Henrietta Hemingway Gourley Mitchell, Camden, Mississippi

When I last wrote about Henrietta Hemingway, the daughter of Henrietta and William Hemingway of South Carolina, she had married John Gourley on April 8, 1862, the first anniversary of her mother's death. That year must have been one of the most tragic years of young Henrietta's life, for it was the year that she lost their first child, a daughter named Henrietta Rose Gourley, and her husband, who was killed in the Civil War. She was a widow at age 26.

The next record of Henrietta Hemingway is an entry on the U. S. Census of 1880, one that shows Henrietta still living in Beat 5, Madison, Mississippi, near Camden. The household in which she "keeps house," is headed by her second husband, George Mitchell, a 40 year old Tennessee-born farmer. According to the census record, Henrietta was 44 years old, and she and George had six children, Annie, age 13, Susan, 11, William, 8, Joe, 5, George, 3, and Ellen, age 2.

According to the U. S. census of 1900, Henrietta was then a 64 year old widow who lived in the household with her unmarried son, Joe H. Mitchell, age 27, and her 66-year old unmarried sister, Mary Hemingway. Joe Mitchell, his mother, and his maiden aunt still lived near where he was born, in Beat 5 (Camden) of Madison County, Mississippi. Also living in that household was Annie Stewart, a 30 year-old servant. Approximately 15 residences away was a household headed by former Mississippi Governor, William McWillie, a longtime friend of the Hemingway family.

When Henrietta Hemingway Gourley Mitchell died a few years later, she was buried in Kirkwood Cemetery near her mother, her baby daughter, and members of the McWillie family.