Tombstone Tuesday: Anderson Street

My fourth great-grandfather Anderson Street was born 5 May 1805 in Georgia, son of Joseph Street and Lucinda Key. His grandfather, Samuel Street was a Revolutionary soldier from Virginia, and died in Georgia in 1811. About this time, Anderson moved to Lincoln County,
Tennessee with his parents. Soon afterwards, his father answered the call for soldiers in the War of 1812, and died in 1815. Anderson married about 1822 in Lincoln County. to Keziah (pronounced “Kezzy”) McBride.

On 9 September 1826 Anderson sold his 200 acres in Lincoln County to his brother John Waller Street, and moved to Hardeman County, and lived there about nine years. They moved to Tippah County, Mississippi not long after the Chickasaws signed the Treaty of Pontotoc on 22 May 1834. When he arrived in North Mississippi, he cleared his newly acquired land for farming and built a log house for his family. He did blacksmith work for his neighbors. When Tippah County was lawfully created in 1836, Anderson was elected a justice of the peace from his district, with brother-in-law Daniel McBride and close friend Worley Linville standing surety for him. Both of these men are also my ancestors. He helped survey the new lands and as the patents were granted to the settlers, he carried these patents to the land office in Pontotoc to be recorded. Anderson owned 960 acres northwest of the Antioch community and also owned 160 acres west of Tiplersville.

In the 1840s Anderson and Keziah were members of the Primitive Baptist Church of Christ at Ephesus. Unfortunately, the location of this church is no longer known.

I know that he owned six slaves as of 1860 and there is only one I know by name: Sanko.

When the Civil War began, he and his seven sons volunteered for the Confederate Army, serving the duration. Three of his sons were killed, the other four wounded. I have been told that Anderson was in the 34th Mississippi, but I have never found his military record. Family stories also say he was imprisoned during the war in New York, possibly Elmira, where he was fed solely rice to the point he never wanted to see any rice again.

After the war, he returned home, signed an oath of allegiance to the Government, and resumed his farming. His wife died shortly, on 14 January 1866, and was buried in Antioch cemetery. Later, he married Abigail Surrat, but little is known of this marriage.

In later years, he lived with his children. One day when he was going out the back door, he tripped over the family cat, fell and broke his hip. He never walked again. He died 11 November 1888, at the home of his son, Calvin, in Saulsbury, Tenn, and because of bad weather and poor roads, he is buried in the Martin Cemetery there.

‘In 1814 We Took a Little Trip’: Joseph Street

Joseph Street was born probably in Henry County, Virginia in about 1775. He was the son of Samuel and Lurana Street. He moved with his parents to Oglethorpe County, Georgia where he married Nancy Lucinda Key about 1798.

In 1800, Joseph was living in Captain Stewart’s District in Oglethorpe County with his wife, Lucinda, and son, John Waller Street.

On 5 December 1809, Joseph bought 133 acres on the water of Sandy Creek from his father-in-law John Waller Key for $66.50.

The next year Joseph and his growing family moved to Lincoln County, Tennessee.

On 7 April 1814, he was granted 100 acres on the headwaters of Coldwater Creek in Lincoln County, Tennessee. The next month he bought 100 more on the west fork of the same creek.

Coldwater Creek on the Elk River.

On 10 November 1814, he was drafted into the First Tennessee Militia Regiment, serving under Captain Obadiah Waller. He was in Louisiana at the time of the battle of New Orleans in December, but seemed to be ill and in hospital, and was placed aboard the steamboat Vesuvius along with other sick and wounded to be transported to Natchez in the then Mississippi Territory. He died on board at Natchez before he could be taken off to hospital on 22 March 1815. Joseph was probably buried in an unmarked grave in Washington, Mississippi, outside Natchez.

New Orleans was probably the most needlessly fought battle in history. There was no CNN and 24 hour media coverage. There were no telephones, no Facebook or Twitter (#treatyofghent?). There weren’t even telegraphs or airplanes. They had ships. They had to wait for the peace envoys to return. So men still died and one of those was my fifth great-grandfather. So unnecessary.

“Battle of New Orleans. January 8th 1815.” From John Abbott’s Lives of the Presidents of the United States. Boston: B.B. Russell & Co., 1866.

I wonder what went through his brain, if he even had a coherent thought from the fever ravaging his body while he laid on board the Vesuvius. I wonder if he thought about leaving his eight children behind. The oldest, John Waller, was 15 and the youngest, Joseph Boston, was 3. He wasn’t that old, only about 40. Joseph had so much more living he could do but no life was left in him.

I wonder what Lucinda thought back home and when she finally realized the man she loved wasn’t coming back. She was left with those children all alone while she was only in her early thirties.

His father had died a year or so before and his estate was still being settled when Joseph died. His part of his father’s estate was handled by his brother-in-law Pierce Key.

An inventory was made in Lincoln County of Joseph’s estate on 11 December 1818 by administrators John Carithers and Lucinda Street.  The principal buyer was Lucinda Street (for reasons I fail to grasp, she had to buy her own stuff back). She purchased: one lot of odd books for two dollars; one pewter dish and six plates for three dollars; three chairs for $2.50; one flax wheel also for $2.50; one reel for $1.50; one chest and one churn for two dollars; one mattock, two axes, one hacksaw, two hoes, one iron wedge and one pair of drawing chairs for five dollars; one side saddle for a dollar; one bedstead and furniture for $11.25; one smoothing iron for fifty cents; and one shovel which she apparently got for free. She also bought four head of hogs for $8.56.

She spent a grand total of $39.81 buying her own things back. That much money in 1818 would be worth $737.22 today. Where on earth did she get that kind of money? She probably already had it, if you think about how much land they owned.But I cringe at the thought of her having to buy her own possessions back.

However, she didn’t live much longer. She died in 1821.