We are almost finished with the Silas Blackshear family, and today we are going to look a bit more at Amelia Virginia. I've chosen to write a post specific to her, since she is most likely the great-grandmother or 2nd great-grandmother of most of this blog's current readers. For those of you who have been following my research since the beginning, you will recall that I made random mention of her here and there when I was posting about her husband, W. C. Cheatham. I have also mentioned her specifically throughout the Blackshear posts. Today I am going to try to tie all of the bits and pieces together, and hopefully by the end we will feel like we have a little better picture of her life than we did before.
Let's start from the beginning - Amelia Virginia Blackshear was most likely born in Union County, Arkansas in about 1849. The 1850 census shows her family living in that location, it lists her birthplace as Arkansas, and it records her age as one year old. The census takers were supposed to report how old each person was as of June 1st, so if her mother understood the directions and her age was recorded correctly, she would have had to have been born between June 2 of 1848 and June 1 of 1849. If, however, her age was reported based on how old she was when her family's data was actually recorded (November 12, 1850), she could have been born between November 13 and November 12 of those two years (which mostly falls under 1849).
The 1860 census, however, shows her as being only nine years old. If they followed the census directions, that would mean that she would have had to have been born between June 2 of 1850 and June 1 of 1851. If they misunderstood and were basing her age on the date they spoke to the census taker (August 21, 1860), she could have been born between August 22, 1850 and August 21, 1851. Well. That's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I mean, how could she have been listed on the 1850 census if she hadn't even been born yet?
We have only one more census record for her, and that is the one from 1880. It was taken on the 12th of June, so we don't really have the problem of worrying whether or not they understood the instructions. Unfortunately, she is shown as being only 26 years old! I guess we have to throw that one out the window.
So. We have three different censuses, none of which corroborate each other. The 1850 census information was probably reported by Amelia Virginia's mother. The 1860 information was probably reported by her father (remember, he had told the courts that he could no longer work the land himself, so he was probably home when the census taker came around). The 1880 information could have been reported by Amelia Virginia herself or by her husband. (Not that the last one even matters, since we already tossed it out as being impossible.)
So, which of the first two records do we believe? Well, in cases like this, I tend to take the earliest one - the one most likely reported by the mother, closest to the time of birth, with less chance that there would have been any reason for the person to forget how old they were or lie about their age - as the one with the best chance of being reliable.
(And just in case any of you are like me and don't want to leave any stone unturned, you'll be happy to hear that I actually went back and looked at her older siblings' ages as they were listed on the 1850 and 1860 census records, as well as what was recorded in the probate court documents and their headstones. They were consistently accurate for Tabitha Melvina, also for Seaborn (aside from the fact that by 1880 he had decided he was born a year later), and as for Louisa, they could be, depending on what month she was born. We should expect, then, that Amelia Virginia's dates were also accurate for those two years, but since they are inconsistent and don't even have any overlap on the possible birth dates, I've drawn the conclusion that her father may have known exactly how old her older siblings were - since he had gotten it wrong and had to be corrected when going through probate a year and a half prior - but that he wasn't really sure on Amelia Virginia's age. Such a scenario could explain the discrepancy.)
So. I am going to use the 1850 census. It's just too bad the date range falls across two different years. (I really, really hate not being able to pin down the exact year!) I guess I have two choices: I can say circa 1849, which looks better but is more vague, or I can say 1848/1849. Hmmmm. I think I'm going to have to go with the second way, which leaves out the possibility of an 1850 birth year, making it technically more accurate.
Okay. So we have her birth. Her family didn't stay long in Arkansas, pretty much just long enough to get her weened and for her sister to marry, and then they were off to Texas. From the evidence I've gathered, it looks like they moved to Texas some time in 1851, which means Amelia Virginia would have still been a toddler. They probably made the move as part of a wagon train - Indian raids were still a threat and it appears that the Scarborough family made the move at about the same time, suggesting that they all went together. (I haven't tried to trace any of the other Anderson County families back to a previous residence in Arkansas, but it is possible that I would find some if I looked.) The distance from Franklin, Arkansas to Anderson County, Texas is approximately 250 miles, which would have meant a trip of between 17 and 25 days if nothing went wrong.
Amelia Virginia's family settled first on Catfish Creek in the north of Anderson County, and at some point between 1853 and 1857 they moved onto land near the Neches River on the eastern side of the county.
While living in Texas, Amelia Virginia welcomed two baby brothers into the family, the first when she was barely four years old or so, and the second when she was seven. At some time during those years she also lost her older brother James.
When she was about eight years old, her sister Samantha got married and her mother passed away. Amelia Virginia would have been cared for by her two older sisters from that point on. There is no evidence that she attended school during this time. The 1860 census shows that none of the children in the family had attended school during the prior year (there were no public schools in the county during the time they lived there), but her older siblings were literate, so they had received an education somehow or somewhere, probably from their mother, who, according to the previous census, was able to read and write. Amelia Virginia could have been taught at home by one of them, or, as is mentioned in the Scarborough vs Blackshear et al case, her father may have paid for his children to take private courses at some point. I found these advertisements for just such a thing is the local newspaper:
The Trinity Advocate
(Palestine, Anderson County, TX)
20 May 1857
This one gives the impression that the school was intended for older girls, since it was urging parents to forbid them to attend dancing parties during the school term, but if you read carefully, you'll notice that there were three different terms, each seeming to be more advanced than the one before.
(Palestine, Anderson County, TX)
20 May 1857
This school seems to have had pretty much the same curriculum. I'm wondering if maybe they were designed to educate pupils who had already had the basics of reading and writing taught to them, either at home or in a school in a different county or state. (If so, that means that any children living in Anderson County before 1881 who had illiterate parents were doomed to remain illiterate themselves.)
Shortly after her mother died, her father found himself in legal trouble. First, he was sued by his son-in-law, and then he failed to pay on a note he had signed. After receiving a judgement against him during the spring of 1859, the family had to wait in uncertainty while the case was appealed. He lost the appeal in April of 1860, and then, for some reason, the courts waited for six months before actually auctioning off the property. We do not know whether the family had to move after that, or if they were able to lease back and work their farm.
Six months after the sheriff's sale of their home, when Amelia Virginia was about eleven years old, the Civil War began. Texas had held a statewide referendum on whether or not to secede, and the men of Anderson County voted almost unanimously in favor. This is not surprising, considering the large number of slaveholders living there. I would assume that her father was one of those votes, since he had two slaves himself. Texas officially joined the Confederacy in March of 1861, and two months later Amelia Virginia's older brother enlisted in the army and left home. I'm sure we've all studied the Civil War era enough to know what a time of turmoil it must have been for her, especially considering that most of the able-bodied men of the county had gone off to the war.
Near the end of 1863, Amelia Virginia's family packed up and moved to Coryell County, Texas. We don't know why, nor do we know anything about their time there, other than that they went with, and possibly even shared a household with her older sister Samantha and her family. Within a year of the move, both Samantha and their father had died (some time during the second half of 1864). Amelia Virginia would have been around fifteen years old at the time. Her older sister married Samantha's widower shortly thereafter, so there was probably a bit of stability for her and her younger brothers, at least in the beginning.
The years between the time Amelia Virginia was fifteen and twenty-one years old are still a complete mystery. The Civil War ended in April of 1865, and a substantial migration of people both to and within Texas followed. Amelia Virginia's siblings ended up in Johnson County, but Amelia Virginia herself somehow ended up in Robertson County, Texas. When and how and why she went there, as well as who she was with, are unknown. She could have been living with a relative, she could have been attending school, she could have been a domestic servant. If we had found her on the 1870 census, we would have the answers to at least some of those questions, but unfortunately she just seem to materialize there in the marriage records in 1871.
Here's something interesting, though:
Amelia Virginia Blackshear
- Both my mother and my grandmother refer to this picture as being of Amelia Virginia Blackshear, not of Amelia Virginia Blackshear Cheatham.
- Although tintypes were still taken as a novelty item up until the 1940's, that technology was only widely used through 1866. Cabinet cards (like the portrait of W. C. Cheatham and his second wife found in this earlier post) were the primary type of photo taken after 1870.
- Amelia Virginia was wearing her hair down. Since this was taken during the Victorian Era, her hair would have most definitely been put up if she was age 18 or older. That means she was probably between 15 and 17 years old when it was taken.
- The style of her dress is consistent with fashions of the 1860's.
All of these clues lead me to believe that this photo was taken during those mystery years! (If anyone in the family has the original, send me a message and let me know if there is anything written on the back!)
When she was about twenty-one years old, Amelia Virginia married William Calvin Cheatham (age nineteen) on July 2, 1871:
(If you missed my previous post discussing the name discrepancy on this record, you can go back and read it here.) Amelia Virginia and W. C. lived in Robertson County through at least the beginning of 1876. The tax records never show W. C. as owning any land, so it's quite possible that they lived and worked on his father's property. He did own two horses, though, so I guess they were doing alright. Amelia Virginia's first three children were born during this time:
Willie (W. P.) - 29 March 1872
Laura Belle - 19 July 1873
Mary Frances - 19 Aug 1875
Some time during or after the spring of 1876, W. C. and Amelia Virginia moved to Lampasas County, Texas. This was a frontier area about 120 miles to the west. So, our poor Amelia Virginia had to take a six day trip by horse-drawn wagon with three children under the age of five. Not only that, but she was moving to a place where neither she nor her husband had any family. And not only that, but she was moving to a place that, due to the crime and violence, had a reputation for being one of the roughest places in all of Texas. The second half of the 1870's was a hard one for small farmers as well, so I'm sure life for Amelia Virginia wasn't easy.
Willie P. - 4 Nov 1876
Mary Frances - 21 Nov 1876
Laura Belle - 18 Dec 1876
I can only imagine how terrible it must have been to lose all three of her children, and for it to happen when her husband was away on an extended trip.
Amelia Virginia and W. C. lived in Lampasas for three more years, and two more children were born into the family:
Armon Deconda - 12 Sep 1877
Erences Leona - 8 Jun 1879
At the very end of 1879, W. C. and Amelia Virginia sold their land and moved on to Taylor County. I shared the deeds in a previous post (here), but I wanted to point out something particular now that I'm talking more specifically about Amelia Virginia. Take a look at this portion of the deed in which their land was sold:
Lampasas County, Texas
Deed Record, 1879
W. C. & A. V. Cheatham to Frierson
This says that W. C. Cheatham and his wife, A. V. Cheatham, both appeared before the notary, who knew them personally, and acknowledged that they signed the contract selling their land. It goes on to say,
"And the said A. V. Cheatham having been examined by me privily and apart from her husband, and having had the same fully explained to her she the said A. V. Cheatham acknowledged the same to be her act and deed and declared to me that she had willingly signed sealed and delivered the same and that she wished not to retract it."
I love the way that actually reading these records gives us a glimpse into a day in the life of our ancestors.
I noticed that all of the deeds in the book said the same thing when a married couple was selling their land. I guess it was good that they were trying to make sure that husbands weren't forcing their wives into signing those documents, although any wife who was forced into it probably would have been afraid to say so, anyway.
I didn't really pay attention way back when I first posted this deed (I don't know what I was thinking!), but it gives us enough information to know exactly where they had been living! It tells us that they had owned about 100 acres, located one and a half miles northeast of the town of Lampasas. The map below shows the town location (marked with a red star) and the original survey from which W. C and Amelia Virginia owned the eastern portion (marked in green).
Lampasas County, Texas
1876 Survey Map
(You can find the original unmarked map with the zoom feature here.) I couldn't show the whole map and still add the highlighted parts, so this is just the southeastern portion of the county (you can ignore the giant plot that says Austin County Schooland - pretty much every county I've looked at had a portion within it set aside for sale to support schools in a different county!).
The fact that they owned so much land implies that W. C. Cheatham was farming. He was also involved in politics, running for office on the Greenback ticket, and, since the Greenback party was closely tied to the founding of the Texas Farmers Alliance, and, since he would go on to later play a major role in the Taylor County Farmers Alliance, it is quite possible that he was involved in the birth of the organization. So. Amelia Virginia was married to a farmer, but a politically active farmer instead of a stereotypical one.
And now I'd like to share something new that I didn't have yet back when I was talking about W. C. Cheatham:
This image of Amelia Virginia's Bible was shared by a great granddaughter of Elmer Cheatham (Thanks, Cheryl!) It shows that the Bible was given to Amelia Virginia by her husband while they lived in Lampasas County (gosh, if I'd seen this last year, I wouldn't have had to play detective to discover that they had lived there for a time!).
It looks like the Bible has a copyright date of 1879, meaning that W. C. bought it brand new and gave it to her in the last year they lived there.
Amelia Virginia arrived in the area of Buffalo Gap in Taylor County with her husband and two young children in December of 1879, after a trip that took about a week to make. The town had only been founded two years before, and was seeing a steady influx of new residents.
Although the 1880 census tells us that W. C. was raising stock when they first moved there, by 1881 he was a partner in a real estate business. In June of that year, two days before her 2nd birthday, his and Amelia Virginia's daughter Erences passed away. Then in April of 1882, their son Calvin Malone was born.
In that same year, W. C. owned a general store in addition to the real estate partnership, but when a depression hit in 1883, he ran into financial trouble and by the following year he had at least two lawsuits against him for business debt. He was also the defendant in an unrelated lawsuit concerning the collection of taxes (the court records detailing the case are not available online so I don't know how he made out). That must have been a stressful time for Amelia Virginia.
During those first years in Taylor County, Amelia Virginia owned several lots in Buffalo Gap with her husband, four town lots in the newly created neighboring city of Abilene, as well as 160 acres of farmland. (All of them had been sold by 1885.)
Also during those years, Amelia Virginia's husband led a very busy public life. He served as the constable of Buffalo Gap, a notary public, the clerk of the district court, a member of the school board, and as a deputy sheriff and assistant tax collector for Taylor County. So, once again, we should throw out the image that we might have in our minds of Amelia Virginia being the wife of a simple farmer.
In August of 1884 Amelia Virginia gave birth to another son, Elmer Virdwell, and in 1885, her husband appears to have wrapped up the general store and real estate business and gone back to farming.
Then, on January 8, 1886, Amelia Virginia died:
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
15 Jan 1886
The fact that Amelia Virginia "died very suddenly" tells us that she didn't die of an epidemic or complications from influenza, or from pneumonia, or from any illness that would take several days (or longer) to kill a person. She also most likely did not die in childbirth, for although she might die in a matter of hours, such a death probably would not have been described as occurring very suddenly. It is possible that she died of a pregnancy related condition, such as shock resulting from bleeding due to an aneurysm of the spleen or rupture of an ectopic pregnancy. It is also possible that she died of sudden cardiac arrest, maybe even related to an inherited condition. I say inherited because Amelia Virginia was only about 37 years old when she died. Her mother died when she was around 40, her sister Frances Angelina died when she was only 26 years old and her sister Samantha died when she was barely 27. There are several hereditary conditions that can cause sudden cardiac death in young individuals. Another possibility is that she died from a pulmonary embolism, which can also run in families.
Whatever her cause of death, it was completely unexpected. She left behind a husband and three young sons, aged nine, four, and seventeen months old.
Here is a picture of a quilt that Amelia Virginia was working on when she died. (Thank you, Aunt Mary!)
And here is one of the unfinished blocks. If you enlarge the picture, you can see that her needle is still in the center of the block.
We don't know for sure where Amelia Virginia was buried but it was probably in the Buffalo Gap Cemetery, even though there is no headstone and no record of her burial.
The Texas Cemeteries website explains that, "Because of the many unmarked graves, the Cemetery Association has decided that there can be no more burials in this [older] section of the cemetery. There is too much danger of disturbing old graves."
Maybe she originally had a wooden marker that hasn't survived. Maybe she was buried next to the grave of her daughter Erences, and maybe when her son Calvin died eleven years later he was buried by her as well. I'd like to think that that's true. Here is a nice picture of the cemetery:
Buffalo Gap Cemetery
And that's pretty much all I have to share with you right now, except for one more thing - did you all know that there is an Amelia County in the state of Virginia? That means that Amelia Virginia may have been named after a place, possibly even the place where her mother's family was originally from.
Next time, we will finish up with the Silas Blackshear family, and then we'll take a look at what the records can tell us about the further- back Blackshears.
- Therese
