From Arkansas to the Texas Frontier: The Life of Hickman Monroe Shults

After researching an ancestor for years, there is something very fulfilling in finding their last resting place and thinking about their life. As family historians and researchers, we can only know a fraction of a person’s life – based on the records we’ve been able to find. We piece together the story the best we can, but know it’s still only pieces.

My paternal ancestors all moved to Texas between 1848 and 1870 from various southern states. My maiden name is Shults, and when I first started my research, I wanted to learn more about where that name came from. I discovered my Shults line went all the way back to the colonial immigrant – if I could positively connect to my Texas roots. That led me on the research path of determining the parents of my ancestor, Hickman Monroe Shults. My research project provided the indirect evidence I needed, although no record states parentage directly.

On our Texas research trip with my daughter, Nicole, serendipity led us to Hickman’s cemetery and gravestone. As we drove south, we saw a sign that said we were entering Falls County. That triggered a memory that Hickman spent his last years in Falls County, and sure enough, after quickly checking the FamilySearch app on my phone, I saw he was buried in the Mooreville Cemetery. I located it on Google Maps and realized it was only 15 minutes away. We did a quick detour, and luckily the GPS led us directly to the cemetery, and it was open! It is a lovely setting on a hill, and it isn’t large, so we felt we could find the gravestone fairly quickly. I had a photo from FindAGrave and could see the shape. As we started driving through, I spotted a likely stone, and there it was – still standing and legible.

I researched Hickman and his connection to his parents a few years back and was grateful I had compiled my research into a report. Using my research assistant, Claude.ai, I am sharing that research as a blog post. Sources are listed at the end of the post.

Claude.ai helped write some of the paragraphs below based on my research report.

A Visit to Mooreville Cemetery

Hickman Monroe Shults rests in the Mooreville Cemetery in Falls County, Texas, where he was buried after his death on 12 May 1899. His stone names him as the husband of S. E. Shultz, his second wife.

Standing at a grave reminds you that every name in a census or deed belonged to a real person. Hickman’s journey to this quiet spot began nearly eight decades earlier, in Alabama.

Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas

Hickman was born in Alabama in June 1821, the son of Martin Shults and Sarah T. Rowden. That parentage comes from indirect evidence, with no record directly listing his parents. However, the records place Hickman beside Sarah in 1850, as shown in the census below.

Like many Southern families, the Shults household moved west in stages. Martin appears in New Madrid County, Missouri, in 1830, in the “Boot Heel” region along the Mississippi River. By 1840, the family had moved southwest to Pulaski County, Arkansas, likely traveling down the Mississippi and up the Arkansas River.

The 1840 census of Pulaski County lists Martin’s household by age group only. A male aged 15 to 19 fits Hickman, and three boys aged 5 to 9 likely include his brothers Wade H. and Martin V. Shults.

Tax lists fill in the next few years. In 1841 Martin paid a poll tax for only one man; at twenty, Hickman was still too young to be taxed. By 1843 Hickman should have appeared as a taxable poll, but he is missing. Perhaps he had already gone west to Texas.

The 1843 list also shows Martin claiming 160 acres, valued at $480, in the southwest part of Section 31, Township 1 North, Range 8 West. That land lay east of Little Rock, in an area that became Lonoke County in 1873. Martin never completed a patent, and no deeds for the family appear in the Pulaski County indexes. The family’s stay in Arkansas seems to have been short.

The Promise of Texas Land: Mercer’s Colony

The lure that pulled the Shults family to Texas was almost certainly land. In January 1844, President Sam Houston granted Charles Fenton Mercer an empresario contract to settle at least 100 families a year for five years, beginning 29 January 1844. The colony covered parts of eighteen future counties in north central Texas, between the Brazos and Sabine rivers (TSHA, “Mercer Colony”).

Mercer advertised widely. His handbills promised land along the Brazos and Trinity rivers that was healthy, fertile, and well watered, reachable by way of Galveston. Families who settled had to build a cabin, fence, and farm at least fifteen acres for three years (Eagleton, Southwestern Historical Quarterly). For a family on uncertain, unpatented ground in Arkansas, that offer would have been hard to resist.

The colony was troubled from the start. One day after Mercer’s contract was signed, the Texas Congress outlawed colonization contracts over Houston’s veto. Squatters, speculators, and holders of other land certificates disputed colonists’ claims. The state sued Mercer in 1846 in the district court of Navarro County, the very county where the Shults family settled (TSHA).

When did Hickman arrive? Navarro County was created on 25 April 1846. A Gaines Shults, likely a brother, appears on the 1847 county tax list, but Hickman does not. The first sign of Hickman is the 1848 tax list, where “H. H. Shoults” paid a poll tax and tax on three horses, but owned no land. No other man of that name appears in the county in 1850, so this is very likely Hickman.

On 4 July 1848, Hickman married Rachel Cox in Navarro County. Rachel was born in Indiana around 1827. Marriage made Hickman the head of a family, which mattered for the size of his land claim.

Land, Family, and Moving On

On 2 February 1850, the Texas legislature guaranteed all Mercer Colony claims made before 25 October 1848. That law produced 1,255 land certificates (TSHA). Hickman received one of them in spring 1850, entitling him to 640 acres of vacant land within the colony.

He had the land surveyed in two tracts of 320 acres each. One lay on Grape Creek, about 7½ miles from Corsicana, surveyed by deputy surveyor D. R. Mitchell. The other lay on Brier Creek, about four miles northwest of Corsicana, surveyed by William L. Browning. The patent was issued in 1852 as Robertson District 3rd Class, Abstract 756. Today the Texas General Land Office’s Land & Lease Mapping Viewer still labels a Navarro County tract “H. Shults, A-756,” bordering the W. Bowen (A-70) and J. Lockhart (A-499) surveys.

The 1850 census shows H. M. Schultz and Rachael in Navarro County with their first son, William H. Next door lived Sarah Schultz, age 54, with Wade H. and Martin V. Schultz. Sarah was almost certainly Hickman’s mother, and Martin’s absence suggests she was widowed by 1850.

Hickman did not hold all his land long. In 1854 he sold half of the certificate, 320 acres, to George Cooper for $50. Cooper transferred it to Robert White for $75, and White received the patent. By 1859, Hickman had moved west to Parker County, where he bought 160 acres on Rock Creek for $800. The family has not yet been found in the 1860 census.

By 1867 the family was in Falls County, where Hickman signed the voter registration list. The 1870 census, taken in Precinct 5, shows a full household:

Name (as enumerated)	Age	Birthplace	Notes
Monroe Shultz	50	Alabama	farmer, $500 personal estate
Rachel Shultz	43	Indiana
William Shultz	22	Texas	farm labor
Martin Shultz	20	Texas	farm labor
Apolonia Shultz	17	Texas
Lucinda Shultz	16	Texas	attending school
Francis Shultz	14	Texas	attending school
Delila Shultz	13	Texas	attending school
Maria Shultz	10	Texas	attending school
John Shultz	7	Texas	at home
William Shultz	5	Texas	at home
Andrew French	15	Arkansas	farm laborer

The census did not state relationships, but this is almost certainly Hickman, Rachel, and their children, with young Andrew French working on the farm. Two sons named William in one household is a puzzle worth solving.

Later Years in Falls County

By 1880, Rachel had died, leaving Hickman a widower at 59. That year’s census was the first to record relationships and parents’ birthplaces:

Name (as enumerated)	Age	Relationship	Birthplaces (self, father, mother)	Notes
H. M. Shults	59	head, widower	Ala, Ga, Ga	farmer
Mary Shults	19	daughter	Texas, Ala, Ga	house laborer
Johny Shults	16	son	Tex, Ala, Ga	farm laborer
William Shults	14	son	Tex, Ala, Ga	farm laborer
Eliza Shults	8	daughter	Tex, Ala, Ga	blind

Mary, Johny, and William match Maria, John, and the younger William of 1870. Eliza, born about 1872 and blind, is new. The column naming Georgia for Rachel’s birthplace conflicts with the Indiana entry in 1870, one more clue to weigh.

On 22 October 1881, Hickman married Mrs. Sarena E. Faulkner in Falls County. He lived nearly eighteen more years, dying on 12 May 1899 at about age 77. His gravestone in Mooreville Cemetery names him as husband of S. E. Shultz.

Finding this third-great-grandfather’s headstone made him feel real, not just a name in the records. Most of my Texas ancestors have no recorded burial place, with their headstones likely long faded and unrecognizable, but Hickman is the exception. I’m glad I found his headstone and recorded the visit with a photo!

Best of luck in all your genealogical research!

Sources

• Mooreville Cemetery, Falls County, Texas: Hickman Monroe Shultz gravestone; Find a Grave memorial 23392097
• Navarro County, Texas, Marriage Records Vol. A, pp. 9–10, Shults–Cox marriage, 1848 (FamilySearch, DGS 007255691)
• S. censuses: 1830 New Madrid Co., Mo.; 1840 Pulaski Co., Ark.; 1850 Navarro Co., Tex.; 1870 and 1880 Falls Co., Tex. (Ancestry)
• Arkansas Tax Records, Pulaski County, 1841 and 1843 (FamilySearch, FHL 2322550)
• Texas County Tax Rolls, Navarro County, 1847–1849 (FamilySearch)
• Texas General Land Office, Robertson District 3rd Class, Abstracts 756, 745, and 1619 (GLO Land Grant Database)
• Texas Voter Registration Lists, 1867, Falls County (Ancestry)
• Texas County Marriage Records, Falls County, Shults–Faulkner, 1881 (FamilySearch, FHL 985,641)
• Joe E. Ericson, “Mercer Colony,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 28 September 2026
• Nancy Ethie Eagleton, “The Mercer Colony in Texas, 1844–1883, II,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1936)
• Texas General Land Office, Land & Lease Mapping Viewer