Wednesday, May 8, 2024
These headstones lie in Covington Cemetery in Hill County on the graves of Mary Ann and William Weatherred.
LEGACY COMES TO LIFE
EDITOR'S NOTE: The story of William Carroll Weatherred is told by his great-great-great-grandson Donald Marshall Brown. Marshall is a seventh-generation Texan, the president of the Lone Star Chapter of The Sons of the Republic of Texas, a member of the SRT Logo Committee and the district representative of the Lone Star District. Marshall was born and raised in Gatesville in Coryell County. He is active as a Cannoneer with the Lone Star Volunteers.
My name is William Carroll Weatherred. I was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, on Dec. 6, 1815, to Col. Francis Marcus Weatherred Jr. and Nancy Ann Dowell.
After Father discussed with empresario Sterling Clack Robertson the opportunity of land in Texas, he decided to move our family there. My mother and father, sisters Sarah and Mildred, brothers James, Benjamin and Francis Marion and I all became part of the Nashville colonists going to Texas.
We departed Castilian Springs, Tennessee, and went to Memphis and then down to Natchitoches, Louisiana, where we crossed the Sabine River into Texas. We settled in Old Nashville along the Brazos. After signing into Texas on Jan. 9, 1836, our family started to get used to the new land and planting crops.
But Mother and my sisters were scared, as there were Indians and rumors of Mexican soldiers advancing on the colonists in Texas. Mom convinced Father to take my sisters and Benjamin and James to Fort Jessup, Louisiana, to stay.
Father, Frank and I crossed back across the Sabine and met up with a new Texas Ranging Company that was being formed in Milam. We were under the command of Lt. Col. Griffin Bayne and Capt. William C. Wilson. In March, I served as a private in the company and later as an orderly sergeant in the company. We were told to go back up the Brazos and combat the Indians and protect the new settlers. During part of that time, we escorted part of the Runaway Scrape settlers trying to escape the Mexican Army.
In March 1836, we heard about the fall of the Alamo and that Gen. Sam Houston and the Republic were raising an army to fight the Mexicans. We were ordered to catch up with the army. All of us wanted to be a part of the Texas Army under Houston, so we floated down the Brazos until we got to the falls. There, our raft turned over, and four of the Rangers drowned.
We kept trying to reach the army, but ithad already started marching east.
On April 15, Father, Frank and I resigned from the Texas Rangers and joined the Columbia Company attached to the 2nd Regiment of the Texas Army, under the command of Capt. William Patton and later Capt. George Poe. We were wet, tired and hungry, and by the time we got to Harrisburg, we were told that it would be best if we stayed with the Baggage Wagons, Rear Guard and the sick that were left behind from the main army. After April 22, the day after the battle, we traveled to the battlefield to see all those dead bodies scattered about.
Later in the summer, I was a part of the company that went with Gen. Thomas Rusk to help bury Col. James Fannin’s men at Coleto Creek. They had been sadly massacred by the Mexican Army. On Aug. 28, I left the army and went back to Milam to my family.
In 1843, I married Mary Ann Lawhon in Sabine County. We had seven sons and four daughters. We moved to Hill County, where the Republic had given us land grants along the Brazos River. I received First-Class Headright, Bounty Land Grant and Donation Grants for my service to the Republic. My wife, Mary Ann, even received a Bounty Land Grant in the Republic as well. I lived and raised my family in Hill County until I died on Nov. 23, 1878. I am buried in the Covington Cemetery in Hill County alongside Mary Ann.
