What happened to Martha Steele?

2016 - Martha Steele update - please refer to the last post at the top of the blog "William Steele Found in Charleston, South Carolina".  Here you will learn why she left Charleston, SC and moved to Henry County, Georgia about 1835.

Old Stockbridge, Georgia Cemetery

The 1840 District 755 and 1850 Henry County District 42 Census shows Martha living on the farm she and her 2 sons purchased in the Mount Carmel District of Henry County and Near McDonough, GA. near her sons and their families and several families of Smiths, assumed to be her family. 

The 1860 Henry County Census taken June 23, 1860 shows Martha listed at “pauper”, age 59, living in Stockbridge, GA, Household and family # 285 with a female child, age 9, Cornelia Steele and indicates the child attended school.  The parents of this child are unknown, but must be related with the name Steele.

   No record can be found of her death or grave, but it could be assumed she was buried in one of the two cemeteries established in Stockbridge at the time, either The Old Stockbridge Cemetery or the Old Concord Episcopal Methodist Church Cemetery, located in the original settlement on/ or near the Decatur Stagecoach Road, portions of which are still called Stagecoach Road.  Both cemeteries have many unmarked and destroyed graves.  A portion of Kilpatrick’s Cavalry passed through Stockbridge in 1864 on Sherman’s march to the sea and destroyed everything in their path, including cemeteries and marked graves. Pictured above is what remains of the Old Stockbridge Cemetery and the Old Concord Methodist Episcopal Methodist Cemetery in Stockbridge, GA

 At the time of Martha’s death, about 1863, it was a difficult time for the country and the Steele family.   The 9 year old girl, Cornelia Steele, is a mystery but it is assumed she was a relative’s child because she was given the name “Steele”.  It was a difficult time for Martha.  Her oldest son, Henry Smith Steele had died in 1858, Robert Steele was engaged in the Civil War, and William Steele had a large family and may also have been away in the Civil War, leaving her alone to survive and raise a 9 year old girl.

                                               

Stockbridge was founded around the Concord Methodist Episcopal Church around 1850 and named for Professor Stockbridge, an expert in agriculture and came there to assist farmers with knowledge of growing crops as this area was known for a thin-soil district.  When the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad was built through the area, the original settlement was relocated southward to the present day location.

Old Concord Methodist Episcopal Cemetery (courtesy CRG)