James Whitesel Hayworth
by Lee Witt
My Great Grand Father is James Whitesel Hayworth.
He was born on February 27, 1833 and died in
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas on November 03, 1899.
He was married to Georgia Frances Elizabeth
Lyons on August 30, 1885 in Benton County, Arkansas.
They had six daughters, Mary Francis May
Hayworth, Mattie Whitesel Hayworth, Ada Floy Hayworth, Daisy Floyd Hayworth (my
Grand Mother) Lillie Iora Josephine Hayworth and Della Nancy Lee Hayworth.
My Great Grand Father was born a Quaker and still
talked in the Quaker fashion.
He was a minister in the area of Bloomfield -
Cherokee City, Benton County Arkansas before moving his family to Fort Worth,
Texas.
And he owned and worked an apple orchard in Benton
County.
He had a wife, before Georgia and we knew only that
her name was Elizabeth D. with a possible last name of Dorsey or Dorsett.
My Grand Mother told stories of James and said
that Elizabeth died just after they moved to Benton County from Missouri.
And that one of her sisters, Mattie Whitesel,
pasted away while they were in Benton County.
Both Mattie and Elizabeth were buried in a
small cemetery in Cherokee City.
I found that cemetery, Kellam Cemetery, in the
back pasture of a man’s farm.
The headstone for Elizabeth gave no mention of
her maiden name.
For the longest time this was all that we knew of my Great Grand Father and knew
nothing of is parents, siblings and his early years before marring my Great
Grand Mother.
I searched on line, in county records and soon found
the Haworth Association website. There I found a James W. Haworth born the same
year as my Great Grand Father and from a Quaker family.
But they had no other information on James but
his name and date of birth.
I search Quaker sources and found that
particular Haworth family but could not find any birth record which would state
James middle name, only “W”.
I have since stumbled across an old bulletin board
posting on the “Haworth Family Forum” from a Doris Harder.
She states in her posting that she was going
through her grandparents old photos and found a picture, written on the back
was, “Uncle Jimmy Haworth and Family.
Jimmy
was father’s uncle, lived in Arkansas.”
Doris described the photo as being of, “a
bearded man holding two girls, a woman holding an infant, and a little girl
standing beside her Mom. I believe this would have been James W. Haworth brother
of Benjamin Hill Haworth.
I can make copies if anyone is interested.
Doris Harder”
Benjamin Hill Haworth is the brother of James W.
Haworth as described in the Haworth Associations web site.
Parents of Benjamin and James are Richard &
Mary Hill Haworth.
I also found Benjamin’s brother, Richard and
his family in county records for Benton County Arkansas where my Great Grand
Father James Whitesel owned land a short distance from Richard.
I also located a marriage record where a James
W. Hayworth (last name is spelled with a “Y”) preformed the marriage of
Richard’s son, James Oliver Howard Haworth.
I believed that I had found my Great Grand
Fathers family but couldn’t get past the middle name, “W” and “Whitesel”.
I could find no documentation for this James W.
Haworth which showed his middle name, other than “W”.
During my search of documents I found in many
incidents where the last name is spelled as Haworth and Hayworth for the same
person.
I have a family portrait of my Great Grand Parents
with James holding the twins Ada and Daisy, and their oldest daughter, Mary
Frances, standing next to Georgia who is holding Lillie. This photo had written
on the back, in my Great Aunt’s, Della, own handwriting, the identification of
everyone in the photograph.
I e-mailed Doris and asked for a copy or scan of that
photo.
After some long searching and months later, she found
the photo again and sent me a copy.
The two photos are the same photo!
So after some 10 years of looking I now know
that my Great Grand Father James Whitesel Hayworth and James W. Haworth are one
in the same.
By the way, the Kellam Cemetery, in what is now Gentry, Benton County, Arkansas,
is being restored and maintained by my wife, Cindy and myself along with a
cousin, Karen Digby and her husband Charles, who I recently found living in
Gentry Arkansas. She is the descendant of James Oliver Howard Haworth, who my
Great Grand Father James Whitesel married in 1884.