Henry Clay Ragland had this to say about the Lawson Family (Swain, p. 73):
"Last but not least among the men who left their impress upon the people of the Guyandotte Valley, was Anthony Lawson, who settled where J. S. Miller once lived, about the year 1823. Anthony Lawson was a native of Northumberland, England, and was born about 1780. Sometime about the year 1815, he emigrated to America with his wife and four sons, John, Lewis B., James and Anthony. He remained for a while at Alexandria, Virginia, where his brother John, who had preceded him to America, lived. Colonel Andrew Bierne of Lewisburg soon made his acquaintance, and induced him to come to the wilds of the Guyandotte River and engage in the fur and ginseng trade. Mr. Lawson first settled near the present site of Oceana, where he remained about four years and then moved to the present site of Logan Courthouse, where he remained until his death, which occurred in Guyandotte in 1846 while he was returning from Philadelphia, where he had been to purchase goods. The state of trade in Logan at that time, and the difficulty in getting goods and of taking produce to market will be treated of hereafter. Mr. Lawson was a member of the first County Court of Logan County, and was during his life a leading citizen. His wife survived him for something over a year, when she was murdered by two of her slaves. Her tombstone in our cemetery has the following inscription:"Ann Lawson, wife of Anthony Lawson, of Logan County, W. Va., who was born in the Parish of Longhorsby, in the County of Northumberland, England, on the 17th day of March, A. D. 1783. Murdered on the night of (blank) of December, 1847, by two of our own negroes."The sons of Anthony Lawson were all prominent men in the county, and will be mentioned more fully in some future chapters. John married Emily Butcher, daughter of Joshua and Sarah (Clark) Butcher, and was killed by a falling tree in 1844. Lewis B. married Polly Dingess; James married Matilda Dingess, both daughters of Peter and Sallie (Farley) Dingess; and Anthony, the youngest son, married Ann Brooke Robertson, the daughter of Edwin and Mary (Minnis) Robertson."
Emily Butcher Lawson is not found under that name in the census, but there is a 37 year-old Emily Smith, married within the year, in the census with George Smith; there are 5 Lawson children and 24 year-old Allen Butcher in the household, which suggests that she is connected to those families.
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