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| Charlotte |
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| Charlotte and Gladys |
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| Simeon, Nettie Belle Stites and family (Gladys is on far right top) |
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| Stites family: Annette Isabelle "Nettie Belle" Buckler and Simeon Stites in front. Gladys in the back row, far right. |
In the 1841 census of England, Stites
people numbered under 100, and were widely dispersed in the south of England.
By 1881, only a handful of Stites people lived in Kent. By contrast, the U.S.
1790 census showed 15 Stites people, and by 1880 there were nearly 1300 Stites-surnamed
people. It is possible that this is a single-origin, or limited number of origins,
surname. A small existing Stites surname yDNA project may eventually prove
interesting. A Stites 37 STR marker yDNA
sample at www.ysearch.org ID #TKQKY was
in Haplogroup R1a1a; the ancestor was William Stites, born about 1884 in
Arkansas. Further SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) testing on this sample
to determine subclade would undoubtedly be very interesting.
Major Benjamin Stites Jr.
(1746-1804) helped found the city of Cincinnati. His ancestor Richard (son of
Dr. John) was also the ancestor of Gladys. Benjamin Stites may have had close
encounters with Gary’s McCreary ancestors, both in Redstone, Fayette County,
Pennsylvania, and in southwest Ohio.
Gladys Stites Retherford’s
paternal grandmother was Anna Beckett. Information is inconsistent on Anna’s
dates and place of origin (Ireland or England?). Family history says that she
came to America with plans to be a nun. However, when she was a teenager she
rode her horse past the land (we have a picture of the house and land) of older
bachelor Jacob Stites (b. 1805, Cape May County, New Jersey) and decided that
she would marry that man. They married in 1856 in Butler County, Ohio, not far
from Gary Muffley’s McCreary ancestors (see McCreary Blog). Jacob’s and Anna’s 4
kids were born in Ohio, and later they lived in Coles County, Illinois. After
the kids were raised and her husband died, Anna went alone to Oklahoma to do
the homesteading run of 1889. The thousands of people participating in the
“run” started about 3 miles north of current Stillwater. Anne and Gary Muffley
somewhat followed the route Anna might have taken, for about 10 miles. Anna set
up farming west of Mehan, near Stillwater Creek and Union Road. This was quite
close to the future land of Jesse Retherford Jr. Anna farmed there alone for
about 3 years, became ill, and returned to Illinois. Later, her son Simeon
Stites and his wife Nettie Belle Buckler Stites made the 3 weeks trip in a covered
wagon from Coles County Illinois to settle on Anna’s land in Oklahoma. Anna may
have had close encounters with the Dalton-Doolin Gang, whose biggest battle
with lawmen occurred in Ingalls in 1893 just a few miles away from her
land. Rough territory even for that plucky lady.
Annette Isabelle “Nettie Belle”
Buckler eloped with Simeon Stephen Stites. She wore her wedding dress under
other clothing and secretly left town (just like Gary’s Grandma Edna Jagger
Muffley; see the Muffley Blog). Nettie and Simeon took a train in the night to
the next county, sat until morning at the train station at Marshall, Clark
County, Illinois, and married on November 11, 1885.
Nettie Belle Buckler Stites’
Grandpa William Goodrum Buckler enlisted in Company H (Yeats’ Sharpshooters),
64th Illinois Volunteers Regiment. He was killed in battle at
Marietta, Georgia, October 10, 1864. William’s Grandpa Robert Buckler was
reportedly born in 1745 in Dublin, Ireland, and migrated to Kentucky. Robert’s
father Steven Buckler (b. 1721, Dublin) was reportedly the master of the
schooner “The Hawks”. This Buckler line appears to be connected with www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyrobert/family/bucklerfamily.html
Simeon and Nettie Belle Buckler
Stites had 10 kids. Mary Gladys Stites was born in 1901 at Ripley, Oklahoma
Territory.
