By Maude Wallis Traylor

                There are only too few pioneers living today, who have actually seen Texas history in the making; and especially one with a memory so clear and accurate she can recite enough Texas history and tradition offhanded, in one hour, as to keep a reputable genealogist and an amateur historian very busy two whole years, tracing, connection, proving, and recording same.

                 Mrs. Billingsley, or “Cousin Mary” , as she is affectionately known to a large connection of relatives, can show a pioneer lineage that might make a few of us just a little envious, and has documentary proof of three of her father’s Mayflower ancestors, Captain Myles Standish, Edward Doty, and James Rogers.  She also had proof of her direct descent from Humphrey Turner, who came from England and settled in Plymouth in 1628.  He prospered, as did his descendants, and in time they intermarried with the descendants of many other old Plymouth families, such as Kenelm Winslow, Plymouth, 1628; Robert Coroner Stetson, Plymouth, 1631;  John Hudson; and Rev. John Miller, all settling in Plymouth by or before 1635, all of which just goes to show how so many of the early Texas pioneers came of good old American stock.  Therefore, a history of  “Cousin Mary’s “ various relatives, in the early days of Texas, sounds like a regular Texas history lesson, and a review at that.

                 They came to Texas in two large wagon trains, one in 1827, settling in Stephen Austin’s Colony on the Colorado River, and the other in December, 1829, settling  in Green DeWitt’s Colony; and there were so many of them their land grants spread out all the way through Travis, Bastrop, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Lavaca, Jackson, and Victoria counties.

                 “Cousin Mary” was born near the present town of Shiner, Texas March 12, 1856, the only child of Edwin Turner by his wife Mariah (O’neal) Turner.  Her parents moved to old Bastrop when she was a few months old, and she was reared in this old town, rich in an environment of history and tradition, dear to the hearts of many Texas pioneers, and of particular interest to all historians.

                Her great-grandfather, the first Winslow Turner of Pembroke, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, was a sailor on the frigate “Deane” commanded by Capt. Samuel Nicholson in the American Revolution and another great grandfather William Standish, the great-grandson of Captain Myles Standish and Edward Doty, was a private in Captain John Turner’s company, of Col. Cotton’s Regiment, doing duty in Rhode Island in the American Revolution.

                 The above Winslow Turner married Molly Standish, the daughter of William Standish, in Pembroke, 1785, and  they had four children: Winslow, Jr., Deborah, Sally, and Adam.  These are the “four children” referred to by Myles Standish in his “The Standishes in America”, page 16, (published 1895).  They left Pembroke, the year of 1800 for one of the only two small settlements west of the Mississippi, and north of the Missouri rivers.  Molly, the young wife, died on the way, but Winslow and his four children reached that far away small fort and trading post, later called Fort Wood, near the present town of Troy in Lincoln County, Missouri.

                Winslow Turner received a Spanish grant of land near Fort Wood, established a home and reared his four children, in spite of extreme hardships, and continuous Indian wars.  Like the majority of those early pioneers, his children married young.  His oldest son, Winslow, Jr. married a young widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Williams, with two small children,  Malkijah and Teresa, and he reared these two along with his and Elizabeth’s eight in Lincoln County, Missouri.  He was a veteran of the British War of 1812, having been in Capt. Isaac Van Bibber’s company of  Infantry, Louisiana Militia.

                His daughter, Deborah, married Ahijah M. Highsmith, one of Col. Daniel Boone’s noted scouts of “The Missouri Mounted Rangers, “  War of 1812, and they had five children when they came to Texas in 1827, one of whom was Ben, whose life as an early Texas pioneer and Indian scout was so ably written by A.J. Sowell in his “Texas Indian Fighter’s” sometime in the nineties.  Sally, the other daughter of Winslow Turner and Molly Standish, married  Stephen Cottle, of a family so numerous in St. Charles county, Missouri, a town was called “Cottleville” for them.  Adam Turner married in Missouri before he came to Texas.  His wife’s name is unknown, also the names of his children, except Elizabeth, who married her first