Photo: Recreation of photo of Maggie and Ellis Sullivan
A few days ago, I wrote about Ancestry.com making a new batch of death certifcates available. One of them revealed more about my second-great grandfather being buiried in a field that was once called the Williams Family Cemetery. The other person I wrote was likely buried in the Williams Family Cemetery is Maggie Williams Sullivan (1881-1921), George’s niece through his brother Edward W. Williams (1853-1893).
My cousin Betsy has researched Maggie extensively because Maggie belongs to her direct line.
The Tennessean, Jan. 15,1899, 3.
Maggie came into the world in Haywood County on April 21, 1881. At 17, she married Ellis B. Sullivan (1878-1917).
It seems their marriage quickly turned troubled. By April 27, 1905, Maggie had gone to court seeking a divorce.
The court filing accused Ellis of “such cruel and inhumane treatment” that it made life with him unsafe and improper. It also said he had offered “such indignities to her person as to render her condition intolerable,” forcing her to leave.
The court awarded Maggie custody of the couple’s three young sons.
That alone says a great deal. Life challenged even large farming families during that period. A 24-year-old woman raising three small children faced a difficult path.
A few years later, Ellis may have convinced Maggie that he had changed. Or maybe time, money, children and limited choices pushed them back together. Whatever the reason, Ellis and Maggie remarried on Sept. 14, 1909.
They had several more children. Two died young. Two lived to adulthood, including George Washington “Buddy” Sullivan (1916-2010), who later served as Haywood County sheriff.
On July 4, 1917, Ellis came in from the cotton field and was shot and killed.
An undertaker’s entry named Mike Holbrook as the person who killed Ellis, reportedly after Ellis spit tobacco juice on him. Betsy’s research, however, points in another direction. Haywood County court records show that Maggie herself was indicted and convicted in Ellis’ death, and Tennessee Supreme Court archival records include a case called State v. Maggie Sullivan. That conflict between the funeral-home account and the court record suggests the Holbrook story may have grown from a family effort to shield Maggie.
The Haywood County Grand Jury eventually indicted Maggie, and the court found her guilty in Ellis’ death. Authorities sent her to serve time at the State Penitentiary in Nashville and Western State Hospital in Bolivar, Tennessee. Her brothers later introduced “new evidence,” and the court released her early.
Maggie died April 28, 1921, at age 40, likely from cancer. She as buried in the Williams Family Cemetery. Castallaw and Watridge served as her undertakers as well.
After her death, family members divided the children among several households.
The Williams Family Cemetery may never give up every name of every person buried there. The headstones, if there were any, have disappeared. The iron fence may have rusted into the ground. But the death certificates, family memories and old records now give us enough to restore at least part of its story.
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