Joseph Bell Chance

Joseph Bell Chance, 1800-1839, pioneer surveyor and soldier in the war for Texas independence, son of William Alexander and Nancy Chance, was born near Nashville, Tennessee, on July 4, 1800. He married Nancy Braden on November 14, 1820, in Wilson County, Tennessee. Joseph moved his family to Coahuila y Texas in 1830, settling on a league and a labor (total of 4,605 acres) of land in Stephen F. Austin’s second colony in an area that is now part of Washington and Burleson Counties. He served in the Washington Company of Volunteers under Captain James G. Swisher from October 1 to December 3, 1835, and was a participant in the Grass Fight on November 26, 1835. On April 7, 1836, he raised a company of volunteers, the Washington Guards, and was elected their Captain. He was detached to guard the baggage at the camp near Harrisburg on April 21, 1836, during the Battle of San Jacinto. Joseph was appointed deputy surveyor of District 2 of Robertson County, Republic of Texas. Joseph Bell Chance died shortly after May 23, 1839, in Washington County. Mrs. Nancy Braden Chance and children participated in the “Runaway Scrape” during the war for Texas independence. After Joseph’s death in 1839, Nancy’s home in Old Washington, Washington County, Republic of Texas, was sold and she moved her family to the original land grant on the Yegua Creek in present day Burleson County, Texas. Nancy died in 1843 but the exact date is unknown. The Old Independence  and the Providence cemeteries were the nearest cemeteries to the land grant in 1839.

Joseph and Nancy had four children:

William Alexander Chance was born June 10, 1822, probably in Tennessee. He was the first Sheriff of Burleson County, serving in 1846 and 1847. William went to New Orleans to study medicine and died there on February 28, 1850.

Charles Coleman Chance was born December 7, 1833, in Tennessee. He married Sarah E. Rowland (1826-1866) in 1845 in Burleson County, and they had seven children, all born in Burleson County: Frances Chance (1847- ?), Joseph Sylvester Chance (1850-1922), Nancy Virginia Chance Mears (1854- ?), Olievia Chance (1858-1866), Charles Robert Chance (1861- ?), Frances Alexander Chance (1863-1930), and Leaner Chance (1865-1866). From Sept. 7, 1861 to September 29, 1863, C.C. Chance served as a private in Company G, 2^nd Regiment, Texas Infantry, CSA. He married Mary Annie Thomas (1843-1893), on December 19, 1867, and moved, in 1869, to the Liberty Hill area of Williamson County, Texas. Charles and Mary had seven children: Jerry Bell Chance (1864-1926), James William Chance (1871-1942), Edgar Lee Chance (1873-1946), Martha Susan Chance Cox (1877-1962), Katherine Marie Chance Klose (1879-1974, Annie Elizabeth Chance Smith (1881-1956), and Linney Gertrude Chance Sergeant (1884-1955). Mrs. Sarah Rowland Chance and her daughters, Olivia and Leaner died  during an 1866 epidemic and are buried in the Rowland Cemetery at Caldwell. Mrs. Mary Annie Thomas Chance died July 3, 1893, and Charles Coleman Chance died March 31, 1894. They and several of their family are buried in the Liberty Hill Cemetery in Williamson County, Texas.

Elijah James Chance was born July 7, 1826, in Tennessee. He married Frances Ann Parker, a daughter of Samuel and Mary Dunn Parker, on April 18, 1855, in Burleson County, Texas. Frances was born September 29, 1836, in Lincoln County, Tennessee. Their children are: John Parker Chance born December 7, 1859; James Otis Chance born February 9, 1862; Francis Alexander Chance born December 10, 1863; and two sons named Willie and Wilton Chance who died in infancy. Mr. E.J. Chance was a successful lawyer and served in the Texas State Legislature in 1857. On March 1, 1861, Company G, 2^nd Texas Infantry, CSA, was certified with Elijah James Chance as 2^nd Lieutenant and Charles Coleman Chance as 2^nd Sergeant. This unit fought at Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, and in several skirmishes. Mrs. Francis Parker Chance died on December 21, 1863, from child birth complications and is buried in Caldwell’s Old City Cemetery. Elijah James Chance died October 6, 1868, at the age of 42, and was buried beside his wife in Caldwell’s Old City Cemetery. The three orphan children were taken by two families. Milton Parker, Mrs. Francis Parker Chance’s brother, raised James Otis and John Parker Chance. Charles Coleman Chance, E.J. Chance’s brother raised Francis Alexander Chance. John Parker Chance was killed in a hunting accident leaving a family in Bryan, Texas. James Otis Chance was a very successful business man, forming the Chance Plantations in the Brazos Bottom in Burleson County, and the Chance grocery stores which were, at one time, spread throughout the Brazos River Valley.

Martha Chance was born April 12, 1828, in Wilson County, Tennessee. She married John M. Wyatt in 1845. John was born in 1814 in Kentucky. He was the Burleson County, Texas Sheriff from August 2, 1858, to August 2, 1862, and again from 1876 to 1881. John was 1^st Lieutenant in Company H, 4^th Regiment, Texas Cavalry, CSA. John and Martha had at least eight children: Thomas A. Wyatt, James A. Wyatt, William C. Wyatt, John A. Wyatt, Ora B. Wyatt, Anna E. Wyatt, Arthur Wyatt, and Augusta Wyatt. John was living in the Confederate Men’s Home in Austin where he died May 6, 1908, and was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Mrs. Martha Chance Wyatt died July 16, 1910, and was buried in Caldwell’s Masonic Cemetery, Burleson County, Texas.

Bibliography

Joseph E. Chance, Joseph Bell Chance and His Family, 1979.

Joseph E. Chance, The Second Texas Infantry, CSA, Eakin Press, Austin, 1984.

John M. Wyatt, Texas State Cemetery, Internet, accessed 2009.

1850, 1860, and 1870 U.S. Census of Texas, Internet, accessed 2010.