Samuel Alonzo January (John Irwin) was born 1799 in Woodford Co., KY, and died after 1860 in Burnet County, TX. He married Pamela January January 15, 1814 in Mason, Co. KY, daughter of Samuel January and Elizabeth Marshall. She was born 1797 in Maysville, Mason Co. KY, and died in Burnet Co. TX. The date of this marriage indicates Samuel was 15 years old when he married his 17 year old first cousin. However, this in itself is not that unusual for the day and time.
Samuel was Justice of the Peace in Harrison Co. TX (changed to Panola Co.) I also read that a record had been found showing he served in the War of 1812. I have not found that record and I've looked. If he had, he would have served when he was 13 years old. Again, that was not that unusual for that day and time as many young boys did serve when only in their early teens.
Another place I had read from another researcher was that this couple lived with their family in Pike Co. IL until 1828 and then moved to Texas in 1841. That was not the case. They did not leave Pike County until later in the 1840's. The last land record I could find for a Samuel A. January in Illinois was dated 1847. This was purchase of land in Jo Daviess County, Illinois. I don't believe this is the same Samuel as records for that time period indicate they were living in Texas.
Children of Samuel January and Pamelia January born in Pike county, Illinois are:
Charles L. January, born 1820
Elizabeth J. January, born 1836
George January, born 1825 died 1864.
Samuel P. January, born 1825
Amanda Elizabeth January, born April 1838 died 1912 in Leakey, Tx.
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PAMELIA JANUARY, second child of Samuel and Elizabeth Marshall January, was born January 15, 1797 in Maysville, Mason County, Kentucky. She married J. P. SAMUEL ALONZO JANUARY January 15, 1814 in Mason County, Kentucky. Samuel Alonzo January, son of John Irvin January, married his first cousin, Pamelia, daughter of Samuel January, when he was 15 and she was 17. They were married on January 15, 1814. There is some evidence that Samuel was in the War of 1812, but at this time he would have only been 13 years old. Stranger things have happened. What we know for sure is that shortly after their marriage they left Maysville, Kentucky and moved to Pike Co., Illinois. His children were born there from the years 1820-1838. They are listed in the 1830 Pike Co. census. There are deeds for numerous lots for Samuel and Pamelia across the river in downtown Louisiana, Missouri.
Evidently, they came to this part of the country with his father and his family. They bought 40 acres of land in Pike Co., Illinois on May 3, 1836. Samuel and Pamela stayed in Pike Co. until John's Estate was finally settled in 1838, then they left for Texas, settling in Harrison Co.(now Panola Co.). The 1850 census in Panola Co. lists his children as having been born in Florida, but this is incorrect. This census also shows a child, E. K. Booker living with them. She was born in Texas in 1847. Samuel is listed as a farmer. Judges of the Republic of Texas - 1836/1846 by Joe E. Ericson, states that from 1843 to 1846 Samuel was a Justice of the Peace in Harrison, Co., Texas. Since records for 1840 for Harrison Co. have been destroyed, not too much is known about these daring souls, leaving a comfortable home in Kentucky and traveling west when it was dangerous territory. Deeds are on record in Maysville, Mason Co., Kentucky, where they sold property on December 31, 18l6, and on April 8, 1822.
Samuel and Pamela are listed on the 1860 census of Burnet County, Texas. Their daughter, Amanda, married Dulana W. Turner in Panola County, Tx about 1855 and moved shortly after that with his family to Llano County, TX which borders Burnet County. Samuel and Pamela January probably moved with them. The area the Turner and January families lived in was right on the county border. Some residents were even listed on census reports of both counties.
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After the Texas Revolution, the Congress of the Texas Republic established Harrison County, formed from Shelby County, in 1839. Harrison County was named for Texas Revolutionary Jonas Harrison. The county was organized in 1842. Samuel January became a Justice of the Peace for this county in 1843. This appointment lasted for a few years. Much of the records for Harrison county were destroyed when the court house was burned. In 1846 several new counties were created out of Harrison County. One of those counties was Panola. [
The area was settled by predominately by natives from the Southern United States, who brought the slave-holding cotton-plantation society with them. By 1850, the county had more slaves than any other county in Texas until the end of the Civil War.
PANOLA COUNTY. Panola County is in northeastern Texas, bordered on the east by Louisiana, on the south by Shelby County, on the west by Rusk County, and on the north by Harrison County.
after the Texas Revolution in 1836, the area experienced a great land rush. In 1837 the LaGrone Settlement was established east of the Sabine River near the Louisiana border. The LaGrones' wagon train had passed through the area in 1832, but due to Indian unrest the family had traveled further into Texas; after Texas won its independence, they returned to an appealing spot they had found previously. By 1840 at least forty-nine families were established in the area that became Panola County. The majority came from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama. Some brought slaves with them to Texas; by 1846, according to local tax records, there were 574 slaves in the area.
840 the boundary between the Republic of Texas and the United States (the line that later became the county's eastern boundary) was settled. The Sabine River was established as the boundary south of the thirty-second parallel, but it was necessary to send a commission of representatives from both countries to survey the line north of the parallel. On April 23, 1841, the commission set a granite marker at the location of the thirty-second parallel, 100 feet off present State Highway 31. The western side of the shaft was inscribed with the letters "R. T." (for Republic of Texas); the eastern side was inscribed "U. S." and the southern side, "Merid, Boundary, Established A.D. 1840." The marker, the only one of its kind, still stands on the line between Panola County and DeSoto Parish, Louisiana. In the early 1840s a feud erupted between two factions who called themselves Regulators and Moderators. For almost four years skirmishes extended from Harrison County and the Caddo Lake area through Shelby and San Augustine counties and into Sabine County. The so-called Regulator-Moderator War grew out of the unsettled border conditions; the Neutral Ground furnished a secure residence for lawless men, and their activities caused the growth of vigilante groups. The warfare ended in 1844, when President Sam Houston ordered out the militia to stop it.
The city of Marshall, county seat of Harrison county, quickly became a major city in the state because of its position as a gateway to Texas on several major stage coach lines and one of the first railroad lines into Texas.
Crime was rampant in Burnet County in the 1860s and 1870s. In addition to occasional Indian raids, residents had to contend with counterfeiters and cattle thieves. There were also incidents of white outlaws masquerading as Indians so as to divert blame from themselves. During Reconstruction, several Burnet County men, who had been active in the pursuit of outlaws and Indian raiders, were arrested by Union forces, taken to Austin, and held for several weeks on charges of impeding Reconstruction. Although the men were later released, the incident caused considerable ill-feeling. In 1869 the county's lopsided election returns for Andrew J. Hamilton over Edmund J. Davisqqv indicated that the local government had been returned to Democratic rule.
Trammel's Trace
Trammel's Trace
After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Americans from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri moved down the Southwest Trail into Arkansas in search of land and opportunity. Crossing Arkansas diagonally from northeast to southwest, the Southwest Trail ended in U.S. territory at the Great Bend of the Red River, where Fulton (Hempstead County) was later founded. From that river crossing, Trammel’s Trace emerged as the first road from Arkansas into Texas from the north, terminating at the El Camino Real in Nacogdoches.
When waves of migration into Texas began after 1821, Trammel’s Trace became one of the primary routes to the colonies. Early Hempstead County records document the development of ferry services at Fulton and at Dooley’s Ferry farther down the Red River used for carrying immigrants from Arkansas into Mexican Texas. After the Texas Revolution in 1836, more direct roadways between established settlements began to replace the winding track. Even though Trammel’s Trace was little used at that time, Trammell guided troops down the trail from Washington (Hempstead County) during the Mexican War in 1846. Leaving Arkansas, the trail crossed present-day Hempstead and Millercounties. Some evidence of the old road still exists, but its path is largely lost to history due to land development.
In the 1940s, James and Mary Dawson researched the old road, and their research is being continued with more modern mapping tools. The Dawson collection can be found at the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives at Historic Washington State Park.
