Every family has unsolved mysteries. I was fortunate enough, with my mother, to be able to solve one of our family’s longest and deepest mysteries. It is a convoluted story with many layers and twists. I will endeavor to tell it as simply as possible.
In 1836 when Arkansas was on the brink of statehood and there was intense debate over whether it should be a free state or a slave state, when land speculators were hard at work in Crawford County, two men, both fathers of large families, including a new baby for each, who were business and political rivals, shot each other. The two men, William Whitson Jr. and State Senator John Lasater, had already exchanged insulting letters to each other in the newspaper. One bone of contention was the site of the county court house, which was at the time in Whitson’s store. Lasater wanted it moved nearer to his property. Lasater had apparently just won a state senate seat and Whitson had just lost his legislative seat. Whitson beat Lasater to the punch in getting his land lots advertised and ready for sale first. They met on the way to the new session of county court in December, 1836, at Whitsontown on the Big Mulberry. Whitson struck Lasater, apparently with his gun butt. A struggle commenced and both men pulled their pistols and fired, each striking the other in the breast. Lasater was the better shot and William Whitson died within 20 minutes. Lasater survived his wounds and was acquitted of blame by a jury on the grounds of self defense.
The Whitson family felt an injustice had been done. William’s widow, Harriet Witherspoon Whitson, moved with her younger children to Wayne Co., TN, near one of her brothers. Her youngest child, James F. Whitson, is listed in census’ as born in TN in 1837, so he may actually have been born after his father was killed. Her oldest son, John Witherspoon Whitson, age 17 at the time, who already owned land in his own name, stayed in Crawford County. Two years later, on October 10, 1838, John Witherspoon Whitson walked up to John Lasater and shot him in cold blood to avenge his father’s killing. He was seen in Fayetteville and a murder warrant (perhaps the first issued in the new county of Franklin) was issued for his arrest and a bounty of $1000 was put on his head. He was presumed to be heading for his mother’s home in Tennessee, as indeed he was. The story handed down in my family for 166 years through five generations of women was that John W. Whitson told his family goodbye, told them he was changing his name to Johnson and going West and that they would never see him again. He sent one letter home at some time, which nearly caused him to be caught. After that he was never seen or heard of by his family again.(This recently proved not to be entirely true.) His sister, Martha Pettigrew Whitson, about nine years old at the time John left, never forgot her missing brother or her mother’s distress. She told the story to her daughter, Ella Jane Carroll, who told it to her daughter, Mae Stalder Dennis, who told it to her daughter, Lethene Dennis Parks, who told it to me, Cathy Parks Sato. We always wondered what became of John Witherspoon Whitson and the deep emotion of a mother thinking of her son out in the world, running for his life, cut off from his family forever, was a powerful part of the story and stayed with us.
My mother, Lethene Parks, got interested in genealogy as a young child and has been doing research on the family history most of her life. In 1997 she came across some DAR records that claimed descent from John Witherspoon, a Revolutionary patriot (not the signer of the Declaration of Independence), through Dr. John Witherspoon Whitson of California. My mother was astonished. She decided to first research the shootings more thoroughly so she went to Arkansas and looked up the newspaper articles of the time at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville library. Once she thoroughly understood what had happened she intended to pursue the lead in California. Time passed and other things claimed her attention. In 2004 I retired and began exploring genealogy research on the internet. My mother challenged me to find out about Dr. John Witherspoon Whitson in California.
Starting with the DAR records and the names given for JWW’s wife, oldest daughter, and youngest son, which were somewhat distinctive, I was able to use census records, on-line archives from the CA GenWeb, Rootsweb.com, Ancestry.com, and www.familysearch.com, as well as clues from family stories and records and oral history to, in the end, find out quite a bit about John Witherspoon Whitson’s life after he fled Tennessee and to enumerate and locate some of his descendants down to a great grandson living today.
The first part of the story is a little fuzzy. According to his living descendant JWW did not go West, he went East, and attended medical school in Maryland, where he married his wife, Sarah Jane Round(s). Since census records say that Sarah was born in Indiana and the couple’s first child, Flora [a Witherspoon name], was born in either Missouri or Texas, according to various census records, it is more likely that the Rounds family migrated to Indiana and maybe on to Missouri, where JWW met and married her. There were Rounds families in Worcester Co., MD, some of whom moved to Ripley and other counties in Indiana.
In any case, by 1850 the family is living in Brazoria Co., TX [as T. D. Johnson]. The next three children were born in Texas, the youngest in 1852. According to his descendant, somewhere around 1850 the family took a ship to Panama, crossed the Isthmus by mule train, and took a ship to San Francisco.
By the 1860 census the family is living in San Jose, CA. Dr. J. B. Johnson has a personal estate and real estate valued in total at $17,000, and has three servants, a workman, and a druggist named James Johnson, age 23, in his household, as well as a two-year old child named Edward McCutchan.
In 1870 Talifero Johnson, physician, is still living in San Jose with two additional children born in California, Robley Dunglison Johnson and Noama/Naomi. JWW’s son, John W. and his son-in-law, William Dickenson, married to daughter Luella, are listed as apothecaries. The household also includes a domestic servant. Daughter Flora is already on her second husband and is not in the household. Young Edward McCutchan is also not listed. Even though the census always lists her as “keeping house,” JWW’s descendant says that in fact Sarah acted as a pharmacist for her husband and other doctors. At the time anyone could call themselves a doctor and much money was made dispensing drugs. JWW often listed himself as M.D., meaning he had an actual medical degree. All signs point to him being a good and popular doctor, financially prosperous, and well respected in his California life. His daughter Flora married first the son of the first American governor of California, and second a prosperous farmer and landowner. His granddaughter married a lawyer. Two of his granddaughters eventually joined the DAR. Another daughter married a man who listed his occupation in the 1880 census as “capitalist.”
Flora Johnson [Whitson] married Armstead Burnett, the son of the first governor of California. At that time she became a Catholic and converted her entire family to Catholicism. Armstead Burnett and their baby died in an epidemic. Flora later married William Findley Hester and converted he and his family as well.
John Witherspoon Whitson, known in California as Talifero David Johnson [Dr. T. D. Johnson] died March 21, 1875, age 56, in a buggy accident while on a sick call. This was conveyed by his descendant and verified by the following news item:
"San Benito Advance" Hollister, San Benito Co., CA [Gilroy lies in both Santa Clara and San Benito Counties, near San Jose] 27 March 1875
Gilroy -- Dr. T.D. JOHNSON, an old resident of San Jose and brother to Dr. JOHNSON, of this city, was thrown out of his buggy last Saturday and killed. He leaves a wife & 6 children and a host of friends behind him.”
By 1880 the entire Johnson/Whitson family except Flora is living in the 6th Ward of San Francisco with William and Luella Dickenson. Lillie Johnson is 25 and single. Naoma Johnson is a 14 year old student, J. W. Johnson is a house and sign painter, R.D. Johnson is a medical student and the mysterious Edward (E.J.) McCutchan reappears as a lawyer, age 22, listed as “son.” The household also includes Flora’s daughter, Flora Hester, age 2, who was perhaps just visiting on census day. Flora and husband and four daughters are also living in the 6th Ward of San Francisco.
John Witherspoon Whitson’s son was also a doctor, Dr. Robley Dunglison Johnson. He was named after the famous Dr. Robley Dunglison who was the personal physician of Thomas Jefferson to whom Jefferson spoke his last words. Jefferson recruited Dr. Dunglison from England to found the medical school at the University of Virginia. Dr. Robley Johnson only lived to be 37 years old and lived his entire life and died under the alias Johnson.
John Witherspoon Whitson (alias Dr. T. D. Johnson)’s family is found in the census living in San Francisco and later Oakland through 1930. Apparently musical talent ran in the family, probably from the family of Flora’s second husband, William Hester. Flora’s daughter Effie was a singing teacher, her granddaughter, Clare Hester Harrington was a vocalist and musician who published songs, and one of Clare’s sons was a well known church musician.
The family used the name Johnson up through the 1900 census. Sarah Jane Rounds Johnson [Whitson] died in 1908. In the 1910 census most of the family, except Robley’s widow, Katharine, use the name Whitson. The family appears to have been very close-knit, even almost ingrown. I can’t decide if they knew the true story and their true name and kept it a secret among themselves for 70 years or if they did not know until it was revealed at the time of Sarah Jane’s death, as it would appear from the census and the DAR records. Both are equally horrific thoughts to me. John Witherspoon Whitson lived the majority of his life and died under a false identity. His son Robley lived his entire life and died under the name of Johnson, perhaps never knowing the truth. I am left wondering if they are buried under “Johnson” or “Whitson.”
John Witherspoon Whitson and his wife Sarah Jane kept their secret for 70 years.
The story was passed down almost word for word for 166 years in the families of John Witherspoon Whitson and his sister Martha Pettigrew Whitson, but with a very different perspective in each line. Martha Pettigrew Whitson was known as a very tender, warm, indulgent and greatly beloved mother and grandmother, as was the great grandmother for whom she was named, Martha Pettigrew, who had a number of namesakes. The “mother” feeling of having a family member lost out in the world was the focus of the family story and the ethic of the tender, indulgent mother was carried down through the generations in my family. The other part of the story revolved around the injustice the Whitsons felt was done by Lasater not being held accountable for the death of William Whitson because he was “more prominent in the community.”
The story as passed down in John Witherspoon Whitson’s line was the same, but with a more masculine focus. It centered on the injustice felt to have been done to the Whitson family and was described thus by his descendant, “killed in or near Little Rock, AR, by a group of land speculators/politicians. T. D. shot the principal culprit since there was no way to bring him to justice (frontier justice!).”
Interestingly enough, The Anti-Slavery Examiner took this tack when it reprinted one of the news articles about the shooting of John Lasater. Their theme was that the villainy of slave owners was demonstrated by the outrageous way they treated each other and the way more socially prominent individuals took advantage of less prominent and prosperous individuals and got away with it, thus inciting more violence. It cited as examples a number of incidents that occurred in Arkansas and Missouri in 1838, including an incident in the Arkansas Legislature in which the Speaker of the House stabbed to death another member during a disagreement, wiped the blood from his knife and returned to his chair as if nothing had happened. He was allowed to roam the streets and drink while “in custody” and when a jury acquitted him he led a noisy parade through the streets of the town. The shooting of Lasater was given as another example to support the headline THAT SLAVES MUST HABITUALLY SUFFER GREAT CRUELTIES, FOLLOWS INEVITABLY FROM THE BRUTAL OUTRAGES WHICH THEIR MASTERS INFLICT ON EACH OTHER:
“Slaveholders, exercising from childhood irresponsible power over human beings, and in the language of President Jefferson, "giving loose to the worst of passions" in the treatment of their slaves, become in a great measure unfitted for self control in their intercourse with each other. Tempers accustomed to riot with loose reins, spurn restraints, and passions inflamed by indulgence, take fire on the least friction.
We repeat it, the state of society in the slave states, the duels, and daily deadly affrays of slaveholders with each other--the fact that the most deliberate and cold-blooded murders are committed at noon day, in the presence of thousands, and the perpetrators eulogized by
the community as "honorable men," reveals such a prostration of law, as gives impunity to crime--a state of society, an omnipresent public sentiment reckless of human life, taking bloody vengeance on the spot for every imaginary affront, glorying in such assassinations as the only true honor and chivalry, successfully defying the civil arm, and laughing its impotency to scorn…..
This case [the stabbing by the Speaker of the House] is given to the reader at length, in order fully to show, that in a community where the law sanctions the commission of every species of outrage upon one class of citizens [slaves], it fosters passions which will paralyze its power to protect the other classes….
Another example is given:
The Little Rock Gazette of Oct. 24, says, "We are again called upon
to record the cold blooded murder of a valuable citizen. On the 10th
instant, Col. John Lasater, of Franklin Co., was murdered by John W.
Whitson, who deliberately shot him with a shot gun, loaded with a
handful of rifle balls, six of which entered his body. He lived twelve
hours after he was shot.
"Whitson is the son of William Whitson, who was unfortunately killed,
about a year since, in a encontre with Col. Lasater, (who was fully
exonerated from all blame by a jury,) and, in revenge of his father's
death, committed this bloody deed."“
Another aspect of the affair was that in 1836, at the time of William Whitson’s killing, he had the courthouse in his store, his daughter Amanda had just married the county sheriff, Jesse Miller, and William’s wife’s grandfather, Asa Shute, had been a well known land speculator with holdings in several counties in Tennessee. The following announcement appeared in local papers [From History of Crawford Co., Arkansas by Clara B. Eno, 1950, at www.heritagequestonline.com] :
"Sale of Lots In The Town of Whitsontown, Arkansas The lots in the town of Whitsontown will be offered for sale on the 15th day of July next, on the premises on a credit of six, twelve and eighteen months. Whitsontown is situated seven miles from the Arkansas River on the north side in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Big Mulberry--and is selected as the permanent county seat of the large, populous and fast increasing county of Crawford. Surrounded by large and fertile bodies of land--nearly in the center of one of the best counties of the West--with an abundance of good spring and stock water, it offers greater inducements than any county seat in the upper part of Arkansas. Its site is happily chosen and picturesque, being in a level plain, in full view of the mountains dividing the various tributaries of the Arkansas from those of the White River. In point of health no point in the West surpasses it. Strangers and others wishing to invest money in land will find it to their interest to purchase. The Western mail will shortly pass through this place. John Hale, Thomas Phillips, Wm. Scott, Commissioners”
It looks to me as if Whitson had a good thing going and had the inside track and that Lasater wanted a piece of the action.. The Whitsons owned a number of smaller pieces of land. Lasater owned two or three quite large pieces in a slightly different place. He probably wanted to move things in his direction.
As I reflected on all the many dimensions of this story I began to wonder what happened to the families of William Whitson and John Lasater. I found that it was not easy to locate the other children of William Whitson nor the children of John Lasater. When she was widowed Harriet Whitson took her younger children, including an infant (who was probably actually born after his father‘s death), a toddler, and eight year old Martha, with her to live near her family in Wayne Co., TN. The 1840 census shows that her household also included a teenage girl and a teenage boy. In the 1850 census Harriet and her two teenage sons, William G. Whitson, born in about 1834, and James F. Whitson, born in 1836 or 1837, were living with her daughter Martha and son-in-law Thomas Carroll in Hardin Co., TN. Harriet died the following year in 1851. No one seems to know where she is buried. It is supposed that William Whitson was buried near his store/courthouse, now known as the Beneaux Place. Part of the original building was still in existence when my mother visited there in 1998. I had not been able to find any information about Martha and John’s siblings other than Amanda Whitson, who married Jesse Miller.. Part of the story handed down from Martha was that Harriet had a hard time financially raising her children after the death of her husband. Records provided by Will Johnson indicate that the settling of the estates of both Whitson and Lasater dragged on for years and were quite convoluted.
Then Franklin Co., AR, historian Will Johnson pointed out that I had overlooked two very important clues right beneath my nose. John Witherspoon Whitson had a brother named James F. Whitson born in 1837. In the 1860 census, under his then alias of J. B. Johnson, M.D. in his household was a young druggist named James Johnson, age 23, born in 1837. Will chased down this James Johnson and found that he lived in Gilroy, Santa Clara Co., CA, just where Dr. T.D. Johnson (JWW) was killed visiting his brother, Dr. Johnson of Gilroy. Will found an article just published the week of April 3, 2005, in the local Gilroy paper, The Pinnacle, entitled “Johnson’s Drug Store: Pioneer Family Links with Local History.” The article details the entire history of the family. Georgia Martin, the daughter of a famous Oregon Trail Pioneer, Julius Martin, married Dr. James Franklin Johnson [who was surely really James F. Whitson] in 1869. They had one son together, Edward Franklin Johnson, born in 1870, and were divorced by around 1875. In the 1880 census Georgia Johnson and her son are living with her parents. The family goes on to run the well known Johnson’s Drug Store in Gilroy, CA, up until 1971. The building still stands today.
The story in my family line was always that no one in John Witherspoon Whitson’s family ever saw him again. That pain was the whole dynamic of the story that kept it alive for 166 years. I have no idea how John W. and James F., 18 years his junior, got together in California and we still don’t know what happened to their brother William G. Whitson, born in 1834, probably the only one of William Whitson Jr.‘s children born in Arkansas. We have searched for him to no avail. Did he too take up another name? Is there another Johnson family out there somewhere who really are Whitsons? I wondered if the Lasaters continued a blood feud and vowed to hunt down and exterminate all the Whitsons. My mother suggested that when their mother died in 1851 the two youngest Whitson sons were just starting out in life and had their way to make in the world and there were good opportunities in California. Sometimes it was whispered as part of our family story that John Witherspoon Whitson was a Freemason and other Masons may have helped him escape. Maybe they helped him keep an eye on his family from long distance. Will Johnson suggests that the one letter home that nearly caused him to be caught put him in contact with his brother. In joining him in California, James must have known that he too would have to be Johnson in order to protect his brother’s secret. I have to admit I am a little angry at those men who left their poor sister Martha to agonize over her brother’s fate all those years. The only thing I can think is that it was to protect her and themselves. She was a deeply religious and very honest woman. She probably could never bring herself to tell any kind of a lie. Lying was always a sin in our family. She probably could not have kept the secret had she known it.
Martha Pettigrew Whitson married Thomas Carroll of Hardin Co., TN. They later moved to Ralls Co., MO, where my great grandmother, Ella Jane Carroll was born. Thomas and Martha later moved to Farber, Audrain Co., MO. Thomas died in Farber and Martha died in Montgomery Co., MO. They had several children besides Martha (see below). Ella Jane Carroll married her friend Hattie Stalder’s brother, Hiram Stalder, a farmer of Swiss descent from Athens Co., OH. Thomas Carroll had a fraternal twin brother named John. John’s wife “Aunt Lizzie” ran a boarding house and supplied meals for railroad workers. Ella and Hattie worked together in Ella’s Aunt Lizzie’s boarding house helping prepare and serve meals. Ella Jane was a wonderful cook, an ability inherited by my mother.
Ella and Hiram Stalder took the first emigrant train West on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Ella wrote, “We were 11 days coming from Farber, MO, to Modesto, CA. The train ran slow. We came through Mexico [and] Arizona, there we saw our first Mexicans, Indians, and Chinamans. Yes, my first mountain was in Colorado." Ella and Hiram worked one harvest near Modesto, CA, and then took a train to San Francisco and a steamer to Seattle. They were offered town lots in Seattle, but Hiram was a farmer and took up land near the current town of Ryderwood in Cowlitz Co., in southwestern Washington. Their children, except the youngest two, were born there. In 1901 they moved to the northwestern part of Washington state, north of Spokane, near the Colville Indian Reservation. The farm that they bought raised cattle and sometimes wheat. Hiram Stalder had dairy cows and drove the cream wagon. Ella made home-made butter to sell and when the family needed cash money she cooked for the staff at the Indian boarding school at Ft. Spokane down on the Columbia River. They had 8 children, including a daughter named Martha Pettigrew Stalder, and my grandmother, Mae Stalder, who married Ed Dennis. Mae and Ed had two daughters, my mother, Lethene Dennis and her sister Janet Dennis. My father was Richard A. Parks of Wenatchee, WA, and I am the oldest of four children. My mother is widowed and has a total of 7 grandchildren.
Following this article see all the descendants of William Whitson Jr., including living descendants from his children John, Martha, and James and Will Johnson’s outline of the children of Amanda Whitson and Jesse Martin. See link below for the Johnson’s Drug Store article:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:b8GpArbU5_sJ:www.pinnaclenews.com/sb-editio
John Lasater had at least six children, the youngest said to have been born in 1836. His wife died in 1840, only two years after his murder. I was able to find one family of descendants of John Lasater, age 42 at the time of his death, who became cattle ranchers in Texas. Today his descendants raise all natural beef.
I found an archived message on an genealogy board that said that an Albert Hezekiah Lasater b. 1832 near Ft. Smith, AR, was orphaned around 1837 and raised by a half-sister and her husband. Different sources list the wife of John Lasater as either Sarah or Mary. Mary is said to have died in 1840 and to be buried next to John in the Fairview Cemetery in Van Buren, AR. According to Will Johnson he found in the court minutes that John Henry had been appointed as one of the administrators of the estate of John Lasater. John Henry married Sarah Adaline "Ada" Parks of Van Buren, Crawford Co., AR at the home of Col. John Lasater. The Lasater descendant I contacted says that Albert Hezekiah Lasater was raised by his half-sister and her husband, Adaline Parks and John Henry of Franklin Co., AR. Albert had a daughter named Ada. Different sources give different names for the wife of John Lasater, so he could have been married twice. However, then Ada's surname should have been Lasater, unless she was married before. She was only 14 years old (per census of 1850 she was 26 years old & Will has marriage record that she married John Henry in 1838). That would suggest that she was the child of John Lasater's wife Mary by a previous marriage.
Both John and Albert are often confused with cousins of the same name, but I have explored those individuals and am satisfied that they are not the same as the John & Albert Lasater discussed here. The message on the genealogy board says that in 1857 Albert Hezekiah Lasater married Sarah Jane Cunningham and moved to Texas. [John Lasater's father was Hezekiah Lasater Sr., given in several Lasater genealogies on the internet & confirmed by his name in the Franklin Co., AR Court Minutes regarding the estate of John Lasater, as transcribed by Will Johnson (wjhonson@aol.com), Franklin Co., AR Historian.
There is an Albert Hezekiah Lasater that I traced through the census. At age 18 he is in the 1850 census in Crawford Co., AR as a clerk, living with John Henry [b. 1808 Miss.], a merchant, and his wife Ada [b. 1824 NC]. In 1870 Albert & Sarah Lasater (both b. AR) are in the census in Goliad, TX, with 3 children, the oldest of whom is a son named Edward. They also had a daughter named Ada.
In the 1920 census there is an Edward C. Lasater with wife Mary and 3 children, including a son named Thomas, living in Brooks Co., TX. In the 1930 census Thomas Lasater is living in Bexar Co., TX.
If one puts "Albert Hezekiah Lasater" into Google, up comes a site for the Lasater Ranch, providers of all natural beef. The history of the family is given on the web site (http://lasatergrasslandsbeef.com), including the following:
Albert Hezekiah Lasater and his son Ed came to south Texas and purchased a cattle ranch in 1882. Ed's son Tom developed a new breed of cattle and moved towards raising beef naturally. In 1948 the family moved their operation to eastern Colorado, where it continues today under the leadership of Tom's son Dale. Dale’s brother Lawrence manages another Lasater Ranch in San Angelo, TX.
Several things strike me about the aftermath of the two shootings. Both families suffered emotionally and financially. Both Whitson’s and Lasater’s children had to struggle to overcome being suddenly left without their fathers. Their sons went on to become prosperous and successful men. Both families went in a “kinder, gentler” direction, with the living descendants today being a Catholic priest and a producer of naturally raised beef who keeps his ranch as a nature preserve. This descendant is also an adult covert to Catholicism.
In the end I simply feel as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. My great great grandmother, Martha Pettigrew Whitson, died in 1905, without ever knowing what happened to her brother. I felt as if I could report to her spirit that our family had at last found him and that he was able to marry and raise children and live a good life. I wonder if becoming a doctor and converting to Catholicism were in part ways to atone for his deed. When I told the story of the solution of our longstanding family mystery at a family gathering last summer, my cousin and I wept. The younger generation was left speechless.
Several things strike me now that I have found the descendants of William Whitson and John Lasater. People often quote what is supposedly a piece of Native American wisdom; think about the consequences of your actions down to the 7th generation. The rivalry that got out of hand between Whitson and Lasater has reverberated through 5 generations and 166 years and their descendants have been profoundly affected by it, even if they don’t know it.
The Whitson sons may not have lost their lives, but they basically lost their name.
James F.’s descendants are Johnsons forever. It is ironic that the child who never knew his father, also hardly knew his son, due to early divorce, that son died while his sons were teenagers. In the next generation one son appears not to have had children and the descendant I made contact with said that the other son hardly knew his son, again due to early divorce. The man who gave his fake name to a dynasty was only a part of the family for about 5 years. The family is most known for their descent through James’ wife from the well known Oregon Trail pioneer, Julius Martin.
John Witherspoon Whitson’s family reclaimed the family name in 1910 but that line had mostly daughters and the only male descendant of the surname Whitson that I could find is a Catholic priest. Unless we find direct line male descendants of JWW’s son John W. Johnson /Whitson or of JWW’s other brother, William G. Whitson, my informant really is “the last of the Mohicans.”
Martha Pettigrew Whitson took her mother’s anguish at losing her oldest son into herself and passed it down through the women in the family. Our greatest fear, as with all mothers, is to lose our child, which has led some of us to be overprotective.
The Lasater family descendant said that his grandfather never liked to talk about the family history. He worked extremely hard to build up his ranch and live in the present.
The strongest feeling that comes to me from this story is the power of reconciliation and redemption. William Whitson and John Lasater were men of their time, probably no worse or no better than most others. By letting their tempers get out of control, they did a terrible thing to each other and to their families.
However, the striking thing about their descendants is what they did to make the world around them better.
Lasater’s descendant served in the Peace Corps, helped farmers in underdeveloped countries, and maintains his ranch as a nature sanctuary. His forbearers developed a strong breed of beef cattle to uplift an industry and maintain the economic health of their area.
Dr. James F. Johnson was known as a civic minded individual who stood up for his fellow man if they were in trouble. John Witherpsoon Whitson was said never to turn down a patient and would go out on sick calls to anyone who needed him. Martha was a kind and caring mother and a patient wife to a husband who drank too much. One story told of her is that when her husband’s twin brother was widowed by the death of his first wife in childbirth he did not know how to take care of the baby. Martha came to visit, still nursing her son Sam, 9 months old. When she saw the condition of her little nephew, she weaned her own child and literally nursed the little baby back to health. Sadly this child died a while later, but this act was never forgotten in the family and epitomized Martha’s approach to life.
Some genealogists claim that their ancestors want to be found and send them clues, a rather fanciful idea, I thought. However, one thing kept leading to another with this story, so fast that I could hardly keep up. The story took on a life of its own and insisted on being told. My dream is a reunion at the old Whitsontown site of the descendants of Whitson and Lasater. I want to hug my Whitson cousins and shake a Lasater’s hand. I want to put this old story to rest and let it be.
Copyright 2005 Cathleen M. Sato
Anyone with questions, corrections or further information please e-mail me at csato@columbus.rr.com. See below for the some of the ancestors and descendants of William Whitson and John Lasater.
Sources:
Research & Records of Lethene Dennis Parks (lethene@comcast.net)
Will Johnson (wjhonson@aol.com) Franklin Co., AR Historian
www.rootsweb.com World Connect
U.S. Census Records
Social Security Death Index
CA GenWeb
California Death Index
DAR Records on Ancetry.com - Miss Ruth Johnson Whitson DAR ID No. 71701
Mrs. Perle M. Hester Harrington DAR ID No. 68743
"San Benito Advance" Hollister, San Benito Co., CA, 27 Mar 1875
Crawford and Franklin Co., AR GenWebs
TN and NC GenWebs
“Joseph Whitson” www.westberry-moses.com/main/assofamily/whitson02.htm
“William Whitson-John Lasater Murder, 1836-1838 Pioneer Branches, Colville, WA, by Lethene Dennis Parks
WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/AMERICANPRESIDENCY/LASTWORDS.HTM
www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/surgery/overview.cfm
San Francisco Call Newspaper Vital Records for 1869-1897
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/SCOTTISH-WHITSON/1996-12/0850079612
Whitson Family Newsletter [cgerdau@tusc.net ]
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Anti-Slavery-Examiner-Part-3-of-411.html
Arkansas Newspaper Collection, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville library
Arkansas Advocate of 16 December 1836; Arkansas Times and Advocate 12 Nov. 1838
From History of Crawford Co., Arkansas by Clara B. Eno, 1950, pp. 446-447 at www.heritagequestonline.com
http://www.geocities.com/janet_ariciu/JohnScivally.html
“TENNESSEE LAND GRANTS” VOL II Surnames L-Z and cross index by Barbara, Byron
and Samuel Sistler, Nashville, TN 1998
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:b8GpArbU5_sJ:www.pinnaclenews.com/sb-editio
The Sunday Pinnacle Internet Edition, Week of April 3, 2005 “Johnson’s Drug Store:
Pioneer Family Links with Local History” by Elizabeth Barratt
Kirk Collection: Popular Song Index (Professional/Artist Song Sheets) Part 6: 1940-1941 [http://library.indstate.edu/level1.dir/cml/rbsc/kirk/ps1940.html]
http://library.indstate.edu/level1.dir/cml/rbsc/kirk/ps1940.html “General Health Care in California in the 1890s”
Research & Records of Lethene Dennis Parks (lethene@comcast.net)
Joseph Bailey Witherspoon Notes at http://witherspoon3.tripod.com/JBW/
http://www.birdsongfamily.com/genealogy/set5_bell/pettigrew_history.html
http://genforum.genealogy.com/witherspoon/messages.981.html
http://genforum.genealogy.com/witherspoon/messages.29.html
samantha_jacobs_@hotmail.com at www.rootsweb.com World Connect
http://www.familysearch.org
Madison Co., TN Deed Book 2 www.tngenweb.org/records/madison/smith/deed01-3.htm
(heirs of Asa Shute)
Tennessee State Library & Archives, Acts of Tennessee 1796-1830
S (Part 2)
korves@astro.as.ntexas.edu at www.rootsweb.com World Connect,
cites Witherspoon Family History, info. from Mary Agnes Steward,
La Jolla, CA
http://members.tripod.com/leomcdowell/id38.htm
http://www.familysearch.org
Marriage Records 1789-1951 Davidson Co., TN county clerk
http://www.westberry-moses.com/main/assofamily/whitson02.htm
U.S. Census
http://genforum.genealogy.com/witherspoon/messages.352.html
choctawlady2@yahoo.com at www.rootsweb.com World Connect
wjhonson@aol.com Sources: International Genealogical Index; Arkanasas
Marriage Notices 1819-1845 by James Logan Morgan, pub. by Arkansas
Research, Conway, AR, 1984, reprinted 1992; The Settlers of Lovely
County and Miller County, Arkansas Territory 1820-1830 by Melinda
Blanchard Crawford & Don L. Crawford, pub. by Picton Press,
Rockport, ME
(see http://www.brianjacobs.org/genealogy/ for an extensive genealogy of the Lasater family):
1) William Lasater Sr.
2) William L. Lasater [1705-1784] & Keziah Walton [1715-1799], daughter of
Nathaniel & Mary Ann Walton
3) Hezekiah Lasater Sr. [1760-1842] - Edgecombe Co., NC to Chatham Co., NC to
Franklin Co., TN
4) Col./State Senator John L. Lasater [c.1796-10 Oct. 1838] & Mary ? - Franklin Co.,
NC to Crawford (later Franklin) Co., AR
* John Lasater Jr. ?
* Albert Hezekiah Lasater b. 1832 AR [1850 census Crawford Co., AR] [clerk]
5) Albert Hezekiah Lasater [1832-?] Crawford Co., AR to Goliad Co., TX [merchant]
m. Sarah Jane Cunningham in 1857
[1870 census]
*Edward b. 1860 TX
*Thomas b. 1862 TX
*Lois b. 1869 TX
6) Edward Cunningham Lasater [1860 -1930] Brooks Co., TX & 1) Martha Noble
Bennett m. 1892 2 sons 2) Mary Gardner Miller m. 1902
[1920 census] [stock raiser]
*Garland M. b. 1907 TX d. 1997
*Lois b. 1909 TX d. 1989 m. John F. Mayer, Houston industrialist
*Thomas b. 1911 TX
For a biography of Edward, see The Handbook of Texas Online at: www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/
7) Thomas Lasater [b. 1911-2001] San Antonio, Bexar Co., TX [1930 census]
*Dale
*Lawrence
8) Dale Lasater - Colorado For a biography see: http://lasatergrasslandsbeef.com/Biographies.html - additional information on people in this line can be found by a thorough exploration of this web site-click “Articles About Us” * two sons
Additional Lasater Information:
Census Records
1800 Hezekiah Lasater Hillsborough, Chatham Co., NC [M32_31 Roll 164 p. 172]
1810 Ezekiel Lasater Gates Co., NC [M252_40 p. 844]
1820 Lassiter, Hezekiah Jr., Hezekiah Sr., Abner, William, John Franklin Co., TN [M33_123 p. 31]
John Lassiter household: 1 male and one female, both age 16-26
1830 Hezekiah Sr. & John Laseter Franklin Co., TN
Hezekiah Laseter Sr. household: 1 male age 60-70
John Laseter household: 1 male <5, 2 males & 2 females ages 5-10, 1 male & 1 female age 30-40
1840 Mary Lasater Mulberry, Franklin Co., AR Roll 17 p. 126
1 male age 5-10, 1 male age 10-15, 2 males age 15-20, 1 female age 40-50
Sources:
Pwilson3@nc.rr.com at www.rootsweb.com World Connect
Wjhonson@aol.com Franklin Co., AR Historian at www.rootsweb.com World Connect
CalfCreekRanch@aol.com at www.rootsweb.com World Connect
http://genforum.genealogy.com/lasater/messages/409.htm
Shannonautwell@aol.com at www.rootsweb.com World Connect
Arkansas Newspaper Collection, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville library
U. S. Census-1840, 1850, 1870, 1920, 1930
Social Security Death Index