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Columbia Pictures by Tissie Schwebel
Underwood and Allied Families
Louise descended from two Underwood families who were
probably not related, but who lived in close proximity. Staying
within the surname, her first known Underwood ancestor was
Asa who was born in Boston in 1752 or
1754, was a Dunstable Minute Man, but lived most of his life in
or around Tyngsborough and Dracut in Middlesex County,
Massachusetts. He probably descended from Ulster Scots who
immigrated to Boston no earlier than 1714, though it hasn't been
ruled out that he was of English origin. Asa married twice and
had twelve children. The first three, all daughters and including
twins, were by his first wife, Elizabeth Littlehale. The oldest,
Rhoda, married Jonas Pearsons and left descendants; of the other
two, little is known. Of the nine children by his second wife,
Mercy Durant, seven reached their
majority. Of them, six are known to have married, but only five
had children who survived childhood. The only daughter, Mercy,
married Savory T. Burbank and lived in Hookset, Merrimack County,
New Hampshire. They had one son. All of Asa and Mercy's children
except Ammon,
the next to youngest, lived out their
lives in New England. Ammon, "to gratify a wild and rambling
notion," left his friends and family in Massachusetts in 1834 and
headed for Texas, then the state of Coahuila and Texas, Republic
of Mexico. He traveled around Austin's Colony a bit before
settling at Marion in the Mexican municipality of Columbia, now
Brazoria County, where he married Rachel Jane Carson, daughter of
William Clark and Catherine Jane (Patterson) Carson, had
children, among them Louise's father, Joseph Patterson Underwood, and lived out his
life as a successful merchant, cotton factor, plantation owner,
and Texas legislator. A number of his descendants still live in
Brazoria County.
The other Underwood line is through Mercy Durant, she being twice the sixth generation removed from William Underwood who was in Concord by 1639/40, and in Chelmsford in 1654. Some allied families are:
Carson and Allied Families
Louise Underwood's first known Carson ancestor was
Charles who served five years in the
Revolutionary War. He is first found living in New Castle County,
Delaware, where his and wife Rachel's
first three children were born between 1787 and 1791. Rachel was
the daughter of William Clark, also
of New Castle County. Both the Carsons and Clarks were
undoubtedly of Ulster Scot origin, but it is not known if either
was an immigrant. The Carsons moved to Southwest Virginia before
1800, settling in Washington County. About 1806/7, they joined
the thousands of others who were streaming into the American
West, and settled in what is today Posey, Indiana's southernmost
county. Charles and Rachel had five more children while living in
Virginia, and one after moving to Indiana Territory. Apparently,
of their eight children who survived childhood, the only one to
leave Indiana was William
who in 1815 married
Catherine Jane Patterson, daughter of
John, in Posey County, and along
with some of Catherine's siblings, and perhaps her father, moved
to Catahoula Parish, Louisiana. In 1824, William, Catherine and
their children traveled overland by covered wagon to Coahuila and
Texas where William was granted land in Stephen F. Austin's first
colony in what is today Brazoria County. He thus became one of
Austin's Old Three Hundred. William died before the Texas
Revolution, and his widow and children moved to Columbia where
Catherine operated a boarding house. With Santa Anna's Army
advancing on the Brazos in April 1836, and the Carson sons away
in the Texian Army, Catherine and daughter Rachel Jane were forced to join the mass exodus
of colonists known as the Runaway Scrape. When news of the
decisive victory at San Jacinto reached them, they returned to
Columbia where Catherine soon entered into a business arrangement
with Ammon Underwood. Several years later, Ammon and Rachel
married. Of their seven children, four survived, married and left
descendants.
Hanks and Allied FamiliesThe first known Hanks ancestor is Thomas who is thought to have arrived in Virginia by 1644 as an indentured servant. However, no record of his indenture has been found. He became a relatively large landowner, amassing various tracts totaling in excess of 2400 acres of timberland in Gloucester and New Kent counties. Several generations of Hanks remained in Virginia before moving to North Carolina. In Virginia, they were most closely associated with North Farnum Parish in Richmond County, and in North Carolina they lived in Granville, Orange and Chatham counties. Louise Underwood's mother, Louisa Hanks, was born in Chatham County to Dr. John A. Hanks and Euphemia Morris, and with several of her siblings moved to Brazoria County, Texas, in 1866 where she met and married Joe Underwood. He would later say that he vowed she would be his wife the moment he saw her step off the steamboat at Columbia. They lived the remainder of their lives in Columbia where Joe was a merchant and cotton buyer. Of their four children, only Louise married and left descendants. Some allied families are:
Morris and Allied Families
Louise Underwood's first proven Morris ancestor is
Cadwalader who in 1698, at about
twelve years of age, came with his mother Catherine Griffith from Wales to
Pennsylvania. Catherine, who descended from European royalty, is
probably the same Catherine Griffith who married Morris Cadwaladr at Llanfor,
Merionethshire, Wales, in 1685. Morris Cadwaladr may have been
the son of Cadwaladr Maurice and
Ann who had a child baptized at
Llanycil, Merionethshire, in 1653. Cadwalader Morris' father
almost certainly died in Wales, as there is no record of him in
Pennsylvania. Catherine and Cadwalader settled at Gwynedd in
Philadelphia County (now Montgomery County). Also settling at
Gwynedd was Catherine's brother Hugh, a widower with children,
who had brought with him to Pennsylvania in 1698 a transfer
certificate from the Friends' Monthly Meeting to which he
belonged in Merionethshire, North Wales. Whether Catherine was
also a Quaker before settling in Gwynedd is uncertain, but she
and Cadwalader belonged to Gwynedd Monthly Meeting. Cadwalader
married Elizabeth Morgan whose
younger sister Sarah would become the mother of Daniel Boone.
The Morgans were also Welsh
Quakers. Edward and Elizabeth Morgan arrived in Pennsylvania
about 1683 and first settled in Philadelphia, but they are more
closely identified with Towamencin township in Philadelphia
County (now Montgomery County), where the Morgan log home has
been restored and is open to visitors. Some children of
Cadwalader and Elizabeth Morris remained Quakers, but their son
Morris Morris married Gwently, a daughter of Reverend William Thomas, a Baptist preacher
who founded Lower Hilltown Baptist Church in Bucks County.
The Thomases had emigrated from
Wales in 1712 when their oldest child, Thomas, was a baby. Morris
and Gwently's son Benjamin, who
served in the American Revolution, was a famous maker of tall
case clocks, and Benjamin's son Enos followed him in that profession before
becoming a successful attorney in Newtown, Bucks County. Enos
married twice, both times to a widow. His first wife, Elizabeth, whose maiden name is not known,
was the mother of all his children. When Enos died, several of
his children were minors, but it appears the stepmother, who had
a reputation as a golddigger, had little interest in caring for
them. The youngest, Euphemia, was soon
sent away to boarding school where she probably lived until she
married Dr. John Armstrong Hanks. She perhaps met John when he
was in medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, where
Euphemia's brother Horatio had graduated a few years earlier.
Following the marriage, the young couple moved to Chatham County,
North Carolina, where John practiced medicine. Euphemia died in
1850 from complications after giving birth to her seventh child
in ten years. Her brother, Dr. Anthony T. Morris, moved to
Brazoria County, Texas, in the mid 1850s, and it was he who
encouraged his Hanks nieces' and nephews' move to Texas.
