Marriage Near Georgeville

The Concord Times
(Concord, North Carolina)07 Jun 1894, Thu  • Page 3




What a pleasant surprise, while trying to find information on the death of his father, Frederick Starnes 1805- after 1880, I found this article on the marriage of Frederick Fincher Starnes to his second wife Abigail D. Furr Starnes, widow of John C. Starnes, who was a relation of F.F. Starnes, but I've not determined exactly which. At this point, it seems like a first cousin relationship.

It was interesting to see the wedding took place at the home of Abbie Starnes, which was in Stanly County, and was a double-wedding, with their friends, Henry and Mattie.

While searching for a little more information on Henry Crayton, and Mattie Herrin, I found some surprising connections that deserve a closer look.

First, to look where they were in the 1900 census, the closest after the weddings, revealed a few surprises.

Name:	Henry D Crayton
Age:	30
Birth Date:	Aug 1869
Birthplace:	North Carolina
Home in 1900:	Smith, Cabarrus, North Carolina
Race:	White
Gender:	Male
Relation to Head of House:	Head
Marital Status:	Married
Spouse's Name:	Martha C Crayton
Marriage Year:	1894
Years Married:	6
Father's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Occupation:	View on Image
Neighbors:	View others on page
Household Members:	Name Age Henry D Crayton 30 Martha C Crayton 21 Giles C Crayton 3 Lula A Crayton 1 John Linker 24 William Slains 22

While looking at the actual document, it appears "William Slains" is actually William Starnes, living in the Crayton household. Who was he? Then, by looking at neighbors, I saw Levi Blackwelder, a name I recalled from the division of Property of  Nathan T. and Margaret Starnes. Then I recalled that one of Nathan T. Starnes daughters, Martha, had married a Crayton. Further research revealed that the young William Starnes, was the youngest son of Nathan T. Starnes. Henry D. Crayton was the son of William's older sister, Martha Jane Starnes Crayton, was Henry D. Crayton's mother, so William, abeit younger, was his Uncle and Abigail, who married F. F. Starnes was the widow of William and Martha Jane's brother John C. Starnes. Is that confusing enough?





If not, there is an added twist. Mattie Herrin, whom Henry David Crayton married, was the daughter of  Eli Ransom Herrin and Jemima Motley Herrin, whose brother Joseph Herrin, would marry Daisy Starnes, daughter of Frederick Fincher Starnes. He would later change his identity, and I have blogged on that. I've also featured a blog post on their mother, Jemima Motley, and her unfortunate incident with William Murray, another relative of mine.

The world of this area and this place was sometimes very small. That is why I feel that mysteries, at times, must be right in front of our eyes, because everyone was so interconnected. The best place to look is at times, right within the family itself.

Speaking of mysteries, I wonder greatly, what very laughable joke the newspaper referred to in the below paragraph. Perhaps we will never know.




Daily Concord Standard
(Concord, North Carolina)06 Jun 1894, Wed  • Page 1




The beautifully imagined image of this country double-wedding of relatives was over-shadowed by the sadness of two events that preceded them.

Both Fred and Abby had been widowed not that long before their marriage to each other. The papers spoke of the illness and death of their spouses.



The Concord Times
(Concord, North Carolina)13 Apr 1893, Thu  • Page 3

The family seemed to dwell very closely to the Cabarrus/Stanly line.

The below obituary is that of my Third Great Grandmother, Mary Louise Byram Starnes, Finche's first wife.



Daily Concord Standard
(Concord, North Carolina)21 Mar 1894, Wed  • Page 1


The look for anything on the death of F. F. Starnes father, Frederick Starnes, who lasts appears in the 1880 census, continues.

Name:	Fred. Starnes [Frederick Starnes]
Age:	75
Birth Year:	abt 1805
Birthplace:	North Carolina
Home in 1880:	Bethel Church, Cabarrus, North Carolina
Race:	White
Gender:	Male
Relation to Head of House:	Self (Head)
Father's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Neighbors:	View others on page
Cannot read/write: Blind: Deaf and dumb: Otherwise disabled: Idiotic or insane:	View image
Household Members:	Name Age Fred. Starnes 75

And a closer look at Nathan T. Starnes, of Stanly County, may reveal more of his exact connection to my line and open a few other doors. One never knows. 

Revelation in the Papers: The Estate of John C Starnes.

 

The estate papers of John C. Starnes, of Stanly and Cabarrus Counties, North Carolina is a thick bundle of papers that came in three parts. The first part is the list of personal property belonging to John C Starnes by the administrators of his estate, his brother Nathan Monroe Starnes (N. M. Starnes) and A. Eudy, of whose connection to the family I do not know.

The second part is the Final Settlement of the Estate of John C. Starnes and the setting off of a dower for his widow, Abigail D. Furr Starnes.

The the third part of the Estate papers concerns the lawsuit that the widow, Abigail D. Furr Starnes, filed against the heirs-at-law of the estate of her deceased husband, which turned out to be his surviving brothers and sisters and the children of two of his deceased sisters.

For me, the most amazing truth brought to light from these documents was the mention of a child. The child is not named in the documents and I had never seen a child listed in any of the censuses with John C Starnes and Abigail, that was thiers.

Abbie Stamer [Abbie Starnes]
Age in 1870:	21
Birth Year:	abt 1849
Birthplace:	North Carolina
Home in 1870:	Almond, Stanly, North Carolina
Race:	White
Gender:	Female
Post Office:	Albemarle
Value of real estate:	View image
Household Members:	Name Age John Stamer 27 Abbie Stamer 21 Adam Shoe

The 1870 census, the first one taken after their marriage lists a young Adam Shoe in their home. As an Archibald Shoe is also listed in the home of John's father when they were children, it is easy to guess that the Shoe's were perhaps the orphaned children of a neighbor or even a relative. Adam appears to be the son of a Tobias Shoe and Rilla Garmon Shoe who lived in Stanly County. As Tobias is shown dying in 1862, the likelihood he died in the Civil War, either in battle or of illness, is great.

Daniel Starnes
Age:	17
Birth Year:	abt 1863
Birthplace:	North Carolina
Home in 1880:	Almonds, Stanly, North Carolina
Race:	White
Gender:	Male
Marital Status:	Single
Father's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Neighbors:	View others on page
Occupation:	Servant
Cannot read/write: Blind: Deaf and dumb: Otherwise disabled: Idiotic or insane:	View image
Household Members:	Name Age James Starnes 37 Abigail Starnes 32 Daniel Starnes 17

In 1880, a teenaged Daniel Starnes is living with the couple. He is not listed as a son, but a servant. He was probably a distant or not so distant relative.

Abigil A D Sternes
Age:	55
Birth Date:	Aug 1844
Birthplace:	North Carolina
Home in 1900:	Rocky River, Cabarrus, North Carolina
Race:	White
Gender:	Female
Relation to Head of House:	Wife
Marital Status:	Married
Spouse's Name:	Finch Sternes
Marriage Year:	1894
Years Married:	6
Father's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace:	North Carolina
Mother: number of living children:	0
Mother: How many children:	0
Occupation:	View on Image
Neighbors:	View others on page
Household Members:	Name Age Finch Sternes 64 Abigil A D Sternes 55 F L Sternes 23 Samuel L Sternes 13 Walas Mc Sternes 8 Brady A Stearnes 15 Abert Owins 19 Francis Owins

By 1900, John has passed away,  and so has Mary Byram Starnes and the widower, Frederick Fincher Starnes, has married his cousins' widow, Abigail. The 23 year old F. L. Starnes is Frederick's son, Frederick Lafayette Starnes. Samuel L and 'Walas Mc Stearnes' are designated as grandson's of the head-of-house in the census. These young men turn out to be Samuel Lemmonds, son of Margaret Leavy Starnes Lemmonds, and William Mack Linker, son of Sarah Alice Starnes Linker, and Frederick Fincher Starnes's grandsons. The original census document did not specify surnames for the boys, so the transcriber assumed they were Starnes'. Census records have to be analyzed and researched carefully. They are loaded with errors.

The discovery of this additional census record cleared up another big mystery in the family tree of F. F. Starnes. Both Frederick L Starnes and J. W. Starnes are buried, with their wives, in Rocky River Presbyterian Church Cemetery in the Rocky River community in Cabarrus County, NC. Also buried here are the first wife of F. F. Starnes and daughters Georgia Ann and Martha.

In 1860, a 2 year old John Starnes is enumerated in the family.  His tombstone is located in the Stallings Cemetary on the Stanly, Cabarrus County line. This is another sign that the family lived on the line, sometimes being counted in one county, sometimes in another, other times in both, without having actually moved. This cemetary is accessible by way of Smith Lake Road between Barrier Store Road and Cox Road.

 Albert and Frances Owens were a married couple that were employed as servants. A 15 year old 'Brady' Starnes is also listed in this census as a servant. She was actually Beadie Ann Starnes, daughter of Rufus Starnes and would become the future wife of Frederick L Starnes, F. Fincher Starnes son, who is listed just above her.

Yet, there is the child of Abigail listed in the estate papers of her first husband, John C Starnes. Who was this child? He or she was not yet born in 1880, as a child does not show up in that census. This child was evidentally alive in 1894, but did he or she die before the 1900 census? Or was he or she out on their own by 1900? If the birth was shortly after the census, this certainly could have been the case 20 years later, especially in this time period.
 The 1900 and 1910 census, which enumerated how many children a mother had had and how many were still living, both lists Abbie for 0 and 0.  Yet, her first husbands estate papers clearly lists a widow and one child in several places. Why is the name of this child not given? Why would his surviving siblings, and nieces and nephews, children of his non-surviving siblings, inherit his property and possessions ahead of his wife and child?

If John had married prior to his marriage to Abigail and had a child by that marriage, he or she would have been an adult by John's death and should have been named in the estate papers.

So, another mystery to solve. Who was this child of Abigail and John? Did he or she live to adulthood? And where is this person buried?

Wills of Frederick and Abigail have been ordered. It is now just a waiting game.

Where They lived and Died: Starnes and Lemmonds

 The Goose Creek Community, Union County, North Carolina was the original home of the  Lemmonds family from which Robert Lemmonds descended. Goose Creek is situated in the North of Union County and bordering Mecklenburg, Cabarrus and the southwestern corner of Stanly County. Union was formed in 1842, one year after Stanly County in 1841, from portions of Anson and Mecklenburg counties. The progenitors of the Lemmonds family, and the branch from which my family came, William Marr Lemmonds and his son John, are listed in records in Mecklenburg County. They likely lived in what was later Goose Creek, the Clear Creek Community of Mecklenburg and modern Mint Hill. William Marr Lemmond was a clerk and a surgeon and served in the Revolutionary War as such. His son John entered as an Ensign and was later promoted to Lieutenant. John's son Robert would have a son named Cyrus Q Lemmonds.

The following is from Lemmonds records.




Cyrus Q. LEMMOND

Cyrus Q. LEMONS, Bugler, Discharged July 31, 1848 by expiration of service. Listed on Muster Roll of Capt. Green W. Caldwell’s Troop (A) of the Third regiment of the U.S. Dragoons, Army of the United States, Colonel E. G. W. Butler. Organized 1847, discharged July 31, 1848.

-C. Q. LEMMOND became a lawyer in 1852 after serving in the Mexican War with his two brothers. He practiced law in Monroe and served in the Legislature from 1858 to the end of the Civil War. His speech to the legislature urging secession was a masterpiece and was widely quoted, even in other states. (Source: Looking Back at Monroe's History, by Virginia A. S. Kendrick, p.11-12.)

-MONROE JOURNAL, Union County, N.C., Tuesday, March 29, 1904: Mr. C. Q. LEMMOND, a Mexican war veteran of this county, living in Goose Creek township, has been granted an increase in his pension of four dollars per month, making [?page torn?] which he now gets.  The increase came from Congress by the aid of Senator SIMMONS.

-Index to Mexican War Pension Files by Virgil D. White: Cyrus Q. LEMMMOND. Widow Eliza. Widow’s Certificate (WC-14706l) filed on Apr 8, 1907 & Soldier’s Certificate (SC-8843) both filed in NC; Served in Co. A 3^rd US Dragoons as Bugler.

-Died abt.1906/1907. See mention of his widow (Mrs. Eliza LEMMOND) in the Monroe Journal, Tues. Dec. 2, 1924, p.5, col. 3. Article mentions he was a Mexican War veteran and that his wife was one of the few remaining widows to be receiving pension.

Cyrus would later live in Goose Creek and then Mint Hill. He and Robert Lemmonds are buried at Philadelphia Presbyterian Church within the modern town of Mint Hill. 

Frederick Fincher Starnes with his wife Mary L. Byram Starnes first show up in the 1860 census of Union County, North Carolina living in the community of Brief, with their young daughters Alice and Leavy, or Sarah Alice Starnes Linker and Margaret Leavy (or Olivey or Arleavis) Starnes Lemmonds, and next to F. F. Starnes parents Fred and Elizabeth (Betty) Starnes. 

The community of Brief in Northern Union County

West Corner of Brief Road and Cabarrus Road near marker labeling area as " Brief".


The Community of Brief within Goose Creek Township is aptly named. It is very brief. Just a crossroads and nothing more. Two businesses and no more than a dozen homes. It is however, surrounded by beautiful rolling hills of farmland where cattle graze and cotton, corn and soybeans are grown. This is where Frederick Fincher Starnes and his first wife Mary Byram Starnes first began housekeeping and where my Great-great grandmother Leavy was born. 

Log House in Brief. Could it have belonged to a Starnes family?

East Corner of Brief Road and Cabarrus Road

Street sign at Intersection of Concord Highway and Brief Road


After Mary's death, and the death of several children, Fred F. Starnes would marry the widow of his cousin John S Starnes and  they would move into the growing metropolis of Charlotte. Fred was older than his bride, who was childless, and perhaps wanted to please her by moving her to a more populated area with arts, parks, operas, society events, a variety in shopping opportunities and trolleys.  Their first residence was on Sunnyside Drive in the Elizabeth section of Charlotte.  Fred and Abbie lived in Elizabeth from at least 1905 until 1915, according to the Charlotte Ciry Directories. They may have moved there immediately after their wedding in 1894.  The Elizabeth community was named for  Anne Elizabeth Watts, whose husband, G. S. Watts had made his fortune in tobacco in Durham.  Her son-in-law, Charles King, chose Charlotte as the location for a Lutheran College for Women that opened in 1897.  Because the Watts provided a majority of funding for the college President King named it for his mother-in-law.

The Charlotte Evening Chronicle in its April 16, 1910 edition stated the following concerning the Elizabeth community.  "The breezes of heaven blow their freshest, the light of the sun is at its brightest, in this favored neighborhood." There is no wonder in why Abbie would have coerced Fred into selling the farmland and move to this neighborhood.

Elizabeth College stayed in Charlotte until 1915, the year the twice widowed Abby would move to Arlington Avenue. It then relocated to Salem, Virginia. The neighborhood had began outside of the Charlotte town limits, but had been annexed in by 1907. It is said elegant Victorian ladies played tennis on the college grounds. The Elizabeth neighborhood, named for the College, became one of the most fasionable and elite sections of Charlotte.  Community leaders such as William Henry Belk, founder Belk's Department Stores lived there.  A great-granddaughter of Job Davis, whom this blog is named for, Minnie, married into this same Belk family.  In December of 1902, a trolley line had been completed that ran from McDowell to Elizabeth College. In 1907, Independence Park, the first Charlotte City Park, opened in the Elizabeth neighborhood.  The streetcar line was extended to run down Hawthorne and to the park entrance.  Presbyterian Hospital would have her start in this area.
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Victorian home on modern Sunnyside Drive 

2012 view of Sunnyside Drive

Sunnyside Drive Victorian, where Fred and Abbie relocated to. 

Rocky River Presbyterian Church was the final resting place of Mary Byram Starnes, and the children who died young, Martha, Georgia and perhaps even little John, who only shows up at age 2 in the 1860 census. Rocky River was a very old church and near the river on the Cabarrus side. The range of area where Fred and Mary had raised their family were in several different counties, but not altogether far apart. Brief was in the Northernmost part of Union County, as pictured on the above map. The Rocky River community was just across the river from the Clear Creek Community of Mecklenburg County, but on the Cabarrus County side. Meadow Creek Primitive Baptist Church near Locust, Stanly County is so close to the Cabarrus County line that many of the families buried there were enumerated in both counties in censuses. John S Starnes and his brother Nathan Monroe Starnes, both sons of Nathan T Starnes are buried there. They married sisters, Abigail D Furr and Elizabeth Furr, daughters of Frederick Furr and his wife Christina "Chrissie" Little Furr. Frederick Furr is buried there and this is how Frederick Fincher Starnes, who married his cousin John's widow Abigail Furr Starnes, ended up buried on there. John is buried on one side of Abigail, who would marry a third husband after Fred's death and Fred is buried on her other side.

Martha's tombstone, daughter of F. F. Starnes and Mary.

Rocky River is an ancient and beautiful cemetery

The Restore Session House

The Starnes are buried just the second row  past this rock wall

Tombstone of John Wesley Starnes and wife

Fallen Tombstone of Geogia Ann, who lived to be 7. 

The view of the Cabarrus section of Rocky River, on which the Starnes family lived and farmed. 

Present view of the farmland of this area

Beautiful rolling hills of Southern Cabarrus and Western Stanly

The fertile Rocky River Valley and her amber waves of grain.

Green pastures as fall sets in. 

Home in the Rocky River community

Historic structures remain

A creek winding through former family property

In rural Stanly, Union and Cabarrus Counties, Cotton is still King. 

Striking red barn beyond a snowy field of cotton. 

Restored Home on Sunnyside in Charlotte where Fred and his second wife  Abigail  moved to after their marriage.

Valley in Stanly County, where Fred and Abbie made their final resting place.

Rocky River Presbyterian Cemetary, founded in 1736

First page of John Starnes estate papers, first name to appear, Fred Starnes

Charlotte area home where Abbie moved after she was widowed a second time. 

View of Arlington Ave, only one block of which is left, where  Abigail Furr Starnes Starnes Misenheimer moved after her remarriage to her third and final husband, Marion H. Misenheimer.

Arlington Ave off of South Boulevard is nothing more than a one block alley now.  In the time of Abbie and her husbands, it led to a Trolley station and was a growing business area.




South Boulevard, and Arlington Avenue, during the later years of  Abigail Starnes time there.

Abbie Sterns
Gender:	F (Female)
Residence Year:	1905
Street Address:	Sunnyside
Residence Place:	Charlotte, North Carolina
Spouse:	Fred F Sterns
Publication Title:	Walsh's Charlotte, North Carolina City Directory

After the death of Frederick Starnes, Abigail was no longer a childless lady in her middle years hungry for the arts and cultures, but an elderly lady looking for the easiest way  and shortest distance to get where she needed to go. She and her third husband, Marion H. Misenheimer, whom she probably had known since childhood, due to growing up in the same area of Cabarrus County, moved out of the beautiful Elizabeth community into the Southern part of Charlotte, at the time, known then as the 6th ward.

Abagail D Misenheimer
Gender:	F (Female)
Residence Year:	1917
Street Address:	1500 Arlington av
Residence Place:	Charlotte, North Carolina
Spouse:	Marion Misenheimer
Publication Title:	Charlotte, N. C. City and Suburban Directory

During the early part of  the 1900's and into the 1920's, this area was a growing area of industry. In 1901, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry opens on South Boulevard between Park and Renselaer. In 1905, the first Pepsi bottling franchise begins there. In 1906, the first air conditioning manufacturing plant, Parks & Cramer opens there. By 1911, Edward Dilworth Latta has invited Frederick L Olmstead, Jr. to design the area called Dilworth, and Myers Park, using a new idea in  landscape design called naturalistic suburban planning. In 1914, the Charlotte Machine Company is founded by Egbert Gribble. Into the 1920's, hosiery mills and other manufacturing ventures, as well as the new Lance Snack Packaging company has been built along South Boulevard. Young farm kids, disenchanted with life on the farm, and looking for the excitement, nightlife and mass transit of the city, flock into this area of Charlotte to find work in all of the available factories. Abigail, however, may have just wanted to be close to the trolley's and streetcars. 

Abbie Sterns

F (Female)

1905

Sunnyside

Charlotte, North Carolina

Fred F Sterns 

Walsh's Charlotte, North Carolina City Directory

Abagail D Misenheimer

F (Female)

1917

1500 Arlington av

Charlotte, North Carolina

Marion Misenheimer 

Charlotte, N. C. City and Suburban Directory

Present view of Abigail's last neighborhood in Charlotte, one she could never have imagined. 

Mathews. 

Robert Lemmonds, known as Bob, would marry Leavy Starnes, daughter of Frederick F and Mary Byron Starnes. Moving away from the Clear Creek and Mint Hill area, he would settle in the tiny town of Mathews, a point between Monroe and Charlotte. Mathews began as a community called Stumptown, because farmers who first invaded the area cut the thick timber so fast, they left a sea of stumps. In 1825, a man named John Miles Fullwood established the first post office in Stumptown and the Postal Service addressed mail sent there to Fullwood Station. Soon the town would be known simply as Fullwood. By 1874, the first train would come to Fullwood and the Railroad would rename the stop Mathews in honor of company director, Edward W. Mathews. 

Renfrow-Lemmonds house, one of the oldest original homes in Mathews. 

Historic Renfrow Hardware Building, Mathews

Mathews Town Hall

Lemmonds land near Mint Hill. 

The original plantation of  the Lemmonds family was located near the modern community of Mint Hill on the Cabarrus Road, that crossed through the tiny community of Brief, in Union County. There is now a modern housing development along this road called Lemmond Acres. 

Philadephia Presbyterian Church in Mint Hill, where Cyrus Q Lemmonds and Robert Lemmonds are buried. 

Area near the old Lemmonds Homesite. 

Another shot of near the Mint Hill area of the Lemmonds farm. 

Just outside Mint Hill, North Carolina

Charlotte home in the years Fred and Abbie lived there. 

Post card of Charlotte , NC near the Turn of the Century. 

Old postcard of North Tryon Street in Charlotte during the years Fred and Abbie resided there. 

Cyrus Q Lemmonds in his later years with one of his sons. 

Another view of Old Charlottetown

Charlotte as Fred and Abby saw it. 

Bird's eye view of Old Charlotte