CATHERINE SCALF/MORTON COLLINS/SEXTON

1860 Census: Catherine Morton 10, Born Virginia.

In 1860 Talitha’s children, both Scalf and Trent, are using the surname Morton. They are living next to Talitha's in-laws John & Martha Scalf. Talitha has NO assets and John Scalf has assets of $40. Her two oldest sons are working as farm hands.

1870 Marriage: Catherine Morten 21, Born Tennessee
1870 Census: Catherine Collins 22, Born Tennessee
George and Catherine were married on June 1, 1870 (the date of record for the 1870 census tabulation) and are reported in this census living together as George and Catherine Collins.

1880 Census: Catherine Sexton 29, Born Tennessee
1900 Census: Catherine Sexton 54, Born Virginia
1910 Census: Catherine Sexton 57, born Tennessee
1920 Census: Catherine Sexton 73, born Tennessee

1930 Census: Catherine Sexton 84, born Kentucky
In the 1930 Census, Washington reports that he was married at age 17 and was a minister.
In the 1930 Census, Catherines reports that she was married at age 22.

Death Certificate: 8 Jan 1932, Catherine Sexton, completed by a neighbor, lists her as the daughter of William Morton and Letha Couch, and born in Letcher County, Kentucky. No previous record lists her as born in Kentucky. Since her parents married in Tennessee and her father died in Tennessee, her mother remarried and had another child in Tennessee, it is likely that Catherine was born in Tennessee. NOTE: Catherine was the daughter of William Scalf and Talitha (Letha) nee Scalf. Her grandmother was Taletha Couch Scalf who married Brittan Scalf.

DNA testing at Ancestry has confirmed Catherine's descendant’s relationship to other children of William & Letha Scath (the Scalf/Morton children) and to descendants of the John Scalf family. Specifically, descendants of Catharine have DNA matches to a male descendant of Henry Peter Scalf/Morton (Catherine's brother, son of William & Letha), and 3 male and 1 female descendant of Jesse John Scalf/Morton (Catherines' brother, son of William & Letha).

Pioneer Recollections of Southwest Virginia by Elihu Jasper Sutherland, 1984, (located at the Boyd County Library) lists a biographical sketch of Richard Morton son of Henry P Morton. Henry P Scalf/Morton was a brother of Catherine. It states that the family Bible originally belonging to William Scalf (their father) and passed down to Henry P. Morton, records the births of the children, listing their surname as Scalf. The surname was changed sometime after the death of their father, William Scalf.

It is theorized that the name change from Scalf to Morton and relocation from Tennessee to Virginia before 1860 was to hide the children from the Tennessee Orphan’s Court in fear that the children would be removed from their widowed mother (who had no assets to support them) and indentured. John Scalf Jr. (father of William Scalf) experienced his minor siblings William, Berry, Ira, Lee, Peter, Jesse & Robert being removed from his parent’s home and bound out as apprentices (Court minutes of Russell County, August 3, 1820, pg. 258). Court activities and records show it was very traumatic to have the children removed from the family.