Edited by
Wally
Howerton
Contributing Editor
John Franklin
Howerton
Volume Twelve, Issue 1 Winter 2008
FROM THE EDITOR
Greetings Cousins:
Hopefully, everyone is having a great New Year. Just by luck, I received an E-mail from Chip Pottage who has contributed quite a bit to our Howerton Heritage. In his email, he mentioned a person who I hadn't been in contact with since 5th grade when I was 11 years old. Chip brought us back together after almost 50 years! What a treat! Then I found out that we were distantly related. It has sure gave my New Year a great start!
John Howerton has contributed another story about how the Howerton name can change. Speaking for myself, there isn't a week that goes by where my name is mispronounced.
To start your New Year off clean.....you might consider visiting Howie Mullis' Lye'n Around Soap'n website. Mary Jane Howerton Mullis has been making soap for many years. I was impressed that part of her income goes to a very worthy cause. I was even more impressed when she told me,
"I use to have a shop, but in 2001 a flood came and destroyed it....the flood also washed our house 1/4 mile down the side of the mountain with my husband & I trapped inside. Now I just work out of the basement of my log home on the same mountain where we lost our other house. We are located in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee in Greene County, Tennessee at the foot of Bald Mountain. The Appalachian Trail is about 500 yards from our home. Stevie & I moved here from Winder, Ga. in 1996 and built our first cabin on the mountain. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. We have the best tasting spring water and the most gorgeous view of the mountains you could ever imagine."
Make sure you visit Howie and if you need anything, shoot her an email or give her a call. While you're at it, please sign Howie's Guestbook as she love's to hear from other Howertons!
The Howertons in Claiborne County, Tennessee celebrated their 8th Annual Reunion this past fall. I know there are many more Howerton reunions out there so please submit your story to me and I'll build you a webpage that you can update every year.
My family has been holding our annual reunion which we call "Pa Wa Pow Wow." All the grandkids come in during the summer for a week and we have a ball. One of my grandson's could not say Grandpa when he was little so he called me PaWa. Needless to say the gathering is the highlight of PaWa's and MaWa's year.
We are saddened to see that Donnie Howerton passed away this past year.
Please remember that anyone may submit articles, obituaries, or pictures for upcoming issues.
IN THIS ISSUE
Howerton to Howarton and Howington
Claiborne County, Tennessee Annual Reunion
West Virginia Annual PaWa Pow Wow
Donnie Sherrill Howerton Obituary
Howerton to Howarton and Howington
by
John Franklin Howerton
In the spring 1996 issue of the Howerton Heritage Newsletter (Volume 1, Issue 2) I wrote an article on the various ways the name Howerton has been spelled over the years. One of the points I made was how the name Howerton have become permanently changed in some cases. The following quote from the Newsletter illustrates the point.
“Dr. Thomas W. Jones in "Howerton to Overton: Documenting a Name Change" (National Genealogical Society Quarterly, September 1990) used tax records that showed how they slowly changed the name Howerton to Overton. On the tax rolls from 1781-95 they identified family members as Howertons. From 1796-1802 the name was in transition and both Howerton and Overton was used interchangeably. Between 1802 and 1840 they had accepted the spelling Overton. Apparently, one child of William Howerton/Overton took the name Overton and moved to Kentucky as Beverly Overton. Another child of William and Bathsheba (Perry) Howerton/Overton was James Howerton, baptized 23 October 1784, in the James Northam Parish of Goochland County, Virginia. Apparently, he continued to use the name Howerton.”
The following comes from the Howerton Data Files of Bryan R. Howerton of Searcy, Arkansas: “In Lowndes County, Alabama, in 1840 there lived Joel Howerton and his wife, Elizabeth. They had a son, Hartwell Howerton. Joel died when the boy was young. Elizabeth Howerton remarried and listed her name as Elizabeth Howinton on the marriage license. The son of Joel Howerton was for unknown reasons known as Hartwell Howington and served in the Civil War using the name. Hartwell and his descendants continued to carry the name Howington.”
The above quote does not mean all Overton’s were originally Howertons or that all Howingtons were Howertons, but in specific cases they were.
Rachelle Howarton Smith began writing me in mid-November 2007 in an effort to document how her Howarton name could have been Howerton. The Ancestry.com website has made research much easier than it was 12 years ago. All U.S. Census records are available on the Internet and family names can be sought by state, county and town or just type in the family name and every place where the name appears that U.S. Census year will be listed. Many states have made various records available for searching. Many counties have searchable records. For example one can search TXGenWeb Project Mills County, Texas, and it will lead one to every county in Texas and give one the names of cemeteries which can then be search for by family name.
The name Howarton is concentrated in Texas. Rachelle provided the names of some of her descendants as a starting point. Is the change from Howerton to Howarton unique to Texas? The following U.S. Census records listed Howartons in various places. The numbers of Howartons are shown in parentheses for each census from 1850-1930: 1850 (32); 1860 (47); 1870 (20); 1880 (43); 1900 (49); 1910 (110); 1920 (20); 1930 (38). There is evidence that some of the Howartons were really Howertons based on other records and the U.S.Census. For example, in 1930 Fred G. Howarton was listed with his wife and children as living in Piney, Carroll, Arkansas, yet evidence substantiates his name is Howerton; Gronvill Howarton is really Granville Howerton, who live in District 4, Bell, Kentucky with his wife and children as a Foreman of the local mines. Studies of other records show the same kinds of examples.
There are other examples that some of the Howartons continued to use the name Howarton. This article is about how some of the Howertons in Texas became the Howartons of Texas. In 1850 Simeon A. Howerton the son of John Howerton, the son of Grief Howerton was living with his wife Mary Sawyer in one of four dwellings close together in Navarro, Tarrant, Texas. In those four dwellings of Howertons, there was included Simeon’s uncle Jeremiah Howerton. In 1860 a S.A. Howarton was living with his family in Johnson County, Texas and records show that Simeon had married a second time to Evoline Heath in Dallas, Texas in 1851. In 1870 neither Simeon (Simon) Howarton or Howerton or any of his family members appear in the Texas census. The same is true of the 1880 census. In 1900 there was a family of Howartons, but no first names, only initials. A J. L. Howarton could be John Lambreth Howerton. The initials of his sons fit known Howartons listed in other records.
The best evidence is the World War I Draft Registration cards for John Benjamin Howarton and Ira Newton Howarton. Their names are clearly Howarton and show their dates of birth, residence, and other information. Their names, while absent from the 1920 and 1930 U.S. Census shows up in certain other public records keep by the State of Texas since 1902.
If none of the known Howartons in Texas appear in the U.S. census reports, how can they be located and identified? On 5 November 1928, Mary Mildred Howarton was found in the Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997, and shown as the daughter of John Benjamin Howarton and Rachel Palestine Harris. On 1 June 1931 their son Raymond Glenn Howarton was born and 14 May 1940 a son, John Benjamin Infant, was born to John and Rachel. All of the births took place in Mills County, Texas. The name James L. Howarton appears in several records and appears to be the J. A. (James A., born 19 August 1899) listed in the 1900 U.S. Census. The Texas Marriage Records, Texas Divorce Index, 1968-2002, and the Texas Death Index, 1903-2000, continue to list the death of members of this Howarton group, including John B. Howarton, 23 October 1961. In addition to these records during the Korean War Raymond Glenn Howarton, the son of John Benjamin Howerton was seriously wounded, as the military records show. Mills County, Texas, has an excellent website for searching in Texas (TXGenWeb Project Mills County, Texas).
Several generations have passed and the name Howarton has evolved from Howerton. The Howartons are very protective of their name and have no interest in reverting to Howertons. They do seem interesting in finding their Howerton roots and there are still many records that can help the Howartons in their quest.
At the time I was searching for records on Howarton, I received an e-mail from another Smith about his Howerton ancestors. He informed me he was a descendant of Hartwell (Howerton) Howington. The writer was a descendant of Edward Denis Howington, his daughter, Minnie Lee who married a Smith. The son of Ray Halvard (Howington) Smith is Randal Ray Smith. He had various stories from his grandmother, Minnie Lee Howington about how and why the name was changed.
According to Bryan R. Howerton of Search, Arkansas, the following is what probably happened based on the records: Hartwell Howerton was born in March 1840 in Lowndes Co, AL; the son of Joel and Elizabeth Howerton. Joel died when the boy was young. His mother was left with three small children, including Hartwell. Elizabeth was probably illiterate as her name is shown as Elizabeth Howinton on the record of her subsequent marriage to William Goodman on 23 Sep 1853 in Lowndes Co, AL. For reasons unknown, Hartwell Howerton was known as Hartwell "Howington", which name is still carried by his descendants. He served in the Confederate Army during the War Between the States. Hartwell Howington entered the Confederate service as a Private on 7 May 1862 at Mobile, AL, in Company E, 38 Alabama Infantry Regiment and continued service until the close of the war in May 1865 (p89, Census or Enumeration of Confederate Soldiers Residing in Alabama in 1907.
The foregoing records demonstrate how the name Howerton was change to Howarton in one case and to Howington in another. These two cases also show how easily a name can be changed because U.S.Census takers often spelled names phonetically and the name change stuck. The detailed records of the Howartons in Texas illustrate the continued of the wrong name.
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