Family/Spouse: Living Niles. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Living Niles
2. Living Niles

Notes:

Was the town marshal (or maybe the county sheriff). He was killed by a drunk driver while making an arrest at a bar near Highway 9. A friend of Hugh killed by bootleggers, was Cris Whitson.

Hugh married Berta Norma Phelps. Berta died about 1970. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Died in 1893 near the Arkansas River, near Ft. Smith (Andrew is one of four children. It is not certain whether he was the brother that married Martha Jane. Iva says John was Martha Jane's husband. Prince says it was John. Myrtle says it was Andrew. Others remember it to be Andrew.) lived in or near Union Township, Baxter Co, at age 20 A photograph exists of Andrew as a young man, it appears to have been made from a painting. Myrtle remembers that Andrew's grandfather was said to have been from Irland. Velva Reynolds (Reagan) says he died when, after a day's work in the hot sun he ate a watermelon kept cold at the bottom of a spring. Another story says he died of a local fever.

Andrew married Martha Jane Brinsfield about 1884 in Mountain Home, Baxter, Arkansas, USA. Martha (daughter of Simpson B. Brinsfield and Elvira Redding) was born on 8 Jan 1866 in Izard, Arkansas, USA; died on 18 Mar 1956 in Seminole, Oklahoma, USA; was buried in Mar 1956 in Seminole, Oklahoma, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Martha Jane was an early Oklahoma pioneer, participated in the Land Rush, built and operated one of the first hotle/boarding houses in Seminole, Oklahoma, was a major funder of the Seminole Pentecostal Church and in her youth was known as a Pentecostal "Leaper", one who would leap from aisle to aisle, playing a tambourine. People remember her sometimes running out of the old Commercial Hotel to separate her adult male children in street fights. She was less than 5 feet tall and thin. They were all large men. A Pioneer Woman, Martha Jane Brinsfield "Grandma Floyd" Martha Jane Brinsfield was born January 8, 1866, in Izzard County, Arkansas, the daughter of Simpson Franklin Brinsfield and Martha Susan (Elvira) Redding. Martha Jane may have been a quarter Choctaw or Creek from her mother, Elvira, who was said to be half Indian. Martha Jane was also a quarter Cherokee from her grandmother on the Brinsfield side, Charity Skipper, who was a full-blood Cherokee. In 1818, Charity was married to a Methodist minister, the Reverend George Washington Brinsfield; six children were born of this marriage in Tennessee. Simpson Franklin Brinsfield was one of these children who came with his father from Tennessee to Izzard County, Arkansas. Martha Jane married Andrew (or John) Reynolds, a farmer, in 1884 at Mountain Home, Izzard County, Arkansas. In early 1887, the family joined a wagon train headed for Oklahoma Indian Territory. They settled in the Econtuchka Bottoms (north of Shawnee), made dugout homes, cleared the land and planted crops. They were share-cropping, and when the crops were laid by, they moved back to Mountain Home Arkansas. In 1889 the Brinsfields and the Reynolds share-cropped on the Arkansas River Bottoms near Fort Smith. In the fall they traveled by wagon back to Oklahoma Indian Territory. This time they settled in Wewoka, the Seminole Indian Capital. In 1889, on April 22, Martha Jane and her father, Simpson, were in Guthrie for the "Land Rush." They drove their open wagon to Guthrie. The land they received was too dry to farm, and after many hardships they returned to Wewoka. Later, they went back to Arkansas, this time to Van Buren. In 1893, when her last son was only three weeks old, they loaded their wagon to return to Oklahoma Indian territory. Martha Jane's husband, Andrew, died on the trip. One version of his death is that after working through a hot day, he ate a watermelon that had been kept cold in a well, and fell dead. A different version is that he died of a local "fever". He was buried on the bank of the Arkansas River, near Fort Smith. Martha Jane, her father, and her four small children continued their journey, and with her father's help she was able to survive the trip west. They arrived back in Wewoka, made a dugout, and Martha Jane set up a tent for a boarding house. White people were moving to a predominately Indian Wewoka (the capital of the Seminole Indian Nation), and soon there was enough demand for more comfortable shelter that she was able to build a tin and wood boarding house and hotel. Martha Jane married Henry Brannan in 1897, and a son, Simpson, (Uncle Simp), was born to them in 1899. They moved to Tidmore where she again established a boarding house. Henry died and she later married a widower, Andrew Jackson Floyd (Uncle Drew). In 1907, the town of Tidmore moved to the new original townsite of Seminole. Martha Jane bought the land at Main and Oak and on it built the Seminole Hotel. It, too, was a tin and wood structure. Her husband and sons hauled the materials from Ada by dray wagons. A grandson, Andrew Jackson Reynolds, later became an Air Force Colonel, was born in the hotel on August 17, 1917. The original hotel burned in 1925. Immediately, Martha Jane began work to replace it, this time with a two-story red brick building from Main Street to the alley on Oak. Seminole became a "boom town" at about this time, and the buiness was very successful. Martha Jane named the building "The Commercial Hotel". Martha Jane's home was at 400 Highland. She was a charter member of the Pentecostal Holiness Church at the corner of what is now Walnut and Milt Phillips Avenue. Her children were Nancy Ellen, Hugh, John, and Dan Reynolds and Simpson Brannon. Nancy Ellen's husband, Ben Rich, was the first U.S. Marshall in Seminole and is pictured on the mural behind the First National Bank Building. All of Martha Jane's children preceded her in death. Seventeen grandchildren survived her.

Buried:
Maple Grove cemetery

Notes:

Arkansas Confederate Veterans and Widows Pension Applications Veteran Name: Reynolds, Hugh Widow #: 14465 Widow's Name: Reynolds, Nancy J. Unit: Co, F, 14th Arkansas Inf. Date: 1861-1865 Widow Appl: 8/6/14 County: Baxter Vet. Dec: 1871 Hugh's parents both died when he was young and he went to live with his uncle David in Illinois. After he was older he moved back to Arkansas. He may have met Nancy Ellen Stone in Illinois and married. Hugh Reynolds of Fulton County, Arkansas, Land records shows that he owned 120 acres. dated 3-28-1861, Cert. # 18700. August 17, 1942, Army Corps of Engineers moved the cemetery to Cemetery No NFC 9 Buzzard Roost, Arkansas. Moved because of the Norfork Dam, Norfork of the White River Arkansas. Also moved was John Reynolds and John Stone. Cem. No. NVA -3-R Grave #37. John Stone Grave #35.

Died:
Date of death from Arkansas, Confederate Pension Records, 1891-1935

Andrew married Nancy Ellen Stone. Nancy (daughter of John Stone) was born about 1841 in Illinois, USA; died about 1945 in Shawnee, Techumseh, Oklahoma; was buried in Mission Hill Cemetery, Techumseh, Oklahoma. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

info from census of Jan 1880 Union Township, Baxter Co., Vol 1., Ed. 5, Sheet 2, line 7. Nancy Renalds, servant, widowed or div, born in Ill. 1841 father from Tenn., Mother from Ill. census transcription: Nancy Renalds (I. or J.)? White Female Age 39 Andrew W.M. age 20 (b. 1860) son, single, farmer, attended school but could not write born in Ark. father from Ark. Mother from Ill. John W.M. age 18 (b. 1862) son, single, farmer, illiterate, same parents Rachel M. W.F. age 15 (b. 1865) daughter, single, illiterate, same parents Highly W.F. age 8 (b. 1872) daughter, single, went to school, same parents ********************************************************************** ******************************************* The stone settlement and cemetery was east of New Mt. Home, Arkansas at Buzzard Roose, which is now under water. Nancy lived to be about 104 years old. She married (some say Hugh and some say Andrew) Reynolds in Montana. Hugh was a confederate soldier and is believed was killed in the civil war. Nancy was burned out 3 times by Union soldiers while Hugh or Andrew was serving in the Army. She and 5 children (the oldest was about 10 years old) went through the woods eating what they saw cattle eating so as not to starve. Nancy sifted ashes from a smoke house and boiled the ashes for salt. Nancy is buried next to her daughter, Rachel Ann in Mission Hill Cemetery, Tecumseh, Oklahoma.
info from census of Jan 1880
Union Township, Baxter Co., Vol 1., Ed. 5, Sheet 2, line 7.

Nancy Renalds, servant, widowed or div, born in Ill. 1841 father from Tenn., Mother from Ill.

census transcription:
Nancy Renalds (I. or J.)? White Female Age 39
Andrew W.M. age 20 (b. 1860) son, single, farmer, attended school but could not write
born in Ark. father from Ark. Mother from Ill.
John W.M. age 18 (b. 1862) son, single, farmer, illiterate, same parents
Rachel M. W.F. age 15 (b. 1865) daughter, single, illiterate, same parents
Highly W.F. age 8 (b. 1872) daughter, single, went to school, same parents

********************************************************************** *******************************************
The stone settlement and cemetery was east of New Mt. Home, Arkansas at Buzzard Roose, which is now under water. Nancy lived to be about 104 years old. She married (some say Hugh and some say Andrew) Reynolds in Montana. Hugh was a confederate soldier and is believed was killed in the civil war.

Nancy was burned out 3 times by Union soldiers while Hugh or Andrew was serving in the Army. She and 5 children (the oldest was about 10 years old) went through the woods eating what they saw cattle eating so as not to starve. Nancy sifted ashes from a smoke house and boiled the ashes for salt. Nancy is buried next to her daughter, Rachel Ann in Mission Hill Cemetery, Tecumseh, Oklahoma.

Simpson married Elvira Redding about Feb 1865. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]