The Augusta Cemetery Family Trees

BIRTH:
23 JUL 1823
Tennessee

Wife of Geo Whitten Married, May 26, 1808

Mother of Miranda, Mariah C, Joel Sumter, Johathon M, David Clay, George Washington, and Francis Marion.

David Clay Whitten, Sr., was born in 1823 to George Washington Whitten and Elizabeth Amanda Cox in Lauderdale County, near Florence, Alabama, but he spent almost all his life in Wayne County, Tennessee, where he was honored and well respected by his friends and neighbors.

David married Malinda Ann (Linnie) Faires in Lauderdale, Alabama in 1848, and the couple lived in Wayne, Tennessee. In 1865 he was converted and joined the Church. He and Linnie were godly people who always welcomed to their home the itinerant Methodist preachers on their travels. They reared their six children in the Church, and two sons, Leander Faires Whitten and Otis Edgar Burr Whitten, became Methodist ministers. Their other four children were Mary Leona, Alice Eudora, Wiley Boone, and David Clay Whitten, Jr.

The subject of this sketch was born in Lauderdale County, near Florence, Ala., July 27, 1823. His long and useful life was spent in Wayne County, Tenn., and nearly entirely so in the same community. He was honored and respected by all who knew him. He never was defeated but once before the people for any office for which he asked at the ballots of his fellow-citizens, and he always believed that it was a benign providence that defeated him in that contest for public preferment. While it was not until 1865 that he was converted and joined the Church, yet from my earliest recollection his home was the itinerant preacher’s home. No preacher ever felt long at a time that he was a guest, but a feeling that he was an inmate of the home would unconsciously steal over not only the preacher, but all whose fortune it was to share his hospitality. Many a Tennessee Conference preacher has shared this grace at his hands and that of his well-ordered household. His bereaved and sorrow-stricken wife, who is truly bereft, and who from her girlhood had feared God and worked righteousness, was his strong stay for more than forty-one years. I never knew a better woman than she. I remember that during the cruel war between the States, when sin of every form held high carnival, she never faltered for a moment in her faith and loyalty to God and his cause. No wonder that out of such a family should be born two itinerant Methodist preachers. Rev. O. B. Whitten, the younger, was one of the most popular young preachers ever in the Memphis Conference. His career was short – only a little more than three years – yet impressing himself upon all who knew him. Rev. L. F. Whitten, of La Fayette, has been a faithful member of that Conference since its organization in 1870. I doubt if any man in that Conference has made a better record for devotion to the cause of Christ, the interest of Methodism and humanity, during these years than he. David Clay Whitten died in peace with God and in hope of heaven Feb. 20, 1889, and was laid beside his three sons who had preceded him to heaven – to await the resurrection of the just.
Truly, to that community, a great man in Israel is fallen, for he was a leader – a natural leader of the people. Especially was this true of him among the young people. He was a theologian of no mean pretensions. Biblical and Methodistic doctrines were questions of highest interest to him, and he took great pleasure in discussing them with men who had read and who thought. But he is gone — we shall see him no more. Peace to his memory, while we plead Heaven’s consoling benedictions upon his bereaved widow, son and two daughters, who mourn their loss. T. G. W., Moberly, Mo. March 1889. [Note: T. G. W. was Rev. Thomas G. Whitten, son of Joel S. Whitten who was David Clay Whitten’s older brother.]

Source: Obituary pasted to the fly pages of the David Clay Whitten Bible. Publication not given.

Turner Martin Whitten:

Birth: Jan. 22, 1821
Death: May 10, 1901
From the Dallas Morning News, May, 13, 1901, p. 7

WHITTEN – Paris, Tex., May 10 – T. M. Whitten, aged 80 years, died at 2 o'clock this morning at his home near Shady Grove, Lamar County. Mr Whitten contracted his fatal illness while visiting his old home in Mississippi last Christmas. Mr Whitten was the son of George Whitten and Elizabeth Cox. He was preceded in death by first wife, Catherine Whitten; sons Columbus, Frank and Marion; daughter Catherine Lee Whitten. Survived by second wife, Sarah Elizabeth Brown, sons Martin Luther Whitten; and daughters Katty Whitten and Adelia Whitten.

Son of George W Whitten and Elizabeth Amanda Cox. Husband of Lucinda McGlamery. They had Solon Lee Whitten, Harriet Cornelia Whitten and George Willis Fox Whitten. Another spouse was Cynthia Phillips. He served in Confederate States Army, PVT, Co B9 Tennessee CAV.