David McGregor
David
McGregor
Born
June 9
1869
Died
Feb. 28
1872
Photo Credit: Rosa G. Gonzales
Biography
First it should be noted that a name used by many of these family members has two variants used almost interchangeably in documentation—“Steward†and “Stewartâ€.
David McGregor is one of four young people buried in Old Bayview Cemetery with their parents, John Steward (1838-1903) and Frances Jane McGregor (1844-1908). Their paternal grandparents, John Steward McGregor, Sr. (1805-1889) and wife Mary Ann (1810-1891) were also initially buried in the cemetery. However, they were later removed to Rose Hill Cemetery subsequent to its establishment in 1914. David’s father is John Steward McGregor, Jr. who was born on 28 February 1838 and was 13 years old when he left from London with his parents to sail for Texas in 1852. His family initially settled on the Nueces River at a spot near a conspicuous clump of large trees known as the “Mottsâ€. Nuecestown developed there, and other English families settled in the vicinity—the Wrights, Noakes, Orchards, Reynolds, and Howards. Little David’s paternal grandmother was the former Mary Ann Thomas, daughter of Sir Walter Thomas of London. David’s mother was Fannie Oliver, sister of D. M. Oliver and E. R. Oliver who lived in the Oso community about 12 miles southwest of the city of Corpus Christi. The Oliver family had a family burial ground on their own property near their homes on the Oso. While her obituary says that Fannie was a native of Red River County, Texas, she usually reports in census records that she is from Mississippi or Missouri. The parents of David married 31 July 1868 (Nueces County Marriage Records, volume C page 373). Little David was born to them the following year and appears with his parents in the1870 census of Nueces County (170A). At that time they are living next to John S. and Mary Ann McGregor out in the country where the family first settled. Another pioneer, Wm. B. Terrell (also with family member in Old Bayview) is living next to the senior McGregors. William B. Terrell is married to David’s paternal aunt, Flora S. McGregor. Little David only appears in the 1870 census record as he died two years later (1872) when he was less than three years old. Three of Fannie McGregor’s offspring would precede their mother to the grave, and a fourth would die only two years after his mother. However, three of Fannie’s children lived to a fuller age. Her sons John Ed and Thomas both died in 1929 and are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.
Research and transcription: Michael A. Howell