A Confederate Veteran comes to success and rest in Olivia, Texas, 1908

Seth Singleton Cole and Hulda Simmons Cole with their daughter Lorena Lora Cole Brown and her daughter, Hulda Lorna Brown, circa 1908

Born 3 May 1833 in Louisiana, Seth Singleton Cole joined the confederate army and fought as part of the Louisiana Volunteers in the Company D, Siege Train Battallion in the Trans-Mississippi Department.  This battalion was organized in 1864 out of men that had originally been with the 8^th Infantry Battalion and had fought at Vicksburg in 1862 to 1863. According to family history, he first went to Texas when he was sent there to help arrange beef supplies for the confederate army. Evidently his wife, Hulda, went there with him, as their first child, Emma, was born in Louisiana in December of 1863, while his second child, Seth Emmett Cole was born in Jackson County Texas in late 1864.

           Or perhaps Hulda (born Hulda Simmons in 1836)  preceded him there.  Life was not easy on the front line in their home state of Louisiana. In their home parish of St. Landry, the foraging of the union army under Colonel Thomas E Chickering was striping the country bare. The “jayhawkers” (anti-confederate guerrillas, bands of draft dodgers and deserters) were raiding and destroying what was left.   The choice was to be at the mercy of the raiders or, as the Coles seem to have done, leave.

            Seth soldiered on until the bitter end. The troops under General Edmund Kirby Smith did not surrender at Galveston Texas until June 1865, several months after Lee’s surrender. 

            Family history reports that the family returned briefly to Louisiana after the war, but then returned to live permanently in Texas, first to Gonzales where their remaining children were born, and then (in the late 1890s) to Calhoun County. There in 1899, Seth Singleton purchased a lot in the town of Olivia and set up as a “grocer”.  His oldest son, Seth Emmett, purchased 80 acres close by and began to farm.. The family would go on to own a drug store and hotel in Olivia.

            Still living at home was Seth and Hulda’s daughter, Lorena Lora Cole (born in Gonzales, Texas, 9 March 1875).  In Olivia she met the farmer, Charles Brown, and in 1906 – she married and soon after, in mid 1907, their daughter, Hulda Lorena, was born. The 1910 census shows Charles and Hulda Brown owning a stock farm in the Olivia area. But the 1920 census finds them unemployed in Kerrville, Texas.

           

This post is a substantial revision of an earlier post, Who Are These People?  Thanks to the help of readers of the blog and to a lucky chance “spotting” of an early print of this picture, I’ve been able to confirm the identity of the individuals in the picture and revise the date accordingly While I originally in my earlier post dated this picture to circa 1910-1912, Seth Cole died in late 1908. Based on the apparent age of the little girl – I’m guessing this was taken in the spring or summer of 1908.

Identifiers:

Negative #: Paulson328
Seth Singleton Cole (b. 3 May 1833, St. Landry Parish, La; d. 20 Sept 1908, Olivia, Texas. Buried in Red Bluff Cemetery, Jackson County TX)

Hulda E. Simmons Cole (b. 1836 St. Landry Parish, La; d. 20 Oct 1917, Buried in Red Bluff Cemetery, Jackson County TX )

Lorena Lora Cole Brown (b. 9 Mar 1875, Gonzales, TX; d. 27 May 1965 Corpus Christie, TX; married Charlie Brown 7 Jun 1906) Buried in Gonzales Masonic Cemetery, Gonzales TX)

Hulda Lorena Brown (b. 26 Jun 1907, Olivia, TX; d. 30 Aug 1985, Corpus Christie, TX)

Sources:

Family Trees, stories, pictures at ancestry.com and at Royal Ancestry File (http://www.royalblood.co.uk/D1316/I1316926.html ) Like many of this type of resource, these 2 sources are not completely accurate. I’ve checked, verified, and corrected dates for this post.)

Calhoun County, Texas, Deed Books

Cormier, Stephen. 8th Battallion Volunteer HeavyArtillery. Accessed on the web 8/25/2013.

Gary M. Lavergne. "The Civil war and reconstruction:amnesty for Eugene Lavergne” accessed on the web 8/25/2013

Census records. 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920  accessed through Ancestry.com

Cemetery Records at findagrave.com