James W. (nicknamed Double-Thumb Jim) Porter was born the 14th of March 1850, Titus Co., TX. He was married to Joan Landers in 1869, possibly in Titus Co., TX. Joan Landers was born the 28th of October 1848 in Texas. She died the 7th of January in 1920, near Wetumka, Hughes Co., OK, and is buried in Wetumka Cemetery. DT Jim died the 7th of June 1921, near Wetumka, OK, and is buried next to Joan in the Wetumka Cemetery. (Photo of their gravesite posted elsewhere on this site.)
DT Jim is our great grandfather, father to Hugh and grandfather to Robert Percival, our father. He was so named because the thumb on his right hand was extra wide and he had two distinct and separate thumbnails. His left hand was normal. He seemed proud of that "deformity" and displayed it prominently in the only two photos we have of him.
He was nine years old when Billy the Kid was born and just 12 when the Civil War began. He was our earliest known progenitor born in Texas. Texas had been a state for five years. Sometime before 1880 he moved his family from Titus County (Mt Pleasant) to Spanish Fort (Montague County) a town most known as a ferry crossing into the Indian Territory. The railroad missed it and it died up.
According to A History of Montague County, the Porters were known to have been involved in at least one Indian skirmish. A huge boulder on the courthouse square, in St. Jo, has a list of "prominent families of Montague County and the Porter name is listed). He was probably a Sooner as he went north across the Red River and claimed a good homestead just north of what is now Wewoka OK. It was fertile land and produced many high quality cotton crops. Oil was later discovered on this property but he had since died and is buried in the Wetumka cemetery next to his wife, Joan Landers Porter, his wife of 51 years. He survived her by 17 months to the day.
(Thanks to Richard Porter for this biography of our great-grandfather.)
Friday, August 28, 2009
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