An incomplete article on the Ramseys
from the
McBurney
family history.
A photograph of the 'Old Ramsey Homestead' in Mahomet, Burnet
County,
Texas, the home of AM and Ellen Taylor Ramsey
The text on the back of the photograph describing the people and
property. From Jessie Ramsey's age, the photo was probably taken
in
1890 or 1891.
An 1888-89 catalog for the nursery
before its
name was
changed to Ramsey's Nursery.
The birth, marriage and death records on
AM
Ramsey's father,
mother and siblings.
Birth records on AM Ramsey and Ellen
Taylor from
the Ramsey
family Bible
The birth records on the children of AM
and
Ellen Taylor
Ramsey and FT and Belle Sinclair Ramsey
Marriage records from the Ramsey family
Bible
Death records
An 1894-95 catalog for Ramsey's
Nurseries.
Notice the
stamped note that they had moved to Austin
An obituaty on AM Ramsey written by FT
Ramsey
and published
in the Farm and Ranch Magazine.
Two more death notices for AM Ramsey
Photos and locations of the gravestones
of AM
and Ellen
Taylor Ramsey. Mercy Ramsey Carl is in the photo on the left
with AM's
broken
gravestone.
Closer views of the drawings of AM and
Ellen
Ramsey's
gravestones from the McBurney history
On the Burnet County Rootsweb site are transcriptions of gravestones in Bear Creek Cemetery. These are the ones of family that were transcribed.
Malcolm Niel Ramsey - Sep 13, 1887 - May 27, 1888
(Malcolm was the son of FT and Belle Ramsey who died of Meningitis and 'water on the brain.' Notice the unusual spelling of Neil. I thought it was a typo until I looked at a list of gravestones created by Margaret and she listed the spelling that way as well. But the Bible records for FT and Belle Ramsey spelled his name the traditional way. I have two letters written by Ellen Ramsey to her daughter Ella. A warning - Ellen didn't use much punctuation in her letters. In the first one, dated April 17, she said, "I know you are looking for Frank up there well their babe is very sick it took it with fever and grew worse we sent for a Doctor was here twice then they thought best to take it over to Bertram where the Doctors could consult - there appeared to be something the matter with its stomache it vomits a great deal - it may be a little better." On May 3rd she wrote, "I went over to Bertram Monday and Stayed all night. That poor little babe still lives it has Meningitis and no one can tell what turn it will take it can't see now for over a week and is unconscious, but can swallow they feed it - it is very low indeed." In the next sentence she talks about having so much cloudy, wet weather they can't work in the fields. Dying children must have been a more common occurrence back then. Malcolm died on May 27th at a little over 8 months old.)
Malcolm
B.
Sinclair
M. B. Sinclair -
Jul
27, 1887 -
Age 30 Yrs
(Malcolm B.
Sinclair
was one
of two brothers of Belle Sinclair Ramsey. He died from being
struck by
lightening while standing on the porch of a store in Bertram
'pitching
dollars'
with some other men. Because of
the untimely deaths of Malcolm and other family members named
Malcolm,
and an
accident involving at least one other, the family dropped the
tradition
of
passing along this proud Scots name to male children.)
Jessie Black Sinclair
Jessie B. Sinclair - Born In Scotland 1822 - Died Nov 2, 1892
(Jessie Black Sinclair was Belle's mother. She was born in 1822 on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. She came to Canada and married John Sinclair, after knowing him one week. He died in 1864. leaving her a widow with six children. Desiring to escape the cold winters of Canada, she sent her oldest son to a World's Fair to choose a place to live. He had trouble deciding between the Georgia and Texas exhibits, but chose Texas. The two sons came first and bought land near Bertram in eastern Burnet County. They were followed by the rest of the family in 1881. My records indicate she died in 1894 not 1892; I need to verify which is the correct date.)
Mamie Cady
Mary B. Cady; Born In Manistee, Mich. Oct 14, 1878 - Died May 9, 1894 At Austin, Texas
(Mary Belle Cady, nicknamed Mamie was Belle's niece, the daughter of Jessie Sinclair Cady Davis. Mary was going to live with Belle and Frank after her mother died in 1892. But she was taken ill, probably appendicitis, in Chicago before she traveled to Texas and died several days after reaching Austin. Her sister, Jessie Cady Dowell is the ancestor of the Sinclair- Dowell line.)
On April 1, 1899, John Ramsey, FT's
uncle wrote
him a letter
in which he talked about family history.
In 1904, FT
Ramsey
applied for
membership in the national Ramsey/Ramsay Association. His
application
has some
very interesting information about him and his ancestors. He
was 5 ft
10 in
tall, weighed about 162 pounds, had a light or ruddy
complexion, brown
hair and
blue-gray eyes. That means he was 3 inches shorter than his
father, AM.
Since
FT also had Ellen's light eyes, he seems to have taken more
after the
Taylors
than the Ramseys. He was a member of the Christian Church and
the
Democratic
Party but had also voted for the Prohibition Party. He was a
school
trustee for
the City of Austin and Ex-president of the State Horticultural
Society.
In the
list of his children, after Winnie Bell's name, he said, "The
later is
also
called Pansy Ramsey. We really did not need any more girls at
the time
so used
her for an advertisement." FT obviously had a sense of humor.
(This
very
interesting and informative document came to me out of the
blue from a
very nice
person on the Internet who was also doing Ramsey research, saw
my
website and
recognized names from the application. One never knows where
helpful
information will come from.)
The Ramsey Nursery was ahead of its time
in
marketing to
Spanish speakers. This catalog from 1911-12 was translated
into Spanish
and
shows four generations of Ramseys.
A copy of the US patent issued to F. T.
Ramsey
on 28 July
1925 for his invention of a land/water vehicle.
The schematic drawings for FT Ramsey's
land/water vehicle
The New Encyclopedia of Texas, published by
the
Texas
Development Bureau, Dallas Texas in 1926 had an article on FT
Ramsey.
The front and back of a share of
Ramsey's Austin
Nursery
stock dated 1 Sept 1928 issued to JM Ramsey and signed by FT
Ramsey
An
obituary on FT
Ramsey from the Austin paper
The Handbook of Texas, first published in 1952, has an article on FT Ramsey.
RAMSEY, FRANK
TAYLOR
(1861-1932).
Frank Taylor Ramsey, horticulturist, son of Alexander M. and
Ellen
(Taylor)
Ramsey, was born in Burnet County, Texas, on June 15, 1861.
His father
was a
pioneer horticulturist. Ramsey attended a local country school
in
Burnet County
and at age sixteen became his father's partner in his nursery.
By
horseback and
buckboard he scouted all Texas for native flora and introduced
many
choice
wildings to cultivation. He married Annabella Sinclair on
August 20,
1884, and
they had four children. In 1894 the Ramseys moved their
nursery to
Austin, and
Ramsey took over the business after his father's death in
1895. His
establishment,
the Austin Nursery, was a prominent and successful business
throughout
the
early 1900s; it reached 430 acres at one time. Ramsey,
nicknamed "Fruit
Tree" from his initials, discovered or originated and
introduced
several
domestic fruit varieties, including the Breck nectarine, the
Leona
peach, the
Haupt berry, the Ramsey fig, a seedless persimmon, and the
cluster
apricot. He
also developed several varieties of pecans, bred a Ramsey
hybrid shrub,
and
introduced the Chinese jujube tree into the area. Ramsey
contributed
articles
on horticulture to Southern Florist, Farm and Ranch, and
Holland's
Magazine. He
also wrote his own verses in his nursery catalogs and produced
a
booklet of
poetry titled 'Tis Sweeter Still and Other Poems. He was a
Mason and a
member of
the Austin Public School Board of Trustees (1905-08). Ramsey
died on
December
28, 1932, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Austin. Ramsey
Park in
Austin was
named for him.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin History Center Files. The Austin Nursery Catalog (Austin, 1923). Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans (5 vols., ed. E. C. Barker and E. W. Winkler [Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1914; rpt. 1916]).