Whitfield Holloway Castner

GEDCOM Note

!SOURCES OF INFORMATION: 1) 1880 Panola County, Texas, and 1900 Hopkins County, Texas, census records; 2) Confederate pension application No. 9710, filed by Mrs. S.S. Castner; 3) Death certificate for Whitfield Castner, Jr., from Cass Co., Texas; 4) "Hopkins County Cemeteries," by June England Tuck and Deborah Tuck Young; 5) 1870 census for Panola County, Texas, Beat 2--Beckville, Page 271B "Whitfield COSNER."

!BAPTISM: Whitfield was baptized on 7 Feb 1836, at Spruce Run Lutheran Church in Lebanon Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, by Rev. Richard Collier.

!MARRIAGES: A record exists for Whitfield Castner's first marriage to Sophronia Carroll, both "of Syracuse," on 17 Jan 1857 at Beard's Hotel. This record is found in those of Trinity Episcopal Church in Syracuse, New York. Evidently, Sophronia died before Whitfield made his way to Arkansas to be there in time for the 1860 census.

!NOTE: Whitfield also was known as "Jack."

!NOTE: Whitfield Castner may be found living with the Wiley family on the 1860 federal census for Dallas County, AR. On this census, he shows his age as 24, which fits with the baptismal record found for him at the Spruce Run Lutheran Church in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He always gave his birthplace as New York, but I believe this is because Syracuse, New York, is where he lived from about seven years of age. As time went by, he gradually gave his age as several years older than he was, evidently forgetting the exact year of his birth. The same year, he was enumerated on the Brownsville, Haywood County, TN, census. Here he is listed as being named "John" (he also went by "Jack" occasionally), and is listed as being 24 years old and born in Ohio. His wife, Salena, was listed as being 25 years old and born in Mississippi (27 June 1860).

!Also, it should be noted that there was ANOTHER Whitfield Castner, who was born in New Jersey around 1842. This Whitfield is shown in several records as NOT being the one born to Mark Castner and Nancy Miers, and there is ample documentation of the second Whitfield's parents, marriage, and date and place of death to separate him from our subject. The two may have been cousins. The one born in 1842 was the son of George Castner and Elizabeth Lance, and died in 1907; Elizabeth Lance Castner is buried in the churchyard of Spruce Run Lutheran.

!On the land grant certificate that Whitfield took in Arkansas, it shows his former residence as Haywood County, Tennessee. This would have been right before October 1860.