Genealogy - Torrents of Tragedy

J. C. Terry Estate Appraisement 1882

I recently discussed in this blog the tragedy associated with an uncle, Cecil McCown, who died of typhoid in 1892. His mother, Henrietta, based upon her letters, grieved the loss of Cecil greatly. She lived only six years after his death.

By the time Cecil died, Henrietta had lost her mother when she was eleven years old. She had also lost several siblings before she was forty, including a half-sister who was only twelve-years-old.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, because the central character for this story is her father, James Coleman Terry.

The only piece of his life that I possess is a slip of paper noting that my great-great grandfather, Monroe, was the executor of his estate in a Notice of Appraisement.

James is an interesting ancestor. He is one of my third great-grandfathers. In researching his life, I've come to believe that I may not have really liked him too much.  And, yet, I find myself struck by the number and magnitude of tragedies that he faced.

James was born in Virginia to Thomas and Lucy Terry in either Buckingham or Amherst, VA. James' father had settled there after the Revolution.  Thomas had been a guard at Albemarle where William Robinson had served as a Lieutenant. A relationship between the two of them apparently was struck. 

I suspect, though, I haven't yet proven, that Thomas was quite good at guarding and was put in William's employ after the war to help manage his security needs on his plantation. Whatever the circumstances, the relationship developed more as time passed -- because Thomas had mostly sons and William had mostly daughters.  Four of Thomas' six children would marry four of William's seven children. Thomas supplied three sons for the marriages and William provided three daughters. James was one of those sons.

Something happened after James' father-in-law, William, died. James was one of the administrators of his estate. He was in a lawsuit brought by his father, Thomas, for debt. William had died in 1825, but the settlement was still lingering in 1830. By then James had moved to Cabell, Virginia (that became West Virginia), maybe because of his disputes with his father. 

In Cabell he became involved in local politics. In 1833 he was acting as a supervisor of elections along with an election's commissioner, William Jenkins, who may have been the father of Confederate General Albert Gallatin Jenkins and owner of the Green Bottom Plantation. This possible connection is reinforced in a 1961 obituary of James' granddaughter, Rose Pocahontas "Honta" Clark, which states "During the Civil War, Mr. Terry was overseer of the Albert Gallatin Jenkins estate." Family legend says James transported slaves down the Ohio to Kentucky just before West Virginia was formed. Being cognizant of local politics he would have certainly known the inevitable was coming. He also had connections for River transportation. One of his sons, Robert, was a clerk on a steamboat and another of his sons, Logan, was an Engineer on a steamboat. Like I said, "I may not have really liked him too much."

Though he may have been overseeing the plantation at Green Bottom, his property ownership was in Lawrence County, OH.  As early as the 1840 census he was counted in Lawrence County seemingly with his first wife, Sarah, and seven children.

Between 1840 and 1843, Sarah, his first wife had disappeared.  It is most probable that she died - but no death record has been located for her.  James remarried in 1843 to Harriet Wakefield. A few years later, whether related to his duties as an auditor for the county or not, he was charged with Assault and Battery. It was apparently true -- because he plead guilty. The plea was premature, though, because the court determined the magistrate had no jurisdiction and had failed to identify when, where, or even upon whom the assault had occurred.  Since he had already plead guilty, they charged him a $15 fine.

By 1860 things seem to be going well for James.  He was running a farm, he may have been overseeing the Green Bottom Plantation, and his children were doing well for themselves. Within six years - all of this would fall apart.

First, in February of 1860 his son, William died of consumption. Then in January of 1863, his twelve-year-old daughter, Eliza died of diphtheria. In September of the same year, his son Benjamin, died from wounds at the Battle of Chickamauga. 

Benjamin was a Union soldier with the 6th Ohio. If the sale of the slaves downriver were true, then there was complication within the family. Or James lived a complex and divided life - supporting the institution of slavery because he profited from it and supporting the desire for the States to be reunited. It is also possible that he was estranged from a son, who opposed the ideals of the Confederacy -- then he lost him in that tragic war. Less than two years later, that son who was a successful steamboat engineer died of consumptions in his parents' home. He, too, had served with the 6th Ohio. Then a year later, in August of 1866, his son, Robert died.

James had sired five sons and only one remained. His wife, Harriett, though the step-mother of those sons was so distraught that she is listed as an invalid in the 1870 census. She had recovered by the 1880 census, then in 1881, James' last son, Patrick, dies on 3 July 1881 having drowned at the Memphis Wharf.

James was in his late seventies.  It was too much.  James died four months later.

When Cecil died in 1892, Henrietta wrote of grief that hollowed her out. She had learned that sorrow early, and she had watched it consume her father before it reached her. James Terry’s life was marked by choices I question and tragedies I can hardly imagine. Henrietta held the memory and carried the scars of both. In piecing their stories together, I can feel the grief -- though faintly -- more than a century later.