According to a family tradition, told by Floy Medora Akin Garner, “William Calvin Dawson had a fine stallion which was stolen by a black man. During the escape the horse brought the black man back to the Dawson home. Mr. Dawson whipped the black man. Late at night the black man brought a box outside the window of Dawson’s house, climbed up onto it, and shot Dawson through the window.”177 It was not included in this story whether or not the gunshot wound was fatal. If it was fatal, it is in disagreement with the story told by another granddaughter, who recalled a family story that "he died from pneumonia which he contracted while lying drunk out of doors in inclement weather."178

In 1869 Florence King met and married William Calvin Dawson in Ripley. They had but two children, William Elias (b August 27, 1872) and John Eva, before W. C. Dawson died in 1876.

After Dawson's death, Florence and two children, Eliza and John, lived in Haywood Co TN with her mother, Mary Jane King and are listed there in the 1880 census.

1880 Census of District 8, Haywood, TN:

King, Mary J., w, f, 55, Farming, MS, NC, NC
King, Otho, w, m, 18, son, MS, Tenn, MS
Dawson, Florence, w, f, 25, daughter, MS, Tenn, MS
Dawson, Eliza, w, f, 7, gr daughter, Tenn, Tenn, Tenn
Dawson, John, w, m. 6, gr son, Tenn, Tenn, Tenn

[The census taker appears to have been confused by the gender of Mary Jane’s grandchildren. She probably reported that she had a grandson and a granddaughter named Elias and John, whereupon the census taker recorded a 7-year old “granddaughter” named Eliza and a 6-year old “grandson” named John.]

Some time after that, Mary Jane King, her son Otha, her daughter Florence Dawson and young William Elias and Eva chartered a train car and, loading all their belongings in it, they came west to Texas. They settled first in Prarie Lea, where they rented a farm. Young Otha, only sixteen at the time, applied for and received credit from a merchant in Luling named Walker.174 They apparently migrated to Wilson County shortly after the 1880 census (recorded 7 June 1880). Otha was definitely in Nockenut in 1881, when he participated with Bascom Johnston in laying out the boundaries of the Nockenut cemetery. Of Mary Jane King no more is known, except that she lived in Wilson County until her death on May 19, 1897. She is buried in the Hobbs-King plot in the Nockenut Cemetery.

The 1900 census of Precinct 3, Wilson, Texas lists Florence as head of household of a family that included her son William Elias Dawson, her daughter Mollie (recorded as Mary J.), her daughter-in-law Elsie (recorded as Elen), and two small children of William Elias and Elsie Dawson.

Florence Hobbs 45
Wm E Dawson 27
Mary J Hobbs 15
Elen C Dawson 22
John W Dawson 2
Wm E Dawson Jr. 2/12
John Heathcock Jr. 36 (boarder)
William Heathcock 24 (boarder)
Paul W, (illegible) 38 (boarder)

It must have been around this time that Will Heathcock, a 24-year old boarder met his future wife (they were married in 1904).

The 1910 census of Justice Precinct 3, Wilson, Texas lists Florence with the family of her son Elias Dawson:

Elise W Dawson 38
Nora Dawson 36
Walton J Dawson 12 (same as John W in 1900)
Walter G Dawson 10 (same as Wm E. Jr. in 1900)
Ola M Dawson 9
Cloise Dawson 7
Florence Hobbs 55
Austin Domor 22

Florence has not been located in the 1920 census; she was not living with her son Elias or her daughter Molly Heathcock.

"GRANDPA MARRIED AUNT FLORENCE"175

A number of years back when my dear friend Dora (King) Hastings and I were doing the kind of visiting we do, which is mainly recalling the history of this area, she said to me, "Grandpa married Aunt Florence."

What she said at the time really had little meaning for me, but I stored it away in a cranny of my mind with other odds and ends ... that Pleasant Howe Hobbs' second wife was Florence King.

But since I have doing this series of stories about families who lived on the watershed of the Ecleto and the Clear Fork of Sandies, I dug out my little morsel and began to clothe it with facts. Actually, at the time Dora told me that her grandfather Hobbs had married her father's sister, it had not occured to me that Florence King was not a MISS but a MRS.

The fact is that Miss Florence King was married in 1871 in Ripley, Lauderdale County, Tennessee to Elias Calvin Dawson by whom she had two children: Elias Jr. and Eva Jo (Elias Dawson Jr. became the husband of Lenora Alston and his sister Eva Jo married Joseph W. Akin). And it was in Tennessee that she was widowed.

Almost unbelievable is the story my friend tells that her grandmother, the widowed Mrs. Mary Jane (Fisher) King (born in Mississippi on the 17th of June 1827) and her widowed daughter, Hrs. Florence (King) Dawson hired a railway car to be attached to a train that would bring them and their belongings to Texas. It was in 1877 and the young Otha King, aged sixteen, was the man of the family. For two women, one burdened with two small children, and a sixteen year old to undertake such a trip was more than a little courageous.

I have suggested to Dora that surely Medora (King) Hurt and her husband; or Sophronia (King) Smith and her husband; or John Swept King and his wife; or Will King and his wife were members of the party, but she is adamant in her story and says it was never told other than as I have related it above. Besides she says the W. T. Hurts, the Wyatt Smiths, the John Swept Kings; and the Will Kings had already come to Texas ... all four families staying over awhile in Guadalupe County before the first three moved on into Wilson County and the Will Kings went to Dripping Springs.

Dora's knowledge is scanty about the next four or five years ... the length of time which elapsed before her father, Mr. Otha King, met and married the sixteen year old Adelia Hobbs. She says she often asked her father and mother where they lived before Mr. P. Howe Hobbs made 300 acre land deeds to each of his children before contracting his second marriage. She said the reply was always a gesture of the arm or hand in the general direction of old Arkansas School which I've been told was located where Mr. Ford Ellison first bought from the Dibrells in Wilson County in 1923.

Now, Clayton Heathcock, who is the great-grandson of Pleasant Howe Hobbs and his second wife Florence (King-Dawson) Hobbs, states the relationship between his great-grandfather and his Aunt Adelia more sedately than do Dora and I. Says he: "It is interesting to note that Pleasant Howe's daughter Adelia married Florence's brother Otha King. Thus Adelia's father became also her brother-in-law." And I add that their daughter Mollie was both half-sister and niece to my friend's mother.

Before finishing up this story, I wrote to Mrs. Lea (Smith-Wells) Young, youngest child of the Wyatt Smiths to see if she could add anything to the history of the move of the King family and their in-laws. She had to tell me that I knew more about her family than she did-saying her mother and her Aunt Dodie never talked about the past much ... or that she was perhaps studying when they talked and didn't hear their stories.

Perhaps I really should have tried asking Flay (Stout) Park, who is descended from John Swept and his wife Floy Eva (Saunders) King if she'd heard anything about the family's arrival in Texas, but I do not know her personally. Her sister Mollie (Stout) Hewell was my fifth grade teacher and I am sure the one of all I had whom I loved the most.

On the Guadalupe County Census for 1880 I did find the following entries: Household #115/Family #116; Head John King, age 26 born in Tennessee; with family Eva (age 23), Lena (age 5), Floy (age 2), and Mary (age 9/12). For sure the last two named children were born in Texas and perhaps also Lena where the census taker wrote Texas over Tennessee or vice versa. AND Household #118/Family #119; Head William King, age 27, born in Tennessee with wife Mattie [Vaughn] born in Texas.

I am sorry I wasn't able to find other members of the clan.