Our Somers Family Heritage

Notes on Cotna (Cotney, Coatny, Cortny) Lisbeth (Elizabeth) Cole (Harris/Tidwell/Somers) and Henry Francis Somers Cotna was born 1854 in Jackson County, Arkansas Her father and mother are listed in the 1900 Butler Co., Mo. Census as being born in Tennessee. Cotna married Henry F. Somers in 1893. Henry’s father Abraham (Born 1820) is from Tennessee, his mother Darcus (Born 1824), is from North Carolina. Henry F. was born in Jackson County, Tennessee in 1860. According to the Jackson Co. Tennessee 1860 Census, the Summers family is listed as: Abe – 39 yrs. Male/white Aner – 16 yrs. Female/white Archibald - 10 yrs. Male/white Darcus – 36 yrs. Female/white Henry – 2 mos. Male/white John – 14 yrs. Male/white Nancy – 12 yrs. Female/white Another possible sibling is Matthew A. Summers who is listed in a Census as being born in 1866. Also, I found a John Summers in the 1840 Jackson Co., Tenn. Census who could be Abe’s father. Henry F. Somers and Cotna (or Cotney)

Illustration from The Circuit Rider: A Tale of the Heroic Age by Edward Eggleston (Image from Wikipedia) "Yet still they look with glistening eye, Till lo! a herald hastens nigh; He comes the tale of woe to tell, How he, their prop and glory fell; How died he in a stranger’s room, How strangers laid him in the tomb, How spoke he with his latest breath, And loved and blessed them all in death. ~ Final stanza of a hymn about the perils of the Circuit Rider by Samuel Wakefield While researching Great Grandfather Henry Francis Somers, who I have been told was a traveling evangelist or circuit rider for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I came across these interesting vital statistics: Henry F. Somers was born in Jackson County, Tennessee in June of 1860. This was approximately one year before the War Between the States and exactly one year before Tennessee voted to secede. American Civil War Montage - Wikipedia In the 1860 Jackson County, Tenn. Census his father is