His Forbears and Some Crockett County Kinfolk
Edmund Todd Baldridge (1844 – 1920), a Tennessean by birth and veteran of the Civil War, spent his last years in Crockett County, Tennessee, and is buried alongside his second wife, Elizabeth Bettie (Worrell) Baldridge (1847 – 1915), in the cemetery of Cypress Methodist Church about three miles southeast of the City of Alamo.
E.T., as he was generally known, descended from Scotch-Irish colonists who emigrated from Ulster Province, Ireland, to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the early 1700s. First to make the move were his great (3)-grandparents, William and Janet (Holmes) Baldrige – spelled then without the second d. William was born in 1689 in County Londonderry, Ulster Province, and Janette was born on 24 June 1694 in County Down, also in Ulster Province. It has been reported, without authentication, that William was the son of Richard Baldrige of Wales.
William Baldrige and Janette Holmes were married in County Londonderry, Ulster Province, Ireland, on 16 June 1714 and very likely made their living in or around the City of Coleraine as yeomen – a class of small, independent, freeholding farmers. By the mid-1720s, they were the parents of six children: John (1715 – 16 Jul 1766), Alexander (5 Oct 1717 – 12 Mar 1805), Margaret (1719 – 1766/1777), Janette (1721 – 8 Feb 1744), Elizabeth (1723 – 12 Feb 1808), Michael (19 May 1726 – 12 May 1812).
At a time variously reported as 1726 and 1745, this Ulster-Irish (Scotch-Irish) Baldrige family, except for their eldest son John, emigrated to Little Britain Township in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, reportedly landing in Philadelphia aboard the Queen Margaret.
William and Janette Baldrige lived the remainder of their lives as farmers/weavers on land they colonized just north of the present-day Mason-Dixon Line, between Octoraro Creek and the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River. It is believed they were members of the Muddy Run Society, Little Britain Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Lancaster County, where they were very likely buried, although there are no known tombstones there bearing their names.
William Baldrige died on 25 November 1772 in Little Britain Township, and his Last Will and Testament dated 9 January 1767 was probated on 14 January 1773 and recorded in Will Book C, Volume 1. Page 124, Official Records of Lancaster County. Janette died there between 1767 and 1773, purportedly on 28 July 1768.
John Baldrige, firstborn child of William and Janette, had remained in Ulster Province in the far north of Ireland when his parents emigrated to America. In about 1733, in Coleraine, County Londonderry, John married Rebekah Clark who had been born in that same area in about 1720. With their then three young children, John and Rebekah (Clark) Baldrige also emigrated to Pennsylvania, purportedly aboard the Village Belle, arriving in Philadelphia in about 1737. They colonized land in Martic Township in southern Lancaster County just a few miles northwest of Johns parents.
At some point in time, Rebekahs parents, William and Margaret Clark, also emigrated from Ulster Province, Ireland, to Lancaster County. William Clarks Last Will and Testament, executed on 10 May 1763 and filed for probate just 11 days later, was recorded in Will Book A, Page 219, Official Records of Lancaster County. In it, William Clark recognized his son-in-law, John.
The children of John and Rebekah probably totaled at least 16 and perhaps 18, including the following with their probable birth dates, all born in Lancaster County, except for the first three who were born in Ulster Province, Ireland: 1. William, ca 1734; 2. Malcolm, ca 1736; 3. Robert, ca 1737; 4. Francis, ca 1741; 5. Daniel, ca 1744; 6. James, ca 1746; 7. Margaret, ca 1751; 8. John, ca 1752; 9. Alexander, ca 1756; 10. Thomas, ca 1759; 11. Ann, ca 1760; 12. Joseph, 14 Sep 1762; 13. Rebecca, Dec 1764; and possibly 3-5 others.
In about 1765, John and some of his older sons, along with other Scotch-Irish neighbors, traveled south to North Carolina and bought acreage in old Mecklenburg County (northwest of the present-day City of Charlotte). An abstract, dated 13 May 1765, attesting to the purchase by John Baldrige of land along Indian Camp Creek and the Catawba River can be found in Tryon-Lincoln County Deeds, Volume 1, Pages 670-671. Three other deeds involving similar purchases or rentals of land in that area by John Baldrige appear on pages 155-159 of Volume 4, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts.
John returned to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, only to die there in late July 1766 before he could relocate his family to North Carolina. John Baldriges Last Will and Testament, dated 15 July 1766 and filed for probate on 31 July 1766, was recorded in Will Book B, Volume 1, Page 448, Official Records of Lancaster County. It is generally considered that John Baldrige was buried in the cemetery of Chestnut Level Presbyterian Church, although there is no known tombstone there bearing his name.
The widow, Rebekah (Clark) Baldrige, then in her late 40s and the mother of 16 or more Baldrige children, married Aaron Boggs on 19 May 1769 in St. James Episcopal Church, Lancaster (church record extant). Rebekah (now spelled Rebecca) and Aaron Boggs moved with most of the younger Baldrige children to old Mecklenburg County (to what is now Lincoln County – northwest of the City of Charlotte), North Carolina. Rebecca went on to give birth to three Boggs children, giving her a grand total of at least 19 (perhaps 21), the last being born in about 1778 with Rebecca in her late 50s.
Rebecca (Clark) Baldrige Boggs died on 1 July 1823 at the probable age of about 103 years. Her very weathered tombstone still stands in the cemetery of Knob Creek Methodist Church, Belwood, in eastern Cleveland County, North Carolina.
At some time around 1770, perhaps occasioned by the death of their father in 1766 and remarriage of their mother in 1789, the older sons of John and Rebecca moved their families from Lancaster County southward to North Carolina, primarily to Orange County and to the lands of old Mecklenburg County. Others of their many children married and lived out their lives in Pennsylvania, some migrating westward to Westmoreland County.
The great-grandfather of E.T, Daniel Baldridge (now spelled with the second d), was among those older sons of John and Rebekah/Rebecca who in about 1770 migrated to North Carolina, northeast of the present-day City of Hillsborough in Orange County. There is no known extant record bearing the name of his wife whom he apparently married in Lancaster County, PA, in about 1761. Except for perhaps the first two or three, their nine known children were born in Orange County, NC: James (ca 1762 – before 1830), John (ca 1763 – ca 1819), Hannah ( ? – ? ), William (12 Jul 1777 – ca 1855), Andrew W. (ca 1779 – ? ), Robert (ca 1780 – before 1850), Daniel Jr. (ca 1784 – 28 Jan 1844), Francis Marion (3 Aug 1785 – 11 Oct 1847), Catherine (ca 1787 – ? ).
Public records evidence that Daniel owned land on both sides of the North Fork of the Little River near the Little River Presbyterian Church, where it is likely he and his family were members.
Pay vouchers dated 1 October 1783 and affidavits filed in 1796 attest to Daniels service with the North Carolina Continental Line during the Revolutionary War. For his military service, he received from the State of North Carolina on 25 October 1783 a Land Warrant (#468), which he assigned to his oldest son, James Baldridge, who in turn redeemed it for 5000 acres of land in Green County, Tennessee.
The First Census of the United States, taken in 1790, lists Daniel Baldridge by name as living in the Hillsborough District of Orange County, North Carolina, as do also the censuses of 1800 and 1810.
On 1 May 1810, Daniel sold what was probably his last land holding in Orange County, North Carolina. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Davidson County, Tennessee (Nashville area), where his name appeared on a tax list in 1811.
In 1812, Daniel Baldridge, along with his son, Francis Marion Baldridge, was listed as a private in Captain Thomas Williamsons Company of the Tennessee Volunteers, Davidson County Militia.
The 1820 Davidson County census suggests that Daniels wife (name as yet unknown) had died since the previous census ten years earlier – either in North Carolina or Tennessee. The aging Daniel was very likely by 1820 living in the household of his son, Francis Marion Baldridge, grandfather of E.T, in Davidson County, Tennessee.
In 1822, Daniel received another land warrant (#5071) from the State of North Carolina for his military service during the Revolutionary War. He assigned all his rights under this second warrant to his sons, William and Andrew W. Baldridge, by a Deed of Gift which was recorded both in Davidson County (Deed Book D, page 429) and in Weakley County (Deed Book C, page 396). In this document, Daniel explained his gift by stating …I am now too old and unable to occupy this land myself … This warrant was for 640 acres which turned out to be located a few miles southeast of the present-day City of Martin, in Weakley County, Tennessee.
Daniel and his son, William, soon took up residence on this land grant in Weakley County, where Daniel died in about 1828. His grave site (tombstone erroneously displaying earlier best-guess birth and death dates as 1754 and 1834, respectively) is located in one of the numerous small family burial plots located on Daniels land grant, along with the graves of his grandson, Andrew W. Baldridge (1805 – 1855), and Andrews second wife, Nancy (Speed) Baldridge (1812 – 1874). These graves are now prominently preserved in the Y formed by the Pair Road exit ramp and the south (west)bound traffic lanes of a highway bypass southeast of the City of Martin.
The grandfather of E.T, Francis Marion Baldridge, was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on 3 August 1785, and had migrated westward to Davidson and Rutherford Counties in Middle Tennessee by the early 1800s. On 21 November 1811, he married Francis Dickey (1792, NC -1874, AR) in Rutherford County, where all of their nine children were later born: James Henderson (25 Aug 1812 – 5 Apr 1902), Melinda Caroline (10 Sep 1813 – ? ), Ira J. (16 Feb 1817 – ? ), Catherine Minerva (10 Feb 1819 – 5 Jul 1899), Mary Logue (25 Mar 1821 – ? ), Francis Marion Jr. (25 Sep 1822 – ? ), Eliza (ca 1827 – ? ), Rebecca Jane (ca 1832 – ? ), Margaret M. (4 Dec 1835 – 6 Aug 1859).
Francis Marion Baldridge, with his wife and younger children, moved from Rutherford County to Clinton County, Illinois, in about the early 1840s, where he died on 11 October 1847.
Their oldest son, James Henderson Baldridge, father of E.T., had already by then married Elizabeth J. Todd (b. ca 1815, TN) in about 1833 in Rutherford County and started their family of eight children: Elmira J. (ca 1834 – 1 May 1880), William T. (ca 1837 – 18 Apr 1909), John P. (ca 1838 – ? ), Francis Frank (ca 1840 – ? ), James Smith (17 Sep 1843 – 21 Jun 1922), Edmund Todd E.T. (20 Nov 1844 – 20 Oct 1920), Lucinda Lucy (ca 1846 – ? ), Mary Elizabeth (ca 1849 – ? ). Elizabeth (Todd) Baldridge died in Rutherford County in about 1853.
James Henderson Baldridge married his second wife, Mary Brogden (ca 1829, NC – ca 1877, TN), on 15 September 1857, either when still living in Rutherford County or shortly after moving westward to Madison County, where the 1860 Census found them living with their first child, Benjamin (age 2), and the four youngest children from James first marriage. They soon moved to adjacent Gibson County, where their second child, George Luckey, was born in 1861, and where they spent the remainder of their married life.
They were the parents of at least seven children: Benjamin Brogden (ca 1858 – ? ), George Luckey (31 Mar 1861 – 11 Oct 1920), Robert H. (ca 1863 – ? ), Edith (ca 1865 – ? ), twins Virginia Tennessee (13 Mar 1868 – 20 Mar 1923) and Julius H. (13 Mar 1868 – ? ), Luther Caldwell (1870 – ? ). It is said that, with his two large families, James Henderson Baldridge fathered so many children (at least 15) over such a wide span of time (ca 36 years) that the older ones knew little if anything about their younger siblings.
Mary (Brogden) Baldridge died in about 1877 in Gibson County. The Census evidences that by 1880 James Henderson Baldridge (age 79) had moved with his younger children to Crockett County: George Luckey (age 19); Robert H. (age 17); Frances (Edith ?) (age 15); twins, Virginia Tennessee (age 12) and Julius H. (age 12); and Luther Caldwell (age 9).
An article published in the Rutherford Courier on 23 May 1882 describing old landmarks around Yorkville in Gibson County noted that The old brick chimney at the old homestead of James H. Baldridge, the first brick chimney built between Trenton and Little Rock, Arkansas, is still standing…
James Henderson Baldridge died in Crockett County on 5 April 1902 and is buried in Section 3 of the Alamo Cemetery. An inscription on his tombstone reads simply, Only Sleeping.
At the time of the 1860 Census, Edmund Todd E.T. Baldridge, (then age 16) was living in the household of his father and step-mother, James Henderson Baldridge and Mary (Brogden) Baldridge, in Madison County, Tennessee.
E.T. enlisted in the Civil War in the summer of 1863, being formally inducted when he and other new recruits were organized into a company on 20 July 1863 at Gadsden in Madison County (now in Crockett County). He served as a private in Company B, 14th (Neelys) Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, Confederate States Army, under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest. During the final almost two years of the war, E.T. participated in numerous battles in southwestern Tennessee, northern Mississippi and Alabama ( including Pontotoc and Old Salem in Mississippi; Sulphur Trestle, Britain Lane, Athens and Huntsville in Alabama; Estenaula, Collierville and Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee).
While on duty in the advance guard of Forrests command moving from Mississippi into Tennessee during the exceptionally cold winter of 1863-64, E. T. suffered freezing and frostbite of his feet and lower limbs. He recovered and was returned to duty, but this exposure likely contributed to the painful rheumatism that plagued him in later life and, in 1907, qualified him for a pension as a disabled Confederate veteran from the State of Tennessee.
Having been cut off from his unit by Federal forces while detailed as a scout shortly before cessation of hostilities in early 1865, E. T. responded to a general surrender order and turned himself in at Brownsville, Tennessee, where he was paroled as a prisoner of war on 31 May 1865.
On 27 February 1868, E. T. married Amanda T. Mendy Fisher (23 May 1849 – 22 Feb 1880), and they lived most of their 12 years of married life farming in Gibson County, Tennessee. They were the parents of probably five children: 1. Walter Lee (1868 – 1952), 2. Thomas Oliver (24 Dec 1871, Gibson County, TN – 23 Oct 1938, Memphis, TN), 3. James Earl Early (4 June 1874 – 14 Jan 1933), 4. Leroy (b. 1876), and 5. Susan A. (b. 1878).
Amanda (Fisher) Baldridge died in Gibson County on 22 February 1880 at the relatively young age of 30 years and is buried at Good Hope Methodist Church Cemetery which is located on Currie Road a few miles southwest of Dyer, Gibson County, Tennessee. Census records of 1880 suggest that, very soon after the death of their mother, the two younger children, Leroy (age 4) and Susan (age 2) went to live in the nearby household of their maternal grandparents, Thomas Henry Fisher and Elizabeth (Featherson) Fisher.
On 26 September 1883, E. T. married his second wife, Elizabeth Bettie Worrell (b. 1847, TN), and they were the parents of at least two children, including Hattie (1886 – 1919) and Dora ( ? – ? ). Susan, his older daughter by his first wife, apparently rejoined her father after he remarried. E.T. and Bettie, with their then three daughters, were farming near Trenton in Gibson County as late as 1907.
It was on 6 March 1907, in Gibson County, that E.T. filed a Soldiers Application for Pension as a Confederate veteran from the State of Tennessee. Apparently, some 42 years after the Civil War had ended, E.T. still remained an unreconstructed Southerner. On his pension application, in response to the question Did you take the oath of allegiance to the United States Govenrment, instead of a simple no, E.T. responded with a defiant did not.
The family moved later to Crockett County, where Elizabeth (Worrell) Baldridge died in 1915. Pension records note that in 1919 E.T. and one remaining daughter were living in the area of Alamo.
E.T., or Todd as he was by then known, was apparently very well thought of by his contemporaries in Crockett County judging from letters that accompanied a defense of his Civil War pension in 1919.
Dr. C.T. Love, an physician in Alamo, stated in his letter of 7 June 1919 that …we have known him (Todd) for some years and find him to be an honorable man and highly respected by our section for his manly ways…
A local Alamo attorney and then member of the Crockett County Court, T. G. Johnson, commented in his letter that I have known Mr. E. T. Baldridge practically all of my life…From my acquaintance with Mr. Baldridge I do not hesitate to say that in my opinion he is in every way worthy and deserves his pension, That he was a good soldier I do not in the least doubt….
Edmund Todd Baldridge died of septicemia (blood poisoning) on 20 October 1920. He and his second wife, Elizabeth Bettie (Worrell) Baldridge (d. 1915), are buried in the cemetery of Cypress Methodist Church which is located at the intersection of Clint Warren Road and Cypress Church Road about three miles southeast of Alamo.
Also, buried at the Cypress Methodist Church Cemetery are Hattie (Baldridge) Parlow (1886 – 1919) – daughter of E. T. and Bettie (Worrell) Baldridge – and her husband D. B. Auz Parlow (1886 – 1967).
Several of the siblings of Edmund Todd Baldridge also either accompanied or later joined their father, James Henderson Baldridge, in Crockett County, Tennessee.
Elmira J. (Baldridge) Roberts (ca 1834 – 1 May 1880), the first child of James Henderson Baldridge and his first wife, Elizabeth J. Todd, married William J. Roberts (b. ca 1827) on 10 January 1849 in Rutherford County, Tennessee, and they were the parents of five children; Joseph M. (b. ca 1850), Marcum J. (b. ca 1858), Lula H. (b. ca 1864), Lorice B. (b. ca 1871), and Ivie G. (b. ca 1880). Elmira, William, and some of their children are buried in the Alamo Cemetery.
John P. Baldridge (b. ca 1838, Rutherford Co., TN) was the third child of James Henderson Baldridge and his first wife, Elizabeth J. Todd. The 1880 Crockett County Census found him (age 40) living there with his wife, Martha E. (age 36) and their then four children; Minnie E. (age 9), John W. (age 6), Charles N. (age 3), and infant Jennings (age 5 months). Living in this household in 1880 was Benjamin Brogden Baldridge (age 22), younger half-brother of John P. Baldridge.
There is a tombstone in Section 3 of the Alamo Cemetery bearing the name J.W. Baldridge, born 28 November 1874, died 12 June 1913, age 38 years. An inscription reads, He sleepth his beloved sleep. Unfortunately, no death certificates were issued in Tennessee in 1913 that would have divulged his parentage. There is a high probability that he was John W. Baldridge, second child of John P. Baldridge.
James Smith Baldridge was born in Rutherford County on 17 September 1843 to James Henderson Baldridge and his first wife, Elizabeth J. Todd. According to the 1880 Census, he (age 38) and his wife, Mary E. (age 32), were living then in Crockett County with their four children; Joseph E. (age 10), Estella (age 5), Lafayette H. (age 2), and Leona (age 3 months). James Smith Baldridge died in Bells, Crockett County, on 21 June 1922. He and his wife, Mary E. Baldridge (1845 – 1918), are buried in the Alamo Cemetery.
George Luckey Baldridge was born on 31 March 1861 in Gibson County, a son of James Henderson Baldridge and his second wife, Mary Brogden. As a teenager in 1880, he was living in Crockett County with his father and siblings. But, he soon returned to Gibson County where, on 12 November 1880, he married Laura Jane Shelton (11 Jun 1860 – ca 1935), and they subsequently moved to adjacent Weakley County. The first four of their nine children were born in Greenfield, Weakley County, with the others born near Alamo in Crockett County where the family had moved in about 1890: Muriel (b. 26 Dec 1881), Willie Vern (27 Aug 1884 – 6 Jun 1964), Alice (b. 11 Apr 1887), Henry (12 Aug 1889 – 25 Apr 1965), Maudie (1892 – 1895), Georgia (1894 – 1899), Cooper Luther (b. 13 Sep 1897); twins, Earl Wilson (b. 31 May 1900) and Burl (b. 31 May 1900).
George Luckey Baldridge died in Alamo, Crockett County, on 11 October 1920, and Laura Jane (Shelton) Baldridge died there in about 1935. They and a number of their descendants are buried in the Alamo Cemetery. An inscription on the tombstone of George Luckey Baldridge reads Sleep on dear and take your rest in Jesus arms forever blest.
Virginia Tennessee Baldridge was born on 13 March 1868 to James Henderson Baldridge and his second wife, Mary Brogden, probably in Gibson County. She married Andrew Joshua Archibald (b. ca 1856, MS) on 3 December 1884 in Crockett County, where they became the parents of perhaps seven children; Edith Elizabeth (8 Mar 1886 – 12 Dec 1919), Bulah Ethel (27 Jan 1888 – 7 May 1971), James Henry (30 Dec 1889 – 7 Jul 1967), Minnie Mai (27 Jun 1892 – 9 Mar 1975), Bettie Oma (30 Sep 1894 – 23 Jun 1971), Edgar Bryan (22 Feb 1897 – 27 Mar 1987), J.D. (? – ?). Virginia died on 20 March 1923, and both she and Andrew are buried at the Providence Cemetery in Crockett Mills.
Mary Elizabeth Baldridge (b. ca 1849, TN), the last child of James Henderson Baldridge and his first wife, Elizabeth J. Todd, married John Gregory (b. ca 1844, TN) on 15 December 1857 and became the parents of five children; Laura L. (b. ca 1870), M. Almira (b. ca 1873), Olden B. (b. ca 1873), Martha A. (b. ca 1875), Luther Caldwell (b. ca 1877). Some of their descendants still live in the area of Crockett Mills.
Many other descendants of James Henderson Baldridge and kinfold of Edmund Todd Baldridge live to this day in and around Crockett County, Tennessee.
Respectfully submitted by a great-grandson of Edmund Todd Baldridge,