Keller Ware. None are available of their individual birthplace or
their ages or antecendents. The last name in records show to whom
they were married in Girls in the family. Sarah Ware Roper--Born in Tennessee Sept. 29th 1848--Was either
married when they came to Texas or soon after. Her husband being
from the state of Arkensas, they reared a family of I think eleven
children. The only son of the oldest, Will, now lives in Ft. Worth
and owns the old homestead near Joplin Texas.
John Emmett Ware--was born in Tennessee, July 17th, 1850,and was just about a man when they came to Texas and unmarried at
that time, but first married a Mrs. Priddy, and by this union one
child was borned, both mother and child died soon afterward. He
was married to Margarett Orsham, and 11 children was born to them.
Only six lived to be grown and five are yet living. Died 7 Apr 1922, Jack county; buried Wizard Wells cemetery. William Ware born in Tennessee December 29th, 1852. Died
without issue in Wise County January 25th, 1874 at the
age of 22 years. Mary Ware Bramlet--Born Feb. 7th, 1857 in Tennessee, was
married in Wise County to Wes Bramlet and to them was born 3 girls
and 6 boys, Four of whom are yet living. Josephine Ware Swinford--born in Tennessee May 5th, 1855.
Was married in Wise County to George Swinford, and moved to what
was known in those days as the Indian Territory in the late eighties
or early nineties, there they lived at varied places and reared a
family of, I think 5 boys and 4 girls, some of them still live there,
the oldest included is now of advanced age. James Henry Ware--born in Tennessee March 4th, 1859, was
married to Letha Hutson in Wise County, lived there and reared 7
boys and one girl who still lives on the old homestead, all the boys
live in Nolan County, where they went with parents who are now both
demised and buried there. Ann Ware Lackey--borned in Tennessee May 20th, 1861, was
married in Wise County to Andy Lackey, soon afterwards they moved
west to Parker, Brown, and then to Nolan County where they lived
and reared their family of 2 boys and 6 girls, some of them still
live there, others have moved away and their places of residence
is unknown. Ellen Ware-Davis-Welch--Born in either Tennessee or Georgia
during the Civil War. Was married first in Wise to a man by the
name of Davis, and then to one by the name of Welch. Given names
or initials are unknown. They moved to the Territory about the
time her oldest sister, and was the mother I think of only 2 children.
If I ever knew, I have forgotten. I do remember her as being the
largest in the family of eleven. George W. Ware--born at Dalton, Georgia Feb 13, 1866. Was
married in Wise County in 1889 to Nancy E. Davenport, who now is the
sole survivor of the eleven children in her family and that of the
inlaws, at this writing. Age 92. To them was born 8 children; 6
boys and 2 girls, one boy having died in infancy. Callie Ware Freeman--born in Georgia June 13, 1866. Was
married to a Freeman, I forget his given name, they too left that
county along with her older sisters and made the run in the territory.
The names and number of her children are unknown to me. Although
I have heard of some of them. Thomas Charles Ware--was evidently borned in Texas August 12,
1871. Died about the time of his father in Wise County in the mid
eighties. In his teens years without issue. Grandmother was born Malinda Keller in Virginia in the year
1828. Evidently her family migrated over the mountains into
Tennessee, just when I do not know. It evidently was yet a territory
since it was not made a state until about 1800. I think Grandad
was a native of that state, and he signed his name as Franklin Ware,
or Wear, both spellings used. I assume that he was same age or near
about as Grandmother. Their home was in McMinn County East Tennessee,
northeast of Chattanooga approximately 60 miles. Athens being the
county seat. What is to be recorded here is from memory. I was born
in Wise County and when quite young my father moved to Jack County
where he engaged in trading, as was the usual and almost only
vocation in that day, and was away from home a large part of the
time, buying, shipping and selling horses and mules in east Texas,
Arkensas, Louisiana, and as far away as Mississippi, during these
times Mother and the older children of who I was the oldest stayed
with Grandmother. Sometimes as much as a year at a time. So, in
the mid and late nineties having heard from conversations of my
Grandmother Listening to the talk of family in general, when they
came there to visit and from the association with my father I
gained the information that is written here. His two brothers also
lived there at the time, and although they all seemed to try and
wanted to forget some of the things they had seen and experienced
during the early history of the family, and especially during the
war, I nevertheless gained some knowledge of the circumstances and
conditions. After they left Tennessee during the war and after the
Battle of Chickamauga they being raided by the Yankees who took
everything they had, and perhaps this was little, they never again
heard of any relative or from any one of his or her family. It was
mentioned, however that Grandad had two supposedly younger brothers
who were in the confederate army, they lived at Dalton, Georgia
after the war until the year 1870. Nothing was ever heard from
either of the brothers, whether or not they survived but at that
time communications be such as they were, it was assumed that they
were lost. I never heard Grandmother speak of her family other
than that she said she was born in Virginia in the area of the
large plantations, and that she was of dutch decent, and from the
name Keller I assume this to be correct. I heard them talk of the
neighbors and how they tried to hide everything from the Federal
forces, including the blind tigers, since moonshining was considered
no bodies business but their own. Grandfather could write but
Grandmother could neither read nor write, but at the same time
she always seemed to be the dominant factor in the family, both
from the standpoint of home affairs and management otherwise.
Those people who migrated west from the old colonial states,
where the caste and moss system of governement prevailed, it
was not easy to sustain yourself where there was no employment,
and the labor was all slave. So, it seems that it was a relief
to get away from a system of domination of the large plantation
rule, and to get to a new country where there could be something
like individual liberties, could own a little land and assume
some sort of responsibility in government, so in Jackson’s days
as president he and his advocacy of democratic system, made him
the idol of those who had been oppressed by the old caste system
of former days. I understand that until this day in that section
of the country they don’t answer many questions about anything
neither do they ask about things that don’t concern them. This
I attribute to family their reticence to talk much about the
circumstances under which they lived, and on other things the
horrors of the war was something they wanted to forget. Thus
after the battle afore mention, they moved to Dalton Ga. along
with other friends and neighbors, stayed and subsisted until after
the war, and after witnessing the fall of Atlanta and the devastation
and destruction of the march to the sea by Sherman, they were
ready to make a move, and along with others in that area formed an
immigrant train and started to Texas in the year 1870, first
stopping at Clarksville where they made one crop, and then on to
Wise County in the year 1872. There had been a number of families
both from Tennessee and Georgia proceeding them, and thus motivated
they came and pioneered and withstood the hardships and privations
as renters, a family of 13 with no money nor credit, but with the
determination to carry on and sustain themselves and wait for a
better day. With them came a mother and her son who was about the age
of their oldest son, all I know about her was that everyone called
her Aunt Lowrey, and her sons name was Logan, and he died about
the time Grandfather and the youngest son, Tommy, did, and then
after they had managed to get a homestead of 100 acres and build
a log house on it and grandmother being left a widow, Aunt Lowery
made her home with her, and since Grandmother could neither read
nor write, she was of a great help in carrying on communication
with her many children who had mostly except the boys drifted away.
With history as background the circumstances and the environ of
the early settled country of East Tennessee, would lead you to
believe and to understand approximately the conditions there,
leading up to and including the war, the slave situation, politics
as rife as they were, and the divergence of opinions, and being
also near the dividing line of the conflicting forces the poverty
and of necessity privations, there, then the war and all the
anxiety at the beginning and during those trying years, really
would lead you to believe that it took stamine and courage to
hold up and keep trying under such trying conditions. After all
this they came here with nothing and during a time of the
reconstruction and at the time of all the indian depredation,
droughts, storms, floods, and panics, and at the same time when
they were beset with the situation of trying to establish some
kind of a money standard, to offset the private barter system
which was then prevalent, could you truthfully say that it did
not take fortitude to subsist, and at the same time be subservient
to the existing emergencies. Too, you would have to take
cognizance of the most primitive means then available. It was
years after this too until the old and odd system of carpetbagging
was finally done away with, and their preying upon the subjugated.
I would like to insert some tribute to the family in Wise County
named Burton, who preceded to this country before or during the
war, who was known to the Ware family if not directly, through
some of Aunt Lowrey’s correspondence, who were most helpful in
providing a place to live and farm and so assist otherwise in
getting established. It seems that they were of more or less
substancial with land and other property and were instrumental
in helping others from their old homeland in Tennessee to get
settled there. Not a few times have I heard of the family
expressing their gratitude to them and appreciation for their
benevolence. So in the way of a tribute to Grandmother, in after
years she through her business acumen, even without education
managed to rake scrape and save enough money to buy and pay for
another 160 of land. This she did with the produce from her
little farm, a few cattle, and the rental of the cultivated land
that she had left. I remember distinctly that she always had a
little money and in my early recollection it was gold, and was
horded and garded to the utmost. How much or little I don’t
know, but when any of the boys want or needed if they came to her
she would lend them, and charge what she called in pronunciation
IN RUST. She evidently associated the word trust in some connection
there with. I was a lad seven or eight years old, and was at her
side or with her most of the time. The many chores that she would
have me do I remember well, Drop peas in the middle of the corn
rows before it was laid by, gather beans, thrash them out and a
tow sack and then wind them, gather the eggs, shinny the fruit
trees and throw down the apples or peaches that she would catch
in her mother hubbard apron. Shell corn for milling, watch a
turkey hen to find her hidden nest. Draw and pour water in the
ash hopper, and was always cautioned about falling in the dug
well, when the christmas times rolled around, she would go to the
cellar and get apples and roll them in the back door to see we
grandchildren scramble for them, and if one got more than his
share, she was always the equalizer. She was always singing some
old religious song at work at home or in the field. She could be
heard calling calves in the early morn a distance of five miles.
She was always antisipating a visit from some of her many children
and grandchildren, and to them there was no one on earth like her.
After she became older and the children to her way of thinking
failed to come and see her she of course became lonely and
admonished them when they did come. I would say rightly so. She was devoutly religious and participated in the camp
meetings, and I remember that everyone went by the wagon loads,
I have heard her speak of the days just before the war when here
was due to the pending situation great revivals over the country,
and she mentioned names that I don’t recall who were the authors
of the sermons and it has been mention in history of those days.
In politics they rarely took any particular interest or participated
in any discussions as to the qualifications of anyone, they spoke
of Lincoln in all the attributes that they know as a great man
and admitted the lost cause, not by any reasonable direct
responsibility, and they assume the cause directly not to anyone
person but to the fact that they antisipated settlement eventually
in some other way. Possibly none were to suffer more from this
cause than they having lived their lives in that century wherein
politics were more rife than at any other poor and unfortunate
southern people who were so seriously misput by the situation.
Even though they liked and lauded Lincoln, they felt no compunction
for the landlords of the southland. As mentioned before,
grandmothers responsibility was something that modern women would
marvel at. Her husband being brought up in the local and environs
where liquor was the main drink and subject of the most conversations.
He was prone to imbibe too and beyond the limit of capacity, and
she would not let him go where there was drinking without her or
one of the boys. So you might say that his background was unfortunate
not only for himself but to others. I have heard my father say
that it was almost impossable to keep him off of it, but that when
at home and busy he would be the most amiable person, and took
delight in trying to aid or assist someone who might be in an
distress, and that he was a man without any harshness whatsoever,
and mentioned anything of his demeanor. I have seen the boys in
the family drink but never to excess, and I know that my father
knew men in his life as I have who it is best not to offer this
hospitality. Grandmother passed away in 1906 at the age of 78 and had
lived a widow about twenty years, and no mother anywhere ever gave
anymore consideration to her children than she. She lies buried
at the old Sand Hill cemetery in Wise County, one of the oldest
in this part of Texas, beside the husband and two sons who preceded
them. My father George W. Ware was raised as records as preceeding
show and was without anything of material value at the time of his
marriage, started out as a trader as before stated. In after years
was in the gin business bought and sold cotton and grain and feed.
Having served one term as county commissioner from 1902-1904, two
terms as Tax assessor 1904-1908 in Jack County after that he traded
to some extent in real property and in that time acquired some land
which formed the nucleus of his estate. We, mother and the children,
well remember the hard time and the frugality doing without in order
to pay for the land and at the same time subsist. He was elected to
the legislature from Young and Jack county in 1926 and was serving
his second term when he died on his sixty-third birthday February
1929. The House journal in and of the 40th legislature is a memorial
and I hope it will be handed down from the oldest son to oldest son
for generations to come. Let be here stated that he was a man of
many friends, and I know that no one ever asked of him a favor that
he did not make an effort to comply. Written about 1955 by Harry E. Ware, son of George Ware, son of Franklin Ware & Melinda Keller
It has been determined by census documents that many birthplaces
in this document are incorrect. See the Ware Group sheets compiled
from a number of researchers for the correct updated information.
I would appreciate any contact with any of the descendants
of this family. I have been at a dead end on the ancestry of
both Franklin Ware and wife Malinda Keller for years. Any and all
help and leads are appreciated. I am delighted to share what information I have.