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.

The Hemingway Family Migrates to Madison County, Mississippi

When the U. S. Census of 1850 was recorded in South Carolina, William and Henrietta Hemmingway were living in York in the York District of the state. According to the census, William was born in England about 1796, a "plasterer," with assets valued at $1,100. The birthplace of William's 51-year old wife, Henrietta, was also shown as "England." That same census record showed the Hemmingway household also included five daughters, Ann, 26, Helen, 23, Sarah, 19, Mary, 16, and the youngest, Henrietta, who was 14 years old.

In one of his emails to me, Mitchell Sawyer, a great-grandson of the older Henrietta, related this story about his great-grandmother: "My Hemingway ancestors left Duesbury England on the Ship Majestic and arrived in Charleston Harbor in 1829...(they) settled in the Camden, SC area ...."

By 1860, however, the Hemingway family had already migrated to Mississippi. According to the U. S. Census taken that year, the family was living near Canton, the county seat of Madison County, Mississippi. The Hemmingway surname was now spelled with only one "m." Heading the household was William Hemingway, a 63 year-old "painter," with property valued at $1,500, and 51-year old South Carolina-born Dr. Hemingway, a "physician and planter." Absent from the household was Henrietta Hemingway, William's wife and mother of his five daughters. According to her grave stone in Kirkwood Cemetery near Camden in Madison County, Mississippi, Henrietta Hemingway died on April 8, 1860, shortly before the U. S. Census of that same year was recorded.

The five Hemingway daughters enumerated in the 1850 census in York District, South Carolina, were shown on the U S. Census of 1860 as living in the household with their father and Dr, Hemingway. In 1860, Ann, the oldest of the five, was 34 years old, Helen, 30, Jane, 27, Mary 25, and the youngest Henrietta, was 23 years old. Of note was the fact that all five daughters were still unmarried.

Also residing in the Hemingway household were three other males, Frank Hemingway, a 20-year old and Edwin Hemingway, 16 years old, likely Dr. Hemingway's sons, and John Gourley, age 31, a "farm laborer."

In April of 1862, approximately two years after Henrietta Hemingway's death, her daughter, Henrietta, married John Gourley, the 31-year old who was enumerated in the Hemingway household in 1860. In late 1862, not yet three years after her mother died, Henrietta Hemingway Gourley, lost two more loved ones, her baby daughter, Henrietta Rose Gourley, and her new husband, John, who died in a Civil War battle at Fredricksburg, Virginia.

Next: The Hemingway Family - The Next Generation