THE TUDERS
William Daniel Tuder
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William Daniel Tuder was born April 13, 1821 in Tennessee and died December 31,1876 in Eastland County, Texas. William is the father to
Permelia Jane, Nicholas, William Henry, James, and Rosannah who are all listed below.
The 1850 census shows that he and his family resided in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
By the mid 1850's, shortly after Rosannah was born, he moved his family to Bell County, Texas
near the town of Aiken (the area where present day Belton Lake is located).
An 1860 Eastland County map shows that two
of William D. Tuder's sons, William H. and James E.D. aquired
two tracts of land on the Eastland County side of the Erath County line, just south of a hill called County Knob. An 1870 Bell County
census, however, shows all of the Tuders still living there.
Between the years 1860 and 1870, Eastland County was a wild and wooley place complete with frequent Indian attacks. In 1860, the census counted
only ninety-nine people living in the county and a very small portion being developed. It is likely that the Tuder family waited
to inhabit the land until a more peaceful time.
The Handbook of Texas Reports "Due in part to its isolation from other settled areas and frequent trouble from raiding Indians,
the county remained sparsely settled until the 1870s. Conflict between settlers and Kiowa and Comanche Indians became
serious enough during the 1860s that a company of minutemen was organized to guard the frontier."
Some indications suggest that the Tuders uprooted from Bell County around 1872
and moved one last time to thier northeastern Eastland County, Texas tracts. The land they moved to had never been formally inhabited.
William Daniel Tuder wouldn't get to enjoy too many years on the
new land as he died less than four years later. The Tuders were a part of a flood of inhabitants to the area at that time,
many actually came from the Bell County area, including their friends, the Wootons.
By 1880, 4,855 people were living in Eastland County.
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Permelia Jane Tuder Gailey Smith
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Permelia Jane Tuder was born on February 22, 1842 in Kentucky and died February 29, 1880 in Eastland County, Texas. Permelia married Asahel "Asa" Lomax Gailey sometime around 1857 and
together they had three children (Jane Jemima Gailey [married Samuel "Doke" Harding], John William "J.W." Gailey [married Mary Bigham],
and Asa Nelson Gailey [married Laura Bigham]). Asahel Gailey left for the Civil War before Permelia moved to Eastland County as he is
listed in a Bell County company of the Confederiate Army. Asahel was eventually captured in the line of duty and taken to a war prisoner camp in Chicago, IL. It is believed that Permelia had
gotten word that Asahel had been killed and she eventually remarried S.D. Smith. The two produced one daughter, Starrett Ann Smith (born May 25, 1870) who later married John Abel Lee on January 24, 1888.
The story
goes that Asahel returned to find his wife already in a relationship with Mr. Smith and so he returned to Chicago where he married Mary Murray soon after.
He went on to work as a bridge bulder for the railroad. He and Mary had two children named Lola and Lester Gailey. Asahel died on November 21, 1893 in Chicago. Records indicate
that Lola's and Lester's children ended up in Texas years later. They likely had no idea they had quite a bit of family in the state.
Permelia Jane and Asahel's son J.W. Gailey went on to accumulate a large amount of land in and around the area the Tuder's once settled, along with
some property in San Angelo, Texas. J.W. Gailey married Mary Ann Ada Bigham and they had nine children. The children included:
Nora Caldonia, Luther Elmer, Letha Mae, Loddy Rufus, Pernia Ann, Liller Cordila, Mary Jane, Nicholas Clayton, and Eva Eula. J.W.'s wife passed away soon aver Eva's birth and he remarried Leora Jones Moore
and the two had sons J.W. Jr and Asa Lee Gailey. Learn more about J.W. and his family by clicking HERE.
Jane Jemima Gailey married Samuel "Doke" Harding and settled in northern Erath County near the town of Exray. Asa Nelson Gailey married Laura Alice Bigham and settled near the town of Christoval, Texas. For
more on Asa Nelson and his family click HERE.
To see Permelia Janes' Eastland County home site as of February 2009 click HERE.
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Nicholas Francis Marion Tuder
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Nicholas Francis Marion "N.F.M." Tuder was a Civil War veteran who served in the same company and regiment (Company K, 10th Infantry Division, Nelson's Regiment) as Permelia Jane's
husband, Asa L. Gailey, and James Wooton. He was discharged due to sickness.
Nick Tuder never married or produced children. He was a skilled carpenter like his father, likely learning the trade at a very young age. He was listed as a cabinet maker on the 1870 census. He was the first deacon of the Prosperity Baptist Church that he and his family started. He made his nephew J.W. Gailey the executor of his estate in his will (picking him over his two living brothers). When Nick Tuder died his estate was divided among his remaining siblings and neices and nephews. His estate included several acres of land, a house, horses, books, and many wood working tools.
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William Henry Tuder
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William Henry "W.H." Tuder outlived all of his siblings. He was an ordained preacher and was the resident preacher for the (Tudor/Gourdneck) Prosperity Baptist Church for some time.
In 1903 the Palo Pinto County Baptist Association held their annual meeting in Gordon, Texas. The directory book for that event shows
W.H. Tuder as being the preacher at the Tuder community and also shows that he participated in the meeting representing the church which was actually located in northeastern Eastland County.
Rev W.H. Tuder never married or produced children.
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James Edward Daniel Tuder
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James Edward Daniel "J.E.D." Tuder was born March 7, 1851 in Kentucky and died December 10, 1906 in Eastland County, Texas.
He married Mollie E. Boney on August 19, 1876. They had two children. His son was named William Henry Tuder (named after JED's brother).
J.E.D. is noted as having joined the Missionary Baptist
Church of Christ on Cedar Creek in Bell County before the moved to Eastland County. On December 4, 1906 he fell from a joice while helping
construct a new building in the community and recieved internal injuries which ultimately led to his death.
At the time of his death he was the only Deacon for the Prosperity (Gourdneck) church, a title he had held there since 1895.
His obituary stated that he and his family
came to Texas in about 1857 or 1858, settling in Bell County. It states that he came to Eastland County in 1860. A county map published that year
shows he and his brother W.H. having adjoining surveyed parcels of land on the eastern Eastland County line (south of the County Knob). It is likely though that he split his time between
Eastland and Bell County between the years 1860 and 1872 as he appears on the 1870 Bell County census with his father and siblings. Information about
those years is stated above by his father's photo. An 1873 tax receipt shows that J.E.D. paid Eastland County taxes that year.
Click
HERE to read his obituary letter written by the Prosperity(Gourdneck) Baptist Church.
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Rosannah Millianna Tuder Wiley
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Rosannah Millie Anna Tuder is the only one of her siblings not to be buried in the Tudor cemetery. Rosannah married William Hawthorne Wylie in Erath County in early 1972. The couple and their children would eventually settle in the Ballinger, Texas area. One of her infant children, Martha, is
buried in the Sims Valley Cememtery Located in north west Erath County, Texas. This was near the area that Rosannah's sister's daughter Jane Gailey Harding lived.
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