Hamlet. Othello. Antony & Cleopatra. W. C. & Amelia Virginia?
Back when we were talking about W. C. Cheatham, we saw how much tragedy he had to deal with in his life - he lost all three of his children while he was away from home, he lost another of his children five years later, then five years after that he lost his wife, and then two more children in the next ten years. Well, Amelia Virginia was no stranger to tragedy either. Not only did she lose three of her and W. C.'s first four children (all before any of them turned five), but before she and W. C. married, she lost one brother, two sisters, her mother, her home, and, most likely, her father as well. All of this before dying suddenly herself at the age of thirty-seven.
A few years ago I was lucky enough to come across the probate case papers for her mother. Those types of records are usually a treasure trove of information, so I was super psyched to get a bunch of my questions answered. Well, as it turns out, the papers left me with more questions than I actually started with! Today we are going to look at those together and see what they can tell us about Amelia Virginia Blackshear's family. And then, we are going to look over some other court documents that I barely managed to find in the past two weeks, which actually answer some big questions, but, unfortunately, leave us with new ones to ponder.
Before we begin with the probate documents, let's look back at the census records to remind ourselves of the members of the family and their relative ages:
Silas Blackshear Family
U. S. Census - 1850
So we have:
S. M. (Silas) - fatherRemember, we also discovered that the Frances at the bottom of this page was quite possibly Amelia Virginia's oldest sister.
Sophena - mother
Samantha - sister
Malvina - sister
Louisa - sister
Seaborn Q. - brother
James M. - brother
Amelia Virginia
And then, ten years later:
Silas Blackshear Family
U. S. Census - 1860
Now we have:
S. M. Blackshear - fatherSo, by 1860, her mother was gone, her sister Samantha was gone, her brother James was gone, and she had two new younger brothers. Usually when someone drops off the census records the first assumption is that they died. This would be the most logical assumption for the mother (even though I am discovering that divorce was waaaaaaay more common back then than one would imagine), as well as for James, who would not have been old enough to set out on his own yet. As for any girl of marriageable age, we have to consider that as being the reason why she no longer shows up with the family, and we do know that was the case with Samantha.
Melvina - sister
Louisa - sister
C burn - brother
Virginia
Simeon - brother
Harrison - brother
Before we go any further, I want to make a very important comment about Amelia Virginia's mother. As far as I have been able to discover, the 1850 census is the only surviving document - aside from the legal documents concerning her death - that still exist for her. This has got to be the reason everyone has her name down as "Sophena." But as we are about to discover, that may not have been her actual name after all:
Hmmm. Maybe her name was really "Sophiana."
Or then again, maybe not.
You would not believe how many different ways the courts spelled her name. See?
I cut these out of the court documents and pasted them together so you could see what I mean. Was her name Sophena, Sophiana, Sophama, or Sophania? (I'm pretty sure it wasn't "Sophrona"! And only the census wrote down "Sophena.") At this point, I think that your guess is as good as mine. Which is problematic when it comes to filling out a family data sheet. So let's ignore that problem for now, and move on to another instead:
When exactly did she die?
I've seen pretty much two dates used consistently for her death online. The first is 1856. I think people are putting that as their best guess because that is when her last son was born and they are assuming that she might have died in childbirth. But it is just as likely that she died of illness or in an accident, maybe even at the same time as her son James, who drops off the census records in the same year.
The second date is actually much more specific: October 25, 1858. Where is everyone getting this one from? Well, it occurs on several pages of the probate records, which is of course a bit of a problem, because nobody runs out on the very day that their wife dies and files for probate. That's just silly. So, as far as we know right now, she actually died somewhere between June 1856 and October 1858.
Now let's take a look at the first page of the records:
Well, this doesn't look like the beginning of the records. It looks like an envelope from the court, and it says "Final No. 21" at the top (the case was numbered 21). So it looks like the way these were put on microfilm is not really chronological. Hopefully we will be able to make sense of them anyhow.
The State of Texas
County of Anderson
We the undersigned children and heirs of Sophama Blackshear deceased do hereby select our Father Silas M Blackshear as guardian of our estate, and pray the Honorable the Chief Justice of Anderson County to appoint him such
Seaborn Q Blackshear
Melvina t. Blackshear
Sophama l Blackshear
There are a few things we can learn from this page alone.
Seaborn, Melvina, and Sophama were old enough to choose their guardian.
Melvina (not Malvina) had a middle name that began with a "T."
The mother's name was "Sophama," not Sophena. This seems even more likely, because the child is also named Sophama. At first I thought, well, if the clerk misunderstood or didn't know how to spell one, he would also mess up the other, but then I noticed that the signatures of the three children appear to be in three different handwritings. That means that the child, Sophama, probably wrote her own name, which should indicate that it is the correct version. Besides, as we will later see, this document was prepared and then submitted to the court, meaning it was not the clerk of the court who wrote it, but somebody else, maybe even Silas himself.
There are also a few questions that come to my mind after reading this.
Why do the probate papers begin with this? It seems like a strange way to start things - like it is picking up in the middle or something.
Why in the world was the court needed to appoint Silas Blackshear as the guardian of his own children?
Who is this child named Sophama who never shows up on the census? (This one is actually pretty easy to answer. Notice that she wrote "Sophama l" The child just younger than Melvina was Louisa - apparently she was actually named Sophama Louisa, but went by her middle name. And here is something interesting: neither she nor Melvina capitalized their middle initial, even though they would have been teenagers, and Sophama's handwriting looks like that of a child just learning cursive - I guess this is because, as the census reported, they didn't have any formal schooling!)
Ah, finally the date. This paper was filed on October 25, 1858. It actually tells us which record book it was filed in as well. Those records barely became available recently, and can only be accessed with an LDS account or at a Family History Center. We will be looking at them later on in this post.
(And that's about all we get from this, other than the fact that the county clerk was A. G. Cantley, so I can now say Blast you, A. G. Cantley, for your horrible handwriting and inability to get the poor woman's name right!)
And the next page:
Also, look who signed under Silas' name in the middle of the document: J. S. Hanks, and J. J. Davis. In case you have already forgotten, J. S. Hanks was the one who was a co-defendant with Silas in the lawsuit where he lost everything. And J. J. Davis was the one who bought up his land at auction. My first assumption when looking at this is that those two gentlemen helped to post the bond, but they should then be listed at the top, as sureties, and they aren't. This doesn't say that they were witnesses, though, so I'm not sure what their signatures actually mean. It is quite possible, though, that they were friends of Silas Blackshear, which means that my theory about J. J. Davis letting the family remain on the land after he bought it just got a little stronger.
The bottom portion is just Silas swearing an oath to uphold his duties as guardian.
And do you know what I especially like about this page? A lot of the times the county clerk just signed people's names for them on the deeds and court documents. But, all of the signatures on this page seem to be in a different handwriting, which means these might be their actual signatures. Cool.
Nothing new on the back side, so let's move on:
Once again, the back doesn't give us any new information, but I'm going to keep putting them up here just in case!
I'm not sure if the rest of these are in the proper order or not, so let's just see what happens, shall we?
Anderson County Texas
Nov the 17th 1858
We, the appraisers of the property of Heirs of Sophania Blackshear decd Silas M. Blackshear Guardian have appraised all property pointed out by said guardian
(Viz) One Boy John 35 years of Age worth $1350.00
One Boy Petes 16 years of Age worth $1450.00
One mule 5 years of Age worth $ 145.00
2945.00
R, H, Underwood
apprasers
Wm H Rogers
Gabriel Rogers
Sworn to before me Novr. 22, A. D. 1858.
AGCantley
clerk
So, she had two slaves and one mule. This is why, on the tax rolls, we saw the slaves reported under Silas Blackshear as guardian for his children, and not under his own name along with his land.
The only new thing we learn from the back is how long the probate process was taking!
Okay. This is a summons for Silas Blackshear to appear in court on January 30, 1860. That means that more than a year had lapsed between the previous paper and this one. This does say, however, that the purpose was for him to "make his 1st Annual Exhibit as Guardian of minor heirs of Sophama Blackshear." I guess it makes sense, then, that a year had passed without any court activity.
It's funny (well, not haha funny, more like strange) that this was called a citation and was delivered to Silas by the deputy sheriff. I guess if you only have a few people appearing in court each day and not much other crime, the sheriff has nothing better to do than serve summons for court.
How silly that Silas had to go back to court three months later to give his annual report. The January summons doesn't say exactly what it was for. This one says it is about the condition of the estate. Maybe the January court date just got postponed. That seems to have happened a lot back then.
There is one interesting thing about this that jumps out at me. On the left-hand side, the deputy sheriff wrote that he delivered the citation to the "deft." I'm assuming that that is an abbreviation for "defendent." Maybe? Or maybe I'm just terrible at deciphering this guy's handwriting!
And here is the annual exhibit itself:
Alright. This is quite long, and the handwriting still leaves much to be desired, so here is the transcription:
The State of Texas
Anderson County
To the Honorable Q. W. Gardner Chief Justice of Anderson County – Your exhibitant Silas M. Blackshear as theexhibits guardian of the following minor heirs of Sophama G. Blackshear to wit, Melvina, Louisa, Seaborn, Virginia, Simion, and Harrison Blackshear; would make the following showing, to wit, and charges himself with the following property, to wit,
Negro man named John valued at $ 900
Negro man Petteis $1200
One mule 90
Total Amount $2190
Your exhibitor would further state state that one Silas Scarborough mar- said Francis Angilina one of the heirs of the said Sophama, who has since died leaving minor children and there is a suit now pending in the District Court of Anderson County, Texas by the said Scarborough as natural guardian of the children of the said Angelina for a division and partition of said property - And he would further state that he is old and infirm and not capable of himself of make (???) suport for thesaid minors (??) educating said minors without retaining possession of said negroes and he ask of your honor that an order may be passed that he may have the benefit of the services of said negroes and mule to aid an assist him in taking care of said minors who are of tender age until the decission of the Cause in the District Court And he further states he is the natural guardian Father of said children
S M Blackshear
clerk
So, she had two slaves and one mule. This is why, on the tax rolls, we saw the slaves reported under Silas Blackshear as guardian for his children, and not under his own name along with his land.
The only new thing we learn from the back is how long the probate process was taking!
It's funny (well, not haha funny, more like strange) that this was called a citation and was delivered to Silas by the deputy sheriff. I guess if you only have a few people appearing in court each day and not much other crime, the sheriff has nothing better to do than serve summons for court.
There is one interesting thing about this that jumps out at me. On the left-hand side, the deputy sheriff wrote that he delivered the citation to the "deft." I'm assuming that that is an abbreviation for "defendent." Maybe? Or maybe I'm just terrible at deciphering this guy's handwriting!
And here is the annual exhibit itself:
| |
|
The State of Texas
Anderson County
To the Honorable Q. W. Gardner Chief Justice of Anderson County – Your exhibitant Silas M. Blackshear as the
Negro man named John valued at $ 900
Negro man Petteis $1200
One mule 90
Total Amount $2190
Your exhibitor would further state state that one Silas Scarborough mar- said Francis Angilina one of the heirs of the said Sophama, who has since died leaving minor children and there is a suit now pending in the District Court of Anderson County, Texas by the said Scarborough as natural guardian of the children of the said Angelina for a division and partition of said property - And he would further state that he is old and infirm and not capable of himself of make (???) suport for the
S M Blackshear
Sworn to & subscribed before in open court this april 30. 1860
A.G. Cantley
clk c. c. a. co.
There is sooooo much information here!
This is the first time that all of the children are named. We can see that Sophama Louisa is being called Louisa this time, which is further evidence that "Sophama L." and Louisa are in fact the same person. We can also see that Amelia Virginia is being called "Virginia." This one is particularly interesting to me, because her name was also listed as Virginia on the 1860 census. This tells me that the family most likely called her by her middle name, at least at that point in her life. (This is why I always refer to her as "Amelia Viriginia" in my posts. It is very likely that her husband, W. C., also called her Virginia, or Amelia Virginia, and not Amelia. All of the legal documents that I have found refer to her as "A. V." and not "Amelia" or "Amelia V.")
This also confirms that Frances Angelina, whom we saw on the 1850 census and in the marriage records of Union County, Arkansas, married to a Silas Scarborough, is indeed the eldest daughter of Silas Blackshear. In addition, it tells us that she had passed away at some time before this date (April 30, 1860). What's more, her husband was suing Silas Blackshear - he wanted the property to be divided up (presumably so that his wife's share of the inheritence could be passed to her surviving children).
We now also have a middle initial for the mother. This says her name was "Sophama G. Blackshear." I don't know if she actually had a middle name beginning with the letter G, or if this is referring to her maiden name, which, if we believe the non-sourced information floating around out there, was "Garrett."
We also find out that, as of April 1860, Silas Blackshear was "old and infirm." If he was born in 1811, that would put him at only 49 years old! I guess if you worked hard all your life and had no medical care, and happened to have arthritis or some other condition that people nowadays treat with medication, it would be possible to be considered old and infirm at that age.
Finally, this tells us that the children probably had a tutor educating them, since their father specifically mentions the need to pay for their education and there would be no public schools in Anderson County for another decade yet . Either that, or he wanted to send his oldest son Seaborn somewhere like the private Mound Prairie Institute (located several miles west of their land).
And here is the back:
Moving on to the following year....
And the actual exhibit:
This is what it says:
The State of Texas Probate Court
County of Anderson June Term A.D. 1861
To the Hon Wm Alexander chief Justice of Anderson County.
The undersigned guardian of the persons and of the estates of the minor heirs of Sophama Blackshear Decd would Respectfully submit the following as his annual exhibit of said minors estates viz.
Exhibitant charges himself with the following property to wit
Negro man named John valued at $ 900
“ “ “ Pettees “ 1200
One mule “ 90
Total Amount $2190
All of which is Respectfully Submitted.
S M Blackshear
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 24th day of June A.D 1861
A C Camp
Clk Co Cl AC
So it looks like pretty much nothing changed from the first year to the second. I did notice that for both years, Silas valued all of the property considerably less than the initial appraisal. Maybe for tax purposes? Or because of the other court case? Speaking of which, this is a whole year later and it doesn't look like the property was divided up like Silas Scarborough wanted. So I guess that means that the probate judge allowed Silas to keep them until the court case was completed like he asked, and I guess that also would mean that the court case was still dragging on or that Silas had won.
Here is the back:
You know, I can't believe I never noticed until I was writing this post that the clerk notated which book and page number each of these was recorded on! It just goes to show that the more you do research, the better you get at it - I'm sure I read this and thought there was no way to look those up anyway so I just skipped over that information and forgot about it.
And here we have the next year:
Do you notice how each year the annual exhibit is called for several months later than the year before? Do you also notice that this one says he was to make his report as "Guardian of Sophinia Blacksher minor"? That's pretty weird, because Amelia Virginia, Simeon, and Harrison would have all still been minor heirs. But do you notice how this was signed by B. F. Durham? He was the sheriff, even though this was supposed to be signed by the county clerk. Maybe he wasn't very smart or didn't really know what he was doing and he really meant "the minor heirs of Sophinia Blackshear." And do you know what else I just now noticed? He is spelling their last name wrong - he is spelling it the way it was spelled on the deed where he sold Silas' land. The deed that was written out by the exact same guy who was spelling it correctly on all of these probate documents. Unbelievable!
Here is the back:
Finally, I have something to say about the back side of a document! There are two vastly different handwritings on this one, so it was obviously filled out by two different men. The sloppier one says on the right-hand side that it was "issued Oct 6th 1862 B F Durham C C C ACo." That means that Mr. Durham was no longer the sheriff, but was the new county clerk! And under that it says "Received in office the 6 of Oct 1862 T S Parker Shff ACo." That part is in the same handwriting as the upper left that is supposedly also written by Sheriff Parker. Then, there is the lovely handwriting over on the side that appears to be actually signed by B. F. Durham. So maybe Mr. Parker is the one filling things out all wrong! Or maybe there was a deputy clerk who either had the nice handwriting or was the sloppy culprit.
Not that any of that is important. I just try to glean everything I possibly can from these old documents, because you never know when a seemingly un-relevant bit will help you make better sense of things later (you know, like the fact that Messrs. Hanks and Davis signed the bond page). Maybe, now that I have these in the proper order, and knowing that different people wrote Sophiana/Sophama's name different ways, we can try to confirm if "Sophama" is the correct version.
Moving on, here is the 1862 annual exhibit:
Probate Case Papers:
Annual Exhibit - 1862
This is the first time we see Samantha mentioned. This says her married name is Rogers, which confirms that the Samantha Blackshear - John Rogers marriage record belongs to her. (Not that I doubted it, since they were the only Blackshears in Anderson County, Texas at the time.) I find it interesting that Silas felt it necessary to reiterate who was entitled to what - this was the first time that he mentioned that he himself was entitled to inherit a portion of his wife's property. I'm guessing this had something to do with the case Silas Scarborough brought against him.Annual Exhibit - 1862
And the transcription:
The State of Texas
Anderson County
The exhibit of S. M. Blackshear as the guardian of the minor heirs of Sophama Blackshear
The following is a list of property belonging in which the minors to whom he is guardian have an interest, To wit.
Negro boy John valued at $ 900.00
Boy (Pettur) “ 1000.00
½ interest in mule 90.00
$1990.00
The negro boy John is hired for 1862. At $210.00
Boy (Pettur) at 210.00
Exhibitant states that as the Father and surviving husband he has an interest of 1/3 of said slaves during his life and an interest of ½ of said mule – That he is the guardian for Seaborn, Melvina, Louisa, Virginia, Simeon, and Harrison Blackshear That besides said minors the heirs of Angelina Scarborough are entitled to an equal interest with each one of his wards and Samantha Rogers who is entitled to equal interest with each of the heirs as the daughter of the said Sophama Blackshear.
Now, when I read this, it looks like it should be continued on another page. The sentence makes sense the way it is, and the clerk tends to forget to put periods at the end of sentences, but something about it just looks strange. Oh! I know what it is - there are no signatures by Silas and the clerk at the bottom!
So take a look at the back side of the paper:
On the right-hand side it continues from the front:
There is no other property belonging to said
Sworn to and Subscribed before me this 27th of October 1862
B.F.Durham
C.C.C.A.Co.
And the rest is just the usual stuff, stating that it was filed in October of 1862, and recorded the next month.
And that is it.
After four years in the probate court, it doesn't really seem to actually have a conclusion. Since Silas was on the tax rolls for 1863, we know that he was still alive and living there during the early spring (remember, they had to report between January and April or May). Since the next annual exhibit would have been due later in the year, maybe he was no longer around and everything was just dropped.
I had originally planned to look at the court records in this post as well, in case they had anything to add to this case file. However, I've collected a lot of pages from the court minutes and record books, and if I include those, this post will be waaaay too long. So let's review what we learned today and then wrap things up here.
Silas Blackshear
- Contrary to the information everyone has posted on Ancestry, Silas could not have died 21 August 1860 (that is just the date that the family's info was recorded on the census!) - he was still appearing in court on 27 October 1862, so we know he did not die until some time after that date.
- He reported that he was old and in poor health in 1860, so it seems reasonable to assume that when he finally dropped off of the tax rolls it was because he had died.
Sophena
- She was probably not actually named Sophena. At this point, Sophama seems to be the most likely version of her name, but it could have been Sophiana or Sophania.
- She died sometime before 5 October 1858, but probably not as early as 1856 (when her last child was born).
- Her middle initial was "G." This could have been a middle name or her maiden name.
Frances Angelina
- She died some time before 30 April 1860, leaving behind multiple children.
Samantha
- She was married to John Rogers and was still living in October of 1862 (this will become relevant in our next post).
Melvina
- She had a middle name beginning with "T."
Louisa
- This was actually her middle name. Her first name was the same as her mother's, and was probably Sophama.
Seaborn
- His name was spelled "Seaborn" and not "Seaburn," as I've seen some people recording it.
James
- James died some time after June 1850 - the last year he was recorded on the census, and, even though it was enumerated on August 21st, anyone who died after June was not supposed to be recorded. He died sometime before October 1858 - he was not listed as a minor heir, which means he had already passed away by the time this paperwork was filled out.
Amelia Virginia
- She probably was not called "Amelia." It is more likely that she was called "Virginia" or "Amelia Virginia."
Simeon & Harrison
- These records did not give us any new information about the two youngest boys. We do know, however, that their mother had died by the time Harrison was two years old, which means that he was basically raised by his older sisters.
Hopefully I didn't miss anything. Next time we'll see if the other court documents can shed more light on anything we are still unsure about, or if they make us change any of the conclusions we've drawn so far.
- Therese
Oh! And by the way, if you want to save each of these document pages as an individual jpg image, you can save them directly from this post. I will be combining them all into one pdf document and putting it up on the Blackshear documents page later on if you prefer to have it that way.
