Item 26

  
                                                                                 Tulsa, Oklahoma,
                                                                                  March 12, 1939

Mrs. Ruth Wait Tuttle,
SOMERSET, Kentucky.

Dear Mrs. Tuttle:

                I believe I owe you an apology. On June 20, 1937, you wrote me regarding the Beattie Family. I did not answer, and that makes apologies in order.  As I remember it your letter came just as I was starting somewhere, your letter got mixed up in my Beattie files, and ----- that explains why I did not write.

                Now I want to impose on you.  I want you to listen to a story, a sort of fairy tale.  Here it is. My father James Buchanan Cole (83 today) living at Columbia, Mo? [sic] was born in Washington County, Virginia and when a youth went to Missouri to live with his Aunt Sallie Jane Cole Beattie, wife of John Brackenridge Beattie of Andrew County.  He was known as “Uncle Brack”.  His father and family had gone to Missouri long before the Civil War from Virginia.  I was born Aug. 22, 1881, in Mr. Beattie’s home about six miles east of Savannah, Missouri.

                As a boy we had neighbors named GOSSETT.  The widow Gossett, two daughters and several sons.  I grew up with some of these and Somerset Kentucky was mentioned so frequently, that the name is quite as familiar to me as any place I know of.  I have never been at Somerset, but I plan to go there some time.

                In Andrew County, Missouri there lived numerous families named Dysart, Meek, Cowan, Carson, Gibson, Montgomery, etc. Recently, while trying to trace out the relationships in some of our intermarried lines, I got interested in all these families, and Rockcastle, and Pulaski Counties, appear again ana [sic] in my correspondence.

                But let me go back again to Virginia to John Beattie. His wife is said to have been a Miss GILMORE.  One of his daughters married a Dysart, one a Ryburn, one a Sawyers, and one a Logan.  One of his sons William Beattie married an Allison.  The name Gilmore, Allison and Logan, are most as common in Andrew County, as the most common name.  The Dysarts had sone [sic] named “Logan”, and the Dysarts married Carsons and so it seems that many of the elderly men I knew of when I was a boy came out of Kentucky to Andrew County, but their forebears resided in old Washington County Va.

                Now I am an Edmiston or Edmondson also, and one of the Beatties, JOHN Beattie, married Sallie Edmiston, dau of Colonel William Edmiston of King Mountain Fame.  This John, was I believe son of William Beattie, who also fought at [following line not visible on image]
      

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               You know of course whether I am reight [sic] in assuming that your ancestor John Beattie was son of William Beattie, who was at Kings Mountain.  And since you are of this line you know of course of the career of William Edmiston. I am not his descendant. His brother ANDREW EDMISTON,  was killed at Kings Mountain.  This Andrew Edmiston had married a Miss ANN EDMISTON, daughter of THOMAS.  Ann remarried after the Battle of Kings Mountain and to her was born Rev. ANDREW PATTERSON, my great grandfather.  This will in a way explain to you my interest in both the Beattie and the Edmiston Families.  It will also explain my interest in the early settlers of Pulaski County --- my interest in Somerset.

                The man for whom I was named, Redmond Selecman, married a Miss ALLISON, who was related somehow to the Gilmores and the Logans.  A Mr. C.R. Gilmore, of this city, is a fwllow [sic] member of the SAR, and of Pulaski stock.  A Mr. Elliott of this city, is of the Floyd family of that general region.  Dr. Logan Wood, of Bolckow, Mo. (in Andrew County, Mo.) is an old college mate of mine.  He is a Beattie, a Dysart a Logan and a Floyd.

                I would give a lot to have about a months time to rummage around in and near Somerset for I am sure I would find scores of kindred names.  I forgot to mention the fact that one of my mothers brothers, married a Miss Carson, whose wife [sic] was a Miss Montgomery.  This Carson came from Pulaski or near by.  At Ponca City, Oklahoma, is the celebrated Hundred and One Ranch, owned by the Miller Brothers.  I am trying to verify a story which recently came into my hands to the effect that the father of the famout [sic] showmen was in fact named Carson; that he lived as a baby in Pulaski.  It seems his parents died and he was reared by a family named Miller, and afterwards went under that name.  I have aot [not] as yet verified this story.

               But this ramble must end.  I hope in it you detect nothing but sanity on my part.  I am interested in all the old families of Washington County Virginia and that includes many who lived and died arounf [sic] Somerset.  Some time I shall ask you to prepare for me a sketch of that branch of the Wait family, which belongs also to the Beattie line.  This reminds me that I once wrote an enderly [sic] gentleman somewhere in Kentucky, (I not [now] forget the place) who was supposed to have a History of John Beatties Family nearly complete.  He answered my letter, asked my purpose in seeking the data, and when I explained, he did not answer.

              What I am now planning is a booklet giving the story of some of the Old Washington County Virginia Families.  I want in this sketch to trace genealogically, the families who intermarried there and this would include the Beatties, the Edmistons, the Logans, the Allisons, the Gilmores, the Dysarts, the Cowans, the Carsons, the Meeks, and many others I could name.
                                          Yours sincerely,