Mary Catherine Henry Rawles Herren

Known as Grandma Herren to her great-great grandchildren, she has been a focal point of stories in my father’s family for as long as anyone can remember. My father and his first cousins never knew her personally; she died in 1936, and only my second cousin remembers her funeral. But her stories, told by her, then retold by her children and grandchildren, and still told today by her two- and three-greats grandchildren, with much humor and a little pride, live on. It has been left to her descendants to add a bit of official record to support and expand those stories, to remember for the rest of us. This is my first attempt to do that.

Early Life and First Marriage

Mary Catherine Henry was born in 1843, either in Bell, Crocket Co., Tennessee, according to her obituary, or in Providence, Madison Co., according to family stories.[1] She was the oldest of six children; her parents were Martha Ross and John L. Henry (known to her Arkansas descendants as John Logan Henry). There is a bit of information about John L. Henry and his family in Goodspeed’s History, published in 1890.[2] Her family were Presbyterians and farmers in west Tennessee. In 1854 her grandfather and another close male Henry relative sold some of their land to the trustees of the Presbyterian Church and to the Masonic Lodge in Denmark, Madison County.[3] That same year, her father, John L. Henry and William Henry (either his brother or his father) divided their jointly owned land in Denmark.[4]

Her stories, and at least one photograph, reflect a fearlessness – maybe a bit of impetuousness - in Mary Catherine. By 1860, at age 16 (she claims to be 18 in that census), it is likely that Mary Catherine was living in Toones Station, Hardeman County, Tennessee, with her new husband, Hew Rawles, a 25 year-old school teacher, and new baby, John Logan Rawls. Her parents were living in Jackson, but by the next year they moved to Arkansas, probably to the area around Gaines Landing, Chicot County. For unknown reasons, Mary Catherine and John Logan moved also, and her daughter, Sarah Jane, known to her descendants as Sallie Rawls, was born in March of 1861, in Chicot County, Arkansas. A month after Sally’s birth the first shot of the Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter.

Civil War Mysteries

According to family stories, Sally’s father, Mr. Rawles (or Rawls – none of her descendants knew his first name), disappeared, ostensibly after the Henrys moved south, and it is possible that he was killed in the Civil War. There was an H. B. Rawles who enlisted as a sergeant in the 20th Arkansas Infantry, Company H, organized in the spring of 1862, which fought in a battle at Toones Station, Hardeman County, Tennessee, in July of that year. Family history states that Mary Catherine’s father was a soldier in the Civil War. A couple of possible records could be him: in First (Stirman's) Battalion Sharpshooters, formerly Brooks' 1st Arkansas Cavalry Battalion, there is a John L. Henry in Company C. In February of 1862, a J. L. Henry enlisted with Company K, 18th Arkansas Infantry. Also in this company was a James Ross. John L. Henry’s wife Martha was a Ross. This company was organized at Pine Bluff and at De Valls Bluff, both north of Chicot County.[5]

Stories about Mary Catherine’s dealings with the Union soldiers are still a favorite to tell in my family. Her spunk must have been one of the things that helped her and her mother get through the war. It also did not hurt that she, or more likely her mother, was a member of the Eastern Star – the women’s auxiliary of the Masons. John L. Henry was probably a member of the lodge in Denmark, Tennessee, when he sold land to them in 1854. According to family legend, after Mary Catherine and her family were harrassed by Union soldiers camped at nearby Holly Grove, Desha County (they reportedly tore the strings out of her piano and put hay in it for their horses to feed on, among other things), she marched into the enemy camp to protest. When the officer in charge saw that she wore an Eastern Star ring, he told his men to leave her alone. The implication was that his loyalty to the Masonic order overshadowed his political leanings, but he could have just been a sensible man.

After the War

John L. Henry died either in 1865 or in 1868 and is said to be buried in the Henry plot at Holly Grove Cemetery, although there is no stone now.[6] In 1870, Mary Catherine and her widowed mother were living at Gaines Landing, Bowie Township, with several children.[7] 1872 is a year of big changes for the Henrys. Mary Catherine’s brother, Thomas Ross Henry, moved to Drew County, and married Sue M. Duncan in June. Mary Catherine herself married Mr. James H. Herren in September, in Chicot County. Duncans and Henrys were intertwined in the early years. Along with Thomas Henry’s marriage, their sister Mattie married S. T. “Sam” Duncan in 1884. A “J. T. Duncan” was the security on Sam’s marriage license, and “J. T. Duncan” was a founding member of the Tillar Methodist Church, where the Mrs. Herren and her descendants (the Kings and Peacocks) were members at the end of the century. I believe J. T. is James T. Duncan, brother of Sue Duncan Henry and son of James G. Duncan.[8] The third Duncan is one I recently discovered through a forgotten marriage and have not yet been able to connect to these other Duncans: Mary Catherine’s daughter Sally Rawls married W. W. Duncan in 1877, although he died just a few years later, before 1880. In December of 1881, Sally married Daniel Henry King, my great–great grandfather. To put it in traditional patriarchal terms, if W. W. Duncan had lived, we would have all been Duncans instead of Kings.
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[1] McGehee Times, McGehee, Desha County, Arkansas, “Obituary [of Mary Catherine Henry Rawls Herren],” March 13, 1936.
[2] There are several versions and reprints of “Goodspeed’s”; one is: The Goodspeed biographical and historical memoirs of southern Arkansas, 1890 (Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1978). Thomas Ross Henry’s entry, which also mentions his parents and siblings, will be in Drew County. For “James T. Duncan,” a good online version transcribed by Terri Buster, accessed 12/10/2007: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ardrew/dcgood.html.
[3] Jonathan K. T. Smith, Genealogical Gleanings from the Deed Books 10-19, 1845-1857, Madison County, TN, 1995; accessed 12/13/2007: http://www.tngenweb.org/records/madison/smith/deed10-9.htm.
[4] Eternal thanks to Alan Alsup, Henry researcher, who contributed so much on the Henrys’ early ancestors.
5 Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (National Park Service): http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm
[6] Holly Grove Cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located on Highway 4 (Crooked Bayou Road), about 2 miles south of McGehee, headed toward Arkansas City.
[7] The 1870 census counts Bowie Township as Chicot County, but other records put it in Desha County. (To add to the confusion, some records in 1872 state that Arkansas City was in Chicot County.) Chicot, Desha, Drew and other surrounding counties had fairly flexible borders at different times. Here is a link to a great quasi–interactive map that shows changing county borders from 1813 to 1925 – however, the last time I checked it the page was not found: http://www.myarkansasgenealogy.com/ar_maps/ar_cf.htm - a cached version is at: http://209.85.207.104/search?q=cache:I1_WB2GshroJ:www.myarkansasgenealogy.com/ar_maps/ar_cf.htm+myarkansasgenealogy+maps
&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
[8] See Goodspeed’s online: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ardrew/dcgood.html