William Madison Tidwell
William Madison Tidwell was born on 15 May 1829 at Columbia, Tennessee, the seat of Maury County. He was very probably the son of Francis Tidwell and Elizabeth Forbes, who had married in Maury County in 1826. The censuses of 1850 and 1860 find a William of the right age at home with Francis and Elizabeth in McNairy County, among children whom a compiled memorial gives as his brothers and sisters. No record states the relationship.
He married Martha Rebecca Stinson, fifteen years younger than he. Her gravestone says she was born at Benton, Louisiana, and every census says Mississippi. They were in White County, Arkansas, in 1866, when their son William Madison was born at Beebe.
By February 1868 the family was living in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, where Martha had grown up. Their son's obituary says they moved there when he was ten months old. On 15 February that year "Wm M Tidwell" signed the founding resolution of the Conservative Union Club of Ward No. 2, and so did a T. J. Tidwell and a J. T. Stinson. Conservative clubs were the local organizations of the white opposition to Reconstruction in Louisiana. In 1870 the census found the family in Ward Three: William, forty one, born in Tennessee, "Mattie", twenty five, and two sons, Madison, four, and Joseph, two. In January 1872 he took up a stray cow on his place.
In 1872 they came overland to Texas in an ox wagon, and they reached Ennis, in Ellis County, in March 1873. Four children are known: William Madison, born in 1866; J. T., the Joseph of 1870, born in about 1868; Ida, born in about 1873; and J. S., born in about 1875.
Martha died near Ennis on 28 November 1877, at 33. William lived another seven years. He died near Ennis on 31 July 1884, aged 55, and was buried beside her at Elm Branch Cemetery, near Bardwell. Their shared headstone gives each of them a birthplace: "BORN AT COLUMBIA, TENN. MAY 15, 1829 / DIED NEAR ENNIS, TEX. JULY 31, 1884".
He left no will. In October 1885 his two elder sons, nineteen and seventeen, asked the Ellis County court to give them a guardian. They told the court that they had "no near relative or friends" and that their estate was "being wasted and destroyed."
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Cite: Heirology, "William Madison Tidwell (1829-1884)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-madison-tidwell-1829-1884-6da7e8.