Learning from the Grandmothers - Phoebe
Lessons on how to know it's time for a new beginning
The energy of new beginnings is all around right now. A new moon. New plants sprouting and budding. A mama Eastern Cottontail Rabbit has even built a form (a nest-like cavity on the surface of the ground lined with grass and loose fur) in our garlic bed, awaiting the arrival of new life.
When I think about new beginnings, I think of my great great great great grandmother Phoebe. Phoebe continuously found herself confronting new beginnings. Sometimes out of choice, but not always.
A story that spans 1782 to 1806, and is as dramatic as a television mini-series.
Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and other American Indians were the original peoples of the land we now call Mississippi. This was their ancestral home, and between the late 1600s and the late 1700s, France, Great Britain, and Spain all laid claim to the area as part of their colonial empires. The Europeans attempted to form political, military, and economic alliances with the original inhabitants with varying degrees of success and with deep impact upon all of those who lived in the region.
A brief timeline for context1:
3 August 1716: Natchez, which is the focal point off much of the story to follow, was established as a French fort site overlooking the Mississippi River.
1775: Spain becomes the last European power to control the region.
1788: The city of Natchez was laid out by Governor Carlos de Grand-Pre.
1795: Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo setting the boundary between Spanish Florida and the United States as the 31st parallel.
March 1798: Spain relinquished control of the area.
7 April 1798: The U.S. Congress created the Mississippi Territory.
1804: The northern boundary was extended to the Tennessee state line.
1812: President James Madison annexed additional land along the Gulf of Mexico Coast.
1813: The Mississippi Territory encompassed the boundaries of present-day Alabama and Mississippi.
1817: Mississippi became a U.S. state.
Phoebe Meets and Marries Stephen
My great great great great grandmother Phoebe was born c.1758, likely in Virginia. I don’t know anything about her parents or exact location of her birth. In fact, she doesn’t appear in any paper trail until she marries Stephen Jett c. 1779.
Stephen was born in Virginia and had found his way to North Carolina and Kentucky. Along the way he met and married Phoebe in the Holston River section of VA. The Holston River is a major river system of southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee. Phoebe and Stephen had 2 children Hamilton, born c.1782 in VA, and John born in 1783.
In Phoebe Calvit versus Stephen Jett (1784), Phoebe told the Natchez Court that while she was pregnant with her second son, John, she discovered that Stephen had deceived her and had another wife. She he left him, and subsequently married William Calvit in 1783, who also had property and a home in the Holston River territory.
Phoebe Leaves Stephen, Meets and Marries William, and Leaves for Spanish West Florida.
There were many reasons people moved to the Spanish West Florida (Mississippi territory). Cheap and extremely productive land was the biggest draw. “One Mississippi immigrant described his new home as ‘a wide empty country with a soil that yields such noble crops that any man is sure to succeed.’ Another new settler wrote to family back in Maryland that ‘the crops [here] are certain . . ., and abundance spreads the table of the poor man and contentment smiles on every countenance.’”2 Some accepted appointments as scouts, others were avoiding taxes.
Whatever the reason, moving to Mississippi would not have been a decision one made lightly. Regardless, Phoebe and William were in Spanish West Florida (Natchez) by 1784 when the case came to court.
Nowadays, we’d jump on a plane and fly to Jackson, Mississippi or New Orleans, Louisiana and rent a car to drive the rest of the way to Natchez, Mississippi. It might be stressful, but it certainly would be fairly easy and direct. Getting there was certainly not easy and direct. Phoebe and William had only two choices.
First, they could travel on covered wagons or ox drawn wagons, on trails through the wilderness, like the Natchez Trace (see map below). The Natchez Trace is one of the oldest transportation routes in North America; its human use dates back 10,000 years. They may have had to travel over mountains, over rivers without bridges and ferries, and encountered severe weather, wolves, bears, and snakes, and highwaymen/outlaws would hide in the woods waiting to attack unsuspecting travelers.
Or, they could travel down the Holston River to Spanish West Florida (Natchez).
I suspect the river was their choice, but I have no way of knowing for sure. If they did travel by the river, this was not easy and direct, either. Still arduous. Still dangerous.
Col. John Donelson’s journal entries3 detail the problems faced by early voyagers down the Holston River. His party left Fort Patrick Henry, near Long Island, on a voyage down the Holston and Tennessee, and up the Ohio and Cumberland. He set out early in the fall of 1779. Here are excerpts:
December 22, 1779 — Took our departure from the fort [Patrick Henry] and fell down the river to the mouth of Reedy Creek, where we were stopped by the fall of water, and most excessive hard frost; and after much delay and many difficulties we arrived at the mouth of Cloud‘s Creek, on Sunday evening, the 20th February, 1780, where we lay by until Sunday, 27th, when we took our departure with sundry other vessels bound for the same voyage, and on the same day struck the Poor Valley Shoal…..
Monday, February 28th, 1780 — In the morning the water rising, we got off the shoal, after landing thirty persons to lighten our boat. In attempting to land on an island, received some damage and lost sundry articles, and came to camp on the south shore, where we joined sundry other vessels also bound down.
March 2nd — Rain about half the day; passed the mouth of French Broad River, and about 12 o’clock, Mr. Henry‘s boat being driven on the point of an island by the force of the current was sunk, the whole cargo much damaged and the crew’s lives much endangered, which occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their assistance, but with much difficulty bailed her, in order to take in her cargo again. The same afternoon Reuben Harrison went out a hunting and did not return that night, though many guns were fired to fetch him.
Sunday, March 12th — Set out, and after a few hour's sailing we heard the crowing of cocks, and soon came within view of the town; here they fired on us again without doing any injury.
Wednesday, March 15th — Got under way and moved on peaceably the five following days, when we arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee on Monday, the 20th…..Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high, and the current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming a rapid stream, our provision exhausted, the crews almost worn down with hunger and fatigue… The scene is rendered still more melancholy , as several boats will not attempt to ascend the rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi to Natchez …We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to pursue my course, happen what will.
Tuesday, March 21st — Set out, and on this day laboured very hard and got but a little way; camped on the south bank of the Ohio. Passed the two following days as the former, suffering much from hunger and fatigue.
Donelson did continue on, reaching his destination on April 24th — approximately four months after his departure.
Thurmond A. Williamson and Laura Munson Cooper delineated, in blue, on this 1783-1803 map, the route down the Holston River and Mississippi River that their ancestors traveled, and Phoebe and William may have traveled to reach Natchez. I am so appreciative of their work to show this; it gives an unbelievable understanding when combined with the journal above. It took Donelson’s party almost 3 months to arrive at the juncture of the Mississippi River. This would have been just one portion of Phoebe and William’s travel down river.
Phoebe and William Have Their Own Challenges in Natchez
However they traveled, Phoebe and William were in Natchez by 1784 as that is when the Old Spanish records begin to tell Phoebe’s remarkable story.
Stephen apparently followed them from the Holston River territory to Natchez. Stephen came to William’s house “swearing that no one but himself should have [Phoebe] and has since taken her child by stealth for no other purpose but to torment [her]” Phoebe asked the court to compel Stephen to return her child and the court did so.
William and Phoebe had troubles of their own. In 1784, during one of her separations from William, while she was staying with the Tacitus Gaillard family, their son, Tacitus Gaillard Calvit, was born.
Phoebe and William were the first separation/divorce case ever recorded in the Mississippi Territory. First, there was a separation agreement in 1785 as to Phoebe’s house - Calvit’s Corner, financial maintenance for Phoebe and her children, her spinning wheel, cards and cotton, and 4 cows and calves.
William Savage, curate of the parish (a clergy member working under the direction of the main priest to help serve the spiritual and practical needs of the local church community), persuaded Phoebe to return to William’s house and they attempted to live together again but without success.
In 1787 Phoebe petitioned “His Honor, De Grand Pre’, Lieutenant Colonel of the Armies of His Majesty and Commandant of the Fort and District of Natchez” to consider her miserable condition and provide support from her husband. She cited:
“choking, beating her, putting her outside, and menacing her by threatening her life, together with insults most abominable…..his treatment so barbarous and cruel, at last has forced her to flee, and seek refuge at the house of her neighbors who have had the humanity to receive her…..At the time she married she had: a good horse - which he sold and kept the money for himself, and several good and decent wearing outfits; that her husband had never given her anything except two chemises.”
In 1795, Phoebe petitioned the Spanish Govt to establish a home for herself and sons on Lot No. 3,Sq. No. 13, in the City of Natchez. This request was granted and the property became known as Calvit’s Corner. In fact, in 1801, when the merchants of Natchez petitioned the legislature in 1801, to incorporate the town, Phoebe's was the only female's name, signed.
The Spanish Court granted Phoebe’s petition for separation with restoration of the property she owned.
In 1796, Phoebe told the court that she had lived in fear and with cruel treatment and could not remain with William so she left again.
On 18 March 1796, Phoebe asked the court for a separation with restoration of the property she had owned, including a bed and furniture, valuable horse and a saddle, when she married William Calvit. The court ordered it to be so.
This was an incredible decision by the court. This was a Spanish court and Spanish law did not allow for divorce. “As established by the 24th session of the Council of Trent (1563), a ratified and consummated marriage constituted an indissoluble bond even in cases of adultery, although it could be dissolved as far as cohabitation was concerned in cases of extreme gravity.”4 ()
The preference rather was divorce a mensa et thoro— to divorce from bed and board. Essentially the courts could grant temporary separation at the request of one party, while maintaining the marital union. Adultery, heresy, leprosy, incurable syphilis or other contagious diseases, drunkenness, and violence by the husband were all grounds that might result in a temporary divorce. As Father Torrecilla explained in 1691:
“But giving her a few slaps, or blows with a stick, is not sufficient grounds for divorce ...because the husband is obliged to rule his wife and may correct and punish her if necessary…”5
The behavior was required to pose a serious threat to one of the spouses or excessive cruelty or abuse, such that it made married life impossible due to constant insults, abuse, or humiliation then it could lead to a temporary divorce. This is exactly what happened in Phoebe’s case, with the court going so far as to say: “during the twelve years of her marriage she has received nothing from him, not even clothing.”
On top of that, there is the matter of her property. There are two types of courts: (1) court of law and (2) court of equity. “Common law defined a woman’s status through coverture as a feme covert when she became married, which meant that everything she had previously owned now became the property of her husband. Her husband would now own, manage, and receive earnings from anything that had once been hers.”6
Under feme covert, a woman could not execute contracts, sell or own property, or write a will. Her property, upon marriage was technically her husband’s property.7
However, a court of equity is a type of court with the power to grant remedies other than monetary damages . These remedies include injunctions , writs , or specific performance among others. Under equity law, sometimes married women could own and control property that she could not do under the common law, such as own property through marriage settlements (marriage contracts), wills, or trusts.8
Phoebe marries Ebenezer and uses equity law to protect her own property from overreaching men.
When Phoebe married Ebenezer Dayton in 1801, she invested all her property, real and personal, in a trustee to ensure her own use and interest against all others, and made Dayton renounce his rights in the marriage agreement. Ebenezer died one year later in New Orleans, 1802. Phoebe wasn’t a legatee in his estate, as they did not have children. Only the children from his prior marriage filed suit as heirs. Her property was protected and her rights to it secured.
From 1801 until 1806 Phoebe had to deal with a merchant named Robert Moore who attempted to take ownership of her property, Calvit’s Corner. Moore had a grant to the same property that was dated later than Phoebe’s grant. It was suspected that Moore’s grant was one of the ante-dated grants given by the Spanish to “their favorites” after they had determined to leave Natchez. Moore tried to eject Phoebe from the property and the court permitted the introduction of parol testimony to prove fraud in Moore's grant. Verdict was rendered for Phoebe.
Moore was not satisfied and took the issue to the Supreme Court which decided for Moore. However, the populace was outraged. Moore was indicted for fraud and people tried to get Chief Justice Lewis impeached in the territorial assembly. In the end, the verdict for Phoebe was upheld. This was long before the Mississippi Married Women’s Property Act of 1839.
Phoebe’s saga was memorialized into a law to permit parol testimony in land cases to prove fraud. Parol evidence is any agreement that is not contained within the written contract. Today, the parol evidence rule is codified in U.C.C. § 2-202, which states that terms in a writing intended by the parties as a final expression of their agreement may not be contradicted by evidence of any prior agreement or of a contemporaneous oral agreement but may be explained or supplemented by course of dealing, usage of trade, or by course of performance; and by evidence of consistent additional terms unless the court finds the writing to have been intended also as a complete and exclusive statement of the terms of the agreement.
The paper trail becomes quiet.
In 1806, Phoebe was approximately 48 years old and the paper trail became quiet for the last time.
Phoebe likely died between 1806 and 1816. Her son, Tactitus served in the War of 1812 from 13 Sep 1813 until 28 Mar 1815, and was living in Jefferson County, Mississippi afterwards. He was her heir and sold the home (Calvit's Corner) to Pleasant Hunter on 20 January 1816. I have yet to uncover anything about Phoebe’s life after 1806. I do know she was not living with any of her children according to the 1810 U.S. Census. Did she marry again? When did she die? Where was she buried? These are questions for which I will continue to strive to find answers.
Phoebe was an energetic, savy, independent, and yes, litigious woman. The men in her life let her down, or at best, simply weren’t there to support her. She knew how to advocate for herself and how to use the legal system to her benefit. She blazed new paths and changed the place where she lived. She is all about new beginnings.
3 Things I have learned from Phoebe about knowing when it is time for a new beginning.
There are many reasons for and signs that a new beginning is in order. These are the three I have learned from Phoebe:
When your life situation seems to not align with what you hold deeply, your core beliefs, core values, what you believe to be true, it is time for a new beginning.
Trust. Fidelity. Family. These mattered deeply to Phoebe. When Phoebe had one child with Stephen and was pregnant with their second, she found out that he had deceived her and had a wife and children elsewhere. This didn’t align with her core principles and ethics, or the life she wanted, to the point that not only did she leave, but she went on a dangerous and lengthy journey to another region.
When life feels unsafe and insecure, it is time for a new beginning.
This may be emotional, intellectual, physical insecurity. In Phoebe’s story, it is choking, beating, putting her outside, insulting, menacing, and threatening her life. When she could no longer tolerate the cruelty and fear that permeated her life with William, she sought her own home and property and received it with the support of the court.
When you see signs of going down a similar path you have already journeyed, learn from your past and then, begin again.
I like to think that Phoebe was a hopeful romantic and that is why she continued to try marriage. When she chose to marry Ebenezer she was secure in her personal and real property. The town acknowledged her as on the same standing as the men who petitioned the legislature to incorporate the town. I suspect, she didn’t financially or socially, need to marry again but wanted to. She learned from her previous marriages and ensured that her property would always be hers, and then she embarked on marriage once again.
One last final reminder from Phoebe: When you find yourself on your own, take the step that feels right to you; keep going; you’re stronger than you think.
5 Notes
Five final notes on what I’m anticipating, doing, pondering, reading, and practicing in yoga.
Anticipating: I am looking forward to May Day — the half-way point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. While it is celebrated on a day, it’s a seasonal celebration that lasts up until the Solstice. Our celebrations begin on May Day Eve, April 30. May Day, also called Bealtaine/Bealtainn/Beltane/Beltuinnn/Walpurgisnacht/Maik, is a time to celebrate the coming of the seasonal change, welcoming summer and renewed vitality. According to Sharon Blackie, “the boundaries between our world and the Otherworld were temporarily erased; on May Eve fairy folk and other spirits were believed to roam freely, and measures had to be taken to protect against their enchantments. It was said that both witches and fairies would stay up all night on Bealtaine eve, taking the form of hares to take cattle produce from their neighbours.” When our kids were little, their school had a full day of May Day celebrations including art, music, song, and the dancing of the May Pole. For our family, it is a time for our first outdoor fire since the winter began. We also place flowers on the windowsill and by the front door - wildflowers and primroses. Sometimes we’ll enjoy bannocks and caudle. Scott Richardson has a great description of bannocks and Beltuinn, including recipes.
Doing: I’m still working on learning to spin and weave. I love it! If you are interested in learning, too, visit Weaving Remembrance. This has brought on an interest in completing unfinished projects: patching jeans, sewing together the knitted squares for a blanket that the kids grandma never finished, finishing a blanket I started knitting years ago. When working like this I feel connected to something beyond myself.
Pondering: Messenger by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here, which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.
Reading: Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller. From the publisher: “Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.”
Yoga: As I mentioned above, this season is full of energy around new beginnings; we’re even working up to a new moon right now. My yoga practice is about creating conditions to engage with the energy of Spring and the energy of Earth. I’m sticking with my practice from last week for a little bit longer. My practice right now, looks like this:
See: The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising its Settlement, as The Watauga Association from 1769 to 1777; A Part of North Carolina, from 1777 to 1784; the State of Franklin, from 1784 to 1788; a Part of North Carolina, from 1788 to 1790; the Territory of the U. States, South of the Ohio, from 1790 to 1796; the State of Tennessee from 1796 to 1800 by J.G.M. Ramsey, A.M., M.D., Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1853.