FURNASH

FURNASH, CHARLES LARSON, born about 1780, died 27 July 1839, emigrated to Texas in 1820, and was considered one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists. Charles lived in Alabama and moved to Arkansas where he and his family lived several years before moving to Texas in 1820. He received title to a league of land on the west bank of the Brazos River in what is now eastern Burleson County on August 19, 1824. The census of 1826 listed him as a farmer and stock raiser aged between forty and fifty. His household in 1826 included his wife, Sally (Sarah Glass), five sons, two daughters, and a servant. He resided in the Brazos bottoms south of the Old San Antonio Road in an area known as Furnash Prairie, halfway between Yegua Creek and Fort Tenoxtitlán, which was in Washington County until 1846 when Burleson County was created. He was an excellent marksman and woodsman but utterly uneducated; he was described as good-natured and an incessant talker whose humorous manner of speaking made him a general favorite. His name appeared on the Washington County tax roll in 1837. Mrs. Sarah Glass Furnash died before 19 August 1841 in Milam County, Texas. Charles had eight children: Robert, Charles, John R., Martha, Jehu, Conrad, Lucinda, and a Miss. Mary Ann Vernon, who was a half sister to the other seven.   1. Robert Furnash died in 1833 in Texas without children. 2. Charles Furnash married Eliza Ann Franks on 1 March 1838, in Washington County, Texas. He had been arrested for theft in Robertson’s colony in late 1831. On 20 September 1844, Charles received 320 acres on Milam Bounty Land Certificate No. 3230. He also received land in Bell County. Mrs. Eliza Ann Furnash married Bethel Smith on 30 May 1839, in Washington County, Texas 3. John R. Furnash married Nancy Ann Dobbins on 19 April 1838, in Washington County, Texas. He served in the Texas army during the Texas Revolution. He received lands from Land Grants in Bosque, Coryell, and present Lee counties. Mrs. Nancy Ann Furnash is listed in the 1850 Census as a widow with three daughters. 4. Martha Furnash married Silas Glap and died before 1855 in Texas. They had a son, Dudley Glap. 5. Jehu Furnash received land from a grant in Austin County, Texas. He was killed by Indians on 26 November 1844. 6. Conrad “Coon” Furnash married Sibbar P. Bryant and died in 1847. Their children are Mary Jane born in 1845 and Charles Robert born in 1847. 7. Lucinda Furnash married David A. Thompson on 10 January 1838, in Washington County, Texas, and died before 11 November 1844. Lucinda and David had a daughter, Martha J. born in 1843. David received a land grant in Milam County.   In Providence Cemetery, Burleson County, Texas is: Charles Furnash, born 10 October 1843, died 11 October 1866. In the 1850 Census of Burleson County, Texas, a Charles Furnash, age 6, born in Texas, was in the household of John and Sarah Echols, living near what is now Tunis, Texas.   BIBLIOGRAPHY: Malcolm H. Addison, Reminiscences of Burleson County, Texas (Caldwell, Texas, 1886; rpt., Caldwell: Caldwell Printing, 1971). Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). Burleson County Historical Society, Astride the Old San Antonio Road: A History of Burleson County, Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1980). Worth Stickley Ray, Austin Colony Pioneers (Austin: Jenkins, 1949; 2d ed., Austin: Pemberton, 1970). John Milton Swisher, Memoirs (San Antonio: Sigmund, 1932). Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/FF/ffu14.html (accessed July 12, 2009). E-mail post by Danni Franklin, December, 2010.