Sutherland Place 2023

 The other day, I posted about the 2022 hay crop on the Sutherland Place. Here are some pictures I took on June 6, 2023, when about a third of the farm's 75 acres of hay had been cut. A lot of the hay this year is thick and lush:

The old hay barn still stands, but barely:

An old tree, mostly dead except for a bit of green midway up, stands near the barn.

William Milton Sutherland's cabin continues to deteriorate. The collapsing chimney has lost bricks, the windows are fallling out, and part of the roof has blown off. Hay was cut to within a few feet from it.

The uncut patch is where the hearth in the old kitchen was.

How long before the cabin is gone? Time will tell. . . .

~

Samuel Sutherland

Cabin on Sutherland planttion. A double pen log cabin covered in weatherboarding.

In 2016, I blogged about the Philemon Sutherland plantation in Union Hall. I thought Philemon’s story of fighting in the Revolutionary War and moving from Prince Edward County to Franklin County was pretty interesting. Recently Bill Sutherland, who lives in North Carolina and is researching Sutherland genealogy, saw that post and emailed me with a story about Philemon’s great-grandson, Samuel Sutherland. 

From a bit of searching on Ancestry.com, I learned Samuel (born November 15 1845) was the oldest son of William Milton Sutherland (1821-1899) and Angeline Semones (1820-1900). William was the son of Philemon Sutherland Jr. (1789-1824) and Mary “Polly” Berger (1787-1873).

A neighbor near the Sutherland place once told my husband and me that a Civil War soldier named William Sutherland had lived in the old house. 

A old kitchen once stood to right of center of this picture.

According to Find-a-Grave, Pvt. William Milton Sutherland “served in Company C, 57th Virginia Infantry, Confederate States of America Army. From 57th Virginia Infantry by Charles W Sublett, page 85, published by H E Howard Inc, Lynchburg VA, 1985: SOUTHERLAND, WILLIAM M.: Enlist 21 Oct 1864 at Camp Lee in Company C. Captured 1 Apr 1865 at Five Forks. Transported to Point Lookout MD 5 Apr 1865. Took oath and released 10 June 1865. 5 ft. 7 1/2 in. tall, dark complexion, gray hair, gray eyes. Residence in Franklin County VA.”

So, William was captured just before the Civil War ended and was a POW for a while. But his oldest son Samuel also fought in the Civil War, and therein lies a story. 

According to Bill Sutherland, “Legend has it that he [Samuel] was wounded so badly during his last battle that he was left for dead on the battlefield. The next day while gathering the dead, someone poked Samuel to check for signs of life and to everyone’s amazement he was found to be alive with half of his face and one eye missing. Without proper medical care, someone stuffed a bandanna into his eye socket to keep everything from falling out, and he eventually recovered. I am not aware that he ever married or had children and as far as I know lived out his remaining years in that home.”

From checking the census records, I could verify that he’d never married—and each census record except the last verifies that he lived alone as an adult. 

In the 1850 census, he was a five-year-old in his father’s home. Several other Sutherlands and Semones lived nearby, including William's brother Ransome who lives the household of a Mary Sutherland who is 11 years older. Could Mary be a sister?

In the 1860 census for the North Eastern division, Samuel is listed as a 14-year-old. His father’s real estate is worth $1500. The names of people around them are different, so William's family might be living in another area. Possibly William built the large cabin to house his growing family. Two properties adjacent are unoccupied.

In 1870, William and Angeline’s family has increased, and 23-year-old Samuel is still living at home where he works as a “farm laborer.” On the same page is William’s brother Ransome and his family.

In 1880, Samuel is not on the same census page as his father, and he is listed as single and living alone. 

The 1900 census is not available, but his father, William Sutherland Sr., died in 1899. He is buried in Northfield Cemetery in Union Hall. Did William's son William M Jr. take over the old house? 

In 1910, Samuel is still single and lives alone. He owns a farm that is not mortgaged. He lives near the farm of my great-uncle and aunt, John H(enry) and Bertha Smith,. (I know that John and Bertha Smith lived for many years near what is now Dillard’s Hill Road area, not far from where Appalachian Power Company built Penn Hall. I believe that Sutherland land extended up that far north.)

Samuel’s brother William M. Sutherland Jr. is farther down the page of the 1910 census and William’s farm (which he owns free of mortgage) is near the farm of my great-grandfather, Henry Silas Smith. It seems likely that William Jr. is the one living in the double-pen weather-boarded house on the part of the Sutherland farm that I own. Perhaps his wife Annie wanted to gussy the old cabin up by having it weather-boarded and painted white.

In 1917, Samuel applies for a rerating of his original disability pension. It’s hard to read, but it seems Samuel at age 66 is no longer able to work as a farmer and has “done no work for 10 months” because of a problem with “optic nerves and internal injury due to fall.” Doctor Giles, whose house is a quarter mile from where I live, signed the application.

Samuel had applied for a pension years earlier. According to Bill, “Samuel applied for and was awarded partial veteran disability benefits around 1902 and full disability around 1912. The files are in the Virginia State Library archives and available for viewing online in their digital collection. I had a hard time reading most of the handwritten content and only some of it could be legible. One application entry that I thought was interesting was that Samuel described his service history as ‘enlisted in 1861 and serving until Jacksons death’ then ‘being paroled after the surrender at Appomattox,’ so at some point along the way he was captured and imprisoned.”

In the 1920 census, Samuel “Sutherlin” is still living alone. William Jr. is still on the same page as my Smith relatives.

But in the 1930 census, something changed. Samuel (age 84), listed as “uncle,” is residing at 304 Maple Avenue in the Rocky Mount District 0013 household of George W. Sutherland. Also at the residence is a Henry Turnbull, listed as “servant.” Was Henry perhaps a caregiver for the elderly Samuel?

In 1931, Samuel dies of myocarditis, chronic nephritis, bronchitis, and influenza while in Richmond. 

Why is he in Richmond? Perhaps he’d applied for admission to the Robert E. Lee Camp Confederate Soldiers Home there. But did he get to spend any time there? At any rate, his body was sent back to Franklin County for burial in Northfield Cemetery where his brother and other members of his family are also buried.

Rest in peace, Samuel.

~

Celia and Lewis Hancock

My great-great-great-great-grandparents—Lewis and Celia Hancock—have been just down the road all along, and I never knew it until recently. In fact, for most of my life, I didn’t even know they existed. Thanks to the Internet—and what some very, very distant cousins have posted—now I do.

Photo by James E. Brooks, 2012

Lewis John Hancock, the son of John D. Hancock and Elizabeth Maddox, was born around 1757 in Albemarle County, VA. He married Celia “Celey” Duncan on Dec. 29, 1778, in Fluvanna County. Celia, the daughter of George Duncan and Ann Hall, was born December 28, 1758 (some sources say 1754), in Albemarle County. She was the widow of Shadrack Oglesby, whom she’d married on January 29, 1774. I can only speculate what caused Shadrack’s early death. The Revolutionary War, perhaps? Anyhow, the young widow, who was mother to Nancy (b. 1775) and Elizabeth Oglesby, remarried.

On December 28, 1778, the marriage bond was signed by Lewis Hancock and Benjamin Hancock, sureties. Benjamin was Lewis’s grandfather. Consent to marriage of Lewis and Celia was signed by George Duncan, Celia’s father. Lewis and Celia were married the next day.

Some of their children—Benjamin (1782), Sophia (1784), Lucinda (1790)—were born in Fluvanna, but the several others— John Allen (1779), Field Allen (1785), my great-great-great grandmother Frances “Franky” Hancock (May 12, 1787)—were born in Franklin County. Given the dates and places of birth, did the Lewis Hancock family move back and forth, perhaps to visit  family members? Eventually, though, Lewis and Celia seem to have settled in the Union Hall area of Franklin County.

Celia’s roots go back to Scotland. Her father George Duncan (son of John Duncan—born 1700—and Mary Fleming) was born 1728 in Glasgow, Scotland, and died November 06, 1783, in Fluvanna Co, VA.

My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, sixteen-year-old George Duncan, came to America in the early 1740s with his father John, his older brother Tandy, and his younger brother John D. Since his mother didn’t accompany the family, it’s likely she had died in Scotland. Unfortunately, George’s father died in 1745, and the church wardens of St. Anne’s Parish in Albemarle County “bound out” the now seventeen-year-old “George Duncomb” to Thomas McDaniel, a carpenter. Despite his servitude, George prospered and eventually became a landowner in the Hardware River area. 

George married Ann Hall, the daughter of Richard Hall and Ann Allen, on January 26, 1750, at Dr. William Cabell’s estate, “Warminster,” and his brother John married Ann’s sister Jane. The Hall family, unlike the Duncans, had been in Virginia since the 1600s. (In his will, Richard Hall left both Ann and Jane one shilling each.) George fought in both the French & Indian War and the Revolutionary War. When he was 49, he became a captain in the Virginia Militia. George died November 6, 1783; Ann died sometime between 1804 and 1809. A web site with info about George Duncan and Ann Hall is here: http://lindberg-work.com/work/yates-duncan/duncan/hall-duncan.html

Celia died July 19, 1806 in Union Hall, which explains why she’s buried about a half-mile off Novelty Road.  Lewis, who out-lived her, is buried in the same cemetery; one source says he died on March 14, 1828 and another gives his death date as “20 OCT 1828 at Old Home Place, Union Hall, Franklin Co., Virginia.” Also buried there is their son Benjamin, who died on March 20, 1860, Benjamin’s picture is here: 

Photo taken prior to 1860.
L to R: Charles R. Hancock, Benjamin Hancock, Elizabeth Booth Hancock

Perhaps that is the “Old Home Place” behind Benjamin. Perhaps not.

Anyhow, I plan to visit the Hancock graveyard before long. It's only about a mile from me as the crow flies.

~

Bethel Church Revisited

Last Sunday, I attended the annual Holland reunion, which is always held on the grounds of Bethel Church in Union Hall, Virginia. Nearly a century ago, my grandparents—Joe and Sally Smith—traveled by horse and buggy to attend this Primitive Baptist church, which is surrounded by a very old graveyard.

 Elder John Reid Martin, my great-great-grandfather who preached there in the 1800s, is buried near the church. 

The previous time I'd visited the churchyard, his grave was blocked by boxwood. Now it's trimmed so his stone is visible.

 Here's a closer look.

And an even closer look.

Inside the church, his picture hangs behind the pulpit. He's the second one from the left.

While the church now has electricity and indoor plumbing (and Venetian blinds), the pews still look old. Did my grandparents sit in these? Chances are there were no cushions in the old days.

Near Martin's grave are many older graves, most marked by only field stones.

When I'm at Bethel Church, I usually visit the grave of Minnie McBride, who was murdered on her 17th birthday in 1908. A rosebud is carved into the top of her stone.

Some buried buried at Bethel Church had even shorter lives than Minnie. There are numerous children's graves, like the one for this little girl who "never bloomed, a rarer bud of promise."

Another little girl died a month short of her first birthday.

Some lived a long time—90 years for Mr. Matthews.

Some stones are scattered or overturned.

Some are unreadable.

But more recent ones are orderly.

Some verses of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" could apply here. Like these:

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

         Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

         The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

         The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

         No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

         Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

         Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

* * *

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

~

A Rose for Minnie

When I was a kid—maybe eight or nine—my daddy stopped at Bethel Church one day on our way from Roanoke to visit his parents in Union Hall. He wanted to show me the grave of John Reid Martin, my great-great grandfather, a former preacher at the church and the grandson of Brigadier General Joseph Martin.

After looking at Grampa Martin’s grave, we walked around the cemetery and he pointed to other graves. I didn’t really pay much attention. I remember him gesturing to a section of the cemetery where a lot of graves were marked by fieldstones and saying, “Young gal buried there. Ol’ woman kilt her with an ax.”

I guess I thought that “young gal” meant a child. I was at the age of “Hansel and Gretel” and other violent fairy tales (the Grimm versions) wherein kids did get killed, so I didn’t ask much about it. Maybe the girl did something bad. But I kept the story in the back of my mind for over 50 years. I figured I’d never find her grave. I assumed it was one of the unmarked ones.

At the Holland reunion, I told my distant cousin Alise about the little bit I remembered.

“I know who you’re talking about,” she said, “and I can show you her grave.” And she did. Minnie M. McBride, born in 1891, was the “young gal.”

The grave marker wasn ‘t just a fieldstone. It was a real tombstone, at the top of which is engraved a rose—more than a bud, but not in full bloom. After the name and dates is this inscription:

She’s gone to the world’s above
Where saints and angels meet
To realize our Savior’s love
And worship at His feet.

Turns out Alise’s grandmother was familiar with the murderer—a "deranged" old woman whose last name was Mitchell.

Minnie M. McBride, born October 3, 1891, was beautiful and had a boyfriend. The Mitchell woman, in a fit of jealousy, hit Minnie in the back of the head with an ax. Minnie had done nothing bad.

Two stories exist of what happened to the woman. One is that some men held her head under water; another is that she was sent to an insane asylum.

Minnie was murdered on October 3, 1908—her 17th birthday. She was a rose who died before she reached full bloom.


Happy Birthday, Minnie.

~

UPDATE: More about Minnie's murder here: http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/2017/02/minnie-mcbride-murder.html

Union Hall Progress: Muddy Mess

Union Hall still looks like Ground Zero. I've heard that many problems exist with the site. EPA and other government agencies have done some tests. The drainage area used to be lower in this picture; then it was filled in and moved uphill a bit.

The antique store (old general store/gas station) and Pete's shop still stand. I took these pictures yesterday before I stopped at the antique store to enjoy the warmth of the wood-burning stove.


Anyhow, looks like Southlake Towne Center, isn't going to be ready to welcome shoppers and tourists anytime soon.

Union Hall, VA—March 2007

I took this shot last Saturday from the Union Hall post office parking lot on the north side of Rt. 40. The antique store still stands, as does Pete's shop, but not for long. The new road will go through where those building are now. Union Hall still looks like Ground Zero.

The big hole was where woods were. Just above it—where the barn used to be, you can see some heavy equipment. In the distance is Turkeycock Mountain.

The house, the barn, the woods—all memories now.