User talk:2602:301:774E:F040:F41F:B07E:9D0F:E687

William T. Anderson in Grayson County, Texas

Ancestry.com subscribers can view additional information, and sources are listed, about William T. Anderson and his siblings at http://person.ancestry.com/tree/72258479/person/48257080135/facts There are four stories of interest about William T. Anderson and Grayson County. 1. Bill Anderson married Bush Smith. That story is true. A Grayson County marriage license shows that Lieut William T. Anderson and MIss Bush Smith were married 3 March 1864. 2. Jim Anderson brought his surviving sisters, Mollie and Mattie, to Sherman, Grayson County, after Bill's death 26 October 1864. That story is true. A Grayson County marriage license shows that A. V. Doak and Mollie E. Anderson were married 28 June 1865. A Grayson County marriage license shows that E. G. Douglass and Mattie G. Anderson were married 20 February 1867. A Grayson County marriage license shows that James Anderson and Mary Erwin were married 21 October 1868. 3. Jim Anderson is said to have married Bill's widow. Bill Anderson married Bush Smith. Bush Smith has not been found in census records. Jim Anderson married Mary Erwin. Mary Lucy Erwin, the daughter of William Hugh Erwin and Lucy Moore, was born 27 March 1852 in Missouri. , where Mary Lucy has married B. P. [Burrell Perry] Smith after Jim's death, and is listed as M. L.) (, information from the family Bible of Jim Anderson's sister-in-law).   Mary Erwin was 11 years, 11 months, and 7 days old when Bill Anderson married Bush Smith.  No census or cemetery record for Bush Smith Anderson has been found.  No Grayson County marriage license has been found for Jim Anderson and Bush Smith Anderson.

If Jim Anderson married Bill's widow, this theory is a possibility: There is no conclusive proof identifying the parents or siblings of Bush Smith, or even hinting at her fate. However, an argument can be made that she was Malinda Smith, born about February 1850 in Red River County, Texas, to Burrell Perry Smith Sr. and Sarah Henderson. Burrell P. Smith moved his family to Grayson County about 1851 (according to his obit, and later became mayor of Sherman before he died in 1859) http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=smith&GSfn=burrell&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=46&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=81429712&df=all&. Malinda Smith would have been a Sherman resident in 1864. She would have been 14 years old at the time of William T. Anderson's marriage. There is no doubt that this Smith family was in Sherman when William T. Anderson was married. The widow Sarah Henderson Smith married the widower William Hugh Erwin about a year before his murder, and became the stepmother of the Erwin children. There were other females named Bush in this Smith family. Malinda Smith had a first cousin, Bush Smith (1870-1896), daughter of Robert Meek Smith. After the death of Jim Anderson, his widow, Mary Lucy Erwin Anderson married Burrell Perry Smith Jr. They named their first child, Virginia Bush Smith.

One other record of interest. There is a Grayson County, Texas, marriage license for J. M. Anderson and Malinda Anderson, married 22 August 1866. I have speculated that this might be James Monroe Anderson, brother of William T. Anderson, and Malinda, the widow of Bill Anderson. That would support the story that Jim married Bill's widow. It is a fact that in Grayson County at that time, when widows remarried, their late husband's surname was usually on the marriage license rather than the widow's maiden name. There is no doubt that James Anderson married Mary Erwin 21 October 1868, which raises the question, if Jim Anderson did marry William T. Anderson's widow, (Malinda) Bush Smith Anderson, what was the fate of Bush Smith Anderson? There is yet another marriage license in Grayson County where a Malinda Anderson married Andrew Ross 2 January 1870. If Bush Smith Anderson died in Grayson County, no cemetery marker has been found. If Jim and Malinda divorced, or separated, and Malinda Bush Smith Anderson married Andrew Ross, no cemetery or census record has been found for either of them.

4. The story that Bill Anderson built a house for Bush Smith has not been confirmed. (~)