The Diary of Mary Ann Shrock Burns

Note: As part of Women's History Month, this blog post honors Mary Ann Shrock Burns as one of America's many women settlers who lived in adverse conditions and during difficult times that included dangerous cross country moves, illness, death, and war. 

As many family history researchers will attest, any document created by an ancestor and preserved over time, is a valuable find.  This fact is especially true when the document is a handwritten diary that contains very personal family history that spans over fifty years. The subject of this blog post today, the “Religious Diary of Mrs. Mary Ann (Shrock) Burns,” is all that and more.  For at least two Attala and Madison County families, Burns and Shrock, it is indeed, a priceless family treasure. 

I first became aware of the diary when a Burns family descendant, searching online for  family information in Attala County, Mississippi, stumbled upon this blog and contacted me.  After we had exchanged several emails and various bits of family history information, my contact, an Oklahoma resident, told me about the diary and offered to send me a copy of its transcription.  Based on conversations with my contact, the original diary was found among Mary Ann's possessions. Later, the diary was transcribed and was donated by one of Mary Ann's granddaughters to a museum near where her grandmother died. Although I am not related to the Shrock family or to the Burns family, at least as far as I know, some of my own ancestors lived for decades in Attala County, Mississippi, in close proximity to members of the Schrock family. And it was for that reason, as well as the fact that I write about Mississippi genealogy, that I was pleased when my contact offered to mail a copy of the transcription to me. Our agreement was that I would read the diary, write a blog post about its contents, and donate it to the Attala County Library in Kosciusko, Mississippi. My contact asked only that I honor the museum's request that the transcription itself would not be scanned and made available on the internet. The copy in my temporary possession is a reproduction of the diary’s transcription, part of the Hildegard & Richard Wheeler Collection, contained within the holdings of the E. A. Arnim Archives & Museum in Flatonia, Texas. It was there, in Fayette County, Texas, that Mary Ann Shrock Burns, her husband, William Dennis Burns, and other family members would later settle, where they died, and where they are also buried.

Since I am one of "those people" who often look first through the index of a book, and on occasion, read a few pages near the end, I thumbed through the transcription of the diary to see what I could find. And in this case, I was pleased to find vital information about the Shrock family recorded at the end of the diary. Dates and places of births, as well as dates of marriages and dates and locations of deaths, helped me to better understand names and events contained within the diary's contents. I found that Mary Ann Schrock was born on December 28, 1812, the daughter of Henry and Mary Shrock, and the third oldest of seven daughters and one son born to that couple. Her oldest sister, Elizabeth, was born on March 3, 1809, and Catherine Houseman Shrock, the next oldest of her sisters, was born on March 13, 1811. Grace Shrock, almost two years younger than Mary Ann, was born on November 26, 1814. Two younger sisters, Sarah Shrock, born on May 6, 1817, and Nancy Shrock, who was born on August 17, 1819, completed the list of Shrock daughters.  Mary Ann's only brother was Joseph Kilpatrick Shrock, born about 1821.

When Mary Ann Shrock began to keep her diary on March 22, 1837, she did so with the intention that she had that day “covenanted afresh to the Lord’s” and desired to “be more devoted to his service.”  According to information recorded at the back of the diary, by early 1837, Miss Mary Ann Shrock was an unmarried 25 year old woman who had already experienced enough grief for several lifetimes. On July 4, 1824, she had lost her mother to "bilious fever," and shortly after her mother's death, her sister, Martha Jane Shrock, died in October of 1827.  Tragedy soon struck the Shrock family three more times, when her sister Gracie died, also from bilious fever, when she was only 17 years old, Catherine H. Shrock died at age 18, and her youngest sister, Sarah, died at age 19. Mary Ann's diary states her father remained a widower for eight years before he married for a second time.  According to details included in a diary entry dated November 4, 1852, Henry Shrock "sold out" in South Carolina and in the spring of 1834, moved to an area of Madison County, Mississippi, known as Camden. Other former residents of Camden, South Carolina would call Camden, Mississippi "home," including an early Mississippi Governor, William McWillie, and Chapman Levy, the latter of whom would later serve in Mississippi's legislature. 

In an early diary entry dated August 18, 1838, Mary Ann Shrock's words convey homesickness and sadness as she wrote of being “deprived of some precious friends by death, being removed several hundred miles from the place of my nativity......cast among strangers where there appears to be but little religious.” Almost a year later, in an entry written from Mount Olive and dated July 12, 1839, she seemed joyful in spirit when she wrote that she had “entered into a matrimonial conversion..,” and was now filling “the important station of wife and mother, my dear companion having five children before our marriage.” She added that her step-children “appear fond of me and I love them dearly, and am well pleased with my new home, (and) think I have one of the best of husbands.”  According to information that appears on the last pages of the transcription, Mary Ann Shrock married William Dennis Burns on May 15, 1839. At the time of their marriage, Mary would have been 26 years old and Dennis, 45.

Although Mary Ann's entries were somewhat infrequent after her marriage, at least for the first several years, she continued to write about her family and her strong faith in God. That faith would be severely tested shortly after her marriage, when, on December 2, 1839, Mary Ann's oldest step-son “killed himself accidentally with a gun.....in the 21st year of his age."  Mary’s quiet observation in the diary entry was “Mysterious are the ways of providence," and the impact of the incident apparently caused her to write of her concern to “to live every day as if it were her last.” According to her diary entry dated July 31, 1842, Mary Ann had given birth to two sons since her marriage in 1839 to Dennis Burns, and according to the account, their youngest son was just twelve months old.  In the same entry, Mary Ann notes that she and Dennis have four older daughters who also live at home.

Over the next forty-plus years, Mary Ann Shrock Burns made time to include details in her diary that would chronicle the birth of more children, tell about the death of a baby girl, describe family illnesses, including information about her own “various trials and afflictions,” and would tell about several family moves. In an entry dated November 30, 1856, Mary Ann describes the loss of her baby daughter, sadly writing "Gave birth to an infant, a daughter, that never opened its eyes to behold the sad earth made its early escape to the paradise of God." Various diary entries provided brief insights into the family's moves from Madison County to Forest Hill, to two separate places in Mount Olive, and to Steam Mill, in Attala County, Mississippi, the latter in early 1855. During the time she lived near Steam Mill, Mary Ann expressed feelings of concern when she wrote in her diary of being "shut out from society" and "deprived of church privileges." She wrote of her longing to "see the work of God received in this neighborhood," and the wish that "the time (would) soon come when we shall see the wilderness rejoice and the desert blossom as a rose." In an entry dated April 20, 1858, Mary prays for strength as she writes that her "dear father (Henry Shrock) has closed his eyes in death. He passed away the 11th, .......after suffering for some months, both bodily and mentally."

The next year, on November 2, 1859, Mary Ann writes that she has "left my home in Attala County, Mississippi, Oct. 25th. Have been on the road eight days, am now on the west bank of the great Miss. river, have had a pleasant time, excepting the dust. Passed Oakland College this morning.  visited the burying ground before sun rise saw the tombs of some who had come from the far east to seek their fortunes in the south.  We go to the far west."  Mary Ann's next diary entry is dated May 11, 1861, when she writes "We have again changed our home, are now living in Fayette Co. (TX)."

Over the next several years, according to her diary entries, Mary Ann would see three sons go off to fight in the Civil War. On August 8, 1863, she writes that one of the sons, Billie "....reached home two days ago in tottering health, after being shut up in Vicksburg 48 days living on half rations and then walking one hundred miles home.  Nothing short of the power and goodness of God could have brought him safe through."  A subsequent entry on November 8, 1863, states "My dear Billie, after remaining with us two months has again been called out in defense of his country, to be again exposed to the evils of camp life." The entry includes a prayer that he will be preserved from harm. On May 8, 1864, Mary Ann states she is "now called to give up my Joseph to go in defense of our country, which is a hard trial as he is feeble in health." And she again prays for the well-being of yet another son gone off to war. Mary Ann's prayers would be answered, according to a diary entry on May 28, 1865, when she fervently wrote "My three sons have returned home in safety....."

Although three of Mary Ann's sons lived through the Civil War, another son died on June 4, 1862. According to a diary entry made on June 4, 1878, Mary Ann lamented the sixteenth anniversary of the death of her son, Henry, who "was buried in a distant land, in a soldier's burying ground.....O, who will take care of mother now."

Almost three years later, on May 6, 1868, Mary Ann writes "Oh, what scenes of sorrow and affliction have I passed through since my last entry. My dear husband after twelve days of great suffering closed his eyes in death on.....3rd of May.....O, how dreary does the world appear to me now." On January 3, 1869, Mary would write "He (Dennis) was a good man, and a kind husband and father." And during the next decade, she would continue to mourn the loss of her beloved husband in diary entries written on anniversaries of his birth and of his death. According to information contained in one of those entries, William Dennis Burns had been born in 1794.

Mary Ann Shrock Burns, a woman of intense courage, great faith, and a sincere belief in an eternal future, continued to live in Fayette County, Texas, near living loved ones, until her death on September 10, 1887.  She is buried near her husband in Pine Springs Cemetery, near Flatonia, Texas.  

Surname Saturday - Are We Related?

It's Saturday again, and it's been a while since I last posted a list of the surnames I am researching. If you are also searching any of these names and in any of these locations, I would love to hear from you.  Maybe we can exchange some information or offer each other some new research ideas.  So here goes:


Baldridge -  Ireland >PA>NC?>SC>TN>MS(Carroll County) 
Branch -  England >Virginia>NC>TN>MS (Hinds, Madison, and Attala Counties) 
Coggins - Wales>Nash County)>SC>GA>AL>MS (Holmes County) 
Fenner - Ireland >Rhode Island>NC>GA>AL>MS (MS Territory, Wilkinson County)
Gibson - Scotland>VA>NC>SC>MS (Adams, Monroe, Calhoun and Carroll Counties)
Merriwether - England>VA>KY>SC>GA>TN>MS (Calhoun and Carroll Counties)
Middleton - England>SC>MS Territory (Franklin County)
Netherland - VA>KY>TN>GA>AL>MS Territory (Amite County)>MS (Holmes and Yazoo Counties)
Pettus - Norwich, England>VA>KY>TN>AL>MS (Holmes County)
Porter - Ireland>PA>NC>SC>GA>AL>MS Territory (Franklin County)>Madison & Attala Co (MS)
Ragland - Wales>Ireland>VA>NC>SC>GA>AL>MS (Franklin, Wilkinson, Hinds, Attala Counties)
Trigleth - England>VA>NC>SC>GA>AL>MS (Holmes and Yazoo Counties)

Wordless Wednesday

Digital Photo Collection (2009 - 2011)
Privately Owned by J. Tracy

Benevolent Protective Order of Elks (B.P.O.E.)
Historic Building on the Square
Canton (Madison County) Mississippi

Wordless Wednesday

Digital Photo Collection (2009-2011) - Privately Owned by J. Tracy

Wohlden 
Circa 1828
Located in Canton, Mississippi
County Seat of Madison County

Wordless Wednesday

Digital Photo Collection 2009-2011
Privately Owned by J. Tracy

The Balfour Family in Mississippi

Beginning with a look at the U. S. Census of 1850 (Madison County, MS) and continuing with a Google.com search, I quickly found a wealth of information about the Balfour family.  Links to some of these results are posted here today.  A special thanks goes to Bill Hays for kindly sharing some of his family's history with me.


The Issaquena Genealogy & History Project: The Balfour Family

Balfour (William L.) Papers, 1841–1863. Located at the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

History of the Balfour Family of Richland Parish Louisiana, submitted by Rosemary Davis 

A House Under Siege: The Balfour House, Published on Southern Lagniappe on February 16, 2011

Barwick Family of Madison County, Mississippi - Part 1

Several weeks ago, Aubrey Wren, a reader, contacted me about an abandoned cemetery in Madison County, Mississippi.  Mr. Wren was kind enough to email me detailed information about the location of this old cemetery, as well as photos of three gravestones and transcriptions of the inscriptions on the stones.  These old and weathered gravestones mark the burial places of four members of the Barwick family. The information and photos provided by Mr. Wren can be viewed on my other blog, Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek.  


According to my contact, the cemetery is on church property, about 200 yards of Cauthen Road, near Highway 43.  The area is fairly remote, with timber activity on pieces of property nearby.  Although Mr. Wren is not familiar with the family name on the gravestones, he has been a faithful steward of this small cemetery he discovered.  A couple of times a year, Mr. Wren tends the small burial place by cutting back the grass and removing brush from around the gravestones. Since the cemetery area is about 40 feet by 60 feet, Wren believes the cemetery likely contains more graves, but to date, he has found no other markers.  


But who was this Barwick family whose graves have been abandoned for years?  I decided that I wanted to know more, so I decided to do a little research to find out.  Census records available on Ancestry.com seemed to be the first place to search, and that is where I began.  According to the U. S. Census recorded in 1850, Henry K. Barwick, 35, and his wife, Jane, 33, were counted in the Richland District of South Carolina.  Residing in the Barwick household were four children, William B. 10, Virginia E., 7, Henrietta A., 5, and Cornelia J., 1 year old.  Next, I searched the 1860 U. S. Census and found H. K. Barwick and his family living  in Madison County with a post office address of "Canton," the county seat and not far from the abandoned cemetery. The census record showed that H. K. Barwick was a 45 year old planter and the head of a Madison County household in which he lived with five females named Mary, age 27, Virginia, age 18, Cornelia, 11, Alice, 5, and Jane, age 3.  Barwick was a wealthy man for the time, with real and personal property valued at $25,500. Although relationships were not shown on the 1860 census, it seems fairly safe to assume that Mary Barwick was H. K. Barwick's second wife. That assumption is validated by the gravestone in the abandoned cemetery bearing the name of Jane M. Barwick, who died September 16, 1853.  According to the inscription on the stone, Jane's 12 day old infant daughter, Margaret Eleanor, is buried at her side.  


While the two oldest children in the household, Virginia and Cornelia, were born to H. K. Barwick's marriage to Jane, it seems reasonable to assume the two youngest daughters, Alice and Jane, had been born during his second marriage to Mary and that three year old Jane most certainly was named for her father's deceased first wife.  Further information about the Barwick family is substantiated by the second gravestone belonging to Mary Barwick. According to the inscription on the stone, Mary Barwick was born on May 22, 1783 and died on February 27, 1853, and was the mother of H. K. Barwick.  The third gravestone pictured on Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek is inscribed with the name of W. B. Barwick (William B., according to the 1850 U. S. Census), showing that he was born on June 12, 1840 and died on December 17, 1868.


Tomorrow:  The Barwick Family of Madison County, Mississippi - Part 2

Wordless Wednesday - Ross Barnett Reservoir

Ross Barnett Reservoir With Marina in Background

Photo by Ashley Rennie Antilley of Freedom Photography

Wordless Wednesday - Madison MS Caboose

Photo by Ashley Rennie Antilley

Freedom Photography

The Atwood Family in America

During the past week, I have been researching my Atwood family connection, beginning with Harriett Atwood who married James Baldridge in Madison County, Mississippi in 1834, and working myself back to the 1700s. Interestingly, over a two hundred year period, I found a number of Atwood women named Harriett. But it was not until yesterday, when I discovered this article during a Google search, that I knew why so many of the Atwood female children were named "Harriett."

The article also validates the Atwood family's settlement in New England after its patriarch, Abraham Atwood, arrived with other colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The name "Abraham," like Harriett, was handed down to subsequent generations of Atwood male family members, including Abraham Atwood who claimed land in Bibb County, Georgia for his service in the War of 1812.

Next: The Atwood Family in the South

The Hemingway Family - South Carolina to Mississippi

Recently, I communicated with a reader of this blog, Mitchell Sawyer, about one of his ancestral families, the Hemingway family, that migrated from South Carolina to Madison County, Mississippi. I first learned about the Mississippi Hemingway family from Mitchell earlier this year when he provided me with name of some of those who are interred at Kirkwood Cemetery near Camden, Mississippi, in Madison County. The name of Henrietta Hemingway, one of Mitchell's ancestors, was among those names, and Mitchell was kind enough to provide the copy of Henrietta that is seen here today.

Photograph provided by Mitchell Sawyer

Although I am not certain, It is likely that the Hemingway family and the family of former Mississippi Governor William McWillie knew each other before they ever left South Carolina. The idea that the two families had a relationship is supported by a family story handed down throughout the generations. According to Mitchell Sawyer, this story relates how McWillie's wife is said to have styled his Hemingway grandmother's hair before her wedding.

The fact that many families living in the Camden, Mississippi area during the mid to late 1800's had lives that were intertwined is not unusual. The community was a small, rural one, fairly close to Kosciusko, but somewhat remote from the larger towns of Yazoo City, Lexington, Greenwood, and Jackson, all miles away. It seems reasonable to assume that children of families who live in close proximity would marry someone who lived nearby. In fact, this assumption follows a cardinal rule of family history research, one that states eligible men and women meet and marry because they know and live near each other. And that was exactly what happened in the case of the families of Camden, Mississippi and numerous other places throughout history.

Starting tomorrow, I hope you will join me here as I tell the story of Mitchell Sawyer's ancestors, the Hemingway Family of South Carolina and Mississippi.

Chapman Levy - Camden SC>Camden MS

Several months ago, I received an email from Mitchell Sawyer, one of my Mississippi readers, regarding a post I had written on my other blog, Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek, about Kirkwood Cemetery. Located near Camden in Madison County, Mississippi, the cemetery is named for "Kirkwood," the family home of former Mississippi Governor, William McWillie. The cemetery is the burial place for members of McWillie's family and those of several allied families.

In his email last March, Mitchell told me how he had located the cemetery in 2008 and had initiated a clean-up project that was later completed by the Madison County Board of Supervisors. In a subsequent email on April 9, 2009, Mitchell was kind enough to send me photos of the cemetery and of one of his Hemingway ancestors buried there. Thanks to Mitchell, I learned that Kirkwood Cemetery is actually a part of the old St. Philip Episcopal Church grounds, and its official name is St. Philip Episcopal Churchyard.

Along with the photos of his own ancestors, Mitchell included a photo of another Camden resident who is buried near the McWillie Family, that of Chapman Levy, whose picture is shown here.

Chapman Levy (1787–1849)
Artist unknown, ca. 1835
Watercolor on ivory
Gift of Thomas W. Crockett in honor of Loraine Crockett
Jewish Heritage Collection

College of Charleston Library

Recently, after I was contacted by another reader who may be a descendant of a Levy family member, I began searching for the origins of this family. With some assistance from Mitchell, I found a wealth of background information about Chapman Levy. According to available resources, Chapman Levy was born on July 4, 1787, the son of Samuel Levy, a merchant, who was born circa 1762, and Sarah Moses Levy, date of birth unknown. Research indicated that Samuel Levy's family was one of a small number of Jewish families that resided in Camden, South Carolina during the early 1800s. According to the book, The Jews of South Carolina, written by Barnett Abraham Elzas Abraham and published by Lippincott in 1905, Levy served as an officer in the militia during the War of 1812, became a successful lawyer, businessman, and later a politician, when he represented Kershaw County, South Carolina in the state house and senate.

Levy married his first wife, Flora, who died in 1822 after only five years of marriage. He remarried in 1823, this time to Rosina, Flora's sister, but that marriage ended early, too, when Rosina died in 1828. According references researched, Chapman Levy's father, Samuel, died about 1842 in South Carolina, but the date of his mother's death was not found.

Chapman Levy died in 1845 and was buried in Kirkwood Cemetery. But why was he buried among families named McWillie, Anderson, Hemingway, and others? The answer to this question became crystal clear, when I found during my research that Chapman Levy, former Governor McWillie, and their families knew each other in South Carolina before migrating to Mississippi. I found that McWillie and Levy, both lawyers, also had a common military background, each having served in the War of 1812, and had been business associates in Camden, South Carolina, as well. According to available resources, this friendship continued after the two men migrated to Madison County, Mississippi. Their association included a business relationship, as well, when Levy served in McWillie's administration during his term as Governor of the State of Mississippi.

More about Chapman Levy's life and political career can be read here.

References:

Sawyer, Mitchell, Personal emails, with photos, to the writer, dated March 20, 2009, April 1, 2009, and April 9, 2009.

Elzas, Barnett Abraham, The Jews of South Carolina, from the earliest times to the present day. J. B. Lippincott, 1905 - Google Books, accessed on August 5, 2009.

The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, accessed website and its link to Southern Jewish Communities: South Carolina/Camden, August 6, 2009.

Rosengarten, Theodore and Rosengarten, Dale, A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life, Google Books, accessed on August 6, 2009.