Our Family Tree

"[Bessire.ftw] Henry Young, Jr. (II) was 42 years old when he moved his family to Texas, a product of the pioneering, ever westward moving spirit of the 1700 and 1800's, having been born in Kentucky in 1800, moved to Tennessee by age ten, and then about 1829 as a young husband and father of three children, moved to Illinois. He was elected first Probate Judge of Navarro County, Texas.¶ In Illinois the Montgomery County Court Records Book A, 1821-38, page 271, on May 12, 1835, notes: 'Ordered that Henry Young foreman of the Grand Jury be discharged (sufficient cause therefor appearing to the court) from further service thereon.' In 1836, he made his first purchase of farmland in Grisham Township, one tract in Section 14, Twp. 7, Range 4; the others in Section 1 and 2, Twp. 7 Range 4, totalling 119 acres.¶ In 1838 he and his wife Mary sold Lot 23 in Hillsboro, Illinois. In 1839-1841, Dr. Henry Young obtained five land grants from the President of the US Millard Fillmore, totalling 319 acres. These grants were all in the Grisham Township, south of Hillsboro, in flat, open fields just north of the little village of Donnellson and brought Henry's holdings to 438 acres.¶ In a two month period in 1843, Henry and Mary sold 258 of their approximately 438 acres to move to Texas. The remaining 180 acres were disposed of in 1851 after their deaths.¶ Henry Young signed a letter of consent for his daughter, Elizabeth, to marry and this is the only authentic signature by Henry and is the same handwriting as all but the latest entries in his Bible.¶ The administration of Henry Young's estate is found in Navarro County Deed Book C but is included in the earliest Probate Court Index and is not included in deed indexes. Not all the original documents in Probate envelope No. 1 stored in the basement vault of the Court House at Corsicana have been recorded in any deed or probate book or the probate index or abstract books. The Petition of Wesley Young for Letters of Administration was filed December 28, 1846.

Sources 1. Bessire.ftw

"[Bessire.ftw] The family sold much of its property in Montgomery County, Illinois, September 30, 1843, and traveled to the Peters Colony, in present Dallas County, Texas. Dr. Young and his oldest son, Wesley, owned land in Illinois which had been obtained by federal land grant and by purchase. Henry Young and his family were listed on Ralph Barksdale's "Peters Colony Roster," 'a true statement of the families that arrived previous to the first day of July 1844'. Barksdale's original handwritten document is in the Texas State Archives and lists all colonists who had arrived before that date. The Young family probably were living, at the time they were enumerated by Barksdale, in southern Dallas or northern Ellis County, at approximately the area of Red Oak community on Interstate 35-East, isolated from the small Dallas settlement, probably 20-25 miles away along a trail which served as a road, then as now the major route from Indian Territory to Dallas, Waco,and San Antonio. The town of Dallas had been founded in 1841, and in 1843 comprised only about four families. A History of Greater Dallas and Vicinity, published in 1909, relates: 'Dallas was so named, in honor of George Mifflin Dallas, vice president of the US when James K. Polk was president, 1845-1849. Before this it was know as Peters' Colony.' Peters' Colony, grew out of an act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas, passed February 4, 1841, to encourage immigration, and under which W. S. Peters, and others, were aurthorized to locate colonies in the northern part of Texas. One of these called 'Peters' Colony'."