Sara Jane White was born in Chesterfield County, South Carolina on June 7, 1854.
Her father Thrashley White was 48 and her mother Eliza Jones White was 26. Sara’s mother and father met when her grandfather, Rev. Wiley Jones came to the Westfield Community, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, around 1850-1851 to hold a revival. He brought with him his daughter Eliza Ann Jones who was around 22 – 24 years old. While here she met Thrashley White, many, many years her senior, fell in love, married him and to the best of knowledge never went back to Kershaw Buffalo Community where she was reared.
Sara Jane White’s family was quite poor. Prior to Thrashley White’s marriage to Eliza, Thrashley had owned 548 acres on the south side of Westfield Creek close to Mcfarlan, North Carolina at the South Carolina line. His land was advertised for Sheriff sales as the result of lawsuits by creditors several times. It was advertised on January 19, 1842 in the Cheraw Gazette and on September 4, 1844, the Gazette says Thrashley is in debtors prison.
The Cheraw Gazette was a near by newspaper and here are two samples of articles which appeared there around the time of Sara Jane’s birth.
James Heywood White was the oldest child of Thrashley and Eliza. He was born in 1852. Two years later Sara Jane was born. Three years after that, John Erwin White was born and two years later Henry Wiley White was born in 1859. In the 1860 census, the White family was number 325 and they were enumerated in Chesterfield, South Carolina. Sara Jane was living with her 56 year old father Thrashley, her 35 year old mother Eliza, brothers James Heywood, John Erwin, and Henry Wiley White. Also living with the White family was eighty year old Jane Lemons. Jane Lemons also lived with Batchelor Thrashley White along with James Lemons in the 1850 census. The nature of the relationship between the Lemons and the Whites is unknown.
Sara Jane finally got a baby sister when she was nine years old. Lucy Hardy was born in July 1863. Brother William Franklin followed a year later in 1865. When Sara Jane was fifteen, the baby of the family Ellison Thrashley was born in 1869.
These were hard times for the White family. First there was the war, then Sherman came through the area and destroyed what little was left. This is one of the stories that Sara Jane told of that time period:
Taken from: http://thrashleyandelizawhite.blogspot.com/2009/08/sherman-and-bantam-rooster.html
My Aunt Emma Rae Hammond Eskridge relayed the following story at the White Family Reunion July 26, 2009 at Pine Grove Church. Aunt Emma Rae heard this story directly from her Great Aunt Sara Jane White Lee, the daughter of Thrashley White and Eliza Ann Jones. Sara Jane White Lee’s birthday was June 7, 1854 and Aunt Emma Rae’s mother Lissie Arie White Hammond’s birthday was June 7, 1894. Sara Jane and Lissie Arie shared the same birth day, June 7th. Aunt Emma Rae remembered Momma Hammond (Lissie Arie White Hammond) having Aunt Sara and Uncle Thomas Lee over for dinner on June 7th for many years to celebrate their joint birthday. Aunt Sara Jane told many stories but the one Aunt Emma Rae remembered was one about the bantam rooster and Sherman’s troops. Prior to the Civil War, Chesterfield held one of the first secession rallies in the South, encouraging the state to secede from the Union. Sherman remembered this in March 1865 as he marched through the uplands of South Carolina and viewed the event as an act of treason justifying retribution. Sherman’s troops burned barns, destroyed crops and gardens, killed livestock, plundered, and ate anything they wanted included chickens. Sara Jane was 10 years old when Sherman came through and she had a prized pet bantam rooster. She was afraid the Union troops would catch and kill her pet rooster. Her dad, Thrashley White removed a board from the ceiling of their house and put the rooster into the attic to hide him from the troops. The troops entered the farm and they destroyed the early spring garden, destroyed all they could, but did not find the bantam rooster. Sara Jane was afraid the rooster would crow and give away his hiding place but he remained quiet. The rooster survived the close call and was retrieved from the attic healthy and whole. Aunt Emma Rae remembers seeing Uncle Thomas and Aunt Sara Lee drive up in their bright yellow car. Aunt Emma Rae said she remembered this story because she also had a pet bantam rooster at the time.Submitted by: Leon F. (Bud) Hammond Jr.
August 2, 2009
The family not only suffered during the war, they suffered during the reconstruction period. The father Thrashley was aged and suffered from rheumatism. They received rations from the Freedman’s Bureau which was the welfare system of that time period.
On May 11, 1870, one month before she turned 16, Sara Jane White married John Thomas Lee. John Thomas Lee was sixteen years older than she was and was a Confederate war veteran. Below is Sara Jane’s application for a war pension from the State of South Carolina:
John Thomas Lee followed in his father William’s footsteps and was a cotton former. John Thomas had bought 270 acres of land from the sale of the Joel Brock estate in January of 1870 before he married. The family’s first born was a son, John William “Johnny” was born January 31, 1873. Mary Elizabeth “Molly” was born in 1876, followed by daughter Rebecca Jane.
In 1879, Sara Jane Lee purchased 19 1/2 acres on Sneedsboro Road in Chesterfield County for $14.44 from Samuel Parker. Sneedsboro Road was what Zoar Road was called during this time period. According to Margie Lee Kinney, Sara Jane’s granddaughter, this was the site of the first home of the John Thomas and Sara Jane Lee.
In April of 1880, Sara Jane’s father Thrashley White passed away at the age of 74. He was buried at the Short cemetery behind Westfield Baptist church. In May of 1880, her fourth child Dora Lucy was born. The fifth child was a daughter Nancy Ellen. She was born in 1882 and died in 1883 when she was less than a year old. She was buried and Zoar Methodist Church in the Zoar community where they lived.
In 1883, Sara Jane White bought 100 acres for the sum of $100 dollars from Squire H Brock on Meadow Branch in Chesterfield County. Daughter Bessie Aileen was born in September of 1884. The next baby was another girl, Linnie Eliza who according to census was born in 1887. In 1891, another child was born. This time it was a boy, Benjamin Franklin Lee.
In 1893, the Lees became greater landowners as Samuel Lee, John Thomas Lee’s brother deeded him an additional 86 acres on Big Westfield Creek. Samuel had acquired the land from his father William Lee who died in 1893 at the home of Sara Jane and John Thomas. Samuel had moved to Blount County Alabama. In 1894, Sara Jane Lee bought an 150 acre tract on Reedy Branch from James C and Hauley Lee who was John Thomas’s uncle. This family moved to Richmond County, North Carolina.
In 1894, Sara Jane and William were blessed with another son, Ira Burton “Burt” was born in June of 1894. In 1896, John Thomas Lee signed over the two tracts of land he owned to his wife Sara Lee. This was the 184 acres he had bought from the Joel Brock estate and the 86 acres he had acquired from his brother Samuel. Why he signed them over to his wife is a mystery. It could have been for financial reasons or because of his age or health. For whatever reason, Sara Jane White Lee was the landowner in the family from this point forward.
In 1896, the Lees had another son. Clarence Eugene “Gene was born on August 22, 1896. In 1897, Sara Jane bought another 106 acres on the west side of Westfield Creek. This was land that was conveyed by John Thomas Lee’s father William to his brother Henry in 1886. She bought it in a foreclosure sale against Henry from Annie Eliza Lacoste Evans, a local woman who gave her occupation as capitalist in the census.
In the 1900 census, the Lee family is number 251. Sara Jane is 44 years of age while her husband is 61. Living in the household are Dora Lucy, Bessie Aileen, Lennie Eliza, Benjamin Franklin, Ira Burton, Eugene or Gene as he was called, and grandson Perdie Ellison Lee. A boarder, John Teal who was a farm laborer also was present.
Sara Jane and John Thomas’s three oldest children have started families of their own. John William or “Johnny” as he was known got a rough start. He married Roxanna Saunders in 1893 and they had a baby girl in 1895 who died the next year when their son Perdie Ellison Lee was born. Roxanna became pregnant again in 1897 and she and the baby had both died. Perdie Ellison came to live with his grandfather John Thomas and Sara Jane and was raised as a brother to his uncles and aunts. Johnny married again in 1898. He married Lydia Frances Delila Griggs. When the 1900 census was taken, Johnny and Lydia had two baby boys, one year old Henry Jackson and infant Harvey William. Oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” had married Daniel Teal in 1896 and she had three children by the time the 1900 census was taken. These were Luther, Irene and Mae Teal. Rebecca Jane had married James Edgar Brock in 1896. They had a one year old Ira in the 1900 census. Johnny, Mollie, and Rebecca’s families all lived nearby their father and mother.
In 1902, Sara Jane John Thomas had their final baby. Sara Jane was 46 at the time that daughter Cora was born. In 1907, the 150 acres of Reedy Creek Land which had been purchased in 1894 was sold to T F Meisenheimer.
In 1900, Dora Lucy Lee married William Harrison Teal, brother of Daniel Teal (Mollie’s husband). Around 1902, daughter Bessie Aileen married John Thomas Teal, also Daniel’s brother. All in all, three of the Lee daughters married neighbor William Harrison Teal and Elizabeth Short’s sons. Around 1907, Lennie Eliza married Elijah Preston Jones. Since there were no more Teal sons available, she had to settle for a Jones.
In the 1910 census, John Thomas was 72 and Sara Jane was 51. The children who were still at home were Benjamin Franklin “Ben”, Ira Burton “Burt”, Eugene “Gene” and Cora. Also in the home was grandson Perdie Ellison. In 1911, Sara Jane White started giving each of her older chidren 33 1/3 acres of land. Mollie and Bessie got 40 acres.
In 1912, Sara Jane White Lee’s mother Eliza Ann Jones White died. She had been living with her son Henry Wiley White. She lived thirty years longer minus one day than her husband Thrashley.
In 1913, Sara Jane White Lee’s brother William Franklin died followed by her oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Lee Teal who died in childbirth. Then her beloved husband John Thomas Lee passed away in 1914.
In 1918, Sara Jane sold 68 acres of land to John T McNair for $100. This was land that was conveyed to her brother John Heywood White by her husband but was foreclosed on by the Sheriff.
Sara Jane’s youngest child Cora had married William Samuel Brock at the age of 16 and had a child. Her husband died on November 10, 1918 in France during World War I of disease. Sara Jane lived with daughter Cora and the baby, Clarence William Brock. She helped her daughter who was a minor obtain guardianship of the estate. This comes from South Carolina Probate Records at Family Search https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939L-N3S6-LH?cc=1911928&wc=MPP5-BZ9%3A190567401%2C190561002%2C190567402%2C192067501
In 1919, Sara Jane White Lee sold 33 1/3 acres of land on Big Westfield Creek To W T Buddy White for $1,500. She also applied for a Confederate Widow’s pension in that year, stating that her income did not exceed $1,000 from all sources. In 1920, she gave all of her younger children 33 1/3 acres of land. When the 1920 census was taken, Sara Jane was living with youngest son Gene and his wife Nannie and their child Clarence. Also living with them was sister Cora who was a widow and her baby. All of the adults in the house could read and write.
Sara Jane’s brother John Heywood died in 1928, when she was 74 years old and her brother John Erwin died two years later when she was 76. In 1930, Sara Jane lived with her daughter Cora Brock who was still an unmarried widow and her eleven year old son, Clarence.
The next decade of Sara Jane’s life was filled by many losses. She lost her daughter Dora Lucy who passed away of chronic myocarditus on January 19, 1931 at at the age of 50. Sister Lucy Hardy White Davis died of cardio renal disease in 1932. Son John William passed away on January 1, 1935 at the age of 61. After a long hospital stay in Durham, North Carolina with complications from a foot infection, brother Henry Wiley White passed away on December 21, 1935.
Sara Jane White died on May 30, 1940 when she was 85 years old. She died of senile heart disease and uremia. Although she was the second to oldest child, she outlived all of her siblings except her baby brother Ellison Thrashley White who died in 1947.
Sara Jane White was buried at Westfield Creek Cemetery a few miles from Zoar Methodist where her husband was buried in 1914. Grave photo shared by Mobil81 on Ancestry.com
John Thomas Lee and Sarah Jane White had eleven children in a span of thirty years. Those children and their spouses are:
1. John William “Johnny” Lee 1873-1935 married Roxanna Saunders 1878-1897, Lydia Frances Delila Griggs 1874-1922, Lillie Mae Peele 1899-1973
2. Mary Elizabeth “Molly” Lee 1876-1914 married Daniel Teal 1870-1950
3. Rebecca Jane Lee 1878-1952 married James Edgar Brock 1873-1941
4. Dora Lucy Lee 1880-1931 married William Harrison Teal Jr, 1873-1967
5. Nancy Ellen Lee 1882-1883
6. Bessie Aileen Lee 1884-1962 married John Thomas Teal 1870-1964
7. Linnie E. Lee 1887-1964 married Elijah Jones 1884- died unknown
8. Benjamin Franklin Lee 1891-1954 married Sarah Ellen Gulledge 1896-1989
9. Ira Burton “Burt” Lee 1894-1958 married Mollie Ellen McLaurin 1894-1965
10. Clarence Eugene “Gene” Lee 1896-1957 married Nancy Jane “Nannie” Brock 1898-1883
11. Cora Lee 1902-1943 married William Samuel Brock 1896-1918, Lonnie Lee Parks 1910-1999
References available at Rogers Family Tree on Ancestry
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/34712803/family
and at Family Search https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/M6MX-NXH
Martha's Family Connections 