BIOGRAPHY & FAMILY HISTORY OF SILAS WITT & MARTHA JANE CONNER WITT – November 2006
by John J. Roark and William W. Witt
$36.00 – Hardcover
This family history of Martha Jane Conner and Silas Witt began with their marriage in 1859 near Birchwood TN. This union survived Silas being a Confederate soldier in the Civil War followed by Martha Jane and Silas’ move to Parker County, TX with ten children before 1881. Three more children were born in TX. The book names the 1st thru the 6th generations, for some of each of the Witt children.
EXCERPT FROM BOOK
MARTHA JANE CONNER WITT FAMILY
MARTHA JANE CONNER
Martha Jane Conner, born April 16, 1843, was the eighth child and fifth daughter of the sixteen children of Maximilian Haney and Martha Palmer Conner. Her three older brothers were M.C. (Mack), Thomas, and James Madison and her four older sisters were Mary Elizabeth, Phoebe Caroline, Sarah, and Mariah. Named for her mother, Martha Jane was raise in the family home on the Birchwood Pike in the Salem Community of Hamilton County, Tennessee. When she was born, M.H. Conner and his wife had lived within the Ocoee District less than eight years and were farming a total of 160 acres.
Martha Jane’s older brother Thomas, eight years senior to her, married Violet Witt of southern Meigs County in late 1857. Violet Witt had a younger brother — Silas — who took an early interest in his sister’s new in-laws. Silas Witt was the son of Joseph Lockhart Witt and Matilda Rucker Witt, and was born August 13, 1835, in McMinn County, Tennessee. Silas was the fourth of five children — four boys and one girl — and was only four years old when his father died in Meigs County, Tennessee, in late 1839 at the age of 39 years. Matilda Witt and her brother, James E. Rucker, were designated by the Meigs County Court on January 6, 1840, as administrators of the Joseph Lockhart Witt estate. After his father’s death, Silas’ mother married Avery Hannah on February 1, 1842, in Meigs County and on April 5, 1842, Matilda Hannah and James Rucker submitted their settlement of the Joseph Wit estate to the county seat. At the same time, Silas’ mother petitioned the court requesting that Avery Hannah be appointed guardian of “her five minor orphans: James, Nathaniel, Violet, Silas, and Jesse Witt, children of Joseph Witt deceased.
The best evidence suggests that Silas’ mother died prior to the death of Avery Hannah in late 1857. According to the will of their stepfather, Nathaniel and Silas Witt were approved by the Meigs County Court as executors of the Avery Hannah estate and on January 11, 1858, the executors filed an inventory of the estate with the county court. The will had made appropriate distributions to the five children of Matilda and Joseph Witt. The will of Avery Hannah was probated before the Meigs County Court on April 8, 1858, at which time Silas Witt requested that he be released as an executor of the estate. Court records provide no reason for Silas’ request to be released as an executor but since it came after the probate of the will, it most likely recognized that the estate could best be settled through a single executor. Doubtless, Silas’ brief experience in working with the county court as executor would serve him well in later years.
END OF EXCERPT FROM BOOK