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While giving my thirteen-year-old grandson, Brayden Harris, a tour of historical and genealogical sites in down town Dallas, we visited the library, the herd of bronze Texas longhorns, and the cemeteries next to the Dallas Convention Center. While strolling the Pioneer and Odd Fellows Cemeteries, Brayden sought out those graves with military markers for Texas heroes, and happened upon grave markers of Sarah Cutler and George Helm Beeler.
We noticed a small "War of 1812" bronze medallion mounted where an upright stone had once been placed, but due to vandalism, only the bronze plaque with the name "George H. Beeler" marked this grave. Sarah's grave is still marked by a large headstone. I photographed Brayden with that marker, three years before we had any idea that the Beelers were his ancestors through my wife, Malta Evans. The Beeler name was familiar since we knew that Malta 's great-great-greatgrandfather, Niles Beeler, had a daughter, Lula, who was born in McLennan County ( Waco ) in 1882.
I told my grandson, "These people could be some of your kin." It turns out, three years and lots of research later, that Niles was the son of George Helm Beeler. Malta's grandmother, Lula Bobbitt Evans, was the daughter of Katie Alice (Beeler) Bobbitt, who with her mother and her husband, Jerry Bobbitt, lived and died in Cundiff, Jack County. So Brayden is the greatgreat-great-great-great-grandson of Sarah and George!
George entered the "D.C." militia from his residence in early Virginia (now West Virginia as a private and attained the rank of captain under Col. Magruder in the War of 1812. He was present at the burning of Washin gton by the British and was wounded at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland. He died in July 1861. His grand-daughter, Hattie Rice Hamilton, became a member of the Daughters of 1812 in Dallas in 1923.
Sarah and George lived all across Middle America before coming to Texas from Missouri in 1853. Sarah was born in Ohio in 1804, and George was born in Ohio County, Virginia in 1796; they were married in 1823 in Indiana. Their children were Franklin & Zariah, born in Indiana, George Clay & Niles born in Illinois, and Sarah Ann “Sallie” born in Iowa . Zariah was listed as “Zariah Dollary” in the Missouri Census of 1840 and married John Dillion in 1847.
In 1853 Sarah and George were farming on land they owned east of present Central Expressway and Mockingbird Lane. How they happened to come to Texas is not known; I suspect that there were relatives who had preceded them, but don't know for sure.
George's mother was a Helm and the early and historic Richard Gan family were here with a Helm family, but we have no clues to make a connection. In 1860, Zariah married Dr. A.D. Rice, who had served as Dallas County treasurer in 1852-1854 and as mayor of Dallas in 1858. Their children were H.D. and Hattie, who married Henry Hamilton who had come from Kentucky, and they had four children: Claude, Charley, Graham, and Henry, Jr.
Niles served the Confederacy during the Civil War, enlisting in 1861 into Co. B of the 18 th Texas Cavalry, which was captured at Arkansas Post in January 1863 and "exchanged" in April that year. Niles married Ambrellis Jane Speer in the 1850s and their children were Katie Alice and Mollie. Katie married Jeremiah Summerfield Bobbitt, a skilled carpenter, in Dallas in 1881.
George Clay was executor of his mother's estate when she died in 1879. His brother Franklin filed a replacement will in 1881 after a fire at the courthouse in Dallas . Nothing is known about the descendants of those two sons.
Sallie married Benjamin F. Jones, Sr., who was elected constable in 1864 and served as deputy sheriff alongside Junius Peak , the noted captain of the Texas Rangers. He was elected sheriff in 1880-1882 and was also vice-president/director of the Dallas County Agriculture & Mechanical Association, the forerunner of the State Fair of Texas. Their children were Eugenia A., Effie, Ben F., Jr., and Bobbie, who died at age one. After Sallie's death, Ben remarried and moved to Taylor County.
Malta traces her line back through Lula Ethel Bobbitt, daughter of Kate and Jerem-iah, who married Erb Doyle Evans, Sr. Our daughter, Shara Malynn, married John Leland Harris, and they are Brayden's parents.
Sarah and George Beeler were buried in Dallas Pioneer Park Cemetery while it was still the Masonic Cemetery.
Contributed to Proud Heritage by Malta Evans and Sam V. Akins