Photo: Me; my mother, Shirley Williams; her father, Guy Lovelace; his father, James L. Lovelace; his father, Charles B. Lovelace; and his mother Angeline Shirley Lovelace who was the daughter of Unity Shirley.
I wish we had named one of our daughters Unity. Not only is it something we could use a little more of these days, but I have discovered it was also the name of one of my fourth great-grandmothers, Unity Shirley (1794-1869).
Unity spent nearly four decades in Haywood County and appears repeatedly in tax, census and probate records as the person responsible for a large household and a fairly substantial farm. That was unusual in an era that was run by white land-owning men.
Uriah and Unity Shirley
My fourth great-grandparents, Uriah Shirley (c. 1789-before 1843) and Unity Shirley, were the parents of Quincy Angeline Shirley (1828-1898), my third great-grandmother. Angeline married Thomas A. Lovelace (1812-1876) by 1855 in Haywood County.
Unity was about 20 years old and apparently already a widow when she married Uriah in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, in July 1814. The name of her first husband was M. Wells. The county marriage record is generally transcribed as July 17, although another genealogical abstract gives July 14.1
Unity had a young son from her first marriage, Richard Thelbert Wells (c. 1812-1894). Some family researchers have suggested that he was a member of the large Wells family living in Muhlenberg County, possibly a son of John Wells.
The strongest evidence for Unity’s earlier marriage appears in the 1889 will of her son Norfleet B. Shirley (c. 1817-1894), who specifically referred to Richard T. Wells as his half brother.2
Uriah’s parentage also remains uncertain. Some researchers connect him to a Shirley family in Edgecombe County, North Carolina.
The Pond River Country
Land entries and census records place Uriah and Unity in the Pond River country of Muhlenberg County. The Pond River forms part of the county’s western boundary and flows through an area historically marked by wooded bottoms, lakes and rich farmland.
In his 1913 book, A History of Muhlenberg County, a local historian described the Pond River country as a favorite destination for hunters and fishermen and a place rich in pioneer traditions. He specifically mentioned Murphy’s Lake, the Pond River bottoms and the families whose descendants continued to live there generations after the first settlements.3
The 1820 federal census counted six free white people in Uriah Shirley’s household and no enslaved people. By 1830, the household had grown to 11 free white people and one enslaved female between the ages of 10 and 23.
Uriah and Unity had at least eight children: Norfleet B. Shirley (1816-1869), Lunsford W. Shirley (1818-1884), Berry J. Shirley (1820-1861), James R. Shirley (1821-1905), Thaddeus C. Shirley (1826-1907), William W. Shirley (1828-1867), Quincy Angeline Shirley (1828-1898) and John H. Shirley (c. 1830-1865).
Mary M. Shirley (1821-after 1900) may have been a ninth child. She was not named among Uriah’s heirs when his estate was settled in 1845, but the 1900 census identified her as a sister living in Thaddeus’ household. I do not know the reason for her omission from the estate settlement.
All of Uriah and Unity’s children appear to have been born in Kentucky, although their reported ages vary from one census and family record to another making them difficult to track.
Migration to Haywood County
Uriah and Unity were among the earliest settlers of Haywood County, Tennessee.
An Oct. 18, 1832, legal document involving a South Carolina estate referred to Unity as the “wife of Uriah Shirley of Haywood County, Tennessee.” That provides a date by when the family had moved to Haywood County. Norfleet’s gravestone states that he came to Tennessee in January 1832, providing an exact month.
The 1836 Haywood County tax roll lists “Unity Shirley” with 170 acres valued at $500 and a tax assessment of 50 cents. The 1840 federal census also lists her by name as the head of her household.
The 1836 Haywood County tax roll lists Unity Shirley as the owner of 170 acres.
Uriah’s estate inventory was not recorded in Haywood County until November 1843, and his estate was settled Oct. 17, 1845. The estate settlement named eight Shirley children as heirs and Norfleet as administrator.
Unity therefore may have been managing the family farm as a widow and raising several minor children for years before Uriah’s estate was formally processed. By 1840, she was living near several Wells households, another indication that members of her first husband’s extended family may have migrated with the Shirleys from Kentucky.
Unity’s son from her first marriage, Richard Wells, remained in Kentucky until about 1843. His arrival in Haywood County at about the same time Uriah’s estate inventory was recorded raises the possibility that he helped settle his stepfather’s affairs, but there is no way to know for sure.
Land, Wealth and Enslavement
The 1850 census counted Unity in District 5 of Haywood County. She reported real estate valued at $1,600. Norfleet, who was living in her household, reported another $1,000 in real estate. Angeline, then 22, also remained at home.
A separate slave schedule recorded nine people enslaved by Unity: a 60-year-old man, a 45-year-old woman, a 32-year-old man, females ages 17 and 13, an 11-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy and an infant girl. Their names were not recorded.
By 1860, Unity reported real estate valued at $7,500 and personal property valued at $16,000. Thaddeus was living with her and reported another $5,600 in real estate and $2,400 in personal property.
The 1860 slave schedule listed 14 people under Unity’s name. They ranged in age from 2 to 70, and four were younger than 10. Once again, the census recorder reduced them to ages, sexes and racial classifications rather than preserving their names.
By Haywood County standards, Unity and Thaddeus belonged to the prosperous upper tier of the county’s agricultural population, although they were not part of its wealthiest planter elite. Together, they reported $31,500 in real and personal property, placing their household roughly among the wealthiest 15% in their immediate census district. Much of Unity’s $16,000 personal estate represented the value the census assigned to the 14 people she enslaved. That number placed her above most Tennessee slaveholders, more than three-fourths of whom held fewer than 10 people, but well below Haywood County’s largest planters, some of whom enslaved scores or even hundreds of men, women and children.
The Shirley and Lovelace Land
The 1877 Map of Haywood County, Tennessee, from Actual Surveys and Official Records, published by D.G. Beers & Co., shows the farms, roads, churches, waterways and property owners of the county. The map shows the location of the Shirley, Lovelace and Wells families.
The map identifies land associated with Norfleet and Lunsford Shirley near Zion Baptist Church. It also shows the property of Unity’s widowed daughter as “Mrs. A. Lovelace,” my third great-grandmother. Her husband, Thomas Lovelace, had died in October 1876, less than a year before the map was published.
I like this map so much, have one framed and hanging over my desk in my home office here in Virginia. Other families in my ancestry that appear on the 1877 map include Williams, Cobb, Watridge, Steele, White, Rooks and Jacocks. It provides a remarkable visual record of how these families lived near one another, attended the same churches and became connected through marriage.
Unity’s Death and Estate
Unity died Sept. 6, 1869, at age 75 and was buried in Zion Baptist Church Cemetery in Haywood County.
Her son James filed the administrator’s bond for her estate on Jan. 3, 1870. Norfleet and Thomas Lovelace signed as his securities. The document shows that Unity left property requiring formal administration and that her surviving sons and son-in-law worked together to settle her affairs.<sup>11</sup>
Most of her children and several of their spouses were eventually buried near her at Zion.
The Shirley family graves at Zion Baptist Church Cemetery.
Uriah and Unity’s Children
Richard, Unity’s son from her first marriage, married and established a farm in northwestern Haywood County after arriving from Kentucky. He later moved with members of his family to Montague County, Texas, where he died in 1894. He is buried in Montague Cemetery.
Berry enlisted as a private in Capt. John G. Haywood’s Haywood Rangers, which became part of Logwood’s Tennessee Cavalry Battalion in the Confederate army. He died of pneumonia in 1861 at about age 40, leaving a wife and three children. He was buried at Zion.
Lunsford never married. He farmed near his mother and siblings until his death in 1884 and was buried at Zion.
Norfleet also remained unmarried. His 1889 will is especially valuable because it identifies Richard Wells as his half brother, Angeline as his sister and John as his deceased brother. Norfleet died in 1894 and was buried at Zion. His will also shows that by the end of his life he owned farmland, town lots and commercial property in Brownsville.
William died in 1867 at about age 39 and was buried at Zion.
Thomas Lovelace and Angeline Shirley Lovelace
Angeline Shirley Lovelace, my third great-grandmother, remained in Haywood County after Thomas’ death. She died Feb. 8, 1898, and was buried beside him at Zion. Her church obituary described her as a “beloved sister” and “mother in Israel.”
James married Mary Jane Wells (1827-1908), another member of Muhlenberg County’s extended Wells family, in 1855. He died in 1905 and was buried at Zion. Mary Jane was buried there after her death three years later.
Thaddeus married Helen M. McCormick (1833-1911) in 1866. They lived in Brownsville and had no biological children. Thaddeus died in 1907 and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, where Helen joined him after her death in 1911.
John married Caroline Jones (1829-1908), a native of Williamson County. They had at least three children. John was dead by May 1889, when Norfleet wrote his will. Caroline died in Nashville in 1908 and was buried in Williamson County.
Mary, the probable ninth Shirley child, remained unmarried and was living with Thaddeus in 1900. I have not found a record establishing when or where she died.
Many members of the Shirley family are buried at Zion Baptist Church
For more of my genealogy research, visit rscottwilliams.info.
- R.E. Barnhill, “Muhlenberg County Marriage Records—1799-1836,” Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society (1932), marriage of Uriah Shirley and Unity Wells; Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, marriage certificate No. 255. The surviving transcriptions disagree between July 14 and July 17, 1814. ↩︎
- Norfleet B. Shirley, last will and testament, May 8, 1889, Haywood County, Tennessee, identifying Richard T. Wells as his half brother; abstracted in Shirley Association, “Uriah Shirley.” ↩︎
- Otto A. Rothert, A History of Muhlenberg County (Louisville, KY: John P. Morton & Company, 1913), 84-103. ↩︎
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