Week 2 (2020) 52 Ancestors: A January Passing

Her birth name was Margaret Ann Brown, the daughter of David Brown and Sarah (maiden name may have been Miller) born in 1820 in St. Clair County, Alabama. Alabama had been admitted to the Union just two months before her birth.  Movement into the new territory was described as "Alabama fever" as there was a frenzy to establish land claims as many landowners planned to raise cotton.  As plantations and crops grew then this brought about the demand for slaves.  The Brown family owned a dozen slaves according to the 1830 census.

Map of the State of Alabama and West Florida 1837 (Source: alabamamap.ua.edu)

She married Evan Watkins at the age of 17 in 1838 in St. Clair County, Alabama.  Evan and Margaret were living in St. Clair County, Alabama along with a daughter and a young female slave in 1840 and by 1850 the couple had six children in the household including my 2x's great-grandfather, David Watkins.  According to the authors of the Barrett-Watkins Pioneers of Craighead County, Arkansas, a migration of several families from St. Clair County, Alabama took place in 1851 that included the Evan Watkins family.  Evan and Margaret, along with their eight children, joined a wagon train headed to Arkansas.  As they crossed the state of Mississippi, trouble broke out when one of Evan's wagons, driven by his 11-year old son John, lost its team of mules.  The chaos must have been a runaway team of mules that resulted in injury to John causing the family to stay in Mississippi and nurse John back to health.

The Watkins eventually resumed their travel to Arkansas settling in Poinsett County located in the state's northeast corner.  The area most likely was devoid of Native Americans (Cherokee, Shawnee, and Delaware formerly lived there) as these people left after an event in 1811-1812 known as the New Madrid earthquakes that changed the landscape.  The earthquakes left sunken places in the earth that became known as "the sunken lands."  Evan and Margaret's home would become part of Jonesboro, Craighead, Arkansas that was created in 1858 when Poinsett, Greene and Mississippi Counties were split to create the new county. Margaret gave birth to five additional children in Arkansas likely receiving assistance from a young slave woman named Winnie, born in 1830, who most likely came to Arkansas with the family.

1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedule for Craighead County, Arkansas (edited) (Source: Ancestry.com)

Heartache would visit Margaret as three sons joined the Confederate service during the Civil War.  Young John would lose his life serving for the CSA, 30th Regiment, Arkansas Infantry, Company H on July 4, 1863 in Helena, Phillips, Arkansas.  He was buried in the Herman Cemetery in Jonesboro.  Another son would be lost to the war named Miller Watkins, age 21, it is said that he died on April 12, 1864 in the battle of Ft. Pillow in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.  Luckily, her third son, Joseph, made it through the war and returned to his home in Arkansas.

John Watkins' headstone (Source: Find A Grave, Herman Cemetery, photo submitted by Kate Wheeless)

Margaret would live to be 61 and departed this life on January 31, 1882 leaving her husband, Evan, behind to live another nine years without his companion of many years.  She was buried in the Herman Cemetery located about a mile west of their home in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  My great-grandfather, James Andrew Watkins, sent a remembrance of Margaret to his relatives in Arkansas for a family reunion (thanks to Luci Murray for sharing this on her family tree):

"Grandma Margaret Ann was part Cherokee Indian and had black beady eyes.  She had a quick cutting way of looking at you, could control those around her with her eyes.  If she did not like you she did not hesitate to let you know it. She cleaned wool, spun her thread and weaved cloth.  Then made all the family clothes.  She made kraut in barrels-put grape leaves and rocks on it to hold it down.  She dried fruit in summer for the winter food. She was a very good cook." 

This writer has doubts that Margaret was Cherokee as former researchers have speculated that she descended from German ancestry.  

Perhaps a verse such as this was said at her funeral:

John 14:1-3

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Herman Cemetery and Herman Missionary Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas