My Gilmer and Whaley ancestors were from Georgia and my Coffee and Webb ancestors were from Tennessee as far back as 1810. All were Scot-Irish from norther Ireland and settled in Virginia in the early 1700s. My great grandfather William E.Gilmer was born in Jasper County Georgia and my great grandfather Peyton G. Whaley was born in Murray County, formerly Cass County, Georgia. Both Cass and Murray Counties were originally made from Cherokee lands. The northern half of Cass County was used to form Gordon County. In 1861, the feeling was that Lewis Cass was not sympathetic to the Southern cause and Georgia changed the name of Cass to Bartow County. Therefore Cass County does not exist today. However, the old county name is remembered by the town of Cassville Georgia. The Whaley family was in Whitefield County in the 1850s. That county was formed from Murray and Walker Counties. My great great grandfather Barney B. Whaley operated the U.S. post office in Dalton, Georgia until the war started. My great grandfather Peyton Green Whaley moved to Washington in Hempstead County Arkansas about 1857 and became an overseer on the John Anderson Plantation. In 1862, Whaley enlisted in the Confederate army at Washington Arkansas in Col.James C. Monroe's 1st Arkansas Cavalry.

There are few Anglo-Americans who can call themselves native Texans with ancestors living there before 1820. The oldest Anglo-American settlement in Texas was at Pecan Point on the Red River, northeast of present day Paris Texas. Pecan Point was first settled in 1818 by fugitives from justice. At that time, Pecan Point was as far up the Red River that river steamers could navigate. Later keelboats could navigate as far up stream as Holland Coffee's Trading Post (Glen Eden) on the Red River, about 15 miles west of Sherman Texas.The site of the trading post is now in the middle of Lake Texoma.