James ("Jim") Heddins was the second child born
to Josiah "Isaiah" Heddins and Salome (Carpenter) Heddins. He was born
on Tuesday, October 26, 1824 in Berkshire Township, just southeast of
the town of Delaware, in Delaware County, Ohio. At the time of James'
birth, the president of the United States of America was James Monroe,
the fifth president.
James and all his siblings were born in Delaware County, Ohio and lived
there until the 1840's when they moved west. They settled in Coles
County, Illinois in the township of Pleasant Grove near the town
of Charleston.
We have record of James at the age of 22 buying land in Coles County,
Illinois, located near the old homeplace. On Feb. 17, 1847, James
bought 40 acres of land from William & Susan Wilson for $150.00
where he began farming.
When he was 26 years of age, James Heddins married Clarinda ("Clara")
Lee Brewster, age 19, on Thursday, February 28, 1850. They were married
by Thomas Jeffries in Coles County, Illinois. Clara Brewster was born
on Saturday, December 17, 1831 in Grayson County, Kentucky. She was the
daughter of Thomas and Martha Brewster. This Brewster family were
direct descendants of Elder William Brewster, patriarch of the
Mayflower Pilgrims. Sometime between 1832 and 1835, the Thomas Brewster
family had moved from Grayson County, Kentucky to Coles County,
Illinois, and there Clara was raised.
Jim and Clara Heddins began their family in Pleasant Grove township,
near Charleston, Illinois, living next to Jim's parents, Isaiah and
Salome. The Heddins' were farmers. In January of 1851, Jim and Clara
had their first child, and they named her Elmira Ann Heddins. Then in
August of 1852, they had a boy whom they named Thomas Jeffries Heddins.
He was named after his maternal grandfather, Thomas Brewster, and also
after the man who had married Jim and Clara, Mr. Thomas Jeffries.
Word was out that there was good farmland to be had in Texas, and in
about late 1852 or early 1853 (or possibly late 1853 or early 1854),
Jim and Clara decided to move their family south, along with most of
the Brewster family. So, with their two small children, Jim and Clara
travelled the great distance of about 900 miles by covered wagon, with
a group of others in a wagon train.
It is not known whether Clara's father died in Illinois before the rest
of the family moved to Texas, or whether he died shortly after
arriving, but he does not show up in the 1860 census of Grayson County,
Texas with his widow, Martha Brewster.
On April 6, 1854, shortly after arriving in Texas, Clara gave birth to
their third child, Drucilla Adelia Heddins, named after Clara's younger
sister, Drucilla Brewster, who had also moved to East Texas and the
following year would marry John Anglin in Anderson County. Then on
March 31, 1856, William Rufus Heddins was born to Jim and Clara on
their farm in Pleasant Ridge.
James Heddins' name first appeared on the Van Zandt County, Texas Tax
Lists in 1855. The records state that he owned no land, only four
horses valued at $225.00, for which he paid $1.33 in taxes.
For about the first two years or so of being in
Texas, Jim apparently farmed on someone else's land. On August 26,
1856, Jim and his family settled on 160 acres of vacant public land in
southern Van Zandt County, on Kickapoo Creek, a tributary of the Neches
River. The area in which they settled is now called Pleasant Ridge,
about 15 miles southeast of Canton near the border of Henderson County.
Farm Road 773 at Pleasant Ridge now runs through what was once their
property. There, Jim and Clara began homesteading.
On October 11, 1859, Jim received the final land grant title, issued by
the State of Texas. It was called a Pre-emption Grant, issued to those
who actually resided on a tract of land of no more than 160 acres for
three consecutive years, under an act of 1854. Had Jim and his family
moved to Van Zandt County prior to 1854, they would have been entitled
to a larger Pre-emption Grant of 320 acres. The tax records show that
in 1858, their land was valued at $160.00, and in 1859 it was up to
$240.00. By 1865, Jim and Clara reportedly owned no horses, but owned 9
cattle valued at $36.00. By 1868 they owned one horse ($40.00), nine
cattle ($36.00) and three sheep ($3.00), and by 1870 they owned two
horses ($100.00) and 14 cattle ($40.00). The total value of their
taxable possessions in 1870 was $510.00, for which they paid a total of
$3.02 in taxes.
It was on Christmas day of 1857 that Isaiah Lafayette Heddins was born
to Jim and Clara. He was their fifth child. Less than two years later,
in July of 1859, Oscar Winnfield Heddins was born. Then in February of
1861, John Dennis Heddins was born, and in November of 1862, Martha
Arbela Heddins followed.
The Civil War began in April of 1861, and although many men Jim's age
(36) enlisted to fight, Jim did not. Having lived in the south for less
than a decade, Jim may not have agreed with the Rebel cause. If in fact
that was the case, he must have suffered great criticism from his
neighbors and fellow Van Zandters, for in their eyes he was a Yankee.
On December 26, 1864, James Marion Heddins was born to Jim and Clara,
and finally on October 23, 1870, Clara gave birth to their tenth child,
Sarah Lee Heddins.
On July 26, 1867, James Heddins registered to vote in Precinct 5 of Van
Zandt County. He signed the register, stating that he was a native of
Ohio, had resided in the state and county for fifteen years, and in the
precinct for twelve months. Unless he was off by a year, this report of
having lived in Van Zandt County and in the state of Texas since 1852
(almost certainly late 1852 or early 1853, since his son Thomas was
born in Illinois in August 1852) documents about when they arrived in
East Texas. But it is curious why Jim didn't start paying taxes until
1855 (for the year 1854). This is why there is a possibility Jim and
Clara may not have moved to Texas till late 1853 or early 1854. Can we
trust that the 1867 voter's registration was accurate, or could Jim had
told the registrar “about 15 years” when in was actually 14 years?
On October 4, 1870, Jim and Clara Heddins bought 160 acres of land at Walton Community, in northern Henderson County, bordering Van Zandt County. This land they bought from Mr. Green E. Attaway for $960.00. The land was part of the original survey of land patented to John P. McCormack by the State of Texas. At the same time, Jim and Clara also bought 320 more acres of land from G. E. Attaway for $400.00. This land was located north of the community of Walton, in southern Van Zandt County. The land was part of the original survey of land patented to William S. Gossett by the State of Texas. Texas Highway 19 now runs through both tracts of land. Buying those 480 acres of land for $1360, and that almost certainly included a house and barn (comparing the price per acre on the two tracts of land), the Heddins now owned a total of 640 acres, including the 160 they were granted by the State of Texas.
Six months passed, and then on April 6, 1871, Jim and Clara sold their 160 acre "Heddins Survey" that had been granted to them by the State of Texas. Mr. M. P. McGrary, of the state of Arkansas, bought the property for $1000.00.
Tragedy in the Heddins family began in October of 1868, when Jim and Clara's twelve year old son, William Heddins, died. Four years later, in December of 1872, Jim and Clara lost two more of their grown children, twenty year old Thomas and eighteen year old Drucilla. It is probable that their deaths were due to influenza or some other epidemic that may have swept through the area.
Nearly a year after Thomas and Drucilla died, Clarinda Lee Heddins herself died, on September 27, 1873, at the young age of 42 years, but no clues have been left to explain why. Was it disease or could it have been a late-in-life childbirth death? Naturally, Jim had to have been grief-stricken. He had lost three of his children and now his beloved wife had been taken. Jim was left with a houseful of children, but Elmira, the oldest daughter, and the older children helped with the younger ones. Little Sarah was just under three years of age. Clarinda's body was buried on their land, about 2/10th of a mile south of the county line in Henderson County, just off of what is now Texas Highway 19.
From 1872 to 1879 James Heddins was listed in the Henderson County Tax List, for he was living in northern Henderson County. In 1880, James' name reappeared on the Van Zandt County Tax List, showing that he owned 150 acres of land valued at $150.00 (abstract no. 294). The year 1880 was the last year that James' name appeared on the tax lists, for he died the following year.
James Heddins died at the age of 56, on Monday, January 24, 1881. His body was buried next to Clara's on their land. A tombstone bearing both their names was erected at their grave site. In December of that same year and also in January of 1883, two infant grandchildren of Jim and Clara (children of Isaiah and Julia Heddins) were buried in the same little family cemetery. The two infants were also given a joint cement grave marker. It is suspected that the bodies of William, Thomas, and Drucilla Heddins may have also been buried in that little cemetery, however no tombstones are there to prove it. There could be as many as a dozen family members buried at that old home place.
In October of 1880, about three months before Jim's death, Elmira Ann Heddins married P. Marion Hall. Marion was a widower, having first been married to E. L. Hall. It is not certain whether Marion and Elmira lived in north�ern Henderson County or Van Zandt County. In 1881 or 1882 they had a baby girl, later identified as “J. A. Hall” in an 1890-1891 Van Zandt County School Roster. Her uncle O. W. (Oscar Winnfield) Heddins was listed as a guardian of this 8-year-old girl. J. A. Hall was Jim and Clara's first known grandchild. In December of 1882 Marion and Elmira had a son named Arthur. The 1900 census lists Elmira with her son Arthur, but J. A. Hall isn't listed. However, it states that Elmira had had another child who died prior to 1900. So this would tell us that young J. A. Hall had died between 1891 and 1900. Oscar Winnfield had also apparently died before the turn of the century for he was never mentioned again in any documents beyond the 1896 tax records.
Life had been tough for Elmira. She was well
acquainted with grief, having lost her parents and several of her
siblings. By her fifties she had also lost her husband and children. In
her latter days, Elmira lived with her brother, Isaiah, and his family
in the Willow Springs Community, north of Canton. Elmira, like many men
and women of that era, smoked a corn-cob pipe.
The 1880 Van Zandt County, Texas census listed Jim and Clara's son Isaiah as a farm laborer, working and living with John Wesley "Jack" Ballard in the Martin's Mill Community, southeast of Canton. Nearly three months after Jim Heddins died, his son, Isaiah Lafayette Heddins married Julia Ann Ballard, Jack's younger sister, on Sunday, March 6, 1881. They were married by Rev. Asa B. Dowell, a Methodist Minister of the Gospel who probably pastored at Holly Springs Methodist Church just north of Martin's Mill at the time. Isaiah had first acquired a marriage license from the Henderson County courthouse in Athens, Texas, dated Nov. 9, 1880, but for some reason postponed their wedding. Perhaps it had to do with his father's failing health. Four months later he acquired a marriage license from the Van Zandt County courthouse in Canton on March 5th, and followed through with marrying Julia the next day. Isaiah and Julia Heddins probably started out their marriage farming on land just north of the community of Walton which Isaiah had just inherited from his father.
Isaiah was the only one of Jim and Clara's sons to raise sons to carry on the Heddins/Heddin name. Many of Isaiah and Julia's descendants have omitted the s in their surname and go by Heddin, including descendants of Isaiah's son Jim Heddin who claimed the s signifies plurality, yet "there's only one of me.”
John Dennis Heddins, Jim and Clara's seventh child, married late in life when he was about 40 to Margaret Catherine "Katie" Moore in about 1901. They raised their family in Navarro County, Texas and had a tragic family life, losing four of five children in childhood or infancy. During the 1910's after losing all but one daughter, Katie contracted tuberculosis and died. By 1920 John and his daughter Willie "Ann" were living in Henderson County with his nephew Bert Hodge. John was an East Texas farmer and, according to his grandson, Tommy Warren Sr., one day he was at his farm and somehow he was thrown from is horse and cut his leg up badly on a barbed-wire fence. The wound became infected and gangrene set in so he had to have his leg amputated. John wore a peg leg thereafter. John's great-nephew, E. Clifford Heddins, recalled him having a peg leg, but mistakenly thought it was due to a train accident (he mistook him with John's younger brother J. Marion Heddins who worked for the railroad).
On July 3, 1882, Jim and Clara's daughter, Martha Arbela Heddins, married a young man named Thomas Cranford Oliver in Van Zandt County. They had one daughter, Ollie Belle Oliver, born in April 1883 in Henderson County. Martha may have died either in childbirth or some time afterwards, for on 7 March 1889 Tom remarried to Annie Huddler in Smith County.
On August 17, 1890, the baby of the family, Sarah Lee Heddins, married Isaac G. Hodge in Henderson County. They were also farmers and in 1900 were living in Ellis County. Isaac and Sarah later resettled in the Murchison area, northeast of Athens, Texas. Isaac and Sarah had six children, two boys and four girls.
As mentioned earlier, Oscar Winnfield Heddins
died sometime between 1896 and 1900. For several years, he and his
older brother, Isaiah, had alternated paying taxes on land north of
Canton that Isaiah had purchased several years earlier. Either Isaiah
and Oscar had purchased the land together or Oscar was farming with
Isaiah's on his land. O. W. was probably in his late twenties or early
thirties when he died, and had never married.
Elmira and Arthur were listed in the 1900
Henderson County census, and her younger brother, James "Marion"
Heddins, a farm laborer, was living with them. By the year 1910, Arthur
had died, and Elmira and Marion were living alone in Ellis County,
south of Dallas. According to his great-nephew, E. Clifford Heddins, he
worked for the railroad (and he thought he lived in Grand Prairie at
the time he met him). In 1913 J. M., then a 48-year-old batchelor,
married a widow, Mrs. L. M. Tate. By the
After James Heddins' death, his land was divided
among his six living adult children. Marion inherited the old home
place in northern Henderson County where both his parents were buried,
as well as a portion of Jim's land in southern Van Zandt County, north
of Walton community. The remainder of the Van Zandt County land was
divided among Elmira, Isaiah, Oscar, and Martha. On November 17, 1884,
those four sold their portions of the land to William Partin. He paid
each of them $50.00, except for Isaiah, who received $47.50 for his
portion. Marion sold both of his portions of the inheritance to Mr. M.
A. Sims in 1886 for $100.00. We have no record of what inheritance John
D. Heddins and Sarah (Heddins) Hodge received, if any.
This biography was compiled and written by Roland J. Heddins (great-great-great-grandson of James & Clarinda), copyright 2000 (edited 2023). If re-published (in print or on the internet) please give attribution to the author. Thank you. -RJH
See Heddins family photos page
View "Heddins/Heddin Family History" video by Roland Heddins on YouTube
