If you follow James Tanner's genealogy blog as I do, then you know one of his rules of genealogy is that there is an end. The end is the point at which the records for a surname or a person run out. Perhaps, but I find that I keep poking anyway.
The last record that I have found for my ancestress Asenith E. (Williams) Thompson is a release of dower that finds her still living in 1884 after the death of her husband Solomon R. Thompson in 1882.
That dower release, along with three other deed records, paints a possible picture of the last years of Solomon R. and Asenith E. (Williams) Thompson.
In 1871, Solomon and Asenith Thompson's son Rev. Eugene W. Thompson bought half a tract of land in Lancaster County, South Carolina from his father Solomon R. Thompson. In 1874, Eugene purchased the other half of the tract from his father. At the time, Eugene was still a practicing minister in North Carolina. He was living in Charlottesville in 1870. He was probably planning ahead for the day when he would retire and return to South Carolina to be near his elderly parents. However, Eugene died in Morganton, Burke County, North Carolina in 1877. If his widow relocated to Lancaster County, it was for a very brief time. Mostly, she seems to have lived in Lincoln County, North Carolina, near her brother Col. David Alexander Lowe in Lowesville, which is where she was on the 1880 census.
Rev. E. W. Thompson's estate was probated in Burke County, North Carolina through 1885 when his son Julian L. Thompson came of age. Meanwhile, the land in Lancaster County remained in the family. I suspect that is where Solomon R. and Asenith Thompson were still living in 1880. In that year. the census records Solomon as farming, which required land. Since there are no more records of land disposed of by Solomon and no probate records for him, it would seem there was no more land belonging to him. It makes sense that the old couple had stayed on the farm, waiting for Eugene to return when he retired. After Eugene's death, they simply stayed on. Property tax records, if available, would shed additional light on this.
Then Solomon died in 1882, leaving Asenith a widow. His tombstone in Fork Hill cemetery must have been something she attended to, probably in conjunction with her remaining two daughters, Henrietta Southerland (Thompson) Floyd and Eliza Ann Rebecca (Thompson) Kelley.
Rev. E.W. Thompson's estate was finally settled in mid-1885. Julian was now eighteen. The land could now be disposed of without dealing with Julian's guardian. As dependents of a deceased Methodist minister, Jane C. and Julian had been receiving a distribution from the Methodist church for several years. Selling the land at this point made sense. Asenith was about 74 years old and continuing to live on the farm by herself would have become increasingly difficult. My best guess is that she moved in with one of her daughters or split her time between her two daughters' households. In 1884, Asenith released her dower right to the land, allowing Jennie C. and Julian to proceed with selling it.
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| Lancaster Co., SC; Conveyance Bk E p. 62 |
At the time the land sold, Jennie C. and Julian Thompson were still residents of Lincoln County, North Carolina.
It is not known how long Asenith lived after she released her dower rights. Both of her daughters remained in South Carolina until 1892 and then removed to Texas. If Asenith died before 1892 and was buried by her husband in Lancaster County, she does not have a tombstone. It is possible that she remarried and was buried under another name. It is also possible that she made the trip to Texas with her daughters and died there. She would have been about 82 in 1892. It is not inconceivable that she lived that long and went west. I don't think her daughters would have left her behind in South Carolina if she was still living at the time they left.
When Eliza Ann Rebecca (Thompson) Kelley and Henrietta Southerland (Thompson) Floyd went west with their families, they loaded up their wagons and traveled only as far as the nearest railhead, where they loaded the wagons onto boxcars, and then continued west to Texas. While not an easy trip, it was much less strenuous than going by wagon the whole way.
My great-grandmother, Henrietta Elizabeth "Bessie" (Kelley) Brown said that she had one mean grandmother and one sweet grandmother. The sweet grandmother was Asenith E. (Williams) Thompson. Bessie was born in 1875; she would have been nine in 1884. Certainly, old enough to remember her grandmother, but her memories may mean that Asenith lived a few years older.
This may be as far as I can go with Asenith E. (Williams) Thompson. It may be the end. But I think I will keep poking around.
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