The Ross family shows up first in Lauderdale County Alabama between the 
1820 and 1830 census, as they state, from SC. In January of 1830 Thomas Ross 
marries Mary Hill and a new family is started. The first child is David Alexander 
Ross.  He grows up in what is later to become the Greeh Hill area of Lauderdale 
County Alabama and marries Jane Smith, who is presumed, at this time, to be 
daughter of neighbor Duncan Smith from Moore Co. NC.  The older family moves on 
to Pontotoc Co. Mississippi, but due to crops pending and Jane's family the 
younger Ross family stays on in Lauderdale Co. where they move, within the county,
and therefore are enumerated twice on the 1860 census.  However, shortly after 
the 1860 census, due to the deep unrest and discontent in the South, the younger
Ross family does move to Pontotoc Co. MS where the rest of the extended 
family resides in the Tocopola Township.  Very soon war escalates across the 
country and David Alexander joins the Mississippi troups of Captain S.E.Melson's 
Company of the 41st Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers, leaving a young family 
and a pregnant wife.  Dave L. Ross is born in 1862 and there is a question about 
whether his father ever got to see him, as the father was killed at the battle 
of Perryville, Kentucky on the 8th of October, 6 months to the day from his
enlistment, 1862. 
    Times were hard following the Civil War and the widow Jane Ross was not able
to keep all of her family together. On the 1870 census, Thomas Duncan was in the 
household of his uncle Charles Lafayette Ross, older brothers John Sylvester 
and James F. were in the household of their grand parents. In Jane's household 
on the 1870 census are only the 2 younger children, Martha and Dave.
    It is believed that Jane and 3 younger children stayed in MS to be with the 
older Rosses, who may have been in ill health.  Thomas Ross sold his half section
of land in 1872, his wife Mary did not sign, so it is presumed that she has 
already died and he must have died soon after. They are not found listed in 
cemeteries there, I'm sure no one had money for tombstones. 
    Jane and oldest son, John Sylvester, borrowed $312.80 using their land, 
which is believed to join that of her in laws, and a pair of mules for 
collateral, It appears that a span of mules was worth as much collateral 
as a half section of land.  John Sylvester married about 1872 and had to 
co-sign on this note for his mother, remember, women had NO rights, not 
even to borrow money to make a crop. They must have made their crop and were 
able to repay their loan, no other legal records are found.
     About 1872 a large wagon train was made up of people wanting to come 
to Coryell County, TX. There were mostly people from Pontotoc, Panola and 
Lafayette Counties Mississippi.  Jane let her two older sons come to TX with 
relatives the Farrar, Thornton, and Warren  families.  On the 1880 census 
they are in Bell County.  This wagon train came on into Coryell County, to 
Leon Junction where the Farrar family stopped, and on to Levita in western 
Coryell County where the Sardis church was named after the Sardis MS area they
had left.
    It seems that Jane and the rest of the family show up in Coryell county 
shortly after 1880. Part of this group apparently went on to Oklahoma and 
settled in the Chickasaw nation. 
    Jane's death in 1904 is on the first page of Coryell County deaths, saying 
that she died of "exhaustion", family oral history says that she died following 
a run-away buggy accident. She is buried in the Seaton Cemetery in Coryell 
County, a true pioneer.

By James Ross, the great-grandson of Jane Smith Ross, taken from the book "Ross 
Record" by Bobbie Ross, 1989









copyrighted by Bobbie Ross Sept.2000