My paternal great-grand aunt, daughter of Ben Abshier and Carmelite Boulet, was born in Chambers County, Texas in 1847. My Wiser cousins may know her as an older sister to our Sylvina Abshier Wiser.  

Known as "Bettie," Elizabeth married Daniel Ainsworth July 3, 1865. 

Dan had only recently returned home from the Civil War when the couple married. In 1862 the 25 year old Dan had enlisted in the Confederate States Army in Liberty County, Texas. He served four years as a private with Company F, 2d Battalion Waul's Legion, Texas Infantry. He reportedly saw several battles. 

He was injured from a bomb sometime between May and July of 1863 during the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Read about it in his 1899 application for military pension:

[Four pages above]


Dan died in Anahuac, Texas in November of 1904. His widow, Elizabeth (Abshier) Ainsworth, applied for her husband's pension in 1905:

[Six pages in the above gallery]

Bettie Ainsworth was approved for a pension. See what amount she received each year until her death in 1912. That is an annual payment--not monthly. 

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/arc/pensions/amounts.html


By the way, it was 158 years ago tomorrow that Daniel Ainsworth entlisted in the Texas Infantry. I wonder what stories he might have told about the War. 

My paternal 2x GGrandparents were married in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana on 2 September 1842. Familysearch.org has wonderful free records online for those who first register.

Here is Benjamin and Carmelite's marriage record along with the whole page from which it was cropped;


       Name: Benjamin Absher
       Event Type: Marriage
       Event Date: 02 Sep 1842
       Event Place: St. Landry, Louisiana, United States
       Spouse's Name: Carmelite Boullet

Citing this Record
"Louisiana Parish Marriages, 1837-1957," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKJH-B9YW : 4 April 2020), Benjamin Absher and Carmelite Boullet, 02 Sep 1842; citing St. Landry, Louisiana, United States, various parish courthouses, Louisiana; FHL microfilm 870,694.

Benjamin Franklin Abshier II was born 21 June 1820 in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana to Benjamin F Abshier Sr. (1788-1864) and Hannah Weed (1792-1878). After marrying Miss Boulet, I next found Ben Jr. in Liberty County, Texas in 1846 after the young couple moved from Louisiana with other family members.

You will recall that Texas had become a state just a year before in 1845. With the Mexican Army gone, the Apache were still raiding new residents. Gamblers and swindlers often duped immigrants and American citizens out of their land. Stories from the many newspapers from the 1850s online tell of the profiteers now lauded as honored sons of Texas. 

My hero Sam Houston had a home and a law office in the village of Liberty. While researching family, I often fantasize that Sam had more than a casual acquaintance with my kin. I'm still looking for that document prepared by him or his signature on some deed as a witness to my ancestor's property transaction. Oh, let it be!

The Tax Rolls for 1856 Liberty County show the land Benjamin Abshier bought from Levi Barrow and the taxes due:

       Abshier Benj Jr
       ACRES: 409
       VALUE: 400
       ORIGINAL GRANTEE: Levy Barrow
       FROM WHAT TRACT TAKEN: 4,428
       ON WHAT STREAM: Turtle Bayou
       NEGROES: -0-
       HORSES: 30, valued at 450
       CATTLE: 165 valued at 990
       POLL TAX: 30
       STATE TAX: $3.26
       COUNTY TAX: -0-

See the actual document here. Benjamin Jr. is second on the list, and his dad, Ben, Sr., is third. Go ahead, click once to enlarge it. It's a lovely record! 

Source:  "Texas, County Tax Rolls, 1837-1910," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939J-HM9Y-QH?cc=1827575&wc=M63X-4PK : 22 May 2014), Liberty county > 1856 > image 2 of 21; State Archives, Austin.

Carmelite and Ben stayed busy raising their family of 13 children. Their eighth child was my Great-Grandmother Sylvina, born in 1858.  (Yes, that's correct. She died in Tulsa in 1921). 

Ben served with Capt. Thomas Wooten's home guard (Confederate) during the civil war in 1863. I have not yet learned what that meant or if he even had reason to leave the area and/or fight the Union forces.

Meet Ben and Carmelite in their later years. Be amazed that Mrs. Abshier had thirteen children. 

Ben died in Wallisville, Texas in June of 1884. Carmelite followed him in early February of 1889. She missed applying for Ben's Confederate Pension by ten years. The applications prepared by old soldiers and their widows are worth their weight in (Yankee) gold as they are chock-full of details craved by family historians. 

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/arc/pensions/amounts.html

CARMELITE'S BIRTH RECORD:

Name: Carmelite Boulet
Event Type: Birth
Event Date: 7 Dec 1827
Event Place: Louisiana, United States
Event Place (Original): Lafayette
Gender: Female
Father's Name: Jean Boulet
Mother's Name: Adelaide Hebert

Citing this Record
"Louisiana Births and Christenings, 1811-1830, 1854-1934", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HSR4-85T2 : 14 January 2020), Adelaide Hebert in entry for Carmelite Boulet, 1827.

Tonight I was adding sources to my Abshier ancestors and found this little cutie. The photo was taken about 1906, I'm guessing.

Angelina Davis, a Findagrave volunteer/researcher, generously shared Austin Cody Abshier's photo to his memorial page. Isn't it precious?

He was born December 10, 1901 to Hannibal Cameron Abshier (1870-1954) and wife Lillie Inez Palmer (1874-1957) of Liberty County, Texas. His World War II draft card indicates he worked for Gulf Refining Company:

He married Edna DeBlanc in 1920, and they had at least three sons. Austin only lived to see 60 years before his death in Beaumont, Texas in 1962.

For my cousins reading this, Austin was a 1st cousin-once removed to our direct ancestor, Sylvina Abshier. (Which makes him my paternal 2nd cousin--twice removed). 

My paternal GGG-Uncle Asa resembles a favorite actor of mine:

He was born in Louisiana to Ben Abshire and Hannah Weed in 1816. He married Lucy Andrus in 1838 St. Landry Parish. They followed his parents and siblings across the border into Texas in the mid-1840s.  He paid taxes in Galveston County in 1846, as the misspelled name Asa "Absher" appears on the Texas Tax List Index, 1840-1849, via Ancestry.

Republic of Texas Poll Lists for 1846 

Historian Kevin Ladd says the spelling of the Abshire name changed to Abshier when those from Louisiana joined other pioneers in settling Liberty County in southeast Texas. 

Asa appears to have done all right for himself from the looks of the 1860 Federal Census. He and his second wife Catherine surely had a lot of mouths to feed:

From :  Texas, Muster Roll Index Cards, 1838-1900

He wasn't the only one of my extended family to join the rebels fighting the Union Army. At age 48, Asa enlisted in Co. F, 11th Spaight's Battalion, Texas Volunteers. 

The Galveston Daily News for September 8, 1865 reports names of those who were recently appointed by Governor Stockdale, including Liberty County's new Sheriff. First, the whole page (so verrrry tiny!) and the second page shows the scoop on Asa:

Asa lived to age 76, and was buried in the Liberty City Cemetery in 1892.

My Wiser family once lived in Liberty County, Texas. The Liberty Vindicator newspaper has been digitized and made available online. 

This took only a couple of mugs of coffee to locate in the search engine. Plenty of cousins named: Weiser, Wiser, Barrow, Abshier, Harmon, Faulk, Reavis, Bond and Carr. 

Next time you take the back roads, stop and pick up a local paper in a small town.

The same type of news is printed today. 

I am a big fan of HBO's "True Detective" http://www.hbo.com/true-detective#/ and bought the southern gothic horror book, The King In Yellow, from which the television series is allegedly based. Each week the detectives uncover more leads into the dark mystery surrounding a few rural parishes in Louisiana. Each week I spend way too much time mulling over the plot during the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. The show is THAT good! And disturbing. Some of those parishes (counties) I recognize from my research. 

St. Landry, Vermilion and St. Martin Parishes were early residences of my southeast Texas families before land opened up for white settlers after the Battles at San Jacinto and Bexar. In the 1840s many of father's ancestors moved to Chambers, Liberty and Jefferson Counties in Texas--from Louisiana. Some of my Louisiana kin are:

My third Great-Grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Abshier and his wife Hannah (Weed), who appear in the Federal Census of 1810 in St. Landry;

My fourth Great-Grandfather, Jean Jacques Abcher, died in St. Landry in 1836; 

My third Great-Grandpa, Jean Baptiste Boulet, was born in St. Martin Parish in 1799; and

My second Great-Grandparents, Benjamin Franklin Abshier, Jr. and his bride, Carmelite Boulet, were married in September 1842 in St. Landry. This is a later photo of the couple.