Hays Travelogue

Dear Family,

Here is the last family history installment for the year. We are traveling to Jordan between Christmas and New Year, but as always, we’ll be thinking about you. I hope to talk to all of you before we go. Have a Happy Holiday!

“What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state, and more soldiers for the Union Army than any other Southern state.” – Wikipedia

 My maternal grandmother’s grandparents lived in Wildersville, Tennessee during the American Civil War, a war that altered their lives and fortunes and shaped my grandmother’s destiny. These are her grandparents and their circumstances in 1860, the year before the war began.

Hiram Britt, 1803 – 1871

Hiram Britt was a successful farmer and businessman. In 1860, he was the father of eight children and grandfather of at least ten. His real estate was valued at $3500 and his personal estate, which included 15 slaves, at $13000. He was a trustee and founding member of the Parkers Cross Roads Male and Female Academy.

Martha Adams Britt, 1832 – 1881

In 1860, Martha Adams Britt, Hiram’s second wife, was a 28 year old mother and step-mother living in Pleasant Exchange. Her mother, Sarah, lived nearby on land that was valued at $1000, the same as her personal estate, meaning that Sarah owned no slaves. Martha and Hiram’s son, Milton, my great-grandfather, was 1 year old.

Richard Olive, 1850 – 1941

In 1860, Richard Olive was 10 years old. His mother had died 5 years before, and his father, Howell, had remarried. His father’s real estate was valued at $1800 and his personal estate, which included 4 slaves, at $6500.

Jane Williams Olive, c. 1852 – 1905

Although there is no record of  Jane Williams in 1860, she was most likely living in Tennessee by then, because her younger sister was born there in 1860.

Civil War 1861 – 1865

When Tennessee voted to secede from the Union in 1861, the vote in Henderson County was pro-Union, but anti-Union sentiment was very strong. The county was split and provided forces to both sides. Many Britts, although owning slaves, are found in rosters for the Union but not the Confederacy. Adamses are also found in Union rosters, but Martha Adams’s uncle Patrick Boyd Adams recruited for the Confederacy elsewhere in the state. Olives cannot be found on either side.

At the end of 1862, the Battle of Parker’s Cross Roads was fought on and around farms belonging to, among others, Hiram Britt and his oldest son, Caldwell Britt. Caldwell’s son, William Rayburn, wrote an account of the battle in which he remembers holding lanterns for the surgeon who was operating on the wounded men lying in the hall of their home.

(The Confederate leader in this battle, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, helped organize the first Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 and would go on to become Grand Wizard of the Empire in 1867.)

Hiram’s brother, John B. Britt, a merchant from Huntingdon in neighboring Carroll County, and three of his sons joined the Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, a Union force. This unit was captured by Confederate forces in 1864 and marched to Alabama. John and his son, James, died in Mobile before they reached Andersonville Prison.

Meanwhile, Howell Olive seems to have not been involved in the war. In 1865, when land owners were assessed a Federal Land Tax, Hiram Britt held 506 acres; Sarah Adams, 200 acres; and Howell Olive, 181 ½ acres. That year, Howell Olive sold this land for $2000 in gold which he then used to buy 1144 acres from another farmer. Some bandits, having heard about the gold but not about the land deal, broke into his home, demanded the gold, shot things up, threatened to kill his baby daughter, and tortured Howell who finally convinced them that he no longer had the gold.

1870
In 1870, Hiram and Martha Britt, along with their children – Milton, Dora, Docia, and Adina – were living on their farm near Lexington, TN. Martha’s mother, Sarah Adams, was living with them. Hiram’s real estate was assessed at $2000 and his personal estate at $1000. Hiram would be dead within a year and his last child, Ida, would be born soon after his death.

Richard Olive, age 20, was working on the family farm along with his brothers Thomas and Miles. Howell Olive’s land was now worth $4100 and his personal estate $1175. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, Howell gave tracts of the land to his sons. Richard received 500 acres.

Jane Williams, about age 17, appeared for the first time in the census records. She and her family were living in a house neighboring the Olive family. A black man named Adam Pritchard was the head of the household which included Peggy Williams, a mulatto, and her six children who are also listed as mulatto. Adam Pritchard, Jane, and her sister Ann were all farm workers. They owned nothing of value.

1880
In 1880, Richard Olive was living in the same household with Jane Williams and their three children, Susey, Mary, and James. They were not married, because interracial marriage was against Tennessee law. Both Richard and Jane were illiterate. Peggy Williams lived next door. Eventually, Richard and Jane migrated to Illinois where they were able to marry. In the 1900 Illinois census, the whole family was listed as white.

Following Hiram’s death in 1871, Martha Adams Britt and her children moved to Carroll County where her son, Milton, would marry Josephine Barnhill. After Josephine died in 1891, Milton moved north to Morgan County, Illinois where his friend Richard Olive had a farm. Milton Britt and Richard’s daughter, Susan Ann Olive, were married on March 17, 1896, and Marie Suzanne Britt–our Grandma Ree–was born January 7, 1897.

For more reading:

• Henderson County, Tennessee: Lost Tranquility, 1861 – 1865
• History of Henderson County, Chapter 6: The Civil War
• The Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry West Tennessee Unionists In Andersonville Prison

Tags:   "Civil War" · "family tree" · Adams · Britt · Olive · Wildersville · Williams4 Comments