My parents natives of Madison Co., Missouri.  My paternal great grand parents were 1)  Andrew & Elizabeth (Brown) Bray, 2)  Dr. James Haden & Malvina (Burdett) Gosney.

 

1)  My father, William (Willis) J. Bray, Ph. D. (b 1884) said that his great aunt, Nancy (Bray) Littrell (widow of Lott Littrell), had "a grand daughter that married a black man and lived at the edge of Fredericktown with a large family.  Andrew Bray, Nancy's brother, in the 1870 census has an 18 year old black girl living with the family.  None of the Brays owned slaves.  I suspect this black girl is an illegitimate daughter of one of Nancy's sons. This is information some one may need.

 

 2)Dr. Gosney, s/o Benjamin Gosney & Elizabeth Richardson Haden, d/o Anthony Haden, III, grew up about 6 miles north of Danville, Virginia. My father inherited the doctor's library among other things.  My father said that Dr. Gosney "helped with the 1st survey of the state of Texas."  Handed down from the doctor are a surveying book, surveying ruler, and Mexican & Spanish coins daring from about 1780 to 1830.  This survey would have been in the 1820s.   I suspect his brother Dr. Richard Gosney was in Texas with him, as he in 1840 was in the south west corner of Arkansas, and in 1850 just west of Little Rock.