The Sherburnes of Baton Rouge

Samuel and Rose Sherburne left France and arrived in Baton Rouge with their children some time around 1816.  The United State's war with England was just over and the celebrations were likely still reverberating out from the plains of Chalmette where the victory at New Orleans still hung very fresh.  The Baton Rouge district, where the family landed, had only been out from under Spanish hands a short five years.  The town of Baton Rouge would not become the capital of Louisiana for another 30 years and just up the river, Mississippi was still a territory.  Samuel's idea for settling in the area after many years of diplomatic service overseas was, no doubt, to commence the genteel planter's life in an environment that would be receptive of his French wife and French speaking children.  It was a curious choice though, as he was no experienced planter.

Originally from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Samuel's American lineage extends back to his great great grandfather, Henry Sherburne, who arrived in the new world in 1631.  The Sherburne family is recognized as one of the pioneer families of Portsmouth.  The men of the family preceding Samuel on this side of the pond include Judges, Governors, Commissioners, Selectmen, Magistrates and Ship Captains.  More ancient Sherburne's include influential landowner's back in England.  The well established family purports to trace a direct lineage to Charlemagne.

The Sherburne family legacy is still evidenced around Portsmouth.  Samuel's great grandfather's house, The John Sherburne house, still stands today and can be visited at the Strawbery Banke Museum.  It's an impressive structure-- especially for having been built in 1695!

https://www.strawberybanke.org/houses/sherburne.cfm

Samuel was born in 1770 and schooled in New England through the 1780's.   He was a bit too young to serve during the American Revolutionary War, though he was certainly an eyewitness.  We know his father served in the New Hampshire Light Horse Volunteers and signed the Portsmouth Association Test.  The Sherburne's were Patriots.

By the time Samuel was 22 (in 1792) he acquired the position of American Consul at the important inland port city of Nantes, France.  The French Revolution was in its third year and ongoing. After four years as consul in France, Samuel married a local-- the young Ursule Rose Dubois de Corbières.  I wrote a bit about Rose and her French background here.  The two were married the third of August, 1796 at Saint-Servan-sur-Mer, Ille-et Vilaine, Bretagne, France.  She was from a well-to-do family. Her father, by then deceased, had been a wealthy ship builder and public official in St. Malo.  Her eldest brother was also a ship builder and arguably more successful than the father.

Benjamin Dubois, the brother, made a significant fortune building and outfitting war ships for King Louis XVI during the American Revolution.  Some of his ships saw action off the US east coast.  The ships Benjamin built were not large "ships of the line."  They were smaller privateer ships commonly known as Corsairs.  St. Malo is famous for having been home to a major hub of Corsair activity.  Corsair captains would hold a "lettre de marque" which was license from the King to seize merchant vessels of enemy nations and carry them and their cargo back for profit to be split between the crown, the shipowner and the captain and crew.  The majority of Benjamin's wealth came from prizes taken on the open seas by the Privateers that manned his ships.

When the French Revolution rolled around, Benjamin was perceived as a bit too close to the monarchy. Benjamin was dealt the wrath of the "general committee of security."  He was arrested and held in Parisian jails throughout 1793 and '94.  Two men arrested alongside him lost their heads, but Benjamin was spared, eventually cleared and released.  Benjamin was back home in St. Malo in time to likely attend the wedding of his little sister, Rose and the American, Samuel Sherburne.

Benjamin's home, coincidentally, is also still around and apparently worth a visit...

http://www.domaine-du-montmarin.com/

Ursule Rose Dubois de Corbières was the youngest of her siblings and her brother Benjamin was the oldest.  The gap was great enough that Benjamin's daughter married about the same time as Rose.  Rose's niece married Antoine René Thévenard a sea captain in Napoleon's French navy.  Within a year of their marriage, Thévenard commanded the French 74-gun "Aquilon" at the famous battle of the Nile. He is credited with performing a risky unorthodox tactic involving the spring on his anchor cable to quickly bring about his broadside against the bow of Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship, HMS Vanguard. The damage wreaked on the Vanguard was intense resulting in over 100 casualties, including Nelson who suffered a gruesome open wound to his forehead.  The severity of the bleeding induced Nelson to fire off a letter to his wife for fear the wound was mortal.  It was not, and he soon returned to the battle.

The Aquilon was captured and Thévenard would not survive the day, making Rose's niece a very young widow.

By 1814, the young Sherburne family, residing in Nantes, consisted of  Rose, her American husband and 8 children between the ages of 4 and 17.  The records show the first five were born in Lorient, France.  Lorient, Nantes, St. Malo and St. Servan are all in the region of France on the northwest coast called Brittany by English speakers and Bretagne by the French.  Lorient was the home of Rose's sister, Elizabeth, who five years previous  had also married an American Consul.  Elizabeth and Rose were very close.  Birth records imply that Rose's first five children were born in Elizabeth's home with Elizabeth's children serving as witnesses for their cousins' births.  Both families eventually moved to America.  Elizabeth and her family moved to Washington DC about the same time, Rose and Samuel moved to Baton Rouge.

The move to Louisiana must have been a significant turn of events for the Sherburne children.  They were accustomed to a certain amount of refinement in France that would be lacking on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1816.  Samuel settled on a plantation about 18 miles upriver of Baton Rouge.  The lots there were generally long and skinny radiating out from the river affording each landowner water access and plenty of land inland for planting.  It was a characteristic of the geography of the Mississippi river in the lower deltas that the highest ground in the area was found right up against the river.  Over centuries the river's meandering and annual flooding tendencies caused sediment to be deposited most concentrated nearest the river bank in effect creating natural levees.  This high ground is where the planters located their homes.  They would generally orient the homes facing the river as that was considered the primary public view and where most traffic occurred.  This was the case with the Sherburne plantation home.  On September 7th of 1819, the Baton Rouge paper published a harrowing story regarding Samuel and Rose's home.  I found a typewritten copy of it at the website of the Louisiana Digital Library here.  The text of the story is as follows:

Louisiana Gazette,

9-7-1819 P-2 C-1

Baton Rouge, September 4

We have been informed that a distressing circumstance occurred a few days since on the plantation of Mr. Sherburne, late American Consul in France, now a resident of the Parish of West Baton Rouge, about eighteen miles above this place.  It is reported, that whilst that gentleman and family were setting in the house, the bank suddenly gave way and the house was precipitated into the river, and it was with the greatest difficulty the family escaped from the jeopardy to which they were exposed - no lives, however, we are happy to learn, have been lost.

One of the children of that gentleman was thrown into a chasm of the ground from which he was happily rescued by means of a rope let down to him, when the cavity was immediately filled by other ground falling in;  another young man also one of the family, was taken into a boat from a piece of ground in which he stood in the middle of the water.  All the furniture is said to be lost.

There is no way to know for sure which of the boys were cast into the chasm or stranded in the river, but surely, the experience was harrowing for all of them.  Homeless in a matter of seconds.  I can imagine whatever personal treasures they brought from France were lost that day.  

The family took refuge in Baton Rouge but hardly a month later Samuel passed away.  He was 49 years old.  It is tempting to speculate that his death was the result of some lingering injury sustained in the recent catastrophe.  Newspapers, as far away as the Northeast, recorded his death occurring on October 6, 1819 near Baton Rouge but none gave cause.  The Sherburne family of Baton Rouge had lost their patriarch.  Rose, now 50 years old and mother to 8 (5 who were likely still at home), was faced with some decisions.

Rose promptly advertised the opening of Madame Sherburne's Academy for Young Ladies in Baton Rouge where students were taught the three "R's" as well as English, French, Geography and "all kinds of Needlework."   But this was not to last long as Rose passed away in 1824.  Her burial date, June 9, 1824, is registered in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Records, though no location is given for the burial.

Two of Rose's sons had predeceased her but the remaining children ultimately stayed in Louisiana, married and raised families of their own.  The following is a condensed version of what I have found to date regarding the 8 interesting children of Samuel and Rose Sherburne:

1.  Samuel Aaron Sherburne (1797-1821)  Samuel, the oldest child, was likely named "Samuel" for his father and "Aaron" for his uncle, Aaron Vail, the American Consul who married Rose's sister, Elizabeth.  As mentioned, it is evident he was born in Aaron Vail's home in Lorient.  Sadly, Samuel Aaron's life ended too soon.  An announcement of his death appears in the July 7, 1821 edition of "The Evening Post," of New York.  He died on the 4th of July, 1821 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Samuel Aaron was 24.  He doesn't appear to have married.  I believe he was likely at school or in the early stages of an occupation related to trade and commerce and died of sickness.  That's just conjecture on my part.  Baltimore was a significant port at that time and was only 40 miles or so from Washington DC where his Vail cousins were living.  The Vail's were a civic minded family.  At least one cousin worked for the State Department.  Another was serving in the US Navy while a third was just finishing up West Point.

Samuel Aaron's burial location is not known.

2.  Felix Benjamin Sherburne (1798-1857)  We have Felix's birth record.  He was born to Samuel and Rose on October 2, 1798 in Lorient, France.  He probably went to the east coast for school like his brother and cousins did before him.  I imagine that is why I can't find him in the census records with his mother and siblings.  He is listed among the baptisms enumerated in the St. Francis Catholic Church records 1817-1840 in Natchitoches, Louisiana.  He is also found in the 1850 Louisiana census record from Natchitoches Parish showing him as F. B. Sherbourne.  This is highly likely him at 52 years of age.  It was a slave schedule indicating he had (2) 40 year old slaves.  Felix was a lawyer and notary practicing in Natchitoches Parish.  One evidence of this is a case abstract from the year 1851 out of said Parish...

Felix B. Sherburne and John B. Smith, attorneys at law, seek to recover $5,000 in legal services rendered to Melite Auty, wife of Auguste Metoyer and a free woman of color. Sherburne and Smith contend that, throughout 1843 and 1844, they provided Mrs. Metoyer with legal services in an ongoing suit between her and one Baptiste Adlé. They defended her interest before both the District and Supreme Courts and won the fight on her behalf. Not only did she recover her property but she was also awarded damages for its unlawful seizure and detention. Sherburne and Smith affirm that their professional efforts in this case are well worth the sum of $5,000 charged to Mrs. Metoyer. They therefore pray for an order directing Mrs. Metoyer, assisted by her husband, to stand in judgment and pay the debt.

I found a more interesting reference for him in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly Vol. 17,  No. 1.  The passage describes a notable duel fought between General Francois Gaiennie and General Pierre A. Bossier (namesake of the Parish of Bossier). The two gentlemen lived along Cane River not far from Natchitoches.  They were bitter political rivals whose feud boiled over in September of 1839.  F. B. Sherburne is listed as a second to General Gaiennie, a Whig, who was killed in the duel with the Democrat, Bossier.  

A "Second" was chosen by each primary duelist from among his closest friends.  The second's job was to ensure that all aspects of the duel were carried out fairly.  He assured the weapons of both parties were equally prepared and serviceable.  

It is recorded this duel was fought with rifles. Gaiennie fired first and missed.  Bossier then fired instantly killing Gaiennie.  The passage further reads...  "Before leaving home Gen. Gaiennie promised his wife that if he survived, a messenger would bring her the news riding a white horse, but if he did not survive, a black horse would bear the messenger, that, watching across the level stretch of the Cane River country, she might thus know the news ere it was announced by voice."

I show a death date of 1857 for Felix but that date came from someone else and was not sourced.  I can only really say he died some time after 1850.

3.  Achilles René Sherburne (1800-1836) Achilles, the third son, is enumerated in the 1820 census in his mother's household in Baton Rouge.  That census shows Rose D Sherburne as head of house.  Samuel Sr had passed away the previous year.  Just numbers indicate the rest of those living there-- 8 people total including one slave.  Achilles' column reads "white males 16-25 years."  His two older brothers were already out of the home.

There is an 1826 marriage record for Achilles found in the Louisiana Compiled Marriage Index.  It was a Catholic wedding at St Joseph Catholic Church in Baton Rouge.  His bride was the widow, Gertrude Vahamonde Duralde.  She was ten years older than Achilles and she had six children by her first husband who passed in 1817.  We find Achilles' new family enumerated in the 1830 census living in West Baton Rouge Parish.  The census shows 4 people in his household and 30 slaves. Achilles had married into a planter family.  Newspapers of the day record him acting as Clerk of Court for the Parish District Court by 1833.

On November 6, 1835 Achilles took oath and gave bond in West Baton Rouge as curator of the estate of his cousin, the late Capt. Thomas Jefferson Vail of the Army of the United States.  Jefferson was another son of Aaron Vail and Rose's sister, Elizabeth Dubois Vail.  An 1821 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, Jefferson served for a time at New Orleans under Base Commander and future President Zachary Taylor. There he would have had the opportunity to frequently call on his aunt and cousins in nearby Baton Rouge. In 1833 he was assigned to the remote Fort Snelling, Minnesota.  Interestingly, Dr. John Emerson, a fellow officer at the Fort, was owner of the slave Dred Scott.  Scott and his wife, Harriet,  lived at the fort with Emerson. It's quite likely Jefferson was familiar with the Scotts whose later court battles would make such an impression on the political climate leading to the Civil War.  Of course Jefferson Vail would miss all that.  By late 1835, Jefferson was back in Louisiana where he died of illness.  Achilles curated his estate and died himself the following year at 36 years of age.  I believe he left no children of his own.

4.  Eugène Amédée Sherburne (1802-1860)  Eugène is my own connection to the Sherburne family.  He is a 3rd great grandfather-- a maternal great-grandfather to my father's mother, Annie Lou Sentell McBride.  She was very proud of her Sherburne family.  I'm sure she never heard the story of his house falling in the river when he was 18 years old, or I would have heard it from her years ago.  Of course he died 43 years before her birth.  It's understandable that story would get lost. Eugène is almost always referred to as E A Sherburne in documents from the period.  He is the best documented of his siblings among available Louisiana records.  I have found a string of accomplishments--  Sheriff of Iberville Parish, distinguished planter and businessman, Vice President of the State Whig Party, school board member, election commissioner, and founder in his Church.

Eugène was born in Lorient on the 19th of November, 1802.  His birth record names his parents and lists witnesses including a couple Vail cousins.  At 14 he came with his family to Louisiana.  He is listed among those residing in his mother, Rose's household in Baton Rouge in 1820.  I can't find him in the 1830 census.  He was 28 at the time.  A couple years later he married a young lady from Port Gibson, Mississippi.  I have not turned up a marriage record for their union, but later court records show the relationship.  The bride was 17 year old Margaret Newton Lindsay, a Protestant whose father had been a Parish Judge in Louisiana across the river from Walnut Hills (Vicksburg) before taking residence in Indian lands near the Choctaw Agency in what is now central Mississippi.  Margaret was born at the Agency.  

Margaret and Eugène settled on farmland in Iberville Parish.  By 1848 they had 4 boys and one girl. Eugène raised sugar cane and was in partnership with a number of large sugar producers in the area.  One of Eugène's partners was Charles Henry Dickinson Jr. who had a large plantation near Rosedale, Louisiana.  The home called Live Oaks is still there and can be seen while driving along Bayou Grosse Tete.  Charles' father, Charles Henry Dickinson Sr. was killed in a duel with Andrew Jackson but not before he lodged a ball in Jackson’s chest an inch from his heart.  Jackson carried Dickinson’s lead and the painful complications it caused for the rest of his life.  Charles Jr was 2 months old at the time of his father’s death.

The 1850 census shows the E A Sherburne family and the family of a Presbyterian Pastor living on the Iberville Parish property.  J E C Doremus, the Pastor, was likely tutoring the Sherburne Children.  The youngest Sherburne child was named Edward Doremus Sherburne at his birth in 1848, so there must have been a meaningful relationship between the two families.  JEC Doremus pastored at First Presbyterian Church at Baton Rouge among other places.

Margaret died in July of 1852 and the family relocated to a plot of prime land on the Mississippi River just south of Port Hudson in East Baton Rouge Parish.  This property was called "Fontania."  Eugène married a second time to Miss Patience Young.  They had no children.

Eugène appears to be the only Sherburne to have left the Catholic Church although it is unclear if his father was ever really Catholic.  A sister of Eugène's second wife (and coincidentally my 3rd great grandmother) wrote a history of the Plains Presbyterian Church.  That church is located at Buhler's Plains, Louisiana near Zachary.  She mentions EA Sherburne and two of his children being converted in 1855.  They were members of the Church for the rest of their lives.  One child, a daughter, married a Presbyterian missionary to China.  I wrote about their story HERE.  There is a cemetery near the Plains church where a number of Eugène's descendants and extended family are buried.

Eugène died in 1860.  His obituary states he was "a most estimable man and citizen, esteemed and respected by all."  It is believed he was originally buried at his Plantation, Fontania, next to the river.  His first wife, Margaret, died when they were still in Iberville Parish, so it is possible he buried her there and was buried there himself later on.  The Fontainia property is now mostly covered up by a Georgia Pacific Paper Mill.

The property where Eugène may have been buried looks like this today-- in the red lines...

The northeast corner contains about a quarter of the National Cemetery at Port Hudson. The east half is mostly paper mill and the west boundary is the old Mississippi River bank location.  I suspect the house would have been in the wooded area near the river on the west.  If there were burials on the site they were likely in the wooded area on the west side where the high ground and house would have been although there is a curious square of wooded area between the parking lots toward the east that may have remained wooded for a reason.

Virginia Lobdell Jennings wrote in "The Plains and the People" that she believed Eugène's grave was moved from the Port Hudson property to the Young Cemetery near the Plains Church because of encroaching erosion but there is no source for this info and I have found no marker for him at the Young Cemetery.  The official plot map and burial ledger for Young Cemetery is in the possession of Mr. John Troth of Zachary.  I met with him in October of 2022 and looked at the documents.  They confirm that Margaret and Eugène Amedee are interred unmarked next to his first wife, Patience Young Sherburne (1800-1870), inside a cast iron fence in section EC B.

5.  Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne (1804-1884) Eliza was born in Lorient on May 19th of 1804.  She was named for her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Charlotte LeMortellec.  Like those of her brothers, her early French records are dated using the French Republican calendar.  Her birthday is listed as "29 florial in the year XII."  That makes her about 12 years old when she and her family relocated to Louisiana.

Nine years later, she married another French born resident of West Baton Rouge Parish, Paul Choppin.  She had lost both parents in the intervening years, her mother-- the prior year (1824).  Paul was likely from the Burgandy region of France as described in a biographical book published in 1917,  (Vol. 3, Makers of Amercia: Biographies of Leading Men...).  He was 6 years her senior.  His Choppin family was what we would today say are quintessentially "Creole".  They were urbane, sophisticated, French speaking and had been in Louisiana at least as early as 1803 when we find an older brother married in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.  The name Choppin is pronounced the same way you hear the composer, Frédéric Chopin's name pronounced.  As  Frédéric was born in Poland in 1810 and his name only had one "p," It seems unlikely there was a recent family connection.  Subsequent generations of Paul and Eliza's family, interestingly, eventually dropped the extra "p" in the spelling of their name.

There is a US Citizenship Affidavit dated March 28 of 1815 in which a 17 year old Paul Choppin claims US citizenship at the port of New Orleans.  These affidavits were carried by US seamen in the early 1800's in an attempt to avoid being pressed into his majesty's service by the Royal Navy.  I suspect Paul anticipated some business travel between France and Louisiana and wanted to avoid the apparent risk.

One account of Paul Choppin states that he and a brother were pioneer sugar planters and are credited with the production of the first white loaf sugar in the State.  Paul was certainly a planter.  The 1830 census shows 34 slaves on his property.

The 1830, 1840 and 1850 US Census records show Paul and Eliza and family living in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.  The 1850 Census shows all three of their sons living at home.  The oldest is listed as a 21 year old physician.  Samuel Paul Choppin MD (1828-1880) is a colorful figure in the history of Louisiana.

The eldest son of Elizabeth Sherburne and Paul Choppin, Samuel made a name in the medical profession.  He studied medicine in Louisiana and did some graduate work in France and Italy.  Back home in New Orleans, he became resident Surgeon at Charity Hospital.  He taught anatomy at the New Orleans School of Medicine.  He edited the local medical journal and became well known throughout the State as President of the Board of Health.  When the civil war rolled around, he was Staff Surgeon under General P.G.T. Beauregard.  One of his obituaries claims that "his career in the army was marked by capacity of the highest order and elicited eulogiums from Lee, Beauregard and other leaders of the Confederacy..."

But what he will probably most be remembered for is an impromptu duel that occurred in front of Charity Hospital on August 28, 1859.  An altercation with a fellow physician escalated to the point of garnering newspaper headlines.  The affray involved derringers, six shooters and Bowie knives!  I found the story not only in New Orleans papers but also Vicksburg, Nashville, and Charleston. The story even surfaced in the London Observer.  An exhaustive article on the incident can be read in the New Orleans Crescent here...

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24992852/the-new-orleans-crescent/?xid=637&_ga=2.224978138.1525615779.1588595091-1409360912.1587759655

I had an email exchange with a distant cousin recently who descends from Samuel Paul Choppin's daughter, Rosa Eliza Choppin.  Rosa was Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne's grand daughter. I learned that Rosa took the family back into the diplomatic world of her great grandparents.  Rosa married Miguel Covarrubias (1860-1924).  He was the Mexican envoy or Charges d'Affaires in London off and on from May of 1907 to April 1921.  They had 3 daughters who were well known in the social circles of Washington DC of the 1920's and 30's.  One daughter married the Brazilian ambassador to the United States.  Another married the Charges d'Affaires of the Romanian Legation to the United States and another became a Baroness when she married the English Baron Henry Roland Casimir D'Erlanger.  Elizabeth and Paul Choppin's descendants bumped elbows with the muckety mucks!

Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne Choppin died on February 22, 1884 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She was 79 years old and outlived her husband and two of her three sons.  The remaining son died that same year.  She outlived all of her siblings by nearly 20 years.  She spent her last years living with the family of a niece in New Orleans.

6.  Henri Claude Sherburne (1805-1859)  Henri is one of the Sherburnes that I have already covered to some degree.  I wrote about his dramatic death in a post here.  Henry is the first of the Sherburne children not born in Lorient.  His birth record is found in Nantes, France.  Actually, the last three Sherburne children were born in Nantes.  Nantes is the French port city where Henri's father served as American Consul.  Henri was only 10 when the  family arrived in Louisiana.  At 26, he married Mary Adine Guesnon.  Mary was active in the Catholic Church at Baton Rouge.  She and Henry's two sisters are found to be committee members of the Ladies Charity Society associated with St. Joseph, the Catholic Church in Baton Rouge.  In 1842 they organized a fair to help raise funds for the repair of the Catholic cemetery there.  This led me to speculate that Rose and Samuel may be buried in one of the early Catholic cemeteries in Baton Rouge.

Henri and Mary had no natural children but adopted a young girl in 1852.  Anna, who was 7 at the time of Henry's death, lived 35 years, married twice and left 6 children.  One of Anna's children, a daughter also named Anna, lived until 1975.

Henry practiced law in Baton Rouge. He traveled the river frequently between there and New Orleans.  On February 27, 1859 he became one of 70 or so who perished in the dramatic Steamboat "Princess" explosion.  Unfortunately, he was standing too near the boilers on that tragic day.  The story was all over the papers.  One account suggests that Henry certainly must have died instantly and mercifully was spared the terrible lingering burns that others endured.

In October of 1859, Mary advertised an estate sale in which 80 acres of land in East Baton Rouge Parish acquired by Henry W Sherburne and also the Library of the deceased consisting of "valuable Law and other books" were offered for public sale.  Mary died 6 years after the Princess disaster.

7.  Charles Guillaume Sherburne (1807-1823)  Charles' birth record shows him born in 1807 at Nantes, France.  The next record I can find for him is his burial listed in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records.  He was buried on July 27th 1823. That would make him 16 years old.  He died a year before his mother.  It could be they both were buried in the old Spanish Catholic cemetery in Baton Rouge.  In 1825, the year after Rose's burial, St Joseph Catholic Church of Baton Rouge bought property to house a new cemetery.  Signage at the 1825 cemetery indicates the burials from the old Spanish cemetery (The Cemetery of Our Lady of Sorrows) including "some of Baton Rouge's first settlers" were disinterred and moved to the new property.  However, the Diocese record does not specify burial locations for Charles and his mother, Rose.  Also, there is no Diocese record for Samuel Sherburne's 1819 burial.  He may not have been a practicing Catholic and therefore not buried in the Catholic cemetery.  Samuel's baptism in New Hampshire was not in the Catholic Church.  If he was not buried in the Catholic cemetery, it is possible Rose and Charles were not buried there either.  If Samuel, Rose and Charles were buried at the Old Spanish Catholic Cemetery and their remains moved to St. Joseph in 1825, their graves may not be marked.  As of today, there is no indication they have marked graves at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery.

8.  Henrietta Rose Sherburne (1808-1865) Henrietta was the youngest of Rose and Samuel Sherburne's children.  She would have been 5 or 6 years old when they made the move to the United States. Henrietta married Claude Antoine Choppin, a brother of her sister's husband, Paul.  Claude was 18 years her senior.  They had one daughter.  The 1850 census locates this family in the heart of the city of Baton Rouge.  Claude Antoine or "Anthony" is listed with an occupation of baker.  Their neighbors include clerks, tailors, and grocers.

Claude and Henrietta's daughter, Cecelia, was born in 1838-- a Louisiana native. At 27 years old Cecelia married Maximilian Augustus Dauphin.  Dauphin was the same age as Cecelia but came to New Orleans from Strasbourg, Alsace, France when he was 16 years old.  He had completed classical studies in France and attempted to make a living through painting and sculpture but eventually ended up at the New Orleans School of  Medicine where he came under the influence and lifelong friendship of Dr. Samuel Paul Choppin, Cecelia's 1st cousin.  Maximilian practiced medicine for a while but made his fortune as the head of the Louisiana Lottery Company.

Later in life, Max had an elaborate family tomb constructed at the Cemetery in Metarie.  He arranged to have the remains of his Choppin friends and family re-interred in this tomb.  Dr. Samuel Paul Choppin's remains, and those of his wife were moved there.  When Max's wife, Cecelia, passed she was placed there as well.  Max remarried and passed away a few short years later.  The second wife and now widow, Cecile Rose LaBranche Dauphin, then became involved in a dispute with the Choppin descendants  over the inheritance.  Ultimately, the case went all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court after LaBranche filed an injunction to have the Choppin family remains removed from the Dauphin Tomb.  She lost.  The Choppin's are still in the tomb.

Henrietta Rose Sherburne and her sister Elizabeth were the only Sherburne children to see the Civil War.  Henrietta passed away only months after Appomattox.  Elizabeth lived another 20 years.  Henrietta's husband Claude Antoine died in 1853 and was one of the Choppin's re-interred in Dauphin's tomb.  Henrietta is likely in there too, but I have yet to find that record for her burial.

Mississippi's 155th

There are only 24 active Army National Guard units with campaign credits for the War of 1812.  Mississippi's 155th is one of them.  It was formed when Mississippi was only a territory-- almost 20 years before statehood.


Andrew Jackson used Hind's Mississippi dragoons as his eyes and ears during the battle of New Orleans.


Family connections to the 155th of the War of 1812...

Pvt. Michael Alexander Dickson (1798-1865) - He was a 16 year old Private in John G Richardson's Company of Dragoons, Hinds' Battalion, Mississippi Militia during the War of 1812.  He later married a first cousin, Elizabeth Hannah Parsons Palmer.  Her grandparents are 6th great grandparents (Hannah and Archibald David Palmer Sr).

Cornet Parsons Carter (1776-1839) - 6th Great Uncle -   Cornet, in Capt. Jedediah Smith's Company of Dragoons, Hinds' Battalion, Mississippi Militia.  Muster rolls show him sick in camp in the vicinity of New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans.  Parsons was born in what became Wilkinson County, Mississippi.  His father was Nehemiah Carter, a 6th great-grandfather and well known member of Mississippi's "Jersey Settlers."

Capt. Jedediah Smith - 1st cousin 6x removed - Jedediah's mother was the sister of 5th great grandfather, Tobias Brashear.  Jedediah was a Captain commanding his own Dragoon Company under Lt. Col. Thomas Hinds during the Battle of New Orleans.  Jedediah's grandfather was the first Presbyterian minister in Natchez although he died only 10 days after arriving.

Pvt. William Noland and Pvt Jeremiah Noland - 5th great Uncles -  Sons of Pierce Noland, a 5th great grandfather.  They grew up on a Spanish Land Grant at Thompson Creek on the Mississippi side of the Ellicott line (31st Parallel) not far from Fort Adams.  William and Jeremiah served alongside Michael Dickson in John G Richardson's Company of Dragoons in Hind's Battalion during the Battle of New Orleans.


Unit Insignia:

The yellow element on the left side is a cactus- representing the Unit's participation in the War with Mexico.  The Fleur De Lis represents the Battle of New Orleans.  Wiki says "Stand Fast" became the motto after Jefferson Davis used those words commanding the unit during the War with Mexico.

I married a triple cousin!

First let me say, it's not as bad as it sounds.  We don't share a grandparent or great grandparent or even great great great grandparent!

I have written before about several of my ancestors that married cousins.  I understand it's not terribly uncommon for most people to find married cousins among their ancestors-- especially those marriages of the early colonial era.  Some cultures, even today, encourage marriage among cousins.  Wiki says 10 percent of the world's married people are married to a 1st or 2nd cousin.

I'm not sure where I would draw a line, but it would definitely not include 1st or 2nd cousins.  I'm thinking I'm ok with 5th, 6th or 7th cousin marriage relationships.  I'm reminded of the "Finding Your Roots" episode where Kyra Sedgwick found out she was 9th cousins once removed with her husband Kevin Bacon.  That just doesn't sound like a problem at all.  I remember thinking there must be hundreds of thousands of couples related more closely than that who have no idea about their kinship.  9th cousin means you share an 8th great grandparent.  That's 10 generations back and around 300 years.  There's no way you could have even known any of that grandparent's great great great great grandchildren.  The connection is just way back there.  Additionally, the odds of sharing DNA with a 9th cousin is incredibly small.  Not a problem.

My wife, Karen, and I do not share DNA.  I know this because both of her parents have tested at Ancestry as I have.  I loaded all of us into GEDmatch.  No match between us.  But interestingly, I did find a match between her father and my father.  A snippet of the report at GEDmatch looks like this...

Portion of Gedmatch result

In this report, GEDmatch shows a little blue area on Chromosome 2.  It's 10.4cM long and indicates a match.  GEDmatch further estimates the number of generations to the most recent common ancestor between Karen's father and my father is 5.2 generations back.  This is very strong evidence that Karen and I are cousins but I have yet to find the connection between the two families in my tree.  I don't know what ancestor we share.  I have more work to do on Bobby Cochran's ancestors.

Karen and I are a generation removed from this match.  If the connection for our fathers is an estimated 5.2 generations back, then my connection with Karen is one generation beyond that at 6.2 generations back.  That's closer than 9th cousins!  Let's assume Karen and I share an ancestor 6 generations back.  That would make us 5th cousins.  I think it is more likely the connection is another generation or two back (7 or 8 generations back) just because I know the vast majority of the ancestors at the 5th and 6th generation and none of them match up.  So, I'm estimating that we are 6th cousins at the very closest!

I'm fairly confident I will one day know which ancestor our fathers share.  It will just take more time and effort searching the records and extending Karen's paternal branches.

Karen's maternal branches in our tree are a bit further along.  Many of them are better documented and have fallen right into place.  Her Willis line, for instance, was already thoroughly researched.  Some of her cousins have carried that line right into the Middle Ages.  Instead of searching for each piece of evidence, I only had to verify what was already out there.

Early on, I stumbled on a connection between Karen's mother's tree and my own.  Karen has a great great grandmother who was a Fountain.  Annie A. Fountain was born in Georgia in 1862 to an Augustus J. Fountain and Louisiana "Lou" Stephens.  Augustus died during the Civil War but most interesting to me is that he had a great great grandfather named Francis Fontaine Sr. from County Cork, Ireland who died in Virginia in 1749.  Francis is in my tree.  He is a son of a relatively famous Huguenot, Jacques Fontaine, my 8th great grandfather.  Consequently, he is also Karen's 8th great grandfather.  Karen and I share Francis Fountaine Sr., making us straight up 9th cousins.  Jacques wrote a memoir for his children, some of whom immigrated to America.  His descendants, it is said, are extrememly numerous and cover the globe.  My connection to Jacques comes through my mother's Kuykendall and Goza lines. My mother and Karen's mother are therefore, 6th cousins, though they do not share DNA.

But wait!  That's not all.  Karen's great great grandfather, Augustus J. Fountain, had a great grandmother named Mary Hardin from Virginia.  When I found that she passed away in North Carolina in 1796, I began to suspect she belonged to my Hardin's of the same area and time.  Well, yes.  Yes she did.  Digging a bit deeper, I found that Mary's grandfather, Marcus, was the brother of my 7th great grandfather Benjamin B. Hardin whose children would migrate through Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee making names for themselves during the American Revolution and beyond.  Karen and I share Martin Hardewyn of Rouen, France.  Martin, like Jacques Fontaine, was a French Protestant, a Huguenot.  He is my 10th great grandfather and Karen's 11th great grandfather making us cousins, yet again, at 11th cousins once removed just like Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon.

Martin died in Prince William County, Virginia in 1709 making him a very early colonist in the Americas.  There are some early histories written of the Hardin family.  They tend to vaguely describe the "Hardewyn's" moving from Rouen, France to Holland and then to New York.  There in the 1670's they joined the Dutch Church and eventually moved to Staten Island.  Most of the family is then found moving south to Virginia by way of New Jersey.

So, Karen and I are cousins three times over.  I find it interesting that both of our known common ancestors are Huguenots.  I know of only one other Huguenot besides Hardewyn and Fontaine in my tree.  He is Benois Brashear.

Brashear is on my father's side.  If Brashear turns out to be the progenitor of the common DNA my father and Karen's father share, we will have a story indeed!

Merging Branches

Every so often I will go to add a new-found parent for someone in my tree and will think, "that name sounds familiar."  So, I search and find that person is already in my tree on a wholly different and unexpected branch.  I guess that scenario is to be expected to some degree but it catches me by surprise each time.

It happened last night.  I was researching the family of Olympia Muse Melton, born about 1805. She married my third great grandfather, John McBride, after the death of his wife (my third great grandmother), Louisa Street in 1857.  My goal is to find the burial place of John and Louisa and possibly Olympia.  I assume they are buried at their Holmes County farm as that is the last place they are indicated to be living but I'd like to be sure.  After exhausting records on John and Louisa, I'm now focusing on Olympia.

I haven't found a record of Olympia's marriage to John but we know about her because she is mentioned in John's will probated in 1868 and she is found living with him in the 1860 census in Holmes County, Mississippi along with a Sidney McRaney age 11.  From this census we also learn she was born in Georgia around 1805.

I believe I found Olympia in the 1850 census in Jackson Parish, Louisiana.  She is listed as head of household, born in Georgia about 1805.  Her last name is listed as Walton but the clincher is we also find little Sidney McRanie age 2 living with her.  There is also an Elizabeth Walton in the house- age 17.  This census offers a couple plausible assumptions about Olympia.  She is the widow of a man named Walton.  Elizabeth is their daughter.  At seventeen in 1850, Elizabeth Walton's birth puts Olympia's marriage with Elizabeth's father sometime before 1833 and after 1819 when Olympia came of marrying age.

In an effort to find out more about Olympia, I searched for her first husband.  I found a marriage record for "Olympia Muse Melton" and George Walton in Dallas County, Alabama dated 30 November, 1818.  John McBride's will calls her Olympha M McBride.  Maybe the "M" is for Muse or Melton?  She would have been a little young at this 1818 wedding in Alabama, but I think it is her because this George Walton, I discovered, had a sister named Mary, who married a man named Malcom McCranie in 1837.  Mary and Malcom had two sons named Sidney and George William McCranie.  Sound familiar?  Sidney is our little buddy found in the 1850 and 1860 census living with Olympia.  His parents were both dead by 1850.  Sidney spent his youngest years on the McBride farm in Holmes County, Mississippi being raised by his Aunt Olympia.  His brother, GW became a leading newspaper man in Monroe, Louisiana.  Here is a write up regarding Sidney's death...

The Weekly Shreveport Times, 6 Feb 1890

Another reason I believe George Walton is likely Olympia's first husband falls again in the circumstantial but compelling category.  John McBride, in his will where I first found Olympia, nominates his friend "HS Boatright" as his executor.  Through land records of Holmes County, I found that this is Hickerson Stinson "Deck" Boatright, a next-door neighbor of the John McBride family on Black Creek.  In 1845, the year of George Walton's death, Deck named a son "George Walton Boatright."  This intimates a connection between John McBride's next door neighbor and a George Walton.  

Coincidentally, Deck's mother was a Stinson (hence his middle name). This is the same Stinson family that marries into the McGinty line at the 1858 marriage of Mary Catherine Stinson and Elisha King McGinty, the parents of Medora McGinty who married John Sherwood McBride, a grandson of John and Louisa McBride who started out this blog post!  Sometimes all the connections hurt my brain.

Getting back to the merging branches alluded to in the beginning of this post...  It turns out George Walton, who technically should be no relation to me at all (in that he is the first husband of my third great grandfather's second wife) is, in fact, related to me.  He and his sister Mary (Sidney's mom) had a mother named Elizabeth Cleveland born in 1744.  The Cleveland name being familiar-- I searched my tree for Elizabeth Cleveland born in 1744.  There she was; a daughter of Larkin Cleveland, the brother of my Reverend John Cleveland, the patriot I used to join the Sons of the American Revolution. She is a 1st cousin 6 times removed.  She was already in my tree, as was her husband, William Walker Walton and his son, George Walton!  All I had to do was join by marriage George Walton to Olympia Muse Melton who was also already in my tree.

You just shake your head and keep going.

George Walton is my 2nd cousin 5 times removed on my mother's side of the family.  After his death, his widow married my third great grandfather on my father's side.  Pretty near useless information, but interesting to me nonetheless.

Interesting Family Facts

For my siblings:

• Our most recent foreign-born Ancestor is third great grandfather, Eugene Amedee Sherburne (1802, L'Orient, France).  Born to a French mother and an American diplomat father (who was originally from New Hampshire).  He came to the US (Baton Rouge area) some time between 1811 and 1818. 

• Our next closest foreign born Ancestor is fourth great grandmother, Phoebe Carle (b. 1796, Ontario, Canada).  Born to loyalist parents from New York and Pennsylvania who escaped America after the Revolutionary War.  The family is first listed in the US in the St. Louis District of Missouri (New Madrid) in the 1810 Census.  They later settled in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.

• Our most recent “traditional immigrant” ancestor is fourth great grandfather, William Dickson Sr. born 1762 in County Down, Northern Ireland.  He arrived in South Carolina at age 5 (1767) with his parents, Margaret and Nicholas Dickson.

• Of 64 fourth great grandparents, 26 were born in Virginia, 12 in North Carolina, 8 in South Carolina, 2 each in Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Maryland, 1 each in Tennessee, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Illinois and Delaware.  Four are foreign born... one each from England, France, Ireland and Canada.

• The first direct ancestor born in Louisiana is 4^th great grandmother, Nancy Palmer, born 1790 in St. Francisville.  Her granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth Doles, married Nathan Wesley Sentell, a great great grandfather.

• Our McBride family first bought property in Louisiana in 1858.  2nd Great Grandfather, Rev. William McBride and his brother James Louis McBride moved from their father's home near Lexington, Mississippi after buying adjoining properties between Jonesboro and Weston, Louisiana. 

• Daniel Boone is a first cousin.  Technically, he is a first cousin 7 times removed.  His mother, Sarah Morgan Boone, was the sister of our 6th great grandfather, John Morgan (1697-1747).  Daniel Boone's grandfather and our 7th great grandfather was Edward Morgan a Welsh immigrant.  Edward's home can be visited today at Lansdale, PA.  This family line comes down to us through the Keller family.

• At least 2 grandfathers fought at the Battle of New Orleans.  Isaac Townsend was a Captain with the Louisiana Militia.  Joseph Street was a Tennessee Militia member who passed away of illness on the return trip from the battle.  He is buried near Natchez, Mississippi.

• At least 3 direct ancestors were killed by Indians.  Fifth great grandfather, Thomas Jackson, was murdered in his field outside the Quaker settlement of Wrightsboro, Georgia in August of 1770.  Eighth great grandmother, Phebe Littlefield Heard was famously killed at Ambush Rock in Maine in 1697.  And finally, William Coleman, a fifth great grandfather, was killed near Natchez in the territory of Mississippi in 1781.

• Speaking of Wrightsboro, President Jimmy Carter wrote an historic novel, The Hornet's Nest, about some of his ancestors who were part of that settlement.  Making an appearance in the novel is the founder of that southernmost Quaker settlement, Joseph Maddock (1720-1794) who is our 6th great grandfather.  As far as I can tell we are not related to President Jimmy Carter.

• 10th great grandfather Dr. James Beall (1603-1646) is buried at St. Andrews Cemetery in Fife, Scotland within a half mile of the famous golf course of the same name.  

• Beall's son, 9th great grandfather Ninian Beall (pronounced "Bell") an ardent Presbyterian, fought alongside his fellow Scots against Cromwell's forces at the Battle of Dunbar.  The Scots were defeated and Ninian consequently served 5 years servitude in Barbados, West Indies.  After his release, Beall was granted 50 acres in the colony of Maryland.  He eventually amassed about 4,000 acres encompassing much of what we know as Georgetown today.  The following is inscribed on a stone in front of St. John's Episcopal Church in Georgetown...

"Colonel Ninian Beall, born Scotland, 1625, died Maryland 1717, patentee of the Rock of Dumbarton; Member of the House of Burgesses; Commander in Chief of the Provincial Forces of Maryland. In grateful recognition of his services "upon all Incursions and Disturbances of Neighboring Indians" the Maryland Assembly of 1699 passed an "Act of Gratitude." This memorial erected by the Society of Colonial Wars in the District of Columbia, 1910.

• We have a cousin, (John Henry Sherburne Jr 1815-1849), in our tree who shot and killed the oldest son of Frances Scott Key in an 1836 duel at Bladensburg, Maryland.  Our cousin, purportedly, was not the aggressor.  

• The duelist cousin's father (another cousin) attempted twice to locate and repatriate the body of John Paul Jones who he knew to be buried somewhere in Paris.  He was unsuccessful both times, but he did write several books on Jones.  A signed copy of one was sent to James Madison and now sits in the Madison Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division in the Library of Congress.

• We are direct descendants of 4 people who came over on the Mayflower- Edward Doty, Samuel Fuller and his parents Ann and Edward Fuller.  This line comes down to us through Ann Amelia Scarborough who married 2x great grandfather Rev. William McBride.

• We have 14 relatives who fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain, a pivotal battle of the Revolutionary War, including 4 great-grandfathers.  Read about them at this blog post...  https://onelongtwoshort.blogspot.com/2019/10/

• Third great uncle, Joseph Townsend was shot dead at a Sunday School meeting in Ascension Parish, Louisiana in July of 1880.  He was one of two people killed in the desperate fight of which he was not a party.

• The only full Asian currently in our tree is Shoji Tabuchi, the famous Japanese violinist who had his own theater in Branson, Missouri.  Tabuchi's second wife, Dorothy Bailey Lingo was once married to 2nd Cousin once removed, Michael Lingo, a great grandson of Willis Claud Keller (the brother of grandfather William Harrison Keller).  Dorothy and Michael's daughter, Christina (2nd cousin twice removed) often appeared on stage with Shoji during his shows.

• John Wesley Hardin, the notorious Western outlaw, is a second cousin four times removed. His great grandfather, and our 4th great grandfather was Joseph Hardin (1734-1801) a statesman and Revolutionary War veteran.
• 
  

Panton, Leslie & Company Letter

Anne Webster recently spoke at a Mississippi Genealogical Society meeting.  She provided a list of resources for those researching Mississippi families.  Unfortunately I missed the meeting, but was made privy to the list of resources via an update email from the society.  The last item on the list caught my eye.  It was "The Papers of the Panton, Leslie & Company."

The Panton, Leslie and Company were in the business of trade with the Indians of the old Southwest in the 18th and 19th centuries.  By the old Southwest, I mean the lands of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida before most of them were States.  Based in Pensacola, they dealt with the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks and others through mediaries called "agents."

I knew that my uncle (6 times removed), Turner Brashear, had been an agent of this company in the late 1700's and early 1800's.  According to the list provided by the MGS, The Mississippi Archives and History library here in Jackson, MS has the papers on 26 microfilm rolls.  Luckily, they also have an index book.

Scrolling through the index reveals a good number of familiar names-- some relatively famous and some familiar to me only from having read up on colonial Mississippi.  Famous names included Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.  Other familiar names included John McKee.  He has numerous letters listed.  He was a contemporary of Turner Brashear and frequent business partner.

I looked up "Brashear" and found only one entry.  It's a letter written by Turner Brashear to a Mr. William Simpson who, I assume, worked for Panton, Leslie & Co. in March of 1805.  He indicates he is writing from the Big Black river in the Natchez district. At the time of this letter, Brashear was 41 years old, married 18 years to a Choctaw wife, and the father of 6 children.  A couple years later, Brashear would be opening his stand on the Natchez Trace.

The letter provides a little insight into what he was up to in his day to day life.  Here is the letter...

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The following is my transcription of the letter with Turner's spelling intact...

Big Black Natchez March 16^th 1805

Mr. William Simpson

                 Dier Sir I Send you a few Skins by the way of New Orleanes which I hope will Come Safe to hand Sixteen hundred and Eighty and them other Skins thare is two Packs for Mr. Nelson and fore hundred weight out of my Number for Mr. Ware which you will Put to his Credit and Send him a Recept for the same  you will gave Each Indian one Shirt w one flap and one Payr of boots apeace and Please to Send my Account Currint and give the Indians Some Provisions to take them home my health is better than it has ben Sence I Left you

I Remaine Deer Sir with

Esteame yoars to Serve

Turner Brashears

Double First Cousin, Solomon G. Street

In the early 1800’s the McBride family and Street family were neighbors having settled along the Elk River in south central Tennessee. Both families had migrated westward at the close of the Revolutionary War to pursue farming interests.  Each originated out of Virginia.  The McBride family took a northerly route through eastern Tennessee while the Streets had come by way of Georgia.  In 1819, third great grandfather, John McBride (1800-1855), married his young neighbor, Louisa Street (1803-1857).  Both their fathers had served in the War of 1812 as Tennessee Volunteers.  Louisa’s father, Joseph Street, died during his service in 1815 returning from the Battle of New Orleans.  She was eleven at the time.  At 16, she married John, the oldest son of James McBride (1773-1850).

A couple years later (1823), The Street and McBride families were joined again by the marriage of Louisa’s younger brother, Anderson Street (1805-1888) to John’s younger sister Keziah “Kisey” Abigail McBride (1805-1866).  As a result of that second union, John and Louisa’s children were “double cousins” to Keziah and Anderson’s children through their father and their mother-- and there were plenty of cousins.

My line comes through Rev. William McBride (1829-1895), the sixth of eleven children by John and Louisa.  Keziah and Anderson Street had 15 children.  This was the generation of the Civil War.  All of Anderson and Kisey’s seven boys served during the Civil War.  Three would not survive it.  Both families moved into Mississippi in the 1830’s.  Kisey, her husband Anderson and a number of other Street relatives are buried in the Antioch Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery in Ripley, Mississippi.  Kisey and John’s father, James McBride is likely buried there also.  He had lived near Kisey and Anderson in Tippah County the last 15 years of his life.  Unfortunately no grave marker has been found for James.

By James McBride’s death in 1850 the John McBride family had a well-established farm in Holmes County Mississippi near the town of Lexington.  It was about this time some of the next generation of McBride’s moved on into Louisiana to develop their own interests.  My great-great grandfather was one of those settling in Jackson Parish, Louisiana.  His Street family double first cousins had mainly remained in Tippah County, Mississippi. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Street cousins were plentiful in north Mississippi.  They made an impact on their community.  One cousin, Solomon Street, is a standout historically.  He and I share both sets of his grandparents.  Joseph Street & Nancy Lucinda Key and James McBride & Sarah Ann Brock were his grandparents and my 4th great grandparents making us 1st cousins 4 times removed (twice)!

The following is a somewhat lengthy account of my double first cousin (4 times removed), Solomon G. Street’s activities during the war—It’s an article by Andrew Brown as published in the Journal of Mississippi History, Volume 21, Number 3, July 1959.

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By Andrew Brown

Solomon G. Street, or Sol Street, was the son of Anderson Street, one of the pioneer settlers of Tippah County, Mississippi. The elder Street's home was about ten miles northwest of Ripley, the county seat, and about fifteen miles south of Saulsbury, Tennessee. Little is known of the early life of his son, who was a small boy when the family moved to Mississippi, beyond the facts that he was thirty years old in 1861, that he was married - his wife's name was Rhoda - and that he was making a good living as a carpenter when the Civil War broke out.

Sometime between March and May, 1861, he enlisted in the Magnolia Guards, a volunteer company that had been organized at Ripley in late 1860 or early 1861. The Magnolia Guards assembled at Ripley on April 30, marched to Saulsbury, and there took the cars for Corinth where they became Company F of the Second Mississippi Infantry.

The Second Mississippi was sent almost immediately after its organization to Lynchburg, Virginia, where on May 9 it was mustered into the provisional army of the Confederate States. On the same day Street was made third sergeant of his company and served in that capacity for more than a year. He was a giant of a man, possessed of a booming voice that carried into the farthest recesses of the regimental camp. After Sol Street had become a legend in North Mississippi, a survivor of the regiment recalled Sergeant Street's orders as he drilled his men: "Hold them heads up! Look fierce! Look mean! Look like the devil Look like me!” How well he succeeded in making the men of Company F look like the devil or Sol Street is not known, but it is a matter of record that they were good soldiers.

Street served with the Second Mississippi in the campaign of first Manassas in 1861 and at the battle of Seven Pines and in the Seven Days Battles around Richmond in 1862. While McClellan was being pushed away from the Confederate capital by Lee, however, affairs took an opposite turn in the West. On May 31, Beauregard evacuated Corinth, and within a month Federal troops were ranging far and wide throughout Northeast Mississippi, the homeland of the Second Mississippi. The news was not long in reaching Virginia; and in July a considerable number of the men in the regiment took advantage of a provision of the recently enacted conscription law, obtained substitutes, and returned to their homes. Among those who took this step was Sol Street; he obtained his discharge from the Army of Northern Virginia on July 28 and returned to Tippah County in August. There he found conditions even worse than he had feared. Not only was Union cavalry roaming throughout Northeast Mississippi almost at will, but Confederate and State authorities were bickering over responsibility for the defense of the region while neither was able to offer any effective resistance to the invaders. In the meantime property was being destroyed, slaves were being carried away and the lives of noncombatants were in imminent danger. It became evident to Street within a matter of days after his arrival that the citizens themselves must provide such protection as Northeast Mississippi received.

The first step toward an adequate home defense was taken by William C. Falkner, the first captain of Street's Company F and later colonel of the Second Mississippi. Falkner had been defeated for the colonelcy at the reorganization of April, 1862, and had returned to Ripley. There he recruited, almost entirely from Tippah County, a regiment of cavalry containing about 750 men known subsequently as the First Mississippi Partisan Rangers. The Rangers were mustered into Confederate service early in August and served creditably until the middle of November, when the Con­scription Bureau, taking advantage of some irregularities in the regiment's organization, broke it up in a vain attempt to obtain conscripts for the regular Confederate forces. Although Falkner later reorganized the regiment, the result of the Conscription Bureau's action was to leave Tippah and adjoining counties practically stripped of defenders. It was at this black time that Sol Street reentered the picture.

Nothing is known of Street's activities from August through November, 1862. He did not enlist in the First Mississippi Partisan Rangers. Possibly he was making plans to organize a military unit of his own, and biding his time until the moment came to strike. The breakup of the Rangers gave him an opportunity, and he seized it instantly. Early in December he obtained authority from Governor Pettus of Mississippi to recruit cavalry for home defense, and almost entirely by his own efforts enlisted a company called the Citizen Guards of Tippah County, of which he was chosen captain. On December 15, 1862, the Citizen Guards were mustered into the Army of Mississippi (not, it should be emphasized, the Confederate Army) as Company A, Second Mississippi (State) Cavalry. The commander of the Second Cavalry was Colonel J. F. Smith.

Smith's regiment was a paper organization that saw only desultory fighting before it disbanded upon being ordered into Confederate service on June 4, 1863. Early in January of that year, however, Captain Street's company A, Captain W. H. Wilson's Company D (which had been recruited largely by Street), and possibly another company were detached - one suspects that Street detached them on his own initiative - for "service along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad." Thus began the operations of that irregular but highly effective group of fighters known as "Sol Street's guerilla band," which for eighteen months was to be a thorn in the flesh of Federal commanders from Corinth to the outskirts of Memphis, and from Tippah County, Mississippi, to Hickman, Kentucky. To understand the nature of Street's operations, and the peculiar situation that dictated his policies, it is necessary to summarize conditions in Northeast Mississippi in the first part of 1863.

At the beginning of that year nearly all the Confederate troops in Mississippi were in the vicinity of Vicksburg. In March, however, Brigadier General James R. Chalmers was placed in command of the newly created Fifth Military District of the state, which comprised the ten northern counties. Following orders, Chalmers set up headquarters at Panola (now Batesville) near the western edge of his district. The ostensible reason for the location was to watch anticipated Union movements from Memphis toward Vicksburg; but another and probably overriding objective was the breaking up of the increasing trade between citizens of North Mississippi and the merchants of federally held Memphis. The specific aim of the Richmond authorities was to prevent cotton from reaching the Federal lines; and so strongly did they stress the cotton angle that military objectives were often subordinated or even ignored. This was certainly the case in the location of Chalmers' headquarters.

As Chalmers had only a handful of soldiers, many of whom were none-too-reliable Partisan Rangers, he was obviously unable from Panola to protect a district which extended 120 miles east and west and 60 miles north and south. For assistance in the eastern part of his district he was forced to depend on such help as he could get from Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles, commanding the First Military District from headquarters at Columbus. Showing an almost unbelievable lack of perception, Ruggles remained in that pleasant little city, far removed from the Union armies, until someone in Richmond noticed what Ruggles should have seen long before, that most Federal raids from the Memphis and Charleston Railroad followed the Saulsbury-Ripley road. Ruggles was thereupon ordered to move his headquarters to Tupelo. The incident is worth noting as one of the few occasions when the judgment of the Richmond authorities was better than that of the men in the field. But even after the move to Tupelo, the important town of Ripley was fifty miles from Ruggles' hodgepodge of state troops at Tupelo and even farther from Chalmers' little force at Panola. Neither general was able to offer much opposition to the swift Federal raids into Tippah County, with the result that such protection as the citizens had was provided by Sol Street and his band.

The term "band" is used advisedly. Officially Street was captain of one company, but usually he was reinforced by Captain Wilson's Company and other irregulars. In fact, his organization at this time was a most informal one, and he doubtless was accompanied by men who never enlisted in any state or Confederate unit. Street located his headquarters in the almost impenetrable bottom of North Tippah Creek probably near his boyhood home. From this hideout Street staged his spectacular raids with a force that on many occasions totaled no more than thirty hand­picked men. The necessity for using only men of known trustworthiness was vital, for the northern part of Tippah County was a region of divided loyalties, and the danger of betrayal was ever present. Street's intelligence system was simple and effective. News of practically every Union foray was speedily brought to him by some enlisted or un-enlisted "scout", and usually within a matter of hours the invaders found Sol Street's band hanging on their flanks, taking advantage of their knowledge of the country to do whatever damage they could.

Street's first recorded brush with the enemy was on January 5, 1863. On that day Major D. M. Emerson left Bolivar, Tennessee, with a detachment of the First Tennessee Cavalry (Union) and independent companies of "Tippah and Mississippi Rangers." His objective was Ripley. About fifteen miles south of Bolivar, Street ambushed the raiders and killed one Union soldier. Emerson later reported that some of the attackers were dressed in Federal uniforms, which indicates that Street already had adopted a favored mode of camouflage in the bush-whacking war in the west. Both sides used it. A conspicuous example is supplied by the Union Colonel B. H. Grierson's famous raid through Mississippi in the spring of 1863, when part of his force was garbed in Confederate butternut.

After his first brush with Street, Emerson decided to leave well enough alone and returned to Bolivar. Three days later, however, Colonel Edward Prince of the Seventh Illinois Cavalry led a detachment from La Grange to Ripley in search of the elusive partisan. Prince failed to locate Street, but from the Union standpoint the raid was successful in that Lieutenant Colonel Lawson B. Hovis of the First Mississippi Partisan Rangers was captured at his home in Ripley.

By the middle of February harassed Union commanders had learned that Street's band was likely to turn up anywhere between the Mobile and Ohio and Mississippi Central Railroads, and anywhere between the Ripley-Salem line and Bolivar. On February 25 it captured two privates and two sergeants of the Seventh Illinois who had straggled behind their command. By this time Federal commanders were taking a serious view of Street, whom they consistently described as "the noted guerrilla." General Hamilton managed to send a man whom he described as "one of my best spies" to Street's camp. In due time this emissary returned with a report that the heavy guns at Vicksburg were being dismantled and the place evacuated. As the report was groundless, and as Street's men could have little knowledge of what was going on at Vicksburg in any event, it is obvious that the "guerillas" recognized Hamilton's "scout" for what he was and sent him on his way rejoicing with plausible but erroneous information.

March, 1863, was a busy month for Street's band. Being short of almost every kind of equipment, they for some time had eyed hungrily the provision and supply-laden trains that puffed heavily over the tracks of the Memphis and Charleston and Mississippi Central Railroads. The Partisans knew that every mile of track and every station on the Memphis and Charleston was guarded so closely that it was out of the question for a small unit to do any serious damage on that line. However, Private Archer N. Prewitt of Street's Company A, a native Tennessean, learned that the Mississippi Central was not guarded so closely, and that a pay train was scheduled to run from Bolivar to Grand Junction on March 21. This chance to get good Yankee dollars was too good for Street to miss. On the night of March 19 he took about 80 of his own and Captain White's companies, and, after riding all night and crossing the Memphis and Charleston near Saulsbury, hid in the woods all day of the 20th. After nightfall Prewitt led the band to a deep cut on a curve about three and a half miles north of Grand Junction. The men removed the rails on the outside of the curve and hid in the bushes. Soon after sunrise of the 21st a southbound train entered the cut, and before the engineer realized what was happening the locomotive and five cars were piled up. Street's men emerged from cover, firing as they came. About twenty or twenty-five Negro soldiers were aboard. These, when they glimpsed the ragged Confederates charging toward them, stood not on the order of their going but took helter-skelter to the woods, where some of them were captured later.

Unfortunately for Street, the train wrecked in the cut was not the pay train, but a construction train carrying a considerable amount of supplies. When the pay train itself came into sight a few minutes later, its engineer saw the wreck in time to stop and back up toward Bolivar. The Federal paymaster, however, jumped when it appeared that his train would ram the wreckage, and was captured.

After taking all the material they could use, Street's men set fire to the cars and began a leisurely retreat toward Ripley with sixteen white prisoners and "sixteen free Americans of African descent." Thus did General Chalmers, in reporting the affair, pay his respects to the recently promulgated Emancipation Proclamation. Among the prisoners was the paymaster. He was mounted on a mule during the retirement, and not being accustomed to such a mode of transportation over rough roads, suffered severely before he reached the fastness in Tippah Bottom.

Street's capture of the train brought him into contact for the first time with Colonel Fielding Hurst of the First Tennessee Cavalry (Union), whom the Confederates designated "the notorious Colonel Hurst." Though a native of Bethel, Tennessee, and a slaveholder - throughout the war he was always accompanied by his two body servants Lloyd and Sam - he had turned against the Confederacy early in the war, and had become one of its most vindictive foes. Appointed colonel by Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, he recruited a body of "Troy" troops who, according to both Federal and Confederate evidence, were notorious for their freebooting proclivities. Hurst was far from unique in this respect. Many of the "independent" companies, battalions, and regiments attached to both the Union and Confederate forces held the same reputation. Street's band was no exception. In fact, one alleged act of robbery on their leader's part led to his violent death.

The acts of lawlessness with which the record of the war in North Mississippi and West Tennessee is studded were due to the fact that neither of the armies ever exercised firm control of the country, and that the fighting was nearly always on a small scale. It was true guerrilla warfare, which is a dirty, stealthy business under all conditions but especially under such conditions as prevailed in the region in 1863. From the Confederate viewpoint the situation was aggravated by stringent regulations against trading with the enemy, joined with the close proximity of enemy-held Memphis. All soldiers, regular and irregular, had orders to confiscate cotton going to Memphis and merchandise coming out of Memphis, and to "bring it to headquarters." Human nature being what it is, soldiers more often than not failed to take the offending articles to headquarters.

On the day after the affair near Grand Junction Hurst led about one hundred of his Federals from Pocahontas to Ripley, ostensibly to catch the train-wrecker. When he could not find Street, his trip turned into a horse and cotton­stealing expedition. The only military result of the raid was the killing of Colonel John H. Miller, whom Governor Pettus had sent to Tippah County to organize scattered small units in that area into regiments. Street was informed of Hurst's raid, and assumed that he would remain in Ripley that night. He therefore led his force of Partisans to the town after dark, intending to capture the Union pickets and possibly retrieve some of Hurst's booty. When Street learned that the Tennesseean had retired toward Pocahontas, however, he followed immediately, and by taking a side road through the bottom of Muddy Creek reached Jonesboro ahead of the enemy. On a steep hill about a mile south of Jonesboro part of the Mississippians ambushed and captured Hurst's rear guard of eight men, and the prisoners were taken to Ripley by a detail commanded by R. J. Thurmond. In the meantime Street with the remainder of his men took another side road, got in front of Hurst about a mile and a half south of Pocahontas, and charged the enemy recklessly. When the attack failed because of wet powder and inferior numbers, Street retired toward Ripley. Remarkably enough, not one of his men was killed in the skirmish; only one was wounded and two captured. The Federal loss, other than the eight men captured, is not known. Hurst reported to his superiors at Memphis that Street had been desperately wounded. This was not the first nor the last time that the guerrilla was erroneously reported disabled.

After the fighting near Jonesboro and Pocahontas, Colonel Hurst announced that he would not grant the rights of prisoners of war to the captured members of Street's band. This threat, Street realized, was one that had to be countered by higher authority than his own. Although he had been operating independently with little or no regard to the wishes or plans of General Chalmers, he was forced to take the matter to Panola.  Chalmers immediately wrote "Col. Hurst, U. S. A." that Street commanded a regular organization of State troops turned over to Confederate service," and that his men were therefore entitled to be treated as prisoners of war. Chalmers closed his letter with the warning that "in case of a persistent refusal to extend them such courtesies, the Genl. will retaliate upon your command, some of whom are now prisoners in our hands."

Chalmers now made the first of many efforts to bring Street's band of irregulars into formal Confederate service. The organization, as Chalmers wrote Hurst, had been turned over to Confederate service, but only on paper. On April 2 - the same day he wrote Hurst - Chalmers addressed an order to "Captain Solomon G. Street, commanding Citizen Guards of Tippah County" to assemble his company at New Albany. Instructions were also given to assemble all other independent companies in the vicinity at the same place for the purpose of organizing them into a battalion or regiment. The wording of the order shows that Street was the recognized leader of all state troops in Tippah County. The captain did not obey the order, if indeed he ever received it. Instead, he remained in state service for another four months, although on occasion he did cooperate with General Chalmers. On May 21 his band was part of about 300 Confederates who beat off a Federal attack at Salem. In that skirmish six of Street's men were captured.

Late in May the bitter enmity between the Union troops and Street's band came to a head. On May 27 Major General William Sooy Smith, commanding the Union cavalry at Memphis, charged that two of Street's men, named Kesterson and Robinson, had murdered two Union prisoners in cold blood, adding that "their excuse that the prisoners were trying to escape is so notoriously false that your own men heaped upon them the execration they so richly deserved." Smith threatened to place in irons and shoot four prisoners from Street's command if Kesterson and Robinson were not turned over to him. This time Street turned the matter over to General Ruggles, saying only that the prisoners had actually been shot while attempting to escape. Ruggles wrote Smith that he was having the matter investigated, and in the meantime was having four prisoners of Smith's placed in irons. There the matter stood for a time.

Late in July, Street took his company to Okolona. From that town, on July 29, he wrote the War Department at Richmond, stating that he "had power over" three companies and asking authority to recruit a battalion of cavalry for Confederate service. As Confederate authorities took a dim view of the enlistment of additional cavalry units, Street received no answer. A few days later his command received pay for the period December 15, 1862, to April 15, 1863. The muster roll made at the time, however, includes the names of all men who joined the company up to August 1. The total number of names on the muster roll - the only one of Company A in existence - is 113 rank and file, of whom 82 had enlisted when the company was originally mustered into state service. Of these, 38 were at that time present for service; 41 were absent without leave; four were on detached service; eight had been "claimed" (as deserters) by Confederate, units; one had died in camp and twelve had been captured. The roll shows none killed, though some of the men listed as captured are known to have died of wounds. In all probability the maker of the roll simply omitted the names of the men killed in action.

The men named on the muster roll of Company A were not all of Street's band. A list prepared by a survivor and published in 1895 contains 69 names, 17 of whom are not on the roll. His account of the fight with Hurst at Poncahontas adds another name, that of R. J. Thurmond. Granted that some of the men named were members of Captain Wilson's company, it is most likely that others on this list never enlisted, but joined Street temporarily for one or more of his skirmishes.

Street's last fight as captain of Company A took place late in August, when he attacked a Union forage train between Pocahontas and Ripley. On this occasion, with the Kesterson-Robinson affair fresh in their minds, the Federal soldiers squared accounts in a brutal manner. Two of Street's privates, John Carraway and Moses Crisp, were captured and without further ado taken to a bridge over Muddy Creek and shot. Ruggles promptly held two Federal prisoners as hostages, but as in the original case there is no record of the final disposition of the case. In all probability the accounts were simply allowed to stand as balanced.

After the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, large numbers of Federal troops based at Memphis and in West Tennessee were shifted to the vicinity of Chattanooga. An immediate result was that Confederates in West Tennessee were able to operate more freely than had been possible before, and some of them took advantage of the relaxed pressure to move into North Mississippi, where they had some hope of obtaining arms and equipment. Conditions in Mississippi also improved. In August, Major General Stephen D. Lee was placed in command of all cavalry in Mississippi, and soon brought a semblance of order into the harried Fifth Military District. He brought many state troops into Confederate service and augmented them with units from Tennessee. One of the largest of these Tennessee units, about a thousand strong, was brought to Orizaba (about seven miles south of Ripley) late in July by Colonel R. V. Richardson. Within a matter of weeks Richardson had accumulated an even larger command, and was signing himself "Col. commanding NE Miss."

Richardson, a daring and successful partisan fighter, had had his share of troubles with both sides. In March, 1863, Joe Johnston, who had no use for guerrilla fighting, charged him with "great oppressions" and recommended that his authority to recruit be withdrawn. To keep the score even, on March 15 the Union commander sent Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson after him, saying of his men, "I am assured by high Confederate authority that they act without and against orders and are simply robbers to be treated as such. The gang must be exterminated and the sooner the better." Grierson's expedition came to nothing. In fact, when he made his famous raid to Baton Rouge a few weeks later, he had to fight Richardson all the way to Central Mississippi.

In Richardson, Street found a kindred spirit. Moreover, he was given no choice but to attach himself to the regular organization. On September 1 the partisan leader resigned his Mississippi commission and transferred his men to the Confederate army. They were not incorporated into a regiment, but fought as "Street's Battalion" under Richardson's command. This battalion participated in Chalmers' attack on Collierville in October, the first offensive movement in that area on the part of the Confederates since the battle of Corinth a year before. About this time Street abandoned the hideout in Tippah bottom and shifted his base to Orizaba.

In November, Street, probably at Richardson's suggestion, took his battalion on a raid into West Tennessee. He stopped first at Whiteville, where he rested for two days before moving to Cageville (now Alamo). He then moved through Dyersburg and after crossing the Obion River killed a well-known Unionist whom he described as "the notorious Tory Jim Dixon, who lost his life by refusing to surrender." He continued north to Hickman, Kentucky, where he killed one Union soldier and captured nine men and 40 horses before moving into-Madrid Bend. There he continued his recruiting - actually conscripting - activities with some success and then started south. At Meriwether's Ferry on the Obion River his rear guard was driven in by a detachment of the Second Illinois Cavalry. Two Confederates were killed, and Street himself and 29 of his command were captured. The Union commander lost no time in reporting his trophy: "I attacked the devils at Meriwether's Ferry at noon yesterday. I whipped them and killed eleven men and also took Sol Street and 55 men, also one wagon load of arms and some horses." "Colonel" Street, however, was not one to remain long in durance. After being a prisoner for about twelve hours he made his escape and overtook his command near Whiteville, where he learned that some of his horses had escaped near Reelfoot Lake. Immediately he retraced his steps to Madrid Bend, drove off a Union force engaged in conscription duty, retrieved most of his lost horses, and then settled down to a conscription campaign of his own.

While Street was fighting Yankees and conscripting men and horses in Kentucky and West Tennessee, Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest was at Okolona creating an army with which to invade his home state of Tennessee. He had been led to believe that Richardson would bring about a thousand men to his colors; but that hope proved illusory as Richardson's men, Street among them, were scattered far and wide. The indefatigable Forrest, however, did not let the absence of Richardson's men deter him. On December 3 he crossed the state line near Saulsbury, while Chalmers and Lee made an opening for him by diversionary attacks at Moscow and Ripley. Once inside Tennessee, Forrest and his 450 men began an intensive recruiting and conscription campaign, and when they slipped back into Mississippi on the night of December 27, the command numbered more than three thousand men. Many of them were untrained, more had no arms, many were unwilling conscripts; but they were the material from which their commander forged one of the greatest cavalry organizations in the long history of war. Street's battalion, and the men and horses he had gathered in Madrid Bend, were among the troops that poured across the state line that wintry night.

On January 25, 1864, Forrest formally organized his newly created "Forrest's Cavalry Department" which included all cavalry commands in North Mississippi and West Tennessee. General Order no. 2, dated the same day, grouped his scattered units into four small brigades. Street's battalion, with Marshall's regiment, Catlin's command, and the Twelfth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Tennessee formed the First Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General R. V. Richardson. On February 4 the Fifteenth and Sixteenth regiments and Street's battalion were combined to form the Fifteenth Tennessee, commanded by Colonel F. M. Stewart. On the same day Street was appointed Major.

Until he came under the command of Forrest, Street had been a daring and, in his own sphere, a brilliantly successful leader, but he had never been a good subordinate. He changed almost instantly, and from a reckless individualist was transformed into a "good hand" even by the exacting Forrest standard. One result of the transformation was that his name dropped from the records. No longer was he Sol Street, the famous guerrilla, but now he was Major Street of the Fifteenth Tennessee. He did not participate in the Sooy Smith campaign of February, 1864, having been left in Central Mississippi; but under the command of Colonel J. J. Neely, who succeeded Richardson as brigade commander on March 9, he took part in Forrest's campaign in West Tennessee and Kentucky in March and April, the campaign was high-lighted by the capture of Fort Pillow. At the conclusion of that campaign his career came to a sudden end near the scene of some of his greatest triumphs.

On May 2 Forrest closed his headquarters at Jackson, Tennessee, sent his long trains southward to Corinth, and moved with most of his command, including Street's men, to Bolivar. There he skirmished with an expedition sent from Memphis under the command of General Samuel D. Sturgis, and bivouacked a few miles south of the town. While Street was riding into the camp, a young soldier named Robert Galloway shot him, inflicting a mortal wound. Years later Galloway related that Street's band had killed his father for the purpose of robbing him, but had been frightened away before they found his money; another version, told by members of the Street family, is that Street had burned Galloway's cotton to keep it from falling into Federal hands. But whatever the facts were, young Galloway - he was only sixteen years old - enlisted in the Confederate army and when Street was pointed out to him by a friend during the fighting at Bolivar, lost no time in taking his revenge. He escaped after the shooting, but was captured and taken before Forrest, who in a towering rage told him that a drumhead court martial would see that he was shot at sunrise. He managed, however, to escape during the night and made his way to the Union lines at Memphis. After the war he moved to Illinois.

So ended the career of Sol Street, who operated on a small scale and in a comparatively obscure theatre of war, but who was yet one of the most successful and most feared of the Confederate partisan commanders.

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by Andrew Brown as published in the Journal of Mississippi History, Volume 21, Number 3, July 1959