Family Tree

      If you're driving up Interstate 65 from Alabama into Tennessee look to your left at the ten mile marker.  You'll see a couple of stores, a service station and a few other buildings.  This little village is Bunker Hill.  It's not a town, it's really just a place.  This is where my grandmother's family roots are.
     In the spring at mile marker eleven you'll see buttercups blooming on the side of the interstate.  They used to be in my great aunts front yard when her house sat where you're driving now.  At mile marker twelve you'll see an old secluded house sitting off the road.  This is the house that my great grandparents were living in when they died in 1947.
    I have a lot of history in this area thanks to my grandmother.  To tell you about it I'm going to go back and start in 1813. 
      William Watson, born in 1775 married Mary Brown.  On September 27, 1813 they became the proud parents of twin boys, Larken Watson and Henry Watson.  The twins grew to manhood and married.
       It's not known who Larken married but in 1840 he had a daughter, Elzira Watson.  Elzira married Elijah Wilson (E.W.) Holt.  In 1860 they had a bouncing baby boy, Yancey Elijah Holt.
      Henry Watson, the other twin, married Margaret Osborne.  They had a son William O. Watson.  William was a scoundrel.  This handsome man, whose picture has hung in my grandmother's and mother's houses and in mine until I gave it to my son, seemed to pack a lot of living into his short thirty years.  He married Martha Bass.  They had a beautiful daughter, Sarah Olivia Watson. 
      Beautiful Sarah Olivia grew up and married Elijah Wilson Holt, once the bouncing baby boy.  They knew each other all their lives and had a long marriage that produced nine children, one of which was my grandmother, Sallie Holt.
       My grandmother Sallie married Henry Lee Taylor and they had a daughter Sara Jane Taylor who married my father Julius Hart.  So here I am.
      In case you haven't been able to follow this let me simplify it from where I started.  William Watson begot twins Larken Watson and Henry Watson. 
      Larken Watson begot Elzira Watson who begot Yancey Elijah Holt who begot Sallie Holt who begot Sara Jane Taylor who begot me.
      Henry Watson begot William O. Watson who begot Sarah Olivia Watson who begot Sallie Holt who begot Sara Jane Taylor who begot me.
      To make a long family tree short.....my great grandparents were third cousins and my great-great-great grandfathers were twin brothers, Larken and Henry.
      Maybe this explains the handsome men and beautiful women in my family.