Irish & other Celtic ancestors

For St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd post a summary of ancestors we know of who emigrated from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall. When I went to double-check some of these "roots" last night, I found some information which was new to me about a couple of the families, so I'm a day late here! Although Haynie is said to be of English-Irish origin, our Haynie ancestors came to America from England, not Ireland.

The following are surnames coming from areas with persistent Celtic traditions. The Irish names actually represent Scotch-Irish (Scots-Irish) or English-Irish families, who had previously migrated to Ireland, probably during the Ulster Plantation.

See the Wikipedia article: Plantation of Ulster


Ireland:

Houston -- The mother of Lucindy Johnson Morgan (1827-1863) was Jennie or Virginia Houston, said to be a cousin of Sam Houston. Sam Houston's emigrant ancestor, according to a family tree in RootsWeb.Com, was John McClung Houston (1703-1754), who arrived in the colonies circa 1730. He is said to have been born in Antrim, Ulster, Northern Ireland. In earlier times, this surname was spelled differently, e.g. Houseson.

Johnson -- Jennie Houston, who was born in Virginia, married Patrick Johnson. Patrick Johnson was born in Ireland 1780, of English-Irish descent. Therefore, he emigrated after the U.S had become an independent nation. This couple had their children in Abbeville District, South Carolina, where they were neighbors to John C. Calhoun; then they moved to Talladega County, Alabama, and from Ala. they moved to Texas. This was in the late 1840s after Texas joined the Union; being relatives of Sam Houston may have had something to do with their decision to go there!

Johnson -- Elizabeth Frey (b. 1812), mother of Bascom Covington, was the daughter of Mary Johnson (Frey). Mary's father, according to online information, was Henry Johnson, who was born 1738 in Antrim, Northern Ireland. He married in Pennsylvania and then served in the Revolutionary War; so he had emigrated at quite a young age, perhaps as a child. This Johnson couple ended up in Robertson County, Tennessee...Family lore says that Elizabeth Frey's mother was related to Reconstruction-era President Andrew Johnson, but to date I've not been able to find data supporting this kinship.

[Patrick Johnson and Henry Johnson may have been related to each other, back in Ireland. Their descendants Ione Morgan and Bascom Covington, respectively, were joined in marriage in 1890, in Callahan County, Texas.]


Scotland:

Campbell -- George W. Campbell (1828-1905)'s grandfather was a Scotsman who lived in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (vicinity of present-day Charlotte), and served in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). As of yet, we know nothing else of this Campbell family's American beginnings; the descendants moved from N.C. to eastern Georgia and from Ga. to Macon County, Alabama.

Smith --The immigrant ancestor of both Anne W. Smith (d. 1871) & her husband-cousin Benjamin M. Smith (d. 1877), of North Carolina & then Arkansas, was Alexander Smith, a Scotsman who died 1696 in Virginia. Col. Samuel Smith, descendant of Alexander, was a Revolutionary War officer in N.C. Smith descendants also fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War (1861-65), although not in our direct ancestral line.


Wales:

Evans -- The maternal grandmother of H. A. "Gus" Tillett was Pamela Evans (Wyche), of Virginia and North Carolina. Pamela's father was William Evans, who was born circa 1756, moved to Va., and served as an officer in the Revolution. William's father was Lewis Evans, of the Welsh Quakers in southeastern Pennsylvania, Bucks & Chester Counties.

Evans -- Samuel Haynie's wife was Hannah Maria Evans (Haynie); I posted her obituary recently on this blog. Although she was born in upstate New York, her paternal ancestry, too, was of the Welsh Quaker Evanses of southeast Pa. In fact, their line of descent has been traced back to the 14th century & earlier. Her immigrant ancestor was Thomas Evans (1651-1738), who is said to have arrived in 1698, or when he was in his late 40s. Thomas's great-grandson Samuel B. Evans was an officer during the Revolution, and Samuel's son & grandsons participated in the Texas Revolution (1836), with one dying in the Alamo.

[Although Lewis Evans was very likely related to Thomas Evans' family, so far I haven't found a direct connection. Their respective descendants were united with our own parents' marriage in 1948.]

Morgan -- Our Morgan ancestors descended from Col. Haynes Morgan, head of the Colonial Virginia Militia for part of the Revolutionary War. His exact ancestry hasn't been traced, but he is said to have been born in Wales circa 1742 & there is at least a tentative link to Morgans in Pa., although Haynes Morgan lived in Virginia. Many of the Colonel's great-grandsons served in the Confederate Army, some giving their lives for that cause; the Civil War veterans are not in our direct line because our own great-grandparents were young children in the 1860s.

The large website on which I found the Pennsylvania Welsh Quakers' ancestry information (URL updated 10/10/2016) is:

Gwynedd Friends Meeting Genealogy


Cornwall:

Blewett -- Bascom Covington's paternal grandmother was Winifred Covington, born in 1780s Richmond County, North Carolina. Her mother was Susannah Blewett; Susannah's father was William Blewett, who had several royal land grants in the area, near the Pee Dee River bordering South Carolina. William Blewett was born 1706 in Cornwall and came to the colonies as a child. The name is said to have probably originated in France, arriving in England at the time of the Norman Conquest.

Tillett? -- It strikes me that our other family name ending in "-ett" may have a similar historical path. It is said to have been a French Huguenot name, a group which was discriminated against in Catholic France. The Tilletts apparently migrated to England & lived there for some period of time before settling in colonial North Carolina, along the coast.

Later picture of Mary Smith Tillett

Here is a lovely picture of Mary "Mamie" Tillett, said to have been taken in 1913. It's in the online book, Smith of Abram's Plains.

The only photo we presently have of her husband Augustus "Gus" Tillett, is the one published in the Tillett book. He is shown with his siblings.

Smith Clan of North Carolina and Arkansas

Before this year, I had relied quite a bit on The Reverend John Tillett Family History (1955), by C. W. Allison, for background information on the Smith family who moved to North Carolina from Virginia in the late 1700's. We have a "double dose" of the Smith lineage in our ancestry because our great-grandmother Mary Benjamin Smith's parents were first cousins, once removed.

There seem to have been quite a few Smith men who, during the 19th century and earlier, were bestowed with a military title, either officially or unofficially --- usually Colonel. And I've just learned that Mary's great aunt (of the Martin family) was married to a General Nathaniel Smith, one of the many extended family members who established the Tulip community in Dallas County, Arkansas. (He was of a different Smith line and hailed from Chatham County, N.C., instead of the more northern Caswell and Granville Counties.)

There's a Smith descendant named Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith who has written at least two books: Smith of Abram's Plains (1988), which refers to the name of a large Granville County plantation established during the latter part of the 18th century, and The Romance of Tulip Ridge (1966). Both of these books are out of print and were possibly self-published. I recently looked at an online version of the Abram's Plains book, and the author has added pages quite recently!

J.K.T. Smith is widely regarded as an authority and has been quoted extensively on the RootsWeb Caswell County Family Tree. Accordingly, our most prominent Smith Revolutionary War ancestor was Samuel Smith (1729-1800); he was designated a Colonel in the Granville Regiment in 1778 and is the founder of the large plantation already mentioned. My 2008 blog entry named Col. Maurice Smith as a Revolutionary officer, but this was incorrect. Maurice (1776-1835) was one of Samuel's sons and served as the sheriff of Granville County, having been the paternal grandfather of Mary Smith Tillett. Col. Samuel Smith's wife was Mary Edmondson Webb, and Maurice's first wife (mother of Benjamin M. Smith) was Frances Goodwin.

Mary's maternal grandfather was Samuel H. Smith (1795-1853), who was a grandson of Col. Samuel Smith, through Maurice's elder brother Samuel, Jr. (1765-1816). Samuel Smith, Jr.'s wife was Elizabeth Harrison. This family established a plantation called Hycotee, after the Hyco River, in Caswell County. Their son Samuel Harrison Smith [or originally just H. for Hyco -- to distinguish him from a cousin born elsewhere] married Frances Alston Martin, of the Forest Hill plantation in Wake County, N.C.

Whereas Mary's paternal grandparents died long before the migration of some of the clan to Hardeman County, Tenn., and in 1848 or 1849 on to Arkansas, her maternal grandparents Sam and Fanny moved to Arkansas along with their daughter Anne William Smith and other family members.

Reportedly the Smith properties in N.C. are still owned and occupied by descendants (of family members who didn't move to Arkansas). At least one of the manor houses, the one at Hycotee, was recently demolished, however.

There may be Smith descendants living on the remnants of the Arkansas plantations, as well. The one established by Benjamin M. Smith (1824-1877) was called Tulip Farm and may have been quite prosperous before the Civil War. Dallas County took quite a beating during and even after the war, since many of the settlers left and did not return.

Our Smith immigrant ancestor is said to have been a Scotsman named Alexander Smith, who arrived in Virginia sometime during the 1600's.

Three library collections of family papers & another book

I've just discovered a book called Tulip Evermore, which contains letters written by Emma Butler Paisley* & her husband/others, in the mid-1800's. These were the Butlers who were Wyche descendants, second cousins of H. A. Tillett. They lived in the vicinity of the community called Tulip or Tulip Ridge, Dallas County, in south central Arkansas. The Butlers, Smiths, and other North Carolina families had moved here in the late 1840's, some taking their slaves with them, about twelve years before the Civil War.

The War Between the States was very destructive for this part of Arkansas, and in some ways it was never the same, having had an antebellum reputation for fine educational facilities. According to Wikipedia, at the 2000 census there were only about 9,000 people living in the entire county, with the largest employer being Georgia-Pacific Corp.

A nearby town to Tulip was Princeton, and it was to this area Gus Tillett went in 1881 after having finished at the University of North Carolina. Here he met and courted Mary Benjamin Smith, who was born and grew up on her family's plantation, called Tulip Farm.

One of Emma Butler's brothers, Ira Wyche Butler, had married Mary Smith's sister. This was the couple in Abilene, Texas, who sent a telegram to Mary and Gus in June of 1885, causing them to get married a little earlier...Fannie John Smith Butler died the next month.

One of Emma Butler's sisters married a Reverend Matthews and lived out her life in the old Butler home place; the Butler-Matthews Homestead is on the National Register of Historic Places.

*The Butler-Paisley Family Papers, including the published letters, are in a special collection at the University of Arkansas's library in Fayetteville:

http://libinfo.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/findingaids/butlerpaisley.html

The central Arkansas library system in Little Rock owns a collection of Smith Family Papers, which revolve around the household of Maurice Smith, a younger brother of Samuel Harrison Smith, or Mary Smith Tillett's great uncle on her mother's side & first cousin once removed on her father's side. The papers were donated only about six years ago, and they're located in a place called the Butler Center. --- I don't know whether this name is connected to the Dallas County Butlers...I would love to look through this collection someday:

http://www.cals.lib.ar.us/butlercenter/manuscripts/collection/mss02-20.html

In the main Charlotte-Mecklenburg library, North Carolina, there is a collection of Tillett papers and albums, donated by our relative Charles Allison, the Tillett book's author. (On my recent N. C. visit, I didn't have enough time to go inside this library.) They are located in the Carolina Room Collections & Archives.

Correction: Wyche-Tillett book authors' kinship

Clarence A. Wyche (1878-1947), whose picture is shown here, was a dedicated genealogy researcher and a first cousin, once removed, of author Charles W. Allison (and of Aunt Mame & Poppa Henry).

Charles W. Allison, son of Jeannette Tillett Allison and Rev. Thomas J. Allison, was named after his uncle Charles Walter Tillett of Charlotte, N. C., and compiled The Reverend John Tillett Family History.  (Our great-grandfather was another of his uncles; therefore, Charles Allison was a first cousin of our grandparents.)

Wyche Ancestry

We have one family name which can be traced back in history much further than any other surname (to the 12th century & earlier), and that is Wyche.  This was the maiden name of Poppa Henry's grandmother, Elizabeth Jenkins Wyche Tillett.

The Wyches even had a saint in the family.  In the 13th century, the brother of one of our direct ancestors was Richard de Wyche, Bishop of Chichester & Saint Richard in the Roman Catholic Church.  The name Wyche is supposed to mean salt spring.  It is also short for the town of Droitwich, which is located in an area of Worcestershire where salt has been extracted since ancient times.

Our 17th century emigrant ancestor was Henry Wyche II (1648-1714).  He was born in Surrey County, England, traveled to America in the late 1670's, and settled in Surry County, Virginia.  Henry's grandfather was Richard Wyche (1554-1621), Gentleman and Mercer; Richard was a shipowner, merchant, and one of the charter directors of the English East India Company.

According to a Wikipedia entry, Richard was also "among the adventurers of the Muscovy Company," chartered in 1555 and the first major English joint-stock trading company.  It monopolized English trade with Russia for about 150 years and survived as a trading company until the Russian Revolution of 1917, after which it became a charity.  I just found this information today...I am moved that this ancestor of ours was involved, early on, with a private organization which reportedly has sustained a 450 year history, or the entire period during which the twelve or so additional generations of this man's descendants have lived...The Wikipedia item on Richard Wyche says that several locations in the Arctic region were named after him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wyche_(merchant)

Richard Wyche married Elizabeth Saltonstall, daughter of Sir Richard Saltonstall, Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of London.  [She had a first cousin Sir Richard Saltonstall who established a Massachusetts colony in 1630.]  The couple had many sons; the Honorable Nathaniel Wyche lived in India and was President of the East India Company in the late 1650's.  Another son was the Right Honorable Sir Peter Wyche, Ambassador to Constantinople (Ottoman Empire),  who married Jane Meredith. Their children included (another) Sir Peter Wyche, Sir Cyril Wyche, and Lady Jane (Wyche) Granville.  Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Wyche was one of the Chancellors of Oxford University, and his sons Sir Cyril and Sir Peter were among the founding members of the British Royal Society.  Lady Jane was Countess of Bath and Lady of the Bedchamber to Henrietta Maria of France, Queen Consort of King Charles I.* 

Sir Cyril Wyche, scholar and longtime Member of Parliament, was a first cousin of our ancestor, Henry Wyche II.  His portrait, whose image is shown here, hangs in the National Portait Gallery of London.  Henry was the son of Henry Wyche (1604-1678), Rector of Sutton in Surrey, England, and his wife Ellen Bennett, daughter of Ralph Bennett, Esquire.

According to the Tillett book, "one of the oldest streets in the old walled city of London proper was Wyche St."  Today, there is a Wyche St. in Henderson, North Carolina (Vance County), which was named after either James Wyche or his sister Sally Wyche Reavis. 

There is a new, interactive website developed by and for descendants of James & Pamela Wyche of North Carolina:

http://www.benwychefamily.com/

*I added the above paragraph about Richard Wyche's family to expand the short Wikipedia article on him, since this information was documented in the James Wyche Family History, a section of The Reverend John Tillett Family History, published in 1955.

The Wyche section of the Tillett book is dedicated to Clarence A. Wyche, a first cousin of our great-grandfather Henry A. "Gus" Tillett.  Clarence, who died in 1947, did most all of the research about the early ancestry of the Wyches.  Charles W. Allison, the book's compiler, was another first cousin of Gus and Clarence, being a son of Jeannette Tillett Allison (Gus' big sister who looked after him following their mother's death).

Picture of & letter written by Mary Smith Tillett

Here is a transcription of a letter written by our great-grandmother a century ago. It was addressed to Miss Nellie Cannon in Abilene, Texas, who later became Nellie Parramore, mother of Nellie Sellers. The Tillett and Parramore families were apparently very close! Nellie Sellers transcribed the letter; later on her daughter shared it with Sandra, who shared it with our mother Ione. Ione jotted on it that as children they called Mrs. Parramore "Aunt Nellie."

Mary Tillett, or Mamie as she was called by her husband, was in her late thirties and away from her four "dear children." Poppa Henry, the youngest, would have been only two-and-a-half years old then. (I don't know what kind of ailment put her in the hospital.) Oh, and the reference to war evidently refers to the Spanish-American War:

Galveston, Texas
March 8th, 1898

My dear daughter:

Your nice letter came yesterday & I am so delighted that you came out so well in your examination. I do feel hurt tho' because Sam is not next to you (I mean because he is not second best). Yesterday I came to stay at the St. Mary's Infirmary because I could not like the Sealy Hospital. They are not prepared for private patients-____. I do not like to have ____ (that is the nurses and all do not) except Dr. Paine & he didn't want me to come here, but I came anyhow. He is a fine old gentleman, but he has a head as hard as a rock. I wish you could walk into my pretty room with its large east window & elegant furniture tho' simple after all. The Sisters of Charity do all the nursing & oh they are so gentle and kind. My meals are beautifully served in lovely china. I can look down on a pretty yard with green grass, trees, and pretty flowers growing in it. Among other things there are such handsome palms with leaves as long as a parasol. The day we got to Galveston we went out for a sail on a real sailboat. It would roll & dip about on the waves & I was so 'fraid it would turn over, but it didn't. How I did wish for you all & the dear children. We also viewed the big gun & I talked with one of Uncle Sam's soldiers a little. He was mighty proud of his blue coat & gun & I told him if we did have war I expected they'd be in front of the whole crowd of runners except me, for on such occasions as fire etc. I generally lead everything as a person "of fleetfootedness." Enough of foolishness for one letter. Tell your dear mother that her fame as a cakemaker has spread abroad in the land & is fully established at Sealy Hospital. All who tasted it praised it greatly. Here I waited to listen to a voice oh so sweet! chanting somewhere, I suppose over in the Chapel. I can't hear the words but the sweet rich melody rises & sweeps over the air like great billows of melody. For fear of tiring you, I will stop. Any time you can write, any of you, I shall be grateful. Give my love to all the friends and kiss the little ones for their homesick mother. With love for you all I am as ever

Yours, Mary Tillett -

Historic Abilene buildings

The City of Abilene, Texas, has some photos of historic buildings & historic sites on their website, including two Texas Pacific Railroad buildings and the Elks Club, which is presumably the one to which our great-grandfather David Graham Hill belonged:

http://www.abilenetx.com/About/tpdepot.htm

Tillett - Wyche - Smith family history in North Carolina & my visit there

On Mother's Day, I was in Charlotte, North Carolina! While there I looked for Reverend John Tillett's grave at Elmwood Cemetery, but I couldn't find it. The place is huge, and I haven't located any directions to his grave.

I used the inspiration of a national genealogy meeting in Raleigh to make a six-day visit to the state...to see a few of the places the Tilletts and Wyches lived, and also to consider whether I might want to move there. I took the train and rented a car; just attended about a day & a half of the conference.

I do love the scenery in the Piedmont region: endless green hills and forests. And I like the fact that the state has actually put money into the passenger train system!

I started out in Richmond County east of Charlotte on Saturday, May 9th. [Ione's notes had indicated that Richmond Co., Virginia, was the Covingtons' location after Maryland but that was an error.] I found and took pictures of the graves of Elizabeth J. Wyche Tillett and her daughter Laura Tillett in Rockingham.

Then I located the old church which the Covingtons attended in the late 1700's (Cartledge Creek Baptist)--- according to a library book I'd consulted [A History of Richmond County by J.E. & I.C. Huneycutt, 1976]---and took a look at the Blewett Falls area of the Pee Dee River, with two old Blewett graves. William Blewett came from England in the early 1700's, having obtained one of the earliest land grants in the area and is probably one of our ancestors through Winifred Stone Covington, widow of Henry Covington who died in the War of 1812. A dam was built at Blewett Falls about a hundred years ago, so there is more of a lake with a spillway than a waterfall.

Another day I stopped in the town of Burlington, formerly Company Shops, from which some of the Tillett letters were written. The town is in the Greensboro vicinity and was established by the North Carolina Railroad as their maintenance site. Next I found the historic marker for the Bingham School for boys in Mebane, formerly Mebaneville, where Gus Tillett attended secondary school. (Happened to find out at the conference this is pronounced "Mebbin.") I made a swing through Pittsboro in Chatham County, where he was born and where there is now an organic grocery co-operative...Didn't ever make it to Chapel Hill to see the university.

Tuesday I found our ancestor James Wyche's grave in the woods of Granville County, about 40 miles north of Raleigh, thanks to the directions someone had put on line; although it took a while since the headstones aren't visible from the road. (He died in Raleigh at the age of 59, in 1845.) Then I took pictures of a house that may have been theirs; I so much wanted to find the "old Tar River plantation home," established in 1825 after the Wyches moved from Brunswick County, Va. If it was the right house it's been drastically remodeled as a hunting lodge.

I believe their plantation must have been a tobacco plantation, as this area was big in tobacco and James was part-owner of a tobacco warehouse. There used to be an old mill on their land, but I didn't know where to look for the ruins. James and Pamela Evans Wyche had 14 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood; all of their children (two daughters and eleven sons) attended college. Elizabeth J. W. Tillett later returned to the Tar River home to have at least two or three of her babies. She had been about seven years old when they moved here.

John and Elizabeth Tillett had nine children, six of whom lived to adulthood: Jimmy, Laura, Jeannette, Wilbur, Charlie, and Gus. During the War Between the States the eldest, James Wyche Tillett, was away serving in the Confederate Army. Elizabeth died during this period, when Gus was about two; the next year John Tillett married Elizabeth's widowed sister, Louisa Young Wyche (Speed). All of the Tilletts attended college, as well, although the war prevented James from finishing his formal education.

After I came back to Florida I realized there was a Smith plantation and graveyard in Granville County, also (Mary Benjamin Smith Tillett's forebears on her father's side); I hadn't remembered that during the trip. They were farther north. The other Smith ancestors (her mother's side) were located in Caswell County,* farther west along the Va. state line.

In Raleigh I found the 1862 Raleigh & Gaston/ Seaboard RR building, which has been preserved, and took a lot of pictures inside the State Capitol (1840). James Wyche was involved with both of these entities, as railroad president and legislator, although he died before the RR building was built.

*In reviewing online Smith information, it appears that the Samuel H. Smiths may have lived in the Raleigh area for a few years, as Wake County is supposed to be where Anne William Smith was born and where her parents married...There sure was a lot of intermarrying among that clan. It looks like, in marrying Benjamin Men Smith, Anne married her father's first cousin. Many of the Smiths moved to Dallas County, Arkansas, probably during the 1840's.

Quotation from Wilbur F. Tillett

Wilbur F. Tillett (1854-1936) was one of Henry Augustus (Gus) Tillett's older brothers.  He was a minister and Dean of the School of Religion at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.  A book published in 1949, Wilbur Fisk Tillett: Christian Educator, describes his life and views on various Christian doctrines.

The following passage is taken from 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South, by John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed (1996).  I was delighted to find it but haven't been able to determine the original source from which the Tillett quotation is taken.  This is found in item number 944 of the Reeds' book, The Southern lady. 

Wilbur Fisk Tillett wrote in 1891 that "American civilization has nowhere produced a purer and loftier type of refined and cultured womanhood than existed in the South before the war....In native womanly modesty, in neatness, grace, and beauty of person, in ease and freedom without boldness of manner, in refined and cultivated minds, in gifts and qualities that shone brilliantly in the social circle, in spotless purity of thought and character, in laudable pride of family and devotion to home, kindred, and loved ones---these were the qualities for which Southern women were noted and in which they excelled."

Covington and Tillett History & Their Intersection in North Carolina

Henry Covington almost surely participated in the Battle of New Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815, which repelled the British invaders once and for all. Natalie & I visited the Chalmette battlefield in 1999, out of general interest; and later Lisle and Ione sent me Robert Remini's book published that same year about the historical events involved. The book is The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory.

I've found general information on line about the Tennessee Militia units which served at the Battle, under General Jackson. The typewritten book Covington Cousins (1956) asserts that Henry died at Camp Henderson, five miles above New Orleans. It just occurred to me that, in 1815, "above New Orleans" meant upriver from the City; so that helps slightly to identify where the military encampment was. Online information about Camp Henderson is scarce to non-existent. Wasn't the location marked? When the soldiers died of infectious disease (there were very few battlefield casualties), where were they buried?

There is a woman in Tenn. who has been researching the Covingtons, and either she or I will probably order the National Archives file that has Winney Covington's war widow pension application in it. Maybe that would have the details of his service; it would be very gratifying, if so.

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About 50 & 70 years, respectively, after our branch of the Covington family left Richmond County, North Carolina, for upper middle Tennessee, the Tillett family lived in Richmond County. I found the listing on line for the graves of Poppa Henry's grandmother and his Aunt Laura, who are buried there in the county seat town of Rockingham...Richmond County is east of Charlotte, bordering South Carolina...The Tillett book doesn't really say what Elizabeth J. Wyche Tillett died of in 1862 during the Civil War; she was in her forties. But about 20 years later her daughter Laura taught in a private academy in Rockingham for 2 or 3 years --- upstairs in the Covington store building, reportedly. She was in her thirties and engaged to be married, but tragically, she died of roseola in 1881...At least her father was able to take the train down to be with her. There's a letter written by Rev. John Tillett at the time to his eldest son James that says at the end something like, "Gus is here but he leaves tomorrow for Arkansas."

We know that Henry Augustus "Gus" Tillett had recently graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and would meet his bride in Arkansas & move to Abilene, Texas. (The book states that he didn't see his father again until nine years later when Rev. Tillett was dying, in Charlotte.)

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Someday I might join or at least write to the National Society, Daughters of the War of 1812, because I want to know how we can find out where Henry Covington is buried. They have a program for decorating the graves of the soldiers.

Correspondence about Mary Benjamin Smith & Anne William Smith

Dear Becky,

How wonderful that you have the painting and the inheritance tradition.

To refresh my memory, I've pulled out the Tillett book (pp. 94, 96) to check the women's names again. The mother of our grandparents was Mary Benjamin Smith Tillett, who apparently was called "Mamie," at least by her husband. She in turn was the 8th child of Benjamin Men Smith and Anne William [or Williams] Smith. Before the Civil War the Smiths had moved from the vicinity of Granville County, North Carolina, to Dallas County, Arkansas, taking their slaves with them.

Anne Smith died two months after her 13th child was born, in 1871. The next year, when Mary was about 12 years old, her father married "Annie Wilson Smith, a cousin of his first wife." Annie Wilson Smith "held together and reared this large family of children."

Here is what Aunt Mame wrote about her and Poppa Henry's mother's youth: Mary had gone through the Reconstruction days, had seen her father's slaves leave when they wished to; had learned to cook and sew; she could paint pictures, and had God's gift of growing beautiful flowers; she could make little go far. She was a devout Presbyterian, a profound student of the Bible and a devoted helpmate to her young husband.

Well, now it's midnight. Becky, now I'm even more excited about your painting; because I realize that it must indeed be of Anne William(s) Smith! Mary was born in 1860, according to what Sandra wrote down; Anne was born in 1830. So, if the portrait was painted around 1848, Anne [who was destined to live only about 41 years] was a young woman of 18, presumably from N.C. like her husband. The fact that she attended a "female seminary" school is fascinating, too; perhaps it was the equivalent of a college education. And holding sheet music!

Love,
Sandi

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Becky wrote:

Sandi – What lovely, wonderful photos! Thank you for sending them. I have a beautiful portrait of my great-great grandmother (Mamie Augusta Tillett's grandmother) and I think it may be Mary Benjamin Smith (or her mother), painted in about 1848. I have a file on it at home and will check.

This painting hung in Gamama (Mamie)'s home until she died, when it went to my mother. When Mama died, it came to me (it is to go to the oldest daughter in each generation, which I love). So it will go to Jeannie's daughter Leigh when I die. We had the painting cleaned and restored and discovered much more color in it than it had before. Jeannie and I always thought it looked rather grim, but now she has pink cheeks, a sparkle in her eyes and yellow sleeve lining. I will try to scan in a photo of it and send it to you. The portrait was painted by a traveling German artist (we have his name), while she was a student at a "female seminary" somewhere up north. The story is that he chose her to paint because of her beautiful hands. In the painting, she is holding some sheet music. It is very unusual for a portrait of that era to include the hands, because they are hard to paint.

I'll get back to you, probably tomorrow after I find the file!

Becky

---

From: Sandi
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 7:10 PM
To: Sandra
Cc: Jeannie; Becky
Subject: 3 photos that I received from Boulder

Dear Sandra,

Are these pictures of Mary Smith Tillett, your grandmother? There was a Post-It note written by Mom that said something like, "I think these are of Mary B. Smith Tillett."

Love,
Sandi