In the fall of 1866 John Porter McKay(1830-1883) and his wife Louis Ruth Foster (1832-1898) sold their land in the Laurel Hill area of Neshoba Co., MS (before this they had lived in Union Co., South Carolina) to his brother James, packed their belongings and 3 sons: Albert(1855-1913), William "Willie" Alexander (1858-1941) and Thomas (1866-1870) and joined a wagon train of about one hundred people heading for Texas. The wagon train was made up of relatives and neighbors most from the Laurel Hill area and members of the Old Caroline Presbyterian Church and had attended school together, also. Some of the men had served together in the Confederate Army in one of two companies in the Laurel Hill comm. One was Williams Co., Miss. Calvary, named for its founder Capt. W. G. Williams, and the other was the Scotland Guard--for the reason that the community was populated mainly by descendants of Scottish immigrants who had settled in North Carolina. Most were related by blood or marriage. The wagon train was made up from many families, including McKay, McDonald, Foster, Stribling, Foster (formerly of Virginia > SC), Gambling, McMillian, Milner, Wallace, Hurley( NC>TN>MS>TX), Ledbetters, and many others. They travelled through Louisiana into Arkansas, but found the land too mountainous for sucessful farming but the further north they went the easier the stream crossings were, then into Texas. First to the area of Whitewright in Grayson Co., but failed to find enough water to farm, then came to the Reilly Springs area and settled. From the History of Reilly Springs 1850-1977 by Ellie Williams Swindell Valencia Smotherman Smotherman/Smitherman/Smithyman,~Reid/Reed~Orms/Orme~Milner~Phillips~ Wallace~Kite~BETTINGFIELD/BEDDINGFIELD please!~Carter~Clark/Clarke ~Ford~Eads~Flowers~Thomas~Harrison~ relatedfamilies~~~Adkins~Attaway~Miller~Walker~Dunnavant~Connor~Hurley ~Stunkard~Ledbetter~Thomas~Jackson~Renfro~Barker.......and it keeps going & going & going!!!