A Yorktown veteran, a lost grave and Lake Wright Patman
Evan Thomas Watson was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered in 1781. He died in 1834 near today's Maud, on land Arkansas Territory then claimed. Where he is buried is uncertain: under Wright Patman Lake, or moved before it filled.
Part 1 of 11 for 11, TXKtoday’s series remembering Texarkana-area people lost in America’s wars, leading up to Veterans Day.
In October 1781, a 22-year-old Virginia militiaman named Evan Thomas Watson was at Yorktown when the British army under Lord Cornwallis surrendered. Fifty-three years later he died on the Sulphur River, in what is now Bowie County, Texas.
He is the only Revolutionary War veteran known to be buried in Bowie County, according to the National Society Sons of the American Revolution. But no one is sure where the grave is. It may be under Wright Patman Lake, or it may have been moved before the water rose.
Watson did not die in the war, as most people in this series did. We start with him because he is the earliest American veteran known to rest in this county.
Five tours, in his own words
Most of what is known about Watson’s service comes from him. On Aug. 29, 1833, he told the circuit court of Warren County, Ky., his story to apply for a federal pension. A clerk wrote it down in the third person, and Watson signed it. The file, No. S. 30770, is at the National Archives.
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He said he was born Jan. 11, 1759, in Albemarle County, Va. He served five short militia tours, four as a draftee and one as a substitute for a man named John Martin.
On his first tour, in the fall of 1777, he guarded the Virginia coast near Hampton and saw the British fleet under Lord Howe pass, he said.
In 1781 the war came to Virginia. Watson joined the Marquis de Lafayette’s army near Richmond as it fell back before Cornwallis, then served on the guard of the new governor, Thomas Nelson Jr. He went back out as a substitute and spent 63 more days with the army around Williamsburg.
His last tour began about Sept. 1, 1781, before he had even left the army. He was drafted again, under Capt. John Miller of Col. Holt Richardson’s regiment, and “marched under him to Yorktown & was present at the surrender of Cornwallis,” the declaration says. Afterward he drove wagons hauling British prisoners to Winchester, Va.
John Gillum of Logan County, Ky., swore in 1832 that he believed he had seen Watson in the army twice, “once at Williamsburg and once at York town during the Siege of Cornwallis,” and that at Yorktown “he is certain he saw him,” according to his affidavit in the pension file.
Watson asked for credit for nine months and eight days. The government allowed seven months and pensioned him as a private at $23.33 a year, backdated to March 4, 1831. A Treasury Department letter in the file, dated 1840, shows the pension was paid through June 15, 1834, the day he died.
Arkansas Territory, on the Texas side
Less than a year after that Kentucky court date, Watson died along the Sulphur River near today’s Maud, on what is now the Texas side of the state line. A son may explain why. Coleman Watson had settled in what is now Bowie County in 1833, according to a family history posted by genealogy volunteers, and a “Coalman Watson” was called for jury duty in Miller County in June 1835, according to county court records Pat B. Clark published in 1937. Evan Watson had married Lucy Coleman in Albemarle County, Va., in 1795, according to SAR records.
The SAR records his death in Miller County, Arkansas, even though the spot is in Bowie County, Texas, today. In 1834 that was accurate: Arkansas Territory claimed the land south of the Red River, including the Maud area, as part of its original Miller County.
Arkansas Territory created Miller County on April 1, 1820. It took in most of today’s Miller County plus all or part of 11 future Texas counties, including Bowie, according to the Handbook of Texas. Mexico claimed much of that land. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas calls it technically under Mexican jurisdiction but not really controlled by any country. Settlers sent representatives to Little Rock anyway.
Texas independence in 1836 ended the arrangement. Arkansas abolished that first Miller County in 1838. Texas created Bowie County in December 1840, and annexation in 1845 settled the state line roughly where it is now. Today’s Miller County, Ark., was created in 1874.
Under the lake, or moved?
Watson was buried in the Wright Family Cemetery, according to the SAR. That ground ended up in the Sulphur River valley that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned into a reservoir. Filling began June 27, 1956, according to the Handbook of Texas. First called Lake Texarkana, it was renamed for Congressman Wright Patman by an act of Congress signed Dec. 15, 1973, while Patman was still in office.
The Texas Society SAR says his grave “was lost when the Sulphur River was flooded to make Lake Wright Patman.” The national society’s record says the actual burial site is unknown.
Another record points somewhere else. A Bowie County cemetery list compiled by genealogy volunteers says graves from a Watson family cemetery were moved to Center Ridge when the lake was built. The Corps of Engineers was carrying out “judicial proceedings for cemetery relocations” for the reservoir in 1953, the Bogata News reported. TXKtoday has not found the Corps’ relocation records, so whether Watson’s remains were among those moved is not known.
On June 1, 2024, North Texas chapters of the SAR gathered at Center Ridge Cemetery, on Texas 8 in Maud, to dedicate a granite SAR marker for him. It is a cenotaph, a memorial stone placed away from the grave. A color guard fired a musket salute, a piper played and Watson family members received a memorial certificate, according to the society’s newsletter, The Texas Compatriot. Meg Anderson, regent of the Lucretia Council Cochrane Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, read a short biography of Watson. The stone gives his birth date as Jan. 11, 1759, the same date he gave in his pension statement.
He is one of the few Revolutionary War veterans known to be buried in Texas, according to the SAR.
His neighbors from the Revolution
Watson was not alone in the Red River country. The Texas SAR lists five Revolutionary War veterans in neighboring Red River County. One, William Blevins, was honored in Clarksville the afternoon of Watson’s ceremony. Another, John Tollett Sr., died in 1824 in what was then “Old Miller County, Arkansas.” The others are Benjamin Clark, James Potter Collins and David Strickland, whose grave at Pecan Point was lost to the Red River.
In Hempstead County, the SAR marked the graves of three more veterans, Eli Collins, John Holman and James Williams II, at Pioneer Cemetery in Washington, Ark., on Nov. 2, 2024.
Bowie County also carries a Revolutionary name of its own. DeKalb is named for Johann de Kalb, the Bavarian-born general known as Baron de Kalb, who died Aug. 19, 1780, of wounds received at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina. Some county histories say David Crockett suggested the name when he passed through in 1835, according to the Handbook of Texas.
Are you descended from Evan T. Watson, or from the Wright family whose cemetery was lost to the lake? Do you have photos or family stories of the Sulphur River bottoms before Wright Patman Lake? We’d like to hear from you.