JULIAN AND THEO VINCENT

The following bio was taken from page 420 of the book "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, Rusk County TX Coordinator

I, Theo, came to Rusk County with my parents, Miles A. Langston and Frankie Langston about 1919 just after World War I.

We came because my mother had a brother who lived here, and he had made some real good crops in farming. His name was George Brothers, and he settled in the Crystal Farms Community. My family consisted of my father and mother and two sisters just younger than I. We came from Wideman, Arkansas, Izard County, near White River. We farmed here two years, then got homesick for Arkansas and went back there. We landed at Newark, Arkansas, Independence County. The first year we made good farming, but the second year our crop was all washed away by a flood, as we lived near a creek in some low lands.

We moved back to Texas and began farming again. Here Julian Vincent and I went to school, Sunday school, and church together. When I was 18 and he was 21, we got married, and if we live until January 8, 1982, we will have been married fifty-four years.

We have three daughters living and one who died at two and one-half years of age.

My parents were Miles A. and Frances Langston. My grandfather and grandmother were James O. and Sara Brothers, who came from Missouri to Arkansas. My grandfather came from Tennessee to Missouri, then to Arkansas and Texas where he died. Grandmother Brothers died when my mother was very small, and Grandfather later married Vina Jane Langston. Vina Jane’s ancestors came from England. Her grandparents were Churchills who were related to the late Winston Churchill of England.

My Great-grandfather Miles L. Langston moved to Arkansas from North Carolina and settled in Izard County, on Piney Creek two and one –half miles northwest of the now Wideman Post Office. This land (170 acres) was purchased on May 1, 1860 from the U.S. Land Office in Batesville, Arkansas, at the cost of $1.25 per acre. The certificate of sale is signed by President James Buchanan and is now in possession of a first cousin at Summitt, Arkansas, and I also have a copy of that sale. It is believed that Great-grandfather Langston walked eighty miles round trip since he owned no means of transportation.

Soon after the Langstons settled, the Yankees invaded, and Miles joined Col. Thomas R. Freeman’s Cavalry Regiment, where he served from 1862-1865. He participated in General Sterling Price’s campaigns in Missouri and Arkansas.

In 1865, Miles’ regiment, then under General Jeff Thompson, surrendered at Jackson Port, Arkansas. When Miles died in 1902, Nancy, his wife, applied for and received a Confederate Veterans Pension. My sister here in Texas still has the sword of my great-grandfather.

Miles Langston’s parents were Calib and Martha (Ragsdale) Langston. Calib’s parents were John and Nancy Langston and John’s parents were Samuel Bennett and Mary (Smith) Langston.

Julian’s parents were John Robertson and Hettie (Free) Vincent. Vincent’s father, Jim Vincent, came from Louisiana. His mother’s family came from Alabama. Julian’s grandmother came from Tennessee.

Each year my husband and I attend the Vincent reunion here in Texas and the Langston reunion in Arkansas.

Our family had a quartet called "Vincent’s Quartet," composed of a first cousin of Julian’s, James Vincent, Marjorie, our oldest daughter, and Julian and me. We sang over the Henderson radio station for a while.

Submitted by Theo Langston Vincent