1843 SC - 1889 TX

Martin Van Buren Hook was born circa 1843 in South Carolina. His parents were Martin and Judith (Neely?) Hook of Edgefield, South Carolina.   The 1860 Census of Edgefield lists siblings: Jane A. Hook, McBins Hook, and Mary A. Hook. M.V.B. Hook’s father,  Martin Hook was in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana by 1875 where he married his second wife, Amanda Macie Coon.  M.V.B. Hook’s half-siblings from Louisiana Census Records are: Robert Edmond Hook, Eva Missouri Hook, and Alvin Hook. [R.G. Dean, dean@sfasu.edu and Maxine Hook, gwinn@lcc.net.]

 In January of 1861, Martin Van Buren Hook enlisted in the Confederate Army at Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina serving with Gen. Wade Hampton in Logan’s Brigade, Butler’s Division, Company H of the First South Carolina Regiment of Cavalry.  Six months later he was mustered out in Virginia but apparently enlisted  again as he later shows up on a Prisoner of War  List  and is paroled out in Augusta, Georgia, 20 May 1865.  By 1876, M.V.B. Hook was listed in the Dallas, Texas City Directory, as a  “resident” on San Jacinto Street between Association and Germania Streets.   In 1877, he bought property with H.C. Williamson, husband of  Sarah Barnhill.   On 14 February 1877, M.V.B. Hook married “Lizzie Burnsil,” [Lydia Barnhill] sister to Sarah Barnhill and daughter of  John D. Barnhill and Elizabeth Hungerford Smith Calhoun Barnhill of DeWitt County, Texas.   By 1885, M.V.B. Hook  was employed as a carpenter and Lydia Hook was listed as “Proprietress of the Mankato House,” at 1353 Elm Street at the corner of  Leonard Street.  

The 1880 Census lists M.V.B. Hook and wife, Lydia with one adopted son, Robert B. Hook, born circa 1873 in Arkansas.  In 1886, M.V.B. and Lydia Hook had a son, John Calhoun Hook, named after Lydia’s half-brother, John Calhoun of DeWitt County, Texas.   Martin Van Buren Hook died, according to Lydia’s 1928 Confederate pension application, on 13 October 1889.   By 1891, Lydia Hook had married James Forrester.   In 1905, Lydia was again a widow, residing with her son, John Calhoun Hook and both were employed with Southwestern Life Insurance Company.  Lydia married for a third time in 1908 to Sylvester Nelson.  Widowed again in 1921 she went to live with her son, John Calhoun Hook and his wife, Leila Della Scott, daughter of Robert Powell Scott and Mary Emeline Johnston of Cherokee County, Texas.

 In June of 1928, Lydia filed for a Confederate Pension based on her deceased husband, Martin Van Buren Hook’s service.  It was awarded to her but she died a few months later, in December 1928.  Her application states that her deceased husband had been dead for nearly forty years and she could not remember where he enlisted or where he served.   She believed he was raised in Charleston, South Carolina.

28 November 2000
Bennie Lou Hook Altom
mailto:BAltom@NovaOne.Net