"Was there a Catholic in the Family?"

Grandpa Wicker's cousin, Helen Williams Bateman, commented to me several times that someone in the Williams family was a Catholic (pretty unusual in Southeast Missouri Bootheel) and she wanted me to look into it.  I finally found it.

My great grandmother was Macy Williams (Helen's aunt).  Macy's mother was Mary Ann Pullam.  Her mother was Ally Jane Vaughn.  Her mother was Nancy Dyer the daughter of William Dyer.

Some families have stories about someone being an Indian Princess or on the Mayflower, but my family has stories about someone being Catholic.  Well, I did finally find that there is a possibility through Nancy Dyer's step mother.  So, my 4 great grandmother's step mother was a Catholic and possibly she also converted Nancy, who was born in 1811, the same year her mother Gracie McG(K)ee Dyer died.

I found this story on Ancestry: William Dyer Family from "History of Union County, Kentucky" 1886.

"If any family in Union County deserves the reputation of being a Union County family, it must be the Dyer family.  the founder of the stock was one of the first settlers, and he raised a large family, all of whom, except one, married and raised families.   Most of these children lived and died in Union County, and there are now probably more members of the Dyer family within Union County than any other race.

This family was founded by Wm. Dyer, a blacksmith, who was born in Virginia in 1780.  He came to Union Country in 1804, and settled where Morganfield now stands.  He married Gracie/Grizzell McGee in Virginia, before coming here.  His first four (sic) children were by her.  Family lore says that the family of William Dyer and the family of John Mason came to Kentucky together, by way of flat boat to Henderson County, Kentucky.  However, it was 1804, that the families arrived at the mouth of the Lost Creek after their trip down the Ohio River and pushed themselves up on shore and selected their home sites.  Per the 1810 census, the dyers had a household of three sons and one daughter under 10 years of age and four adults.  It is believed that Gracie McGee died around 1811.

William Dyer served in the War of 1812, so must have left his family of children with a neighbor or kin while he was away.  He served for six months as a private in the 11th Regiment of the Kentucky Militia under Slaughters; part of the time he was hospitalized at Baton Moure, Louisiana.  In 1816, William Dyer married Anna Harris and had six children with her.  the new Mrs. Dyer was a Catholic and raised their children in this faith.

Wm. Dyer is said to have been one of the men who located the county seat of Morganfield.  Tradition as it that he in company with other commissioners, were reclining on the bank near the spring, slightly feeling the effects of fatigue and Jeremiah Riddle's whiskey, when Mr. Dyer threw his cane up the hill toward where the Court House now stands, and proclaimed oracularly, that there would be the county capital.  He was a man of impulse, but integrity.

An illustration of this is seen in an incident of his life, that is related as follows:  A neighbor of his, by the name of Gwinn, had a horse that was constantly breaking into Dyer's cornfield.  After sending word to Mr. Gwinn several times to keep the trespassing horse off his corn, Mr Dyer shot the offending animal and then sent the price of the horse down to Morganfield to its owner.  Mr. Dyer died in 1832.  All his children died rather young.  There seems to have been considerable consumption in the family.  His trade has staid (sic) in the family.  His sons, John and Nathan, were good regular blacksmiths, and Harvey and James did the work for their farms.  John Will, the son of John Dyer and John Nathan, is the only one now in the business."  Additionally, the Dyer family also passed on to their inlaws the trade of blacksmithing.  This trade was shared with Roland Cecil Sr.  as he married Mary Huldah Dyer.

Supposedly, when William Dyer died, he was buried on the family property.  However, in 1966 a Waller Young owned the property and said that he never saw a tombstone there in the 20 years that he had lived on the property.  He did recall plowing throw (sic) the land where the old Dyer blacksmith shop had once stood.

Thanks to familyhistorycrw on Ancestry.com for these stories.

Pullams

Branum Cemetery, Cotton Plant, MO

I don't know very much about Mary Ann Pullam (my g-g grandmother via Macy Williams, James Wesley Wicker, Louise Wicker Long, Me), but I know she had to have had a hard life.  Recently, I made a connection (through DNA test) with a descendant of her sister Abby (Absela) Pullam.  Here is what Teri had to say about her ancestor:

The story I got goes that Abby Pullum (daughter of a Pullum and Vaughn mother) and John Freels were married in Kentucky, moved to Texas. Abby brought 5 daughters back in a covered wagon to Missouri, bootheel area. Leaving her husband or he left her while in Texas. He showed up later, but, she was not receptive since she had to get herself moved. It would be interesting to find what you have on any of these family tales.

Mary A. wife of J.B. Williams
Branum Cemetery

That is a very similar story to Mary Ann---she married James B. Williams in 1865 while living in Webster, Kentucky (she was 14).  She had 5 children (Willie Ellen, Sam Patrick, Mahaly J, Oscar and Macy Alice) before moving to Missouri sometime between 1882-1884.  Someone once told me one of the older children remembered crossing the Missouri River in a boat with Macy (my great-grandmother) running around so much that she almost fell over-board.

Mary Ann and James B. Williams had 5 more children in Missouri (Lillie Belle, Joseph Daniel, Martin Luther, Fannie E., Mary A.) between 1884 and 1891 which is when Mary Ann Pullam Williams died (from childbirth?)

According to one of their grandchildren, Sammy Williams, "there was never anyone that talked well of the Williams that came from Kentucky."  After the death of Mary Ann (maybe even before), James B. Williams left town for Howell Co. Mo (later Oklahoma Territory), had another family leaving the children to be raised by his son Sam Patrick and his wife.

The children of Mary Ann Pullam and James B. Williams were a mixed bag of religious, upright citizens and those who bordered on or participated in criminal activity.  James B. was reportedly a horse thief, deserted his children (possibly had another family at the same time) and may have been in prison.  This leads me to think that Mary Ann was the religious, upright woman who had at least three preachers as grandchildren (one of her children was named "Martin Luther Williams") and two children who started a Methodist Church in Hornersville, Mo.  There were rumors that she had been Roman Catholic, but I can't imagine a Catholic naming a child "Martin Luther", although I think we can safely say she was religious.

Thanks to cousin Tom who provided the photographs.