Frances Emmaline Bartlett (1824-1912) and Some of Her Descendants

[This page is part of the Jesse Bartlett-Frances Callaway Web Site]

Frances Emmaline Bartlett
(1824-1912)
And Some of Her Descendants

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^{Above is her signature as it appeared on an 1875 affidavit

supporting brother Joseph's application for a pension

for service in the 1836 Texas Revolution.}

1. Frances Emmaline BARTLETT, fifth daughter and eighth child of Jesse BARTLETT and Frances CALLAWAY,¹ was born on 3 Jan 1824 in Knox County, Tennessee.^1a,2,3 She was an infant when the family moved from Tennessee to Illinois and was not quite eight years old when they arrived in Texas in late 1831.^3a She married John BELDIN on 23 Oct 1839 in Harris County, Texas.^4,5,5a,5b She married Col. Robert H. PORTER circa 1842.⁶ She married Dr. R. S. TATE on 23 Jul 1850 in Navarro County, Texas.^7,8 She died on 5 Jul 1912,⁹ at age 88, at the home of her nephew, J. M. Bartlett in Rice, Navarro County, Texas, with whom she lived in her later years, and was buried in an unmarked grave in J. M. and Mollie Bartlett's plot in the Rice cemetery.^10,11

John BELDIN was born circa 1812 in New York.^13,14 He died on 15 Sep 1841 in Houston, Harris County, Texas.¹⁵ He was buried in City Cemetery on West Dallas Avenue, Houston, Harris County, Texas.^16,17 Almost certainly he is the John Beldin, age 34, a native of New York, reported by the board of health as having died of congestive fever and having been interred sometime during 11-18 Sep 1841. He arrived in Texas on 25 Oct 1835 as a member of W. G. Cooke's company of "New Orleans Greys," was at the fall of Bexar in December 1835 and at the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836 in Amasa Turner's Company B, and lived in Houston after the Texas Revolution.^18,19 In the house-to-house fighting in San Antonio in the siege of Bexar in December 1835 he lost an eye to a musket ball.^19a He was sent to New Orleans for medical attention and a month later, on 20 Jan 1836, was given $40 in separation pay and mustered out of the Texas Army.^19b He nonetheless returned to Texas and was back in the Army in time to participate in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21.^19c He was issued a bounty certificate for 320 acres of land for serving in the army from 22 Oct 1835 to 16 Dec 1835, a donation certificate for 640 acres for participation in the Battle of San Jacinto, and a headright certificate for one-third of a league of land, and the Congress of the Republic of Texas granted him a league of land for having been permanently disabled while serving in the Texas army.^19d

There were no known children of Frances Emmaline BARTLETT and John BELDIN.

Frances Emmaline Bartlett and Col. Robert H. Porter
This picture is thought to be of
Frances Emmaline Bartlett
and her second husband, Col. Robert H. Porter,
and therefore probably made in the 1840's

Col. Robert H. PORTER was born in South Carolina.²⁰ He died in Dec 1849.^21,22 He was an early settler at the Falls of the Brazos in present Falls County, Texas. He signed as a witness an Indian treaty signed at Tehuacana Creek on 9 Oct 1844. Having received land on the Trinity River in what is now northeastern Navarro County for his service in the Texas Revolution, in 1848 he platted the town of Taos on it with the expectation that it would become an important shipping point. It also was known as Porter's Bluff and was one of the earliest settlements in the county. A ferry began operating, and the town grew to have a blacksmith shop, several stores, and a sawmill and to serve as a port for small steamboats, or packets, that operated on the river before the Civil War. Arrival of the railroad in the 1870's killed the river traffic. A post office operated there from 1900 to 1904 under the name Porter's Bluff. The community was a ghost town by 1930. He appears occasionally as Maj. Porter or Col. Porter, but the basis for his titles is not known. In the year he died (of cholera), 1849, he was taxed for ten surveys of land, twenty-five slaves, and a buggy, probably a large estate for that time^.23,24

^{Known children of Frances Emmaline BARTLETT and Col. Robert H. PORTER
were:

2. i. Frances PORTER was born circa 1842 in Texas.^25,26
3. ii. Louisa PORTER^27,28 was born circa 1845
in Texas.^29,30

4. iii. Abram PORTER^31,32 was born circa 1848
in Texas.^33,34
He died in Aug 1849.^35,36

Dr. R. S. TATE was born circa 1818 in Alabama.^37,38
His name appears as R. L. Tate in some records. It has been speculated that he had died by
20 May 1857, as that is when Emmie patented land in Navarro County in her own name, but if
he is the Dr. Tate in this article he was alive in 1861: "Last week we were shown, by
Dr. Tate, the horn of a snake killed in Trinity River bottom in 1851. It is 15� inches
long, very black, rather crooked, and covered to within about three inches of the point
with a succession of raised rings. The snake when killed was some twelve feet long. Did
anyone ever see a horned snake that could beat this?"^39,40

Known children of Frances Emmaline BARTLETT and Dr. R. S. TATE were:

5. i. Floy TATE⁴¹ was born circa 1851.⁴²
She married S. T. MALLOY on 19 Dec 1872 in Navarro County, Texas.⁴³}

Sources

1. Transcript, Bartlett's Heirs v. Mary A. Hubert, case M-2846, Texas Supreme Court Papers, Texas State Archives, p. 1 (naming Emeline Porter as a child and heir at law of Jesse Bartlett).
1a. Holy Bible (Philadelphia, Pa.: M. Carey & Son, 1817), p. 678 (giving her name as Fanna Emmaline and giving only the date). This bible was originally owned by Jesse Bartlett and Frances Callaway Bartlett and was in the possession of Ruby Lynn Shelton, Rice, Tex., in 1974. On the flyleaf, believed to be in Jesse's hand, is "Jesse Bartlett his Book."
2. Supposition as to place, based on family's residence.
3. 1850 U.S. Census, Navarro County, Texas, p. 198, dwelling 6, family 6 (indicating that she was born in Tennessee in 1824 or 1825).
3a. Joseph C. Bartlett, letter to Gen. Robertson, 9 May 1873, "J. C. Bartlett 1873-76" folder, box 2H118, Texas Veterans' Association Papers, A-Fn, Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin, Tex. (stating that he arrived in Texas in December 1831; presumably sister Frances and the rest of the family made the same trip).
4. Dorothy Ledbetter Murray and Nicholas Russell Murray, comps., Marriage Records: Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, compact disc CD5 (n.p.: Automated Archives, Inc., 1994) (erroneously stating that they were married in Harrison County, Tex.).
5. Bartlett-Callaway bible, above, p. 677 (spelling her name as Emeline and appearing to spell his name as Belolin) (giving only the date).
5a. Biography of John Belden, online, http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/Herzstein_Library/Veteran_Biographies/Browse_Biographies/biographies/default.asp?action=bio&id=2886.
5b. Harris County, Texas marriage records, online, http://www.maxpages.com/ourlostfamily2/Marriages_Part_One.
6. Supposition as to date, based on date of previous husband's death.
7. Liahona Research, Inc., Texas Marriages: Early to 1850, computer disk MTX50-3.001 (Bountiful, Utah: Precision Indexing, Inc., n.d.) (giving his name as R. S. Tate).
8. Navarro County, Texas Marriages, vol. 1, 1846-1888 (Corsicana, Tex.: The Navarro County Gen. Soc'y, 1987), p. 6 (citing Navarro County, Texas Marriage Records, vol. A, p. 32) (giving her name as Mrs. Francis E. Porter and his as R. S. Tate).
9. Corsicana Daily Sun, Corsicana, Tex., 6 Jul 1912, p. 1 ("Venerable Lady Dead"). The J. M. Bartlett bible states that she died on 6 Jul 1912; her obituary in the Corsicana Daily Sun says that she died on 5 Jul 1912; her death is not recorded in the Jesse Bartlett bible or the Nathan McFadin bible.
10. Ibid., 6 Jul 1912, p. 1.
11. Mattie Mae Ellis, Rice, Tex., interview by Roger Bartlett, 1975.
13. "Houston Morning Star Death Notices, 1841- ," World Wide Web site, http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1516/houbi41.html, citing to Houston Morning Star, 21 Sep 1841 (stating that he was age 34 at time of death and a "native of New York").
14. Sam Houston Dixon and Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Heroes of San Jacinto (Houston, Tex.: The Anson Jones Press, 1932), p. 110 (giving only the place).
15. Ibid., p. 110.
16. "Houston Morning Star Death Notices, 1841- ," above (stating only that he was buried in Houston).
17. Sam Houston Dixon & Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Heroes of San Jacinto, above, p. 110 (stating he was buried under the auspices of Holland Masonic Lodge No. 1).
18. "Houston Morning Star Death Notices, 1841- ," above.
19. Sam Houston Dixon & Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Heroes of San Jacinto, above, pp. 107, 110.
19a. Gary Brown, Volunteers in the Texas Revolution: The New Orleans Greys (Plano, Tex.: Republic of Texas Press, 1999), p. 115.
19b. Ibid. pp. 130, 277.
19c. Ibid. pp. 277, 292.
19d. Biography of John Belden, online, above.
20. Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., Mortality Schedule Texas 1850 (Bountiful, Utah: Accelerated Indexing Systems, Inc., 1979), p. 19.
21. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas: Historical-Statistical-Biographical, vol. 1-B, Navarro County, 1846-1860 (Ft. Worth, Tex.: Ft. Worth Gen. Soc'y, 1980), p. 573.
22. Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., Mortality Schedule Texas 1850, above, p. 19.
23. Christopher Long, "Porter's Bluff, Texas," in The New Handbook of Texas (Austin, Tex.: Tex. State Hist. Ass'n, 1996), vol. 5, p. 277.
24. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, pp. 572-73.
25. Ibid., p. 573.
26. 1850 U.S. Census, Navarro County, Texas, p. 198, dwelling 6, family 6 (indicating that she was born in Texas in 1841 or 1842).
27. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 573 (naming Robert H. Porter as her father).
28. Supposition as to mother's identity, based on believed marriage date.
29. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 573.
30. 1850 U.S. Census, Navarro County, Texas, p. 198, dwelling 6, family 6 (indicating that she was born in Texas in 1844 or 1845).
31. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 573.
32. Supposition as to mother's identity, based on believed marriage date.
33. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 573 (not giving the place).
34. Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., Mortality Schedule Texas 1850, above, p. 19.
35. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 573.
36. Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., Mortality Schedule Texas 1850, above, p. 19.
37. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 637.
38. 1850 U.S. Census, Navarro County, Texas, p. 198, dwelling 6, family 6 (indicating that he was born in Alabama in 1817 or 1818).
39. Nancy Timmons Samuels & Barbara Roach Knox, comps., Old Northwest Texas, vol. 1-B, above, p. 637 (speculating that he had died by 1857).
40. Navarro Express, Corsicana, Tex., 22 May 1861, p. 2, col. 3 (describing the snake).
41. Anvaline Provence, letter to Theretta Pickel, undated (copy obtained 26 May 1974 by Roger Bartlett from Ann McFadin Miller, Corpus Christi, Texas) (quoting 4 Dec 1907 letter from Emmeline Bartlett Tate to Anvaline Meredith Provence).
42. Supposition as to date, based on parents' marriage date.
43. Navarro County, Texas Marriages, vol. 1, 1846-1888, above, p. 30 (citing Navarro County, Texas Marriage Records, vol. II, p. 164).

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