| Biography | | Elizabeth Randall, 2011: Notes for Joel Alexander Houghton:
Sources for this Family:
*Much of the initial information about the family members was taken from family records probably compiled by Jean Halliburton. Her typed family files, along with a letter, were given to me by my husband’s grandmother, Mary Alice McBride, and by Edwin Dalrymple of Austin, TX. I wrote several key descendants from her address list but did not get any responses. Her letter was dated 1986 and the information included our oldest son who was born in 1984. I suspect that Jean concluded her research about that time. My next step is to either join the National Genealogical Society of which she was a member and/or order her records from the Latter Day Saints. (Jan.
2011)
*In January 2001, I also hired a genealogist, Linda Emry, who lives in Round Rock, Williamson Co., TX to do some courthouse research for me at Georgetown. Linda found, copied, and interpreted the divorce proceedings for Joel and Catherine Ogle Houghton (divorce was not granted), deed, and probate records. She also looked for death information about the couple.
*Excerpt from Dallas Morning News William Adair article dated Sunday, Dec. 2, 1928 where Joel's son Seberon told of his family: "My father, Joel A. Houghton, a native of Georgia, having been graduated from a law school in 18__ , decided to seek his fortune and, along with it, all kinds of adventure, in Texas. With a party made up of young Georgians and Kentuckians, he set out for the new State, then but five years old, and still the talk of the country. They traveled, as traveled everybody coming to Texas in those early days, some on horseback and some in covered wagons, the moving tents of the nomad from the remotest times. Having traversed the wilderness of Arkansas, they stopped for a few weeks at Marshall, then a flourishing town, and, to their surprise, resembling in essential details any good town in Georgia or Alabama, for the leading men were slave owners who had emigrated from the old cotton States and brought with them their chattels and moveables, their habits and customs. While at Marshall, they visited Jefferson, the emporium and wonder of the Southwest, then in its zenith, a city of 25,000 or 30,000 population, but appearing to have the explosive force of an ordinary city of 100,000. From Marshall the party made their way over the old Mexican Trail to Williamson county. At the time there were many more Comanche and Tonkawa Indians in the county than white men and negroes combined. In fact, the white man had as yet made next to no
impression on that region. The settlers up and down the country reveled in three styles of architecture, the log cabin, the Indian tepee and the Mexican adobe hut. A settler named Stroud, panting for still greater variety, employed Mexican teamsters to haul the lumber from Houston, with which he built the first frame house in the county. Father rented the house and occupied it for several years...Father was Judge of the District Court, and the district comprised several counties, of which he made the circuit two or three times a year. When he held court at Georgetown he considered it no more than common politeness to invite the lawyers, the witnesses, the members of the jury, the litigants and the hangers-on of the court home to dinner with him. For some time before the courthouse was built he held court under the shelter of a tree. From the time I was a small boy I personally knew every man in the county as well as many men living in the adjoining counties..."
(See Seberon Houghton's file for the full article)
*Excerpt from a Dallas Morning News William Adair article dated 28 June 1931 where his son Seberon again talked about his family and his adventures: "...My father, Judge Joel A. Houghton migrated from Augusta, Ga., to Texas, and settled at Georgetown in 1848, three years after Texas was annexed. He declared his intention of locating permanently by building the first frame house that was erected in Williamson County. The lumber for the house was toilsomely dragged on Mexican ox wagons all the way from Houston. The structure, a rambling two-story, after the colonial style of architecture, occupied the middle of an eight acre yard or park, and shed quite an aristoractic influence. Father and Sam Houston were close friends, and the members of General Houston's family were among our first visitors. Father was a District Judge when, instead of having ten or a dozen district courts in one county, there were half a dozen or more counties in one district. He held court in Llano, San Saba, Burnet, Coleman and Brown Counties. The counties beyond Coleman and Brown had not been organized. For some time after Coleman and Brown were organized he held court under the shade of the trees, while the grand jury, similarly sheltered, held forth just out of hearing of the court. The court, the Sheriff, clerk and the attorneys for both the prosecution and defense traveled horseback or on wagons from county seat to county seat, camping at night. They once came upon the dead body
of a white man, full of arrows. Father brought some of the arrows home with him and he gave me two of them. At that time the strong bars of the State were those of Austin, Georgetown and Tyler. Some of the big lawyers were Charles West, Buck Walton, Judge Shelly, Joseph Lee, A.W. Terrell, A. Dalrymple..."
(See Seberon Houghton's file for the full article)
*U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918 (Ancestry.com):
Joel A. Houghton, Georgetown, Texas, Tax Year: 1866; Monthly and Special Lists: Dec. 1865-Dec. 1866-Items listed: Carriage-$125.00; Income-$305.00; Total amount of tax-$17. 25
*The Texas Almanac for 1862: The Portal to Texas History (retrieved 22 Jan. 2011 at http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/metapth123768):
District Court-District Attorneys: District 17-J.A. Houghton-Salary pr. ann. $500
*The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 93, July 1989-April 1990 (retrieved Jan. 22, 2011 at http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101213):
“Table 2-Profile of Unsuccessful Candidates on June 25, 1866-District 17-Joel A. Houghton-State of Birth: GA; Slave Owner? Yes; Service during Confederacy: Dist. Atty.”-“Seven of the twenty victors on June 26, 1866, apparently benefited from continuing popular approval of secession and the war effort in that they successfully challenged Unionist judges appointed by A.J. Hamilton in 1865...Thomas P. Hughes (a member of the secession convention who had voted “no” but then enlisted in the Confederate army) defeated Joel A. Houghton in the Seventeenth...” (Note: See the above New York Times- 9 Sept. 1865 - article where it mentioned Gov. Hamilton’s judicial appointment of Joel A. Houghton)
*Proceedings of the Republican State Convention, Assembled Austin, August 12, 1868: (1868)
“Proceedings of the Republican State Convention-Hall of Representatives, Austin, August 12, 1868-The Republican State Convention was called to order at 8 o’clock, A.M.....The roll of districts was called, and the following list of delegates presented their credentials: Counties of Williamson and Burnet-Joel A. Houghton, J.M. Young, R.E. Talbot, J.W. Talbot, A.M. Cox, E.W. Talbot...Judge Houghton raised the question of order; whether the election of a temporary, and not a permanent President, would be in order... (Note: This is an interesting twenty page account of the meeting of the Republican Convention following the Civil War. This book led me to believe that Joel Houghton had not been in favor of Texas seceeding from the Union during the Civil War because this convention had a ‘pro-unionist’ Texas seceeding from the Union during the Civil War because this convention had a ‘pro-unionist’ slant. Statements from this convention such as this one illustrate my assumption: “Resolved. That in the opinion of this Convention the Rebe State Legislatures, (so-called), which were inaugurated after the pretended act of secession, had no binding or legal authority to make laws for the government of the people of this State, and therefore, that all pretended legislation during the late rebellion was null and void from the beginning.” The family story is that Joel Houghton and Sam Houston were once law partners. I have not found evidence of this yet. But I do believe that they knew each other through their profession and perhaps during Houston’s governorship. I recently read where Sam Houston resigned his governorship because he did not believe that Texas should secede from the Union. I wonder if perhaps he and Joel were politically aligned in this. Another researcher stated that he found where Joel had joined a Confederate militia group in 1861, but to date, I have not found a roster for this group. We do know that Joel was appointed by Unionist Texas Governor Andrew Hamilton to be a District Judge in 1865 and then was defeated in 1866 by a Confederate soldier.)
*Deed Records:
“Found in a family file-Glasscock Addition (sketch shows Block 15 and Block 16)
Wm. C. Dalrymple To Deed Joel A. Houghton
The State of Texas-Know all men by these Courts and Bill of presents that I, Wm. C. Dalrymple, for and in consideration of the sum of four hundred and fifty dollars to me in hand paid have sold and by these presents do grant and sell unto Joel A. Houghton certain lands and premises being Block No. fifteen (15) also seven eighths of Block No. Sixteen (16) including the north east, north west, and south west corners of said Block Sixteen (16) all being and lying in what is known as Glasscock Addition to Georgetown and situated in the eastern portion of said Town...For testimony where of I have here unto set my hand and seal (being a scroll) this the first day of January A.D. 1852 W.C. Dalrymple
*Research done by Linda Emry-Linda wrote from her research done in Georgetown, Williamson Co., TX: “These two pages give you an idea of how many deeds there are for all the Houghton’s in general, and Joel in particular. These are ONLY the deeds that I have entered so far in my personal database. It would take hours to check them all. I went to the courthouse, looked at the index through 1890 to catch all of the listings for Joel, then I spot checked those that had Joel and Catherine’s name. There was no genealogical info in any of the deeds. However, the last entry I found for Joel was in Vol. 27, page 336 and another on page 339. He was giving power of attorney to William Dalrymple (his daughter’s father-in-law) to sell lots 2 & 3 in Georgetown. Both entries are dated 13 Sep. 1881, and give Joel’s place of residence as Llano County. Since Joel was on the 1880 Williamson County census, we can narrow down the time period when he moved to Llano County (probably the town of Llano, since it is the county seat, and Joel is a lawyer).” (Note: I have the list of deeds that she mentioned for future research.)
Additional Notes about Joel Houghton:
1825-alternate birth date and place-probably in Green Co., GA (where his parents married on 21 Feb. 1822)
1861-Joel enlisted in the Williamson Co. Company, 27th TX Brigade Army of the C.S.A.
(information from another researcher-I did not find any evidence of this)
1871-Either Joel or Catherine filed for divorce in 1871 in Williamson Co., TX-Book 4, pp. 159, 288, 297 (most documents showed Joel as the plaintiff and Catherine as the defendant, but some refer to Joel as the defendant)-On 5 July 1872, the case was dismissed on the motion of J.A. Houghton (court documents in my family file)
Family Rememberences:
Joel Houghton was a law partner with General Sam Houston in Georgetown, TX. ( A family recollection of Mary Alice Wharton McBride. Her husband, Ralph Houghton McBride, was Joel's grandson.)-This statement also was included in some family obituaries.
Note: To date, I have not been able to find any information to prove that Joel practiced law with Sam Houston or evidence that Sam Houston ever lived in Georgetown, TX. I did find information which showed that some of Houston’s children lived there as adults and older children. Seberon Houghton also mentioned in one of his newspaper interviews that he had gone with a son-in-law of Sam Houston on a cattle drive. I feel that perhaps the families knew each other through their children. Joel probably knew Sam Houston through their profession and perhaps during Sam Houston's governorship. (Jan. 2011)
Death Information:
In some family records given to me, it was listed that both Joel and his wife Catherine died in 1882 in Williamson Co., TX. However, to date, I have not been able to find any formal confirmation of these dates. Linda Emry, the researcher in Georgetown, found evidence that Joel was actually living in Llano Co., TX in 1881 because he sold land he owned in Georgetown, TX and his place of residence was listed as Llano. Three of his daughters and a son lived there at this time with their families. In another family story, I read where Nettie and her sister Ben Anna went to live with their older sister Nancy Augusta Houghton Antony in Cameron, Milam Co., TX after their mother died. The writer said that Nettie went to live with her aunt when she was eight years old which would have been 1878. That couldn't have been right because Joel and Catherine were in Georgetown with the younger children in 1880. The 1882 death date for both Joel and Catherine might be right, but I believe that one or both of them died in Llano, TX and not Georgetown. I've continued to check cemetery records at Georgetown and Llano online but have not found Joel and/or Catherine Houghton listed anywhere. I know that when their son Eugene was killed by William Van in 1886, he was buried in Llano, TX. But I have not been able to find his grave either. In the letter written to Judge Lee of Austin about his nephew's demise, Eugene's parents were not listed so I suspect that they were dead by 1886. I truly feel that Eugene, Catherine, and Joel were probably buried somewhere in Llano in perhaps a family cemetery. Later, another son, Joel A. Houghton, Jr., was also interred in Llano according to a newspaper article. His grave could be with the others there. More research is needed, but I may not ever find out exactly when or where the parents died. (Jan. 2011)5 |