Daughter of William Lee and Elizabeth Martha Thomas
Wife of Badgerwood Boggan Parker
Mother of Martha Parker Brock and Sarah Jane “Sallie” Parker Harrington
Mary Lee’s Early Life
Mary Lee is first found in the 1850 census with her mother Elizabeth Martha Lee and her father William Lee in Chesterfield, South Carolina. Mary was four years old. She would have been born in 1846.[1]
[1] Year: 1850; Census Place: Chesterfield, Chesterfield, South Carolina; Roll: M432_851; Page: 109B; Image: 223.
Brothers in the home in 1850 are:
- James Crawford Lee age 12
- John Thomas Lee age 11
- Samuel William Lee age 9
- Henry Alexander Lee age 6
Sisters in the home in 1850 are:
- Hannah Elizabeth Lee age 7
- Ann age 3
- Jane age 2
- Eliza age 5 months
This is a list of the cost of goods in Cheraw in 1846 in the year Mary was born.[1]
[1] Newspapers.com – Fayetteville Weekly Observer – 24 Feb 1846 – Page 3.
Married Life Cut Short by the War
In the 1860 census, Mary is living with her husband Boggan Parker. She is reported to be 17 years old. She was also pregnant with her oldest daughter, Martha. The census was taken June 26, 1860. Martha was born in November, 1860. Mary’s next door neighbor is her sister Hannah Lee Parker.[1] Mary and Hannah have married brothers. Boggan and Samuel Parker are the sons of George and Hauley Lee Parker.
[1]Year: 1860; Census Place: Chesterfield, South Carolina; Roll: M653_1217; Page: 118; Family History Library Film: 805217.
Three Lee siblings (James, Hannah and Mary) married three Parker siblings (Hauley, Samuel James, and Badgerwood Boggan.
- James Crawford Lee 1837-1907 married Hawley Parker 1839-1916
- Hannah Elizabeth Lee 1843-1901 married Samuel James Parker 1826-1890
- Mary Lee 1846-aft 1868 married Badgerwood Boggan Parker 1835-1868
Other Parker siblings include:
- Harriet Parker born in 1823-1910 who married harness maker Jacob Gainey 1822-1894
- Ann or “Annie” Parker 1825-1864 married Mark Rivers 1824-1884
- George Parker 1829-unknown married Nancy Rivers 1833-unknown and was the keeper of the poor house
- Jame Parker 1832-unknown
- James K Parker 1832-1862 married to Nancy Jane Davis 1844-1918
- Edward Parker 1840 – unknown
- Mary Parker 1845 – unknown
- William Allen Parker 1849 – unknown
In the 1860 census, Mary’s brothers still living at home are John Thomas Lee and Samuel William Lee. The daughters in the home are Ann (14), Jane (12), Eliza (11) and Charlotte (9). Only sisters Mary and Hannah have married at this point in time. Mary’s mother, Elizabeth Martha is still living but she dies sometime after this census.[1]
[1] Year: 1860; Census Place: , Chesterfield, South Carolina; Roll: ; Page: 101; Image: 205.
Badgerwood Boggan Parker joined the 21st South Carolina Infantry in Chesterfield, South Carolina on December 20, 1861 as a private. He was in Georgetown, South Carolina in 1862 and was a Corporal. He was in Company E and his commanding officer was B T Davis.[1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 2 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
Boggan Parker was due $50 in bounty money in April, 1862.[1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 4 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
In February of 1863, BB Parker was promoted to Sergeant.[1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 8 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
From July[1] to September 1863,[2] BB Parker is sick in the hospital.
[1]Fold 3 at Page 11 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
[2] Fold 3 Page 12 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
In November and December, 1863 BB Parker is sick and on furlough, most likely at home in Chesterfield.[1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 13 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
In January and February, 1864, BB Parker is back with his unit at Georgetown.[1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 14 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
From May to October 1864 the 21st South Carolina Infantry moved to Virginia and assigned to Hagood’s Brigade, Hoke’s Division, Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. From April to August 1864, BB Parker is absent, wounded in the hospital. [1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 15 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 1, 2022.
Badgegood (BB Parker) was at the Episcopal Church Hospital from May 7 to May 29, 1864 where he had an injury through the back of the neck.
Benjamin Thomas Davis served as Captain in Company E, Twenty-First South Carolina Infantry, C.S.A. On May 28, 1864, BT Davis was killed in action in the Battle of Bermuda Hundred/Fort Stevens/Cold Harbor, Virginia and is buried there.[1] Gen. W.D. Craig had this stone placed to his memory. (“Broken Fortunes,” p. 87, Randolph W. Kirkland, 1995. South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, SC.) No record of his widow after 1860. Also from “Memoirs of the War of Secession from the Original Manuscripts of Johnson Hagood, Brigadier, C.S.A,” Jim Fox Books, Camden, SC, 1997. pp. 402-03. [2]
[1]Fold 3 at Page 15 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 2, 2022.
[2] Find a Grave at Benjamin Thomas “Tom” Davis (unknown-1864) – Find a Grave Memorial accessed November 1, 2022.
In January of 1865, Sergeant Badgerwood Boggan Parker was at Fort Fisher.[1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 17 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 2, 2022.
Fort Fisher fell in January of 1865.[1]
[1] Newspapers.com – The Daily Progress – 18 Jan 1865 – Page 2.
All confederate soldiers sent to Prison camps that were captured at Fort Fisher.[1]
[1] Newspapers.com – The Daily Progress – 25 Jan 1865 – Page 2.
On July 11 or 12, Sergeant Badgerwood Boggan Parker passed away. [1]
[1] Fold 3 at Page 18 Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Confederate – South Carolina – Fold3 accessed November 2, 2022.
Records show BB Parker suffered from Chronic Diarrhea.[2]
[2] National Archives at Washington DC; Washington, DC. USA; Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General; NARA film publication #:: M918; Record Group: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General; Record Group Number: 92
SGT Badgerwood Boggan Parker is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Plot 2847 at Elmira, New York.[1]
Unlike other prison camps, the Confederate prisoners who died at Elmira were treated with respect with a compassionate burial.
[1] Find A Grave SGT Badgegood B. Parker (unknown-1865) – Find a Grave Memorial accessed November 2, 2022.
John W Jones was given credit for the fact that almost all of the Confederate dead at this prison camp were accounted for and given a proper burial.[1]
[1] Find a Grave at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7423548/john-w-jones accessed November 2, 2022.
John W Jones Civil War Figure. Born a slave in 1817, he later ran away and settled in Elmira, New York around 1847. There he was instrumental in establishing the Underground Railroad. Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War a large prison camp was built in Elmira. He took responsibility for burying the nearly three thousand Confederate soldiers who died in the camp. He was noted for the particular care he took in maintaining the records of each soldier that he buried, even though there were as many as 10 a day. His work was honored later when a National Cemetery was established to honor the hundreds of Confederate soldiers buried there. He died in 1900 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. His home is being restored and turned into a memorial.
After the War – Then What?
In 1866, Mary Parker received rations from the Freedman’s Bureau. She lived eight miles from the Chesterfield Court House. Her age was given as twenty and her two female children (Sallie age 2 ) and (Martha age 6).[1]
[1] The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; Records of the Field Offices For the State of South Carolina, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872; NARA Series Number: M1910; NARA Reel Number: 64; NARA Record Group Number:
Her mother-in-law, Hauley Parker also received rations.[1]
[1] Ibid.
There are no records for Mary Parker and her two daughters after this Freedman Bureau record. She may be in the household of her brother Henry Alexander Lee in the South Carolina 1869 Census.[1] There are seven females (six unknown) appearing in that census. It is not known if Mary Parker remarried, passed away, or where she is buried. She does not appear on the 1877 list of Confederate pensioners from Chesterfield County
[1] Ancestry.com at Henry Lee1869 census image 808 from Family Search (ancestry.com) accessed November 2, 2022.
Conclusion:
Mary Lee is considered the most mysterious daughter of William Lee and Elizabeth Martha Thomas in that we know so little of her.
What we do know of her is:
- She was the daughter of William Lee and Elizabeth Martha Thomas. This is shown by DNA analysis and by census data.
- She was married to Badgerwood Boggan Parker who died in 1865 at Elmira Prison Camp in 1865.
- She had two daughters in 1869 for which she secured rations from the Freedman’s Bureau.
- I believe her two daughters were Martha Parker Brock and Sarah Parker Harrington. Sarah’s death certificate is a source of confusion because her birth date states she was born in 1878 and her father is B Parker and Jane Lee. The date is wrong from the age of her oldest daughter and she would have had to been conceived before 1865 if her father were Boggan Parker. Because of the name of her mother being Jane Lee, many researchers have claimed Sarah Jane Lee, wife of Samuel Washington Brock. There is no evidence that Sarah Jane Lee married Boggan Parker. Despite the erroneous death certificate, the Freedman’s Bureau evidence shows Mary had two daughters. DNA evidence also supports that they were both descendants of Elizabeth Martha Thomas and William Allen Lee.
What we do not know about Mary Lee:
- Where did she and her two daughters live after 1869?
- Did Mary die or did she remarry?
- Where did Martha and Sarah Parker live until 1900 when they both mysteriously appear as married women?
Despite questions about their lives, we have confidence that these two daughters had many descendants and despite set backs and sons and grandsons who were lost in World War I and World War II, they had hope for the future as they trusted in the Lord.
- Robert Brock, son of Martha Parker Brock and William Tilman Brock killed in battle in France October 16, 1918.
- Arthur McQuage, son of George Thomas McQuage and Martha Jane Harrington and grandson of Edward Harrington and Sarah Jane Parker Harrington was killed in action in Italy October 3, 1944.
Martha's Family Connections 