52 Cousins~ The Life of Sarah Boatwright Rivers (1848-1931)

The “Aunts & Uncles” series of biographical sketches are Artificial Intelligence (AI) compiled narratives of selected individuals from my Genealogical database.  The selected AI will used the RootsMagic Individual Summary from my Genealogical Software, Roots Magic. All genealogical data is my research material acquired over the past 46 years of research. Today's Biography of "Sarah Boatwright Rivers (1848-1931)" was compiled with the assistance of Claude Sonnett 4 and is entitled: 

 "The Life of

Sarah Boatwright Rivers"

Known to Family and Friends as "Sallie"

March 8, 1848 – June 28, 1931

 

Introduction

Sarah Boatwright Rivers — affectionately called "Sallie" by those who knew and loved her — lived an extraordinary life spanning 83 years in the red-clay hills of Chesterfield County, South Carolina. Born in the waning years before the Civil War, she witnessed the complete transformation of the American South: from the antebellum era through the destruction and heartbreak of war, into Reconstruction, and finally into the early twentieth century. Through it all, Sallie remained rooted in her community, her faith, and her family — a woman whose quiet endurance shaped generations of the Rivers family.

She was born on March 8, 1848, the daughter of a well-established Chesterfield County farm family, and she died in the same county on June 28, 1931, having outlived her husband, two of her children, and virtually every hardship the era could throw at a family. She was buried at Hopewell Baptist Church Cemetery — the same church where her funeral was held just one day after her death.

 

Her Parents and Early Family Life

Sallie was born to Malachi "Mally" Rivers (1812–1884) and Sarah Ann Boatwright (1824–1902). Her father Mally was a farmer in Chesterfield County, and family records indicate the family had deep roots in that part of South Carolina. Sallie's mother, Sarah Ann, lived to the impressive age of 78, passing away in 1902.

When Sallie was just twelve years old, she appeared alongside her parents and siblings in the 1860 U.S. Census for Chesterfield County. The family household at that time included her parents and at least nine children — a large and lively household by any standard. Those were busy years on any South Carolina farm, with cotton the likely backbone of the family's livelihood.

The world Sallie grew up in was on the brink of tremendous upheaval. In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, and by early 1861, the Civil War had begun — a conflict that would directly touch the Rivers family.

Brothers and Sisters

Sallie grew up among a large brood of brothers and sisters. Based on family records, her siblings included:

• William B. Rivers (1840–1862) — William died young, likely a casualty of the Civil War, at just 22 years of age.

• John Malachi Rivers (1843–1862) — Another brother who died in the same tragic year as William, also at a young age, possibly in the war.

• Mary Jane Rivers (1845–1900) — A sister who lived to age 55.

• Rosa Ann Rivers Purvis (1850–1928) — A younger sister who lived a long life of 78 years.

• Thomas Frederick Rivers (1852–1919)

• Louisa A. Rivers Eddins (1854–1921)

• Thetis Rivers Watson (1856–1924) — listed as a half-sibling in some records.

• Huldah Rivers (1858–1926)

• Drusiah L. Rivers (1860–1920)

• James Martus Rivers (1862–1931) — Sallie's brother James was still living at the time of her death and is mentioned in her obituary.

• Henry Rivers (1864–1922)

• Charles Rivers (1867–1921)

The deaths of brothers William and John in 1862 must have been devastating for the Rivers family — a grief shared by countless Southern families during those terrible war years.

 

Marriage to Malachi J. Rivers

In December 1865 — just months after the Civil War had ended and the South was beginning to reckon with its aftermath — seventeen-year-old Sallie married Malachi J. Rivers (1842–1904). Interestingly, her husband shared a first name with her father, though he went by "Malachi J." or sometimes "Mally Jr." to distinguish the two.

It was a time of tremendous uncertainty in South Carolina. The state was under federal military occupation during Reconstruction, and former Confederate soldiers like Malachi were returning home to farms and families in disarray. Malachi had served in Company B of the 26th South Carolina Regiment (Volunteers), entering the Confederate service in the spring of 1862 and receiving his discharge in 1865. He and Sallie wasted little time — they were married the very same year the war ended, and they built their life together from there.

According to Sallie's 1919 Confederate widow's pension application (#2573), she stated that Malachi was born in 1846 and that he passed away in April 1904 — leaving her a widow at around age 56. She filed for the pension at age 73, nearly fifteen years after his death, seeking the modest support the State of South Carolina offered to Confederate veterans' widows.

 

Land, Property, and Putting Down Roots

One of the more tangible records of the Rivers family's life in Chesterfield County comes from property deeds. In December 1867 — just two years into their marriage — Sallie's father-in-law, Frederick Rivers Sr., conveyed 100 acres of land to Malachi J. Rivers for the sum of two hundred dollars. The land, situated along Indian Creek about two miles from Chesterfield Court House, would become the family's home for decades to come.

The deed, recorded in Chesterfield County Deed Book 1, Page 241, gives a vivid description of the land's boundaries — pine trees, post oaks, a Spanish oak along Indian Creek — painted in the practical language of nineteenth-century surveyors. In December 1875, Sallie's mother-in-law, Sarah Ann Rivers, formally relinquished her dower rights to the property, a legal step that secured the land firmly in Malachi and Sallie's hands.

In 1883, Sallie also appears in a larger family deed involving her parents' estate. Her mother Sarah Ann Boatwright Rivers and the adult children (including Sallie) conveyed 150 acres to younger siblings Hulda, Drury, James, Henry, and Charles Rivers — on the condition that those siblings would properly support and maintain the elderly Malachi and Sarah Ann Rivers for the rest of their lives. It was a practical, family-centered arrangement that was common in the era, ensuring the elder generation would be cared for without the need for outside charity.

 

Sallie and Malachi's Children

Sallie and Malachi built a large family together over the years. They had ten children in total, though by 1900 the census noted that seven were still living — a ratio heartbreakingly common in an era before modern medicine. Their children were:

• Dorsey Ross Rivers (1868–1885) — Their eldest, Dorsey died at just 17 years of age, a loss that must have cut the family deeply.

• John Gilliam Rivers (1870–1914) — John lived to 44, dying ten years after his father.

• Bentley Rutledge Rivers (1874–1942) — Known in the family as "B.R.", Bentley later settled in Columbia, South Carolina. He is mentioned in Sallie's obituary and lived to age 68.

• Kirby M. Rivers (1876–1936) — Kirby settled in Shiloh and is also named in the obituary. He lived to age 60.

• Coye Wilson Rivers (1878–1937) — Known as "Coy," he remained in the Hopewell area near his mother and took her into his household in her later years. He appears with her in both the 1920 and 1930 census records. He passed away in 1937, just six years after his mother.

• Miles Vernon Rivers (1881–1962) — Miles had the longest life of any of Sallie's children, reaching age 81. He settled in Albemarle, North Carolina, and is mentioned in his mother's obituary.

• Hadley Dupre Rivers (1884–1964) — Hadley lived to 80 years old and remained in the Hopewell section of Chesterfield County. He is named in Sallie's obituary alongside his brother Coy.

• Cora M. Rivers Sullivan (1887–1951) — Sallie's only surviving daughter, Cora married a man named Jim Sullivan and later moved to Florida. She was 23 and living with her mother in the 1910 census, newly married with two young children.

The family also endured the deaths of two unnamed or otherwise unrecorded children, as the 1900 census lists ten children born but only seven living.

 

Snapshots from the Census Records

The U.S. Census records offer a wonderful series of glimpses into Sallie's life at ten-year intervals, almost like photographs taken of the family at different stages.

In 1880, she and Malachi were in their thirties with five boys underfoot — Dorsey (12), John (10), Bentley (8), Kirby (6), and little Coy just three years old. The family was in full swing on their Chesterfield County farm.

By 1900, the household had thinned out as the older children made their own lives. Still at home were Kirby (24), Coy (22), Miles (19), Hadley (15), and daughter Cora (12). Sallie and Malachi were in their early fifties, and had been married 35 years.

In 1910, six years after Malachi's death, Sallie was a 63-year-old widow living with her son Coy and her daughter Cora, who had just married James Sullivan. Cora's tiny daughter, little Saranett Sullivan, was just a month old — making Sallie a brand-new grandmother.

In 1920, Sallie — now in her early seventies — had moved in with Coy and his wife Lora, who by then had five children of their own. The house in the Hopewell section was full of life: grandchildren aged one month to ten years surrounded the old matriarch.

By 1930, at about 82 years old, Sallie was still living with Coy's family, now an elderly woman in a household bustling with eight of her grandchildren. She passed away just one year later.

 

Her Final Years and Passing

Sallie Rivers passed away on Saturday night, June 28, 1931, at her home in the Hopewell section of Chesterfield County. Her obituary, published in The Chesterfield Advertiser on July 2, 1931, notes that she was "nearly ninety years of age" — though her tombstone and family records indicate she was 83. She had "been in a helpless condition for several weeks" before her death, suggesting a gradual decline at the end of a very long life.

Funeral services were held the very next day — Sunday, June 29, 1931 — at Hopewell Baptist Church, conducted by her pastor, Reverend Luther Knight, and assisted by her former pastor, Reverend D. A. Brown. She was buried in the Hopewell Baptist Church Cemetery in Chesterfield, where her gravestone records her dates simply as 1848–1931.

She was survived by her daughter Cora Sullivan (living in Florida), sons Hadley and Coy (both of Hopewell), Bentley (Columbia), Kirby (Shiloh), and Miles (Albemarle), as well as her brother James M. Rivers of Chesterfield — and "a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

 

The World Sallie Lived Through

To truly appreciate Sallie's life, it helps to consider the sweeping changes she witnessed across her 83 years. She was born in 1848, a time when South Carolina was a slave-holding state and the Rivers family, like most white families in Chesterfield County, lived in an agricultural world that revolved around the seasons and the land.

When she was 12, Abraham Lincoln was elected president and South Carolina erupted into secession fever. The Civil War broke out when she was 13. By the time the war ended in 1865, two of her brothers had died — likely as Confederate soldiers — and the world she had grown up in was irrevocably changed. The family married her off to a returning Confederate veteran that very year, and together they set about rebuilding.

Reconstruction (1865–1877) was a turbulent time in South Carolina, with federal troops stationed across the state and dramatic shifts in political power. The Rivers family appears to have weathered the period on their Indian Creek farm, quietly working their 100 acres and raising a family. By the time Reconstruction ended, Sallie had five sons and was expecting more children.

The late 1800s and early 1900s brought new inventions and changes that must have seemed remarkable to someone born in the 1840s — the telephone, electric lights, automobiles, and eventually the airplane. South Carolina was changing too, as mill towns and industry began to reshape the old agricultural economy. Sallie outlived the First World War (1914–1918), the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918, and the Roaring Twenties — passing away just as the Great Depression was beginning to grip the nation following the stock market crash of 1929.

Through all of it, Sallie stayed in Chesterfield County — the same county where she had been born, married, raised her children, and buried her husband. Her world was largely the Hopewell community, Hopewell Baptist Church, and the familiar red-clay roads of home.

Sarah Boatwright Rivers  is my 1st Cousin 4X Removed. 

 

Sources & Notes

This biography was compiled from genealogical records including U.S. Federal Census records (1860–1930), South Carolina Death Records, Chesterfield County deed books, CSA Pension Application #2573, Find A Grave Memorial #45769160, the Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey (James C. Pigg, 1995), and Sallie's obituary as published in The Chesterfield Advertiser, July 2, 1931. There is a noted conflict in Sallie's birth year: her tombstone and family records record 1848, while the 1900 Census and death certificate suggest 1849 and 1844 respectively. The tombstone date of 1848 has been accepted as most likely accurate.

1. James C. Pigg, Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey; Self-Published, 1995, page 298. Tombstone of Sarah B. RIVERS; 1848–1931, Hopewell Baptist Church Cemetery, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina.

2. 1900 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, enumeration district (ED) #20, Page 76A, Line 46, Dwelling 63, Family 63, Household of Mally J. RIVERS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : viewed 2 October 2011); citing National Archives Microfilm T623_Roll: 1523.

3. 1860 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page 120, Line 10, dwelling 377, family 376, Household of Mal RIVERS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 17 July 2011); citing National Archives Microfilm M653_1217.

4. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Deed Book 1: page 241, Frederick Rivers, Senr. To Malachi J. Rivers Deed 100 Acres; Register of Deeds, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina.

5. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Deed Book 4: pages 754-755.

6. 1880 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Court House, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, enumeration district (ED) #5, Page 312B; Line 40, Dwelling 56, Family 56, Household of Mally RIVERS Jr.; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 21 October 2011); citing National Archive  Microfilm T9, Roll 1225.

6. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Deed Book 7: pages 242-244.

7. 1910  U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Court House, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, enumeration district (ED) #0036, Page 115B, Line 96, Dwelling 210, Family 212, Household of Sarah RIVERS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 2 October 2011); citing National Archives Microfilm T624, Roll 1455.

8. 1920 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Court House, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, enumeration district (ED) #39, Page 139B; Line 68, Dwelling 145, Family 152, Household of Coy W. RIVERS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : viewed 2 October 2011); citing National Archives Microfilm T625_1690.

9. Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, database, "Record, Dorsey R. Rivers (30 September 1868–28 March 1885), Memorial # 45769130.

10. 1930 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Court House, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, enumeration district (ED) #16, Page 29B; Line 95, Dwelling 103, Family 103, Household of Coy W. RIVERS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : viewed 2 October 2011); citing National Archives Microfilm T626_2192.

11. Sarah B Rivers, death certificate #020963 (28 June 1931), Vital Records, Department of Health, Austin, Travis County, Texas.

12. James C. Pigg, Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey, Self-Published, 1995. Tombstone of Sarah B. RIVERS.

13. Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, database and digital images, (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed  2 October 2011); Memorial page for Sarah Boatwright Rivers Rivers; (8 March 1848–28 June 1931); Find a Grave memorial # 45769160, Citing Hopewell Baptist Church Cemetery; Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, USA.

14. Archives and History, "Records of Confederate Veterans, 1909 - 1973," database, South Carolina, South Carolina Archives and History Database (http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinearchives/search.aspx : on-line viewed, download 2 October 2011), CSA Pension Application #2573; Sarah Boatwright Rivers Rivers, Widow of Malachi Rivers.

15. James C. Pigg, Obituaries from the Chesterfield Advertiser 1927-1931; Self-Published, 2002. Obituary of Mrs. Sallie Rivers;[The Chesterfield Advertiser,2 July 1931, page 1, Columns 4, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina.

16. Archives and History, "Records of Confederate Veterans, 1909 - 1973," database, South Carolina Archives and History Database, CSA Pension Application #2573.

17. James C. Pigg, Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey, Self-Published, 1995. Tombstone of Malachi J. RIVERS.

18. 1850 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page 172B, Line 19, Dwelling 1141, Family 1141, Household of Frederick [C.] RIVERS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 27 September 2011); citing  National Archives Microfilm M432 Roll 851.

19. 1860 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Population Schedule, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page 144B, Line 29, Dwelling 716, Family 714, Householfd of F. RIVERS.

20. Ancestry, "Civil War Service Records" database, Military Service Records (https://www.fold3.com/ : accessed 7 October 2012), entry for Malachi J. RIVERS, Corporal; Co. B, 26st Reg't (Volunteers); Confederate.

21. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Deed Book 1: page 241.

22. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Deed Book 4: pages 754-755.

23. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Deed Book 7: pages 242-244.

24. Archives and History, "Records of Confederate Veterans, 1909 - 1973," database, South Carolina Archives and History Database, CSA Pension Application #2573.

25. James C. Pigg, Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey, Self-Published, 1995. Tombstone of Malachi J. RIVERS.

26. Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, database, "Record, Malachi J. Rivers (1842–1904), Memorial # 45769145.

27. Archives and History, "Records of Confederate Veterans, 1909 - 1973," database, South Carolina Archives and History Database, CSA Pension Application #2573.

28. Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, database, "Record, Dorsey R. Rivers (30 September 1868–28 March 1885), Memorial # 45769130.

Aunts & Uncles~Elizabeth Rebecca (Davis) Boatwright (1798-1874)

 The “Aunts & Uncles” series of biographical sketches are Artificial Intelligence (AI) compiled narratives of selected individuals from my Genealogical database.  The selected AI will used the RootsMagic Individual Summary from my Genealogical Software, Roots Magic. All genealogical data is my research material acquired over the past 46 years of research. Today's Biography of Elizabeth Rebecca (Davis) Boatwright (1798--1874) was compiled with the assistance of Claude Sonnett 4 and is entitled: 

Elizabeth Rebecca Davis Boatwright

c. 1798–1874

Chesterfield County, South Carolina

Introduction

Elizabeth Rebecca Davis Boatwright lived nearly her entire life in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, during one of the most turbulent stretches of American history. She was born around the turn of the nineteenth century, came of age as the young nation was still finding its footing, raised a large family on the South Carolina frontier, survived the death of her husband and two of her own children within days of each other, and outlasted the Civil War and its devastating aftermath. Hers is a story of quiet resilience, rooted in the red-clay soil of Chesterfield County from her first breath to her last.

The records that survive her — census returns, land deeds, court filings, and cemetery inscriptions — paint a clear picture of a woman who was very much at the center of a large and closely connected family. She buried children and grandchildren, managed property after her husband’s death, and was still very much present in her community well into her seventies. This biography draws on those primary documents to tell her story.

 

Early Life and Family Origins

Elizabeth Rebecca Davis was born somewhere between 1798 and 1802, most likely in the Cheraw District (present-day Chesterfield County) of South Carolina. The 1870 federal census lists her birthplace as North Carolina, though she spent her adult life entirely in South Carolina, and the discrepancy may simply reflect the fluid and sometimes inaccurate reporting common in nineteenth-century census records. Based on her reported age of 50 in the 1850 census, the birth year of approximately 1798 seems most likely.

Her father was Thomas Davis (1760–1845), a patriot of the American Revolution who settled in Chesterfield County and became a well-established landowner there. Her mother was Nancy Rivers (1767–1853). Elizabeth was one of several children in the Davis household; the 1810 census for Thomas Davis’s household in Chesterfield County shows a family that included multiple children of varying ages, with Elizabeth appearing in the female age bracket of 10 and under at that time, consistent with an 1798–1802 birth.

The Davis family were part of a wave of settlers who pushed into the Carolina backcountry in the late eighteenth century. Life in this region in the early 1800s was still fairly rugged — Chesterfield County had only been formally organized in 1798 — and families like the Davises depended on farming, close kin networks, and community ties to get by. Elizabeth would have grown up in that world, learning the rhythms of agricultural life and the importance of extended family that would define her own household for decades to come.

There is a small historical mystery worth noting about Elizabeth’s name. The historian Harry Alexander Davis, in his 1927 book The Davis Family (Davies and David) in Wales and America, recorded her name as Margaret Elizabeth Davis. However, a 1854 land deed in which Elizabeth herself signs — relinquishing her dower rights in January 1866 — gives her name plainly as Elizabeth Rebecca Boatwright. The document in her own hand (or by her mark) is compelling evidence that Elizabeth Rebecca was her correct name.

 

Marriage to Lewis Boatwright Jr.

Around 1818, Elizabeth married Lewis Boatwright Jr. (c. 1798–1863), likely in Chesterfield County. Their first child, George R., was born on January 19, 1819, which is how researchers have estimated the approximate marriage year. Lewis was the son of Lewis Boatwright Sr. (1758–1830) and Sarah Lundy (1760–1850), an established Chesterfield County family who had themselves been part of the area’s earlier settlement.

Lewis Jr. was a farmer — the 1850 census records him as such — and the couple built their lives on the land. By the time of the 1850 census, Lewis and Elizabeth were living in a comfortable household with several of their children still at home. The family appears to have been solidly established in the community; Lewis owned enough acreage to deed 251 acres to his son Samuel as late as 1854, at a value of $250, suggesting he had accumulated meaningful landholdings over the course of his working life.

The 1850s were a prosperous period for South Carolina’s planting class, but the clouds of sectional conflict were already gathering. As the decade of the 1850s turned into the 1860s, the family — like all families in the South — would find their lives forever changed.

 

Children of Lewis and Elizabeth Boatwright

Lewis and Elizabeth had at least eight children together, born between 1819 and 1843:

George R. Boatwright (January 19, 1819 – April 9, 1894)

Their eldest child, George R. Boatwright, was born on January 19, 1819, and would go on to outlive most of his siblings. He served as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, enlisting as a private in the 6th Regiment, South Carolina Cavalry (Aiken’s Partisan Rangers). He married Lauretta Hurst (1831–1863) around 1852. George was still living in Chesterfield County in 1880, working as a farmer, and died on April 9, 1894. He is buried at Hurst Family Cemetery in Chesterfield County, and his tombstone was recorded in the Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey. His probate file (Folder #781) survives, as does his will, dated July 10, 1888.

Elizabeth Boatwright (May 2, 1820 – December 15, 1853)

The couple’s second child and eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was born on May 2, 1820. She married Carroll Washington Davis (1821–1863) on February 17, 1846, in Chesterfield County, and by 1850 they had two young children: William B. Davis (age 3) and Elizabeth J. Davis (age 1). Tragically, Elizabeth Boatwright Davis died on December 15, 1853, at just 33 years of age, leaving behind young children. She is believed to be buried at the Davis Family Cemetery in Chesterfield County.

Louisa Ann Boatwright (c. 1830 – September 1, 1902)

Louisa Ann was born around 1830 and married Duncan Teal (1818–1895) sometime before 1864. The 1880 census shows them living in Chesterfield County with a son, Thomas L. Teal, age 11. Louisa Ann outlived her husband and died on September 1, 1902. She is buried at Pine Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Chesterfield County. Her Find A Grave memorial inscription notes her age as approximately 69 years at death, consistent with an 1830 birth year.

Samuel Boatwright (August 5, 1832 – February 19, 1863)

Samuel was born on August 5, 1832, and married Sarah Ann Hurst (1826–1910) around 1851. By 1860 they had four children: William (age 9), Calvin (age 6), Isaac (age 4), and Nancy (age 2). In April 1854, his father Lewis deeded him 251 acres in Chesterfield County, and in August 1862 Samuel purchased additional land from William Hurst. Samuel’s life was cut short when he died on February 19, 1863, at just 30 years of age — just days before his sister Mary also died. He is buried at Boatwright Family Cemetery in Chesterfield County, and his tombstone date was confirmed in the Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey. His probate file (Estate Folder #80) survives.

Mary B. Boatwright (1832 – February 22, 1863)

Mary was born in 1832 and appears in the 1850 census as “Meary” (likely a phonetic spelling), age 15, living at home. She married Carroll Washington Davis (1821–1863) on August 10, 1854 — notably, Carroll was the same man who had been her late sister Elizabeth’s first husband. By 1860, Mary and Carroll had four children living with them, along with Carroll’s children from his first marriage to Elizabeth. Mary died on February 22, 1863, just three days after her brother Samuel, and is believed to be buried at the Davis Family Cemetery.

Sarah Boatwright (c. 1837 – unknown)

Sarah was born around 1837 and appears in the 1850 census, age 13, living at home with her parents and siblings. No further records of her death, burial, or marriage have been located in the available sources.

Calvin Boatwright (c. 1840 – unknown)

Calvin was born around 1840 and is listed in the 1850 census, age 10. No further records of his death, burial, or marriage have been found in the surviving documents.

Lucinda Boatwright (c. 1843 – unknown)

Lucinda was born around 1843 and appears in both the 1850 and 1860 censuses, the latter listing her as age 16 and still living at home with her parents. After her father’s death in 1863, she is named among the surviving children in the legal partition proceedings. No records of her later marriage, death, or burial have been identified in the available sources.

 

The Civil War Years: Loss and Survival (1861–1865)

The Civil War brought catastrophic losses to the Boatwright family in a remarkably short span of time. South Carolina seceded from the Union in December 1860, the first state to do so, and the conflict that followed tore through families across the state.

In the early months of 1863, the family was hit by a wave of death that would have been almost unimaginable to endure. Samuel Boatwright, age 30, died on February 19, 1863. His sister Mary B. Boatwright Davis died just three days later, on February 22, 1863. Their father, Lewis Boatwright Jr., died on March 7, 1863, less than three weeks after Samuel. The cause or causes of these deaths — whether illness, the hardships of wartime, or some combination — are not recorded. But in the span of less than three weeks, Elizabeth lost a son, a daughter, and her husband of more than four decades.

The toll did not stop there. Carroll Washington Davis, who had been married first to daughter Elizabeth and later to daughter Mary, also died in 1863. Elizabeth’s eldest son George was away serving in the Confederate cavalry. The family was reeling.

Lewis Boatwright Jr. died without a will — intestate, in legal terms — which set in motion court proceedings that would wind on for years. A Bill for Partition filed in 1864 (Case #94, Smith v. Boatwright) lays out the surviving heirs clearly: Elizabeth herself as widow; the surviving children George R. Boatwright, Louisa Ann (married to Duncan Teal), and Lucinda Boatwright; plus grandchildren through the deceased daughters Elizabeth and Mary, and through the deceased son Samuel.

 

Life as a Widow: Land, Law, and Family (1863–1874)

After Lewis’s death, Elizabeth became the family’s anchor. As a widow in nineteenth-century South Carolina, she had legal rights to her “dower interest” — a life estate in a portion of her husband’s real property — though the partition proceedings required the courts to work through the distribution of Lewis’s estate among his many heirs.

One of the most significant documents surviving from this period is the 1854 land deed in which Lewis transferred 251 acres to their son Samuel. Elizabeth had to formally relinquish her dower rights in that property, which she did before a magistrate on January 10, 1866, signing (or making her mark as) Elizabeth Rebecca Boatwright. The deed also notes that the original record book had been destroyed by General Sherman’s Army during his devastating March through the Carolinas in early 1865 — a reminder of the war’s physical reach into even the records of everyday life.

Elizabeth was not simply a passive figure in the legal proceedings. In July 1868, she purchased land from James T. Talton — a parcel that had formerly belonged to Lewis’s estate — recorded in Deed Book #1, Page 280-281 of the Chesterfield County Register of Deeds. This suggests she was actively managing her affairs and working to secure a property base for herself in widowhood.

The 1870 census finds her in the Courthouse area of Chesterfield County, recorded as E. R. Boatwright, female, age 72, born in North Carolina. Interestingly, the same 1870 census also shows two elderly women — E. Boatwright (age 70) and F. Boatwright (age 73) — living together, suggesting Elizabeth may have been sharing a household with another female relative in her later years, though the identity of the companion has not been determined.

Elizabeth Rebecca Davis Boatwright died sometime around November 1874, based on court records that suggest her death triggered new guardianship proceedings for the minor grandchildren who were heirs to the Boatwright estate. She was approximately 74–76 years old. No gravestone or burial location has been identified in the surviving records.

 

Life and Times: Historical Context

To appreciate what Elizabeth lived through, it helps to place her life against the broader sweep of American history between roughly 1798 and 1874. She was born the same year that the United States elected John Adams as its second president. She came of age during the War of 1812. She raised her family through the boom years of South Carolina’s cotton economy in the antebellum period, a prosperity built on enslaved labor. The 1850 and 1860 censuses, while listing Lewis as a farmer, do not include slave schedules in the surviving genealogical notes, but life in rural Chesterfield County in that era was deeply intertwined with the institution of slavery.

The secession crisis and the Civil War upended everything. South Carolina was the epicenter of the conflict from its very beginning. Sherman’s March, which cut through the state in early 1865, destroyed not only physical property but records — including, as noted in Elizabeth’s own deed, the original Chesterfield County deed books. The Reconstruction era that followed brought constitutional amendments, new political realities, and continued hardship for many white Southern families who had lost sons, property, and economic security in the war.

Elizabeth navigated all of this. She buried a husband and two children in a single terrible month in 1863. She managed her own legal affairs and property in the years that followed. She lived to see the end of the war, the beginning of Reconstruction, and the slow, painful rebuilding of daily life in Chesterfield County. She died in 1874, the year Ulysses S. Grant was in his second term as president and the Reconstruction era was beginning to wind down.

 

Legacy

Elizabeth Rebecca Davis Boatwright was, by all the evidence available, a woman of considerable strength and steadiness. She raised eight children in a rural frontier county, watched the Civil War tear through her family with brutal efficiency, and then spent more than a decade as a widow managing her own legal and financial affairs in a society that rarely made that easy for women.

Her descendants fanned out across Chesterfield County and beyond. Through her son George R. Boatwright, through her daughter Louisa Ann Teal, through the children of Samuel who survived into adulthood, and through the grandchildren born to her deceased daughters Elizabeth and Mary — the Davis and Boatwright families of Chesterfield County bear her lineage.

She left no known gravestone, but she left a paper trail: land deeds, census records, court filings, and a signature — or a mark — on a document in January 1866 that tells us plainly who she was. Elizabeth Rebecca Boatwright. That was her name, and she wanted the record to show it.

 

Elizabeth Rebecca (Davis) Boatwright is my 3rd Great GrandAunt. 

 

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Sources & Notes

This biography is based on the Family Group Sheet prepared by Charles Purvis and the primary source documents cited therein, including U.S. Federal Census records (1810, 1850, 1860, 1870), Chesterfield County deed records (Deed Book #1), probate records from FamilySearch (Case 56, Lewis Boatwright; Folder #80, Samuel Boatwright; Folder #781, George R. Boatwright), court records from the Chesterfield District Court of Common Pleas (Case #94, Smith v. Boatwright, 1864), the Chesterfield County Cemetery Survey by James C. Pigg (1995), and Find A Grave memorial records. Harry Alexander Davis, The Davis Family (Davies and David) in Wales and America (Washington, D.C., 1927), was also consulted.

No information has been added or embellished beyond what is documented in those primary sources. Where uncertainty exists — for example, regarding death dates for Sarah, Calvin, and Lucinda Boatwright, or Elizabeth’s precise burial location — that uncertainty is noted in the text.

1. Harry Alexander Davis, The Davis Family (Davies and David) in Wales and America: genealogy of Morgan David of Pennsylvania (Washington, D.C.: H. A. Davis, 1927), page 55.

2. 1810 U S Census, Chesterfield, Chesterfield, South Carolina, population schedule, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page: 554; Line 22, Household of Thomas DAVIS, Household of Thomas DAVIS; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 2 January 2012); citing  National Archives Microfilm M252_60.

3. 1850 U S Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page 177B, Line 31, Dwelling 1214, Family 1214, Household of  Lewis BOATWRIGHT; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 3 November 2011); citing  National Archives Microfilm M432 Roll 851.

4. Land Deed - Lewis Boatwright to Samuel Boatwright; 15 April 1854; Deed Book #1; Page(s) 47-48; Register of Deeds; Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina; viewed.

5. 1860 U. S. Census, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page 145, Line 15, Dwelling 719, Family 717, Household of Lewis BOATWRIGHT; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : May 21, 2012 viewed); citing  National Archives Microfilm M653-1217.

6. Land Deed - James T. Talton to Elizabeth Boatwright; 6 July 1868; Deed Book # 1; page(s)280-281.

7. 1870 U. S. Census, Court House, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, population schedule, Court House, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Page: 307A; Line 18, Dwelling 376, Family 376, E. R. BOATWRIGHT Household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 7 July 2012); citing National Archive  Microfilm M593, Roll 1491.

8. Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, database and digital images, (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed  3 June 2012); Memorial page for George R. Boatwright; (19 January 1819–9 April 1894); Find a Grave memorial # 43479004, Citing Hurst Family Cemetery; Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, USA.

11. Land Deed - Lewis Boatwright to Samuel Boatwright; 15 April 1854; Deed Book #1; Page(s) 47-48; Register of Deeds; Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, SC; 3 June 2000.

13. James C. Pigg, Index and Genealogical Abstracts of the Chesterfield District Court of Common Pleas: Equity Side, 1823-1869 (Tega Cay, South Carolina: Self-published, 1995), page 130.

15. Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Probate Files & Loose papers, Lewis Boatwright Jr.; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org: viewed 29 May 2014); Probate Folder #56.