The Trammell Family

The family tree

Tap or click a name to open that branch and read a short version of the story. Hover over a name, or tab to it, to trace the line back to me.

• on record or in family research
• likely, or tradition, still being checked
• side branch, kin but not our direct line

The Trammell line, in date order

c. 1670 to 1675, Virginia. Thomas Trammell comes over

Family tradition holds that nearly every Trammell in America goes back to one man: Thomas Trammell, who came from England, believed to be Devon, to colonial Virginia around 1670. He came over as an indentured servant and earned his freedom by order of the Virginia General Court in 1675.

Source: Virginia General Court minutes, 5 March 1674/75, p. 405 (published). The Devon origin and the year he sailed are family tradition.

1746, Virginia. Two acres for a church

In 1746, John Trammell sold two acres “where the upper church is,” church yard and spring included, to the Truro Parish vestry for 50 shillings. That lot became the site of The Falls Church in Virginia, where George Washington later served on the vestry. John was most likely a great-uncle of Thomas Sr., so he's side-branch kin, not a direct ancestor.

Source: Fairfax County Deed Book A, p. 248; Steadman, Falls Church by Fence and Fireside. The great-uncle link is likely, not proven.

1747 to 1823, South Carolina and Georgia. Pvt. Thomas Trammell Sr.

Our Revolutionary War kinsman is Pvt. Thomas Trammell Sr. (1747–1823). He served as a private in the South Carolina militia, riding as a mounted man on his own horse. He rests under a veterans' memorial marker in Upson County, Georgia.

Still looking: we haven't proven yet how his branch joins ours.

Source: widow's pension file W11655 (transcript).

December 1775 and 1846, South Carolina. A wedding dinner and a widow's word

In 1846, Thomas Sr.'s widow, Mary, swore out her account of his war. She said he served more than three years with the “South Carolina mounted Rifled Rangers,” came home only on short furloughs, and was “in several combats with the Tories.” An old neighbor, William Turner, backed her up. He swore he'd been at their wedding dinner in December 1775, after the two of them rode back from getting married a few miles off, and that Thomas was always respected as a Revolutionary soldier. In his words, he “never heard it contradicted.” When Thomas sold his pay claim after the war, he signed it with his mark, an X.

Source: pension file W11655: Mary Trammell's declaration and William Turner's affidavit (1846), and the 1784 sale of his pay claim.

1780 to 1781, South Carolina. Riding with the company that fought at Cowpens

Thomas was paid as a horseman in the company of Capt. Dennis Trammell. That company fought at Cedar Springs, Musgrove's Mill, Blackstocks, Long Canes, and Cowpens in January 1781, and Thomas's pay dates cover every one of them. No record names him at a particular battle, so I'll put it plain: he likely rode with the company that helped win at Cowpens.

Source: South Carolina audited account AA7891, in pension file W11655; company list and battles at Carolana.

January 1781, Cowpens. “Morgan's grave or victory”

Capt. Dennis Trammell is another kinsman. He lived about two and a half miles from the Cowpens. Years later he swore that Gen. Daniel Morgan asked him to help pick the ground for the battle and told him, “Captain, here is Morgan's grave or victory.” After the fight, Morgan left his company to bury the dead of both sides and look after the wounded.

Still looking: we're still working out how Dennis is related to us. The Morgan quote is his own memory, sworn to when he was about 74. No other record backs it up.

Source: Dennis Trammell's pension declaration, file R10672 (transcript).

Westward. One generation at a time

From Virginia the family pushed into the Carolinas and Georgia, then Tennessee, and finally Oklahoma and Texas.

1875 and 1901, Tennessee to Texas. Thomas Daniel Trammell

Thomas Daniel Trammell was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee, in 1875, and he married Effie Lee Brightwell in Texas in 1901. My grandfather carried the name the rest of the way into North Texas.

Source: family-tree research. Not yet checked against a birth or marriage record.

Mama's side: Huttos, Whisenants and Schirmers

July 1735, South Carolina. The voyage of the Oliver

My mother's people are Huttos, Whisenants and Schirmers. On the Hutto side, the story starts with a ship. In July 1735 the barque Oliver landed about 200 Palatine settlers in South Carolina, and Isaac Hutto's family was aboard. The newspaper said most of them were poor and had to bind themselves out to pay for their passage. They worked off those indentures, and by 1739 they had a town lot and 350 acres at Orangeburg.

Still looking: family research names Isaac Hutto as the first Hutto here, but the link from him down to us isn't proven yet.

Source: South Carolina Gazette, 26 July 1735, and the Orangeburg land grant, as quoted in published Hutto family research.

1840s to 1865, Collin County, Texas. Robin Whisenant, constable

Another of my mother's lines goes back to Robert Caldwell Whisenant, called Robin, one of the early settlers of Collin County in North Texas. A list of the county's oldest courthouse papers, from 1842 to 1848, includes “Constable R.C. Whisenant's oath.” So it looks like Robin swore in as a constable in the county's first years.

When his estate was written up in 1865, it listed about 16 horses, mares and colts, one rifle valued at $7, two tables, a bedstead, two chairs and two pots.

Still looking: the link from Robin down to us comes from family pages compiled from tombstones, marriage books and old family letters. It's likely, not proven. We haven't seen the oath itself yet, so we don't know the exact year.

Source: Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries newsletter, March 2010, p. 6 (index of early courthouse papers); 1865 estate inventory from the Collin County clerk's files, as transcribed in Raymond Whisnant's family pages.

1851 to 1860, Collin County, Texas. Uncle Bent's stories

Robin's son Robert Benton “Bent” Whisenant (1843–1937) was an older brother of our ancestor, so he's side-branch kin. In February 1860 he signed on with Capt. G. S. Fitzhugh's company of Texas Mounted Rangers.

Bent told a local historian about the early days. He talked about hunting black bear in a stretch of woods called Bumble Bee Grove, between Rowlett and Cottonwood Creeks. He remembered the log Mustang School of 1851, too: backless log benches, no desks, and water from a spring.

Still looking: Bent's stories are family tradition and local history, retold in newspaper columns years later. Nobody has checked them against a record, so I'm passing them along as stories.

Source: Hall & Hall, Collin County: Pioneering in North Texas (1975), as quoted in Raymond Whisnant's family pages, for the Rangers; Gwen Pettit, Between the Creeks (newspaper columns), at the Portal to Texas History, for his stories.

Minnesota to Texas. My grandmother

My grandmother was born in Minnesota, and her family came south to Texas. Her father, Carl Henry Schirmer, was born in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Source: her obituary; his birthplace from a public Ancestry record index that matches our family tree.

The family line so far

Here's the short version, oldest first.

More of my photos and writing are at TheAmericanTexan.com.

Y'all be safe.
Ryan