MOTLEY-HENDERSON           

 The following bio was taken from pages 322-323 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

Dr. James Wilson Motley was born in Autauga County, Alabama on September 3, 1837 and came to Rusk County in 1848 and settled in what was then the commercial center of East Texas, a thriving town called Millville, later renamed Motley in his honor.  It was the northern terminal of the International Stage Line and proud of its academy, called by Thomas Jefferson a “seminary of learning.” There were sawmills, planing mills, a tannery, a furniture factory, a shoe factory and four saloons.  The Masonic Lodge was among the first one hundred organized in Texas.

 Dr. James Motley married Ann E. Henderson, a cousin of James Pickney Henderson, the first governor of the State of Texas, and the person for whom the town of Henderson is named.  Ann’s father, Samuel, had been a major in the Alabama Militia in 1821 and, later, a sheriff of Lawrence County, Alabama, and in 1838 was elected to the Alabama Legislature.  Sometime after that, he came to Texas where he became a clergyman for the Church of Christ.  Samuel’s son-in-law, Dr. James W. Motley, graduated from Louisville College of Medicine in Kentucky in 1858 as did his son, John Gipson, and two brothers.  During the Civil War he was a private in Company F, Seventeenth Regiment, Texas Cavalry and served, according to his muster rolls, west of the Mississippi.  On February 15, 1876 he was elected Democratic State Senator representing the Third District, Rusk, Panola, and Shelby Counties.  Dr. J. W. and his wife moved to Overton where he lived the rest of his life.  He was a Methodist and an active member of the Masons.  When he died on June 4, 1887, he was buried under the auspices of the Overton Masonic Lodge, and is buried beside his wife in the Overton Cemetery.

 Dr. James W. and his wife, Ann, were the parents of nine children:  Sam, John Gipson, Walter, Maud, Bob A., Jim, Luke, Daisy and Gooch.  The eldest was named Sam for his grandfather.  The second son, John Gipson, became a doctor and began practice in 1889 in Overton, then came to Henderson in 1894 where he continued.  He had his office over the Mays and Harris mercantile store on the corner of East Main and Marshall streets on the square.  His daughter Elizabeth was Salah Craig’s first wife.

 Maud married W. H. Florey, and their daughter Kathleen was the mother of two long-time Henderson residents, Dorothy (Mrs. James) Barry and Joanne (Mrs. James) Mason.

 Robert Anderson Motley, another of James Wilson Motley’s sons, was the founder of the First State Bank of Overton, and a merchant and substantial royalty owner in the East Texas oilfield.  He married Ora Barksdale of Overton.  One of his daughters, Hortense, was the mother of Bob Motley Lloyd, a Henderson attorney-at-law, independent oil and gas operator, and Chairman of the Board of the People’s State Bank of Henderson, which opened on May 27, 1981.  Bob’s father, Sidney Lloyd, was born on the family farm five miles from Henderson but lived his married life in Overton.

 Daisy Motley Wood was the grandmother of long-time Henderson resident Deana Seldon Bolton, the director of the famed Kilgore Rangerettes.

 Written by Joan (Mrs. Bob) Lloyd