Groves
Family

Claudius Groves
CLAUDIUS
GROVES
Like
many others
in 1868, Claudius "Claude" Groves
moved his family to Texas
after the end of the
Civil War. Claude had left his
native Charles County,
Maryland home circa 1838
to settle in Alabama and then on to Louisiana
gathering a wife,
Martha Ann Baker - December 1845, and
having 8 known
children along the way.
Martha Groves died and Claude married
his second wife in Sherman, Texas
June 1869. Drusilla
(Castleberry) Wise was Martha's
widowed niece with one
young son.
Claude settled his family southeast
of Denison, Texas
north of Choctaw Creek in the Dripping
Springs District.
The Groves family
worked a prosperous farm there for
many years. Claude and
Silla increased the
family count with 3 more known
children. Drusilla
died circa 1902/1903
and Claudius in December 1908.
Together
Claude
and Silla raised 12 children:
Claude
and Martha:
John Singleton Groves
Alcy Elizabeth "Elsie"
Nancy "Nan" Jane
William "Bill" Henry
Richard
Franklin
"Frank"
Mary Irene
Martha "Mattie" Evelyn
Thomas Jefferson
"Tom"
Claude and Silla:
Augustus "Gus"
Lula
Maud
Gideon
Wise & Silla:
James Edwin
"Ed" Wise
They
were known to have
had at least 59 grandchildren.
THE JOHN HULL
FAMILY
Republic
of Texas!
Free Land! Those promises brought settlers
to Texas in the early 1840s. So it
was that John and Sarah (Sinclair) Hull of
Macoupin
County, Illinois
(originally natives of Pennsylvania and
Tennessee respectively)
packed up their
three sons - Isaac, 5; William, 2; and
infant John, who was just
a babe in
arms, and made the trip to the Red
River in i844 as members of the
"Peter's Colony"
group. John made his claim for 640 acres on the banks
of the river in the
Washita Bend area about due west of the original
Preston settlement.
(Grayson County had yet to be formed and
Texas
was yet to
become
a state.)
The farm
prospered
and a fourth son, George, was born into
the family in 1851. John
Hull died in 1854
but Sarah and their sons persevered and earned a
comfortable living
there for many, many years. Sarah married
a second time to John Early of Ray
County, Missouri in August of 1874. For reasons
unknown this marriage
wasn't of long duration and they divorced
before
1880. Sarah
then resided with William and his family
until her death in 1882.
THE HULL SONS
Isaac
Hull joined the Confederacy in February
1862, enlisting with Fitzhugh's
16th Texas Regiment,
Co. C. Isaac was killed in action June 7,
1863
during the engagement at
Milliken's Bend, Louisiana.
William
Hull also joined Fitzhugh's 16th Texas
Regiment, Co. C. He was taken
prisoner
by the Union forces at the Battle of
Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on
April
9,1864 but returned to Grayson County
after the war. In January 1866
William Hull married Elizabeth Reeves.
Three children were born to this
marriage but all died in infancy.
Elizabeth died in 1870.
April of
1873
found William marrying for a second time
to Miss Mary Jane "Mollie"
Baird, a native of Tennessee. In 1883 they
acquired 160 acres in the rural
Georgetown/Pottsboro area where William
would build a large (for the time)
2-story home for his growing family. Known
simply as "Hull
House" by
many,
William and Mollie raised their 14
children there: Nora
Samuel
Carrie
Nina
Belle
Della
Bessie
Elbert
twins
Beulah and Edith
John - died
1902
(age 14)
Herbert
Mary -
died I895 (age 3)
Raymond
William
had begun
to acquire a reputation for his farming
and ranching skills by his
management of the original family farm. By
the late 1880's he was a
prominent
farmer/rancher in the area with over 1100
acres at his disposal and
was
considered to be one of the "well-to-do"
of the community. William died
in
1910. Mollie lived with daughter Beulah
until her own death in 1929.

Sallie & John Hull, Jr.
John
Hull, Jr.
took on the management of the family farm
upon his brothers'
departure in 1862. John married Miss
Sarah "Sallie" Spence in Sherman, Texas
in
December 1865. Sallie was a native of
Jasper County, Missouri. The
couple built a home and settled down to
farming and raising their family
on
160 acres on the west side of Little
Mineral Creek (near what is today FM
406?).
Nine children were bom to the
couple:
Mary
Sophia
Millicent
Elizabeth
Belle
Mabel
Connie
Johrrrie
(daughter)
Isaac
The Hull's
only
son, Isaac, died at age 4 in 1889. John
then bought land northwest of
Doan's Crossing in Wilbarger County and
moved to that area. After the
daughters were grown and married, John and
Sallie retired to a home in the town of
Vernon. John died there in 1908; Sallie in
1912.
George Hull
lived
with his mother until 1874. Four months
after Sarah Hull married
John
Early in August of that year; son George
married John's daughter Julia
A.
Early in December. The couple didn't
immediately settle down in
Grayson
County. They opted, instead, to try their
hands at farming in Wise County,
Texas
where they stayed for several years. In
the 1880's they returned to
the
Pottsboro area and George tried his hand
in the business sector owning and
operating a small mercantile shop in the
"downtown" area. However,
financial
difficulties arose which necessitated the
liquidation of his property and
the
family then moved to Matagorda County for
several years before once
again
returning to Pottsboro.
Seven
children
were bom to George and Julia but only six
are known:
Elina Rosa
Minnie
Edna
Johnny
(died 1893 - 1 year)
Irene
Annie
Julia died
in
1908. George died Labor Day 1929 when he
tried unsuccessfully to prevent a
little girl from being hit by a train but
neither survived. He was 78 years old.
C. A.
Parsons
October 9,
2020

Biography Index
Susan Hawkins
©2025
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