A student named Arnette Craig is on the rolls for the Mordecai school; she was there three sessions, mid-1817 to the end of 1818 (and maybe past, because there were some students who stayed past the sale). I have her as a student from Richmond VA, with a Samuel Paine as the adult name attached to her account, along with a Mrs. Craig, suggesting that Mr. Craig died before mid-1817.
Her unusual first name helps find mentions...except that it's spelled so many different ways.
"Papa received a letter from Mr. Saml. Paine, the gentleman who conversed with you respecting the school requesting admission for Miss Craig. She cannot be received this session, but if they wish it will have a place reserved for her next," Rachel Mordecai wrote to Solomon Mordecai in the summer before Arnette came to Warrenton (27 July 1817). She seems to have shared a ride to school with another student, Harriet Marx, who was kin to the Mordecais (18 January and 17 February 1818); Rachel reported the scene on Arnette's arrival at school, "I have just heard an alarm sounded of 'Arnett Craig is come' but as she has not made her appearance I cannot vouch for it being well grounded" (15 February 1818). The next year we find Rachel reporting from outside Richmond, "Mrs. Payne, Arnot Craig's mother, died suddenly a few days since..." (6 December 1819).
Okay, turning to the genealogical information online: Arnette S. Craig (1805-1873) was the younger daughter of Adam and Mary Mallory Craig, of Virginia. This is the Adam Craig house in Richmond (here's the marker). Adam died while his daughters were young; Mary Mallory Craig remarried to Samuel Paine in 1817. In 1822, Arnette Craig married Philip Whitehead Claiborne (b 1801, also in Virginia). At some point around 1830, the Claibornes move to Florence, Lauderdale County, Alabama, where they were still living in 1860. They're listed with at least eight children; this is the grave of one of Arnette's granddaughters, Mary Claiborne Porter (1859-1939).
Arnette must not have minded her unusual first name, because she named one of her own daughters Philapella (1843-1871).
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Philipella Claiborne married Dr. Henry "Hal" Chambers Bibb. They are both buried in the Bibb Family Cemetery behind Belle Mina, the Bibb family Alabama home in Mooresville, Limestone County. Philipella's grave marker shows her to be "Ella". Ella and Hal had two children to die very early, and Ella died within months of her third child, Ella Claiborne Bibb. Dr. Bibb died just a few short years later.
ReplyDeleteElla Claiborne Bibb was my gr-grandmother.
J Dedman