Mary (Kelly) Fair, Daughter of John Kelly Sr. - Update

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2023

This post has been decades in the making. Most of the other researchers who were interested in Mary (Kelly) Fair are deceased now.

While on a brain break from working on my husband's Brown family, I decided to have another go at one of my ancestor's sisters - Mary (Kelly) Fair. I've seen a lot of new researchers ask what they should do when they have run out of steam while researching an ancestor or family line. I always work on something else that I have not touched for a long time. It's a good use of my time and beats frustrating myself with material that I can't find anything "new" in - or I just need a break from something tedious that I'm working on. Usually, new information for an old problem has become available, and I can make progress. In this case, the Hinds County, Mississippi estate files for Mary (Kelly) Fair and her husband William Fair were available on Family Search. I've attached those files to both of them as sources on Family Search. Here are the highlights from Mary's file.

Mary Fair, wife of William Fair, appears in the estate records of John Kelly Sr. of Fairfield County, South Carolina, as one of his children. She was to receive three slaves from the estate: Nelly, Tom, and Serena. A Fairfield District, South Carolina, equity court document stated that Mary and William Fair resided in Mississippi as early as 1843. Tracking them from there has been difficult. A William Fair lived in Hinds County, Mississippi in the same timeframe that other children of John Kelley Sr. lived there, but it has been impossible to know for sure if it was the same William Fair. In 1850, neither Mary nor William Fair appeared on the census. Their children, if they had any, were unidentified.

As it turns out, both Mary and William Fair were deceased by 1850. Mary died first in 1846, and there is an estate record for her in Hinds County because she owned four slaves in her own right. Therefore, William Fair, filed to administer her estate. This document provides her death date, the names of the four slaves, and the names of her heirs:

According to the document, created on 24 January 1848, the Fairs were residents of Hinds County, where Mary died on 17 April 1846. At the time of her death, she owned four slaves: Jesse, his wife Lina, and their children Caroline and Ben. Note that these are not the slaves that Mary Fair was to receive from her father's estate. Her brother Littleton Kelly inherited a slave named Jesse. It's possible that they traded slaves. It is also possible that rather than transporting three slaves from South Carolina to Mississippi they were sold in South Carolina and the money was used to buy slaves in Mississippi. In that event, the slaves purchased with that money would still be considered Mary's property. 

The document names Mary Fair's legal heirs: Sarah Harris, John Farr, Isaac Milton Farr, Frances Hutson, Mary Taylor, Mariah Floyd, Jane Farr, William H Farr, and Eliza Mitchell. The last three are noted as being minors. Farr is a frequent alternate spelling for Fair. 

Additionally, the document states that the William Fair who is filing to administer the estate was Mary's husband. The document also requests that Littleton Kelly, Mary's brother, be named as one of the appraisers.

The estate record indicates that at the time of her death, Mary (Kelly) Fair was old enough to be the mother of four married daughters: Sarah Harris, Frances Hutson, Mary Taylor, and Mariah Floyd. Eliza Mitchell is a bit of a puzzle. Is Mitchell her middle name or a surname? Would a married daughter also be considered a minor??

In other documents in William Fair's estate records, Isaac M. Fair is called Isaac Middleton Fair, which seem like a more likely name for him, given that Mary had a brother named Middleton Kelly.

By 1851, William Fair was also deceased and Mary Fair's estate was being administered by Francis Stubbs.

This document states that Stubbs had been administering the estate since October of 1849. In another document that Stubbs filed when seeking to administer the estate, he stated that William Fair died in April 1849. This document names heirs and their whereabouts as of October 1851: Isaac M. Fair and William H. Fair who reside in the state of Lousiana; and Mariah Floyd, wife of Thomas H. Floyd, who reside in the state of Arkansas; also Eliza Tyler, wife of Joseph A. Tyler who reside in the state of Texas; and the following persons who reside in the state of Mississippi, to wit: Elizabeth J. Seastrunk, wife of Joseph Seastrunk, of Copiah County; Sarah C. Harris, wife of James Harris, of Claiborne County; John J Fair of Rankin County, and Mary Taylor wife of William Taylor, and Harriett Hutson wife of Jefferson M. Hutson deceased - each reside in Hinds County. All of them were of full age except for William H. Fair, who was under the age of 21. 

Note the addition of John J. Fair to the list of heirs. Jane Fair seems to be the same person as Elizabeth J. Seastrunk. Is Eliza Tyler also the same person as Elizabeth Mitchell [Fair]?

In other documents, there are dealings with Obediah K. Kelly and F. J. Kelly - two of Mary Fair's brothers.

This is a wealth of information about Mary Fair's children, who her daughters married, and where they lived as of 1851. However, tracking them has not proven to be that easy. Only about half of them can be found on the 1850 census at this point. Even fewer can be found on the 1860 census. Even fewer of their children can be tracked forward.

Next, I need to go through the key documents in William Fair's estate records.