Thomas Tisdale Carrington Anderson Family

By Frances Fox
Taken from Ye Olde Ancestors, April 24, 1991
Written permission given by the New Boston Genealogy Society to post this information to the Bowie County TXGenWeb site.

T T C Anderson was a noted teacher and Confederate veteran. He died at the age of 94 in a tragic accident as he stepped in front of a Kansas City Southern train at the downtown crossing. It was his custom to walk to the post office every morning for the mail even though his eyesight was very poor. This accident took place in 1939. This summer Ashdown is remembering some of their most important citizens and events of the past and Thomas Tisdale Carrington Anderson is counted as one of their outstanding citizens. He taught school for 54 years and was the last surviving member of John C Burks Camp, United Confederate Veterans and maybe the last survivor of the Southern Army of the Civil War. He ran off from his home in Clarksville, Texas at the age of 16 and joined Company F, Whitfield's Texas Legion, Ross Brigade of Calvary. On May 26th, 1884 he was wounded near Atlanta, Georgia. The rest of his life he had a small in his cheek and they said you didn't want to stand too close when he was speaking. It had become a tradition to drape the casket of each Confederate veteran with the same Confederate flag when this banner was sent from Clarksville to Ashdown for the funeral of T T C Anderson, who was the last of the original 500 members of the camp, it was placed inside the casket and buried with him.

T T C Anderson, 1845-1939, was born in Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia. His parents were Rev John Anderson and Mary Margaret Tisdale from County Louth, Ireland to America in 1833. Rev John Anderson, a graduate of Belfast College, was a Presbyterian minister and a teacher. They eventually moved to Clarksville, texas and T T C Anderson and his brothers and sisters were taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics in their father's schools. It was from Clarksville that he ran away to enlist for the Civil War in 1862 and he returned to Clarksville on April 16th, 1865 after being released from prison in Richmond, Virginia. In 1867 he married Mary Ellen Hudgins, 1847-1936 at Rondo, Arkansas where he taught his first school.

T T C Anderson and Mary Ellen Hudgins had eleven children and six of them were still living in 1939 when T T C was killed. Of the eleven children, we can only name eight:
1. Mrs Hal L Norwood
2. Mamie B, 1872-1952, married Andrew T Hemphill
3. Lula, married C P Smith
4. Margueret "Maggie" born about 1874, married first Gabriel E Perot, second Wade M Ball
5. T D
6. R C "Dick"
7. Elia Bell, 1888-1898, buried in Dollarhide Cemetery
8. John H, 1875-1907, buried in Dollarhide Cemetery
Hal L Norwood was attorney general of Arkansas at one time and they lived at Mena Arkansas. The Hemphill and Smith families lived at Ashdown. Dick lived at Beaumont, texas. Mrs Magie Perot and Gabriel E Perot owned a store in New Boston in the early 1900's with Gabriel's brother Omer R Perot. When Gabriel Perot died, Maggie Anderson Perot married a second time to Wade Ball. Maggie and Gabriel Perot's children were Omer Vivian 1897, Leon R 1899, Gabriel Ross 1901, Ray Anderson 1902, and John Russell 1905. So, T T C Anderson and Mary Ellen Hudgins are the great grandparents of H Ross Perot.