William Jett and Mary Ann Barrow Norman

              11/25/1831-12/28/1914                   1-3 1845-10-13- 1864

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William Jett Norman was the youngest son of James H. Norman and a brother to Cyrus Norman. He was born on November 25, 1831 in Knoxville Tennessee and later moved with his family to their farm in Bradley county, Tennessee. William became a schoolteacher by trade and ventured to Texas sometime in the 1850's.

 

It's told that in 1860 he married sixteen-year-old Mary Ann Barrow at Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. William would have been twenty-nine. I haven't been able to verify the location of this marriage. I do know that Mary was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin "the bearhunter" Barrow and Permelia Jane White.. 

 

Mary Ann’s father, Benjamin Franklin Barrow, was born April 24, 1807 in Opelousas, Louisiana, and died February 07, 1877 in Chambers Co., Texas of Small Pox. He was the son of Reuben Barrow and Mary Jane Johnson.  He married Permelia Jane White, daughter of James White and Sarah Cade.   His second marriage was to Mary Jane Middleton.  He was an official of Chambers county, Texas. He possessed a sizeable ranch holding many cattle and a man who still carries quite a legend in that county today.

 

Mary Ann’s mother, Permelia Jane White, was born Abt. 1820 in St. Martinsville, Louisiana, and died September 11, 1861 in Chambers Co., Texas.

 

William and Mary Barrow Norman settled in Chambers county, Texas. The county is situated in the southeast part of Texas, consists of flat coastal plains, is one-third water, and lies directly on the Gulf of Mexico. Galveston Bay surrounds the east side of the county. The marshy surroundings are ideal habitat for mosquitoes that spread disease in earlier years, killing many settlers. The Civil War and the hardships it brought during the 1860's, were an additional burden. During this time, William's wife Mary gave birth to a son, William Jett Norman, Jr. Infant "Willie" died September 9, 1864. Mary lived only a month longer, dying on October 13, 1864. Both were buried in her mother's parents family cemetery–the White cemetery. On her marker is inscribed, "Farewell my dearest Mary, my love, my bride, my all."

 

According to a Historical Marker on Highway I-10 in Chambers county, Mary's grandfather James Taylor White (1789 - 1852) migrated to that area from Louisiana in 1828. He developed one of the largest herds of longhorn cattle in Southeast Texas. On White's Ranch in June 1832, area colonists signed the Turtle Bayou Resolutions, written to protest the actions of Captain Juan Davis Bradburn, commander of the Mexican Troops at Anahuac. Four years later, White provided shelter and aid for settlers fleeing the advancing Mexican forces under Santa Anna, and supplied cattle for the Texas army.

 

Following the revolution, White began driving his cattle overland to markets in New Orleans, one of the first to make cattle drives. His cattle brand, the "crossed W," inherited from his father in 1806, is still used by members of the White family.

 

Texas had sided with the South during the Civil War; conscription was forced on many able men unwilling to volunteer and unable to escape north. Did William serve? His brother Cyrus in Tennessee, in a claim of his own loyalty, had stated that no family had served the South. So I have doubts that William was conscripted. There are various military enrollment records showing "William Norman's" name, but I haven't found conclusive evidence of anything.   After Mary's death, it appears that William Norman stayed in Chambers county no later than 1870.

 

He married Mary Josephine Stafford, who had previously been married to a man with the last name of Cawthon. William and Mary Josephine's first daughter, Nancy Caroline, was born June 23, 1872. William traveled to his childhood home in Bradley county, Tennessee in 1873 to get his mother Nancy [Wiley] who had lived there alone for a year after her son Cyrus moved to Cherokee Indian Territory [Oklahoma]. She died around 1875.

 

William's wife Mary Josephine had an asthma problem. To alleviate her condition, they moved several times trying to find a favorable climate in the state of Texas.

Their second daughter, Jettie Mae Norman (Mary Jett), was born September 23, 1875 at Troup in Smith county, Texas.  Their third daughter, Johnie Inez Norman, was born May 23, 1878 in Johnson county, Texas.

 

By this time, the family was seriously thinking of moving to Arkansas and trying the "hot springs" in hopes of finding some help for Mary Josephine's asthma. In the process of moving from their current residence in Callahan county, Texas, they traveled through what would later become Mineral Wells, located in Palo Pinto county. Upon finding the "healing waters" of that area, William Jett and Mary Josephine settled there to live the rest of their lives.

 

According to a letter written by a descendant of William Jett, they built the second house in the town, William wrote the City Charter for the new town of Mineral Wells and he served as the first mayor of that town.

 

William Jett Norman died on December 28, 1914 in Mineral Wells. His death certificate states that the already widowed William was buried in the adjoining Parker county. It was signed by informant and son-in-law H.C. McGowan of Baird (Callahan county).

 

A descendant of William Jett Norman once wrote of what she'd heard of her Norman lineage; that, when the Normans came to America, "they had many chests of silver and it took several slaves to take them off the boats, and that we were Huguenots."  Who knows but read her letter on my Home Page.