Rt. 8 Box 209
Carthage, Miss. 39051
October 28, 1972
Dear Mrs. Hett,
Your letter came in the same mail with a postal card from Mrs. O'Kelly. She had been elated about your telephone call. It was very good of her to give you my name. We are always glad to find another Barrett descendant and a recruit for our search for our elusive Irish immigrant.
However, Mrs. O'Kelly has told me almost everything I know about the family. (Note: she really did know much more than she says. KH) I had left Neshoba County after my marriage in 1934, and had too little information to do research all the years I lived on Long Island, New York, and then later in Charlottesville, Virginia. When I came back here to be with my mother, who is now nearly ninety, one of Mrs. O'Kelly's letters was given to me by a cousin who was too disinterested to answer.
I am descended from old soldier Reuben Barrett of Greenville, S. C., through his son Joseph, who, then, must have been a brother to your David Barrett. Joseph Barrett had been in Tuscaloosa District, Ala., was a justice of the peace, a deacon at Big Creek Baptist Church, when additional land (one acre) was acquired for it; was yet living in the area around Coker, Ala., and Sipsey River when Big Creek Church licensed him to preach, 1833.
We do not know whether Joseph was ever in Tennessee. His first wife was the mother of my great-grandfather Bartley B. Barrett. She must have died in Alabama after 1822. Bartley was born in Alabama in December, 1820, and had a full brother Joseph born there in 1822. I found no Barrett graves at the old Big Creek burying ground.
Our history seems to parallel that of the DOUGHTY family more than any other. It was Joseph Doughty, Sr., (spelled Dowty) who sold land to our soldier Reuben, about 1783, (actually 1789; KH) on the Wild Cat Branch of South Tyger River. The family records of Barrett and Barton families indicate membership in the old Tyger Baptist Church between Tigerville and Gowensville. I came by there last October, taking the long way around from Virginia. Mrs. O'Kelly thinks old soldier Reuben may be buried there, and that Tyger Church could be on some of the land the Reuben bought from the Doughty family. There are many unmarked graves; but the one of Mary Barrett Jackson, daughter of Old Reuben, has a confusing reference to Mecklenburg. Her marker was erected by some of her Jackson descendants, evidently after a lengthy interval.
Preston Doughty of Corpus Christi, Texas, has published his family history which goes no farther back in geography than that deeded land; no further back in time, either. The Doughty (Doty) family was represented as far as Tuscaloosa, and then another descendant settled in Attala County, Mississippi, where a church is now known as Doty Springs.
It seems that some of these allied families will have to lead us back along the way. My Joseph Barrett died in Neshoba County in 1840, but his will mentions lots he owned in Boundston "Noxeba" County. He and his second wife were married in Tuscaloosa in November, 1826; she was Rutha (Cabaness) Moore, and had two sons, William Millais Moore, and Charles C. Moore.
William Millais Moore married Mary Elizabeth Barrett. We cannot identify her parentage. The Rev. John S. Moore, a Baptist minister in Lexington, Va., is descended from them. We assume Mary Elizabeth could have been one of my Joseph's nieces.
Just this month we made contact with Mrs. Albert Franke of Birmingham. She was Lurlie Barrett, and her family was in Pickens County, Ala. I am hoping it proves that she is descended from Reuben's son William. There is no trace of William in this part of Mississippi, though every Barrett seems to have named a son William.
My grandfather was Reuben Gallatin Barrett, his brother was William Bartley, but their cousin was William GRANT Barrett. The Grant name my Joseph's (1840) will mentions, as an agent who is to acquire a float (of land), is Reuben H. Grant. All the surrounding counties here show in their tract books of original entries that Reuben H. Grant and David B. Grant were very active in buying titles from the Choctaw ceded lands. Reuben H. Grant was first in Lowndes County, Mississippi, but by 1840 census is listed in Noxubee County. David B. Grant was of Upson County, Ga. and appears to have remained there.
The family connection to GRANT is this: Old Reuben's son Arthur married Mary Caradine. Mary Caradine was a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Caradine. Elizabeth Caradine's maiden name was GRANT.
Though I have found an earlier Reuben Grant named in the will of Solomon Grant of Onslow Co., N. C., 1771, I have not proved the connection--if any. Thomas Caradine's application for pension lists Rowan Co., N. C., before Pendleton Dist., S. C. (See 1800 Census.) Elizabeth Caradine appears as a widow in Pickens Co., S. C., in 1830. The Barrett families in Pickens Co., S. C., appear to be ours (mostly), a generation or two removed from the older set around the Greenville, Spartanburg, Greer, Tigerville area.
However, some of the descendants of Quaker Arthur Barrett and his wife, Lydia, from the Hopewell Meeting on Apple Pie Ridge near Winchester, Virginia, also drifted that way. Mrs. O'Kelly cannot think they are ours; I think it is possible they ARE. She also excludes the Episcopalian Barrett family who formerly spelled the name with a single T ending. Just this past summer, however, she has found that the Episcopalian Virginia Barrett family (the Rev. Robert South Barrett married Kate Waller, a daughter of Withers Waller who married a Stribling) goes back a generation or two to a Quaker ancestor.
Circumstantial evidence among us here indicates a relationship to the Stribling family. They descend from Thomas Stribling from England, and the records of Prince William County, Va., and of Union County, S. C., include the forebears of this Mississippi Stribling family. Bartley B. Barrett is buried in a private burying ground where the earliest grave was that of a young Harper lad; next to his grave is that of a Mrs. Stribling who was a daughter of William and Savilla Rogers. The Rogers family could have been related to Bartley B. Barrett's wife, however. She (Bartley's wife) was Elizabeth Catheran O'Neal. The O'Neal and Rogers relationships could have gone back to Spottsylvania, Va. But, also, among us as early settlers came a Waller family.
We are glad to have found you....and do hope to hear from you again.
Hays Barrett Hayes