James Branch

James Branch was born February 20, 1766, to John Branch, Sr., and Susannah Branch, in Bedford County, Virginia. He married first Frances Terry on October 11, 1789, in Bedford, Virginia, per the Encylopedia of American Quaker Genealogy and Marriage Bonds of Bedford County, Virginia. They had one daughter, Polly, but Frances must have passed away because on April 28, 1792, James married Martha Minor in Bedford, Virginia. Their marriage bond was made by Edmund Goode and William Minor, Sureties, and were married by Jeremiah Hatcher. They had 12 children, and four of them were twins, Elizabeth and Martha in 1803 as well as James Goode Branch and William Minor Branch in 1812. The twin brothers, James Goode Branch and William Minor Branch, married sisters, Sarah and Mary Ann Uzzell. Sarah and Mary Ann were daughters of Elisha Uzzell and Ann Cohea Uzzell. James Branch, was shown in the 1820 U.S. Federal Census for Maury County, Tennessee with the following people listed in the census record:

Free White Persons - Males - Under 10 years old: 2, one of which would have been son, William Minor Branch and the other his twin brother, James Goode Branch.

Free White Persons - Males - 16 to 25: 1

Free White Persons - Males - 45 & over: 1 - This was probably James Branch, who would have been 54 years old

Free White Persons - Females - Under 10 years old: 1

Free White Persons - Females - 10 to 15: 1

Free White Persons - Females - 16 to 25: 4

Free White Persons - Females - 45 and over: 1 - This was probably James wife, Martha Minor Branch

Slaves - Males - Under 14: 6

Slaves - Males - 14 to 25: 2

Slaves - Females - Under 14: 5

Slaves - Females - 14 to 25: 2

Slaves - Females - 26 to 44: 1

Slaves - Females - 45 and over: 1

Number of persons engaged in agriculture: 10

Free White Persons under 16: 4

Free White Persons over 25: 2

Total Free White Persons: 11

Total Slaves: 17

Total All Persons: 28

In the 1840 U.S. Federal Census in Maury County, Tennessee, James Branch was listed with the following people:

Free White Persons - Males - ages 5 through 9 years old: 1 (may have been a grandchild)

Free White Persons - Males - 10 through 14 years old: 1 - NOTE: This person may have been James Joseph Eubank, the son of James and Martha Minor Branch's daughter, Susannah Q. Branch Eubank, who died in 1833 in a cholera epidemic in Palmyra, Missouri. After her death, her husband, Stephen Green Eubank, sent their son James Joseph, back to Tennessee to be raised by his Branch family members. James Joseph Eubank may have lived with his grandparents, James and Martha Minor Branch, until Martha's death in 1839, and James Branch's death in 1844, and then gone to live with one of his uncles, James Goode Branch or William Minor Branch, after their deaths. Having been born in December of 1826, James Joseph would have been between 13 and 14 years old in 1840 and about 18 years old in 1844.

Free White Persons Males - ages 20 through 29: 2, one of whom was probably William Minor Branch and the other his twin brother, James Goode Branch. They were both married later in 1840 to sisters, Mary Ann and Sarah Uzzell. Both William Minor Branch and twin brother James Goode Branch had their first children the following year in 1841.

Free White Persons - Males - 70-79: 1 - Must have been James Branch

Slaves - Males - Under 10 years old: 2

Slaves - Males - 24 through 35: 2

Slaves - Females - Under 10 years old: 3

Slaves - Females - ages 10 through 23: 3

Slaves - Females - 55 through 99: 1

Total number of persons employed in agriculture - 7

Free White Persons Under age 20: 2

Free White Persons ages 20 through 49: 3

Total free white persons: 6

Total Slaves: 11

Total all persons: 17

James and Martha's sixth daughter, Susannah Quarles Branch, (my 2nd great grandmother) was born in 1806, and married Stephen Green Eubank, in Maury County, Tennessee, in March of 1826. Their first son, James Joseph Eubank, was born in December of 1826, and their daughter, Martha Ann Eubank, in 1828. It seems that their son James Joseph was named for his grandfather, James Branch, and their daughter, Martha Ann, was named after her grandmother, Martha Minor Branch.

Stephen Green Eubank was listed in the 1830 census in Williamson County, Tennessee, and sometime after that they must have moved to Palmyra, Missouri. Susannah passed away in a cholera epidemic there in June of 1833. After the death of Susannah, James Joseph was sent back to Tennessee to live with her relatives in the Branch family.

James Joseph stayed in Tennessee until about 1848 or 1849 when he moved to Illinois, where his father had moved with his sister, Martha Ann, after the death of their mother. James Joseph married his first wife, Nancy Ann Trent, in Petersburg, Menard county, Illinois, in June of 1849. Their first son, William, was born in 1850, and their second son, James Gideon Eubank, was born three years later. It's possible that their two sons were named after James Joseph's uncles, William Minor Branch and James Goode Branch, who may have had a hand in raising him after the death of his mother and grandparents.

James Joseph Eubank left Illinois either shortly before or after the birth of his second son, James Gideon, in 1853 and went out to California to join the Gold Rush. He was gone for about 8 years, and while he was gone, his wife, Nancy, got word from a miner friend of James Joseph;s that he had passed away. For some reason, at the time James Joseph was out in California, he went by the name Richard Banks (according to a Civil War pension application Nancy made years later). Why he went by an assumed name is unknown, but perhaps he just didn't want to be found.

Thinking her husband was dead, Nancy married Peter Shult in Chicago in 1856, and they went on to have four children. When James Joseph returned to Illinois from California around 1861, he learned his former wife was married to another man. At that time, he may have gone to visit his sister, Martha Ann, who was living in Adams County, Illinois, with her husband George Osborn and their children. Not long after that, when the Civil War broke out, James Joseph joined Company C, 124th Illinois Regiment of the Union Army. He served until 1865 and was wounded at the Battle of Vicksburg by a shell to the back of his knees. He suffered a disability from that injury for the rest of his life.

Ironically, James Joseph's cousin, Reuben Elisha Branch (1841-1892), the son of James Joseph's uncle, James Goode Branch, and his wife, Sarah Uzzell Branch, was a private in the 6th Regiment (Wheeler's) Tennessee Calvary, Company, F, in the Confederate Army, so the cousins were on opposite sides of the Civil War. After the war ended, James Joseph went to visit his father, Stephen Green Eubank, who had moved to Kansas with his third wife in about 1859. There James Joseph met his second wife, Elsie Jane Rouser, and they were married in Wathena, Kansas, in 1866. James Joseph's cousin, Reuben, returned to Tennessee after the war and married Priscilla E. Craig on December 26, 1865, in Maury County, and they had seven children, and all their family seemed to remain in Tennessee after that time.

James Joseph and his second wife, Elsie, had their first child, Uselle, in February of 1868, while living in Sedalia, Missouri. In the 1870 U.S. Federal Census, for Clay, Lafayette County, Missouri, James Joseph and Elsie were listed there with their child, Uselle, who was erroneously shown as a female child. Ten years later, in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census they were living in Sedalia, Missouri, and Uselle was listed as a male child and his name was spelled Euzell. By that time, James Joseph. and Elsie had two more children, Lee Edward, born in about 1872, and Laura Elsie, born in about 1874. I often wonder if James Joseph named his son, Uselle in honor of his aunts Sarah and Martha Ann Uzzell, who were the wives of his uncles, James Goode Branch and William Minor Branch.

After the death of James Joseph's father, Stephen Green Eubank, in 1872, he purchased 120 acres of land in Nevada County, California. He sold that land in 1875, but after the 1880 census James Joseph moved with his family to California. A pension application made by Elsie for James Joseph's Civil War pension years later showed that they were living in San Diego, California, in 1883, and later they moved to Tulare, California, and finally Los Angeles, California, by about 1986.

There are voter registration records from the 1890's showing both James Joseph and his sons Euzell and Lee Edward living with or near him in the Tulare, Tulare County, area of Central California. Later the family moved to Southern California and were living around the Los Angeles area for several years. Uselle was listed variously in several census and voter registration records as Euzell and Eucell. And by the early 1900's he was going by the name of Stephen James Eubank for some reason.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census for Los Angeles, James Joseph's wife, Elsie Jane, was living with their son, Lee Edward, at 947 E. 54th Street, but James may not have been living with them at the time and may have been living at the Old Soldier's Home in West Los Angeles. The Old Soldier's Home is now called the Veteran's Administration Hospital. It appears from public records that James was in and out of the Old Soldier's Home from a period of about 10 years from 1891 to at least 1900, and perhaps even longer. He was also living there at the time of his death in June of 1907.

In 1902, James Joseph's son Uselle was going by the name of Stephen James Eubank, and was living at 1918 S. Main Street in Los Angeles. His father, James, was living at 947 E. 54th Street in Los Angeles during that year. These addresses were only about 3 miles apart. By 1904, Stephen James Eubank was living at the same 947 E. 54th Street address, with his mother, Elsie, but neither James nor their son, Lee Edward, were living there then....at least they were not listed in the directory at that time.

By 1905, James Joseph and Lee Edward were both living at 945 E 54th Street, but neither Stephen James or his mother Elsie were listed as living there with them at the time. It seems that the family certainly moved around a lot in those days. I'm not sure where Uselle or Stephen James Eubank lived for about 10 years from 1892 to 1902, however, he married my grandmother, Dorthea Evelyn Rollins in Yuma, Arizona in 1909, and they were listed in the 1910 census living in Arizona.

Not long after that Stephen James and Dorthea Evelyn moved to San Diego, California, where my mother, Frances Amelia Eubank, was born October 14, 1911. They may have moved to California because my great grandmother, Dortha Roxana Madsen Rollins McKinney's first husband, John Henry Rollins, Jr., had a sister, Margaret Eve Rollins, who was married to an Arizona law man named Thomas Harbo Rynning. Tom and Margaret had moved to San Diego in about 1910, and Tom was working as a building contractor there. Since Stephen James Eubank had worked at one time as a carpenter, he may have been building houses with Tom then in San Diego. He may have been familiar with San Diego since he was probably living there with his parents and siblings in 1883 after leaving Sedalia, Missouri. In 1883 Stephen would have been 15 years old.

Stephen James Eubank's father and grandfather had both been carpenters and cabinet makers all of their lives, so perhaps that was a skill Stephen learned from his father. He also worked as a mining engineer and building contractor, and by 1913, Stephen James, his wife, Dorthea Evelyn, and their daughter, Frances Amelia, were living in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, and Stephen was working as a mining engineer on the Alice Arm mine. My mother's sister, Elsie Louise Eubank, was born in Prince Rupert in 1913. Two years later, the family had moved to Seattle, Washington, where my mother's brother, James Rollins Eubank, was born in September of 1915. The family may have moved to Seattle because Stephen James Eubank's older half-brother, James Gideon Eubank, had been living in the Tacoma, Washington area since the late 1880's or early 1890's. James Gideon passed away in the Seattle/Tacoma area in 1926.

We believe that Stephen James Eubank's mother, Elsie Jane Rouser Eubank, passed away in 1918 while living in Los Angeles. She had gone to live with her daughter, Laura Elsie, after her husband, James Joseph, passed away in 1907. At that time their daughter, Laura Elsie, was married to Otto Classen, a fairly well known landscape artist born in Germany. He came to America in about 1890. They were married in 1898.

Sadly, by 1919, Stephen James Eubank had abandoned his wife and three small children, and my grandmother and her children moved to Bakersfield, California, to live with her mother, Dortha Roxana Madsen Rollins McKinney. Dorthea Evelyn was awarded a divorce from Stephen James Eubank there in 1923 for willful desertion. She and her three children moved to Los Angeles in about 1924, and by 1930, my mother, Frances Amelia, was living with her grandmother, Dortha, and Dortha's daughter by her second husband, Thelma McKinney. My grandmother, Dorthea Evelyn, was living nearby with her other two children, Elsie Louise, and James Rollins Eubank. Two years later my mother married my father, Halley Dale Smith, a farm boy from Kansas who moved to California around 1925 to escape the dust bowl days of Kansas. Her sister Elsie Louise married Alfred John Koegler in about 1936, and their brother, James Rollins Eubank, married Vera Pauline Hulse in 1945 after he returned home from serving in World War II.

My mother always told me that she saw her father, Stephen James Eubank, only one more time after he deserted her mother, which was when they were living in Los Angeles in about 1924 or 1925. She would have been about 13 or 14 years old at the time. He came for a visit and after that the family never heard from or saw him ever again. His sister, Laura Elsie Eubank Classen, continued to live in the Los Angeles area, but Aunt Elsie would never reveal any information regarding the whereabouts of her brother Stephen James Eubank to any of my mother's family, and Elsie passed away in 1956. I don't know when or where my grandfather died, nor does anyone else in the family.

I've always been sad that I never knew either of my grandfathers, since my dad's father died sometime between 1920 and 1930, and I have no idea when or where my mother's father, Stephen James Eubank, passed away.

In some family genealogical information I read regarding the Eubank and Branch families, it was said that Stephen Green Eubank eloped with a wealth heiress, Susannah Quarles Branch, in Maury County, Tennessee, in 1826. She and Stephen had been given slaves by her father, James Branch, at the time of their marriage. In an 1820 Tennessee census record for James Branch, it showed that he owed 17 slaves and about 11 slaves in the 1840 census, so it is quite possible he had given some of his slaves to Stephen and Susannah after they were married in 1826.

Other family lore stated that after Susannah's death in Palmyra, Missouri in 1833, Stephen Green Eubank sold two of their slaves, a woman and her daughter, and the woman had been the nurse of Stephen's daughter, Martha. A third male slave worked for the family and drove the coach that Stephen and Martha road in on their trip to Illinois after Susannah's death. Supposedly, after they arrived in Illinois, Stephen Green Eubank gave the male slave his freedom and set him up in the barber business, and after that he was known as "Willie the Barber."

I did find a census record for a Stephen J. Eubank living in Arizona in 1920 and he was working as a barber. I wonder if that was my grandfather! Ironically, my mother, Frances Amelia Eubank Smith, was a cosmetologist, the female version of a barber! But I often do wonder what ever happened to Stephen James Eubank, and if he ever remarried. If so I have cousins somewhere I know nothing about.

Written by Della Dale Smith-Pistelli, (edited July, 2015), over 170 years after the death of my 3rd great grandfather, James Branch of Virginia and Tennessee.