Elder Nicholas and Elbert 'Birdie'
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Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elder Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Two Roberts families from Chester-Fairfield, South Carolina All Rights Reserved Bill Roberts 2008 Bill Roberts 2 Sturgeon Bay Drive Taylors, SC 29687 864/380-4432 864/236-8061 [email protected] Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fairfield County – 1895 – Chester County 1825 This map shows the area of the Chester-Fairfield counties border. Elder Nicholas Roberts lived in Fairfield County just south of the Chester County border. In later years, Elbert “Birdie” Roberts would live in Chester County near the New Hope-Armenia Community. Many of our ancestors lived in or near the Halsellville Community around the Chester-Fairfield County border. That community is still the home for many of our cousins. Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................7 ELDER NICHOLAS AND ELBERT ‘BIRDIE’ .......................................................8 ABBREVIATIONS AND NUMBERS...................................................................10 COUSINS ...........................................................................................................11 NAMES............................................................................................................... 11 NICHOLAS ROBERTS.......................................................................................13 THE CICILY FLOYD MYTH................................................................................13 WILL OF NICHOLAS ROBERTS.......................................................................16 NICHOLAS’ FIRST LAND GRANT.....................................................................17 THE SIGNATURE OF NICHOLAS ROBERTS...................................................18 BEAVER CREEK BAPTIST CHURCH...............................................................18 MISSISSIPPI AND ARKANSAS .........................................................................19 THE POSSIBLE BROTHERS OF NICHOLAS ROBERTS ................................20 DESCENDANTS OF ARCHIBALD ROBERTS ..................................................20 THE CHILDREN OF NICHOLAS ROBERTS .....................................................23 DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM ‘DOGWOOD BILL’ ROBERTS ........................25 THE MURDER OF JOHN L. ROBERTS ............................................................27 A letter from H.W. Roberts to Lewis Roberts .................................................27 TRADING WITH A NEGRO................................................................................29 Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE MURDER OF LEWIS EDWARD DEKALB ROBERTS ..............................34 WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE WILLIAM ROBERTS’?.................................39 Maybe a clue......................................................................................................40 The Murder of Hesakiah Roberts’.................................................................... 40 A Picture –Samuel and Sarah Elizabeth Roberts McCraw ............................44 The Letter from Leroy Roberts to James A. Roberts.....................................51 A Picture - Wade Oscar and Catherine Sarah Roberts..................................54 A Picture – P.O. and Phenella Malone Roberts ..............................................64 A Picture – Young Pearl Kemme .....................................................................65 A Picture - James Wade Roberts.....................................................................66 A Picture - Martha Clark and Mary Colvin Clark.............................................68 Margie Lee Roberts, A Eulogy .........................................................................69 John Elbert Roberts’ Draft Registration Card ................................................73 The famous Roberts' Watermelon...................................................................74 One Summer with Elbert and Jessie...............................................................75 Roberts’ Hash ...................................................................................................76 Troy Roberts’ Death..........................................................................................77 The murder of Marion Douglas Roberts .........................................................80 Stories about my Dad .......................................................................................86 APicture - Talton Clark and Mary Alice Jones Roberts ................................86 A Eulogy for Mary Roberts Crow.....................................................................88 A Eulogy for Jonathon Clark Roberts ............................................................. 96 A PICTURE -GEORGIA CAROL ROBERTS AND HER COUSINS ...................97 THE DESCENDANTS OF JOHN ROBERTS ...................................................101 Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Berry Roberts Mystery ............................................................................101 Moving to Arkansas........................................................................................103 DESCENDANTS OF SARAH ROBERTS.........................................................111 DESCENDANTS OF LEWIS E. P. ROBERTS .................................................113 Mary Wages Roberts’ Renunciation of Dower .............................................114 New Albany Quartet........................................................................................129 The Roberts Quartet .......................................................................................136 THE DESCENDENTS OF B. ELBERT ‘BIRDIE’ ROBERTS ...........................140 Those other Roberts.......................................................................................140 Generation No. 1 – Elbert’s Children ............................................................142 Generation No. 2 – Elbert’s Grandchildren ..................................................143 Generation No. 3- Elbert’s G-Grandchildren ................................................146 Generation No. 4 – Elbert’s G-G- Grandchildren..........................................149 Generation No. 5 – Elbert’s G-G-G Grandchildren.......................................152 Billy Standridge – NASCAR and ARCA ............................................................................................... 152 SOME PICTURES OF OUR FAMILY ...............................................................154 A PICTURE –JAMES C. WAGES ....................................................................154 A PICTURE –YOUNG JOHN ELBERT AND JESSIE WAGERS ROBERTS...154 A PICTURE –A YOUNG JAMES WADE ROBERTS........................................154 A PICTURE –TALTON CLARK ROBERTS AND BILL....................................155 A PICTURE –PHENELLA MALONE ROBERTS WITH WM. H. ROBERTS ....155 A PICTURE – MARGIE LEE ROBERTS ..........................................................155 APicture - In front of the ‘old home place.’..................................................156 Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THEY FIT SOMEWHERE.................................................................................157 Descendants of Berry Roberts and Sallie Lyles Roberts............................157 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.................................................................160 Black Bart Roberts..........................................................................................161 Early Roberts in Chester and Fairfield Areas...............................................161 Mary Roberts and Joshua Davis....................................................................168 Nicholas and Elbert ‘Birdie’ Roberts Bill Roberts Page 7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION When I was a student at the University of South Carolina in the 1960's, I had a friend named Ben Mullins. Ben was from Marion, a small city in a section of South Carolina my father called the 'lower country.' My dad (Talton Clark Roberts) said everything a person needed could be found in the piedmont and upstate foothills. He asserted there was no reason for an intelligent person ever to venture below Columbia and he jokingly ceded all of the land between the state capital and the Atlantic Ocean to gnats, mosquitoes, snakes, gators and Yankees. Ben's beliefs about our state were in direct opposition to my dad's. Ben saw little use for the ‘upstate,’