DeMumbrie’s and Richards’ Plantations Under Water

If you will remember (or if you haven’t been here before and this is new to you) I mentioned back in June that I think I found approximately when Spencer DeMumbrie died.  I gave the dates I was estimating as between September 1874 and September 1876.  However, after mulling it over, and speaking with my mother numerous times, I believe I can shorten the length of time to something more approximate.  I made a call to the Mississippi Archives to see if they they knew if there were any specific months that the taxes would have been done in the 1870s, but they didn’t.  However, they did confirm that if Spencer’s estate paid taxes in 1876 then he would have died between the 1875 tax season and the 1876 tax season.  Then I remembered that at the end of every year the county sections were recapitulated and sworn and signed on specific days that the information was true.  In 1874 that date was June 30th.  In 1876 that date was September 4th.  So, given the furthest dates possible, I would say Spencer died sometime between May 1, 1875 and September 4, 1876.  That is still a lot of time to cover. 

I am not saying that I know what happened to Spencer.  If I had to guess I would say it is possible he either a) drowned, or b) died of pneumonia.  Don’t hold me to that.  The reasoning, however, is due to a terrible flood that occurred in the latter half of 1875 to Spencer’s plantation.  I will not transcribe the entire news article, as it is very long, but here are portions of the story that appeared on the front page in the August 3, 1875 issue of the Memphis Daily Appeal:

GENERAL INUNDATION

The reports of the doings of the rivers above here the past twenty-four hours are anything else by encouraging; on the contrary, they are of a most disheartening character.  Up to yesterday afternoon, we saw some hope for the planters in the Mississippi valley, but the dispatches and the official report of the signal service bureau have begotten a different feeling, and we are almost disposed to give up the ship.  Still, there are those who believe there will not be a general disaster, but we fear their opinions are not well-founded…

…The only great disaster yet known between Memphis and Friar’s point is at Demummer's bend, where the water is running with tremendous current through the fields.  At Richard’s bend, just below, the water is covering a good deal of cotton, but as yet not so effectually at its mercy as at the Demummer place…

I would assume that the newspaper would have mentioned his death, and it may have and was just transcribed wrong.  But now I have it narrowed down within roughly 16 months.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Also, I think it’s worth mentioning that George Washington Richards, Esq died of pneumonia on September 2, 1875.  Being Edmund’s son and Jerome’s brother, he would have been living at the Richard’s plantation.  So the idea of death by pneumonia after slogging through a flooded plantation isn’t that hard to imagine, or any other illness or disease that may be the product of a flood.

Comments

[Laura McCormick]

Minnie Virginia Richards was my great, great aunt. Her niece, Laura Richards Speight was my grandmother and Carolyn Jean Speigh McCormick was my mother. I knew Aunt Minnie very well. I believe your mother is my cousin

[Stephanie]

I am thrilled that you found my blog and commented! And so is my mom!