Hazel Hall Hughes - Happy Birthday

Hazel Hall Hughes, September 2007











Hazel Hall was born on May 28, 1919. She is the daughter of Joe Hall and Martha Newsome, a half sister to Nancy Alice Hall Bentley.













I met Aunt Hazel last year when I visited Uncle John Vent and his daughters, Robin, Nancy Ellen and Lisa. After they called and arranged for me to meet her, Aunt Ernestene, Candy and I went over. Hazel is a delight. What she told me about her dad and her mom make up most of what I know about Joe Hall and Martha Newsome.













Today, on Hazel's birthday, I want to talk about her remembrances as a child. I took notes as fast as I could and tried to take down Hazel's words just as she said them. The following written in first person is what I took away from that first meeting.













Mary Bates had a store. She was getting older and needed help. Mom moved to a one room feed house. We lived there on Millstone. I walked to school. There were three schools at Millstone: Lower, Midde and Upper Millstone. I went to Middle Millstone. My teacher was A. C. Sergent. He also taught my son, Arthur. the school was just two rooms. One ahd up to third grade and the ohter went to the 8th grade. There were three schools: Millsone, Lower Millstone at the Forks and Upper Millstone. It used to be Craft, Kentucky.













Daddy was a postmaster. Daddy never wrote overalls. When he married Mommy he tried a pair on, but he didn't like them. He always had to wear dress pants. Daddy owned a department store. It was at the mouth of Thornton. He was a postmaster. The office moved to the mouth of Millstone. I walked to school at the middle of Millstone. At lunch I would go to the post office. At that time you had to stamp the letters going out and coming in. I would go to the post offic and there would be a pack of letters and I would stamp them.













My first gift my Dad gave to me and Lettie (her sister) was a paperback songbook. Oh how I wish I had that songbook today, but I was little and I didn't know how much I would want it later on. The second gift was got from Dad was a little gold compact with powder. The third gift we got was a child's umbrella.













At Christmas when I was five years old (1924) Dad gave me a little rocking chair. It was made by John Bentley. (Hazel still has this chair and Myrtle brought it out for us to see.) It got broken when we moved. Our things were on a wagon pulled by horses. The chair fell off and boke. The tops of the back to the chair and one of the runners broke off. It was repaired, but it was not the same. The seat was very unusual. It was made of bark. Dad paid Mr. Bentley five dollars to have it made. The back used to look like the arms do now.













She told us she had a picture of her son, Arnold, sitting in the chair. This is the picture.































There was a hat that I wanted that cost 49 cents. I wanted it so bad. I worked and worked for Uncle Jarvey Johnson hoeing to earn it. We had to go across the creek to get to Jarvey's field so we needed to cross it again to get back. Aunt Myrtle went across the creek going there, but she did not want to cross it on the way back. I carried her on my back. She was three years older than me. She was about the age of my sister, Josephine. They were the same age. My hat fell off into the creek. Mom whipped me for that. (We asked if she dropped Myrtle. She said no. We agreed we would have put her in the creek after losing that hat and Hazel just laughed.)













I had a cousin Marthy. She was older. We always got along unless she made Lettie cry. One day she did make her cry, and we got into it. There was a willow tree and mom made me go get a switch. I got a big one and she whipped Marthy. After she whipped Marthy she whipped me with the same switch. I was always so mad at Mommy for using the same switch.

























Hazel married Elzie Hughes. They were married for 43 years. They were married at the home of Martha Smith. They moved from Millstone in 1953.













This is Elizie Hughes sitting on the bridge at Millstone.













Hazel lives in Cleveland with her son and his wife, William Arnold and Myrtle Johnson Hughes.



















We lived next to Ish Everidge. Mommy asked if she could name my child. Mommy said the Everidges were so good. They had a son named Ben Arnold. She named my baby, William Arnold. Ben did not turn out well.

Martha Tackett

Martha Tacket was born April 27. 1897 to Wilson and Rhoda Hampton Tackett. I wrote a brief Tackett history of our direct connections in the Tackett line and Wilson's. In

Memorial Day: Viola Ivanell Wright

I remember going to Kentucky every weekend when I was very little. I don't remember when that became more of a summer vacation trip.

Another weekend that I always remember going to Kentucky was Memorial Day weekend. We always went to my grandparents, James aned Cora Wright Mullins graves. It was the only time I remember that that is why we drove down rather than visiting Granny and Poppy. Oh I know that we would have stayed at Granny's but I don't remember going to any Bentley graves or even any of the time we would have spent with them. Those weekend memories are strictly going to Ma and Pa's graves. I don't remember when we stopped that.

My memory was driving until we came to a big white house that was on the corner beside a single lane dirt road that went up a holler to the graveyard. We would turn in there and drive up a bit and the graveyard was on the left. It was open and beautiful, but there were a few homes here and there so it seemed open but not alone

I never knew either of my grandparents. Everyone a few years older than me at that time was "old" so it did not seem out of order for me that my grandparents had died. What always struck me on those trips was a little grave that was covered by what I always thought of as a little house. Inside was a grave of a little girl named Viola Ivanell Wright. She was born July 31, 1933. She died on January 21, 1940. This little grave protected by that gleaming white structure seemed to me to be someone who must have been very loved and greatly missed by her parents.

Viola Ivanell Wright 1933 -1940

Since she was a Wright I would ask who she was and if she were related to us. I was told she might be, but probably it was another set of Wrights. I would look at the other graves and the nearest to her were Ben and Laura Jane Webb. Down from her grave were more Wrights, Joel Martin and Jane R. Wright, but their birthdates seemed wrong for parents of this child. I always thought her parents must have been alive around this time because her little building was always pristine.

At some point we stopped making those trips for memorial day weekend and we would stay home and have a barbecue. Years later when I was visiting I was driving with my cousin, Kris. I can't remember where we were going, but suddenly I saw that white house on the corner which signaled Ma and Pa's graves. We turned in what was now a paved single lane road and went up the holler and found the graveyard. A trailer was sitting up above the graves. Another was beside it. A drive was on the left beside it with no tresspassing signs posted. The worst was the little white structure over Viola's grave was greatly in need of paint and the roof was leaking. Neighbors to the graves had their chickens roosting on her grave under the leaking roof. I looked to see if there were new graves that might have been her parents, but I found none.

I didn't go back for several years. When I did someone had erected a chain link fence around the graves and put a metal roof on the little structure. I was glad that it was not taken down as it could have been from the disrepair I saw that last visit. The graves seemed tended, but looked out of place among so many trailers and houses. It didn't look anything like it did on those visits as a child.

Last November I went to visit again and I passed the graveyard before I realized where it was. There were so many buildings and trailers around that I totally missed it til I was by it. I turned in a driveway and came back. There isn't any legal place to park. If you park on the road, you block someone from coming or going. The land in front of the graves has a deep gully so you couldn't park there. I remembered that there was a gate to the graveyard at the top of the hill so I went thru the no tresspassing sign and parked at the top. Once I was inside I could see another gate at the bottom of the hill near the road, but it wasn't something I wanted to walk thru from the road because it was overgrown and such.

The graveyard was so different this time. The area above Jesse Wright's grave which had always been so empty was now full of graves, mostly Andersons. I didn't know any of them. I felt like they were interlopers.


I have seen this graveyard referred to as the Broas Wright cemetery, but I didn't know where that came from. I figured I would at least try to find Viola's family. I hated the thought that she was buried there alone.



I did a search and found a death certificate for her. She died of congenital heart disease when she was six years old. Her parents were listed as R. Broas Wright and Minnie Webb.



I started searching for an R. Broas Wright and found one in the WWI draft registration. He was listed as full name Richard Broas Wright. He was single at age 30. He was described as medium build, medium height with blue eyes and dark hair. I saved his record, but decided that he was probably not the one I was looking for since he was single. I did, however, decide to pursue Richard Broas as a name. I found a 1910 census where it said his parents were John and Jane Wright. I started to pass it by since I had no couple like that in my work, but I did have Joel and Jane, so I decided to look at the original record. It was Joel and Jane and Richard B. was listed as one of their children. I looked at the next census in 1920 and he was still single and living with his parents at age 33. Again, I thought there must be another one and I figured I would at least rule him out by checking the 1930 census. Instead I found Broas and Mennie Wright. He was 45, the right age, and it said he first married at age 34. His wife was 29. They were living next door to Ben M. and Laura Jane Webb.


I started going through earlier census records for Ben and Laura and found that they did have a daughter, Minnie. So all this was the right family.


Little Viola is in the grave with her maternal grandparents, Ben & Laura Spangler Webb to her side and her paternal grandparents, Joel Martin and Jane R. Venters Wright at her feet. Above her is her first cousin once removed, Cora Wright Mullins and her great uncle, William Jesse Wright.


Richard Broas and Minnie Webb had five other children before Viola: Paul W., Laura J., Mable D., Raymond S. , and Daniel V. They may have had more after Viola. Mable was born January 12, 1924, but she was not listed in the 1930 census, so she must have died before that time -- maybe at birth since she is not buried near her sister, Viola.

I kept searching and found that Paul was a corporal in the army who earned the Good Conduct medal and three battle stars. He attended Fleming High School and was listed as a Baptist. I found a birth certificate for the same date as Paul's with Minnie Webb listed as the mother, but the name on the certificate was Bennie Wright. I am thinking this was for Ben Webb, his grandfather, but was not the final name they settled on for the child. Paul died in June of 1973 in

Dalton, Whitfield County, Georgia.

Paul W. Wright

Searching for the other sons, I found Raymond and Daniel both died in Jackson County, Ohio.
Raymond had gone to school through the 10th grade. He had served in the Army Air Corps. He was a millwright. He died on June 10, 1998. Daniel V. attended school through the 8th grade. He was a farmer. He died at home in Wellston, Jackson County, Ohio.


Now I switched my search for Broas and Minnie to Ohio death certificates. Richard Broas Wright died at his home in Wellston, Jackson County, Ohio on January 30, 1963. Minnie ended up in a long term care facility in Gallia County, Ohio where she died on March 18th, 1977.

I am not sure why these Wrights moved to Jackson County, but other family may have drawn them there. There was another Minnie Wright in the area a few years older than this Minnie Webb Wright. She never married and died at age 75. There may be other family connections which I will find later in my work.


But now I know although Viola's parents and two brothers are buried in Ohio and one brother in Georgia, she sleeps with both sets of grandparents near her.


Viola was my second cousin once removed. She is also a grandchild of the Webbs, Crafts, and Adams family making her related to me through Granny, also.

5/26 7 pm update: Aunt Vera and Uncle Glenn came over. I told her about this article and she said the house that I used as a marker at the main road was where Broas (pronounced Brose) Wright and his wife Minnie lived. She didn't remember what all land he owned, but he had at least that part where the big house was and the land where the cemetery was. So all along I was looking at Broas and Minnie's home as my guide.

Otho Bentley, Jr. 1937 - 1969

Otho Bentley, Jr. was born on May 25, 1937, the 17th of Otho Bentley and 11th of Nancy Alice Hall Bentley's children.

His earliest pictures that I have found are part of the blog "Boys Will Be Boys" on April 22. This is another early shot of Otho:

Jimmy, Can, Otho and Anna Sue Bentley.

Otho Bentley, Tyrone Bentley, Junior Tomar, Billy R. Smith, Bobby Cook, Ray Murphy, Carl Swanger, Norwood Lemaster, Jim Ables, Jonny Wise, George Able, Lawrence Kool and Harold Browning after football practice 1954.













Taken about 1955: Row 1 Otho, Fred and Jerry Bentley Row 2 Jimmy, John Vent & Can.

Otho Bentley on the road in front of the house at Millstone.

Otho and his buddies on leave.

Alan, Otho and Jerry Bentley. Alan and Jerry are Aunt Anna Sue's twins.

1965 Wedding Anniversary

Others are concurring with me that these pictures must have been at Granny and Poppy's 50th wedding anniversary party. Their anniversary was April 1, 1965. That was a Wednesday, so I am guessing the party was probably the following weekend, about April 4th or 5th. My guess is that these pictures were taken by Otho Holcomb's family.



Left front, woman with hands on her hips: Alma Henrickson Bentley. On the other side of the table, standing holding the baby is Ralph Green holding his daughter, Sherry. Beside Ralph on the left, is his wife, Joy. Directly in front of Joy is their son, Mark. Again, on the other side of the table at the end on the right is Poppy (Otho Bentley), next to him going left is Willie Bentley, then Edna Bentley. Next to Edna is Greg Meade.

On the left in pink is Billie McKinney. In the middle, Alma Henrickson Bentley. On the right in the dark dress is Lake Bentley Pass. Next to Lake on the right is Poppy. The lady standing on the other side of the table in green is Joy Meade Greene.

The lady with her back to us on the far left is Alma Bentley talking to Lake Bentley Pass. Beside them facing us is Billie McKinney.

These are old pictures taken with some of the first color film. They have faded a lot. This gathering looks more formal than other gatherings I remember taking place.

The Kilgours

The oldest Kilgour I have researched is James Kilgour who was married to Isabelle Steele. He was born in Balbeggie, Fife, Scotland. They had at least two sons, James and William.

James used the spelling Kilgore. He was born in Donagheady, Down, Ireland. He married Margaret Low. They had at least one son, John Kilgore.

John Kilgore was also born in Donadheady, Ireland. He was married to Elpeth Howeson. They were married on July 9, 1713 in Fife, Scotland. John and Elpeth came to America. John died May 7, 1731 in Chester, Pennsylvania. They had at least two children: Robert & Jonathan.

Robert Kilgore was born in 1715 in Ireland. He married Margaret Spencer. He died in North Carolina. They had at least three children: Robert, Elizabeth and William.

Robert married Winifred "Milly Clayton. He fought in the Revolutionary War and was at the battle of King's Mountain. Robert died on December 31st, 1782 and died as a result of an Indian attack in Wise County, Virginia. Robert and Winny had at least five sons: Ralph, Robert "Robin", Hiram, Charles and William.

Ralph married Nancy Gray in Russell County, Virginia. They had at least three children: Ralph "Rafe", Sarah and John.

Rafe married Amelia "Milly" Wheatley. They had 10 children: Nancy Ann, Elizabeth, Sena, Nelson, Susannah, Esther Jane, Johnston, George, Mary "Polly", and Ira H.

Nancy Ann Kilgore married William "Billy" Addington. They had 14 children: Sarah, Mary, Amelia, Thomas, Margaret, Elizabeth, Josephine, Malinda, Harriet, Franklin, Millard, Eliza Jane, Laura and James.

Malinda Addington married John Martin Bentley. They were the parents of Otho Bentley.

Now remember back to John Kilgore who married Elpeth Howeson. They had at least two sons, my direct grandfather Robert and his brother, Jonathan Kilgore.

Jonathan married Elizabeth Jack. They had a son named Samuel Kilgore.

Samuel was born in Greenville, South Carolina. He married Elizabeth Scott. They moved to Mississippi. They had at least one son, James.

James moved from Mississippi to Hardin County, Texas. He married Elizabeth Sims. They had three daughters: Mary, Lydia and Francis.

Mary married William T Castle. They had two sons, George B. and Orville Frank.

George married a Georgia. They had 8 children: Rosa Lee, Carl, Qual Frank, James, Elizabeth, Sarah, Thomas and Charles.

Rosa Lee Castle married Lester Clarence Ryland. They moved from Texas to Arkansas. They had a daughter named, Betty Jo. They moved to Ohio.

Betty married Ivan R. Ely. They had a son named Eric.

Eric married Barbara Peters. They had a daughter named Erika Ely. She married Jason Douglas Mullins.

And that is how my son married his eighth cousin one time removed.

Thomas Bentley Runaway Slave

I told you in the blog about Thomas and Hannah Bentley that there had been an ad placed in Ben Franklin's Philadelphia newspaper about a runaway named Thomas Bentley. I am not saying that this is our Thomas. However, I did find another such listing for a different plantation so there were multiple Thomas Bentley's who shall we say, "left their former employment without notice". I did find the original wording on the ad that appeared in Virginia and I thought that you might enjoy reading it.


"Surry County, VA - Extracts from Records; William and Mar y College Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2", Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project
Surry County, Virginia Militia in 1687:

Thomas Bentley, Jr. is listed, serving under Col Phillip Ludwell, Virginia Colonial Militia, 1651-1776 For Horse Heading: Militia in Surry County in 1687

Thomas Bentley, Jr. is listed, serving under Col Phillip Lu dwell
The eldest son of Thomas and Hannah, Ludwell Lee, Philip Ludwell (1727-1775) was carefully prepared to be the heir to his father's rapidly growing empire.

Philip Ludwell (LEE) had recruited an English coachman, Thomas Bentley, to serve him for four years. Bentley evidently found the position disagreeable and absconded before his term expired. He was a valuable enough employee that his irritated master went to the expense of not only advertising for his capture, but also offering a reward.

The Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, 16 August 1770.
RUNAWAY SLAVE- THOMAS BENTLEY?
Posted by: W. BENTLEY
Date: July 29, 2001 at 09:10:12
Message #2123

VIRGINIA RUNAWAY:
RUNAWAY SLAVE ADVERTISEMENT FROM 18TH - CENTURY NEWSPAPER
VIRGINIA GAZETTE
(PURDIE & DIXON), WILLIAMSBURG
AUGUST 16, 1770

RUNAWAY FROM STRATFORD, IN WESTMORELAND, THE 26TH OF JULY, AN INDENTURED SERVANT NAMED THOMAS BENTLEY. HE IS AN ENGLISHMAN, ABOUT SIX FEET HIGH, WEARS HIS OWN HAIR, WHICH IS LIGHT BROWN, IS PALE FACED, HAS A IMPUDENT WAY OF TALKING , AND IS BY PROFESSION A COACHMAN. WHEN HE WENT AWAY HE HAD ON AN OSNABRUG COAT, JACKET, AND BREECHES, THE CUFFS OF THE COAT RED LINEN. HE CARRIED WITH HIM WHITE AND BROWN THREAD STOCKING, TWO PAIR SHOES, ONE ENGLISH, THE OTHER COUNTTR Y MADE, A SAILOR'S HAT BOUND WITH BLACK WORSTED FERRET, TWO SHIRTS, AND SUNDRY GOOD CLOTHES. WHOEVER APPREHENDS THE SAID SERVENT, AND CONVEYS HIM TO ME, SHALL HAVE 30 SHILLING S REWARD, IF TAKEN OUT OF THE COLONY 31 BESIDES WHAT THE LAW ALLOWS.

PHILLIP LUDWELL LEE

From the Bentley forum on Genealogy.com
Re: RUNAWAY SLAVE- THOMAS BENTLEY?
Posted by: Fran (ID *****4434)
Date: July 26, 2002 at 21:05:56
In Reply to: RUNAWAY SLAVE- THOMAS BENTLEY? by W. BENTLEY
Message #2888

I also am a descendant of Thomas and Hannah Bentley. But, what I have to say isn't about Bentleys.

The unfortunate Thomas Bentley may have run away because he was overdue for release. It seems Phillip Ludwell Lee made a practice of refusing to release indentured servants at the end of their term of service. My husband's ancestor Richard Mynatt signed a four year contract in 1749 in London (I have a copy of the contract) at the end of his contrac t in 1754 he had to go to court to get released from Phillip Ludwell Lee's service. Many of Lee's indentured servant s did not have the education to represent themselves in cou rt.

Stratford Hall (The Lee Estate) Website
www.stratfordhall.org
Fran