The Elusive William Paca Chew When we started this project there was scant information about our great great grandfather William Paca Chew and who his family might be. If it had not been for his unique middle name, Paca, and some notes from Mildred Hatmaker that he was born in Herring Bay, Maryland, around 1813, and that the family originally came from Chewton, England, we might never have found our Chew roots at all.

Weeks of 'chewing' on the Internet were fruitless until we entered the name 'Paca' instead of the ubiquitous 'William.' Bingo. Several Chew genealogists had his name and birth at Herring Bay in their records but knew nothing more. One Chew tree said he had a large family and moved to Arkansas. If you want to see the area where he was born in Maryland, click the map at the right.

With these wonderful resources we learned the names of William Paca's parents, siblings and ancestors and found the link back to England. His father was Col. John Hamilton Chew of Maryland (1771-1830) and his mother was Priscillia Elizabeth Claggett, daughter of Bishop Thomas Claggett, the first American Anglican Bishop. Several Chews married Claggetts so if you want some history on the Claggett family, click the link to the right.

Where, How, When? But once we knew who his family was and where William Paca Chew came from, we had to find out how he moved our family line out of Virginia and ultimately to Arkansas and Oklahoma. Apparently some time before 1840, perhaps after the death of his father in 1830, our relative William Paca Chew felt the pioneering bug because in 1840 he shows up in the marriage records of Carroll County, Mississippi.

Our best guess is that he left Maryland and headed west through Fredricksburg, down the Shenandoah Valley into Tennessee then on in to Mississippi. One clue that made us chose this route was the fact that all his children listed their mother from Tennessee in the records we found, but she was actually born in Virginia. Click the Route Map to the right if you want to see this proposed Paca path.

It is probably no surprise that he struck off on his own since he was one of seven children, perhaps the fifth or sixth born. And he was the third of four sons, so not in line to inherit. He had a brother Samuel who became a physician and professor of medicine, a brother John Hamilton who became an Episcopal minister and another older brother Thomas.

In Carroll County, Mississippi, William Paca Chew married Martha Ann Smith on 15 June 1842. Click the 'Marriage Record' link to the right to see the information we got from familysearch.org. For a while that is all we knew until a wonderful researcher near El Dorado Arkansas, Tommy Carter, was able to uncover the obituary of Martha A. Chew, from 1878. This one obituary and several other resources from Tommy filled in a number of frustrating gaps.

Some Facts, Finally Perhaps a year after the marriage of William P. and Martha Chew, our great grandfather John Hamilton Chew was born in Mississippi in 1843. In the 1850 census the couple had 8 children with them in Mississippi, three more were born later. When William Paca died in 1857 they had seven surviving children, so it looks like they had at least 11 born in 17 years of marriage.

Willliam Paca Chew "...was a lumberman by trade and achieved substantial success in that connection" according to another source uncovered by Tommy Carter. Click the 'Paca Kids' link to learn more about William Paca Chew's other children, the siblings of our great grandfather John Hamilton Chew, whom you will soon meet.

Some time between 1850 and 1857 when he died, William Paca Chew moved his family from Mississippi to Union County, Arkansas, possibly taking a steamboat up the Ouchita River. Maybe it was the famous Chew pioneering spirit since El Dorado was started in 1843 and had quickly become a 'boom town.' Click the link at the right for some El Dorado history in the 1840s.

A very young widow William Paca Chew died suddenly in 1857, leaving Martha , who was perhaps 31, with seven surviving children. He was about 43 or 44 years old when he died. This early death is probably one reason the record is so sketchy.

Martha Chew died in 1877, twenty years after her husbands death, of "a lengthy and painful attack of bronchitis, age 51 years, 2 months and 18 days." Click the 'Martha Chew' link if you want to see the obituary that was kindly transcribed by Tommy Carter from an 1878 newspaper.

Dr. John Hamilton Chew (1842-1904) This first born son of William Paca and Martha Ann Chew seems to be named for William Paca's own father, Col. John Hamilton Chew (1771-1830) of Maryland. Our great grandfather John Hamilton was born in 1842 in Mississippi, and moved with the family to El Dorado, Arkansas.

In 1861, just a few years after the death of his father, John Hamilton joined the Confederate Army along with two of his brothers, Thomas C. and William Douglas. John Hamilton was the oldest at just 18 or 19. His job was to carry messages between command posts. In one family record it says that:

"...one night he was carrying a dispatch, he was galloping at full speed when he came to a long wooden bridge, which unbeknown to him had been partly destroyed by shell fire. He and his mount rode off the burned end of the bridge into the deep water of the stream beneath. He injured his hip in this fall and had a slight limp for the rest of his life."

From Soldier to Husband Just 16 days after his discharge from the Confederate Army in 1865, John Hamilton Chew married Sarah Louise Weathers (1842-1932) in El Dorado, AR. Sarah was born in Georgia and it appears that her parents were Steven and Lucinda Weathers.

In El Dorado John and Sarah Chew had five children but only three survived. Here is the brief 1878 obituary for one child, Annie Elizabeth, that Tommy Carter found:

Thursday, 21 November 1878, The El Dorado Eagle: Died, at the home of her parents near Eldorado, on Wednesday, 13th, Annie Elizabeth, daughter of John and Sarah Chew, age about eight years.

Shortly after this the family left El Dorado and moved to Buckville, Arkansas around 1879. Another child, Fannie, was born in Hot Springs, en route to Buckville.

Huckster or Physician? By 1890 John Hamilton was a practicing physician for the Buckville area. He either had a good sense of humor or several careers, because in the 1880 census for Garland County Arkansas, John Chew says his occupation is "huckster." Click the 'Dr. Huckster' link to the right to see the 1880 Arkansas census record.

Another record shows Dr. John Hamilton Chew listed in the Arkansas State Business Directory of 1900 as a practicing physician in Buckville. In that document an elderly resident of the area many years ago remembered that Dr. Chew:

"... didn't believe in strong purgatives as a remedy for the slow fever (typhoid). He believed the patient was too weak from the fever for strong medicine which was advanced thinking for his day."

Read the Full Record Someone, probably Mildred Hatmaker, recorded the life of Dr. John Hamilton Chew and Olene had preserved a copy. If you want to read it (only four pages) you can click the 'Dr. Chew Story' link or the medical bag to the right.

To find out how and when the Chew made their way to Oklahoma and into today, click the 'Continue Story' link below.

Continue Chew Story