Politics and religion on the Clarkson line

In 1832 a Norfolk County, Virginia, newspaper called Dempsey Nash "the only 'Abolition' candidate" for the House of Delegates. He ran last of five. Nearly thirty years later "Nash of Kaufman" voted with the Texas Secession Convention to join the Confederate States. The Clarkson line's public life runs between and beyond those two votes: a district judge at Eagle Pass, a postmaster at Gloster, Mississippi, confirmed by the Senate, a deputy marshal, and two twentieth-century generals. Its church life can be followed from Liverpool parish registers to St. Mark's and Christ Episcopal churches in San Antonio. Where it is uncertain whether a man named in a record is the family's, that is said beside him.

Liverpool parish registers, 1827 to 1858

The family's church records begin in Liverpool. William Clarkson and Emma Lucy Green married at St Paul's Church, Liverpool, in 1854, and their son William Banton Clarkson was baptized at All Saints, Liverpool, in 1858. William's baptism, at St Peter's in 1830, and a Thomas Clarkson/Nancy Banton marriage by licence at St Chad's, Poulton-le-Fylde, in 1827 are separately on record. Each register entry is confirmed as read; the 1827 couple are probably William's parents, the same identification made in the Clarkson story. None of the four registers states the family's denomination beyond the parish named, so the family's church in England is inferred from where its ceremonies took place. Their fuller account is on the Clarkson story.

A remembered abolitionist and a Secession Convention delegate

A family recollection holds that a Nash ancestor "ran" for office in Virginia as the only abolitionist candidate of his day. An 1832 Norfolk County, Virginia, newspaper report matches it: it calls a Dempsey Nash, running last among five candidates for the House of Delegates, "the only 'Abolition' candidate." The word was the paper's; nothing shows that he wrote such a platform. The report and its label are confirmed. That he is the ancestor the family remembers is family tradition. Whether this Dempsey Nash, probably of Portsmouth, is the same man as the tree's Tennessee-born Dempsey Nash is not known; nothing read so far supports it or rules it out (Unconfirmed). The same Dempsey Nash was named one of nine delegates from Norfolk County's "National Republican Young Men" to a July 1832 convention at Staunton, as that paper confirms, with the same open question of identity.

A later Nash, William Nash of Kaufman County, was seated at the Texas Secession Convention on March 2, 1861 and signed the ordinance. The printed convention journal, which confirms both, lists "Nash of Kaufman" among the yeas on union with the Confederate States on March 5. He was probably the family's William Nash (1809-1865); the name and county match. His story is on the Nash story.

Texas under changing flags

The family's Asa Mitchell is Asa Columbus Mitchell of Brazoria, in the family tree the great-grandfather of Ruth Joyce Kelso Clarkson, Herbert Slayden Clarkson's wife (each link Confirmed); his story is on Asa Columbus Mitchell of Brazoria and San Antonio. He received title to land in Stephen Austin's colony in 1824 and a bounty certificate for Texas Army service from July to October 1836. That the land and bounty records are his is likely, pending a direct check of the cited General Land Office pages. The printed 1835 declaration of the Consultation names an Asa Mitchell as a signer for the Municipality of Washington, and the Handbook of Texas says he was this man; the Handbook also calls him a sergeant at San Jacinto, which no muster roll checked so far confirms. That the signer was this man, and his San Jacinto service, are both unconfirmed. A certified copy of his will survives in a different claimant's General Land Office file, Nacogdoches 1st Class file 1117 (Richard Pillow, not shown to be related). That copy is confirmed, though it is not the cited Brazoria/Fannin land file. His story is on Asa Columbus Mitchell of Brazoria and San Antonio.

Other records from these years concern William Nash's 1861 secession vote, above, and an indexed but unread Confederate service entry for Bradford A. Chisholm in Waul's Texas Legion, likely on the index alone. Collateral Billingsley men, not shown to be this family's direct line, held a Republic-era legislative seat, a county commission and a Confederate private's enlistment, per a 1936 compiled genealogy. Because that is a secondary compilation, each item is likely, not confirmed. The Billingsley family's story on this site concerns the people enslaved by one of this family, not these collateral descendants' public offices.

Winchester Kelso Sr.: bench, lodge and church

Winchester Kelso Sr. is named as the trial judge in an 1891 appeals case and in appellate records from six South Texas counties through 1894, and the case reports confirm it. When his time on the bench began and ended is not known. His obituaries, two of which carried the same Associated Press report, add more, none of it confirmed: that Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross appointed him judge of the 28th Judicial District in 1886, though Ross's term began in January 1887, and the Secretary of State's 1889 report lists him as judge of the 41st District at Eagle Pass, not the 28th; that he served as the state's extradition agent from 1887 and as Governor Hogg's special investigator of Spanish land-title archives in 1893 (a Santa Fe dispatch in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of June 2, 1893 has him examining Spanish records there); and that he was unopposed for Congress in 1896 but withdrew his name rather than run on a free-silver platform. His full life is told on Winchester Kelso of Eagle Pass and San Antonio.

His 1925 funeral notices name him a member of Alamo Lodge No. 44, with a Scottish Rite escort and burial "in Masonic Plot, Mission Burial Park." One obituary adds that he organized Eagle Pass's first Masonic lodge in 1884 and was its first grand master, and a second names him a charter member of the Scottish Rite and Knights Templar rather than the Shriners the first paper names. These earlier lodge offices, and the conflicting society lists, each rest on one newspaper's account and stay unconfirmed. His funeral was held at Laurel Heights Methodist Church.

His wife, May Joyce Kelso, was unanimously re-elected president of the Battle of Flowers Association in 1917, as a contemporary newspaper confirms. Her obituary credits her with presiding over a wartime hospital-bed collection and with a past presidency of the Fenwick Luncheon Club (Likely). A 1922 newspaper reference to her as an officer of a Laurel Heights Methodist church society could not be fully read and is unconfirmed.

The Gloster post office and a deputy marshal

Jennie Davis Faust Ligon was appointed postmaster at Gloster, Mississippi, on March 8, 1898. The Senate confirmed her on January 31, 1901, she was reappointed in 1905 and 1909, and a successor was nominated in 1913. Emmons, Robert and Percy Ligon, probably her sons, are listed as assistant postmaster and clerk in the same office; the staff entries are confirmed. Her story is on Jennie Ligon and the Gloster post office.

Her husband, William Orlando Ligon Sr., is named "Deputy U. S. Marshal" in an 1899 newspaper notice. A family-supplied 1916 biography says he served twelve years as deputy and three as United States Marshal for the Southern District of Mississippi, resigning in 1914. Contemporary print confirms the marshal's office and adds his politics. A 1912 article in Collier's, "The Ligon Family and Their Federal Clutch," lists W. O. Ligon as United States Marshal at a salary of $3,000 and his son Percy as assistant postmaster at Gloster, and the Congressional Record of the same year names him as one of the United States marshals and Jennie D. Ligon, his wife, as Gloster's postmistress. He was a Republican of standing: a delegate from Gloster to the Republican National Conventions of 1904, 1908 and 1916, Mississippi's member of the Republican National Committee in 1915 and 1917, the leader of the "Black and Tan" delegation that contested Mississippi's seats at the 1920 convention, and a Republican elector at large in 1928. A 1981 history of Southern Republicans notes that the party appointed "W. O. Ligon of Gloster, a United States marshal," as its state chairman. In the 1890s the Burpee seed company's catalogs awarded him first prizes for the largest crops grown from its seed, and Methodist conference records name him a trustee of the Natchez District.

Two generals

Two Clarkson men reached general officer rank in the twentieth century. Herbert Slayden Clarkson was commissioned a Regular Army second lieutenant of Field Artillery in 1913 and became a brigadier general in the Army of the United States on September 14, 1943, per the Senate confirmation record and the Official Army Register; he retired in 1946. His father, William Banton Clarkson, had a business partner in 1889, and his partner in Slayden, Clarkson & Robards was J. L. Slayden; whether either was the later congressman James L. Slayden, and whether Herbert Slayden Clarkson was named for him, has not been checked. The firm's history is on William Banton Clarkson's business and legal history.

Percy W. Clarkson was commissioned in 1916, reached major general in December 1942, and commanded the 33rd Infantry Division from October 1943 through its advance toward Baguio in 1945. The register confirms the ranks; his wartime assignments come from a secondary account (Likely). Their full military records are on Clarkson-line military service and, for Percy, on his own story.

The Episcopal church in San Antonio

Church registers follow the line across three generations and two continents. A funeral or wedding shows where the service was held, not that the family belonged to that church. In San Antonio, William Banton Clarkson's funeral was held at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in 1933, as his wife Alice Ann Peaple Clarkson's had been in 1922; each notice is confirmed. Three descendants' death notices state membership outright, and those are confirmed too. Alice Beatrice Clarkson Cade and Herbert Slayden Clarkson are each called a member of Christ Episcopal Church, and Ruth Joyce Kelso Clarkson is recorded as a member of Christ Episcopal and its St. Margaret's Guild at her death in 1973.

Ruth's 1913 wedding, however, was performed at Laurel Heights Methodist Church by a Methodist bishop, Edwin D. Mouzon, at the same church that held her father Winchester's funeral. The wedding is confirmed. When or whether she changed churches between 1913 and 1973 is not known (Unconfirmed).

What we're still looking for

When Winchester Kelso Sr.'s judgeship began and ended, and his 1896 congressional withdrawal, are known only from newspaper wire copy and the 1889 report; the Texas governors' appointment journals and the other biennial reports have not yet been searched. No Bible translation or edition is held for any Clarkson-line person, and a Faust family Bible was searched for and not found.

Sources

• San Antonio Light, November 25, 1925; Laredo Morning Times, November 25, 1925 (Winchester Kelso Sr.'s obituaries).
• Houston Daily Post, May 15, 1899, p. 3 (Yoakum Improvement Company directors, naming W. B. Clarkson; see William Banton Clarkson's business and legal history).
• Southern Herald (Liberty, Mississippi), March 18, 1898, p. 3 (Jennie Ligon's appointment): www.loc.gov/resource/sn87007277/1898-03-18/ed-1/?sp=3
• Birmingham Age-Herald, February 1, 1901, p. 2 (Senate confirmation): www.loc.gov/resource/sn86072192/1901-02-01/ed-1/?sp=2
• Congressional Record, February 5, 1909 and May 1, 1913; Official Register of the United States, 1907 and 1911 (Jennie Ligon and sons). Her 1905 reappointment is documented on Jennie Ligon and the Gloster post office.
• Official Army Register, January 1, 1946 and 1947 (Herbert Slayden Clarkson); January 1, 1946 (Percy W. Clarkson).
• Constitutional Whig (Richmond), April 20, 1832, p. 3; Staunton Spectator, July 13, 1832, p. 3 (Dempsey Nash).
• Winkler, Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas (1912), pp. 20, 57, 97, 101 (William Nash).
• St Paul's Church, Liverpool, marriage register, July 6, 1854; All Saints, Liverpool, baptism register, June 22, 1858, entry 989.
• San Antonio Light, September 8, 1933; April 25, 1922 (St. Mark's Episcopal funerals).
• San Antonio Light, September 19, 1913 (the Laurel Heights Methodist wedding).
• General Land Office records, Brazoria and Fannin (Asa Mitchell); Texas General Land Office, Nacogdoches 1st Class file 1117 (Richard Pillow), a certified copy of Asa Mitchell's will; Davis, The Billingsley Family in America (1936), pp. 395-400.
• Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1889, "Judicial Officers: District Judges," pp. 287-288 (41. Winchester Kelso, Eagle Pass). archive.org/details/biennialreports06texagoog
• Transcript of record, Dick Duncan, Appellant, vs. T. P. McCall, Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, Supreme Court of the United States, 1890 (certificate signed at Eagle Pass, December 13, 1889, by Winchester Kelso, "Dist. Judge 41st Jud. Dist., Texas"). archive.org/details/per_scotus_1890_1174
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 2, 1893 (Santa Fe dispatch on Judge Winchester Kelso). archive.org/details/per_st-louis-post-dispatch_st-louis-post-dispatch_1893-06-02_44_302
• "The Ligon Family and Their Federal Clutch," Collier's, June 1, 1912. archive.org/details/sim_colliers-the-national-weekly_1912-06-01_49_11
• Congressional Record, July 23-August 8, 1912 (W. O. Ligon, U.S. marshal; Jennie D. Ligon, postmistress at Gloster). archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_july-23-1912-august-8-1912_48
• Official Proceedings of the Thirteenth Republican National Convention (1904); Delegates and Alternates to the Republican National Convention (1908); Official Report of the Proceedings of the Sixteenth Republican National Convention (1916): Mississippi, Seventh District, W. O. Ligon, Gloster. archive.org/details/delegatesalterna00repu
• Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1915 and 1917 (Republican National Committee: Mississippi, W. O. Ligon, Gloster). archive.org/details/officialmanualof01miss
• Chicago Daily Tribune, May 31, 1920; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 2, 1920; Atlanta Constitution, May 21, 1920 (the 1920 Mississippi contest); Grenada Sentinel, July 13, 1928 (Republican electors).
• Paul D. Casdorph, Republicans, Negroes, and Progressives in the South, 1912-1916 (1981). archive.org/details/republicansnegro0000casd
• Burpee's Farm Annual, 1891-1896 (prize awards to W. O. Ligon, Gloster); Methodism in the Mississippi Conference, 1894-1919 (Natchez District trustees).

Fuller accounts are in the linked stories: Jennie Ligon and the Gloster post office, the Clarkson story, the Nash story, Percy W. Clarkson and Clarkson-line military service.