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My line of Witts is apparently from England. The earliest Witt we can reliably trace back is probably John Witt or Whitt, who married Ann Daux. They were residents of Charles City County, Virginia. John Witt or Whitt was born about 1645 and died about 1715. From them, the line continues, quite possibly as follows (keep in mind that some of these older relationships are still somewhat speculative):
2 John Witt II and Ann Rogers. John Witt II was born about 1675 and died in 1751
3. John Witt III, who died about 1779
4. Charles C. Witt and Lamina (Lavinia?) Harbour
5. Joseph Witt and Sarah Kimbrough
6. Silas Witt and Susanna Randolph
7. William Carroll Witt and Joicy Hollingsworth
8. Thomas Gentry Witt and Edith Catherine Reid
9. Lydia Jane Witt and Edmund Lonzo Parsons
10. Roy Lee Parsons and Leora Eunice Atkinson (my parents)
Silas Witt and Susanna Randolph
Silas Witt and Susanna Randolph
Silas Witt, a patriot and well-known Baptist minister, was born in Jefferson County, Tennessee, on May 28, 1790. On July 30, 1812, he was married to Susanna Randolph, the youngest of the children of James and Sarah Randolph.
Silas Witt early became interested in religious work. With Jesse Dodson he helped in organizing the New Hopewell Baptist Church in McMinn County, Tennessee, sometime after 1820. About the year 1833, Silas Witt and his family moved to Cherokee County, Alabama, where he continued his church work.
Various association and church minutes, the originals of which are now in the Alabama Department of Archives and History, are in Silas Witt's own handwriting. In the minutes of some of the meetings, he is described as an evangelist. He served as minister and moderator at many Baptist meetings and conventions throughout the state of Alabama.
In addition to serving his church, Silas Witt also found time to serve his country in its wars. In Goodspeed's The Lone Star he is described as a soldier and patriot. He is said to have fought in the War of 1812, in "the Indian Wars," and in the Mexican War of 1846-48. According to his service record in the National Archives, he enlisted in Knoxville, Tennessee, on September 22, 1814, as a private in Capt. Reuben Tipton's Company of East Tennessee Mounted Gunmen (militia), serving under Major Childs in General John Coffee's brigade. He was honorably discharged at Knoxville on May 1, 1815. For his service he received a grant of bounty lands in Cherokee County, Alabama.
Although it has been claimed that he fought in the Battle of New Orleans, in which some of General Coffee's troops were a major force, the records of the East Tennessee Mounted Gunmen in the Tennessee State Library and Archives show that during the period September 1814 to May 1815 they, along with a battalion commanded by Major William Russell, were serving on the Escambia River in the Florida Panhandle in search of Creek Indian warriors who had escaped capture after the Battle of Pensacola (November 7, 1814). It is interesting to note that Silas Witt named one of his sons, William Carroll Witt, after another commander of Tennessee militia during that time: General William Carroll. If Silas Witt's service records in the Indian Wars and the Mexican War have ever been located, they have not been brought to my attention.
Silas is found in Warren County, Tennessee, in the 1820 census. Sometime in the 1820s, however, he took land in McMinn County. I find it fascinating that Silas settled in McMinn County about the same time as and very near Thomas Parsons, my 3-great-grandfather. Silas's friend Jesse Dodson was a neighbor of Thomas Parsons and is listed very near Thomas on the same page of the 1830 McMinn County census. Thomas's son John Parsons, my great-great-grandfather, also moved to Cherokee County, Alabama, about the same time that Silas did in the early 1830s. Thomas Parsons's grandson James Thomas Parsons immigrated to Pike County, Arkansas, in the early 1850s, and Silas and Susanna's grandson Thomas Gentry Witt moved to Pike County immediately after the Civil War. Their children, Edmund Lonzo Parsons and Lydia Jane Witt, were married in Pike County in 1887.
In 1871 or 1872, when he was already past eighty years of age and Susanna over seventy-five, they still retained enough vigor to dare to conquer new lands. It was then, like many others across the Old South, that they and most of their children and grandchildren tacked the sign GTT (Gone to Texas) on their door, loaded their wagons, and headed west. An eyewitness account of the departure of the Witt family from Alabama reads: "The family group met at the home of Joseph Lockhart Witt and his wife, Nancy J. Penn. The place of departure was about twenty miles from Decatur, Alabama, in Morgan County. There were ten or twelve covered wagons, and those remaining gathered--stood on the front porch--and saw them leave for wild and woolly Texas fraught with no telling what hazards. Rev. Silas and Susanna Witt occupied a buggy and led the caravan."
Silas and Susanna Witt and many of the family settled near Moody, in southern McLennan County, Texas, or in adjoining northern Bell County. Susanna died in 1880 and Silas a year later. They are buried in Old Perry Cemetery, north of Moody. The front (east side) of Silas's tombstone bears the following inscription:
Rev. Silas Witt
was married to
Susana Randolph
July 30, 1812
The reverse (west) side reads:
Holy
Bible
Rev. Silas
Witt
Born
May 28, 1790
Died
July 15, 1881
Beloved one Farewell
Weep not he is at rest
Silas's gravestone, on the left in the photograph, also has a marker set before it to honor his service to his country in the War of 1812.
Susanna's headstone, shown on the right in the photo, reads:
Wife of
Rev. Silas Witt
Born
May 22, 1795
Died
June 15, 1880
The inscription at the bottom of Susanna's stone is
Her happy soul has winged its way
To one pure bright eternal day
(Thanks to Flo Allen for returning to Old Perry Cemetery to transcribe that verse.)
As I noted above, my great-grandfather, Thomas Gentry Witt, one of Silas and Susanna's grandsons, had already moved to Pike County, Arkansas, after the Civil War, and he didn't join the rest of the family in its migration to Texas. Thus a major branch of Silas and Susanna's tree has its roots in Arkansas, where my father was born in 1908.
I have compiled a list of the Texas and Arkansas descendants of Silas and Susanna Witt from several sources. To read it, click on Descendants of Silas Witt and Susanna Randolph.
For information on the many Witt descendants of the original John Witt and Ann Daux of Charles City County, Virginia, and others, click on the following links to the Witt family web site:
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