Chasing Our Tales - Mayflower or Not? and Soda Springs

Chasing our Tales, Thanksgiving on Plymouth Rock OR Did my ancestors come over on the Mayflower? and Soda Springs

One persistant genealogical tale is that our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Well, that is, unfortunately, not one of my tales, but perhaps it is one of yours. So to help with this, here is a list of surnames of the Mayflower families: Alden, Allerton, Billington, Bradford, Brewster, Browne, Chilton, Cooke, Doty, Eaton, Fletcher, Fuller, Hopkins, Howland, More, Mullins, Priest, Rogers, Sameson, Soule, Standish, Tilley, Warren, White, Winslow.

Now, right away, I can see a few old time Palo Pinto area names. But just because one of these names is in your ancestry does not mean those particular people are you ancestors. Unless, of course, you want to go back to Adam, in which case, we can throw genealogy out all together. At least the genealogy with the meaning "written history"!

These Pilgrims, not Puritans, did not like the fact that in England there was only one accepted state religion, that of the Church of England. The Pilgrims, like the Scots-Irish of an earlier column, decided it was time to find a place where they could worship God in their own way, without the dictates of the government.

The Pilgrims, like the Puritans, were from England, but they are not the same group. Though both came to the Boston area, the Pilgrims established the Plymouth Colony in 1620, ten years before the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Pilgrims were called Separatists because they wanted to separate themselves from the domination of the Church of England. They believe in a simply, less formal way of worship. Their pastor, Richard Clyfton, had guided this religious community into a form of democratic self-government. The Pilgrims were warm, generous and thoughtful in their dealings with their fellow citizens and with the Indians they met in America.

As this is my Thanksgiving column, I would like to include the original account of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving as it was written in a letter from Edward Winslow in Plymouth, dated Dec. 21st, 1621 stated:

"We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas. According to the manner of the Indians we manured our ground with herrings (alewives) which we have in great abundance and take with great ease at our doors. Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase in Indian corn. Our barley did indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering. We feared they were too late sown. They came up very well and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together, after we had gathered in the fruits of our labors. They four in one day killed as many fowl as with little help besides, served the Company for almost a week, at which time, amongst our recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their great king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. They went out and killed five deer, which they brought in to the Plantation, and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. Although it not always be so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

"We have found the Indians very faithful in their Covenant of Peace with us; very loving and ready to pleasure us. Some of us have been fifty miles into the country by land with them.

"There is now great peace amongst us; and we, for our parts, walk as peaceably and safely in the woods here as in the highways in England.

"I never in my life remember a more seasonable year than we have enjoyed.

"If we have but once kine, horses and sheep, I make no question but men might live as contented here, as in any part of the world.

"The country wanteth only industrious men to employ, for it would grieve your hearts to see so many miles together with goodly rivers uninhabited, and withall to consider those parts of the world wherein you live to be seven greatly burdened with abundance of people."

It was the Pilgrims who established Plymouth Colony. It was the Pilgrims who celebrated that first Thanksgiving with the Indians. It was the Pilgrims who brought our American principles of democratic government into being.

There is a wonderful website called Through the Looking Glass at <http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/> where you can search to your heart's content. It includes genealogies of all the Mayflower families including the daughters whose surnames changed. This site also includes histories, a look at life at that time and the documents such as the Mayflower Compact, diaries, passenger list. . .everything. For teachers, this site is wonderful for teaching this history to our children...after all, it is for them we are doing all this genealogy in the first place!

The other website I would like to direct you to is <http://www.mayflower.org/>

When you have proven your Mayflower ancestry, there is a wonderful organization to join. It is called the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. In order to join you must have documented proof that your ancestor was on the Mayflower. You can contact the Texas chapter through Mary Eck, 13205 George Rd., San Antonio TX 78230-3081.

So good luck with your search!

Now on to COT Questions and Answers:

"I would like to learn more about Soda Springs," says Danny Atchley of Mineral Wells.

Well, Danny, the Handbook of Texas says the following: "SODA SPRINGS, TEXAS. Soda Springs, once known as Sour Springs, is a small rural community on Farm Road 1322 five miles northeast of Luling in southern Caldwell County. The community post office, which operated from 1857 to 1880, took the name Sour Springs because the local springs had an odd taste caused by a high sodium carbonate content in the water. The name of the community was later changed to Soda Springs. During the 1940s a church and a few houses marked the townsite on county highway maps. The flow of the local springs was 6.3 liters per second in 1946 but had diminished to only .13 liters per second by 1975. The Soda Springs community was labeled on county highway maps in the late 1980s, but no population estimates were available. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gunnar Brune, Springs of Texas, Vol. 1 (Fort Worth: Branch-Smith, 1981)."

Now, Caldwell County is on the South Coast of Texas, not really very near the great county of Palo Pinto, but, in fact, OUR Soda Springs is right on the county line of Palo Pinto and Parker on the Littlefield Bend of the Brazos River. It is due north of the I-20 just where the county lines come together.

There is a book entitled Soda Springs Cemetery, Littlefield Bend of the Brazos River, Parker County, Texas which was compiled by James Broom, in 1995. The Dallas Public Library has this book, and you could get it in inter-library loan through the Bois Ditto Library in Mineral Wells.

The cemetery is at lattitude: 324051N; longtitude: 0980310W. It is listed in the Vol I. Cemetery Book, page 190, map #7, in Cemeteries of Southern Parker County, recently published by the Parker County Genealogical Society. You may contact them at the Parker County Heritage Society, P.O. Box 97, Weatherford, TX 76086.

I think the folks in Soda Springs have a Millsap address, as I did find this: Soda Springs Baptist Church, 817-682-7229, 1801 Soda Springs Road, Millsap TX 76066.

I have further discovered that a James Hatfield is looking for information on the HATFIELD familly that setteled first at COX PRARIE > SODA SPRINGS > RED BLUFF COMMUNITY. This family came to Parker County by wagon train with the GREEN, CAMBELL, & MARTIN families. You can email Mr. Hatfield at <[email protected]>.

The history is scatchy at best, but it appears farmers and ranchers were attracted to the Soda Springs area because of the plentiful water of the Brazos and of a spring located there. A number of families homesteaded there, and, as a result, a Baptist church was organized. The log church was built in the 1850's. The organizing pastor was the Reverend Geroge W. Slaughter. The church served the congregation until 1895 when it was replaced by a new frame structure. The present church is brick.

A one-room school house served the Soda Springs community until 1945. The Soda Springs Cemetery was established in the 1850's, and it contains graves of many area pioneers.

I hope someone who is reading this column will know more about Soda Springs. If you do, send me a letter or an email and tell us about it, and we will print it in a future issue.

Well, this should keep you busy until next time, and if you have any questions with which I can assist, you may contact me with requests which may be published in future editions of Painted Post Crossroads. Either mail your questions to P. O. Box 61, Mineral Wells TX 76068--061 or email me at <[email protected]>.