On the Trail

I confess, I can hardly wait for tomorrow. After I drop my daughter off at a conference at Clemson U., I'll be heading over to my hometown to the Oconee County, SC court house in search of a specific court document and some land records. They have to do with a disagreement between a brother and a sister over a piece of land. The sister sued her brother and the case was appealed to the SC Supreme Court. I found the summary of the Supreme Court case recently in a search of Google Books. In it, I discovered my ggg grandmother Harriet's date of death and a little something about the quality of her life just before she died. I am hoping that the original case will give me more details.

Once I have those records in hand, I'll head over to the Office of Mesne Conveyance where the deeds are registered to locate the deed mentioned in the court proceedings. Perhaps I will find a few other deeds while I am there. This family did not generate a lot of paper, but they did own land so I hope there will be some new information hidden in the deeds.

From there I am planning to head out to the Bethel Presbyterian Church to revisit some graves, take a few more photos and get some GPS readings on the stones. Then back to Clemson to pick up my daughter and come home. It will be a nice day's work.

Bethel Presbyterian Church Cemetery

Bethel Presbyterian Church

Tombstone of Zachariah Hubbard

There is a beautiful little church that sat just out of sight of my grandparent's farm house in the Picket Post Community of Oconee County, South Carolina. The church has a long history, having been established in 1805. My Great Aunt Clara used to tell me that all of the "old timers" in the Hubbard family were buried there so one day, back in 1997, while on a trip home from Alaska, I decided to visit and see who I could find. Unfortunately, most of the church records have burnt in one or more fires through the years, and no copies are held at Montreat which is the regional archive for the Presbytery in that area. So, one must rely on the Oconee County, South Carolina Cemetery Surveys done by the Pendleton Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society and published in the early 1980s, the card catalog at the local library and the Keowee Courier. The cemetery was vandalized on more than one occasion and in the last rebuild of the church, all of the old tombstones that had been knocked over were laid flat and used to create the foundation of the new sanctuary.

I was able to locate the tombstone for Zachariah Hubbard, husband of Harriet. It was in front of a tree, just off the front corner of the church. My camera was not a good one and so it is difficult to see the names and dates in the photo. I have a copy of his obituary from the Keowee Courier which was and still is the local newspaper.  Harriet should be here too, but I was unable to find her headstone. Hers may now be part of the church foundation or perhaps is buried by the grass. I don't have an obituary for her at this time and only recently discovered her date of death about eleven years after her husband's.

Also buried in the cemetery are several of Zachariah and Harriet's grandchildren and even a couple of great-great grandchildren. The great-great grandchildren, both infants, were my grandfather's brother and sister. Both died as infants, less than six months old, one in 1906 and the other in 1909. The boy's name was Clyde. If the girl was ever named, I've never heard or seen her name. Her tombstone, which she shares with Clyde, simply reads "Inf. Dau." and "Children of A.A. & Lucy C. Hubbard."

I haven't visited in several years. My grandmother sold the farm back in 1991 and so I don't have a reason to visit that end of the county very often. Still, I need to go again to see what new treasures I might find and to pay my respects to those who've gone before.

Finally Harriet!

In the breaking down of brick walls, no one ever mentions time as a strategy. But time is the very thing that has prompted Harriet to give up at least a few of her secrets. After hitting my head many times on that brick wall, I turned my attention elsewhere for several years. Not long ago, I randomly typed her name into a search box and hit the jackpot!


Harriet N. Hubbard is my great, great grandmother. I've been able to piece together a good bit of information about her through census records and land records. Her husband, Zachariah Hubbard was about 15 years her senior. Her husband, while not rich, did have a respectable land holding. She had eight children: John, William, Alexander, Milton Reese, Myra, James, Sarah and America, all presumably with Zachariah. Her husband was a farmer and they lived most of their lives in Oconee County, South Carolina. At some point in the last years of the 1850s, the Hubbard family moved to Cass County, Georgia where Harriet and Zachariah lived until sometime before 1868 when Zachariah registered to vote back in Oconee County, South Carolina. Harriet was widowed in the summer of 1885 according to an obituary found in the Keowee Courier, the local newspaper in that area.


While that sounds like a lot to know, until recently I have not been able to find her maiden name or when she died. Time solved that problem for me. Since I last searched for her, both FamilySearch.org and Google Books have been quite busy.


Several weeks ago, I randomly typed her name into the Family Search form and up popped a death certificate for her son Milton. Her daughter in law, who was born and raised in Oconee County, South Carolina, was the informant. And on the form....Harriet's maiden name, Hunnicutt. (I still need to find this information in other places to back this up.)


Then I moved on to Google Books. I was prompted to do this by a comment I read on an old Genforum post. Here I found two publications, Reports of Cases Heard and Determined by the Supreme Court of South Carolina, Vol. LXXIV, Containing Cases of November Term, 1905 and April Term, 1906 and The Southeastern Reporter, Vol. 54. Both reviewed the same case involving a land dispute between two of Harriet's children that had been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of South Carolina. In these articles I discovered that Harriet died 7 October 1896 and that she needed care at the end of her life due to a broken leg. So, more of the pieces of the puzzle fall in to place. I can hardly wait to go look up the original case! 


There's a lot yet to do to really get to know about Harriet and her life. There are many things I would like to ask her. So, I'll continue to search for her periodically to see how she answers.