JAMES HILLORY DUNKLIN, SR.

 The following bio was taken from page 185 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited

And used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

 Joseph Dunklin (1734-1784) came from England to Charleston, South Carolina in 1755.  On board ship a romance began and soon after arrival he married Jean Wathin (1740-1785) from Wales.  During the Revolutionary War the couple supported the new country as patriots, furnishing food for the army.  He served as tax collector of St. Matthews Parish, South Carolina, and Jean risked her life to save valuable government papers.  They are buried in Old Dunklin Burying Ground near Four Hole Swamp above Charleston.  Soon after their deaths, the children – Joseph, John, Nancy Ann, Mary Elizabeth, William and James – moved to near Greenville, South Carolina to live.  James (1779-1827), married, first, Elizabeth Bolling (Pocahontas’s descendant).  They had five children:  John, Joseph, Abigail, Nancy, Lucinda.  By his second wife, Marjorie Law, he had William Turner, James Law and Caroline.  He and his wife, Ann Irby, had one son, Irby.

 During these earlier years James was a magistrate and a member of the State Legislature of South Carolina and lived in the old Red House of Laurens County, South Carolina, so called because it was the first red house in the state.  In 1819 he moved to Alabama with most of his children to what is now Greenville, Alabama, named for his old town of Greenville, South Carolina.  In Alabama he married his fourth wife, Catherine Gafford, and they had a son, Daniel Gafford.

 John Dunklin (1801-1879), James’ son by Elizabeth Bolling, married Rachel, daughter of John and Nancy Blackburn, and raised a family of seven in Perry County, Alabama.  The children were:  Joseph, Dock, Thomas, Norwood, Caroline, Lucinda, and James Hillory.

 James Hillory (1819-1910) married a beautiful redhead, Cynthia, daughter of Reuben Brabham of Dallas County, Alabama.  Their children were John Turner, who married Emiline Tubbs; George Thomas who married, first, Rene Lee Henderson, and second, Jennie Elizabeth Shelby.  Joseph never married.  Sarah Lavinia married Andrew Washburn; Rachel Elizabeth married Will Maddox; Mary Cynthia (Mollie) married Thomas Franklin Jimerson; Robert Neely married Elizabeth Roman; James Hillory, Jr. married Emma Roman; Marion Fletcher married Lula Roman; and Reuben Jefferson married Carrie Martin.

 In the fall of 1870 the family joined a wagon train for Texas and settled in Rusk County at Harmony Hill.   The married children soon settled in other parts of the county, and today many descendants of James Hillory and Cynthia remain in Rusk County and others parts of the state.  James Hillory and sons Joseph, Thomas, and John fought for the South in the Civil War.

 For more than seventy years Grandpa Dunklin was a faithful member of the Methodist Church.  He lived in Harmony Hill with his wife of forty-one years until her death in 1890 when he made his home with his sons near Henderson.  Both are buried in beautiful Harmony Hill Cemetery near their home of long ago, and each year on Memorial Day on their graves is flowers from distant relatives.

 Wherever you see or hear the name Dunklin (Dunclent in England), you will find another relative of Joseph Dunklin of South Carolina.  Many distinguished ones are in this line, including a governor and legislators.  Many stories could be told by descendants of this Rusk County Heritage.

 Submitted by Edna Mae Watson