Learning from the Grandmothers - Elizabeth
The story that emerges when you are looking for a different story
I found another spinning wheel story among my grandmothers. I decided to take it as a sign that it is time to share this grandmother’s story - Elizabeth. Elizabeth is my 4great grandmother. She lived through almost all of the 19th century. She died in 1896 at age 96, a time when the average life expectancy was around 45. (Interestingly, women’s life expectancy at birth since 1850 were similar to those of men until about 1930 when women’s life expectancies began to increase more sharply).1
When I started writing about Elizabeth I thought it was going to be straight forward. I’d look at the will, uncover the spinning wheel story, and learn something from it. That's not what happened. The spinning wheel helped me uncover a different story. A story of what it was like to navigate one’s fluid legal status as a woman in the 19th century. Elizabeth’s story is about navigating her way under the control of her father, then her husband John, then herself, then her husband Henry, and then herself.
Not much is documented about Elizabeth’s life before she appears in the 1820 Mississippi census. What I do know comes from Elizabeth’s great grandson Donald. Donald was my dad’s cousin, 1C2R to be exact. This means Donald’s grandparents were my dad’s great great grandparents. Donald was only a few years older than my dad’s mother and the extended family all knew each other. Donald shared the information he knew with members of the family, when interest in documenting the family began in earnest in the 1950s.
According to Donald, Elizabeth married John Allen in 1816 in Camden, South Carolina. Soon after, they left in a covered wagon and headed to the Mississippi Territory. I can only imagine how daunting this journey seemed to Elizabeth. Venturing into the unknown frontier.
Elizabeth as feme covert.
Mississippi, like the rest of the states at the time, applied the Common Law system of Coverture. An unmarried woman was a feme sole. A married woman was a feme covert. Essentially, married women’s legal identities were subsumed by her husband.
Elizabeth Jones ceased to exist when she married John Allen. She was now Elizabeth Allen. This meant:
Elizabeth no longer had the right to sue or be sued
Elizabeth had no right to make deeds or enter into contracts
Any property Elizabeth held before their marriage, was now under John’s control
John held almost exclusive right to act for the couple in all legal matters
John assumed all her debts and became her representative in all of her legal matters
John managed all property and money that they owned and obtained
As Blackstone put it: the husband was the one “under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing.”2
Upon marriage John gained full control of almost all of Elizabeth’s personal property. The only personal property she retained control of was “her paraphernalia.” Generally this included clothing, jewelry, and some other personal and household items.
Blackstone again: “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband...”3
Elizabeth & John Leave for the Mississippi Territory
I don’t know if Elizabeth and John made the decision together. I’d like to think so. Given the age difference between them (she was about 16 and he was about 40) and the climate for women at the time, I suspect it was John’s decision.
It’s also hard to know exactly why they made the decision to go. That is easier to imagine, though. Cheap and extremely productive land was the biggest draw. Whatever the reason, moving to Mississippi would not have been a decision made lightly.
The Mississippi Territory was the place to be after 1798. The United States Congress organized the Mississippi Territory and opened the area to settlement in 1798. As we know from Phoebe’s story, there were already Europeans living in what we now call Mississippi. There were also the Original Peoples, the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations, who were the majority of the residents. USA statehood did not come to Mississippi until 1817, but in the years from 1798 to 1819 Mississippi experienced the largest numbers of migrants it had seen.
Today, it would take about 11 hours by car, 752 miles or so to travel from Camden, South Carolina to Woodville, Mississippi. Travel in a covered wagon for the first half of their journey would have been manageable for Elizabeth and John, but the second half of the journey would have been difficult, uncomfortable, and dangerous.
Their journey likely began on the Southern Fork of the Great Valley Road (sometimes referred to as the Great Wagon Road) from Camden to Augusta, Georgia. About 130 miles long or so. The Great Valley Road began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It had two forks:
Into the Tennessee Valley and Knoxville
Into the Piedmont Region of North Carolina - this is the one where Camden was located
By 1805 this was a well established road. Their were way-houses. Even stagecoaches used it. For Elizabeth and John, this part of the journey, from Camden to August would have been fairly straight forward.
Once in Augusta, Elizabeth and John needed to head west towards Natchez, Mississippi. This wasn’t straight forward though.
There were three roads for travel through Mississippi:
The Natchez Trace - This was the most frequently used road but it was a Northerly and Southerly road in the western portion of the territory. This would not have been helpful to Elizabeth and John.
The road from Knoxville to Natchez via Tombigbee - This road was north and west. It, too, was not helpful to Elizabeth and John.
The road from Georgia by way of Fort Stoddert to Natchez, Mississippi. This was the first road to connect the eastern and western parts of the territory, and which was exactly what Elizabeth and John needed to do.
This third road was created in 1807. The way was “completely opened and marked with causeways across all boggy guts and branches, so that strangers can travel the road with safety, by observing the three notches, or three-chopped way.” The Three-Chopped Way shortened the distance to Georgia for travelers. Total miles was 545.4 I wonder what Elizabeth’s reaction was to seeing the Three-Chopped Way after traveling the more established Great Valley Road.
After the War of 1812 ended, these roads sparked the greatest migration to Mississippi. During the 1810-1820 decade, Mississippi’s population more than doubled. The total population had grown by more than 44,000 persons.5 This is exactly when Elizabeth and John were traveling to the Mississippi Territory.
Elizabeth and John finally arrived in Woodville in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. They settled, did some farming, and had children.
In 1829, John received a land patent for 160.12 acres and the family moved to Mt. Salus, Hinds County, where they eventually built a house. (Mt. Salus, was settled in 1805 at the junction of the Natchez Trace and Old Vicksburg Road. Later the name was changed to Clinton.)
John died three years later, 1832. Elizabeth was in her early 30s and she had 7 children.
Elizabeth becomes a feme sole.
As a widow in 1832, Elizabeth regained the rights of unmarried women during the period of her widowhood. A widow could make a will, buy or sell property, act as a guardian, sue or be sued, or be an executrix or administratrix. If the widow owned personal property, she could bequeath it in a will.
Widows had to contend with two additional conditions:
Unless explicitly given land in a will, widows had only the dower life interest in their late husband’s real property, which could not be devised to her children or sold.
A widow’s children were legally “orphans,” whether she was alive or not. A widow with children had no legal right to choose the guardians of her minor children.
When John died in the Fall of 1832, Elizabeth became the administrator of his estate and found herself in probate court. Her tasks:
prepare of an inventory of the estate’s assets
settle debts
distribute assets to heirs
The first step she took was to have the personal estate appraised. This was set in motion in October 1832 when the court appointed five men to complete the appraisal. Elizabeth then petitioned the court in November 1833 for the order to sell the personal property to pay debts and benefit heirs. This sale she said would consist of cows, horses, “farming utensils,” household and kitchen furniture.
The next step was taken by Elizabeth’s son William. As mentioned above, a widow’s children were legally “orphans,” whether she was alive or not. A widow with children had no legal right to choose the guardians of her minor children. William petitioned the court in October 1833 to permit his mother, Elizabeth, to be his guardian.
“The petition of Wm… that he has arrived at the age to select his own guardian, that he would further state to the court that he devises his mother Elizabeth Allen may be appointed his guardian…..”
In January 1834 Elizabeth was identified as the guardian of all seven of her children.
It was now time for Elizabeth to take care of the real property. Elizabeth was entitled to the widow dower. The widow’s dower share meant that she was entitled to 1/3 share for life of each separate tract of land. In December 1833, Elizabeth petitioned for her dower for life - 1/3 of John’s realty in Hinds County. She even made notice in the newspaper.
Elizabeth received her dower in January 1834.
Remember, it was a spinning wheel that got me to look into Elizabeth’s life….
Elizabeth then turned her attention back to the sale of the personal property. It is unclear when the sale actually occurred. But, the report was filed in April 1836. The report lists the inventory, the buyer, and the price.
There are things which I understand seeing on the inventory: 16 head of cattle, 3 oxen, 1 yoke oxen.
Then there are some things that were sold that were surprising:
one lot of pots and ovens $5
one lot of books $1
one clock $10
12 chairs $7
3 trunks $7
one table ?one bead $2
one bead $1
one bead $1
one chest and coffee pot $0.25
one bed beasted and furniture $10
one stand of furniture $1
Then, it appears. Elizabeth’s spinning wheels:
1 spinning wheel for $1.75
1 spinning wheel for $2.25
I started to become flustered by this. These are things Elizabeth needed to maintain her family of seven children and herself. How could this be? How could all of these items be sold just because John died?
I took a deep breath, and looked deeper.
I first looked back to the petition to the court. Elizabeth had asked for the order to sell the personal property to pay debts and benefit heirs. That makes sense. Debts must be paid off before distribution to heirs. If there was a short-fall, personal property would need to be sold.
Next, I needed to see who purchased these items.
1 spinning wheel for $2.25 - sold to Jefferson Hudson
All the other items I listed above were bought by E. Allen, including her other spinning wheel. None of her children were of age to purchase the items, so this wasn’t one of them. There were no additional Allen relatives that I have located. This had to be Elizabeth purchasing her home items back from the estate!
What was happening here?
To Re-marry or Not to Re-marry
Elizabeth had an important decision to make after John died: whether or not to re-marry. She must have considered her age, running a house with seven children, and if she had enough property to live as she was accustomed. She was certainly young enough, and running a household was difficult. “A helpmate could mean the difference between a competent livelihood and financial need.”6
Elizabeth also knew that the moment she remarried, her legal standing would shift. Again. She would once again be a feme covert. She would lose the rights she had acquired as a widow — to make a will, buy or sell property, and the right to be guardian for children. What a difficult decision to face.
By 1835 Elizabeth remarried. The administrative papers of John’s estate mentions that she married Henry Hudson. On a list of disbursements in July 1835 she is cited as “Elizabeth Hudson (Late Elizabeth Allen) administartix.” She was about 35 years old.
Then it struck me. Elizabeth wasn’t just buying her things back. She didn’t do this in isolation. She was ensuring she purchased her household items while she still could, preferably while she was still a widow. She was also ensuring that she had what she needed for her new household, her familiar household items, especially her spinning wheel.
Elizabeth was starting a new life with Henry while still raising her seven children. Her oldest child came of age in 1839 and the youngest in 1853. Henry assumed legal guardianship of her seven children during that entire time. Once the estate was closed in 1853, Elizabeth and Henry moved left Hines County and moved to Copiah County.
Elizabeth’s first child with Henry was born about 1836. Seven children from her marriage to John, a new and growing family with Henry, and John’s probate estate to administer until the final accounting in August 1853. This must have been so much to manage.
Elizabeth and Henry had two children throughout their marriage. Henry died in the Fall of 1868. Elizabeth was age 68.
Elizabeth lived for another 28 years. In the 1870 census she was 71 years old and living with her son, William, back in Hinds County. William died in 1875. I lose Elizabeth in the paper trail until her death in 1896 is noted in a book.
A Lifetime of Changes
Elizabeth lived nearly 100 years. She moved to the “wilderness” from an established town. She traveled on established roads and post roads. She lived under four Mississippi constitutions. She witnessed the forced removal of American Indian nations to lands west of the Mississippi River. She witnessed human enslavement and terror, and emancipation and reconstruction. She gave birth to 12 children. She buried two husbands, six children, five sons-in-law, and 13 grandchildren (these are only the ones whose dates I have found so far). And, she lived to see the end of coverture.
Mississippi began chipping away at coverture in 1839 with the Mississippi Married Women's Property Act. Though passed in 1839, the original law was amended twice—once in 1846 and again in 1857. The Mississippi legislature finally passed an act in 1880 that completely freed married women’s property rights from the constraints posed by law and history. The new law completely abolished property ownership restrictions based on gender and marital status. It was “possible for married women who owned property to dispose of their property by last will and testament, an action which was not possible previously except where the husband granted permission or a equitable arrangement had been made with such a provision.”7
What have I learned from Elizabeth?
When I realized that Elizabeth’s story was about how she navigated her ever changing legal status as a woman in the 19th century, I had a difficult time finding the lesson in it for me. Looking at it through 20th and 21st century lenses made it all look like resilience again. But it was something different.
Coverture overshadowed so much of Elizabeth’s lived experience. As a legal concept it was never actually abolished in the United States. States chipped away at it. Yet, it’s legacy is still visible. Coverture-adjacent legislation and beliefs are still real. They still impact women’s lives. “The glass ceiling” is real. So are: disparate pay; gender based violence and harassment; assumptions made about how women’s behavior impact men’s actions; health care bans; dress codes that treat students differently based upon gender. It’s important to remember coverture’s legacy, to see where it lurks now so that it can be further dismantled.
Elizabeth’s lessons are more subtle. She was a woman who found her way. She just lived her life. She followed what was expected of her, given how she found herself in the world at a particular time. Her father likely arranged her marriage based on economics, and she had to go with it. Moving to Mississippi was likely what John wanted, and she had to go with it.
I suspect that a lot of her life was spent doing what she was supposed to do. But in those moments where she had a level of independence, a bit of control, she took the opportunity and did what needed to be done to protect herself and her family, and their well-being.
Elizabeth offers to me a reminder that it’s okay to stay the course. It’s okay to not always be challenging or fighting something. Sometimes it’s needs more nuance. Sometimes it’s important to look for those moments where you can nudge something in a beneficial direction.
While I look at her life as being remarkable for what she went through, where she went, and what she did, I suspect she felt like she was just living her life. And, that’s a good reminder. She lived.
One last final reminder from Elizabeth: You may think you know, but you might not really know. Take your time. Look closely. Ask questions. Look again. Go back and forth between questioning and revisiting. The story that is there for you will unfold.
5 Notes
Five final notes on what I’m anticipating, making, pondering, reading, and practicing in yoga.
Anticipating: Midsummer Eve. Linked with the summer solstice celebrations, midsummer celebrations, the eve before 24th June, is a festival of fire and water, sun and moon, abundance and fertility, happiness and joy. Water and plants are particularly potent during this time so there are lots of ways to mark this day with water and plants. I will wash my face with the first dew of the morning, make an elderflower cordial, and decorate the house with herbs, plants, and twigs, such as chamomile, elderflower, fern leaves, lavender, and maple. All of these herbs, plants, and twigs are from our garden spaces.
Here's my cordial recipe:
Fresh or dried herbs and/or fruit - enough to fill a quart jar about 1/3 to 1/2 full (use the smaller measurement for dry herbs to allow for expansion). I like to use dried elderflowers to make the Summer Solstice cordial.
240 mL (8 fluid ounces) vodka or brandy
240 m: (8 fluid ounces) honey or maple syrup
Finely chop fresh herbs and fruit, place in a clean, glass jar so that it is 1/3 to 1/2 full. Pour 240 mL (8 fluid ounces) vodka/brandy into a separate bowl. Slowly whisk in honey/maple syrup. Pour the liquid mixture over the fruit/herbs. Add additional vodka/brandy, if needed, so that the contents are well covered. Cover tightly, shake well, and let the mixture macerate for 3-4 months. Strain well, bottle, and enjoy.
Making: The lavender starts blooming this month. It is the first herb I collaborate with during this time leading up to the solstice and midsummer. Some of the lavender I harvest will be dried for later uses (such as incense, oils), some will be used fresh in the kitchen (such as cookies, lemonade), and some will become lavender bundles.
As the solstice approaches, the lavender bundles throughout the house will be replaced with new ones. Lavender is said to encourage peacefulness and discourage negative energy so we hang ours in rooms where people gather and over our main door. I'll harvest the lavender the day after a rain, once the plants have completely dried. This will help to prevent mold after they are bundled. The bundles from last year will be burned in our summer solstice fire.
Pondering: As I work in the garden this month I can’t help but think about my ancestors and their traditions around plants. I often think of the search for the mythical fern flower in Kashubia when I look at the native ferns in our garden.
This mythical fern flower that grew in thickets and wetlands took on various shapes and colors. It bloomed only for a moment, some say between eleven o'clock and midnight, others say just after midnight.
Not only was the fern flower hard to find but the search for it was dangerous. Witches, evil spirits, monsters, and more were all trying to keep the seekers from finding the fern. They’d try to get them lost and sometimes even capture them.
The finder of the fern flower becomes rich, has excellent health, and lives a long life. There is always a consequence with this sort of thing - he will no longer be a good man. He will become proud and greedy. For more on the folklore around the mythical fern flower see: Polish Legends: The Fern Flower.
Reading: Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid I am so enjoying this author’s writing style! From the publisher: “a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.”
Yoga: My plan is to continue marking the seasonal shifts by completing 108 Sun Salutations in bite size chunks: 9 sets of 12, and each set of 12 divided into 4 sets of 3. I first attempted this at the Spring Equinox and am going to continue it with the Summer Solstice. You can read my process in my 5 March 2025 post. For my Summer Solstice practice, I am focusing on my breath, returning to balance, and letting my heart truly open. It doesn’t really matter if I achieve 108 Sun Salutations, but the process of getting there will be informative. I’m practicing throughout the month first doing 36, then 72, then 108 on the solstice. My practice right now, looks like this:
