----- Original Message ----- From: RONALD & BETTYE WOODHULL To: JIMMY KERR Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:39 AM Subject: Andrew Pickens Shannon/Mary E. Dyer Greetings fellow Texan! This Dyer descendant lives in Ft. Worth. (I found your snail mail address listed on something on GenCircles last night). I have been in contact with a John C. Pickens who has an extensive listing of all the Pickens from their earliest settling in Abbeville District, SC and other plantation places;; however, he informed me that the descendants of Anne Pickens and David McKnight Shannon have been at a total loss to him. He does know that Anne died when she lived on their plantation in Itawamba Co. MS. and that she had a son Andrew Pickens Shannon and married to a Mary E. ??. I informed him that Mary E. was a Dyer and the third child born to John A. Dyer and Leannah ??( thought by the most folks I have had contact with to believe her last name might be Pruitt.) I gave him the names of the seven children that I had; he was so delighted to get this after searching for 18 years on this line. You and Donald Pate, also listed on a David McKnight Shannon site, are the first people to identify Mary E. as a Dyer. My connection to this family: As I stated, Mary is child #3. My gr. gr. grandfather, 1st. LT. George B. Dyer was killed at Ft. Donelson, TN in Feb. 1862 during the Civil War. He was child #7 out of John's and Leannah's ten children... George and Nancy Cody Dyer had Martha Jane Leannah Bowling, James Dudley (Jim Dud) and my gr. grandmother, Sarah Catherine. Sarah had my grandfather, Arthur Griffin when she was a 16 yr. old unwed. Arthur's father is considered to be a Tarp Aldredge (he was 25 at the time) and a neighbor boy? man?. Sarah later married a Wm. Maxfield Kennedy when my granddad was 8. They had 5 or 6 children and Mr. Kennedy had 5 (an infant who needed a mother) when they married. I have a copy of my g. grandmother's own telling of how Mr. Wiginton, her step father, literally threw her out of the house when it became known that she was pregnant and ordered to never set foot in his home again. The kindness or her dear sister and her husband took her in! before Arthur was born as she was forced to do menial labor where ever anyone would offer her work. One of the Kennedy descendants had her tell her story and she wrote it down. I was saddened to hear she had this hard time, but it tells about the morning when she was three and her father, George, left for the war and I guess never made it back home as he went in in Sept. 1861 and died in Feb. 1862. Arthur married Ila Estell Sullivan, also of Marion Co. AL. They had 13 children and my mother, Minnie Mae Dyer Stone is their first born. The Stone line dates back to before the settling of Jamestown, VA (1607). My immediate descendant of the Stones were on the 1790 Census in VA and they pioneered in SC, GA and several counties in So. central AL before moving to what was called Chickasaw nation Land that eventually became Marion Co. AL and Itawamba Co. MS. This family, John and Annie Lyle Stone, their sons and sons-in-law were the first white purchasers of the Chickasaw Nati! on at the federal land office in Pontotoc, MS. What am I doing searching the Shannon line? Well, a son of one of my Dyer cousins, one Col Donald Jones, a highly decorated F16 pilot during Desert Storm, was working on the Dyer/Sullivan families when he died at 45 from cancer. He was researching every descendant of John and Leannah. I managed to talk Don's mom into letting me have copies of all of his notes and I became hooked (line and sinker) in genealogy. My goal is to complete his work (in his name and as a Memoriam) and offer it to descendants who want it at cost. The greatest reward I can get from printing Don's work will be to present his mom and dad with a copy. After all, they gave their only child to our U.S. Air Force for 23 years and they didn't catch his cancer in physicals to save his life. Don kept my three sons safe and protected while they finished college and pursued careers. BTW, those three sons are an artist, a commercial architect and a college prof. I have five grandchildren. Getting ready to go to the San Angelo area to see Old Fort Concho and the Buffalo Soldiers performance this week-end. The prof.'s wife is Cynthia Ann Harding, born in Odessa and raised in Andrews. Her parents were teachers there. I hope you can offer me some help in continuing the Mary E. Dyer Shannon's family line. If you can't, do you know anyone who can help me locate someone of them? Bettye Stone Woodhull BETRON@prodigy.net. 108 Mildred Dr. W. , Ft. Worth, TX 76126-3317