Post # 21 ~ Henry's Parents: Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers of Anderson, SC

Warning!: Genealogy Research

~ Also: Which Jeffers Engaged in Manufacturing and Trade? ~ 

In an earlier post I mentioned my search for the genealogy of the Jeffers family. I have not found much about Henry Langford Jeffers' parents, Nathan Jeffers (1783-1842) and Rhoda Delph (1784-1849). But I have questions - was there a breach between Henry L. Jeffers and his father Nathan? How did Henry interact with his mother?

A silk weaver of olden times.

I haven't found letters, wills, legacies, or anything to indicate friendly familial ties. So I look at what information I can gather - and wonder if I have enough clues to make assumptions one way or the other. Here are a few of the notes I am compiling about Nathan and Rhoda:

• My records contain a few old penciled notes that my 3rd great-grandparents were Nathan Jeffers and Rhoda Delph. Living DNA matches (on genealogy websites) make sense of Delph ancestry, but the seatch for an ancestral "Jeffers" line has been much more difficult. I zeroed in on all DNA Matches with trees showing direct ancestors named "Jeffers," or similar name - I have gotten nowhere with this for a long time. [Update: Lately (2023) I have made progress; there is a huge clan of Jeffers and related families in north central Tennessee, to whom I am most definitely related. But many unanswered questions remain. After enough answers appear, I will find a way to update this.]

• Though the names of Nathan's actual parents and siblings are not totally clear to me yet, an important point in this thread is that Rhoda did have relatives in the district, living near Abbeville. Her widowed mother, Anne Nancy Powell (Delph) came to the area before 1800, bringing her children with her, to live near siblings who had migrated south from Culpeper, Virginia. So our Henry had Delph and Powell cousins in the Abbeville area.

• Census records for 1810 and 1820 show that Nathan Jeffers (spellings vary) lived in or near Abbeville, SC. The ages listed fit well with the family of Nathan and Rhoda. (And son Henry Jeffers left statements that he was born and raised in this western part of the state.)

• Next, the Census Records of 1830 and 1840 show Nathan Jeffers and his household living in Anderson, SC, a bit further north than Abbeville. By that date (1830) Henry L. Jeffers had launched out for himself in Hamburg. 

• See a more detailed analysis of the Census records 1810-1840, listings for Nathan Jeffers. 

• Nathan's obituary appeared in Anderson County newspapers in January, 1843, (he died 27 December 1842). From Genealogy Trails: 

Nathaniel Jeffers - Died...In this village on Tuesday morning the 27th of December last, Mr. Nathaniel Jeffers, aged about Sixty years.  Mr. Jeffers was one of the first settlers of our village, and, from all the kindness and generoisty [sic] of his nature, had long enjoyed the devoted esteem and confidence of our citizens who knew him. He had for many years been an exemplary member of the Baptist church.  His disease was dropsy of the chest, and his confinement long and painful.  He endured his suffering with the fortitude of a true christian, and died rejoicing in the hope of a blessed immortality, beyound [sic] the grave. (The Highland Sentinel [Calhoun, Anderson District, SC] January 6, 1843)

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So why do I wonder if there was a breach between Henry L. Jeffers and his parents? The lack of documents showing friendly relationships between Henry and his folks might not mean anything. I confess it is pure conjecture to theorize that Henry felt resentment toward his parents because he grew up poor, illiterate, and was put into an apprenticeship at age fourteen. But if it were true - that resentment may have been heightened by the fact that his Delph and Powell cousins were doing very well. 

While I admit to conjecture, there are solid clues which keep these questions alive in my mind. Henry L. Jeffers and his wife Eliza Ann Anderson were very close to her aunt Elizabeth Anderson (Spann) and her husband, Dr. James Spann. Both families lived in Hamburg during the 1830s and 1840s, so that is natural. In fact, a few years later, as shown on the 1850 census, Henry and Eliza Ann Jeffers lived in the house next door to the Spann's only daughter, Augusta Spann Latimer (Eliza Ann's first cousin). Her oldest son off at West Point in New York, and her husband having abandoned her, Augusta Latimer lived there with her younger children. [This thread leads to a whole different and very sad story that happened during and after the Civil War, which will need to be told elsewhere.] 

But to get back on point, there is evidence of a striking contrast between the couple's closeness to their Anderson family relations and their distance from Henry's own parents: the couple named four of their five children for Eliza Ann's family:

1. Annie Lamar Jeffers, named after Eliza Ann's mother and grandmother;
2. Thomas Anderson Jeffers, named after Eliza Ann's father and brother;
3. Augusta Latimer Jeffers, named after Aunt Elizabeth's daughter Augusta Spann (Latimer);
4. James Spann Jeffers, named after Aunt Elizabeth's husband Dr. James Spann;
5. (Of course the oldest son in the family, my great-grandfather William Henry Jeffers, was named after old Tippecanoe.)

Further evidence of the Jeffers' closeness with Aunt Elizabeth was the fact that when her husband Dr. James Spann died in 1838, Aunt Elizabeth turned to Henry L. Jeffers for help in managing her affairs, even though her own son-in-law Alfred Latimer still lived near-by. 

The Edgefield Advertiser, 1838-04-12. LOC

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I can also contrast Henry's help for Elizabeth Spann to the handling of probate for his own father Nathan Jeffers. In December, 1842, Nathan Jeffers died intestate, in Anderson, SC. The probate document (seen on Ancestry) is mostly illegible, too light to make out. But I can just see that the administration of his belongings was appointed to Fleetwood Rice of Anderson. Nathan left behind some goods and some debts, and I am making the assumption that widow Rhoda arranged with Fleetwood Rice, a merchant, to settle things.

Anderson, SC, is located an inconvenient hundred miles away from Hamburg. It seems logical to appoint a local merchant to sell the goods and pay the debts, rather than have son Henry take it on. But it does contrast with the administrative oversight Henry performed for the Spann family.

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Perhaps no breach existed between the father and son. Who knows? Now I come to the one unexpected finding in this tale that pleases me. I learn so much from some 1848 newspaper articles about a Mrs. Jeffers who lived in Anderson. Henry L. Jeffers was displaying his mother's handiwork in SC and GA stores. For fifteen years (since 1833) Rhoda earned a living by producing silk material - breeding the silkworms, unwinding the cocoons, spinning the thread, and weaving the cloth. 

Daily Chronicle & Sentinel (Augusta, GA), 1848-11-30. Digital Library of Georgia.

Henry L. Jeffers was proud of his mother. And I am proud of her, too; and feel affection for my 3-greats grandma, based on this lovely evidence of her resourcefulness and creativity.

Handloom Weaver on Wikimedia Commons, Tim Green on Flickr

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PS. If you look at the Census data shown in the document linked above (and here), you will notice that the 1840 Census in Anderson for the household of Nathan Jeffers states that two "Persons" in the home were employed in "Manufacture and Trade."

I used to think, "Well, Nathan got a job at a shop of some sort." Now I know better - Rhoda created fine silks from absolute scratch - and somebody else in the house helped her.