ANDREW HAMILTON

 The following bio was taken from page 225 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, Cemeteries of Texas

Andrew Hamilton is the grandfather of Emory Lloyd II, and Pamela Hamilton Lloyd was the mother of Emory Lloyd II.  Andrew was born in Union District, S.C. on March 2, 1794.  He was the oldest son of John Hamilton and Malvina Brown Hamilton (1774-1795), and the great-great grandson of George Hamilton II, Earl of Abercon of Ireland.  His great grandparents, William and Mary (Ritener) Hamilton, came to America from Tyrone County, Ireland in 1730 and settled in York, Pennsylvania.  William Hamilton had four sons:  Daniel, David, Samuel and John.  They served in the Pennsylvania Militia in the Revolution of 1776.   David was the grandfather of Andrew Hamilton.  Andrew Hamilton served as Captain of a company designated as Captain Andrew Hamilton’s Company of Infantry, South Carolina Volunteers, War of 1812.  The records show also that he served in Captain Thomas White’s Company, First Regiment, South Carolina Militia.

 Andrew Hamilton and General James Smith and their families moved to Lincoln County, Tennessee in 1825.  Andrew married Delilah Smith of Spartanburg, South Carolina.  She was the only daughter of Henry Smith and Rachel (Clark) Smith, and the only sister of General James Smith, in whose honor Smith County was named.  She was a first cousin of the first Provincial Governor of Texas, Henry Smith.

 In 1836, Andrew Hamilton, his wife and nine children and General James Smith’s family came to Texas to join Gen. Smith in Nacogdoches County where he had preceded them in 1835.  Later, they moved to Rusk County near Henderson, Texas, where he owned 1000 acres of land.

 When trouble broke out between Mexico and Texas, Gen. Smith returned to Alabama and Tennessee to recruit a company of volunteers to fight for the freedom of Texas.  Andrew remained at home to protect their families.  He and his wife lived to rear nine children to maturity and helped them get settled in their own homes in Rusk County.  Four sons served in the Confederate Army.  One son was a Presbyterian minister, one, a doctor of medicine.  All nine of his children were baptized and received into the church by the Rev. R. O. Watkins, affectionately known as “Uncle Dick.”  Andrew was elected and ordained a ruling Elder of the Henderson Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1845 and continued to discharge these duties until his death on February 18, 1859.  Both he and Delilah are buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery.  Several of his children and grandchildren are also buried at Pleasant Hill. 

Submitted by Joan Lloyd.