Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Between 1884 and 1888, John James of Alvarado, Texas, returned to the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory from his home in Wise County, Texas. He came to Stockbridge Academy, found today at Eagletown, Eagle County, Oklahoma, to fulfill his dream of being with the Choctaw, a dream he held to since his first encounter with them on his family’s migration from Illinois into Texas Territory when he was fifteen.
John’s first wife, Mary Elizabeth Rosaline “Ross” Bradley, died in 1879, leaving him with four children.
Two months later, John quickly remarried to Louisa Ellen Sutton. By 1884, Louisa had given John two more children. But soon, John would find himself at Stockbridge surrounded by many more than his own six children.
Stockbridge was founded by Cyrus Byington, who named the Choctaw school after his birthplace in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Byington migrated to Mississippi in 1821, where he became a missionary to the Choctaw. Finding the Choctaw had no written language, Byington set about to create a grammar, dictionary, and speller.
Byington followed the Choctaw in 1832 in their removal to Oklahoma. There, for another thirty-one years, Byington preached and taught among the Choctaw. Byington died in 1876.
John James was invited to Stockbridge by Judge James Hudson. John arrived sometime in 1884. At Stockbridge, John and Louisa would add two more children to their growing family. Among John’s students were the children and grandchildren of Judge James Hudson, some of whom found their way into John’s book My Experience with Indians, published in 1927 right before John died.
In 1888, John James acquired a portion of the estate of his former father-in-law Jackson Bunyan Bradley, who died the previous year. Bradley and his family came to Texas from Mississippi in 1851, accompanied by his brother-in-law Sam Myers. In Johnson County, Texas, Bradley built and operated a school at Mountainview, where John would live and teach next.
Though John James left Stockbridge for Mountainview, he also retained his love of the Choctaw. When he wrote My Experience with Indians he wrote of them in particular “that my children and grandchildren may know of them.”
Six years later in 1894, after leaving Stockbridge, John James received a letter from one of his former Choctaw students, Elliston E. Dyer.
Hon. J. James, Alvarado, Texas.
“My dear old time friend:
“I have just received a copy of the Cleburne Daily Times, and in it I find your picture, and note that the paper states that you spent several years among the Choctaw Indians, as a missionary…This of course calls to my mind the days of long ago, when you were at old Stock Bridge, trying to guide to the right direction, the destinies of a bunch of more or less ignorant boys and girls…Of the Choctaw tribe, I am one, and I have often thought since then, what a pity that men like you weren’t scattered all over this country…”
On December 29, of that same year of 1894, Louisa bore John a son, the last of the couple’s thirteen children. John and Louisa James named the child Elliston Dyer James.
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Stray Leaves Daily
Daily updates from the family of Frank & Jesse James with stories, photos, & two searchable genealog
SLAVE TRADERS AMONG OUR JAMES FAMILY . . . For a decade Stray Leaves has been researching this most distressing discovery. Finally, it’s time to bring this story to light. There’s much to report. The entire story will take time to tell. As we begin, we are also compelled to reconcile what this history means for us. More specifically for those who are now known to descend from these slave traders, whom it can be assumed never knew of this element of their ancestry, but also for the James family as a whole. The resolution will not come easy.
Forks of the Road Slave Market – Violence In Silence
ericjames.org
“Just at the Forks, where the Washington and Kingston, or Palatine roads converge, stood a low squatty frame building used during the winter monthsI ran a DNA test on all the James names I could find in these stories and didn't get 1 DNA match. My DNA is closer to Jesse than that James line is. I am looking into it being through Robert Thomason (step grandfather of Jesse Woodson James) and Julia Ann Singleton (Aunt to Jesse Woodson James).
I am a descendant of Betty G Woodson.
Waterproof, La in Tensas Parish to be more exact.
Tensas Parish. J. G. James and M. Kerrigan.
The King family. Descendants of Viking slayers. archive.org/stream/Kingswood/Kingswood%20reduced_djvu.txt
"In the middle of 1864, Captain Jason W. James was on scouting duty in the southern part of Madison Parish. About eight o'clock one morning he and his company arrived at the Plantation home of Hr. Joshua James on Roundaway Bayou, who also owned the Ione Plantation in Tensas Parish." You will have to read the rest. I am not posting it here. 😲 😲 😲 sites.rootsweb.com/~lamadiso/articles/ward/chap05.htm
And I do believe this James line is connected to Lucille Ball.
And speaking of slave traders. Nicholas Trammell is mixed in with the Carrigans somehow. www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/trammell-nicholas
And I am a descendant of Elizabeth Woodson Thomas. Wife of Captain Edmund King.
I am also showing DNA matches to the James grandparents of Jesse Woodson James and all 8 of his great grandparents. This is what I need help figuring out. All of my James DNA matches will be in the replies to this comment. In this screenshot they are all the white ones
The sons of Colonial Edmund King.
I am a descendant of Mary Joicy who was widow Woodson, mother of Elizabeth Woodson Thomas.
By the way I am not a Kerrigan by DNA. I am a Carrigan. Civil War name change. Descendant of William Michael Carrigan and Nancy Holt. Nancy Holt was the daughter of Michael Holt III and Rachel Rainey. youtu.be/IsK2eSTVW8A
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When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.Where does Lucille Ball fit?
FIND-A-GRAVE BLUNDERS LEAVE JAMES FAMILY HOWLING . . . Can you spot the errata in this Find a Grave post for the grandfather of Frank & Jesse James? The most glaring deception is the photograph!
History tells us the photograph was invented about the time John M. James was dying. Neither history, nor the administrator of this posting, Charlotte Raley McConaha, can tell us is how photographic technology made its way from France to the distant American frontier to take a photo of John M. James, months before his demise.
Another imprecise miscalculation in this post is the attribution of the middle name “Martin” to John M. James. The name never has been proved by evidence. To guess the name is unreliable and wrong.
A CANOPY NOW PROTECTS HISTORIC CHOCTAW ACADEMY . . . Preservation efforts continue outside Georgetown in Scott County, Kentucky, where four members of our James family attended this school for Indians between 1826 and 1836.
The four boys who were schooled here were the Choctaw and Chickasaw sons of Benjamin James “of the Choctaw” and his sister Susannah James. Benjamin and Susannah were children of the lawyer and Indian trader Benjamin James Sr. and his Choctaw spouse.
Robert McDonald “R.M.” Jones was the first to enroll in Choctaw Academy in 1826. He was followed in 1828 by Daugherty Winchester Colbert. The brothers Johnny and George James attended the Academy from 1831 to 1836.
Evidence has yet to establish if more of the James family’s Choctaw and Chickasaw descendants also were schooled at Choctaw Academy. It is likely that more were.
www.weku.org/off-the-beaten-path-with-sam-dick/2022-11-23/saving-choctaw-academy?
www.weku.org
Sam Dick visits a Scott County farm which is the historical site of a Native American school that educated Choctaw and Cherokee Indians in the 1850sYou can click on the names of some of the people in the cemetery and it will take you to a story about that person. Chiefs.
My grandmother was Katherine Elizabeth Meredith. The black outlaws that rode with the gang… I do believe they were black Choctaws. youtu.be/c9BASx3ZKKs
Kerrigan Rd.
My great grandfather was Michael William Kerrigan. His 2nd wife was Susan Trahern. She was Choctaw. While researching her, I came across this. Notice the names in the cemetery. A James family is buried there. sites.rootsweb.com/~okleflor/cemetery/trahern_station.htm
My Kerrigan ancestors lived on this land. rootsfromthebayou.blogspot.com/2014/08/lovelace-plantation-where-french.html?m=1
JAMES-YOUNGER GANG TO CLOSE . . . Sad news as Danny Urban, former President of the J-Y Gang, posted to Facebook that the organization is about to disband. Here’s the statement: "It is a sad year for us in the Gang. Since I originally posted this, we have lost members due to death. We are down to around 30, but the Board has decided to shut the Gang down at the end of the year. Donate all of our monies to Non-Profits around the country that are history related in the areas that the real Gang had robbed, etc. Two of our members will be taking over the website and they plan on keeping it going." The photo below is of yours truly in 2002 at the family reunion with some great-grandchildren of Jesse James. The 2017 logo is from the last meeting of the Gang that I helped to organize.