Amite County, located near Mississippi's
southwestern corner and across the border from the Felicianas in Louisiana,
is today the source of enormous potential historical research. By late
twentieth century standards, the area is relatively isolated. Only narrow
county or dirt roads connect the logging trucks with the outside; no major
highways were ever established in the county, and the one railroad has
since been dismantled. Most of the locations listed on Amite County maps
consist of a few houses, the remnants of farming communities, or are of
families long dead. Once outside Amite, however, the traveler encounters
two thoroughfares that connect the area to the rest of the world. Mississippi
River borders Wilkinson County to the west, and both Interstate 55 and
the railroad that connected New Orleans with Jackson, Memphis, and beyond,
bisect Pike County to the west. Amite County was never too far removed
from the commercial centers of the South.
The seat of Liberty, with a 1980 population
of just over 600, was founded in 1809 and is the central hub of the largely
rural county. The community still maintains its old buildings and continues
to utilize them as they were originally planned. The hardware store and
drug store signs proudly announce they have been in continuous service
at the same locations since 1898 and 1905. Though Union troops pushed their
way through the county on their way to and from New Orleans during the
Civil War, the communities survived relatively unscathed. There was comparatively
little wartime destruction; many antebellum homes are lived in today, and
many original churches scattered throughout the county are still in use.
The Amite County courthouse, erected in 1831, is the oldest extant courthouse
in Mississippi. Continuously occupied, it houses a remarkably complete
set of civil records dating back to before the county's founding in 1809. (15)
Amite County Will Books One and Two
contain a total of 362 wills probated between 1819 and 1920. Seventy-nine
belonged to women and fifteen were written by women who were married at
the time they died. (16)
These wives' testaments appear only after the 1839 Act for the Preservation
of the Rights of Married Women. If the women in this survey had feme sole
status because of a property settlement through equity law, the wills do
not indicate that status. None, however, appeared to have made any legal
transactions in their own names before the change in the law.(17)
Eight of these fifteen married women's testaments were probated before
the beginning of the Civil War and were largely concerned with distributing
slaves and equipment necessary for cotton cultivation. The remaining seven
wills were published between 1871 and 1919 and reflect the economic and
social changes of the New South.(18)
Amite County and the rest of southwestern
Mississippi underwent a rapid transformation from wilderness to farmland
in the first half of the nineteenth century. Settlers began venturing into
the Amite River environs beginning in 1805 when the area was still part
of Wilkinson County and Mississippi was still a territory.(19)
These pioneers came from Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas--the
Aiken, Edgefield, and Ninety-Six districts of South Carolina in particular--and
were either veterans or the children of Revolutionary War soldiers. Some
traveled in large groups, stopping from time to time in the states and
territories in between; many younger members of the traveling parties met
and married their spouses along the way.(20)
Many ventured into Amite via the territorial capital of Natchez in Adams
County, a logical stop for supplies and information. By the time of the
1816 census, over 800 families were living in Amite County; almost all
of the people who would probate wills during the remainder of the nineteenth
century were already represented by names in this census.
While most early pioneers traveled
to Mississippi with little except a gun and other basic necessities, a
few families, such as the Gayden-Batchelors and the Goolsbys, arrived with
the several slaves, home furnishing, and farm implements needed to carve
a comfortable existence from the wilderness. A sampling of the estate papers
of settlers who died in the decade after the county's 1809 founding indicate
that cattle herding, livestock production, felling trees, and basic farming
were the main economic endeavors of these new Mississippians.(21)
The number of Amite County residents
probating wills grew steadily as the area's population increased each decade
after 1809. As the lands were cleared for larger-scale farming in the late
1820s and 1830s, cotton began to be produced by many of the area families,
thereby expanding the slave population in the county. The owning of slaves
not only enhanced a family's production capacity and gave them some social
standing, but also increased the chances of the owner writing a will. Of
the antebellum estates, more were written in the 1840s and 1850s than in
any other decade until after World War One.(22)
Several factors would have influenced this first 1840s peak, For example,
the return to relative economic stability after the economic crisis of
1837, the cultivation of cotton on by now well established farms and plantations,
and the fact that the first generation of settlers were dying all contributed
to this increase. Those wills studied indicate that while most of the testators
owned fewer than ten slaves and raised a variety of crops and livestock
on medium-sized farms, a growing proportion of wills, written by both men
and women, involved the transfer of large plantations and up to eighty-five
slaves.
In an age of large families and a
reluctance to divide family lands, slaves were a convenient means of distributing
assets. They were often divided into carefully planned groups or lots that
gave a similar amount of labor and value to each heir. Widows, younger
sons, and daughters, especially, could inherit legacies equal in value
to that of the eldest son who may have retained control of the land. Therefore,
as the number of families owning slaves increased, so too did the number
of women who obtained ownership of very valuable slaves through inheritance.
Those who could legally do so often chose to write wills themselves in
order to pass on their lucrative labor source. Because of this practice,
most of the wills written by women before the Civil War involved slaves.
Of the forty-three wills probated
by Amite County women before 1864, all but seven involved the transfer
of slaves.(23)
The proportion of non-slaveholding estates decreased as cotton cultivation
rose in the decades before the Civil War. Between 1820 and 1840 roughly
20 percent of the women in each decade who wrote wills did not have slaves.(24)
Twenty-two women wrote wills in the 1850s, of whom only three did not own
slaves.(25)
At least five women who would die during that decade were mistresses of
large plantations with between forty and seventy-five slaves; many of the
other women testators would have supervised farms worked by over ten enslaved
laborers or else hired them out to other landowners.
A final factor in the rise of the
number of wills probated in Amite County, Mississippi, in the 1840s and
1850s would have been that married women, for the first time, could write
wills distributing the property they owned separate from their husbands.
The women of Amite County quickly took advantage of this opportunity to
express their wishes in a permanent and official manner. The eight married
women who probated wills before the Civil War were of different ages and
varying levels of economic and social standing, but all were sole owners
of a lucrative commodity. They had inherited slaves from a first husband
or other family members and, in some circumstances, had taken advantage
of the changes in the married women's property laws to expand their labor
force and run their families' plantations.
These women were also neighbors. With
the exception of the first married woman's will probated in Amite County,
all lived in the southwestern part of the county in Township One, Ranges
Two and Three, known as the Thickwoods, where the land was of comparatively
high quality. They also all belonged to either Ebeneezer Baptist Church
or Unity Presbyterian Church, both of which are situated within four miles
of each other and the women's homesites.(26)
Church membership would have involved more than simply attending weekly
services. Many of their husbands were deacons or church elders whose activities
would have involved leadership both spiritually and socially. Their families
would have attended Sunday school, Bible classes, choir rehersals, revivals,
church socials, sewing circles, picnics, and other group activites.
While there is no proof among any
of the legal documents that these women knew each other, the proximity
of their houses and church memberships suggests that they may well have
crossed paths. The diary kept by Frances Ann Cain of Zion Hill in northern
Amite County recounts almost daily rounds of visiting, parties, and church
activities in which she, her extended family, and neighbors participated.
All of the women whose wills were probated before the civil war were members
of the county's most elite families and would have been on equal social
footing with each other. Comparatively well educated, these women and their
husbands would have supported cultural events and have encountered one
another at social functions. When the Swedish opera star Jenny Lind performed
at the Raiford Building in Liberty in 1852, all who could possibly get
away from household duties probably attended. Because the social circle
of these women was relatively small, it is likely that all the women were
acquainted. Furthermore, considering the fact that these were the only
married women in the county to leave testaments, they may have also influenced
and encouraged each other to write wills.
NANCY WILLIFORD
The first woman who took advantage
of the 1839 property law reform was not a resident of Mississippi at the
time of her death. Nancy L. Smith Harrington Williford, late of Maurey
County, Tennessee, was visiting relations in Amite County in the summer
of 1840 when she fell ill. While the nature of her illness is unknown,
she obviously felt compelled to put her property affairs in order. Although
she was then currently a resident of Tennessee, Nancy had previously lived
in northern Amite County after her first marriage in 1835.
In the previous five years Nancy Williford
had inherited property from her father, Thomas Smith, of Maurey County,
her first husband, James Harrington, in Pike County, Mississippi, her husband's
brother Jeptha Harrington of Amite County, and from her brother, William
Smith, in Yazoo County, Mississippi. While what she had inherited from
her father, first husband, or her brother is not known,(27)
it is possible that she and her second husband were maintaining the "real
and personal" property that had belonged to her father in Tennessee. Nancy
Williford's former brother-in-law Jeptha Harrington had left her fifty
dollars in his November 1837 will.(28)
It is possible that the visit to Amite County in the summer of 1840 may
have been in response to this legacy. During this last stay Nancy bequeathed
her entire estate to her present husband, Almasine Williford, whom she
had married in 1838. (29)
If she and her husband were childless,
as her will suggests, Nancy Williford's will, written June 17, 1840, and
probated on November 24, 1840, did not significantly alter what her husband
stood to benefit. Had she died intestate, Almasine Williford would have
inherited a life interest in her estate. However, he could not have passed
his inheritance on, for the estate would revert back to his wife's family.
Though her reasons for writing a will are unknown, perhaps Nancy Williford
wanted to take advantage of an opportunity, heretofore denied to her in
Tennessee since her remarriage, to devise property as a feme sole. Since
a part of her property was from a prior marriage, perhaps she was concerned
enough about her present husband's financial situation to protect him from
any contest of property transfer from her first husband's family.
While Nancy Williford is the first
married woman in the survey to publish a will, she did not completely flout
convention, for she wrote her statement "by the consent of my husband."
She was the only married woman in this survey to indicate this permission.
Nancy further granted her husband permission to control her affairs by
naming him sole executor of her estate even though her Mississippi relatives
would have been better able than her Tennessee husband to conclude her
affairs in Amite County. None of the records available for either Amite
County or Maurey County, Tennessee, indicate either the type of property
(land, chattels, etc.,) or the value of the estate left by Nancy Williford.
However, whatever the specifics of her estate, Nancy Williford was able
to take advantage of the time and place at which she wrote her will and
in so doing became one of the first married women in the United States
to write a will without having to resort to equity settlements.
ELIZABETH WREN
Two years after Nancy Williford died,
Elizabeth Wren became the first married woman resident of Amite County
to write a will. She began a trend that would continue among her neighbors
and fellow parishioners in the southern part of the county until the turn
of the century: the next six married women who wrote wills either lived
within ten houses of each other or belonged to one of two area churches,
Ebeneezer Baptist and Unity Presbyterian. Elizabeth Wren and her husband,
John Wren, joined Unity Presbyterian in 1840, two years before her will
was recorded in Amite County Will Book One.
The will of Elizabeth Wren at first
glance seems very similar to that of Nancy Williford, probated two years
earlier. Elizabeth Wren bequeathed all of her properties in the states
of Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, and Kentucky to her husband, John
V. Wren.(30)
Again, as in the case of Nancy Williford, had Elizabeth Wren simply died
intestate, a life interest in the property would automatically have been
her husband's. This will, however, has a most unusual feature. Unlike any
other in this survey, there is no proof that the will was ever probated.
Though the will was duly registered in volume one of the will book in July
of 1842, over the next seven years, an Elizabeth Wren in Amite County was
very much alive. The land conveyance book reveals Elizabeth Wren both buying
and selling land in 1844.(31)
In the 1850 census, a twenty-five-year-old woman named Elizabeth Wren,
married to John V. Wren, a physician, and their two children were in Amite
County. Both adults were Louisiana natives, but their children, aged six
and two, were born in neighboring Franklin and Amite Counties, Mississippi,
respectively. (32)
Assuming that this is in fact the same Elizabeth Wren, she might have written
her will soon after her early marriage to John V. Wren, before they began
their family. Because there are no other records such as an inventory or
any papers indicating the demise of said testatrix, it is possible that
the couple moved on and settled permanently elsewhere, perhaps writing
a second will to fit new familial circumstances. However, the question
remains, why would a supposed seventeen-year-old wife, whose father and
brothers had already died and left her their estates, write a will? Perhaps
she was pregnant and wanted to get her affairs in order before the perils
of delivery. Yet, she does not mention the possibility of any future issue
in her will.
A second possibility may be John V.
Wren had remarried and his second wife's name was also Elizabeth, a very
popular name in the mid-nineteenth century. John V. Wren did not remarry
in Amite County nor in any of the surrounding counties or Louisiana Parishes,
but he may have ventured farther afield to find himself a second bride.
Elizabeth Wren may have been the young Wren's mother and his father, her
husband, was also named John V. Wren. There is, however, no distinction
made between John V. Wren and John V. Wren, Jr. in any surviving documents.
Elizabeth Wren's husband may have been the uncle and namesake of the younger
John V. Wren, but there is no indication of this in any documentation.
Whatever the reason, the will of Elizabeth Wren remains the most inconclusive
of the forty-two wills left by Amite County women.
ANN REAMS
Three of the married women left estates
consisting almost entirely of slaves, which was typical of the majority
of the forty-two women's wills probated in Amite County before 1865. Often
women bequeathed slaves left to them by their parents or deceased husbands.
Slaves could be easily divided among children and could equal or exceed
the value of land frequently left to the sons of the family. A startling
comparison of the cost of slave labor relative to land value is demonstrated
in the 1851 will of seventy-two-year-old Ann Reams. Although the 1850 census
indicates her husband, Lemuel Reams, owned only $300 worth of real estate, (33)
the inventory of Ann's estate compiled two years later lists thirty-three
slaves worth $12,897.50. Lemuel was her second husband, and it is likely
that she had inherited the slaves from her first husband, a Mr. Watkins.
While the Amite County courthouse has no records on Ann's first husband,
the Ebeneezer Baptist Church minutes records the death of "Brother Watkins"
in March 1820.(34)
Ann had become a member of that church in 1810 and continued to be active
in the parish until her death in September 1851. The Watkins had probably
married in her native South Carolina before migrating to Mississippi. Ann
Watkins enjoyed a long widowhood after Watkins's death and did not marry
Lemuel Reams until after an 1836 contract between her and Reams.(35)
The couple were over sixty years old at the time of this marriage and lived
together on Reams's property. While the Reamses might have utilized all
thirty-three slaves on a 150-acre farm, it is more likely that they either
hired out some of her slaves to neighboring farmers or allowed Ann's son,
Richard Watkins, to use their labor on his nearby lands.(36)
ELIZABETH JOHNS
Because slaves represented both present
and potential wealth, family conflict could easily surround their dispersal.
Although the 1858 will of Elizabeth Johns grants her entire estate of slaves
to her husband Richardson Johns, after his death Elizabeth's slaves were
to be distributed among her children. This, apparently, was not her first
will, for when the document was probated in June 1859, Elizabeth's son,
William Johns, petitioned the court demanding to see his mother's altered
will. (37)
The court reminded William Johns that he had witnessed this will and that
he had been "duly sworn and disposed to say that the said testatrix was
of sound and disposing mind and memory." Whether William Johns wished to
contest his mother's last will in favor of a previous document, or because
he believed the terms of the will to be wrong, is unclear.
William P. Johns was twenty-eight
at the time of his mother's death and had probably already begun to set
up a household of his own. In 1850, nine years before, William still was
at home but listed as a farmer on the census.(38)
His share of his mother's eight slaves could have helped him get established
in agriculture. However, Elizabeth Johns's will was not replaced within
the will books and probably remained officially uncontested. Ultimately,
the impatient William P. Johns lost his inheritance of slaves with the
disruption of the delta region's social order during the fierce Civil War
campaign for the Mississippi River and the subsequent emancipation of bondsmen.(39)
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