Back On the Trail

Back in October I was on the trail of a court document that might have given me some insight in to the circumstances and personality of my Hubbard family in the mid to late 1800s. My search in the local courthouse turned up the case file I was looking for, but there was no transcript of the proceedings, just the complaint, verdict and judgement. All of these items are helpful, but they don't give much of the story...just the beginning, and the end. I was so hoping to find the transcript, the part that really tells the story. 


The case was appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court so I searched the index and summary of state holdings at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Sure enough, there are some files there from the right time frame. Unfortunately, none of them are indexed so I'll have to make the drive to Columbia sometime soon and dig through the files to see if the specific file survived and if so, if it has a transcript of the testimony from the trial and the appeals. Until then, I'll be on to other areas of research.

Tombstone Tuesday: Fannie Knecht

After I left the Bethel Presbyterian Church Cemetery I visited Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church on Oconee Station Road. I found several grave sites in the cemetery adjacent to the church including this one for my great-great-great grandmother Frances C. Fricks Knecht, aka Fannie. She was the wife of Martin A. Knecht [aka A. Martin] who came to America in 1852 from Hessen, Darmstadt. He registered his intent to naturalize and renounced all ties to his home country. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Confederate Army for the duration of the war. He preceded her in death by 52 years. 

Mystery Stone

Unreadable tombstone in Bethel Presbyterian Church Cemetery, a photo by Carolina Victory Gardener on Flickr.

Here is another tombstone that has been a mystery to me. It is located just at the feet of Zachariah Hubbard's grave in the Bethel Presbyterian Church Cemetery. It is lying flat on the ground, and has sunk into the ground so that it is flush with the grass.

I wish I had some sort of software that could sharpen the letters and make them readable, but I don't. Perhaps someday I'll be able to figure out to whose name is on this stone.

Bethel Revisited

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a few hours in my hometown doing a little research. One of my goals was to go back to Bethel Presbyterian Church so that I could either show my cousin where our relatives' graves were located, or to at least be able to give better directions on how to find the graves. GPS was on my mind, though I am not sure I was successful on that front.

I found the church with no problem. The weather was overcast and hinting of rain which helped me to get a better shot of Zachariah's tombstone. You can read most of the words in this photo. Here is a copy of the new photo and another showing its orientation relative to the church building. To find the stone, walk inside the stone wall and to the end that is closest to the church building. With your back to the building, look straight out at a small holly tree. It's just a few feet away from you and Zachariah's stone is at the base of the tree. Here is a view of the church from Zachariah's grave so you can orient yourself.

 

The next set of graves that have been elusive are those of my grandfather's siblings. Clyde and his little sister both died in infancy. If you once again put the church behind you and look straight back from Zachariah's grave, just up on the rise are several grave sites that are surrounded by marble coping. Walk straight toward those graves to the Alexander family group. These will include Claudius and Mena Alexander. Walk around to the foot of those graves and you will find Clyde and his sister. Here is a view of the church from their gravestones so that you can orient yourself. You can see the holly tree where Zachariah is buried.

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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.

Treasures Found Through the South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program

Lucy Virginia Callas Hubbard

I ran across an article in the local paper announcing that the University of South Carolina was digitizing some old newspapers with the help of several other organizations under the South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program. I was particularly excited to find that the hometown newspaper was included in the project for the years 1849 to the present. Researchers can access the newspapers free of charge.

I've already spent a little time searching through the Keowee Courier files that are already online and have found the marriage announcement for my great grandparents, Algen Allison Hubbard and Lucy Virginia Callas. [I learned a new word in this article. The title is Hymeneal which, according to dictionary.com, means pertaining to marriage.] The announcement is about two thirds of the way down column 2. It would appear that they had a Christmas marriage.

I also found an obituary for Josiah M. Callas who was Lucy's father. The obituary is the top story in column 4 under the advertisements and headlines. There are several interesting tidbits of information in the article. Of course it must be taken with a grain of salt since we don't know the author of the article, but it gives me a clue as to who is wife's father was. A subject that has had much debate in the past few years. I'll have to chase that squirrel another day. 

Since my father's entire family has lived in the area served by the Keowee Courier and one or two other newspapers that are also included in the project, I predict that I'll be spending many hours searching for various ancestors in both my Hubbard lines and those of my husband's Richardson/Brown lines who lived in Oconee County, South Carolina and it's historical predecessors on this site. Perhaps you will find your South Carolina relatives in these files as well.

Beginnings

I was told one time years ago that the best way to break down brick walls was to lose your genealogy software and have to re-enter everything. Well, I haven't lost any of my files, but I think that this blog will allow me an outlet to talk through some of the brick walls, and also a way for me to share my research with others.

I've been fortunate to know four generations of my Hubbard family. It's the ones who came before, well one in particular, who piqued my interest and moved me to further research. Actually, it was my great aunt Clara's reaction to my father's teasing that really made me want to find out more about my Grandpa Bud. The journey took several years, more than fifteen, before I was able to separate the family story from what really happened. To this day, I still don't know for sure why my aunt Clara, my grandfather, and my grandmother after his death, got so very upset when the incident was mentioned. Stay tuned for the full story.

I've been walking this path ever since. Researching my South Carolina relatives has provided years of pleasure and many challenges. While I now live in South Carolina I did a great deal of research, about 12 years worth from thousands of miles away while living in Alaska and Washington. Distance taught me to be organized and creative in my research. I hope that you will find my stories enjoyable and helpful.