JOSEPH DEASON

The following bio was taken from page 174 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 Deason was born in South Carolina, June 8, 1784.  He married Jelico Cates, daughter of John and Hanah Cates, August 2, 1809.  Jelico was born June 2, 1795, in South Carolina.  They moved to Georgia in 1810.  Joseph served in the War of 1812 from Jasper County, Georgia.  By 1827, the Deasons were living in Pike County, Georgia, where Joseph died November 26, 1845.  He is buried in a family cemetery six miles west of Griffin, in Spalding County.  Jelico died August 2, 1809, in Rusk County, Texas.

 Children of Joseph and Jelico were:  William in 1810; Hilliard Judson (1812-1902); Elizabeth, born in 1814; John (1816-1830); Malinda (1819-1848); Melissa (1822-1890); Nancy Caroline (1825-1887); Joseph Collingsworth (1827-1883); and Jeremiah (1829-1863).  Of these, Hilliard and his wife Hanah Blackstock, Joseph Collingsworth and his wife Harriet Harper, Nancy Caroline and her husband Daniel Blackstock, Jeremiah and his wife Frances C. M. Johnson, along with their mother, Jelico, came to Rusk County about 1854.  John had preceded them in 1839 and settled in Tyler County, but joined them in Rusk County in 1856.

 John’s three sons by his first wife, Nancy Barclay, were John Jr., Walter, and Bob.  All three died in the War Between the States.

 By this second wife, Selena Bridges, there were three children, Jeremiah, who became a physician at Clayton, Parker County, Texas; Gellico Tabitha, who  married Ben N. Welch; William Franklin, who married Annie Belle Stanford and settled in Weatherford, Texas.

 John Deason and his third wife, Mrs. Mary Jane Howell Jones, daughter of James and Delilah Collier Howell of New Albany, Indiana, settled in Zion Hill Community where they were charter members of the Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church and where he was a farmer and stockman.  Mary Jane had first married James Jones in Washington County, Indiana.  Their son, Thomas Jefferson Jones was reared with her Deason children:  Timothy, Jesse and Emma.  Jesse Deason married Della Nelson, and Emma married Jeremiah Harrell.

 Timothy Deason, son of John and Mary Jane, was born June 29, 1856 in Tyler County, Texas.  He died in 1940 in Rusk County.  His parents brought him to Rusk County at six months of age.  He grew up here and married Margaret Jane, daughter of Robert W. and Mary Ann Nelson Welch.  Timothy became a country doctor at Brachfield where he practiced medicine for more than forty years.  Timothy and Margaret Jane were the parents of nine children who grew to maturity.  Their marriages were as follows:  Vada to W. A. Farley; Charles L. to Willie Osburn; Thomas Mansfield to Mary Selena Deason; Minnie Lee to B. F. Jones; Edwin Dewitt to Josie Deason; Giles Arthur to Cleo Dunklin; Franklin Bruce to Abbie Rushton; Andrew to Leila Belle Hays and Loyd S. to Sarah Taylor.

 Franklin Bruce Deason (1895-1978) was a farmer and trucker at  Brachfield.  He married Abbie Irene Rushton, daughter of C. M. and Mary Verna Hunt Rushton.  Abbie was a schoolteacher before her marriage.  They have two daughters who also became teachers:  Margaret Lelwyn, who married Paul McAlpin; and Mary Franklin, who married Douglas Grady Dunn, Sr.

 Submitted by Mary Frank Dunn