Life History

Notes

• There is incomplete information in the historical sources on the wives of Isom (Isham) Terry.  Isom is unmarried in the 1850 census and in his parents' home.  The mother of one of his daughter Mary is reported as a Hughes whose first name is unknown.  Mary was born in 1857.
  
  Mary Terry Woodard
  Birth Mar. 20, 1857 Kentucky
  Death Apr. 1, 1881
  Father Isom Terry
  Mother Unknown Hughes
  Burial Fort Douglas Cemetery, Fort Douglas, Johnson County, Arkansas
  --  Find A Grave Memorial #112245708, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Woodard&GSiman=1&GScid=2221327&GRid=112245708&
  
  In the 1860 census, Isom's wife is Ceatta Terry.  This appears to be the Ceatta Slone whose family was living nearby in the 1850 census, among the Terry households and next door to Isom's brother William.
  
  Some genealogies report Mary as Mary E, born in 1857.  This date matches her age in this 1860 census.  One of two memorials for Mary on Find  a Grave states that her mother was Unknown Hughes.  The time of her birth, with only the wife in the 1860 census at the time, we surmised for some time that Ceatta was the wife surnamed Hughes.  But it seems firm, from two famly lines now, that Ceatta's name was Slone.
  
  "I have started wondering if Isom was married to Seatha Slone.  They live very near each other in the 1850 Floyd County census, but of more interest to me is an old letter written by a grandson of Isom, stating he was married four or five times, once to a Sloan and once to a Hughes."
  --  Barbara Nelson, email to Orville Boyd Jenkins, 2 June 2013
  
  Family tradition reports through two descendants that this was Ceatta (or Seatha) Slone.  So it appears that Isom was married before the 1860 census to a woman named Hughes, then before the census married Ceatta.  In the 1880 census there is a Hughes family living a few doors away from Isom and his family.  So we know there was also a Hughes family nearby in Floyd County, Kentucky
  
  Since the mother of Mary is reported as named Hughes, what we know seems to indicate that Isom married his first wife named Hughes before the birth of the first two daughters.  The 1860 census reprots that in 1860 Rachel was 7 years old, thus born aoround 1853.  Mary was 3 years old, born about 1857.  The next child Caroline is 1 year old, so born about 1859.  It looks like Rachel and Mary's mother (maiden name Hughes) died about1857 or 1858, after the death of Mary.  Then about 1858, Isom married Seatha/Ceatta Slone.
  
  No death information has been found for this Hughes wife.  We are assuming she died before Isom married Ceatta Slone in about 1858.
  
  One genealogy reports William's full name as William Isom Davis Terry.  Accounting for the second given name Davis, this genealogy also reports that William's mother was Celia "Sealy" Davis.  Other facts, including those discussed above, indicate that WIlliam's father Isom Terry did not marry Sealy Davis until 1874, who was his 4th wife.  This was 19 years after even this genealogy reports WIlliam was born!  But this Moulder tree has Celia as the only wife of Isom, when family sources report reference to 5 wives, and we have the names of 4.  Furtrher, the Moulder tree reports that Isom married Celia Davis in 1850, while we have their marriage record from 1874 under her later married name Hanley.
  --  Moulder, http://person.ancestry.com/tree/49953487/person/28209421411/facts
  
  Perhaps there was a second son named William at that late stage, whose middle name was in fact Davis.  No record we have seen has a middle name for this William born in 1855, whose birth date puts him in place as the first child of Isom and his first wife surnamed Hughes, whose given name has not been discovered.
  

Sources

• 1. 1860 Federal Census, Madison County, Arkansas
  • 3 July, PO St Paul, Hilburn township, page 50, Hse/Fam #326
• 2. Arkansas, County Marriages Index, 1837-1957
• 3. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
• 4. 1880 Federal Census, Johnson County, Arkansas
  • 2 June, Pilot Rock, District 88, page 10 (scan 258A), Hse #8, Fam #10
• 5. 1880 Federal Census, Johnson County, Arkansas
  • 5 June, Pilot Rock Township, District 88, page 6A (scan 260A), Hse #45, Fam #54
• 6. 1900 Federal Census, Johnson County, Arkansas
  • 15 June, Pilot Rock Township, District 42, page 6A,  Hse #80, Fam #82
• 7. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
  • Memorial #112245708
• 8. 1860 Federal Census, Madison County, Arkansas
  • 3 July, PO St Paul, Hilburn Township, page 50, Hse/Fam #326
• 9. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
  • Memorial #31172587, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Terry&GSiman=1&GScid=2221327&GRid=31172587&
• 10. 1880 Federal Census, Johnson County, Arkansas
  • 5 June, Pilot Rock Township, District 88, page 6A (scan 260A), Hse #43, Fam #51