reasoner and Huldie Limbley of the Mt. Zion community in nearby Palo Pinto County. Ollie was born in the Mt. Zion community in 1876 after her parents moved there from Arkansas.

After marrying Ollie, Ham ran a bakery in the town of Lyra in Palo Pinto County, eventually earning enough money to buy land adjoining his father's ranch in north Erath County. There Ham and Ollie reared their family of two sons and five daughters. Another little daughter, Orpha, died at birth and is buried in the Russell Chapel Cemetery.

The descendants of Ham and Ollie Stewart hold a family reunion every two years in Gordon, Texas (Palo Pinto County) not far from the old Stewart homeplace at nearby Russell Chapel. For more information, contact 7237 Mr. and Mrs. Carl Jones Stewart, 206 East Daugherty Dr., Garland, TX 75041. Carl is Ham and Ollie's youngest son. He and his wife Fannie Ruth High have contributed their memories of his parents. Says Fannie Ruth:

Henry Hamilton Stewart was born February 2, 1871. We have always understood Ham was born in Hamilton County, Texas near the little town of Hamilton and was named for either the county or the township.

He was a good father and husband and the BEST of all father-in-laws. He was quiet, walked very erect, never became stooped as many older people do. He was kind and gentle, didn't say much but the sparkle in his hazel eyes let you know he had many inner thoughts. His hair was snow white with a little wave. Carl doesn't remember it being any color but white. He turned gray at an early age.

He was a good farmer (proud of his straight rows), raised corn (the largest ears I ever saw) and cotton. His last few years on the farm he and Carl raised chickens and sold eggs by the crates. He was an outstanding gardener, always had melons and cantalopes which he loved. When melons were in season he would keep them cool on the porch and ready to share with anyone who came. He and Ollie would sit on the porch rafter their work and evening meal was over and rest until dark. The June bugs (cicadas) would sing in the trees at twilight and Ollie would take a fishing pole and run them from the trees close to the house. They would sing at night and keep her awake.

Ollie was quite young when they married. She was tall and thin with blue eyes and lots of long dark hair which she pulled tight in a bun. Her hair was only slightly gray at her passing. She was proud of her hair and combed it with a fine tooth comb. Her mother had lots of black curly hair and when she was captured by the Indians they turned her loose because her hair was beautiful (similar to theirs) and did not scalp her as they did the two women with her.

Ham always helped Ollie with cooking, washing and dishes and was good to his daughter-in-laws and never made any difference between them, always gave them gifts just alike. He always went to town on Saturday and bought what they needed for the next week. Ollie didn't go shopping except from the Sears catalogue. Ham bought everything for her.

They enjoyed the radio. Ham liked the boxing matches. He would sit down, prop his feet up and listen to them. I remember one time he didn't get his feet up good until there was a knockout. He was so disappointed. Ollie liked the singing. "The Light Crust Dough Boys" and W. Lee O'Daniel were favorites of hers. They both liked Lum and Abner.

Ham loved our little Gene and asked to be buried by him. He died in Gordon with all his children by his side except for his oldest, Ruth. And he was laid to rest in Russell Chapel Cemetery at the head of Gene. After Ham died Ollie moved across the street from Clark and Dorothy in Gordon to a smaller house. She lived there for several years. Her sister Ada Havens was living with her on June 21, 1954 when Ollie gently dropped her head on the table and passed from this world. She was buried beside Ham in Russell Chapel Cemetery.


7 David Bobo Stewart

72 Clark Berry Stewart

725 Mattie E. Stewart

Mattie E. Stewart was the fifth child of Clark Berry Stewart and his wife Rosa Bowman. She was born in 1876, probably in Erath County, Texas, about ten years after her parents left Alabama and settled in Texas. Mattie was twelve years old when her family settled on their homestead in the Russell Chapel community in north Erath County near Gordon, Texas.

At age 16, Mattie married Nelson Delavin. The old family records indicate that Nelson and Mattie settled in the community of Strawn in nearby Palo Pinto County, where they had a family of four children. Mattie is said to have died of tuberculosis in 1902 at age 25, when her youngest child was less than two years old. She is buried with other members of her family at the Russell Chapel Cemetery in Erath County.

Mattie's husband Nelson Delavan appears to have remained in Strawn after her death. In 1918, Mattie's aging mother Rosa filed an affidavit in Erath County in settling her husband's estate. In this affidavit, she stated that Nelson and Mattie's two youngest children, 18-year-old Vivian and 22-year-old Clark, lived with their father in Strawn. Winnie, age 22, lived in Haller, Texas (location not known). Not much is known about Nelson Delavan and his children after Mattie's death.


7 David Bobo Stewart

72 Clark Berry Stewart

726 Ella Stewart

Ella Stewart was the sixth child of Clark Berry Stewart and Rosa Bowman, who came from Alabama and settled in Texas shortly after the Civil War. Ella was born in 1880, probably in Erath County in central Texas. By the time she was eight years old, Ella's parents had moved with their family of six children to their final homestead in the Russell Chapel community in north Erath County, not far from the small town of Gordon.

At age 19 Ella married young James Walter Anderson, son of Mary Catherine Rice and W.L. Anderson, who moved to Texas from Murray County in north Georgia. W.L. Anderson was a Confederate veteran, having served in Company E of Edmondson's Georgia Cavalry.

Walter and Ella had two children before her untimely death. The first child, little Roy, died as an infant and is buried in the Russell Chapel Cemetery in Erath County. Sometime in the years after their marriage Walter and Ella settled in Lyra, Texas (Burleson County) about 200 miles southeast of Erath County. Here they had a second child, a daughter named Adella after Ella's younger sister Adela Stewart Humphrey. Little Adella was only three years old when her mother, like several other members of her family, died of tuberculosis. She died in 1907 at age 27, and is buried in the Russell Chapel Cemetery in Erath County.

The earliest records of the Stewart family, compiled about the time of the first Stewart reunion in 1907, give the widowed Walter Anderson's address as Lyra, Texas. Sometime in the years after Ella's death he moved to Newcastle in north central Texas (Young County), where later records indicate that he and his 13-year-old daughter Adella were living in 1918. Walter's second wife Mabel (last name not recorded) was still living in Newcastle many years after his death in 1937 at age 58. He is buried in Newcastle. His daughter, Adella Anderson, later settled in Wyoming.


7 David Bobo Stewart

74 Lucetta Frances Stewart

Lucetta Frances Stewart was the fourth child of David Bobo Stewart and his first wife, Virginia Phillips. She was born in 1846, birthplace uncertain, but probably either Georgia or Alabama. So far as is known, her parents did not live in any other states during their adult lives.

Lucetta appears to have been living with her family in Alabama about the time of her marriage in 1870 at age 24, when she married young James Henry Deerman. Where she and her husband lived is not certain; somewhere in Alabama, presumably. They had a family of seven children, with known descendants living in 1982 around Gadsden (Etowah County) in northeast Alabama. Lucetta and Henry Deerman's oldest son, 741 James Henry Deerman, Jr., settled in Gadsden. Two other children lived in Somerville (Morgan County) in north central Alabama: 743 Minnie Virginia Deerman (married William Manning Fowler) and 744 Thomas R. Deerman. They apparently lived very close to each other (see addresses).

Most of the records on the family of Lucetta Stewart and her husband James Henry Deerman were gathered about the time of the first Stewart reunion in 1907. Not a great deal has been added to our knowledge of the family since.


7 David Bobo Stewart

74 Lucetta Frances Stewart

741 James Henry Deerman, Jr.

James Henry Deerman, Jr. was the oldest child of Lucetta Frances Stewart and James Henry Deerman. He was born in 1871 in Alabama, exact location uncertain, but probably north Alabama.

Family tradition among the descendants of James Henry Deerman, Jr. says that he was living in Blount County in north central Alabama when he married young Jimmy Victoria Bledsel. Her parents are said to have lived in Steele in nearby St. Clair County.

In the oldest records of the Stewart family, compiled about 1907, the address of the family of James Deerman and his wife Jimmy Bledsel is given as "Gadsden, Alabama." At that time, they had a family of eight young children, three daughters and five sons, one of whom died as an infant.

In 1982 there are many Deerman families living in the Gadsden area. It is not known how many of them are descended from James Henry Deerman, Jr. and his wife. All our current information on the family comes from the descendants of their seventh child, 7417 Rev. Walker Edward Deerman, who lived in the Lookout Mountain area near Gadsden. 42 Walter Washington Stewart of the House of James (supposedly run over and killed by the "Oxford dummy," according to his uncle 7 David Bobo Stewart) also lived in this area after the Civil War, but all memory of any past contact between the two families has long since been forgotten.


7 David Bobo Stewart

75 Jonathan David Stewart

77 Susa Ann Stewart

78 Ella Virginia Stewart

79 Robert Walter Stewart

7.10. Cordelia Stewart

7.11. Margaret Priscilla Stewart

These were the younger children of David Bobo Stewart, founder of the House of David. All the above six children married and had issue, but very little is known of either them or their descendants. Presumably there are many.

All these children were born between 1847 and 1875. The first four were the children of David Bobo Stewart by his first wife, Virginia Phillips. The last two, Cordelia and Margaret Priscilla Stewart, were his children by his second wife, Mrs. Nancy Jones. All of them are thought to have been born in either Georgia or northern Alabama. So far as is known, all of them settled in Alabama. Two children of 79 Robert Walter Stewart are said to have moved to Illinois and Indiana.