This is the Oklahoma Veterans Home, in Ardmore, OK, circa 1910. My great-great grandfather, William Beard Hull (1837–1929), died in this building on February 23, 1929. He was 91.

Bill Hull was born in Middlebrook, Virginia on December 6, 1837. In 1858, age 20, he served as scout on a saddlehorse for his dad, Dan Hull, his mom, Mae Beard Hull, his six younger brothers and sisters, and a few others when they migrated in two wagons from Middlebrook to what is now Mountain Grove, Missouri.

After the Civil War broke out, both the Union Army and CSA tried to draft him into service. He finally joined the Confederates in Missouri after Yankee soldiers stole his favorite horse. Bill served with the Missouri 10th Infantry (also known as Steen’s Regiment) for the Confederacy during the Civil War and ended the war in a New Orleans Union prison camp.

His first son, my great-grandfather, was John Daniel Hull I.