Re: MYSTERY-JONES, FITZHUGH, SPIVA, VESEY, RAMSEY
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In reply to:
MYSTERY-JONES, FITZHUGH, SPIVA, VESEY, RAMSEY
Marvin Minton 1/13/10
I believe the mystery is now solved.In the letter, it is apparent that Sarah Elizabeth "Sally" Vesey(????) was not a Vesey at all.Since she wrote the letter in 1941, evidently she had grown up believing that her mother was Ann Eliza Polk and her father Marcellus Lauderdale Vesey.Someone during her lifetime had given her very bad information.It is hard to understand how she obtained the information.Evidently her real father forever gave her up to her Grandmother, Ellen, and Grandfather Lazarus Jones, to raise.
After much investigation, I found Sarah living in the household of her Grandparents, Lazarus and Ellen Jones in the 1870 census of Lafayette Co Florida.In the household was her father, John O (or "W") Jones (in the 1860 census, John was shown as John W.), age 19, and her mother Eliza Jane, age 17 (born in Florida).In this census, she was shown to be Sarah "Ann" Jones, age (2), and born in Florida.There is no doubt this this was Sarah Elizabeth of the letter.
The letter stated that they left Florida and went to Louisiana (her father being a Baptist minister), and it was there that her mother, Eliza Jane, died.This stay in Louisiana would have been between the 1870 census of Lafayette Co FL, and she and no doubt her sister (Matilda in the letter), were with Lazarus and Ellen Jones in Sabine Co TX in the 1880 census. Matilda was shown as born about 1871 in Florida, and in the 1880 census was shown as Ellen M. Jones.I have had no luck in finding where they were during their Louisiana stay.
What made this mystery still more compeling was the fact that the Ann Eliza Polk,s(daughter of Charles Perry Polk, and husband of Marcellus L. Vesey) mother was Ellen Matilda Fitzhugh. And, as the letter stated (by whomever summarized the letter after Grandma (Sara Elizabeth) closed) that "Sarah and Matilda left old south to go to Texas with their 'paternal' grandmother and husband (Jones)."This statement would make one assume that this Ellen Matilda Fitzhugh was the mother of Ann Eliza Polk, who had married Lazarus Jones as one of his later wives.This was the only way that one could tie Sarah Elizabeth's mother to be the Ann Eliza Polk in the letter. And to even further muddy the waters, this Ellen Matilda Fitzhugh and the Ellen of Lazarus Jones were of the same age, according to the census records.There were just too many Ellen's in this mystery!!As it turns out, Sarah Elizabeth's true grandparents were Lazarus & Ellen Jones, and her parents were John O/W Jones and Eliza Ann, his wife.
Would love to find out this Eliza Ann's maiden name.Who knows, she could have been a Polk from another branch of President James Knox Polk's family.Also, Lazarus Jones' Ellen's maiden name. Please help me on this if you locate their marriages!!Thanks