HISTORY OF

FRESNO COUNTY

CALIFORNIA

WITH

Biographical Sketches

OF

The Leading Men and Women of the County Who have

been Identified with its Growth and

Development from the Early

Days to the Present. 

History by

Paul E Vandor 

Illustrated

Complete in Two Volumes

Historic Record Company

Los Angeles, California

1919

On page 911-912 was written a story about MADLAIN (McCullough) DeWITT.  It is a four paragraph story.  I have included a transcription below because it mentions without naming, him, John DeWitt in paragraph 3.  The importance is that this document claims that this ancestor was born in France.

------Paragraph 1------

“MADLAIN DeWITT. --- A distinguished lady of Selma, the descendant of noted American Forebears, and highly esteemed in the town where she is best known as the widow of a very worthy citizen, Mrs. Madlain DeWitt enjoys a wide circle of friends. She was born in Sullivan Coutny, Mo., and is a daughter of John McCullough who married Elizabeth Bell, a native of Pittsburgh, the ceremony taking place in Pennsylvania.  He had been born in Ohio, went South to Louisiana, then North again and West to Missouri, where in Sullivan County he develped a farm; and when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Union Army, served with the Twenty-third Missouri Volunteers, and was made a major.  Eight children were born to these devoted parents, among whom our subject was the fifth and the oldest girl.

------Paragraph 2------

She grew up in Sullivan County, attended the common schools, and when twenty-one years of age was there married to Thomas Buffington DeWitt, a native of Virginia who served in the Home Guards at Milan, Mo. He was a farmer and stock-raiser at first in Adair County, that state, in 1872, and in 1884 came to Fresno County, where they settled on a ranch four miles north of Selma, on what was known as the Russell Quarter.  They had ten children, of whom the second daughter, Luella E., now Mrs. Garnet Adkins of Los Angeles, was married in Missouri, and the seventh child, a little girl named Alta, died there; so that they brought with them to California eight children, namely: Mary Elizabeth, who is Mrs. W. H. Say; William Henry, the blacksmith at Caruthers; Oscar, a well-borere at Selma; Florence, the wife of W. J. Boles of Fresno, a rancher near Caruthers; Viola, wife of R. M. Pettus, a housepainter in Oakland; Shearon, an engineer at Sacramento; and Thomas Buffington, at Selma.

------Paragraph 3------

This son, Thomas Buffington, recalls Mrs. DeWitt’s husband, who was born at Wheeling, Va., in 1833, the son of Thomas DeWitt, a Virginia farmer, whose estate near Wheeling is still owned by a member of the DeWitt family.  His father, in turn, was born in France, became a soldier in the French Army, and came to America with Lafayette, to aid in the great struggle for American Independence.

------Paragraph 4------

Mrs. DeWitt is an active member of the Presbyterian Church and there, as well as in such circles as the Red Cross, works for the betterment of society.  Her duaghter, Mrs. W. H. Say, is a well-known club-woman, and was president of the Woman’s Improvement Club at Selma for five consecutive years, an organization that has accomplished much for that beautiful town.  Upon leaving that office she turned over $1,200 in cash, which had been raised during her incumbency, and was in turn presented with a beautiful hand-painted jardiniere, by the club, in appreciation of her vauled services.”

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