From Ruth Hasten Walsh < delins1@verizon.net >
Date:10 Mar 2015
WATSON, Sarah E., 3 Feb 1862 - 9 Oct 1939. (no stone found this survey.) � this woman�s maiden surname was Hasten aka Hastings, dau of John Hastings and Paralee Ann Holbert. John Hasten (note surname spelling change from Hastings) was 1st born son of Ezekiel Hastings and Elizabeth Dunnavant, dau of Abel burton Dunnavant. Paralee Holbert�s 2nd husband was George W. Bass by whom she had a houseful of kids. Buried in the cemetery are 3 graves I�m related to:
(1) Sarah E. Hasten Watson aka Mamie Lizzie to her grandkids and g-grandkids.
(2) James Peru Watson
(3) John H. Watson, son of Sarah E. and James P. Watson
In 1998 when I visited this cemetery we found all three Watson stones; but we had to poke around with stick and it took us a good hour or so. Photos were taken but the camera�s film was damaged on our return flight to Washington DC. I seem to recall Dan dropped it while we were boarding the flight. We lost all the photos of the Hastings reunion, Zack R. Hasten�s CSA tombstone marking ceremony, etc.
More detail on this family buried here and down in the Hasting Cemetery south of Ardmore along the I-65 corridor
Sarah Elizabeth "Lizzie" or "Mamie Lizzie" Hasten was the wife of James Peru Watson. She was daughter of John Hasten and Paralee Holbert whose 2nd husband was George Washington Bass. John Hasten went off to Civil War and per some of Mamie Lizzie�s grandsons, who recalled her taking them each year to the decoration day ceremonies at the Hasting Cemetery at Ardmore.
Accordingly these grandsons told this account that Mamie would cook all week long getting ready for the wagon trip to the Hasting Cemetery. On the day before the trip, she�d take everyone out to the pastures and collect toe sacks full of wild flowers to decorate the graves with. They said Mamie Lizzie always said her dad, John Hasten, got leave to come home for a hog killing. That one day after the war and after the meat was made available, he took it into Athens for further processing. On the way home, a few miles from the Ezekiel Hastings farm, he was bushwhacked by Yankee soldiers who chased his wagon causing it to overturn, throwing John from the wagon and breaking John�s back/neck. The yanks slung his body across their horse and took it to the Ezekiel Hastings farm and dumped it in the yard.
He�s supposed to be in one of the four unmarked graves in Hastings cemetery � I�ll describe where later, but at mid-point of the main cemetery in the first row nearest the circular road. John was buried (per Mamie Lizzie�s grandsons) next to his parents, and sister Lucy.
In the early 1890�s Mamie Lizzie inherited John�s share of Ezekiel Hasting(s) estate and used it to buy a farm in GCT for herself and bridegroom James Peru Watson. Mamie Lizzie, James Peru Watson and a son John H. �Buster� are buried in the Osburn/Watson Cemetery.
FYI, Rita Birdsong�s husband is one of Mamie Lizzie�s younger g-grandsons. Rita tells me the story is not the same one told to the late Loraine Story (my grandpa Ernest Hasten�s cousin) in the 1950�s and 1960�s, and then in the late 1990�s the same story told to me by the Poston and Harwell descendants of Mamie Lizzie. I think Rita got her story from the Birdsong/Bass descendants and they claim John just never came home from the war period and no one knew what happened to him.
My grandpa�s cousin interviewed Rita�s husband�s mother in the 1950�s and 1960�s before senility set in and the story Rita�s mother-in-law told at that time was essentially the same one I heard when I interviewed the Harwell�s and Poston�s who descend from Mamie Lizzie confirming my account.
Ruth Hasten Walsh 10 Mar 2015
