The name "Talley" is Finish and means "Tall Tree".  The first settler was William Talley, 1488-1551, who came to Delaware in 1502.  He was buried at Talleytown, a suburb of Wilmington now.

Charles W Talley, 1805-1866, came to Bowie County, Texas and bought some land near Old Boston before 1858.  In 1832 he married Martha Broadwater, 1807-1839.  Their children were:
 1. James Jones, 1834-1897, a Civil War veteran, married Casander M Richardson, 1836-1914
 2. Obediah Able, 1835-1908, Civil War veteran, married Martha M Steward, 1835-1902
 3. Martha, 1839-1926, married Alfred L Cassells, 1832-1889, in 1859

When Martha Broadwater Talley died in 1839, Charles W Talley married his second wife, Sarah Harris Anderson.  They had these children:
 1. Mary Anderson, 1833-1882, married Francis Marion Tomlin, 1831-1882, a Civil War veteran, in 1857
 2. Saleta Ann America, 1840, married Talmage Beene in 1860, and died in Cherokee County, Texas
 3. Rachel "Tal", 1842-1913, in Bowie County, married Will Richardson in 1863
 4. Thomas Harris, 1848-1930, Columbia County, Arkansas, married Mary L McKinley, 1851-1930, in 1863
 5. Augustas Madison, 1850-1934, married 1st Leacie Willbourne, 1858-1904, in 18876; married 2nd Mattie P Burnam, 1858-1940, in 1905
 6. Sarah Frances, 1853, Cherokee County, Texas, married William D Rudd in 1872
 7. Drucilla Jane, 1854-1942, Bowie County, Texas, married David E Snyder, 1856-1931 in 1879
 8. Charles Elisha, 1856-1927, married Nancy Timmons, 1857-1914, in Tom, Oklahoma in 1876

This family moved around quite a bit.  Four of these children of Charles W Talley and Sarah Harris Anderson came down to Bowie County from their home in Arkansas in 1879 to the place their father had already been years before.  Augustus M and his wife Leacie and two children, Sarah and William Rudd, Drucilla and David Snyder, Saleta and Talmage Beene all came in a wagon train to Bowie County in 1879 after the Civil War.  The Rudd's and Beene's eventually went to Cherokee County.  David and Drucilla Snyder and several of their children are buried in the Rock Creek Cemetery.

Augustas M Talley and his wife Leacie, by now in very poor health, moved to Camp County, Texas after farming here for twenty years.  When Leacie died, Augustas came back to Bowie County to marry Mattie P Burnam, a widow.  Augustas Madison Talley and both wives are buried in the Crossroads Cemetery just south of Pittsburg, Texas.

A son of Augustas and Leacie, Thomas Judson Talley farmed and taught school in Bowie County until 1901 when he married one of his sixteen year old students, Myrtie Omega Lynch, the daughter of Rev. Elbert and Minerva Kellet Lynch.  Elbert was a pastor of the Antioch Christian Church.  Judson and Myrtie had eleven children and eight of them are still living.

One of Judson's favorite stories was about the wagon train trip from Arkansas to texas in 1879.  The train was made up of Talleys, Rudds, Beenes, Tomlins, Snyders, Richardsons, Andersons and V T Harmon and his family.  They crossed the Red River at Fulton, Arkansas.  They camped on the Arkansas bank of the river for the night.  The next morning when the boys went out to get the livestock, they found a crack in the ground.  When they told the adults about the crack they saw, everyone rushed to hook up the wagons and move them.  They left the camp fires and everything in their haste.  Just as the last wagon crossed over the crack, that whole section of bank fell off into the Red River.  Today, in 1991, many descendants of these same families live in and around Bowie, Cass, and Cherokee Counties.