Moses
Kirkland and Sarah Nancy Sholar
This article
was submitted by Chuck Kirkland from an article in the Abbeville Herald dated
Thursday, May 19,
1977. It was in the paper's section
titled "Henry's Heritage”.
"Moses Kirkland was born in 1831 with light skin, grey eyes
and black hair.
He was of medium height, well proportioned and weighed about one
hundred and
fifty pounds. He was good looking, well dressed, talked
interestingly and
much, had a pleasing address, and even temper. The historian for
the family
says he was a popular man, a good mixer, and a good trader.
These attributes made it easy to find a wife and start a business.
He was
married to Sarah Sholar October 3, 1850. She was the daughter of
Sherrod
Sholar, born June 15, 1806, and who lived near the Josiah Kirkland
place.
Sherrod sold this place in 1856 and moved to Clarke County,
Mississippi, but
Sarah remained with her husband, and they had five children before
the war.
Mary Jane, born November 11, 1851 was the eldest; then Elijah
Thomas, born
January 20, 1854; followed by Martha Arminda in 1856; David Reson
in 1858,
and Benjamin Lee, born August 20, 1861."
"Moses and Sara Nancy started their life together near his
father's farm,
and made a crop or two while living in a little house nearby. But
he soon
started a two story home, but found a buyer for his house and farm
some
three years before the start of the war. He sold it and moved to
Abbeville.
There he planned to start a store, and build a home at the
...[sorry, a line
missing] a rented house while he started the construction of a
kitchen and
dining room. When this was completed they moved in, and started
the
construction of a fine dwelling just a few feet away. The big
house was a
double pen affair with an eight foot hall separating two 16 by 16
foot rooms
with porches on the front and back. The framing was morticed into
the sills
and wooden pegs were used for the want of nails. Glass for the
windows was
bought and set into the frames by the carpenters, but the house
was never
finished. The war came. The store failed, and all the assets,
including the
residence went to the creditors, and Moses went to the war. The
debtors to
whom the place went would not, or could not pay anything for the
worth of
the property they had taken over. This left Moses' family
destitute, and his
good old father, Josiah, gave them food and shelter during the
war."
"Moses' wife and five children lived in a little house on the
farm, and did
with what they could grow and get from family members for four
years. Moses
left in the spring of 1862 , and died of pneumonia at Richmond,
Virginia in
November of 1863. Sarah Nancy and the children left in 1865 for
Mississippi
where her father and his family were living at that time.
It had been a long, hard four years for her. Three months after
they had
buried Moses in Virginia, his brother Harmon, exhumed the body and
shipped
it back to Henry County. Embalming was not practiced in those days
so the
box was packed with charcoal, and the body shipped by rail to Ft.
Gaines,
Georgia, and carried by ox cart from there to be buried near the
"Country
Tavern" and the old home place.
The family historian says that the funeral was held in the
Primitive Baptist
Church of that area, to which Josiah and Cynthia Kirkland
belonged. He said
that Moses and Sarah were not members of that church, or any
church at that
time.
Sarah Nancy Sholar, wife of Moses Kirkland, was born April 11,
1830 in Henry
County. She was a small, well proportioned woman of medium height
and
weight. She had fair skin, blue eyes, and black hair, and was much
like her
mother in disposition and personal appearance. She was never very
strong,
and the last ten years of her life were particularly difficult for
her. She
died at the early age of thirty-nine. One only has to picture the
war years
with five children to rear, a husband away in the war, and finally
shipped
home dead, with her depending first upon his family, and finally
on hers for
the very food to keep her and her children alive, to the move to a
new and
different state with no friends, but plenty of old memories, to
see the
privation, sorrow, and hardships she suffered. She, however, was
only an
example of many who suffered in a similar manner during these
tragic years.
Abbeville will always remember the Kirklands for which it's main
street is
named."