Margaret Ann Hart
b. 30 July 1848, Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana
d. 20 January 1931, Cimarron, Colfax County, New Mexico

m. Trinidad, Las Animas County, Colorado
William Rufus Whiteman
b. 17 March 1839, Pleasant Hill, Jackson County, Missouri, to Samuel Rufus and Talitha (Strode) Whiteman
d. 6 October 1930, Cimarron, Colfax County, New Mexico

Children with William Rufus Whiteman:
• Rufus Elmer (1872-1957)
• William Edwin (1874-1961) married (1) Stella Burns, (2) Lessie Tull
• Eva Frances (b. 1876) married John Livingston
• Alva Hugh (b. 1879) married Josephine Alery
• Benjamin (1881-1882)
• Mary Elizabeth (1883-1974) married (1) Henry “Pete” Gimson, (2) James Lail
• Clarence Raymond (1885-1967) married Clara Grace Brooke
• Laura Adela (b. 1888) married Louis Lastroh

Margaret left Indiana to teach in Nebraska. At age eighteen she left there to care for the children of her cousin and close friend, Sarah Elizabeth (Bergan) Whiteman, who had died in childbirth in Fountain, Elpaso County, Colorado. She married Sarah’s widower in Trinidad, Colorado, homesteaded at Ponil Creek in northern New Mexico, and lived in Ute Park, Roy, and Cimarron in New Mexico.

Margaret’s husband left home in Independence, Missouri, at age 13 to look for his father who had gone west to search for gold. Not finding him, he returned to Independence and at age 18, signed on as a freighter on the Santa Fe Trail. He later worked as a carpenter, was an accomplished fiddle player, worked as a lawman, and operated a toll road from Roy, New Mexico, to Burro Canyon

Submitted by:
Marilyn H. Whiteman
Estancia NM
E-mail: rockingw3@juno.com