Needham Whitley "CSA" Jr.

Needham Whitley Jr. was born 20 October 1811 in North Carolina and died 20 March 1900 in Ravenna, Fannin County, Texas. Family correspondence reports that he married three times and had 21 or 22 children, although the supplied material names only 20 children and does not provide their names.

Needham Whitley Jr. was born on 20 October 1811 in North Carolina. A Confederate service record cited in the family material is for “N. J. Whitley,” a lieutenant in Company I, Clark’s Special Battalion, North Carolina Militia. The supplied material does not independently establish that this record refers to Needham Whitley Jr., but it is presented with his notes.

According to a 1996 GenForum message by Gerald Riney, Needham was married three times. Riney identified his first wife as Mary Rebecca Cagle, daughter of Charles Cagle and Maranda Elizabeth Springer, while noting that some researchers had instead identified her as Rebecca Morton. Riney stated that Needham next married Sina Rushing, daughter of William Rushing and Marab, on 7 January 1860; the marriage license was said to be recorded in Union County, North Carolina, Marriage Book 1, page 105. His third marriage, according to the same account, was to Elizabeth Belinda Huneycutt, daughter of Edmund and Lucy Huneycutt, in Stanly County, North Carolina, on 18 April 1867.

Riney reported that Needham had 21 or 22 children and had names for 20 of them. The same message states that in 1896 Needham attested to the Indian heritage of Susannah Morton Whitley for her children’s application to the Dawes Commission. Riney used this circumstance to question the claim that Rebecca Morton had been Needham’s first wife; this is an interpretation expressed in the family correspondence rather than a conclusion established by the supplied records.

Needham Whitley Jr. died on 20 March 1900 in Ravenna, Fannin County, Texas.

Historical context

The supplied military notation places an N. J. Whitley in a North Carolina militia unit on the Confederate side. The 1896 reference to the Dawes Commission concerns a period when applications and records relating to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation were being considered. The supplied material does not provide enough documentation to connect all of these records conclusively to Needham Whitley Jr.

Sources & research

Confederate service record notation: N. J. Whitley; Confederate side; North Carolina; Clark's Special Battalion, North Carolina Militia; Company I; lieutenant; M230, roll 41.
Gerald Riney, “Re: Needham Whitley; Stanly Cty. NC,” GenForum, message 440, http://genforum.genealogy.com/whitley/messages/440.html.
Current source reference: @S39@.