Nancy Cheatham (15 August 1810 – 8 April 1890)

Nancy Cheatham was born on 15 August 1810 according to her gravestone, but the location is uncertain.  The 1850 census, the first to ask for birthplaces, lists hers as Tennessee but the 1860 and 1870 censuses show it as Kentucky and the 1880 census lists it incorrectly as Alabama.  What evidence we have suggests that she was born in the vicinity of her mother’s home in Robertson County, Tennessee

She was the daughter of LittleBerry Cheatham and Hannah Benson.  On 1 November 1832 Nancy Bishop identified herself as “formerly Nancy Cheatham, daughter of Little Berry Cheatham and Hannah Cheatham his wife who was formerly Hannah Benson daughter of William Benson Senr. dec’d” when she gave her uncle Richard Benson a power of attorney to sell her inherited interest in slaves belonging to the estate of her grandfather William Benson.1

Nancy may have been raised by her Benson relatives.  Her father had moved to Alabama (then Mississippi Territory) by 1816 and appears in the 1830 census of Franklin County, Alabama but without a female Nancy’s age in the household.

First Husband:  Alexander R. Bishop (? – c1832)

Nancy had three husbands, the first of whom was Alexander R. Bishop.  On 21 March 1833 the widowed Nancy Bishop made a deed of gift to “my beloved daughter Mary Elizabeth Bishop… the sum of $170 which is now in the hands of Richard Benson, administrator of William Benson Senr. dec’d. and which is a part of the estate which (descend?) to me from my grandfather the said William Benson Senr. dec’d estate, also the sum of $100 which descend to me from the estate of my late husband Alexander R. Bishop and which is in the hands of my father Littleberry Cheatham..” 2. More than twenty years later on 26 April 1855, in conjunction with the Chancery case discussed below, Mrs. Nancy Beaumont deposed “…that she is the mother of Virginia A. C. Bradley deceased & William L. Bradley by my second husband Joseph Bradley, also Mrs. Mary E. Hooper, wife of B. Y. Hooper, by my first husband Alexander Bishop, also Richard & Clarence Beaumont by my third husband Charles Beaumont.”3

They apparently married before the 1830 census was taken, as her father’s household did not include a female that could have been Nancy.  They probably married in Alabama, as her father had moved to Madison County, Alabama by 1816 and had settled permanently in Franklin County by 1825 when Nancy was just 15 years old.

Nancy Cheatham and her first husband Alexander Bishop, about whom we know nothing , had one child, Mary Elizabeth Bishop, who was born about 1831 or 1832 in Tennessee or Louisiana or ALabama according to the 1850 and 1860/70  and 1880 censuses, respectively.  A possible father of Alexander was Wyatt Bishop, who had married a Cheatham and lived in both Robertson County and Madison and Franklin counties of Alabama at the same time as Littleberry Cheatham,  Indeed, the fact that her inheritance from her husband was in the hands of her father in Alabama implies that her husband died there.  Nancy apparently returned to Tennessee upon hearing of her maternal grandfather’s death.

Second Husband: Joseph Bradley (? – 1839)

Sometime in 1833 Nancy married an aging widower named Joseph Bradley and had two more children.  Though no marriage record survives, it seems clear that they married in early or mid 1833.   The January 1834 accounting of the Mary E. Bishop orphan’s estate filed by Joseph Bradley included “amount due the minor” of $270 and a credit for just six months interest, suggesting that he had become her guardian about July of the previous year. 4 It also indicated a debit for 1833 of fifty cents for his bond as guardian of Mary E. Bishop, which must have been executed after he married Nancy Bishop.

Joseph Bradley subsequently filed annual statements for Mary E. Bishop’s estate from 1835 through 1838. 5  Joseph Bradley died in 1839 leaving a will dated 25 February 1839 and proved in September 1839 that mentioned his wife Nancy and their two children named Virginia Ann Cheatham Bradley and William Littleberry Bradley as well as nine children “of my first marriage”. 6  The will gave Nancy furniture and a horse outright and the use of several slaves for her life or widowhood with reversion to the her two children.  His plantation was left to William Littleberry Bradley subject to Nancy’s use during her lifetime or widowhood.  Both children were also given slaves when they reached 21 or married.   In the distribution of the cash estate, both of the young Bradley children received nearly $700, a sum that soon grew to more than $1,000 by renting out the slaves.  Nancy’s third husband Charles W. Beaumont, who must have been a neighbor, purchased leather goods at the estate sale held in December 1841. 7 Indeed, Nancy later testified that during her marriage to Beaument that she lived about a mile from Benjamin W. Bradley, the childen’s guardian.

Nancy dissented from the will, arguing that it provided her less that the law required. 8 The local court agreed, and one-third of Bradley’s 310-acre plantation was deeded to Nancy, along with a 1/12 share of the personal estate.9

Nancy Bradley was enumerated in the 1840 census of Robertson County heading a household of 12 whites and 5 slaves.10 The identity of the additional persons is unknown.

Third Husband (Marriage and Divorce): Charles W. Beaumont (? – c1846)

On 2 September 1841 Nancy married yet again to Charles W. Beaumont in Robertson County according to the minister’s return.11   She had two more children named Richard Cheatham Beaumont and Clarence Washington Beaumont.  Charles W. Beaumont assumed the guardianship of Mary E. Bishop while Benjamin W. Bradley, their half-brother, became the guardian of Nancy’s two Bradley children.  It is clear from the guardian accounts that Mary Bishop and the two Bradley children continued to live with Nancy.

Charles Beaumont was in debt and was perhaps abusive as well.  After five years of marriage Nancy petitioned for divorce and her husband was bound by a peace warrant to “keep the peace with Mrs. Nancy Beaumont.”12  The Robertson County court granted the divorce on 12 October 1846.13  In a later court case, Benjamin W. Bradley, remarked that Nancy had lost her considerable inheritance from her second husband Joseph Bradley due to “a subsequent marriage to a very imprudent and indiscreet man“.14

Charles Beaumont apparently died not long after, though no probate file was located.   Benjamin W. Bradley’s 1 January 1848 accounting of the orphans estates for her Bradley children showed payments in 1847 for their “victuals and clothing” to “Widow Beaumont”.  (There was a much younger Charles W. Beaumont, son of Henry F. Beaumont, located in adjacent Montgomery County., but he was was a different person.)  He may have died in debt, as there is no indication that Nancy or the Beaumont children inherited anything.

Nancy evidently decided to leave Tennessee and live with or near her father in Tuscumbia, Alabama.  In the court cases mentioned below, several persons testified with statements such as “Mrs. Beaumont, having been divorced from her husband, said Beaumont, determined on moving to Franklin County, Alabama where her father resided.”15

Nancy Moves to Alabama

In November 1848 she moved, with her four young Bradley and Beaumont children along with her daughter Mary and Mary’s new husband B. Y. Hooper, to Tuscumbia, Franklin County, Alabama where her father Littleberry Cheatham was living.

In an amazing coincidence, she was transported on that journey by my great-great- grandfather George W. Baird, whose grandson would later marry a great-granddaughter of Nancy’s in Texas.  Nancy’s daughter Mary Bishop and Burrell Y. Hooper  had a daughter Emma the following year who later married Nicholas Anthony and had a son Edward Young Anthony whose daughter Allie married my grandfather Harry Baird.

The 1850 census of Franklin County, Alabama, which was not taken until December, enumerated her next door to her brother-in-law Joseph Albert Guy.   Her household included her two Bradley children and her two Beaumont children.  Her daughter Mary E. Bishop, now aged 21, was enumerated not far away as the wife of Burrell Hooper.

1849 Chancery Lawsuit over the Bradley inheritance

A dispute over the Bradley children’s inheritances was occasioned by her move away from Tennessee.  When Nancy moved with her children to Alabama, Benjamin W. Bradley retained both his guardianship of her two Bradley children and possession of their inherited cash and slaves.  He refused to transfer their property to Alabama on the grounds that the move was not a permanent one.  Instead, he continued to file annual guardian accounts and to forward modest cash payments to Nancy for their board and upkeep.  Nancy naturally wanted the slaves and cash transferred to Alabama.  Her brother-in-law Joseph A. Guy was appointed guardian of the two Bradley children and in late 1849 sued Bradley, claiming that Bradley had mismanaged the children’s estates and demanded that he turn over their estates to him in Alabama.16. Benjamin Bradley countered that this was a thinly veiled attempt by Nancy to gain control of the slaves for herself, since she had lost her own inheritance.  He stated in one document that Nancy had suffered “an entire loss of her estate by a subsequent marriage to a very imprudent and indiscreet man”17. Joseph A. Guy filed suit on behalf of the orphans.

In November 1851 the court ordered Benjamin W. Bradley to deliver eleven slaves to Joseph A. Guy along with $1,282 belonging to Virginia and $1400 belonging to William.  However, Virginia Bradley’s near-simultaneous death resulted almost immediately in another dispute, described below.

Depositions in this case were taken on 24 March 1851 from three residents of Franklin County, Alabama: Mrs. Nancy Beaumont (giving her age as 39), B. Y. Hooper (aged about 35), and Mrs. Mary E. Hooper (formerly Bishop, age 20).  1819

Chancery Court Case in 1852

Nancy’s daughter, Virginia Ann Cheatham Bradley, died in Alabama at the age of seventeen in October of 1851, unmarried and intestate.  The Bradley family arranged for a Robertson County lawyer and politician — and sitting circuit court judge — named William Wesley Pepper to have himself appointed as administrator of Virginia’s estate, which was still in Tennessee when she died.  He took the position that her estate should be distributed among all her siblings, including her nine or ten Bradley half-siblings.  Joseph A. Guy, her guardian in Alabama,  sued him on the grounds that she was a resident of Alabama and her brother William Littleberry Bradley and mother Nancy Beaumont were her heirs under Alabama law.  Depositions were taken from, among others, Nancy Beaumont, B.Y. Hooper and his wife Mary, and “Little Berry” Cheatham in April 1855 stating that the move to Alabama was permanent and that steps were in the process of being taken to bring Virginia’s slaves to Alabama when she died.

W. W. Pepper countered that Joseph Bradley’s will contained a reversion provision that superseded the law, so that Virginia’s inheritance reverted to all of Joseph Bradley’s children in equal shares.  In late 1855 when the Robertson County Chancery Court agreed with Pepper’s argument.  Joseph A. Guy was reimbursed for his expenses as Virginia’s guardian, but her estate was divided among her brother and all her half-siblings.20

Another element of the case was that Joseph Bradley’s will contemplated the birth of a posthumous child, to whom he bequeathed slaves with reversion to Virginia and William.  The child Nancy had been pregnant with was not born alive, and Pepper contended that the bequest to it should also revert to all of Bradley’s children.

Incidentally, in deposition taken on 17 November 1854 Nancy Beaumont was said to be “aged fifty three years” and “Little Berry” Cheatham was “about seventy years old”.21

Another case (not read) involved the appointment of a C. Love as guardian of Richard Beaumont and Clarence Beaumont, Nancy’s children by her third husband.  Similar depositions were taken in Franklin County, Alabama from Nancy Beaumont, her daughter Mrs. Mary E Hooper, and her son-in-law Burrell Y. Hooper.22  In both cases, Nancy Beaumont was said to have moved to Tuscumbia to be near her father Littleberry Cheatham.

Life in Tuscumbia

Unfortunately, Franklin County, Alabama is a burned county for which virtually no records survive. We are left to make do with census records.   In the 1860 census of Tuscumbia, Nancy Beaumont, a “seamstress” age 50, was enumerated in Tuscumbia with her two Beaumont children still in the household.23 Her birthplace was this time given as Kentucky.  She was credited with $1,500 in real estate and $5,300 in personal property, some of which must have been inherited from her father who had died five years earlier.  She was listed with five slaves in the 1860 slave census.

The 1870 census of Tuscumbia (which was by then located in Colbert County) enumerated Nancy Beaumont, age 60, heading a household that included her Beaumont sons, her newly widowed daughter Mary Hooper, and Mary Hooper’s two children Emma Anthony and Edward Hooper, as well as three black and mulatto boarders or servants.24 Her real estate was now worth $1,000 and her personal property $500.

In 1880 census Nancy Beaumont, now aged 65, was living next door to her widowed daughter-in-law Kate Beaumont (widow of Richard Cheatham Beaumont) and Kate’s father Richard Halsey.25  Her daughter Mary Hooper and grandson Edward Hooper were still in the household.  Both Nancy and Mary were designated as widows.

The 3 April 1890 issue of The Tennessean newspaper carried a report from Tuscumbia dated a day earlier that “Mrs. Nancy Beaumont, one of our oldest citizens, has sustained serious injuries from a fall at her residence.  Her recovery is exceedingly doubtful.”26   Nancy died a few days later.  She was buried in Tuscumbia’s Oakwood Cemetery where a stone bears her birth and death dates.

Nancy’s child by her first husband:

  1. Mary Elizabeth Bishop (c1830 – aft1880)  She was born about 1831 or 1832 in Tennessee or Loiisiana according to the 1850 and 1860/70 censuses, respectively.  She married Burrell Young Hooper.   As that page states, Mary was widowed in 1869 after having two children.  She was enumerated in the 1870 and 1880 censuses iving with her mother in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Most records of Colbert County are lost, and no record of a death or remarriage was found.

Nancy’s children by her second husband:

  1. Virginia Ann Cheatham Bradley (28 June 1834 – 5 October 1851)  Often referred to in the lawsuits as V. A. C. Bradley, she is buried in the Guy Cemetery in Colbert County, Alabama where her stone gives her birth and death dates.  The deposition of her brother-in-law By. Y. Hooper in 1855 also stated that she died on 5 October 1851.   She testified in the Chancery case in March 1851, declaring herself to be 16 years old.
  2. William Littleberry Bradley (c1836 – ?)  He apparently returned to Tennessee long enough to meet and marry Josephine Hudgins in Cheatham County on 8 July 1858 (by license issued 5 July 1858.)27  He and Josephine were enumerated back in Franklin County in 1860 with two children named Virginia and Richard L.  The 1860 slave schedule for Franklin County listed William L. Bradley with 21 slaves, evidently all of those inherited by him and his deceased sister from the Joseph Bradley estate. I did not locate him in 1870 or thereafter.

Nancy’s children by her third husband:

  1. Richard Cheatham Beaumont (2 September 1842 – 3 August 1877)  He was in Nancy’s household in 1850, 1860, and 1870.  He married Kate Halsey but died in 1877.  His gravestone lists his CSA service in the 35th Alabama Infantry.  He is also buried in the Oakwood Cemetery.
  2. Clarence Washington Beaumont (April 1844 – aft1910)  He also served in the CSA and remained in Tuscumbia, appearing in censuses in 1900 and 1910.  He married Alice A. Kahl in 1875 but was widowed and childless by 1900.

 

  1. Robertson County, Tennessee, Deed Book W, p321. [↩]
  2. Robertson County Deed Book X, p79. [↩]
  3. Robertson County Chancery Court Papers, Vol. 176-258, Folder #183 “Guy, gdn. vs. Pepper, admin”, FHL Film #004126792, image 458 of 3103. [↩]
  4. Robertson County Inventories & Wills Book 8, page 298. [↩]
  5. Robertson County Inventories & Wills Book 8, page 431 and Book 9, page 88 and page 230. [↩]
  6. Robertson County Inventories & Wills Book 10, pages 301-304. [↩]
  7. Robertson County Inventories & Wills Book 11, page 132. [↩]
  8. Robertson County Chancery Case Loose Papers, Cases 1-73: Case #19, Virginia A. C. Bradley and William L. Bradley (by their guardian Joseph A. Guy) vs. Benjamin W. Bradley et al.  Nancy’s dissent is included among the papers in the case.  See images 1225-1228 of 2955 in FHL Film #008743230. [↩]
  9. Nancy’s petition of a distributive share of the estate and subsequent court actions are included among the papers in Chancery Case #19. [↩]
  10. Robertson County 1840 census, page 159:  Nancy Bradley 100100001 – 0111010011 – 5 slaves. [↩]
  11. Robertson County Marriage Book 1839-1860, p47. [↩]
  12. Robertson County Court Minutes Oct 1843 – Jan 1850, p240 and p 262. [↩]
  13. Robertson County Court Minutes Oct 1843 – Jan 1850, p276. [↩]
  14. See image 1205 of Chancery Case #19  mentioned elsewhere on this page. [↩]
  15. Robertson County Chancery Court Papers, Vol. 176-258, Folder #183 “Guy, gdn. vs. Pepper, admin”, FHL Film #004126792, image535 of 3103. [↩]
  16. Robertson County Chancery Case Loose Papers, Cases 1-73: Case #19, Virginia A. C. Bradley and William L. Bradley (by their guardian Joseph A. Guy) vs. Benjamin W. Bradley et al (being the securities for his guardianship bond).  See images beginning at 1175 of 2955 in FHL Film #008743230. [↩]
  17. Ibid, image 1205. [↩]
  18. Ibid.,  image 1213 of 2955 in FHL Film #008743230. [↩]
  19. The case is also summarized in Jean M. Durrett and Yolanda G. Reid, Robertson County, Tennessee, Abstracts of Chancery Court Loose Papers, 1844-1872 (J. M. Durrett, 1986), Case #19.  Also summarized in Hooper Compass, No. 1. [↩]
  20. Robertson County Chancery Court Papers, Vol. 176-258, Folder #183 “Guy, gdn. vs. Pepper, admin”, FHL Film #004126792, images 397-549 or 3103.. [↩]
  21. Ibid, image 512 of 3103. [↩]
  22. Durrett and Reid. [↩]
  23. Franklin County 1860 census, page 646. [↩]
  24. Colbert County 1870 census, page 155. [↩]
  25. Colbert County 1880 census, page 462. [↩]
  26. 3 April 1890 issue of The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee), page 4. [↩]
  27. The marriage record reads that it was solemnized on 8 Jan 1858, but “Jan” is clearly a transcription error, as the license was issued on 5 July and the entry is surrounded by June-July-August marriages. [↩]