William H “Billy” HENSON (1803-1887) - #32 (52 Ancestors)

Theme: 32 3rd-great-grandparents     |     Images: Click to enlarge

It is surprising to realize that each of us has 32 3rd-great-grandparents, regardless of whether we know who they were or not.  In my tree, this takes me back to the late 1700s in some cases, so perhaps the number shouldn’t be so unexpected.  But I had to do the math and make a list anyway to confirm it!  

I am proud to say that, of the sixteen 3G grandparents on my mother’s side, I have identified all but one (although my COMPTON couple appears twice due to intermarriage in my tree).  I have already written about Henry Proctor RICHARDSON I (who married Ann PACKHAM) and James HARRIS (who married Lucy RANDALL), two of my 3G grandfathers.  And I have already mentioned the sturdy brick wall in my HOPGOOD line:  I know only the name of my 3G grandfather William HOPGOOD and have no idea who his wife was.

I have been less successful on my father’s HENSON side, having identified only ten of the sixteen 3G grandparents.  And most of that research is not my own.  So it’s time to tell another story from this paternal side of my tree.

HENSON - Westward from North Carolina to Kentucky to Arkansas

Wm "Billy" HENSON was buried in
Whitehouse Cemetery, Arnett,
Washington County, Arkansas
in 1887 after living his earlier years
in North Carolina and Kentucky.
(Photo courtesy of findagrave.com)

I have been told that my 3rd-great-grandfather William H HENSON Jr., known as “Billy”, was born on 13 Apr 1803 in North Carolina, perhaps in Wilkes. He was one of at least twelve children of William HENSON (c1745-1830), and Ann JACOBS (1759-aft 1860).  For those who like to do a reality check on dates, his mother was listed as age 102 in the 1860 US census, quite unusual for that era, for sure!  Some sources claim that Billy had Cherokee or Shawnee native blood on his mother’s side, and perhaps through his paternal grandmother as well, but these are not certainties.  

The first record we have for Billy is his marriage to Lavina OSBORN on 7 Apr 1824 in Floyd County Kentucky.  Lavina was a Kentucky girl born in 1805 in Knox County.  We know from  Billy’s father's revolutionary war pension documents that the Hensons were also living in Knox County Kentucky by 1827 (although William Sr had fought in the North Carolina Continental line}.  We don’t know the exact year of their move to Kentucky, but presumably it was before Billy’s marriage there 1824.

Billy supported his family as a farmer, and in 1830 he may have been the  “Wm Henson” who headed a household of four white people all under 30, living in Lawrence County Kentucky (a new county created in 1821 from parts of Floyd and Greenup counties).  Then in 1831 William bought 50 acres of land on the Hurricane Fork stream in Pike County Kentucky, close to Osborn family land.  By that time they had three children, the oldest being Jesse HENSON, my great-great-grandfather.

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We believe that Billy and Lavina HENSON had at least 10 children.  Six were born in Kentucky, and at least four  died as infants or children.  Their baby son Bracken died on 27 Jun 1846, and their daughter Anna (or Hannah) died in 1847 at the age of 13, both in Washington County, Arkansas.  So we know the family had already moved to Arkansas by 1846 if not earlier.  So once again the family had chosen to move farther west.

On 1 Sep 1848, Billy was in Fayetteville Arkansas buying 40 acres of public land: "for the North West quarter of the South East quarter of Section fifteen, in Township fourteen North, of Range twenty nine West, in the District of Lands subject to sale at Fayetteville, Arkansas containing forty acres….", paid in full although the amount was not provided. 

The 1850 US federal census lists William and Lavina living in White River Township, Arkansas with three of their younger children who were born in Kentucky and still attending school: Louisa (13), Mary (10) and John (8).  (So the family must have still been in Kentucky in 1842.) Their son Jesse was living next door with his wife and 1-year-old son.

We have learned a few more details from a book titled “Kindred Families in the Land of Opportunity” by Beverly Pense (as reported in other posted family trees):

"William "Billy" Henson moved with his parents as a young man to Knox County, Kentucky. It was in this county that he met and married Lavina Osburn who was born and raised in this area. By the mid 1840's Billy, Lavina, and their children came with a train of wagons traveling to Arkansas. They settled in the white house community area of Washington county where Billy ran and operated a store, providing for his children. By this time his older children were marrying and starting lives of their own. Here in White Rock [River?] Community William, and Lavina lived out their lives.”

Indeed, the US census in 1860, 1870 and 1880 confirm that William and Lavina remained in White River Arkansas. Mary and John were their only children still at home in 1860.  By 1880 the aging couple was on their own.  Billy died on 15 Aug 1887 at the age of 84, followed by his wife Lavina in 1895.  They were both buried in the Whitehouse Cemetery in Arnett, an unincorporated community in White River Township, Washington County, which is south east of Fayetteville on highway 74 (Whitehouse Rd) on the Middle Fork White River in Arkansas.   This cemetery contains seven HENSON graves including their children Jesse, Anna, Bracken, William, and their married daughter Mary (Henson) LONG.