The William H. Hammett Family

By Miss Bessie Moore

William H. Hammett was born in South Carolina July 15, 1819. He married Miss Ruth Lloyd June 16, 1839, and migrated to Alabama. They had six children, one having died in 1845.

In 1850, he left Alabama with his wife and five children bound for Cherokee County, Texas, and settled near old Jacksonville in the vicinity of the present Antioch Church. After the Civil War, he donated an acre of land for the first Antioch Methodist Church; it was years later that the church was moved to its present location.

On their way to Texas, as told by one of the daughters, they were running from Indians when they arrived at the Mississippi River just in time to catch a cattle boat that had not been cleaned. In time, several people became ill with cholera, and several deaths occurred between April 27 and May 8, 1850. Mr. Hammett lost his wife and three of his children, arriving in Texas with two small daughters, Clarissa C. and Amanda Virginia Hammett.

Clarissa married Hugh Lawrence Benge, September 19, 1861. They were parents of seven children, including William Robert Benge, who married Callie Edmiston, December 25, 1890; James G. Benge; John B. Benge, who married Ida Darden, April 19, 1897; Henry Lawrence Benge, who married Lizzie Buckley, October 23, 1901; Ruth Ann Benge, who married James E. Weatherford, November 21, 1895; George L. Benge, who died at 4 years of age; and Albert Sidney Benge, who married Lottie Buckley, Jan. 11, 1904.

Amanda Hammett married first a Mr. Bartlett, and they had a daughter, Laura Ann, who married John F. Tillman, October 18, 1896. The second marriage was to William Price, November 4, 1865, and they had four children. They were Emma, who married J. B. Smyrl, John, Sam, whose wife's first name was Oma, and Ada, who never married.

William H. Hammett enlisted in the Confederate Army two different times, and each time was discharged and sent home because he was over 35 years of age. The last time he was sent home with company mules. After arriving, he farmed. In October, 1862, W. H. Hammett married Catherine (Katie) Benge James. They had five children: William T. Hammett, who married Mary (Mollie) McCoy, Feb. 25, 1890; Ruthie Jane Hammett, who married Braxton Bragg Williams, September 16, 1894; Armintie (Mittie) Ann Hammett, who married Dr. John Wm. Moore, December 26, 1895; James Monroe Hammett; and an infant daughter, who died at ten days old on December 25, 1897.

William H. Hammett, in addition to farming, operated a cotton gin until his death from typhoid fever on July 19, 1894. He is buried in Benge Cemetery. His wife, whom everyone called "Aunt Kate" in her later years, died June 30, 1923.

William H. Hammett, who arrived in Cherokee County in the 1850s, and settled in the Antioch community. Died 1894.

Mrs. Kate Benge Hammett is shown in an 1895 photo made by Mrs. W. T. Hammett, a Jacksonville photographer of that era.

Shown, left to right, about 1904, are James Hammett, Aunt Katie Benge Hammett, Mrs. Ruth Hammett Williams and her three children in front of William H. Hammett home built about 1866.