Sometime during the 1840's Samuel W Shipp and his wife, Ellen Brooks, left Paulding County, Georgia to come to Bowie County, Texas.  It may have been because Ellen's father, Thomas A Brooks, 1789-1843, died suddenly leaving her mother a widow with some young sons.  Parmelia Brooks, 1798-1865, was Ellen's mother and had at least four other children: Bolen S, Napoleon B, William and Pashal.  Thomas A Brooks also had an older brother, Biven/Biving Brooks that lived in Bowie County in 1840, and was in the Walton County, Georgia census in 1830.

Samuel W Shipp, 1798-1877, was the son of Lemuel Shipp, 1776-1850, and Elizabeth Wright.  Samuel was a Representative from Gwinette County, Georgia in the General Assembly in 1836 and 1837.  He was a Senator from Paulding County in 1841 and a Justice of the Inferior Court in Paulding County in 1846.  Samuel's younger brother, William Shipp came to Cass County, Texas in 1859 and died in Pulaski County, Arkansas.  The Osborn Shipp family that lived in Hooks and the Charlie Shipp family that lived in Maud are from William Shipp.  A first cousin of Samuel named Richard C Shipp came to the Texarkana area in the 1840's and his 12 children account for most of the Shipps in Texarkana. 

Ellen Brooks Shipp, 1820-1855, was about 22 years younger than Samuel and that makes the family believe that she may be his second wife.  Samuel served in the Indian Wars and may have just married late.  Samuel and Ellen Shipp had six children:
1. Cynthia Ann, 1840-about 1863, born in Paulding County, Georgia, husband and place of death unknown
2. Parmelia Elizabeth, 1842-1893, born in Paulding County, Georgia, married and divorced Solomon D Poer, buried in Shipp Cemetery about 1 mile southwest
    of New Boston, Texas
3. Thadeus W, 1844-1876, born in Paulding County, Georgia, buried in Shipp Cemetery about 1 mile southwest of New Boston, Texas
4. Samuel W Jr, 1846-1873, born in Bowie County, Texas, buried in Shipp Cemetery about 1 mile southwest of New Boston, Texas
5. William A, 1850-1893, born in Bowie County, Texas, married Bertha Durst, buried in Shipp Cemetery about 1 mile southwest of New Boston, Texas
6. Sarah Frances, 1852-1918, born in Bowie County, Texas, married William "Bill" S McCright, buried in Shipp Cemetery about 1 mile southwest
    of New Boston, Texas

When Cynthia Ann became a young lady, she fell in love with a man that was traveling through this county.  Her father did not approve of this romance and told her that if she married this man that he, Samuel Shipp, would disown her.  Cynthia chose to leave with the young man in spite of her father's anger.  She must have written to Parmelia Elizabeth because when the Civil War began they received word that Cynthia's husband had been called into service and that she had started home with a child on horseback.  I can only imagine how homesick she must have been and how happy everyone would have been to see her but she never arrived and no word was ever received from her again.

Thadius W Shipp served in Company K from Bowie County in the Civil War.  This regiment served with the 8th Texas Cavalry in Wheelers Corps in Arkansas and moved east of Mississippi in 1863.  Both the Brooks and the Shipp families were slave holders.  At the end of the Civil War, the slaves were free to leave their former owners and many did.  In the 1870 census, two former slaves (Fanny Whitley and her daughter Margaret) remained in the household of Samuel W Shipp who was now 72 years old.  Samuel W Shipp's children were raised by Aunt Fanny Whitley after their mother died in 1855.

Ellen Brooks Shipp died about 9 years after she arrived with her husband and children in Bowie County and Samuel buried her just west of the dog-trot house that he had build for his family.  The children were ages 15 to 3 years of age and Samuel Ship was 57.  Sarah Frances Shipp often quoted the sayings that she learned from Fanny Whitley, things like: "A stitch in time saves nine", "Wasteful ways make woeful wants", and "Every pot sits on its own bottom".  Her older sisters and Fanny Whitley were the only mothers that Sarah Frances Shipp could remember.

The land that Samuel W Shipp  once owned is still owned by ancestors.  Seven generations of the Shipp family are now buried in the Shipp Cemetery, six generations of native Texans.