William Frank Watlington (b. 1868), the only son of Frank W. Watlington and Mary Jane Anderson, grew up in the new railroad village of Pinson, Tenn., where his father owned farm land and had a General Store at the station on the Mobile and Ohio R.R., about 1873. Pinson was a junction of the road for the older route from Jack's Creek to the east and Bear Creek to the west. This served as a ridge road, or wet weather trail, which later became a road leading westward to Harrisburg, Huntersville, and on to Brownsville, Durhamville and Fulton (a port on the Mississippi River at the confluence of the Hatchie River and Mississippi.) This had been an old Indian ``high water'' trail across West Tennessee that became a road for horses and wagons as the farmers needed to get their cotton to a Mississippi River port. The road in Madison Co. became known as the Mt. Pinson Road, a name that it still bears in a few places. Of course, by 1873, the cotton moved by rail, but the presence of the old road made Pinson a village on the railroad.
In that District #1 of Madison Co., William F. grew up and took advantage of the school opportunities that were available. He studied in the school at Pinson and then in the Southwestern Baptist University in Jackson, Tenn., (now Union University) and the Nashville Business College. He became a pharmacist, merchant and banker in Pinson, spending the best years of his life building on the foundation of his parents farm and trade connections.
Martha Ruby VanTreese (b. 1880, Pinson, Tenn.) was born on a nearby farm and attended elementary school in Pinson but went to higher studies in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and the old College Street High School at Jackson, Tenn. She was the daughter of James Valentine VanTreese (b. Feb. 3, 1848, in Pinson, Tenn., d. Dec. 27, 1891, pb. VanTreese family cemetery in Pinson), who died when she was only eleven years of age. Her mother was Mary Isabell Macon, ( b. Jan. 20, 1844, d. Mar. 28, 1935, in Jackson Tenn., pb. Hollywood Cem.) of the Hardeman County Macon families. The VanTreese family was of Dutch lineage and has been traced back to the first immigrant to America. The early death of Mr. VanTreese frustrated their family plans. Ruby's parents were from educated families, well respected in Pinson and Jackson. Their second daughter, Margaret Macon Watlington, bears the Macon family name.
As William F. returned from studies to his work in Pinson, he sought out Martha Ruby VanTreese for his life companion. Though both had many experiences away from the village, they found their future home to be back near their place of birth. They were married Feb. 25, 1900, in Jackson, Tenn. and made their home in Pinson where they reared two sons and two daughters.
In addition to his mercantile business, William F. established a small State Bank in Pinson, Tenn. The depression years of the 1930's, along with the Federal Banking regulations of 1933, forced the closure of the bank, along with many others in the U.S. A story told and retold around Pinson is that the Watlington-VanTreese family stood behind every investor in that small bank, and in the years to follow the farm and store served to repay every family account in the Bank of Pinson, though not obligated by law to do so. This was not true of the bank in Jackson, Tenn., where Ulrich A. Watlington lost the little savings he had in it. This gracious act on the part of William F. and Ruby Watlington left the family broke but gave a very good boost to the Watlington name. They believed that a ``good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.''
This difficult experience along with the hard times of the Depression Years overtaxed the strength of William F. Watlington and in 1935 he sold what was left of the business and farm and moved with his family to Jackson, Tenn., where there were more opportunities for the children. Mary, the older, was already married to Russell Smith Wolford and living in Oklahoma. Hays, Margaret Macon and William F. Jr., pursued their studies and vocations. William F., Jr. stayed closer with his mother in her widowhood and when he settled in Memphis after World War II she resided with him there. He did not marry until some years after her death in 1963 in Memphis.
Mary W. Wolford thus lived away from her Pinson home the rest of her life, rearing her family in Oklahoma City. Perhaps it was being away from her ancestral roots that stimulated her to write down more of the history she remembered and research diligently the earlier history of the family. Thus she has copious notes on the various allied families as well as the Watlingtons of Madison Co., Tenn. [2][37][38]. She and her sister Margaret still live in Oklahoma City, where they are active members of St. Luke's United Methodist Church. In recent years Mary has been nearly blind but her interest in promoting the search for and preservation of the family genealogy and history continues.