Saponi / Cherokee

What do you know about the Rainwater’s? They married into my family — in Arkansas.

My great grandpa was Jeffrey Richey (on grandma’s birth certificate, it says her father was born in Powhattan, Arkansas), He was born in 1851 and his father Joseph E. Richey died in 1852. Jeff’s mother, who was Sarah Ann Wayland Richey, then married Joseph’s brother, Hamilton Woods Richey (Woods was his middle name as well as his mother’s maiden name). Sarah died in 1857 and Hamilton married Sarah’s sister Mary Wayland. Hamilton and Mary had a son who married a Rainwater girl.

Sarah and Mary were the daughters of William and Elizabeth Wayland. We don’t know Elizabeth’s maiden name. Their daughter Mary, Hamilton’s second wife, had the middle name “Stewart” so that might have been Elizabeth’s middle name, seeing we know Hamilron’s middle name (Wood) was his mother’s maiden name. Maybe that was a family custom) William was one of many children of Nevil Wayland, Junior.

I have seen a website and I think I posted it here but I’ll post it again for you, that says another son of Nevil, Jonathan, along with Hugh Rainwater and Terra Stuart or Stewart, started the first Methodist Church in Arkansas about 1815.

Also Hugh Rainwater, probably the son or grandson of the one that started the first Methodist Church in the territory of Arkansas (he would have been too old by then), Hugh Rainwater was the pastor recorded as marrying my great grandparents in 1872, Jeffrey Hoten Richey and Josephine Brown, near Fort Smith, Ar. The Brown’s were Cherokee/Chickasaw and moved to Arkansas from Alabama.

One more Rainwater connection, I went to the Troxell website and they have a lot of genealogy material. I went there because they talk about Doublehead and my Gists all appear to be related to Doublehead too, so I was interested in what they said, especially when someone said the Gists were in Kentucky a while before going to Northern Alabama. The Troxells are in the same part of Kentucky the Gists were. Anyway, they have “Rainwater’s” marriying into their family.

Oh, some of these Rainwaters, like my ancestors, appear in Le Flore Couty in the Choctaw Naiton but I don’t think they enrolled. For a while the Choctaw and Chickasw were united by the US government but it was an uneasy union as the were often at war with one another in Mississippi. It didn’t last long and both gained federal recognition as separate tribes. My ancestors later moved into the Chickasaw area further west.

One more thing. Jarret Wayland is found on the roster of troops at Fort Gibson in 1830. Fort Gibson was established to keep the peace between Osage and Cherokee and is in what became the Cherokee Nation after the trail of tears. When the Cherokee were given lands in Arkansas/Oklahoma, they neglected to inform the Osagewho were already there, and so wars broke out and they wre constantly fighting each other. Jarret Wayland was a brother to both Jonathan and William.

Nevil Wayland Jr was a member of the “Melungeon Church” at Stoney Creek, Russell County, Virginia. The same county where Fort Blackmoor was. That fort was said to have been built by “The first settlers and the friendly Indians” who according to Lewis Jarvis were the Melungeons.

Most of this is on line and I can get the links to you for these things, and it is all credible sources.

vance hawkins

ps — I found the Rainwater surname in SC and/or NC. Also I looked and I — don’t rememebr seeing it amongst the enrolled folks. I must have overlooked it — it won’t be the first time! 🙂 I’d be interested hearing about any enrolled Cherokee with that surname. thanks.

I wonder if these people were adopted into the Cherokee community. If the Rainwaters started out in Danville, VA, it would seem more likely they were VA Siouan than Cherokee, and Bolin is one of the few documented VA Siouan names. Is it known among Cherokee?

Where did you find the documentation about the Rainwaters in Pittsylvania? I haven’t heard that name in connection with the Saponi before, but it certainly sounds interesting. Have you found any people by that name on the Cherokee rolls?

Thanks, George, good work. I’ve heard about those denied applications, that they are very detailed interviews from the turn of the century.

Congratulations, this Rainwater name is very intriguing, seeing that it’s coming out of Pittsylvania county. I’m trying to get Saponi1 to come over here, but I can’t raise her today. Remind me. I’ve got to check on her email.

I think if you look in the Choctaw Nation you might see the Rainwater surname, but I might be wrong. They are at least on the census records if nothing else.

You mention ancestors in Northern Alabama. I visited that region of Alabama this last Spring because I can trace many of my ancestors there. I was shocked to find a lot of people there today who say they are Cherokee and that they had been there since before the removal. I talked to some Riddles living there and they said they are Cherokee, as well as others. I was in Lawrence Winston and Walker Counties because that is where my ancestors were before going to Arkansas and eventually Indian Territory.

My Indian ancestors went along at least 2 or 3 migration routes. Waylands went straight from Va to Ar. Richeys went from Va to In to Ar to IT. The Brown’s and Guesses went from N. Al to Ar to IT. While in N. Al I was looking through old files in libraries, and I remember seeing the Rainwater surname (I already knew they were related to us in Arkansas) and they were near my ancestors in Alabama, too. In Arkansas my Browns married my Richeys in 1872, so although the Rainwaters were close to my Brown’s in Norhtern Alabama, it was my Richey’s and Waylands who married a Rainwater, not my Brown’s.

There are state recognized Cherokee tribes in Alabama and one of them claims to be descended from ancesotrs in this area.

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I talked to a Rainwater genealogy researcher on line and he swore up and down that they were NOT Indians. On his Rainwater genealogy web page he said old photos were not reliable because you need to see them in contrast with both White and Indian people because “Old people look Indian” (his words) any how.

I told him his Rainwaters married some of my relatives and showed him a picture of my ancestors, the photos you have seen, Linda — I told him the father of those 2 Richey boys (grandma’s 2 youngest brothers, who were born in the Chickasaw Nation) had a cousin that married a Rainwater. He never e-mailed me responding to my email.

His website said there was no “proof” any Rainwater’s were Indian. Well you know my photo shows young people in a rural school, and it has trhe 2 Indian Richey boys (NOT old people) contrasted by all the Caucasian boys and girls next to them, so his argument didn’t work there. In my e-mail where I sent the photos as jpgs I asked him if he had any proof, such as he was requiring for Indian blood, that they were white. 🙂 Well, he never answered. This was just a couple of months ago.

He said there were Rainwaters who claimed to be Cherokee but that they were wrong. But I wish he’d have responded. Maybe I can find his web page again. Maybe somebody else will have better luck talking to him.

vance