The Ross family shows up first in Lauderdale County Alabama between the 1820 and
1830 census, as they state, from SC. In January of 1830 Thomas Ross marries Mary
Hill and a new family is started. The first child is David Alexander Ross. He grows up i
n what is later to become the Greeh Hill area of Lauderdale County Alabama and
marries Jane Smith, who is presumed, at this time, to be daughter of neighbor Duncan
Smith from Moore Co. NC. The older family moves on to Pontotoc Co. Mississippi, but
due to crops pending and Jane's family the younger Ross family stays on in Lauderdale
Co. where they move, within the county, and therefore are enumerated twice on the 1860
census. However, shortly after the 1860 census, due to the deep unrest and discontent
in the South, the younger Ross family does move to Pontotoc Co. MS where the rest of
the extended family resides in the Tocopola Township. Very soon war escalates across
the country and David Alexander joins the Mississippi troups of Captain S.E.Melson's
Company of the 41st Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers, leaving a young family and a
pregnant wife. Dave L. Ross is born in 1862 and there is a question about whether his
father ever got to see him, as the father was killed at the battle of Perryville, Kentucky on
the 8th of October, 6 months to the day from his enlistment, 1862. Times were hard
following the Civil War and the widow Jane Ross was not able to keep all of her family
together. On the 1870 census, Thomas Duncan was in the household of his uncle
Charles Lafayette Ross, older brothers John Sylvester and James F. were in the household
of their grand parents. In Jane's household on the 1870 census are only the 2 younger
children, Martha and Dave. It is believed that Jane and 3 younger children stayed in MS
to be with the older Rosses, who may have been in ill health. Thomas Ross sold his half
section of land in 1872, his wife Mary did not sign, so it is presumed that she has already
died and he must have died soon after. They are not found listed in cemeteries there,
I'm sure no one had money for tombstones. Jane and oldest son, John Sylvester,
borrowed $312.80 using their land, which is believed to join that of her in laws, and a pair
of mules for collateral, It appears that a span of mules was worth as much collateral as a
half section of land. John Sylvester married about 1872 and had to co-sign on this note
for his mother, remember, women had NO rights, not even to borrow money to make a
crop. They must have made their crop and were able to repay their loan, no other legal
records are found. About 1872 a large wagon train was made up of people wanting to
come to Coryell County, TX. There were mostly people from Pontotoc, Panola and
Lafayette Counties Mississippi. Jane let her two older sons come to TX with relatives
the Farrar, Thornton, and Warren families. On the 1880 census they are in Bell
County. This wagon train came on into Coryell County, to Leon Junction where the
Farrar family stopped, and on to Levita in western Coryell County where the Sardis
church was named after the Sardis MS area they had left. It seems that Jane and the
rest of the family show up in Coryell county shortly after 1880. Part of this group
apparently went on to Oklahoma and settled in the Chickasaw nation. Jane's death
in 1904 is on the first page of Coryell County deaths, saying that she died of "exhaustion",
family oral history says that she died following a run-away buggy accident. She is
buried in the Seaton Cemetery in Coryell County, a true pioneer. By James Ross,
the great-grandson of Jane Smith Ross,

taken from the book "Ross Record" by Bobbie Ross, 1989