Autrey Family
By Frances Fox
Taken from Ye Olde Ancestors
Written permission given by the New Boston Genealogy Society
to post this information to the Bowie County TXGenWeb site.



Cornelius Autrey was born in Haute Saone Province in France before 1720 and came to America.  One of his children was Absalom Autrey, who was born in 1731 or 1733 in North Carolina and died in 1827 in St Clair County, Alabama.  This Absalom Autrey was the father of eight sons.  His second son, Cornelius Autrey, was named for his father and was born in North Carolina in 1779 and died in Perry County, Alabama in 1847.  That is three generations of the Autrey family that lives in Bowie County, Texas today.

Cornelius Autrey, 1770-1847 was the father of fifteen children.  His oldest son was named Absalom Autrey and was born in North Carolina in 1802, married in Selma, Alabama in 1826, died in 1885 in Dubach, Louisiana.  Absalom Autrey, 1802-1885, and his wife, Elizabeth also had fifteen children.  The first thirteen children were born in Perry County, Alabama and the last two were born in Louisiana after they moved there by ox wagon in 1846.  They arrived at the place now called Dubach, Louisiana on Christmas Eve in 1846.  There he build a "dog trot" house of logs which still stands and is listed in the National Registrar of Historic Places.  The log house is two rooms deep on either side of an open hall-way known as a "dog trot", a story and a half high and a cellar underneath.  It is said that the first pioneers would build a large square room of logs and as their family grew, the would build a second square lag cabin the same size as the first with a small space between the two.  Then they put on long roof over the two cabins and that made an open, covered hall-way between the two cabins where the dogs would stay, thus it became known as a "dog trot" house.  You can embellish that with floors, porches, more rooms, etc and you have a colonial mansion. 

The tenth child of Absalom and Elizabeth Autrey was Robert Martin Autrey, born 1840 in Selma, Alabama, married Elizabeth Jane "Janie" Kemp in Dubach.  They had six children:
1. William born 1866
2. Elbert Eugene born 1868
3. Edward born 1870
4. Cisero Fernando "Pink" born 1872
5. Columbia born 1875
6. Caven born 1877
This family was listed in the Bowie County 1880 census.  The first two sons were born in Louisiana and the rest were born in Texas so the family must have moved here between 1870 and 1872.  Janie Autrey died before 1880 and Robert Martin Autrey, 1840, married Sara Jane Symtha "Semanthia" Scarborough.  They had four children:
1. Thomas Dillard "Doc" born 1886
2. Robert Martin Jr "Bob" born 1888
3. Lon Cleveland "L C" born 1889
4. Lena born 1892

The second son, Elbert Eugene Autrey, born 1868, or Robert M Autrey and Janie Kemp married Alma Endsley, the daughter of Andrew and Melisa Easter Endsley.  They were the parents of ten children:
1. Charlie E married Janie Winstead
2. Minnie married Jessie Rogers
3. Ellon married Morris Walker
4. Morris married Beulah Boston
5. Rosalie married Clarence Walker
6. Elvin married Willie M Rodgers
7. Willie married Frankie Beasley
7. Christine married Carl T Springer
9. Bertha married Sammy McCartey
10. David Elbert married Myrtie Mae Welborn



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