Saturday, October 27, 2012

Burials at Lucky Hit Cemetery

If all you have is circumstantial evidence when researching for the slave owner of ancestors, anything you discover can be a clue to add to your mound of evidence. I came across a few death certificates that list the burial place as Lucky Hit for a few members of my father's maternal family. The suspected slave owner, Hezekiah George David Brown, settled at Lucky Hit Plantation after his marriage.

"Hezekiah married Mary Peachy Taliaferro (born March 3, 1831) in a wedding that must have been planned well in advance with many attendants, including two sisters of Jefferson Davis. Hezekiah was 24 and Mary Peachy Taliaferro was 16 when the wedding took place on December 23, 1847, and was a major social event in plantation life of that day. After Christmas he returned to Annapolis and, as a married man, he was allowed to resign honorably, to the delight of Mrs. Taliaferro who urged the young couple to live with her at "Spring Hill" near Hazelhurst. His declining this invitation was a masterpiece of diplomacy and they settled at "Lucky Hit", a nearby plantation."
From Research Notes of Suzanne Brown
Today, Lucky Hit Cemetery is nonexistent. I contacted descendants of Hezekiah George David Brown and they have no idea where cemeteries are on the Brown property. Was Lucky Hit the burial place of former slaves on HGD Brown's plantation or was it a cemetery established after slavery ended?

Virginia Williams/Taylor Demyers - buried at Luckey Hit 18 Aug 1930
Virginia was born to Hardenia about 1850 in Copiah County, MS. Virginia and family were slaves on Somerset Plantation, a neighboring plantation to Lucky Hit. Virginia married John T. Demyers, my paternal grandmother's granduncle.

Albert Brown Spencer - buried at Lucky Hill 07 Apr 1927
Albert was born to John Spencer and Mary Trueheart (Hart) 05 Aug 1858, likely in Copiah County, MS.

Pedro Spencer - buried at Lucky Hitt 17 Apr 1927
Pedro was born to Albert Brown Spencer and Mary Brown in 1904 in Copiah County, MS.

Felix Williams - buried at Lucky Hit Cemetery 06 Mar 1923
Felix was born to John Weldon Williams and Emma Demyers about 1859. John Weldon Williams was a slave of Joseph and Elizabeth Rice Brown who were the parents of HGD Brown. Weldon was allotted to HGD Brown after his mother's death in 1855.

Felix is a nephew of the above Virginia, and a cousin of Pedro's wife Emsley.

1 comment:

Snowbrush said...

Cemeteries have a way of being built--or ploughed--over as if they never existed, so the man might have been you the truth, or he might not.