Martha McWhirter

McWhirter was born in Gainesboro, Jackson County, Tennessee USA. At the age of sixteen she joined the Methodist church and became an active member within her home town church in Gainesboro, Tennessee, a very devout in her beliefs, she got married in 1845 at the age of eighteen with attorney George McWhirter a farmer, a promised she had made to her mother of getting married at eighteen. In 1855 she decided they should move to Bell County, Texas, they settled in Salado Creek near the now known as Armstrong after celebrating tens years of marriage they relocated to Belton, Texas there George McWhirter was operating a store and had an interest in a flour mill ambition.[2]

Martha and her husband had help in the establishing of Interdenominational Union Sunday School at Belton and have remained loyal together in Union after the acquire of a Methodist congregation in 1870. She is also a leader of an weekly women's prayer group in the members homes, two of her children died and her brother in 1866, and she started to believed that she was chastising by God, as a prayerful human and after a prayerful night she had a vision, convinced her of being sanctified and filled with Holy Spirit.[3]

After the vision she had on the night was prayerful she decided to share her revelation with the Women's in the prayer groups she led and many members began praying successfully for a sanctification. A time of many of her growing band of the female followers were not happy of their domestical affairs leading her of accusing George McWhirter her husband of not giving improper advance towards a servant girl after claiming of her revelation in the sanctified instruction to separate themselves from the un-devout, consequently she directs her followers of performing their house hold duties continuously while to minimize social interactions from their husband who are physical abused and abstained from connection of marriage and sexual relationship from their husbands, the women eventual began to leave their homes to work meeting different people in a community, the began to do business, selling of dairy products, eggs working as an domestic servants running a hostel and doing laundry.[4][5][6]

The McWhirter house began to fill up with the Sanctified Sisters from different destinations, George McWhirter and Martha permanently separated themselves and then Martha built a house for homeless sister using one among his lots without George her husband permission, later she claimed to have brought money during their marriage giving her the moral right in the properties and George did not interfere when the sisters continues building houses even as being very angry with Martha and had to defends her from critical towns people and thought of her being estranged wife, he later died in 1887 left her his estate he had built.[7]

While still living with George before their quarrel she wasn't involved in asking George house hold money, she was trading baked goods, butter and eggs and was the financial planner of the Woman's Commonwealth she involved her followers in variety of enterprises making their group financially secure in relatively short period of time. The 'Sanctificationists economic' had helped then success dissipate much of the towns unfriendly and aggressive behaviours, Martha later became the first woman in the city trade Union to be elected to the Board of Trade and had helped to contributions of the community fundings to help attracts a railroad to Belton making her name to appeared in the cornerstone of Belton opera house.[8]

In 1875 Martha opened the first shelter for refuges in Belton, Texas delivering services for battered wives thrives from the 1890s and was the founder of religious Sanctificationist group that stands for women should not be compelled to live without sanctified or an brutal husband and women's who followed her attempts to lives husband's who were alcoholic and batterers.[9][10][11]

The Women's Commonwealth of Belton came to exist in 1870s/1880s organized by Martha.[12]

The Woman's Commonwealth of Belton was financially independent and administratively during the 1880s and thought Belton community had blamed Martha for the various separations and divorces. The Women's Commonwealth averaged around thirty which are children and women mostly, the Commonwealth was popular and became accepted for two decades, the women in the Commonwealth incorporated in 1902 as the Woman's Commonwealth of Washington. Martha continuously leading the Woman's Commonwealth even and before the members retires from business in 1899 and had bought a place in Mount Pleasant, Maryland and Washington.[13]

Martha died in 1904 and Fannie Holtzclaw, a fellow proclaimed the Women's Commonwealth's as it leader and the Commonwealth endured till 1983 their last member passed away.[14]

George McWhirter and Marther White had twelve children's and only six of them survived to adulthood.

• Pierce Garrison, "A Woman's Community in Texas. Charities Review, November 1893.
• Eleanor James, "Martha White McWhirter (1827–1904)," in Women in Early Texas, ed. Evelyn M. Carrington (Austin: Jenkins, 1975).
• Eleanor James, "The Sanctificationists of Belton," American West, Summer 1965
• Melissa Johnson, "Sanctified Sisters," Texas Historian, November 1974. Jayme A.
• Sokolow and Mary Ann Lamanna, "Women and Utopia: The Woman's Commonwealth of Belton," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 87 (April 1984)
• Gwendolyn Wright, "The Woman's Commonwealth," Architectural Association Quarterly 6 (1974)

• From the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, the preferred citation for this entry.
• Mary Ann Lamanna and Jayme A. Sokolow, “McWhirter, Martha White,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed September 14, 2020. The Texas State Historical Association
• Obituary in Washington Times Sept. 18, 1904
• McWhirter, Martha White (1827–1904), Mary Ann Lamanna and Jayme A. Sokolow Biography
• Named Person: Martha White McWhirter. Fiction History/Fiction, Book, Debra Lufburrow. ISBN 1929072716, 9781929072712, OCLC 48029439, 2001.

• Sokolow, Jayme A.; Lamanna, Mary Ann (1984). "Women and Utopia: The Woman's Commonwealth of Belton, Texas". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 87 (4): 371–392. ISSN 0038-478X.
• "More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Texas Women by Greta Anderson, 2002 | Online Research Library:Questia". www.questia.com. Retrieved 2020-09-16.