An Essay on the Significance of Genealogy

The following is taken from "Yesterday: The Descendants of John Hutchison and Elizabeth Frazier of Attala County, MS," written by Edward Hutchison. The book is both a genealogy and a social history of the county from 1830 to the present.



Very early in my searches among the tombstones of Attala County I came across the following inscription:

Remember friends as you pass by,
as you are now, so once was I,
As I am now, so you must be,
so prepare for death and follow me.

This simple verse expresses a fundamental truth about this world and our brief passage through it. There comes a day--and it is a sad day--in the life of each of us when the illusions of youth give way to the harsh reality that death is both final and universal. It is a tacit function of religion to soften this reality with the assurance of another, better life, where we shall know no sorrow. But even those of us who live, as I do, trusting in the promises of Jesus, know that death means a parting from those we love, and a disengagement from the concerns of this world.

It has always seemed to me that this final separation is made the sadder if death must mean that eventually we are forgotten--our deeds unknown, our contributions unnoticed, our sacrifices unappreciated, and our very names unrecorded. Yet, it is incontrovertible that death begins the process of being forgotten, and, for all but a few of the most famous among us, this process is largely complete when our grandchildren die. What a shame then that the passions that have excited us, the sorrows that have tempered us, and the joy we have found in life, must be forgotten, even as we are.

And yet what claim might we make upon the attention of future generations if we have ignored the claims upon us? By what right do we ignore our ancestors and yet hope that our descendants might take some note of us? It seems to me a simple matter of equity that those who would wish to be remembered ought to take some care to preserve the memories of those who have gone before. It is in this spirit that this book is humbly offered.

I have been granted a rare privilege through the preparation of this history, for I have come to know, sometimes in a very personal and intimate way, people who died before I was born and others whom I never met. Many times they have led remarkable lives, filled with the flavor of their times. I trust that through this book you may come not only to some greater understanding of them and of our own specific heritage, but also to some appreciation of the universality of the human condition. What follows is often a narrative of hardship and deprivation, but it is also the tale of perseverance and of triumph. If it is the story of death and tribulation, it is also the story of birth and renewal. Above all else, it is hoped that the chronicling of these stories will serve as a reminder that we are all embarked upon a great adventure, full of wonder, where the lovliness of life is no lie.

FAMILY NAMES RECORDED

"Yesterday," is a 288 page, hardcover, fully indexed book that mentions over 2000 separate individuals, and over 700 different families. The following is a listing of family names that occur five or more times:

Aldy
Allen
Barefoot
Barger
Barnes
Barton
Benz
Branch
Britt
Browning
Burnley
Craddock
Crook
Dalton
Dickerson
Dowell
Edwards
Ellington
Evans
Farrell
Fisher
Flowers
Foster
Frazier
Frazure
Gober
Goss
Gunter
Hammett
Hansard
Harman
Harmon
Harris
Hattaway
Horne
Hutchison
Ivy
Jackson
Jenkins
Jennings
Johnson
Jones
Kennedy
Landrum
Lassiter
Leopard
Leslie
Lewis
Lockhart
Mabry
Mallory
Massey
May
McAtee
McCrory
McCulloch
McDaniel
McGowen
McGwire
McMillan
McMullin
Medders
Meek
Murphree
Parker
Payne
Pettit
Powell
Richardson
Roberts
Robinson
Rutherford
Sanders
Sandidge
Sandridge
Shelley
Shelly
Simpson
Skeen
Smith
Stonestreet
Taylor
Terry
Thompson
Turner
Utz
Walker
Whitt
Williamson
Wilson

OTHER ATTALA ANCESTORS

Like you, I have 16 great-great-grandparents. This book focuses upon two of them, John Hutchison and Elizabeth Frazier. The other seven couples, of course, have made the same biological and genetic contribution to me as this couple. Still, the patrilineal descent pattern common in our culture, a fascination with our own name, and perhaps other factors, lead most researchers to attend primarily to their father's ancestors when beginning a study of their forebears. To compensate a bit for this tendency, I would like to briefly state, for the record, a little of what is known about my other seven sets of great-great-grandparents.

ZACHARIAH MASSEY and NANCY WISHARD MC COOL were married August 16, 1832. Both were born in South Carolina and their marriage probably occurred there. Zack was born February 8, 1807. Nancy was the daughter of James A. McCool and was born January 5, 1812. Her great-grandfather was Adam McCool, Sr. a ferry-operator in South Carolina. I suspect, but can not prove, that the Mc Cools were Quakers. The Massey family is probably of Norman descent.

Zack and Nancy were early settlers of Attala County. They had three sons and two of them died in the Confederate cause. Of their four daughters, three lived to adulthood, and two, Nancy and Juliett, married into the Hutchison family. Nancy died May 22, 1871. About 1873, Zack married Miss Helen Hemingway, an Englishwoman. She is buried in an abandoned cemetery in Kirkwood--a deserted hamlet in Madison County. She presumably had some connection to Governor McWillie, who owned a large plantation at Kirkwood and is buried in the same small plot. Zack died July 25, 1875. He and Nancy are buried in Salem Cemetery in Newport.


EDWARD SHIPMAN JOHNSON and TABITHA BRISTER were probably married in Holmes County in the 1830's. He was born in the Forked Deer Creek region of western Tennessee on June 14, 1814. His mother is thought to have been Jane Shipman of South Carolina. Tabitha was born December 1, 1813 in South Carolina. She was the daughter of Hockaday and Annie Hodges Brister who were very early settlers in Holmes County. Hockaday was at least one-quarter Cherokee.

Edward and Tabitha had a large family which included a son named John Hockaday who was born in the Holmes County community of Bowling Green on August 10, 1851. On January 9, 1874 John married Frances McLellan. Frances died January 28, 1911 and John died November 26, 1918.


JOHN MC LELLAN and MARTHA MEHATABEL COOK were also among the earliest settlers of Holmes County. John was born May 8, 1820 and was the son of William McLellan. Martha was the daughter of Jackson Cook and was born April 23, 1821 in Alabama. Martha and John were the parents of Frances who, as noted above, wed John Johnson. An excellent history of the McLellan family, written by Elna Heffner, of Lexington, is now out-of-print but is available in some libraries.


CHARLES CLIFTON and WINNIE KENNIE were married in Green County, Georgia. He was born in Delaware about 1822 and she was born about 1830 in Georgia. They joined several other families from Green County who went in a wagon train to the Liberty Chapel area of Attala County in the early 1850's. They had several children, including Reuben Alexander who was born in Green County on November 11, 1852. Alex married Margaret Bell on September 4, 1875. He died on September 6, 1890, a victim of the measles. Margaret raised their large family in Ethel. One of their sons was my grandfather, Emmette Ross Clifton, Sr. who was born February 8, 1884. He wed Ida Virginia White in Ethel on July 23, 1910. She died April 23, 1949, and he died on February 17, 1953.


CHARLES BELL and EASTER GORDON were both natives of Ulster Province of Ireland but were married in Charlestown, South Carolina. He was born on February 28, 1816. She, too, was born in Ulster, about 1822. They migrated to America about the time of the potato famine and lived in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, before settling in Ethel. Charles was a brick-mason and died in Ethel on September 11, 1891. One daughter, Margaret, was born in Pittsburg on December 31, 1852. As mentioned, she married Alex Clifton, and lived as his widow in Ethel for many years until her death on July 22, 1933.


WRIGHT R. WHITE and VIRGINIA CLEMENTINE AYRES were married in Mississippi about 1860. He was born near Atlanta on October 4, 1836. She was born January 12, 1840 and was the daughter of John and Cynthia Snow Ayres. Wright was the son of Samuel Isaiah White and his first wife, a Miss Baker. Wright and Clemmie had a large family that included a son, Johnathan Wright (or possibly "Right", as he invariably signed his name "J.R. White"). About 1885, J.R. married Harriet Lettitia Jamison. Hattie was born in November, 1864 and died on March 20, 1930. J.R. died on January 31, 1936. They had nine children, including my Grandmother, Ida Virginia, who was born in Ethel on January 6, 1892. The Whites and Jamisons lived in the New Hope community which is a few miles southwest of Ethel.


HENRY CLAY JAMISON and LETTITIA HARRIET JONES were wed on October 28, 1847. She was a native of North Carolina and was born on June 6, 1824. Henry was born in Tennessee on January 31, 1823. In November, 1848, Henry and Lettitia came to Leake County, Mississippi. Four years later they arrived in Attala County where he eventually became the owner of a large plantation and numerous slaves. Henry served in the Mexican War of 1846 and was a Captain in the Civil War. He became a prisoner of war at Fort Donelson. Lettitia died January 16, 1889. She bore seven children, including a daughter Hattie, who, as mentioned above, wed J. R. White.

Henry's great-grandfather, Thomas Jemison was of Scots-Irish descent and came to America about 1740. Thomas had a daughter, Mary, who was captured by the Indians when she was about 13. Thomas, his wife Jane Erwin, several of their children, and some neighbors were killed during this raid on their farm located near what is now Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Mary led a remarkable life among the Senecas, the details of which have been recorded in several biographies and magazine articles. As a result of land grants given by the Federal government to Indians who supported the American cause during the Revolutionary War, Mary came to own about 25 square miles of property in New York. She had eight children by two Seneca warriors and she gave all of them her surname. Some of her descendants adopted white customs, others followed Indian ways, and, there are today, many Native-Americans, particularly in New York and Pennsylvania, who are named Jemison, Jemson, Jimmerson, or some other corruption of Mary's name. Mary was about 93 when she died in 1833. Her original land is now the setting of the very large and beautiful Letchworth State Park in western New York. I have visited her grave sight there. The Park is also the setting for a life-size statue of Mary that depicts her as a young woman, dressed in Indian garb and carrying a child in the traditional papoose style.

ANECDOTAL MATERIAL

Many genealogists content themselves with a simple listing of an individual's date of birth, marriage, and date of death. When this is the only data available it, of course, must suffice. But when research provides more information about a person, the inclusion of this material adds much to an understanding of the person's unique personality and experience. Consider, for example, how in the following excerpt from "Yesterday," this anecdotal material gives much more insight into the life and times of the subject than a mere recitation of vital statistics.

EXCERPT

Esterlee Andrew Hutchison was born May 8, 1886. In a letter written to her sister Bee Hutchison McAtee, on January 8, 1939, she said, "thirty-four years ago today I thought I was so much in love that I packed my little valise and walked out on the family. I really started something..." Her marriage the next day, January 9, 1905, to W. Melton Frasier was the first of at least six marriages for Esterlee.

In an age that placed a great emphasis on decorum, Esterlee was the quintessential maverick. She was a liberated woman long before the term was coined or the concept approved. She was a slim, very attractive woman, with a great, often self-deprecating, sense of humor. Many of her letters to family members, though in some cases written 50 or more years ago, survive, and each testifies to her wit and charm.

Her first husband, Melton, was born on February 9, 1880. Little is known about him but it is believed he was a farmer from the vicinity of Newport. He and Esterlee separated in November, 1906. He is then thought to have married a woman named Tulia and to have lived in Sallis until his death December 16, 1953. Esterlee's divorce from him was granted in Attala County on February 4, 1908.

Esterlee wasted little time in marrying again. Her second husband was Canaday Cason Lockhart, who was about four years her senior and a nephew of her future brother-in-law, Joe Lockhart. They wed December 18, 1908.

At some point the couple moved to Jackson, where Canaday held a succession of jobs as a painter, a night watchman, and, for awhile, with the railroad. He was an affable but homely man who was troubled from time-to-time with alcohol. From several sources it appears that his excessive drinking contributed to Canaday's difficulty in obtaining and maintaining employment. During this period, however, Esterlee bore Canaday two children: Canaday Hutchison Lockhart, born November 20, 1909, and Julia Blanding Lockhart, born May 21, 1914.

Sometime after the birth of their second child the couple divorced. About this time Esterlee worked in a post office in the Delta, probably in or near Duncan. Soon thereafter, Esterlee married for a third time. Her husband was Garland Bell Nelson, a native of Arkansas. He was born about 1884. Esterlee and Garland were married about 1915 or 1916 and they lived in Hushpuckena and other places in the Delta. Garland suffered from chronic myocarditis and died in Kings's Daughters Hospital in Greenwood at mid-afternoon on December 17, 1920. At the time of his death he was a plantation manager in Blain, and had been ill for about six months.

Following Garland's death, Esterlee married for a fourth time. On August 29, 1922, she re-married her children's father, Canaday Lockhart, and moved back to Jackson. Part of the time that Esterlee was married to Garland, Canaday had been overseas where he served as a railroad engineer in France during World War I. Their reunion must not have been too happy, for only a little over five months later Esterlee apparently ran-off with someone else. In a very poignant letter to Esterlee's sister, Clarissy Hutchison Terry, dated February 5, 1923, Canaday wrote that he had Esterlee and the children with him in Jackson. "She came back yesterday," and he asks that they, "strew her path with flowers instead of rocks...you have heard me say I would never live with her anymore...but that love for her just won't leave me." "Her pleading with me for help was just a little more than I could stand and my children here pleading and calling me to her rescue I just had to come under and save her from total ruin." He said she had,"confessed all," and concluded his letter by writing, "we will be happy again despite chatter and talk." Alas, the happiness was again temporary.

During the 1930's, Esterlee worked in Jackson as a seamstress in several cleaning shops. She is thought to have also worked briefly as an attendant at the State Mental Hospital in nearby Whitfield. Canaday was frequently away, working at various jobs. In an undated letter from this period, Esterlee complained she had been "put out" by court order but a "quarantine prevented me from getting set in the street," and she now lives in three rooms at 612 Clifton St., in Jackson. Her bath is "upstairs" and she has "no sink in (the) kitchen and no cabinets, but plenty of rats, roaches, and ants." Canaday had secured a job at the Gulfport Veterans Hospital on the Coast, Esterlee wrote in another letter dated about 1937, and it paid $90 a month with $33 taken out for uniforms and board. She said she would stay in Jackson because she lacked the money to travel there and, perhaps most importantly, because she wanted to see if, "he sticks." In another letter, dated February 13, 1939, Esterlee wrote to her sister, Bee, saying that Canaday was home for the weekend and, "I feel like I'll be compelled to marry at least one more time and I always feel more that way right after his visits home."

This last letter was prophetic for soon Esterlee divorced Canaday, and on August 25, 1940, she wed a Meridian businessman named Willie Leon Hopper. On October 16, of that year, she again wrote to her sister Bee saying that Canaday had been to Jackson and, "he has decided not to slay us." In subsequent letters written from their home in Meridian, she referred to W.L.'s store and "loan-shark" business and complained that he had not kept his promise with regard to a new car. "I am at the store but...I know no more about his business than you do," she wrote, "I have plenty except peace." By July of 1941, Esterlee was back in Jackson and was being sued for divorce. The attorney representing W.L. in this action was Ross Barnett who later was elected Goveror. The divorce was granted in Hinds County on September 15, 1941. In another letter to Bee, Esterlee wrote, on July 31, 1941, "I hope to get a 60 year old widower with a pension that won't stop when I marry him." In the same letter, Esterlee, with tongue-in-cheek, wrote that her daughter, Julia Bee, had, "gone and fell in love with a damn yankee. I mean a buck private, a $21 a month man, a 7 months baby, a Republican!" Less than four months later her daughter went on to marry that "damn yankee," Private John W. Jennings, and lived happily with him until her death nearly 50 years later.

Meanwhile, Esterlee and Canaday began to see each other again. He was able to find work in Pascagoula on the railroad as the Depression ended and the War mobilization began. Soon Canaday and Esterlee wed for the third time and made their home in a succession of small apartments in Jackson. It was her sixth and final marriage and lasted about 16 years until Canaday's death on July 11, 1958. Esterlee lived only a few months more and died on February 15, 1959.

ORDERING INFORMATION

"Yesterday," by E.R. Hutchison, M.A., is a 288 page, hardcover, fully-indexed edition, available from Northpointe Publishing Company, 6035 Ferncreek, Jackson, MS 39211. The cost of $42 (payable by check or money order) includes immediate shipment by two-day Priority Mail.

Your comments are welcomed. Please visit the author's home page for further information.

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