Thomas Monroe Tullis Family
of Cherokee County, Texas

Photos and information provided by Edgar & Nancy Bice and Susan (Bice) Bulcken, Dickinson, TX (sbulcken @ aol.com)

Thomas Monroe Tullis was born 15 July 1872 in Alto, Cherokee County, Texas. He was the oldest child who lived to adulthood of James Monroe Tullis and Mary Elizabeth Singletary. His father, James Monroe Tullis, was born 27 January 1839 in Coosa County, Alabama, a son of Newell Tullis (1799 - 1873) and Mary Elizabeth White Rainey (1801 - aft. 1841). The birth of James was recorded in the Family Bible of his parents, which was published in Family Puzzlers, Aug 30, 1979, No. 619, p. 19. Note that James was a first cousin of the James Monroe Tullis (born 1822) who was profiled in Tullis Trees, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2002), pp. 4-13.

By 1850, Newell and Elizabeth had settled their family in Rusk County, Texas, where they appear in the 1850 census, including their 11-year-old son, James. On 15 July 1858, James married Nancy Ann Harvey in Rusk Co and they appear there in the 1860 census. James and Nancy had two daughters, Julia Ann and Addie. Along with his brother, Gilbert Gibson Tullis (b. 1835), James served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War in Waul’s Texas Legion, Company E. Shortly after the war, Nancy died on 22 April 1867. On 5 Nov. 1868, James married Mary Elizabeth Singletary (b. 1845) and by 1870 they had settled in neighboring Cherokee County, where they appear in the census. James and Mary Elizabeth had five children: George A. (abt. 1870 - bef. 1880), Thomas Monroe (1871-1921), Peggy Ann (1873-1943), Henry Singletary (1876-1915), and James Johnson (1879-1956). James Monroe Tullis died at the age of 40 on 5 March 1879, a month before the birth of his last child, James.

Mary Elizabeth Singletary (1845-1920), mother of Thomas Monroe Tullis. (Full-sized image)	Gravestone of Thomas Monroe’s parents, Shiloh Cemetery, west of Alto, Cherokee Co, TX. (Full-sized image)