JOHN FERGUSON

 The following bio was taken from page 199 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

 Present owners of Ferguson land may find it interesting to know something about the Headright owners. Joseph, Alston, John and Isaac Ferguson were sons of John Ferguson of Madison County, Illinois.  The sons, except for Isaac, moved to Missouri, then to Rusk County in 1834.  Isaac Ferguson and grandson, John Thompson Barnaby, visited Texas in 1837-38,then moved to Rusk County in 1842 with most of his family:  Thomas Uzzell, son-in-law; William T., son; and daughter Mary Lee and her three sons.  Isaac was a captain in Col. Hays’ brigade in 1847 during the Mexican War and died in Mexico City, 1848, at age seventy.  John Barnaby, born 1821, was the son of Mary Ferguson and Simeon Barnaby.  His mother married a second time, William Lee, and they had Alfred and William.  She was married a third time to Rev. Milton Henry Jones in1848, in Rusk County.  John Barnaby married Nancy Janette Hammonds in 1848, daughter of John Johnson Hammonds and Nancy Melinda Lindsey.  When Hammond’s father, John, died, his mother, Rachel Johnson Hammonds, married Joseph Hodges, and they had Newell Crane Hodges, who married Docia Lindsey, daughter of Isaac and Mary Rosetta (Taylor) Lindsey, who were also the parents of Nancy Melinda Hammonds.

Lindseys, Hodges and Hammonds came to Texas in 1833 and appear on the 1835 Texas census, Tenaha District of Shelby County.  Claiborn Lindsey and John J. Hammonds served in the Texas Revolution in Captain George English’s company.  After the war, they came to Rusk County where they bought part of the Luce Headright farm.  A Hodges’ descendant has an old receipt:  “$2.38 rec’d of Joseph Hodges.  Two dollars and thirty-eight cents in full of his state and county tax.  June 4, 1841 (signed, H. George).”  Joseph Hodges is said to have fought in the Revolutionary War, and he died April 17, 1846.

 The Barnaby, Lindsey, Hammonds, and Hodges families moved to Navarro County in 1849.  J. J. Hammonds died in 1867; Isaac Lindsey, 1852; J. T. Barnaby, 1883; N. C. Hodges, 1902 in Sterling County.

 Fergusons married into the Green, Helton, Hughes, Reed and Fenton families, all being headright owners.  Alston Ferguson served in the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War.  He moved to Sabine, then Palo Pinto Counties.  William T. Ferguson operated the first drug store in Ft. Worth at 3^rd and Commerce and was city treasurer for twenty years.  John Ferguson died in Rusk County about 1842.  Joseph died in Harrison County about 1842.

 Submitted by Mrs. Charles Brown