REVEREND MARION DONEGAN

 The following bio was taken from page 179 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 

Reverend Marion Donegan, born in Cass County, Georgia, August 16, 1821, died February 12, 1902, in Nacogdoches County, Texas.  He was the son of Hiram and Mary Rush Donegan of Habersham County, Georgia and the grandson of Abner Donegan and his wife, Delilah.  Mary Rush was the daughter of Jepthah and Sarah Rush.  Marion married on January 10, 1843, in Talladega County, Alabama, Nancy Varnam (Lewis), a widow with a little daughter, Mary Jane Lewis, who was born November 9, 1840.  Three other daughters were born in Alabama.  They came to Texas through Shelby County, arriving on Christmas Eve, 1848.  They camped one night in Nacogdoches, then proceeded to Rusk County, where a daughter, Artie Missie, was born two months later, February 15, 1849.  Seven of the couple’s eleven children were born in Rusk County.

 On the first day of June 1858, Marion Donegan agreed to convey to Augustus W. Rogers, in consideration of one hundred dollars, a certain small bay horse about five years old, a red yoke of oxen, and also a Jersey wagon and a common wagon.

 An indenture was made and dated the twentieth day of August 1860 between Marion Donegan of Rusk County and F. G. Phillips of the County of Cherokee, “in consideration of one hundreds dollars, a lot of land in the town of Sulphur Springs, Rusk County, distinguished in the plan of said town of Sulphur Springs as the Donegan Lot.  Beginning at the corner of Dr. Woolwines Apothecary Shop at the SE corner containing one acre more or less.  Signed Marion Donegan (Seal) D.B.M. 54.”

 In 1862 Marion Donegan enlisted in the Confederacy at Tyler, Texas.  He was licensed to preach in 1863 and was admitted to the East Texas Methodist Conference at Rusk in 1867.  He served twenty-one years in the ministry, being at Mt. Enterprise in 1876 at this time one of the best circuits in the conference.  He served Linn Flat Circuit, Nacogdoches County in 1888.  His last of several land purchases was there, adjoining the home of his daughter, Artie Missie Donegan (Carnes), whose second marriage was to J. E. Mitchell.  Marion and Nancy retired there.

 It was written in the “JOURNAL OF NANCY” “…who is one of the most saintly aged women in all the church.”

 James Walton Mitchell, the second son of James Ezekiel and Artie Missie Mitchell, married Jessie Birdwell.  Their son, Wilton Curtis Mitchell, married Gwenneth Marshall.  The latter have two daughters:  Patricia, who married Hugh S. Cameron and had Camee, Phillip, and Stuart; and Shelley, who married Reverend Robert R. Ross and they had two sons, David Wesley and Paul Kevin.  Other children of James and Artie Missie Mitchell are:  Pauline, who married Allen Youngblood; Opal, who married Leo Beaver; Chesley, who married Edna House; Emma Joe, who married Hill P. Myers; Ruby, who married Reverend W. V. Bane; Cecil War, who married, first, Margie Moody, and second, Mozelle Neally; and J. W. Jr., who married Margaret Yancy.

 The Mitchell and Birdwell families have held their reunions in Henderson for the last fifteen years.

 Submitted by Gwenneth Aenone Marshall Mitchell