B.W. RICHARDSON

The following bio was taken from page 361 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

Brooks Washington Richardson and his wife, Eliza Jane Bullard, moved to Rusk County at the end of 1851 from Henderson County, Tennessee. In 1853 he applied for three hundred twenty acres of land on the borders of Martin Creek under the preemption law of 1845 and fulfilled the requirements to own the land in 1856. He and his brother-in-law, James Madison (Matt) ---amness, perhaps the first merchants in that community, owned a general store in Harmony Hill. Brooks was primarily a farmer and in his lifetime owned several farms and other pieces of property in Rusk and Gregg Counties.

There were ten children born to this family: Andrew McDonald, Mattie, Susan, Emma, Amanda, John Lawrence, Sarah Dollie, Jennie Allie, and Maud. All of these children were born in Rusk County. There are many descendants living in Rusk County today as well as in other parts of Texas and other states.

Andrew McDonald, born in 1852, married Lucy Ellen Findley. They farmed and reared their children in Rusk County until the early 1900’s. Mattie married John Quincy Adams. Some of their descendants still live in Rusk County. Susan married James Vanlandingham. They moved to Oklahoma, and she died at an early age. John Lawrence married Fannie Hill. They moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he was a merchant. Emma married John Abe Smith. They lived part of the time in Rusk County and part of the time in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Sarah Dollie first married John Williamson and then Charlie H. Reagan. Three of her surviving children are living in Rusk County. Maud married George Wilson Bird and lived in Rusk County until her death at age ninety-four. Amanda died in her teen years; Jennie and Allie also died at a very young age.

Brooks and Eliza Jane moved to Gregg County in the 1800’s, and their farm was located in what is now the southern part of Longview. Eliza Jane died July 15, 1890 at the age of fifty-three and is buried in Harmony Hill Cemetery beside Amanda. After her death, Brooks married a widow, Mrs. Martha Jane Bridges. Brooks died July 10, 1904 at the age of seventy-six and is buried in Stewart Cemetery in Rusk County; Martha Jane passed away in 1911 and is buried beside Brooks. One of the grandsons, Claude Williamson, told me that Brooks’s body was carried from Longview to the church and cemetery in a black hearse pulled by black horses. As they were crossing the Sabine River on the Old Iron Bridge, the horses spooked when their hoofs struck the metal bridge and they almost pushed the hearse into the river, as there were no rails at the sides of the bridge.

Submitted by Ruth Embree