Tyre & Clarissa
RIDDLE
I began to research the PALMER family around 1991.
Since that time, it has grown into a much larger project than I ever dreamed it
would be. The PALMERS of Stokes County, NC descend (in part) from Tyre & Clarissa
(Clara) RIDDLE. Tyre was born around 1765, in either Maryland, Virginia or North
Carolina.
Tyre and "Clara" had 4 children. They
were Asa, Ursley, Mary, and Elizabeth. To see their family group
pages, jump over to my Surnames
page and follow the links. Tyre and Clara Riddle, and their 3
daughters and 1 son-in-law (Ursley Riddle, Mary Riddle, and William
& Elizabeth Riddle Dollahite), are all 6 buried in the family
cemetery described below.
William & Elizabeth Riddle DOLLAHITE
Tyre Riddle's daughter, Elizabeth RIDDLE, married
William DOLLAHITE. Other spellings of this name include, Dollihite, Dollyhite,
Dollyhigh, Dollihide, Dollarhite, etc. William and Elizabeth's daughter, Mary
DOLLAHITE, married Elias PALMER, a.k.a. Parmer.
The land on which Tyre RIDDLE settled in Stokes
county, NC was in the area of what is now Francisco, NC, off of
Highway 89. Horseshoe Road comes off of Hwy 89 (on both ends of
Horseshoe Rd), just outside of Francisco. This is just a couple
of miles east of the Surry county line, and a few miles south
of the Virginia line. The Tyre Riddle land was quite a spread,
in excess of a thousand acres (I'm not sure of the total amount
at this point). It went from what is now Horseshoe Rd all the
way past Big Creek to what is now Highway 66. The land that was
left after Tyre's son, Asa Riddle moved on west, was divided between
Tyre's 3 daughters, Ursula (b. 1795), Elizabeth (b. 1797) and
Mary (b. 1800). Ursula and Mary never married, so much of their
land was sold or willed to their sister Elizabeth Riddle Dollahite,
and her children. Thus, the land of Tyre Riddle passed from the
Riddle family into the Dollahite family.
William DOLLAHITE was the progenitor
of all of the Stokes county Dollahites of that day. His daughter
Mary ended up with the main plots of land that had passed down
from the Riddles. She married Elias PARMER (PALMER) in 1856. When
Mary Dollahite Palmer died in 1868 or 1869, she was buried in
the family cemetery that had been started by the Riddles on this
piece of land. I don't know who the earliest persons were to be
buried in this cemetery, but it has become obvious to me over
the last 3 years or so that this WAS the Tyre Riddle Cemetery,
and that it passed to the Dollahite family, and became their family
cemetery, and then passed to the Palmer family and became their
family cemetery. Just as the land passed through these families,
so did this cemetery.
Elias & Mary Dollahite PALMER
Elias Palmer was born on December 17, 1834, in Olinger,
Virginia. Olinger is very near Turkey Cove, Virginia, both of which are in Lee
county. Elias was the son of Elijah & Charity George Palmer, and was the 2nd of
4 children born to this family. The oldest brother of Elias was Presley Palmer,
who was born in 1833 in Stokes county, NC (just before they and others moved to
Lee county, VA). After 1840, Charity George Palmer died, most likely in Lee county,
VA. The four children (Presley, Elias, Mary Jane and Nancy J. Palmer) all ended
up living with their maternal grandparents, Presley and Mary Cook George, in Stokes
county, North Carolina.
The Georges lived next to the Riddles and Dollahites
during the 1840's, between Big Creek and Horseshoe Road. Not only
did Charity George Palmer die during the 1840's, but also Tyre
& Clara Riddle, plus William Dollahite, as well. By the time Elias
was 15 years old in the 1850 census, his mother had died, and
his father (Elijah Palmer) and paternal grandparents (Elias &
Nancy Palmer) had all stayed in Lee county, VA and were preparing
to move to Lee county, Kentucky within the next couple of years.
As the following years passed on for Elias Palmer, it seems that
he was constantly dealing with death and sadness as a part of
his normal life. Perhaps that in itself was a more common part
of life for everyone in those days.
Mary Dollahite and Elias Palmer
were married on December 1st, 1856 in Stokes county, NC. They
were married for only 12 years as Mary Dollahite Palmer passed
away in 1868, maybe 1869. During those few years they had together,
Elizabeth Riddle Dollahite was the only parent that either of
them had around to enjoy the 4 children that they had. Their children
were Charity Palmer, Presley Palmer, Nancy J. Palmer (retarded),
and William "Harden" Palmer. After Mary's death, Elias remarried
(in 1869) to Clara "Clary" Nunn, the daughter of John and Scenny
Phillips Nunn. After Clary's death in 1883, Elias remarried for
a third time, to Clary's younger sister, Ursula "Uslie" Nunn.
Elias Palmer and all three of his wives were buried in the Family
Cemetery mentioned below. Elias Palmer died on February 27, 1916.
Presley & Betty Cox PALMER
Presley Palmer was born on March 1st, 1861, in Stokes
county, Francisco, NC. He was the oldest of 4 children born to Elias and Mary
Dollahite Palmer. When he was 18 years old he married Betty Cox, daughter of John
Harden and Pauline Jane George Cox. Betty's full name was Samiria Elizabeth Cox.
Her first name was sometimes spelled "Semirah" or "Samirah" or even "Sumrah".
At any rate, she went by Betty. Betty was born on February 8th, 1862, also in
Stokes county, NC. Presley and Betty were married about 1879, most likely in Stokes
county. There's was one of many marriages in those days whose certificates were
lost or destroyed. I've never been able to find it.
Presley and Betty had 9 children. Their 6th child
was James Presley Palmer. James died as a small child while sitting
under a tree while his parents were working in the fields one
day. He choked on a cuckleberry. James was buried in the Presley
and Betty Palmer Cemetery in Quaker Gap, NC just off of the Rock
House Road and Highway 286 (Stokes county). Not only are these
3 buried there, but also 7 grandchildren of Presley and Betty,
all 7 coming from their 3 oldest daughters. I have also worked
on this small cemetery (10 graves) a few years ago, but as late
have devoted my cemetery restoration energies to the Riddle-Dollahite-Palmer
Cemetery in Francisco.
The 8th of the 9 children of Presley
and Betty was Edgar Palmer. Edgar was born in 1900, and married
Beatrice Slaughter. Edgar and Beatrice Palmer lived on Horseshoe
Road just outside Francisco, on the land that had been inherited
from Mary Dollahite Palmer (from the Riddles before that). When
you turn off Horseshoe Road onto the old dirt wagon road that
goes to the cemetery, the driveway that you are on goes to the
house that Edgar and Beatrice lived in. Beatrice Palmer is still
alive today (June 20, 1997), but in poor health. Edgar Palmer
was the last person to ever take care of the Riddle-Dollahite-Palmer
Cemetery, that being in the 1970's. It wasn't until 1994 when
I began to clear the trees around the cemetery, that anyone had
been in the cemetery to take care of it.
Walter Elmer Palmer was the youngest
of Presley and Betty's 9 children, he being born in 1906. See
below for more information on Walter and Ella Durham Palmer. Presley
Palmer died on February 8th (his wife's birthday), 1937, in Quaker
Gap, NC. His wife, Betty Cox Palmer had died 4 years earlier,
on November 3rd, 1932, also in Quaker Gap.
Walter & Ella Durham PALMER
Walter Elmer Palmer was born on June 26, 1906 in
Stokes county, NC. On October 8, 1927, he married Ella Cora Durham, in Francisco,
NC (Stokes county). Ella was born on February 27, 1908 in Stokes county, to George
Washington Durham and Victoria Tex Palmer Durham. Vicki Palmer Durham (Ella's
mother) was also a daughter Elias Palmer (above), by his 2nd wife, Clary Nunn.
Therefore, Vicki Palmer Durham and Presley Palmer were half-brother and sister!
Any way you slice it, Walter and Ella Durham Palmer were 1st cousins. They were
also cousins at least two other ways, as they both had common ancestors from the
George family as well as the Simmons family.
Ella died on August 28, 1982 in High Point, NC
(Guilford county). Walter died in 1988, in Greensboro, NC (also
Guilford county). They had 6 children, 4 of whom are still living.
See below for more details on their 2nd child, Jack Durham Palmer.
Jack & Joyce Ward PALMER
Jack Durham Palmer was born on August 1st, 1931
in Stokes county, Quaker Gap, NC. Joyce Malone Ward was born on the 4th of July,
1933 in McLennan county, Waco, Texas. Jack met Joyce while he was stationed in
Texas while serving in the Air Force. They were married in Waco, Texas on September
19, 1952. Jack and Joyce have three children, Michael Eugene Palmer (born 1957),
Helen Jean Palmer (born 1960, married Steve Cook), and Joyce "Elaine" Palmer (born
1963, married Wes Patterson [me]). Elaine and I were divorced on April 25th, 1996.
As you can see, however, I praise the Lord that there are no hard feelings between
the Palmer family and myself. We are still on good terms, and I still enjoy working
on the family tree, even though I do not descend from any of these Stokes county,
NC families. On the other hand, my son does, and I want to continue learning as
much as I can about these families.
Jack and Joyce live in Winston-Salem, NC, as
do their 3 children and 5 grandchildren.
Riddle-Dollahide-Palmer-Durham Cemetery
This cemetery is just outside the town of Francisco, NC,
off of Horseshoe Road which runs between Hwy 89 and
Hwy 66. The land between Horseshoe Road, Smith Road and Hwy 66,
as the land sits just above Big Creek, is the same land
that Tyre Riddle owned and passed down to his daughters
and their descendants. Their descendants were the Dollahides and Palmers. Just as the land passed
down through these families, so did the family cemetery. Go to
the Riddle-Dollahite-Palmer-Durham Family
Cemetery Page
for more details on how these families were
related to each other, and how the land passed down through the
generations. I will have many detailed pages about this cemetery
as time goes on. I have been restoring this cemetery for the last
couple of years, and continue to find more and more graves that
had previously been undetectable. Stay tuned!
The Riddle Family Website
Richard "Dick" Riddle,
Jim Hartung and others, have worked together in their research
over the years, and Jim Hartung has put together an excellent
site on the Riddles
of Stokes County, NC. This is a must see! Thanks for all your
help, Dick and Jim.
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