The William Patrick Williams Family

Link to our Lanhams

William Patrick Williams 1829 → Larkin Patrick Williams 1851 → Altus Oleva Williams 1896 → Altus married Adrian Alford Colbath 1893 → Oleta Colbath 1917 → Oleta married O.S. Lanham (see The Oran Stroud Lanham Family 1916)

William Patrick (Mukewater Bill) WILLIAMS , was born in Louisiana, ca 1829, a son of Patrick Williams and Eliza (Hogan) Williams, and married Elizabeth BOLES , on 1 August 1848, in Anderson County, Texas. Elizabeth was born ca 1827 in Alabama. Mukewater Bill and Elizabeth were early pioneers in the Trickham, Texas area located in Coleman County, and a Historical marker commemorates William Patrick and Elizabeth Williams, in Trickham. See pages extracted from “They come in Peace” by Leona Bruce, and copy of inscription of marker.

William Patrick died 20 September 1898 and Elizabeth died 5 November 1899, and both are buried in Coleman Co., Texas, the location is believed to be 1/2 mile north of Mitchell Crossing, south of Whon, Texas. We have copies of the probate of the estate.

William Patrick and Elizabeth had the following children:

(i.) Sarah Jane WILLIAMS, was born 1849 in Texas, and died between 1850 and 1860.

(ii.) Larkin Patrick WILLIAMS, was born in texas May 1851, and married Ida Melvina Ellen (Roberts) Burress.

(iii.) Eugene G. (Gene) WILLIAMS, was born in Texas, 1 August 1855, and married Martha S. Wilson, at Trickham, Texas, 1871. Martha was born 28 January 1852 in Arkansas. Martha died 12 August 1912 and is buried at Center, Pontotoc County, Oklahoma. Eugene died 1932, and is buried at Cache, Oklahoma. Eugene and Martha had six sons; William Alexander, Leondis Lee, Larekin E., Willis, Oscar, and Arthur W., and four daughters; Priscilla, Sarah J., Norah and Ollie Williams.

(iv.) Magnolia WILLIAMS, was born in Mississippi in 1857, and married Charlie Ellington in 1870 in 1870. Magnolia died 1940, and is buried in Boggy Cemetery, Cranfills Gap, Texas.

(v.) Osika Ann WILLIAMS, was born in Texas, March 1860, and married Frank Donoho.

(vi.) Texana WILLIAMS, was born in Texas 1863, and married W. R. Gilmore. Texana died 29 November 1920, and is buried at Gorman, Texas.

(vii.) William Alexander WILLIAMS, was born in Texas 1866, remained unmarried and died in the 1930’s and is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery, Gustine, Texas. William is remembered by Oleta (Colbath) Lanham as visiting with the Larkin Patrick Williams family, especially when Larkin was sick.

According to a portion of the probate of William Patrick Williams and Elizabeth, both of them died at the home of W. R. Gilmore, a son-in-law, and that at the time Lark Williams lived in Greer County, Oklahoma; Magnolia (Williams) Ellington lived in Bosque county, Texas; Eugene Williams lived in Indian Territory, Oklahoma; Osika (Williams) Donoho lived in Coryell County, Texas; Texanna (Williams) Gilmore lived in Coleman County, Texas and William Alexander Williams lived in Coryell County, Texas.

THe following is an extract from: Texas Historical Commission Staff (DKU), 6/15/81, 18” X 28” Official Texas Historical Marker (replacement), Coleman County (Order #6330), Location: FM 1176, Trickham.

 MR. AND MRS. W. P. WILLIAMS* WILLIAM PATRICK WILLIAMS (ca. 1818 -
 1898) AND HIS WIFE ELIZABETH (BOLES) (ca. 1822 - 1899) MIGRATED TO TEXAS
 FROM MISSISSIPPI DURING THE CIVIL WAR AFTER A BRIEF STAY IN CHEROKEE
 COUNTY, THEY SETTLED IN THIS AREA, ARRIVING BY WAGON TRAIN THEIR NEARBY
 HOMESTEAD BECAME THE NUCLEUS OF THE NEIGHBORING RURAL SETTLEMENT, THE SITE
 OF AN EARLY SCHOOL THEY HELPED ESTABLISH THE WILLIAMSES AND THEIR SIX
 CHILDREN SURVIVED MANY HARDSHIPS, INCLUDING INDIAN RAIDS AND A SMALLPOX
 EPIDEMIC WILLIAM, OFTEN CALLED “MUKEWATER BILL” FOR A STREAM NEAR HIS
 HOME, WAS A PIONEER AREA LEADER

 (1981)
 APPROVED
 Truett Latimer

The following is an extract from They Come in Peace by Leona Bruce.

MUKEWATER BILL

The earliest Coleman County settlements were in three localities: the valley of Hord’s Creek, near Camp Colorado, on the Colorado below the mouth of the Concho, and the Mukewater where John Chisum first gathered his herds of cattle to sell to the Confederate Army.

We have told of the Bartons, who lived on Home Creek north of where Whon is now: while they were away on that tragic journey to Mexico, two families came to the Mukewater from Alabama, brothers-in-law, with their wives and children. They were Bill Williams and Enoch Fiveash, whose wife and two children were massacred by Indians in 1871, and the new settler on the Mukewater was called Mukewater Bill.

Arriving soon after the Civil War, they found Chisum still holding thousands of cattle he had bought from the cowmen nearly, but now he was driving them to New Mexico where the U.S. Army bought them to feed the Indians on the reservations there. Chisum had a log store building on the creek and up and down Home, Hay, Camp and Mukewater were the herds of the Dofflemyer Brothers, the McCains, the Gordons, Joe Wright, and one source says the Manns were there, possibly including Clay Mann, whose story will be told later in this series. Chisum had two employees who operated his store, Emory Peters and Bill Franks, and they also had a part in overseeing the cattle being held across the creek and in paying and supplying the cowboys.

Mukewater Bill Williams and his wife, Elizabeth, were the ideal pioneer type which many settlement were not fortunate to have: afraid of nothing, determined and full of fun, they had vision of what this country could become. They had something that few immigrants had, a money trunk with gold and silver coin which they received for their property in Alabama, and they could affords plenty of good guns and ammunition, medicine, coffee and flour and sugar, and other small luxuries of the frontier such as writing paper, ink and tobacco.

Elizabeth joined in some fights with Indians just as a man would have done. The Indians attacked their cabin, about two miles south of the Chisum store, early one morning, probably having watched her husband ride away to the Fiveashes. The Williams children ran into the house from the cowpen.

"Ma, the Indians are coming! The horses heard them and we heard them too."

Several loaded guns were ready, and she peeped out the heavy back door, which was partly shielded by a big liveoak tree.

" Now you youngguns stay out of sight, and hand me a gun every time I shoot." she said. " Don’t you be peeping out anywhere. You might get shoot right in the eye."

The Indians rode up to the back fence and one jumped over, confident that this was an unprotected cabin, but they had not heard Elizabeth Williams.

She took dead aim and he fell with a yell. The others rode around, bent on over behind their horses, but whenever she thought she had a good target she fired. One lucky shot went through the neck of a horse and into an Indian, killing both.

William was within hearing of the guns, and he came racing home, yelling at every jump to make the raiders think that a force of men were with him. The Indians left without retaking the bodies of the two Elizabeth had killed. She was calm but exultant. "That will teach them a lesson." she said.

Among their children was Larkin, best known for his remark about a .22 pistol when he was fourteen years old. Already wearing two 45’s he had a contempt for the small caliber. "If anybody shoots me with that thing, and I found it out, I’d kill him!" he said.

Chisum sold his store to a young Alabama man, Lee Shields, the year uncertain, but probably 1874. A school had been started near the store, which Chisum had moved farther south, and near the spot where the present store is situated, and the Williams, Fiveash and other children of the valley attended, either wearing pistols or being brought in a wagon by the teacher, David McAlester. Indian raids became much worse during the early '70’s and the schoolboys sometimes ran out with their guns and chased the red raiders away.

It was the Fiveash family which was almost wiped out by smallpox in 1876, a story which will be told later in this book.

— __They Come in Peace__
by Leona Bruce
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