Written by George Jowell of Ganahl, S.L. Mexico 1912. George Jowell was the son of James Abercrombie Jowell and Tabitha Paralee Jowell. This letter was written to his daughter, Edna. It is believed that Edna lived in Phoenix AZ.
Dear Ed,
Your letter came early this week. You asked for our family history. I have never attempted this job before and having no records to guide me I cannot be very accurate as to dates, etc. As for our distant ancestors, I know but little. My father was born in S.C. in 1798. My mother was born, I think, in north Alabama across the line from Tenn. They were Jowells, being cousins. Her father was Jack and his father was named Gabe. I think they were born in Virginia and their father was the only member of their family that survived a ship wreck or some such disaster. I think they were of Irish descent. Gabe's brother Jack married Mary Larewood (sic). There were two of her nephews Reuben and Charles Larewood who came to Texas about 1850, but did not remain long. I had a letter from Charles in 1868 or 1869. He was then in business as a merchant in a little town called Barton on a now R. R. in the North West corner of Ala.
Grandfather Jack and grandmother, my mother's parents, died in Rusk Co., Tex. within two or three days of each other. I think in 1852 or 53, and I understand they were 82 or 83 years old. So they were born about 1770. I never remember seeing grandfather Gabe, my father's father. He married into quite a prominent and wealthy family by the name of Abercrombie. From that family my father inherited all the negroes he ever owned.
The Abercrombie's were old Revolutionary people. One branch of the family settled in an early day near Selma, Ala. My mother had two sisters and two brothers that came to Texas in an early day, one sister married a man named Stovall, the other sister married a man named Jerry Davis. She as a widow settled in an early day in Coryell Co., Tex. She had several boys. If you remember she visited us at Thorp Springs, Tex. while you were in school there about 1885.
Her youngest brother John came to Texas with us in 1844. Had one boy John W. Her oldest brother Richard Ratcliff or Radcliff, preceded us to Texas, settled in Sabine Co., Tex., later in about 1845 he settled in what become Cherokee Co., Tex. near Jacksonville which town he helped to establish. He had several boys by his last wife. I think her name was Elzira Hague. My youngest sister, your aunt Elzira Apsilla (Neblett) was named for her. We have several more distant relatives and some not so "distant" only in point of miles and length of road between us. It might seem hard for you to understand how easy it was for friends and kinfolks to become separated and the children grow up and forget each other, no railroads and few roads of any kind, with few post offices before the day of postage stamps. We did not prepay postage on a letter but would pay in charge 10 cent when you received the letter.
We have or used to have in Smith or Cherokee Co., some distant cousins named Dial. And he had a relative Blackwell, my mother told me he was a double cousin. I don't know which side of the house. He built the first hotel in Weatherford. I always put up with him while he was running the hotel but I never talked much about kinfolks. When I was a boy I heard my grandfather talk about his grandfather having some kind of trouble with his kinfolks, the Reigning family of England. I think it was Reigning, cannot make out this name. I know so little about it that I never interested my self enough to try and inform myself. But I remember in 1869 when Cousin Blackwell of Weatherford was old and had quit business, I was his guest in his home, that the conversation turned to our early family history and he told me the blood of kings and queens ran in our veins. Still I let the chance slip and did not have him supply me with the missing link. And whether his family preserved records I don't know.
My father came to Texas in 1835 and settled in the "Old Trammel Trace" near the present site of Marshall. But his neighbors were a bit too tough for him so he returned and was water bound in Arkansas for a year. He stayed with a kinsman, Uncle John Cotton, so that is some more of our kinfolk that we have lost. He was a large slave holder, lived on White River and was a famous bear hunter.
I have just been writing an old settlers article about myself for the Dallas News, and as it gives a short history of my life, I think I shall include the Jowell family history by copying this article for the News.
(This is copied today 1/22/64 by T. B. Brooks a nephew of Uncle George Jowell)
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