More research on the house....because I am a glutton for punishment....

On Wednesday afternoon, Vince and I loaded up and headed over to the Edgefield Court House to see if we could find out any more information about our home. Armed with what we already knew, we were prepared to trace back as far as the records would take us. When I left the Saluda Courthouse with their earliest record, I was back to April 15th, 1897 with 161.3/20 acres of land and the title being in the names of Miranda D. Asbill and W. D. Barnwell. I soon figured out the Miranda and W.D.  were the daughters (Miranda and Wilhelmina) of Dr. and Mrs. DuBose. I assumed that this was the point were they must have inherited the home. Doing a little research lead me to find out that Ms. DuBose had passed away in 1886 leaving her husband a widower. I believe 15 year old Miranda was the only child still in the home at that time. Dr. DuBose passed away February 15, 1895 in Baltimore, MD. I am unsure if he had moved to Baltimore or was there visiting when he passed. Miranda married Dr. Fletcher Gladstone Asbill in 1895. I haven't yet narrowed day what date that marriage occurred. So, we had Dr. John Boyd DuBose and Ms. Sarah Elizabeth DuBose as the names we felt we needed to start with.

Edgefield is a lovely little town and the Courthouse is located right in the heart of it! It was easy to find and the folks there let us know that their records started in 1913, but that right next door was the Archives and they would have the information that we needed. In the back of this brick building is a place I think I could have set up camp for weeks!! TONS of photos and records. They even have plats and personal letters! I'm already in love with this place! We arrived a bit after 3:00 and they close shop at 4:30 so Vince and I knew we had to work quickly. We started with a 1871 Surveyor's map. Once we nailed down the area where we knew the house stood, the Archivist was nice enough to  make us a photocopy of that area and a good bit of the surrounding area. We already knew the names of some of the big landowners in that general area and houses around us are named for their original owners luckily! Except ours. Yes, we're confused too!

Here is what Vince and I were working with....

 

You'll see my notes and color coding as I try to get my bearings. Now what we're basing our location off are those train tracks, which, if they have not been moved, run right passed my house. I've always believed that DuBose Street which runs straight to my front door from 23 was the original driveway to our home., The fact that it's called "DuBose Street"? Well, I just figured!

 

We then grabbed a BIG book of purchasers of property in Edgefield County for certain years since we knew we probably needed to start in the 1890's and work our way back. When I say this is a big book, I can't even express the size of it! It was HUGE! Anywho, we started with the name "DuBose" and managed to locate 5 land purchases right off the bat. Surprisingly enough, 4 of those land purchases were made by Ms. Sarah DuBose!! Yes, Ms. Sarah in the early 1870's had purchased land. In the South, this was a pretty big deal. Ms. Sarah was a married woman, and therefore faced many limitations in property ownership. Her husband was considered the Head of the Household, therefore he would control the property, the children, and any labor on the place. This is called "coverture." I'm not quite sure when SC adopted the Married Women's Property Act, but I feel it was probably shortly after the Civil War. More research on that to come!! Just as a side note, Mississippi was the first state to pass that act in 1839. Go Mississippi!

 

Here is what we have so far...

 

1/8/1874 - Sumter Boatwright sold Ms. Sarah some land (we didn't see how much) for $140.00

7/13/1873 - B.T. Boatwright sold John B. DuBose some land (again, we missed it!) for $75.00

3/1/1872 - B.T. Boatwright sold Ms. Sarah 2 1/2 acres for $75.00

2/17/1872 - Sumter Boatwright sold Ms. Sarah 3 3/5 acres

4/28/1870 - William Edward Carwile sold Ms. Sarah 2 acres

So, as early as 1870, Ms. Sarah was purchasing land in her own name, almost always with her husband as a witness. Now, just so you know we weren't trying to do a half-baked job, let me explain why in some cases we missed the amount of land or sale price. The writing looked like this....

This is gorgeous, but difficult to read sometimes!

 

In defense of the original writers, they started out lovely and clear, but like me, after a bit, their handwriting suffered! Here's the beginning of a document...

 

We also discovered that what we REALLY needed was some time to see the plats because the way they laid out exactly what parcel they were selling was by what bordered it. For example, the document may say, "bordered on the west by lands of BT Boatwright, bordered on the north by the Charleston-Columbia-Augusta railroad and Columbia Road, bordered on the east by lands of Sumter Boatwright and Aiken Road, bordered on the south by lands of....." and so on. I'm a visual person (and also my father's child!) so I did this.....

I then used the houses that I knew were in the neighborhood when all this was happening. This isn't to scale (of course) but is a rough estimate of how everything was situated. Once I can view the plats for BT and Sumter (if they exist), I think I'll have a better handle on exactly what little bits of acreage the DuBoses were purchasing. This will be a long process with weeks invested but it is kind of like solving a mystery for us! We know what our destination is, but I expect the trip to get there is going to be the REAL fun!! I'll leave you with a few of the books I'm currently reading on the Civil War South:

"The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution the transformed the South"
by Bruce Levine

"Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Southern Women in the Civil War Era" by Laura F. Edwards

"Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States: South Carolina" by the United States Work Projects Administration

Have a great weekend, y'all!!