SL version

Havard Family

The Havards were a large family of pioneer settlers and cattlemen in southern Angelina County in the Beulah-Prairie Grove area, most of whom descended from Jeremiah Havard. Several Havards eventually moved to Burke.

Stephen James (Jim) Havard

Stephen James Havard was a Baptist minister and one of the founders in 1885 of Bradley Prairie (later Burke) School. He was a son of pioneer settler in the Renfro Prairie area, Jeremiah Havard. In 1870 and 1880 he lived near Stephen and Sarah Treadwell, who moved to Bradley Prairie in the early 1880s.

It is not known exactly when Havard took up preaching. In 1870 he identified himself in the census as a farmer, but Pine Grove Baptist Church records identify him as one of several preachers who preached occasional messages at the church between 1872 and 1878. In 1880 he was identified in the census in the Renfro Prairie area as a "Baptist preacher." By 1885 he had apparently moved to the new town of Rhodes (later Burke) and was one of three citizens who applied for a charter for Bradley Prairie School. He had undoubtedly decided that the newly established town needed a Baptist preacher and followed the Treadwells and others to that area in the early 1880s. By November, 1894, however, Rev. Havard was back in his home territory where he served as pastor of Pine Grove Baptist Church until Oct. 1894. Presumably he was no longer preaching in 1900 and 1910 when he was listed as a farmer in Precinct 2.

William F. (Bill) Havard

Bill Havard operated the gin south of Burke School. Originally he operated a gin at Renfro Prairie, but he later sold it and moved the equipment to Burke where opportunities were better. Bill (1876) and wife Lula J. (1883) lived in Burke next to Nobia Campbell in 1930.

Bill was probably the son of Charles (1830) and Susan Martha Bowden (1850) Havard. Charles was the eldest son of Jeremiah Havard.

Lafayette (Fate) and Tennie Thompson Havard

Married Tennie Thompson, long time first and second grade teacher at Burke School in the mid-20th Century. He held an administrative job at Lufkin Industries. The Havards had one of the first telephones in a private home in the 1950s.

Fate's ancestry is not clear, but his parents were probably W. J. (Joe) and Lucy Havard. Fate's mother was Lucy Havard (1874), and he had a brother Noah Lee (1907), who resided with him in 1930. A W. J. Havard and Lucy A. Shannon were married in Angelina County in 1896. The 1900 census for the Burke area shows a Joe (1862) and Lucy Havard (1870). Joe died between 1907 and 1910.

Willliam Frank Havard, a son of Jeremiah Havard, had a son William Joel Havard (1862), who is probably the same W. J. Havard who married Lucy Shannon and became Fate's father.

Fate and Tennie had a daughter Lou Emma.

© 2006-24 Burke History Project
M. Lee Murrah, Editor
Email a comment