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.