Howerton and Laird Migrations: Arkansas Travelers

It is still a mystery why Susan Laird named her three offspring Howerton... then later reverted to the surname Laird. We do know Howertons and Lairds lived near each other in Madison County and that these families had a number of things in common. 

Both families were new comers to Arkansas, arriving after the Arkansas Territory was declared a state in 1836.  Both families migrated west by way of Tennessee.   Both families came with kids.  Both acquired Arkansas land in Madison County and made their living by farming, as did most folks in the area. 

Howerton Migration Path: Virginia, Grainger Tennessee, Pike County Arkansas, Madison County Arkansas.

The elder William Howerton was born in Virginia in 1789. His son Ira Howerton 1813 also claimed Virginia as his birth state.  Ira and his wife Betsy Baker were residing Grainger County, Tennessee in 1840.   The 1850 census finds Ira's extended family had moved west to the town of Missouri, in Pike County, Arkansas.  Father, William Howerton 61 and six other Howerton adults live in the household, as well as eleven Howerton and Baker kids under the age of 14.

1850 Census of Pike County records no one in the Howerton clan as deaf, dumb, blind insane,
idiotic, pauper or convict. 

The next decade's census shows the Howerton gang has moved again and the family is established in Bowen Township Madison County in the north west part of the state. Documents show William Howerton bought land in this area around 1860. Ira fathered eleven kids, four kids with Betsy Baker… seven more with second wife Elizabeth Sarah Davis.  He lived to 66 and made Arkansas his last stop.

Laird Migration Path: Hardin County Tennessee, Marion County Arkansas, Madison County Arkansas.

The Lairds migrated to Arkansas about fifteen years before the Howertons. Temperance Dubose, later Laird,  married in Hardin County Tennessee in 1826, though not to Jacob Laird.  Census records say that Jacob Laird was the father of her children and that the first child was born in 1833 in Tennessee.    

Laird 1850 Census, Marion County Arkansas. Temperance recorded as person over 20 who cannot
read or write. 

We can piece together their path west by tracking the births of their kids. In the 1850 census the oldest boy William Laird 17 is listed and Nelson Laird 15 are both born in Tennessee. The next child,  Susan Laird 10 is born in Arkansas.  The census evidence tells that the Laird family migration west  happened between 1835 and 1840.  They first lived In Marion County, Arkansas.  A later record of 1860 finds them settled a few counties west in Madison county.  Jacob had Temperance had six kids together and lived the rest of their lives in Arkansas.