ROBERT SAMUEL POOL
The following bio was
taken from page 347 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and
edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.
Transcribed by Claudia
Schuster
Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries
of TX
This is the history of the family of Robert Samuel
Pool (1891-1969). He lived all of
his life except a stint of military service during World War I on the family
homestead where his older son, John Robert, now lives, east of Henderson on
Highway 79.
Robert Samuel was the son of a Methodist
preacher, Reverend Joe Pool (1844-1922), a Confederate veteran and native of
Georgia. Reverend Pool came to Rusk
County in 1866 with his father, John (1825-1908), also a Confederate veteran,
and married Angelina Prior (1851-1935) in 1869.
John Pool is buried in the New Prospect Cemetery in Rusk County.
Like her husband, Angelina was a native of
Cedartown, Georgia, having come to Texas as a child with her parents, Dr. Andrew
J. Prior and Sarah A Whatley, and a number of brothers and sisters.
Dr. Prior built one of the first brick houses in Rusk County.
One of the stories Angelina told her
grandchildren was of feeling the vibrations of the Civil War battle of
Mansfield, Louisiana, as a girl in Rusk County.
Angelina and Joe Pool had twelve children, of
whom Robert Samuel was next to the youngest.
After he married Elpsy Ann Williamson in 1923, his widowed mother lived
with him and his family until her death at the age of eighty-four. She had eighty-four descendants.
Robert Samuel’s wife was a descendant of
the Daniel Martin for whom Martin Lake and its source, Martin Creek, are named.
Martin had come to Texas in the 1830’s with his wife Ara Ayres, and
their children, including a daughter, Rachel, who married Joe Williamson.
Among their children was John Williamson (1865-1948), who married Alma
Major, a native of South Carolina. They
had eight children, including Elpsy (1897-1963).
Elpsy’s brother, Milzie Williamson, born in 1896, is still a Rusk
County resident, having lived on or near the land the family had occupied since
pre-Republic days until Martin Lake was built.
He now lives near Pine Hill.
Mr. Williamson vividly recalls his
grandmother Rachel’s pioneer tales, including one about an Indian attack on
the family homestead. During that
attack a child of a visiting family was saved from harm by being hidden in a
barrel used to save feathers.
Robert Samuel and Elpsy Pool had three
children: Jonell (1926-1968), John Robert, born in 1928, and Eli, born in 1930.
Joe and Angelina Pool and Robert Samuel and
Elpsy Pool are all buried in the Strong Cemetery in the Church Hill Community of
Rusk County.
After Elpsy’s death, Robert Samuel married
Julia Nelson. She still lives in
Henderson.
Jonell Pool married Carl Messec of Lufkin in
1946. After he retired from an Army
career in 1963, the family moved back to Henderson, where he still lives.
John Robert Pool married Marie Gill of
Henderson in 1954. They still live
on the old Pool family homesite outside Henderson.
Eli Pool married Lynda Young of Nacogdoches
in 1955. They live in Nacogdoches.
The grandchildren of Robert Samuel and Elpsy
Pool are: Melissa Embry (born in 1952) and Carla Rice (born in 1953), daughters
of Jonell Pool Messec; Robert Mark Pool (born in 1955) and Wendell Curtis Pool
(born in 1957), sons of John Robert Pool and Jane Ann Tucker (born in 1956) and
Lizabeth Yeager (born in 1957), daughters of Eli Pool.
The latest generation of Robert Samuel’s
descendants include Sylvia Embry (born in 1975), daughter of Melissa Embry, who
married Phillip Embry in 1974; John Curtis Pool (born in 1980) son of Wendell
Curtis Pool, who married Ann Hendrix in 1979; and Elizabeth Ann Pool (born in
1981), daughter of Robert Mark Pool who married Melanie Moore in 1979.
Submitted by Carl Messec