The Lawson Family...

​(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', September, 2011)  

​​In the history of Miller County, there were many families with the surname Lawson. They all appeared to be prosperous farmers owning much acreage in Osage township. Some of the family also settled in neighboring Maries County to the east. There were several branches of the Lawson family who were only cousins. It has been difficult to piece together kinship of these early Lawson families.

Nathan Lawson Sr. was of the older member of the Lawson clan who moved into Miller County in the 1830s. He lived on Greasy Creek in Osage Township on what was later called "the Dubbert place". Nathan and his wife (Christiana High, per Mormon records) were the parents of at least 7 children: Margaret/Peggy, Jack, David, Calvin, George, Andrew and Nathan Jr.
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I am a descendant of Andrew Lawson, son of Nathan & Christiana Lawson .........(Peggy)

The following is an excerpt from King's History of Maries County which has one chapter devoted to the Lawson family......."In taking up the Lawson family, we are confronted with the fact that at least 4 branches of it are represented in this county, and that even the oldest members of the various branches did not know their relationship each with the other. It is fairly certain that they were all kin, however, largely from the fact that they all came from the general territory of east Tennessee and the most of them reached this section about the same time" (Page 552)..... For anyone interested in the families, Mr. King chronicled each family very thoroughly. 

Nathan Lawson Sr. was a native of Virginia (perhaps Charlotte County), born about 1775. During this period of time, Virginia consisted of a vast amount of territory. By the time his children were born they were designated as Tennesseans. Therefore, I do not know if Nathan Sr. was born somewhere in the present area of Virginia and later traveled westward and settled in East Tennessee where his children were born and reared. There were several members of the Lawson family in McMinn County, Tennessee in the 1820s and 30s.

The following Lawson families were residents of Miller County in the 1850 census---John & Louisa Lawson, James & Susan Lawson and 6 children, Nathan & Delila (Green) Lawson and their 5 children, Colom & Rachel Lawson, William & Susan Lawson and 5 children, David & Nary Lawson and 3 children, and John & Martha Lawson and 4 children. All were close neighbors except John & Martha who lived some distance away.

Andrew Lawson was born in Tennessee on 25 Dec 1812. He married Sarah/Sally Rowden, daughter of Nathaniel and Nancy (Crain) Rowden of Roane Co., Tennessee. They homesteaded several acres in Osage township of eastern Miller County in 1839. They were parents of six children, the 3 oldest born in Tennessee. They were: William Lawson b. 1834; George Lawson b. 1835; Mary Lawson b. 1838; Nancy Caroline Lawson b.1840; Clarissa Jane Lawson b. 1843; and Margaret Louisa Lawson b. 1844. Andrew Lawson died at the age of 33 years on 25 Jan 1846 leaving Sarah a young widow with 6 children to rear alone. Andrew was the first person buried at Duncan Cemetery near the Maries County line. He was buried on the land he had homesteaded earlier.

​Clarissa Jane Lawson, daughter of Andrew and Sarah (Rowden) Lawson was my great, great grandmother..... (Peggy)

After Andrew's death, Sarah Rowden-Lawson married her cousin, John Hardin Rowden, who was 12 years younger than Sarah. He was 19 and she 31 when they married at the end of 1846. The children born of this marriage were: Harriet Rowden b. 1847; Daniel Rowden b. 1848; Abraham Rowden b. 1849; Anna E. Rowden b. 1851; James H. Rowden b. 1855; and Levi Monroe Rowden b. 1857. Sarah was a very interesting woman. She lived a very busy life serving her community as a midwife. She was in constant demand, traveling everywhere with the doctor and she always went where ever she was needed. Giving birth to at least 12 children of her own, she was well qualified to serve as an experienced midwife.

The following is a 'reminensce of memories' recalled by a granddaughter of Sarah that I acquired from one of her descendants...."She could not remember Sarah's first husband who was Andrew Lawson She knew he died as a fairly young man, but she did remember John Hardin Rowden. Of him she said, 'He was a very handsome man..the handsomest man in the county. He was a hard worker and a great pioneer. They bought a farm and he worked hard tilling the soil Finally, John bought a threshing machine and one day, while working on it, he received a sun stroke. This was to be the end of hard-working, handsome John. He was never able to work the land again. It was left up to his older children to do the laboring and farming of the land."

Finally the land was sold to James Duncan. Duncan cemetery is located on the original farm land of John Hardin and Sarah Rowden. Sarah's first husband, Andrew Lawson, is the first person buried in this old cemetery so it stands to reason that Sarah and her second husband are also there in unmarked graves. Sarah spent the last days of her life with her daughter, Polly Ann, who married William Shelton. She was a wonderful person--having married two men---reared their families and helped to bring many other lives into the world.
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[NOTE: I believe the farm was homesteaded by Andrew Lawson so was not the land of John Hardin Rowden, but was owned by widow Sarah Lawson when she married John Hardin Rowden shortly after Andrew's death.]

Clarissa Jane Lawson, daughter of Andrew and Sarah, was born in Miller County in 1843. She married Edmund F. Shelton 29 June 1858 at the age of 15 years. He was the son of George Washington Shelton and his first wife whose name was _____Roberds (her first name has not been found.) George and Ms. Roberds were married in McMinn Co., Tennessee but no record of their marriage was found when I made a trip to Athens, McMinn Co. TN to research the Lawson and Shelton families. The marriage of Clarissa Jane and George was performed by Jehu Carnes, a circuit-riding Methodist minister who lived in Maries County. Jehu was also a native of McMinn Co., TN...Clarissa's half-sister, Polly Ann/Mary Rowden, married Edmund's half-brother, William Shelton. Her sister, Margaret Louisa Lawson married James Shelton another half-brother to Edmund.

In the 1860 census of Miller County, Clarissa and Edmund were a newly-wed couple living in Osage township near his brothers, William and John Shelton and their families. All were prosperous farmers with land valued and exceeding $1,000 each, which was a susbtantial amount in those years. During this same census, the farm land of John Hardin and Sarah Lawson-Rowden was valued at $5,000 which was a larger farm. All the neighbors of John and Sarah were of the Lawson family including David Lawson, John Lawson and William Lawson

The children born to Edmund F. and Clarissa Jane (Lawson) Shelton were: Sarah Emeline b. 1860 died young; Celia Adeline b. 1862 m. James Boyd; James Pinkney b. 1865; Mary Caroline b. 1869 m. James A. Crismon; Louisa Paralee b. 1872 m. Henry Singer; Wiliam Harvey b. 1874; Nancy Azalia b. 1879 m. Elbert Osborne; and Clara Jane b. 1881 m. Andrew Singer.

​Celia Adeline Shelton, daughter of Clarissa Lawson and Edmund F. Shelton, was my great grandmother... (Peggy)

Celia Adeline Shelton, daughter of Edmund and Clarissa, married James Boyd 7 August 1879. James was a son of Greenville and Jane (Freeman) Boyd of Osage township. The marriage records show her name written as 'Seley Adeline' which was probably a nickname for Celia.

The children of Celia (Shelton) and James Boyd were: Isabelle Boyd b. 1883 m. William Clark; Leonard Boyd b. 1884 m. Mary Lou Bodford in Oklahoma; Conard Boyd b. 1886 m. Dennie Moon in Oklahoma; Sarah Eliza Boyd m. Henry Franklin Smith; Minnie Jane Boyd b. 1890 m. Samuel Simmons in Oklahoma; Azalia Boyd b. 1893 m. Carl Musgrove in Oklahoma; Nollie Boyd b. 1897 m. Michael Hanvey in Oklahoma; and Clara Alta Boyd born and died in 1898 in Oklahoma After Celia's death (circa 1898 in Oklahoma), James Boyd married Gertie McGuire of Collinsville, OK and they had one son, William Boyd, a half-brother to the other children.
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My grandmother was Sarah Eliza Boyd, daughter of Celia (Shelton) and James Boyd. She married my grandfather Henry Franklin Smith in Miller County in the early 1900s...(Peggy)

It appears that James and Celia Boyd moved their family to Oklahoma about 1897 or early 1898. They settled in the Chickasaw Indian Nation near Stroud OK and it was there Celia died, probably at the birth of her last child, Clara Alta. I have tried over the years to find her gravesite but with no luck. She is most likely in an unmarked grave and her whereabouts is known only to God. I have been in touch with a lady in Stroud, OK and she graciously went into the area looking for an old grave for Celia, but could find nothing.

It appears the Lawson clans migrated westward from McMinn Co., TN and all moved to Missouri about the same time, settling in eastern Miller County and western Maries County in the 1830s. The names of the older Lawson men who seemed to have headed up the family lines were Nathan, David, James Madison and Clem. There is a question about James Madison called Jim Matt Lawson---I thought he was a son of Nathan and Christiana Lawson but he may have been a brother to Nathan....In King's history of Maries County, each of these families are listed with their known descendants in the early 1940s when Mr. King wrote his 'Name of Lawson Men' found in McMinn Co., TN records and they included Andrew, Stephen, Richard, David, Tyra, Nathan, Isham, Allen, Asa, Hugh, James Jesse, John and William.

While researching in East Tennessee, I found other familiar names who came westward to Miller/Maries counties and homesteaded near the Lawson families. They were: COPELAND, MASSEY, CARNES, ROWDEN, MORELAND, MOSS, RENFROW, JOHNSON, BURKS, BRANDON, GREEN, SHELTON, ELSEY, WRIGHT, MELTON, HALE, MARTIN and WIGGINGTON.

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