Granddad JC and vehicles

From an interview with Granddad JC:

My Dad and his dad both had cars, Model Ts, way back. They parked it at the old mulberry tree back at his house and uh we'd go out and play in it. See, our house was right over here, and we had a road that came and our driveway went straight up to our house, on the right side. That's where they had the barns, and the car shed, and the corral, and the pump. That was all on the far side--the east of the house. We had barn full of corn, and full of fodder and hay, and the stables.

I learned to drive on that little A Model convertible. They had a beautiful buggy and a horse when I was a little baby. They were going to church and I wanted to go but they wouldn't let me go. They'd keep me at home. I remember raising Sam because they wouldn't let me go to church. It was a real nice black buggy, then they started getting cars. He used to work on the roads here. He ran the road machines--my dad. That was the last job he had. First they had a tractor, like a D8, big tractor, pulling the road machine with a blade and Dad would drive the tractor. He had a prisoner that would operate the road machine that turned the blades and worked the sides of the roads.

They did all the roads back here, they were mostly--why, McRae road was a dirt road back then! Yep.

Izzy: They were terrible dirt roads!

JC: They were muddy, slick. I remember one time I was working for quality cleaners on a delivery truck. We got down to the country--paint hill, I think they called it that, with the red clay and all. We turned the corner and had to go up just a little incline and dad gummit the back end of the car started to slide over because of the crown in the road and it was so slick and all. It started sliding over I jumped out and took the side of the car--we had like a station wagon; they called it a suburban, the back doors would open up like that. Anyway, I took the side of it and I pushed it into the center of the road. I was about 14. I kept it from sliding into the ditch. That was really an experience!

Pictures of Robert Jackson Connell's chimney!

Ever since Granddad told me that his grandfather Robert Jackson Connell and grandmother Matilda Bowers lived near the corner of Canada Drive and Rowe Street, I have been itching to walk through the woods around there and see what I could find. My recent stay in Camden offered me the golden opportunity!

My husband and my brother were kind enough to accompany me on the walk through the woods. We walked around for a while before finally finding some ruins of what I'm guessing was a chimney. I felt kind of silly for walking around so long because I think you might even be able to see some of the bricks from the road! (I'll have to go back to double check) The bricks and mortar were almost literally at the corner of the two roads. It was hard to get a good picture because of the dappled sunlight and shadow in the area; I'm hoping to come by at a time better for taking pictures so you all can get a better idea of what it looks like.

The bricks and mortar had fallen into a wide (about 7 or 8 feet) trench and blackberries and wild cherry trees were growing nearby. It was truly picturesque.

I asked Granddad about the trench and if it was man-made or not. He said no, it wasn't man-made and that it was where the water went when it rained; the trench was made completely by erosion. Hearing that reminded me of how all that land used to be cleared of trees and was all farm land, with corn, cotton, or oats growing as far as you could see. I imagine that wasn't as good for preventing erosion as trees and the leaves and pine straw that come from them. Granddad told me that the runoff trench was close to the house, but not right next to it. He also reminded me that all the wood that made up the house had been taken for firewood, so there wouldn't be much to see. He had forgotten about the chimney and told us to look for the old pump that was connected to a well there but was a short distance from the house (that's why we didn't find the old chimney right away). We couldn't locate the pump but we're thinking about going again sometime when the leaves have fallen off of the trees because it might be easier to spot it then.

Family neighborhood

When Granddad J.C. was a kid, they had a little neighborhood of family members living nearby. It looked something like this:

I don't remember if Granddad said that his aunt's house was his great-aunt's or if it was just his aunt, but he said it's where Lena (a cousin of ours) and her family lived when I was growing up. Granddad said that it was like a small neighborhood with all of the family so close by. I'm sure they could see each other's houses from their own homes because Granddad said there were no trees around when he was a young boy -- all the land was used for farming crops like cotton, corn, pea vine hay, and oats for the mules.

The roses that grow along some parts of McRae Rd. and Canada Drive were planted by Granddad JC's grandfather Robert Jackson Connell. Evidently Granddad JC's mother Laura really liked the roses as well, because she planted some next to her house. Granddad said that Robert Connell's house was situated in the bend of Canada Dr., smack dab in the middle. He had crab apple and mulberry trees near his house, as well as an old Model T car that Granddad JC would play in as a boy. Granddad said that the house was nice, but that after Great-great-granddad Connell passed away it fell into disrepair and eventually couldn't be used because his family took wood from it for fuel in the winter.

More records for Robert J. Connell

I found Robert Jackson Connell's death certificate!

The certificate lists some useful information: First, it is the only source I've found so far with his full name (Robert Jackson Connell). Also Robert's father is listed as Col. S.J. Connell; his mother as Mary Stevens--this is valuable because it contains his mother's maiden name. It's also valuable because we learn that S.J. Connell was a colonel and therefore served in the military at some point (probably during the Civil War). It shows that he was buried in the "Malvin Hill" Cemetery (I'm guessing it was actually Malvern Hill and someone just didn't understand the accent when they were writing up the certificate). Because of where he was buried, I'm guessing that he was a Baptist. Malvern Hill Baptist church is close enough to Robert's farm that he could have easily attended every Sunday.

The death certificate also shows that the undertaker was C.G. Kornegay. That is just really neat to me because I know the son of one of the Kornegays that runs the funeral home, and he's a nice guy. It also gives me that nice feeling of small-town-ness that I love about Camden.

Robert Jackson Connell

Robert Jackson Connell was born 5 years before the Civil War broke out. He moved his family from Lancaster, SC to Camden, SC. He also lived through the turn of the century, WWI, and passed on shortly before World War II.

Parents: Stephen Jackson Connell, Mary Jane Graham Stevens
Birth: April 1856 in Lancaster, SC.
Marriages:

1. Around 1882? in Lancaster, SC to Matilda Bowers, my great-great grandmother. Robert was about 26 and Mathilda was about 23. They had 5 children: Docia, Broadus Robert, Luther Wilburn, Charlie Lee and Cora Lee. Charlie and Cora were twins.
2. Around 1900 to Laura Rowe. Robert was about 44 years old at the time, and Laura was about 27. I haven't seen any record of children that the two of them had, but Laura helped raise the children that were still at home from Robert's previous marriage.
3. Around 1927 to Maggie Dabney. Robert had adopted Ralph Leon Connell who was left on his doorstep when Ralph was just a baby and married Maggie when Ralph was about 5 years old. Robert was 71 and Maggie was only 25 when they married.

Death: August 3, 1934. Robert was about 78 years old.

I didn't find as many records for Robert as I did for Broadus and my other great-grandparents; I think it's because any records of Robert are older and thus less likely to be extant than records of Broadus. This is what I did find:

1870 Census:

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Robert's family was living in Flat Creek, Lancaster County, South Carolina when this census was taken. You can see that Robert is the oldest child in his family. He was 13 years old and helped on the farm. He had not attended school in the last year, even though two of his siblings had. I'm sure it was because his father needed help on the farm. You can also see that his mother went by Mary Jane. The two numbers in the middle on the same line as his father are the value of the real estate they lived on and the value of Stephen's personal estate. I think that Stephen owned his land--there are other people who didn't have a value in the box for the value of their real estate, so I think those other people must have been renting. Anyway, the next highest value for real estate on this page was $514. His personal estate was not valued as highly as some of the others on the page, though.

1880 Census:

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This one's interesting. Robert is working as a farm laborer with the Belk family. His name is on the bottom line. There's no irrefutable proof that this is the Robert Connell that's related to us, but he's about the same age and still in Lancaster County, SC. This is a different town than he grew up in--Gills Creek--but I think that the chances of this being a different Robert Connell are very low, especially considering that I didn't find any other Robert Connells living in Lancaster County at the time. I'm guessing that the person the census taker was speaking to didn't know Robert's exact age because this lists him as being 21 here when he was 24 according to the birth date on his death record and 23 according to the last census. Other details fit, though, because Robert didn't marry until about 1882 or later, and this 1880 census lists him as single.

1920 Census:

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30 years passed between the last census I found Robet in and this one. As you can see, Robert is in his 60's (according to the birth date I have, he's 64, but this census lists him as 62). He married, had children, and then remarried. He owns his own farm near DeKalb township (DeKalb is north of Camden, on the way to Lancaster but in Kershaw County, but I think this is probably near Canada Dr. on the east side of Camden because Broadus is settled nearby), but it has a mortgage on it. All of his children have grown up and moved out except his two youngest sons, who help him on the farm.

1930 Census:

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In this census we see that Robert has married again. According to our records, he's around 72 or 74 by this time, but he told the census taker he was only 67. I think it was probably more that he lost track of his age than that he was ashamed of it. He also has a very young child, Ralph. I couldn't find any other information on Ralph, so I asked Granddad J.C. for information about him, and I wrote a post about him.

There's a column on this census that lists the age at first marriage that I forgot to label. It lists Robert as being 21 when he first married (probably another memory lapse. It HAD been a very long time since then) and Maggie as 25. Since Maggie was only 28 when this census was taken, I assumed that her first marriage was to Robert. I wish I had more records because this is such a mystery! I wonder if Laura (Robert's second wife) was alive when they adopted Ralph and if Robert married Maggie because he needed help with Ralph. If Laura wasn't still alive when the boy was adopted, I have no idea how Robert thought he was going to be able to take care of a little boy. It is a puzzle.

We also see from this that Robert still worked as a farmer. Since he lived so close to his children--Broadus's family was on the census just a few lines up from Robert and Robert's son Charlie's family is listed on the very next line after Robert's family--I'm guessing that they all worked together on their farms. On this census, I included Great-Great-Uncle Charlie Connell just so you could see a little about him. The census says that he worked as a bus driver for the public schools and was a veteran of WWI (it just says WW here because WWII hadn't happened yet). Even though he worked as a bus driver, he's listed as living on a farm, so I'm sure he did both.

Great-Great Uncle Ralph Connell

Ralph Leon Connell was found on Great-great-granddaddy Robert J. Connell’s doorstep. Robert J. was 66 years old. I don’t know when exactly Ralph was left on their doorstep or how old he was, but Ralph was living with Robert J. and his young wife Maggie in 1930 when the US census was taken.  That census is actually how I learned about Uncle Ralph.

At first I thought Robert J. and Maggie were his parents, but I noticed from the census that Maggie and Robert J. were married about 3 years after Ralph was born.  Another thing is that Ralph was living with his sister (our Aunt Docia) when the 1940 census was taken, and not with Maggie (Robert J. had passed away). I thought, “Well, maybe Ralph was from Robert J.’s second marriage,” but I couldn’t find anything that supported that hypothesis. I thought Granddad JC would probably know something about it, so I sent Mom a quick e-mail asking if she’d ask Granddad about his Uncle Ralph. And that’s how I learned this intriguing information about him!

So Granddad said that he’s pretty certain that Uncle Ralph is related to us somehow, but doesn’t know exactly how. He said that Ralph moved in with Aunt Docia when he was 9 or 10. That was a year or two before Robert J. passed on. Some of Granddad’s older siblings were also living with Docia when the 1940 census was taken, so I think she must have liked having her younger brother and nephews around. 

Ralph enlisted in the army and fought in WWII. When he was on an R&R (rest and relaxation) break in New Zealand, he met and married his wife. Their son was born soon after, but unfortunately, Ralph had already been called back to active duty. As far as Granddad knows, Ralph never married again. Granddad didn’t know any of the details, but Ralph came back to South Carolina after the war and eventually moved out West, where he passed away. I found a record showing his date of birth, the date he passed away, and that he passed away in Los Angeles, California. He was only 57 when he died.

The Old Magnolia Tree

In the woods not far from the home I grew up in stands a tall and majestic magnolia tree. The old tree is so big that it takes two or three children holding hands to go all the way around it. If you look around the tree, you will see an old rotting log to one side, and then realize that it was an enormous branch that broke off the tree years ago. There are grape vines as big around as your arm hanging off of the tree. A few feet away from the base of the tree is a small clearing about 20 feet square. As you look at the clearing, you can see a some bricks and mortar--evidence that a house stood in the clearing years ago.

The house that used to stand in the clearing belonged to my great-grandparents, Broadus Robert Connell and Laura Elizabeth Marcus. Granddad J.C. grew up there. I don't know what happened to the house, but the magnolia tree was a popular destination for my older sisters and me. My sisters would climb up the grape vines to get to the first branch, which was about 10 feet above the ground. I was brave enough to do it once or twice, but I never got past the first branch or two. My sisters were able to climb high enough to see Hermitage Mill Pond quite some distance away. I wonder if Granddad climbed on that tree, too?

From what Mom tells me, the beautiful old fashioned roses that bloomed in front of our house every spring were grown from cuttings that Grandma Laura had in her garden at that house. None grow in the clearing anymore, but I have seen the same variety of rose growing along the roadside in several places in about a 1-mile radius from that house. Granddad J.C.'s family owned a lot of that land, and I wonder if Grandma Laura planted them to beautify the farmland.

Granddad J.C. told me once that there were cornfields that belonged to his family for miles around. Since then, the land has been parceled off to various family members and others through wills and sales. I remember visiting my granddad's cousin James--or "Juicy" as he was nicknamed--at least a mile further down McRae Rd. from Granddad J.C.'s house.





EDIT: Granddad J.C. says the roses at the corner where Canada Drive and Rowe Street meet were actually planted by his grandfather Robert Jackson Connell, so I'm guessing that a lot of the other roses were planted by him as well. I think it's sweet that even in a life filled with so much work and practicality, he found beauty important enough to find time to plant these roses. As soon as I have a place to plant them, I'm going to take a cutting and have some of these roses at my house.