Written By Edwin's Grandson, Ronald J. Barnett San Antonio, Texas These days, about all that is left of Millerville is its cemetery. But once, not too very long ago, Millerville, which never officially became a town, was the hub of a little farm ing community a few miles outside of Hico in north-central Texas. Along with the cemetery, there were a schoolhouse and a Church of Christ. Dusty, unpaved roads connected Millerville to the various farmhouses that were scattered across the sur rounding countryside. It was in this close-knit community that Albert Edwin Hukel was born Friday, November 25, 1892, in the house of his parents on the Joseph Beaver…

Mary Ann Beaver was born November 19, 1874, in Travis County, near Austin, Texas. Her parents, Nancy and Joe Beaver had traveled to Texas from Missouri in the afore-mentioned wagon train, and Mary Ann was born the night they arrived in Travis County. She moved with her parents to Erath County in 1876 where she grew up in the Millerville Community. She was the youngest of Grandma Nancy’s 11 children, and was my dad’s baby sister. She married Robert Dudley Hukel in 1890. He was born December 15, 1868, in Sturgeon, Boone County, Missouri. He was a farmer, school teacher, Commissioner of Erath County, Justice of the Peace for eight…

Kitty Lee Beaver was born February 23, 1869, in Bates County, Missouri. She was the second child of Joe and Nancy Beaver, and was five years old when she moved with ner parents to Texas in a wagon train. She married Sam S. McCollum when she was 15 years old. The descendents are not sure of the exact date. He was born in 1866. They were farmers in the Millerville Community and were the parents of 11 children: John William McCollum, born February 23, 1888, died October 21, 1888. Wesley Owen McCollum, born October 2, 1892. He married Grace — and they had two sons, The oldest was killed in…

My grandfather, Joseph R. Beaver, Jr., was born in Bates County, Missouri, near the town of Butler, in l848. He was the youngest of seven children born to Joseph R. Beaver, Sr., and Jamima Beaver. When he was eighteen years of age he married the widow, Nancy Jane Wilson Myers, in Bates County, Missouri. She was thirty-three years old and the mother of seven children by her first husband, Joseph C. Myers, to whom she had married when she was sixteen. Her oldest son was just two years younger than Grandpa Joseph, and she had a daughter of marriageable age by the standard of marriageable ages for women of that…

Andrew Merse (Uncle Andy) ‘Wilson was born in Kentucky, August 7, 1840, the youngest of the five children of John and Kitty Wilson. He married a girl named Catherine, whose sirname we are not sure of. Uncle Andy moved with his family to Bates County, Missouri in 1858. He was drafted into the Confederate Army during the Civil War. I have written an episode about him in the chapter on Grandma Myers Beaver. Uncle Andy was also a gospel preacher. Novella said in her book that one of his places to preach was Lanham Mill, near Glen Hose, Texas. Ada Beaver Brothers said that he came to visit them at…

My great Aunt Ebaline Wilson was born in Nicholas County, Kentucky December 23, 1830. She married Robert Standley in Carlisle, Kentucky November 29, 1848. His mother was a sister to Ebaline’s mother making them first cousins. He served with the Confederate Army during the Civil War. From Novella’s book I learned that he had started home, saw some enemy soldiers, hid behind a fallen tree,, and when he peeked out to see where they were they shot and killed him. This left Aunt Eb widowed at age 30, and with six small children to raise. Probably, out of desperation, she married an old Confederate Major named M.L. Evans, April 30,…

My grandmother, Nancy Jane Wilson, was born August 26, 1832, in Nicholas County, Kentucky. She was next to the oldest of the  five children born to John and Kitty Wilson. When she was sixteen years of age, she married Joseph C. Myers, age thirty-four,  at Carlisle, Kentucky. They had seven children, five of which were born in Kentucky and two in Bates County, Missouri. We are not sure of the exact date they migrated to Missouri, but it was probably late in the year 1858. Her husband, Joseph Myers, was drafted into the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and was killed in action. Their children were: John Thomas Myers, born…

My great-grandfather, John Wilson, was born April 10, 1808, near Carlisle, Nicholas County, Kentucky. His father was born in Pennsylvania, and his mother in Virginia. Grandpap, as he was affectionately called by his grandchildren, was a blacksmith by trade, and a Church of Christ preacher, first, last and to the end of his life. He worked at his anvil, sharpening plows and discs for neighboring farmers during the weekdays, but Sundays found him walking, or riding his horse to some out-of-the-way, country church to conduct the morning worship. From looking at Grandpap’s picture, I can relate him to the blacksmith portrayed by Longfellow in his poem, ”The Village Blacksmith.” "His…

I have been corresponding with Cousin Ada Beaver Brothers, daughter of John Wilson Beaver, and grandaughter of Joseph R. Beaver, Sr., and Catherine Clem Beaver. Ada is a widow living alone in Wichita Falls, Texas, and she was 87 years old September 13, 1984. Although she has a hearing problem and her eye sight is poor, she was able to give me a good bit of history of Great-grandfather Beaver’s second family. Combining that with information gleaned from Novella’s book, I have put together a chapter on that family. These are half brothers and sisters of my grandpa Joe Beaver, and they are half aunts and uncles of my dad.…

My great-grandfather, Joseph R. Beaver, Sr., was born March 15, 1807, in Ohio. His ancestors came from Germany, Holland, Belgium and Alsace, some of them settling in Ohio and some in Pennsylvania. There has been a varied orthography of the name Beaver. For example, we have Beaver, Bever, Bieber, Biever and Beavers. Dad always said, “If you meet a Beaver who doesn’t have an s on the end of the name, they are your kin.” That may be true, but I have learned that it cannot be limited to that rule. Although I have found the name Beaver many times in my research, I have not been able to accurately…