Sent in by Sandi Osiecki

Excerpt from the book "Dim Trails and Blurred Footprints, A History of San Jacinto County Texas"
 

        The Texas branch of the Winters family was founded by James Washington Winters Sr., an 1812 War Veteran who left Tennessee in a covered wagon in August 1834 and arrived in Nacogdoches with his family in December.

        He received original title to a Spanish Land Grant at Nacogdoches the same
year and held a headright certificate to this land upon which the town of Old
Waverly emerged.  After 1837, it was in the limits of San Jacinto County when
Washington, Montgomery, Grimes and other early counties were divided.

        James Sr. descended from Tom and Otha Winters who lived near the James River in Virginia in early 1609. His father Thomas J. Winters served 84 months in
George Washington's Continental Army.  The home of his father and mother, Mary
Willis Winters in Halifax, North Carolina, where he was born in 1773, was robbed by Tories during the Revolutionary War.

        As a young man he moved to Tennessee where he met and married Miss Rhoda
Beal, daughter of Benjamin Beal and Nancy Taylor of Chatham, North Carolina,
in 1808.

        While they lived in Memphis, there was an Indian uprising and the people fled
to Fort Franklin for protection.

        James W. Winters Sr. enlisted in Andrew Jackson's West Tennessee Militia in 1812 and served in Col. Thomas Mc Crory's Regiment until 1814.

        He was active in the battles at Talladega and Horesshow Bend, where he met
the young Samuel Houston and they became friends.

        In 1835, he met Sam Houston again in San Antonio where he and his three sons joined the army of Stephen F. Austin.  They renewed their acquaintance and
talked of the battles of the War of 1812.

        James Sr. and his young son Benjamin, hauled supplies to the San Jacinto
Battlefield in 1836, where his sons, Wiliam Carver, John F. and James W.
Winters Jr. were in action in General Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment and
Captain William Wares Company.  William Carvin Winters was wounded during the
battle.

        His brother, John F. brought him to his home in Old Waverly when he was able to ride and nursed him back to recovery.

        The three San Jacinto veterans received Bounty and Donation Land Grants for their military service, and were listed on the first tax rolls of Washington
County, in 1837.  They later bought and traded land in Hays, Bexar, Liberty,
Montgomery, Harris and Walker counties.  Their names are engraved on the
bronze panel, interior of the San Jacinto Monument. John F. Winters, his wife
Margaret Ella Miller, and several of their children are buried on land where
they lived in Waverly.

        During the Texas Centennial in 1936, the State placed a granite marker at the grave of John F. Winters.  The cemetery was restored in 1967 and Official
Texas State Historical Markers were dedicated in 1968 when 200 family members
and friends attended.  The brothers William Carvin and John F. Winters arrived
in Mexican Territory, later Texas, in 1832 and were the first Anglos in that
part called "Big Thicket".

        Their neighbors ere friendly Indians who came to warm by the fireplace and
lingered for a week.  It was a custom in those days for the older sons to go
to the Frontier for adventure.

        James and Rhoda Beal Winters now have 7 generations of descendants living in the State of Texas which they helped to found.  Many of them are teachers,
attorneys and just plain private citizens who are still helping to build Texas.

        James Carvin Winters who married Laura Elizabeth Carter in San Jacinto
County, was the grandson of John F. Winters, the San Jacinto Veteran.

        James Washington Winters Sr. who came from Tennessee, died May 23, 1848 and is buried in San Jacinto County.  The General Society of the War of 1812
placed a Memorial Marker on grave.

        A number of great and great, great granddaughters of James Sr. and his wife
Rhoda, have become members of Patriotic and Heritage Societies through his Bible records, military, land grants and census records.

        They are members of Magna Charta Dames, United States Daughters of the War of 1812, Colonial Dames XVII Century, Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Clergy, Jamestown Society, Daughters of the Republic of Texas and United Daughters of the Confederacy, San Jacinto Descendants.  Some are members of the Order of the Eastern Star.

        Records of the above information can be found in the following places and
books.

        Texas State General Land Office, Spanish Archives Division, Texas State
Library, Texas Indian Fighters by A. J. Sowell 1900 page 38, Austin Colony
Pioneers by Worth Ray page 253, National Archives, Washington, D. C. Texas
Pioneers by Irma Dixon 1976, page 133., Texas History Carved In Stone W. M.
Jones 1958 Honor Roll of the Battle by L. W. Kemp, The History of Montgomery
County 1975 Now You Hear My Horn by Catherine W. McDowell 1967, page 126,
Wimberelys Legacy by Willidell Schawe, page 6.