Family Photos

I suppose it is about time to show a few family photos. Since I started this blog to document the Indian side of our family, those are the phoos I am including. And since our Melungon heritage is also part of the Indian side, here are a couple of photos from them.

This writing was found beside the photo of Jonathan Wayland (left, Ar 1816- Ar 1882). Dad was A. O. Hawkins (1915-1992). His mother's maiden name was Loney Richey (1883-1963).  er daddy was Jeff Richey (1854-1926). His Mama was Sarah Ann Wayland (1819-1857). She and Jonathan Wayland (in the photo) were first cousins. My Wayland's go back to the Saponi, who were a Northern band of the Catawba, and were made up by members of bands that became extinct, or virtually so.

Reverend Jonathan Wayland was a farmer and a well-known Methodist minister. One of his grandsons and a great-grandson also became Methodist ministers in Arkansas. "In addition to looking after his farming interests, Jonathan Wayland became known as a great Methodist preacher. He must have been a great and good man. He built the first Methodist church in that section of the country on his farm, the foundation of which until recent years still stood. After his death a memorial church was built in the Jessup neighborhood north of Strawberry, Arkansas in honor or Jonathan Wayland and Eli Lindsay. There was a wonderful spring on the Jonathan Wayland property which was used in the early days in lieu of refrigeration. The spring and property adjoining to the west was deeded to the Methodist Church by Jonathan Wayland, and today the Methodists have turned it into a camp site for the young people. A large swimming pool has been built that is fed by the spring." Jonathan Wayland was a brunette with dark brown hair and brown eyes.  [note: It was Jonathan's father Nevil Jr., who helped build that church.]Jonathan wasn't born until 1816. And his father, Nevil Jr, is the same Nevil Wayland who was church clerk at Stoney Creek Primitive Baptish Church from about 1801-on.

This is my great-great-grandma, Harriet (Guess/Gist) Brown (1818-1886). Her daughter, Josephine Brown, married Jeff Richey (below) in 1872 and they moved from Arkansas to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

This is my great grandpa, Jeffrey Hoten Richey (Ar 1851- Ok 1926). His mother was Sarah Ann Wayland (Ar 1829 -- 1857). Sarah was first cousin to Jonathan (above, left).



Josephine (Brown) Richey was wife to Jeff. The elder lady in this photograph is her. The man beside her is my uncle Andrew Hawkins, her grandson and Dad's older brother. Since she died in 1932, this was taken probably about 1930, about the time the Dust Bowl hit or just bfore.

The photo above is a 1909-1910 school photo of a rural school district in Southwestern Oklahoma. There are two Richey boys in the photo -- Otho and Hoten Jr., alhough they misspell his name as "Holton". Their father is the man above, Jeff Richey, with the mustache.  Hoten's actual name was the same as his father's, Jeffrey Hoten Richey, but since the father was called Jeffrey, the son was called "Hoten". A blow up of the two richey boys is below:

Well if I ever learn to put these side by side, I'll do it. Above left is Hoten and to the left is Otho. They are two of grandma's brothers. Both were born in the Chickasaw Nation (although our family was not Chickasaw) in South-central Oklahoma (then Indian Territory).

Below is grandma and I personally knew her. I remember as a child, her getting blossoms from that very honey suckle vine, and showing me how to suck the honey from it.

Below are photos of my father taken directly from his drivers license, so it DID pass for an I. D. the one on bottom was his last, so he was 4 years older in that one. He was A. O. Hawkins, b. 1915, d. 1992.

If I ever ty to enlarge one of these, I will -- computer won't let me do it, right now. Oh, I am so frustrated! On one photo he is darker than the other -- but that is just the lighting when the photo was taken. These photos were taken 4 years apart. I don't know why one was well lit and the other wasn't. Oh well.

This last photo is me -- we get whiter every generation. Dad was the last in my line with dark skin, so I wanted to create and document a record of us, or the transformation from dark to light skinned people.

I thought honest to God, I was smiling when this photo was taken. I wanted to show off this photo because it was i.] recent, ii.] I am wearing th t-shirt I got at Oklahoma Historical Society and iii.] That sweat is proof I could still run -- just ran 2 miles on a tread mill when it was taken. At 60 years of age that's not bad. :) I have given up on having a good photo of me -- I always look like an idiot.

This is the most recent photo of me taken about a year ago. I have become a member of a state recognized tribe -- Echota Cherokee of Alabama. I am proud of that. It took me twenty years of research. I had this photo taken for the tribal membership photo

This page was taken from "A Centenniel Histoy of Methodism in Arkansas, 1815-1935". You can see that this photo of Jonathan was taken from the larger photo at the top of this page.Our Waylands helped organize the first church of any kind in Arkansas Territory @ 1815. And since one of he churches they helped organize was west of the White River, it wasi n what was then called Indian Territory. In fact our church predates the more famous "Dwight Mission" by three years, ours being founded in 1815 and theirs in 1818 (Chronicles of Oklahoma; Volume 7, No. 4, December, 1929, BEGINNING OF METHODISM IN INDIAN TERRITORY, J. Y. Bryce).
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Jonathan Wayland's father was Nevil Wayland Jr, brother to my ancestor, William Wayland. Nevil Jr was clerk at the Stoney creek Primitive Baptist Church in Scott County, Virginia, the church made famous by Jack Gions in his book, "Melungeons and other Pioneer Families". It was in the Minutes of this church that the word "Melungeons" has first been found in 1811. Most of our Wayland's moved from Southwestern Virginia to Arkansas by 1815, moving west with Abraham Ruddle, a man held captive by he Shawnee for 18 years, since he was a child (from “Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas”, p 339-342 by Josiah H. Shinn, A. M.). Our Nevil Jr may very well have been the man who scribed the word "Melungins" in those church minutes. At one point in the minutes of that church it was written they purchased ink and paper for Nevil's usage, in his role as church clerk..