Members of the Charles Sanford household seemed to have everything going for them on August 10, 1860, as the federal census taker arrived at their home in Centreville, Alabama. Wealthy white-collar town dwellers with an average age of 22.5, the mortality statistics were in their favor.[1] But death claimed them, every one, long before the census taker returned.[2]
You may remember the Sanfords from my blog post about my shop-happy ancestors, who had been in a Supreme Court case with Charles Sanford when their uncle refused to pay their exorbitant shopping tab at the C. Sanford & Co. store in 1852. The Mayberry children had believed the Sanfords were ill-treated by their Uncle George Howard. I wonder if they later questioned God’s treatment of the Sanfords, as they watched this neighboring household disappear from their lives one by one—two of them on the same day.
When I was writing that blog post, I began filling out some details in the family tree I am building in Ancestry.com for the neighborhood around my ancestors. A photograph on Find-A-Grave was my first clue that the Sanfords had experienced a tragedy. A single stone marks the deaths of all three children of Charles H. Sanford Jr. Worst still, he lost them all within 20 days in the spring of 1862.
I thought an epidemic was likely responsible, and I dropped the photo into a Zotero folder, in case it would be helpful for the blog post I intended for this Sunday on the subject of epidemics. But as I began to flesh out the details, I realized that the tragedy was even bigger than the unthinkable pain of losing all your children within a month. Today’s post transformed itself into a rumination about the mortality of a household in a time when death could be so brutal.
The 1860 household of Charles Sanford Sr. included his son, Charles H. Sanford Jr., Charles Jr.’s wife Mary, their two daughters, Mary and Ella, and their business partner, Lucius Winship. And in January 1862, baby Charlie joined the family.
All of the adults were born in Connecticut, the children in Alabama. The men were very successful in their mercantile business—C. Sanford & Company—able to take care of the household well. They lived near town, near the doctors, the druggists, all that makes life safe. The climate was much milder than it would have been in Connecticut, though prone to the hot-weather diseases. It would seem they had a better chance than many to live long and healthy lives.
Their luck began to turn, however, in May 1862.
The first to go was 4-month-old Charlie, who died on May 17. His mother, Mary Case Sanford, died a few days later, May 20, at age 26. His sisters, four-year-old Mary and two-year-old Ella, both died on June 8.
So far, I have not found the cause of their deaths. Such a tragedy in one family would usually leave a footprint in local records. But the Civil War had altered life in Alabama. No newspaper existed in the entire county at the time. I searched the closest available newspapers—Montgomery, Selma, and Tuscaloosa—hoping some clues would surface, but they offered nothing.
Until something more definitive surfaces, I can only guess. The most likely cause, to my mind, is a contagious illness. The regional newspapers, however, do not appear to be raising the normal alarm when an epidemic is spreading. The four could have been injured in a wagon accident or house fire, with some fighting for days before they succumbed.
All I know with certainty at this point is that the three men survived for the moment.
Lucius Winship departed first of the three. He must have been a relative or close family friend. He was the same age as Charles Jr. and grew up in same area around Litchfield County, Connecticut. He became a partner in C. Sanford & Company sometime between 1850 and 1860. What drew Lucius to Alabama and when, I do not know, but his parents and siblings appear to have remained in Connecticut.
Lucius was not in Centreville when the Sanford children and their mother died. The Connecticut native had joined the Confederate cause, entering the 11th Regiment, Alabama Infantry, Company F as a 2nd lieutenant.[3] Meanwhile his younger brother back home, Julius Winship, mustered into the Union Army as a private with Company A of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery Regiment.[4] It was a literal brother versus brother Civil War nightmare, and their parents would lose them both before it was over.
Lucius was furloughed in August of 1862 with a “disability,” soon after the Sanford girls were buried back in Centreville. I believe he must have been hospitalized around Orangeburg, South Carolina. On November 10 of that year, the Daily Selma Reporter announced the dissolution of C. Sanford & Company, which was being replaced by C. Sanford & Son. Lucius was out of the business, likely expecting his death and liquidating his assets.[5] He died less than two months later, January 5, 1863, at Orangeburg.
Charles Sanford (probably Charles Jr.) took responsibility for collecting Lucius’s remains and effects two years later, on February 27, 1865.[6] Embalming was rapidly expanding in popularity in the U.S. as parents faced the horror of sons dying on battlefields far from home.[7] At some point, Lucius was buried beside Mary and the children at the Centreville Memorial Cemetery.
The senior Charles Sanford took his final trip to the Centreville Memorial Cemetery on August 11, 1865. He was 59 years old, as am I. And while I feel that I have decades ahead of me, he must have felt his mortality at this moment in time. Though he was the head of the 1860 household we are discussing, very little remains to tell us about his final days. His estate documents may exist somewhere, but I have not found them in the coronavirus-friendly (i.e., digital) places.
The Sanford assets now belonged to a household of one: Charles H. Sanford, Jr. He does not appear to have served in the Civil War and apparently was busy with the company. There are a couple of intriguing mentions of a merchant named C. H. Sanford, of the right age, arriving at the port of New York from Havana in 1862 and again in 1864.[8] Havana was a hub of ship transport during the years of the Union blockade of the Confederate shores. It is possible Charles was running the blockade from Mobile to Havana to do business or see family in New York and Connecticut during the war.
In late 1865, he was only 32 years old, but he must have anticipated his own death. He gathered local Centreville friends as witnesses and wrote his last will and testament. He named two men from New York as his executors—one of them his brother-in-law.[9] He died May 5, 1866, age 33, and took his place with the rest of the Sanford household in the local cemetery. His 178-page estate file testifies to an active businessman with many assets. I can only imagine the New Yorkers who had to come in to sort through it all found some degree of discomfort in Union-occupied Centreville so soon after the Civil War ended.
Charles had some specific instructions for his estate. He wanted a nice stone put on his grandmother’s grave in Connecticut. He wanted $15,000 to go to his deceased wife’s only sister. He wanted $10,000 to go to the Committee of Domestic Missions of the Presbytery of South Alabama. He wanted the remains of his father, himself, his wife, and his children moved to Connecticut and buried with a fence around the plot. The remainder of his assets were to be equally split between his wife’s brothers.
And then there were none.
There is still much to do on this family. Someday, I will find the connection between the Sanfords and the Winships. I have not yet made it through all of the estate papers, and I don’t know what I will find there. But I have my doubts the bodies were ever moved to Connecticut. I took a drive to Centreville last week and found their headstones, barely 20 or 30 feet from my own Mayberry family. There are two stones: one for Lucius Winship and a tall obelisk for the Sanfords—the children’s inscriptions on one side, inscriptions for each of the grown-up Sanfords on the other three sides. It would be a very grand stone for empty graves, and I find no record of their being buried in the North Cemetery in Litchfield County, Connecticut, where Charles Sr.’s mother and wife are buried, as is Lucius Winship’s brother Julius.
While I know of no kinship between the Sanfords and myself—and my Mayberry ancestors have had little to do with today’s post—my sense of my ancestors’ world is greatly enhanced for having taken this journey to know the Sanfords and Lucius Winship. My ancestors undoubtedly watched this tragic family story unfold. The children grew up with Charles Jr. and visited the Sanford store as often as they could. They likely stood at the graves as the funerals took place.
This quest also caused me to ask so many valuable questions. What drew Northerners to Centreville, Alabama. Why would a Connecticut-raised man fight for the Confederacy, with his brother on the other side? How did a mother deal with having a son on each side of a horrible war, especially if both were lost? How easy would it be for an Alabama merchant to get to New York, bypassing the Union blockade? What was the life expectancy of the time? While seeing a family wiped out by multiple disconnected tragedies seems unthinkable to me, was it to them? Or was a story like the Sanfords common?
Call to Action
I encourage us to take the neighbors seriously as we do genohistory. It allows us to see the world as they knew it. Are there some people around your ancestors who have caught your interest? Invest a bit of time in learning their story. The more of the neighbors you know, the more of that world you know. Comment, please, on your experiences.
Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom to see the new Zotero Notes.
And, as always, share this post with friends who might be interested. If you are not on the Genohistory on Purpose mailing list, fill out a form at the bottom of this page. I will let you know when new posts are available.
[1] 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Bibb County, Alabama.
[2] There are two more souls who might have lived in the Sanford household. The 1860 Federal Census Slave Schedule shows Charles Sanford (probably Charles Sr.) declaring two enslaved people—a woman of 50 and a boy of 14. It declares a slave house, so they likely lived on their own.
[3] Civil War Soldiers. Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama. From Ancestry.com. Alabama, Civil War Soldiers, 1860-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
[4] Ancestry.com. U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861–1865.
[5] 10 Nov 1862, The Daily Selma Reporter, p. 1. Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/59499543/the-daily-selma-reporter/?xid=637&_ga=2.240391555.1833262722.1600913457-338347981.1595606593.
[6] Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers. Alabama. NARA M311. Identifier: 586957. https://www.fold3.com/image/14623542?xid=1945&_ga=2.27914428.1833262722.1600913457-338347981.1595606593. It was likely the younger Charles who gathered the remains. Charles Sr. was nearing his own death on Feb. 27, when Lucius’s remains were claimed.
[7] Gary Laderman, The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
[8] New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957. Ancestry.com. Year: 1862; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Line: 34; List Number: 765. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYM237_247-0003?pId=5569471. Also, Year: 1864; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Line: 20; List Number: 1072. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYM237_221-0405?pId=2334612.
Getting News Citations into Zotero from Newspapers.com
If you have tried to use Zotero Connector to import a valid newspaper citation record into Zotero, you might have been disappointed in the result. When you are displaying the news page in full on your monitor, the Connector will import it as a web page, not a newspaper. Instead, wait until you have clipped the article. When the clip is displayed on your screen, the Connector will pull it as a newspaper article.
Genohistory on Purpose is supported in full by Golden Channel Publishing. Please show your support by shopping for these and other products of interest to genohistorians.
A fascinating, yet sad, story. It seems strange to me that Charles Sanford would travel to Orangeburg, SC, to get the remains of Lucius Winship for internment in Alabama, and yet not provide for those remains to be disinterred with the rest of Charles’ family to be returned to Connecticut.
I wondered about that, too. I suppose it is possible that Lucius’s body isn’t in the Alabama grave. Maybe he took him home in one of his trips and made a show of burying him here. I don’t know if the marked grave of a Connecticut Confederate would be secure in CT. A whole new line of questions….
Sad, sad story. I wonder if those who died so close together may have had some type of deadly infection from contaminated food.
Another good line of questioning, Henry. Eventually, some other family’s history may shed light here, mentioning the deaths in a letter or diary. We can hope. Thank you!
Another good line of questioning, Henry. Eventually, some other family’s history may shed light here, mentioning the deaths in a letter or diary. We can hope. Thank you!
Interesting story Donna! I agree with fleshing out the stories of the people around our ancestors. I recently connected with a man (thanks to Facebook) I had heard about as a kid. He lived with us as a baby for 6 months when his mother left the family. My folks were friends with his folks and in researching I discovered that they grew up right around the corner from each other! I found his birth announcement in a box of my parents things and took it from there. All the people around our ancestors affect their lives, knowing more about them helps us understand them in even more ways.
Yes! All the more for the people who lived with our ancestors. Thanks, Judy.