MY RIVERSIDE CEMETERY TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTIONS
SCRAPBOOK PART VI
by Jonathan K. T. Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1995TALBOT
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LOT 141, TALBOT
In mid-lot is a small shaft tombstone:
JAMES LAWRENCE TALBOT
Born in Nashville, Tenn.
Oct. 13, 1813
Died June 14, 1872
/A two-line verse beneath the name and dates is illegible./south to north:
L. E. TALBOT
Co. D, 3 Tenn. Cav.
CSA
1847-1919JOE MAY RICE, wife of L. E. TALBOT
1851-1913LOUISE
/Louise Arrington Talbot, dau. of L. E.
and J. M. Talbot, July 12, 1879-Sept.
3, 1879/ALLISON DICKENS TALBOT
1886-1914JAMES LAWRENCE TALBOT
1876-1942ALICE WHITE TALBOT
1882-1973JAMES LAWRENCE TALBOT
1910-1994
Lt. Col. U. S. ArmyJames Lawrence Talbot (1813-1872) was one of the children of Eli and Delia (Waters) Talbot. He came from Nashville, Tennessee to Jackson where he practiced law successfully. Episcopalian. He was married to Ann Pulliam Dickens (March 29, 1820-Feb. 16, 1883), a daughter of William Dickens who deeded 671 acres in trust for this couple, through Joseph H. Talbot, March 1839. (Madison Co. Deed Book 6, page 346)
Ann Talbot was one of the children of William Dickens (1773-1845) and Nancy Pulliam Dickens who moved from Granville Co., North Carolina to Madison Co., Tenn. in 1826. (See, for Dickens and Pulliam families, OUR WEBB KIN IN DIXIE, by W. J. Webb, 1940, pages 114-115.)
The WHIG-TRIBUNE, Jackson, Dec. 9, 1871 carried notice of the death of Mrs. Nancy Dickens, age 83, on Nov. 27, 1871 in Panola Co., Miss. Her remains were "buried at her old homestead in this county /Madison/ nine miles north of this city /Jackson/". Mother of Mrs. J. L. Talbot. /Nancy, nickname for Ann/
WHIG-TRIBUNE, Jackson, Tenn. June 22, 1872:
DIED,
At his residence in this city on Friday, the 14th inst., after a long and painful illness, JAMES LAWRENCE TALBOT, Esq., in the 59th year of his age.
Mr. Talbot was born and brought up at Nashville, Tennessee, and was graduated at the University of that city in the year 1834. He settled at Jackson in 1834, and not long afterwards was appointed Postmaster, a position which he resigned to take charge of that popular newspaper the Truth-Teller, which he edited with ability in 1836 and 1837. He was married in 1838 to Ann. P. Dickens, who, with their two children, still survives. From 1836 to 1861 he was Clerk of the Federal Court, and from 1843 to his death a trustee of West Tennessee College. He discharged the duties of these stations with ability, zeal, and fidelity.
Well educated and fond of reading, his conversation and writings abounded in literary and historical allusion and illustration. In the retirement of his own social circle, he was a highly attractive and entertaining companion. In his long residence here he enjoyed the respect and confidence of the community at large, and the warm affection of that more narrow circle of chosen friends to whom he was much attached, and whom, with the constancy of his nature,"He grappled to his soul with hooks of steel."
He was a man of singular frankness, sincerity, and directness of speech and purpose. He was proverbially true and just in his business transactions; liberal to all worthy objects of public or private charity; a most kind neighbor, a faithful friend, and a fond husband and father.
To these virtues he added the graces of the Christian character. He was for nearly thirty years a communicant in the Episcopal Church, and an active vestryman of the parish at Jackson. While his piety was unobtrusive and undemonstrative, never intended for the public eye, it was sincere and constant, and accompanied with the deliberate conviction of his judgment. His open-hearted liberality to his church and its institutions, was limited only by the measure of his ability. Abounding in such works, and grounded in such a faith, may we not trust that he will receive the crown of life promised to those who are faithful unto death?
Within the enclosure of his own grounds, upon the summit of that leafy height from which his hospitable mansion overlooks the busy town that spreads beneath — there, with comforting religious rites, and in the presence of a great company, they laid him gently away in a sweet spot selected by himself, where the evergreen trees, long ago planted and reared by his fostering hand, shall stand as suggestive emblems of the unfading freshness with which his memory shall continue to live.
Friend of my youth, farewell! Kind be the greeting, dear Christian brother, that welcomes thee to thy Father’s house, where sickness, and pain, and sorrow, and death are known no more forever!
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NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE, by John Allison (1905), volume 2, page 165:
LAWRENCE E. TALBOT, one of the leading business men of Jackson, Tenn., was born in that city, June 25, 1847. He is a son of James L and Ann P. (Dickens) Talbot, both of whom were descendants of English families who came to America some years prior to the Revolutionary war. The paternal grandfather, Harvey Talbot, was a soldier in the Colonial army during the Revolution, and was seriously wounded at the battle of King's Mountain. The maternal grandfather, William Dickens, was a captain in the war of 1812, and his father, Robert Dickens, was a colonel of dragoons. Lawrence E. Talbot received his primary education in the common schools, after which he attended the West Tennessee college; where he was a student at the beginning of the war. As soon as his age would permit, he left college for the "tented field" as a member of Company D, Forrest's regiment of Tennessee cavalry, and served with this organization until the close of the war, taking part in nearly all the military operations in Middle and Western Tennessee. After the war he did not complete his education, which had been so rudely interrupted, but decided to enter upon a business career. In his chosen line he has been eminently successful owing to his rare business tact, his untiring industry and his genial disposition, which makes friends of those with whom he comes in contact, Last but not least of his qualifications is his inflexible honesty, which holds the confidence of all his associates and acquaintances. In 1871 he was married to Miss Joe May Rice, and to this marriage were born four children: May Rice, James L, Helen and Allison.
The J. L. Talbot homeplace, Beuna Vista, was known for its beauty, the mansion itself having occupied an eminence called Talbot Hill, a portion of which is now called Terrace Place. This palatial establishment is described from memory, by the late Dr. Herman Hawkins (1859-1949) in two articles entitled, "Story of the Talbot Property" that appeared in THE JACKSON SUN, December 26, 27, 1944.
In his last will-testament, executed January 27, 1871, J. L. Talbot left a piano to an only daughter, Ada, and his library to an only son, Lawrence Ewell Talbot (1847-1919) and the remainder of his estate to his wife, Ann, after whose death the estate was to be divided equally between their two children. He also wrote, "I do desire that my body shall be buried on the lot of ground lying between the avenue and the garden. . . " (Madison Co. Will Book A, page 134) Dr. Hawkins described this "lot," thusly, "The long avenue to the entrance of Talbot Avenue, just on his /Talbot's/ left and about the corner now of Cedar street and King street on the sacred grounds of the family with its marble tombstones." Cedar Street is basically the "avenue" that runs north and south over which the family dwelling was reached from Talbot Avenue on the south. That portion of the Talbot estate, south of the present-day W. King Street was subdivided somewhat before J. L. Talbot's death and accelerated development followed soon after his demise.
The remains of the various members of the Talbot family were exhumed and reburied in Lot 141, Riverside Cemetery. The only surviving tombstone from that location is that of James L. Talbot (1813-1872), a small shaft monument. A small stone lamb is on the lot, perhaps a fragment of a tombstone. See page 57, this publication, for more about this matter.
The WHIG-TRIBUNE, Jackson, October 23, 1875, mentions, "Died, in Bolivar, Wednesday Oct. 20, Mrs. Delia Talbot, mother of the late Jas. L. Talbot. Her remains were brought to this city and interred in the family cemetery on Thursday last."
Lawrence Ewell Talbot (June 25, 1847-Oct. 25, 1919), son of James L. and Ann Talbot, was educated at the West Tennessee College in Jackson; served throughout the Civil War in Co. D, 3 Tenn. Cavalry, CSA; was a graduate in law of Cumberland University; attorney; mayor of Jackson, Jan. 1877-Jan. 1878. He and his wife, Joe May Rice, whom he married in 1871 had five children, their only son being James Lawrence Talbot (June 8, 1876-June 20, 1942), businessman of Jackson, who married Alice O'Daniel White (May 21, 1882-February 28, 1973); their only child, James Lawrence Talbot (Nov. 6, 1910-July 30, 1994) was a veteran of World War II., a member of the Tennessee National Guard (retired there from with rank of Lt.-Col.) and was a Public Service Commissioner for Tennessee 36 years, having retired in 1983 as executive director. He and his wife, Sarah (Gavin) Talbot (born May 17, 1919) had an only child, Thomas Lawrence Talbot (born Oct. 22, 1949) who lives in Memphis, Tenn. (and has one
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child, Kristen Blair Talbot (born March 16, 1981). J. L. "Jim" and Sarah G. Talbot lived in Nashville, Tennessee. (See, his obit., THE TENNESSEAN, Nashville, July 31, 1994; THE JACKSON SUN, August 1, 1994) Some of this data was furnished the compiler by Sarah (Gaven) Talbot.
Ada Dickens Talbot, only daughter of James L. and Ann P. Talbot, married Olin F. Rice and moved to Panola County, Mississippi, where she died November 18, 1885, having executed her will-testament, October 22, 1885 in which she bequeathed numerous personal items to her only children, two daughters (Ada and Sophia), then minors, and to other relatives. To her daughter, Ada Talbot Rice, she left her grandmother /Ann/Talbot's picture; to Mrs. Mary Miller of Bolivar, Tennessee, she left "my father's oil portrait; to her cousin, Thomas Wilson Dickens, "his grandmother Dicken's scrapbook." Also, "I will and direct my executor to sell my real estate lying in and adjoining the corporate limits of the city of Jackson, Tenn. known as the Talbot residence containing 15 acres more or less." (Madison Co. Court Minute Book 17, pages 171-174) Her uncle, John R. Dickens, was her stated executor and as such sold the Talbot homeplace to James Fentress, July 5, 1886. (Madison Co. Deed Book 43, page 280) Fentress sold the entire acreage to the Jackson and Suburban St. Railroad Co., September 19, 1889. (IBID. Book 47, page 57) The latter sold it in its entirety, for $5000, to two speculators, C. P. Heath and N. A. McFaul, February 19, 1890 (IBID. Book 47, page 597) after which the tract was sold piecemeal. Inferentially, the family graveyard was located in this fifteen acre tract but no provision was made for it in any of the land transactions here mentioned.
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