This family information comes from Sherry Herrington:

Tracing the life of John W. Herrington through his documented records gives only a brief description of him as a person. John was with his parents in the 1830 census of Covington Co Mississippi and moved with them to Lawrence, Co Mississippi by 1840. By 1850 John was married to Mary Jane Musselwhite and had two young daughters. the parents of Mary Jane may have been Henry and Nancy Musselwhite for these names appear on the land deed transaction dated December 12, 1860 in Attala Co from the Musselwhite family to John W. Herrington. By the 1860 census there were seven children--three girls and four boys--in John's family.

Documentation of John W.'s enlistment in the Mississippi Fifth Calvary on Sept 15, 1863 and the subsequent desertion in the spring of 1864, and later Confederate pension have been found.

It may be presumed that Mary Jane, whose youngest child was born in 1863, died while her husband was away at war. ( perhaps of childbirth or its complications)

One of the more interesting tales of these war years has come down through a grandaughter, Della Herrington goes as follows:
The incident repeated many years later by Della tells how AWOL Private John. W. Herrington hid in the cornfields that grew up to the edge of his farm home. He hid there by day and was once almost caught in the house by troops searching for deserters at night. When the troops demanded to know who had been sleeping in the still warm bed of the parent's room, the oldest daughter responded that she had been there but had arisen to go get in bed with the small children who were frightened and crying.

Soon afterward John W. married Citura (Richbourg) McPherson, a widow with a young son. How long the move took, its stop off points, and where all of John W. and Kitty's four children were born may never be determined. (Jennie, their firstborn, is buried in Carlton, Texas. The dates on her tombstone are 1864-1963. Her death certificate gives the birthdate of 5-21-1864) It is documented however, that the 1870 census taker found them living in Guadalupe Co Texas, near Seguin. At that time, his two oldest girls, Mattie and Mary, were no longer living with the family, but his other six children were . Apparently Kitty's widowed mother, Mary, had made the trip with them from Mississippi because she and her four children and Kitty's son, Robert McPherson, 13, were living together nearby.

The birthdate for Kitty is taken from a family Bible that J. W. Smith said that belonged to his mother, Jennie H. Smith. This date disagrees by a few years with the tombstone that only records the death date and the statement "aged about 74 years". The same Bible source gives Wilson as John W's middle name and the spelling of Kitty's name as Kitturah,

In 1880 John W. and his family were residing in Erath Co Texas, but this farm was close to Carlton, the Hamilton Co community on the border with both Erath and Comanche Counties. In 1880 the census put "Catherine" for Kitty's name and showed four children at home with them. (It is not immediately apparent one of these girls is.) During the Christmas break 1966, this writer, a great, great grandson, Mike Herrington , traveled to Carlton, Texas cemetary to follow up on the origins of Joe Herrington. there he found the graves of John W. and Citura as well those of other assorted relatives. After asking around he located a relative named Mrs. Gertrude H. Raby who was a grandaughter and a long time resident fo Carlton and had moved to Stephenville. At the age of 95 in 1976, she fondly recalled her grandfather, John W. and his wife whom had been called " Aunt Kitty ".