The Backstory to My Interest in Family History

The picture of the young girl here is of Mollie Y. Duvall Hall. Mollie was the ancestor who first peaked my interest in family history from this tintype photo which my grandfather possessed. I wanted to know: Who was she? What can I find out about her? This tintype may have been taken about the time of her marriage or sooner. My grandfather knew little about her other than she was his great-grandmother and his grandmother spoke of her mother often and with great reverence. I had to know more. He also said that there was a tintype of her husband William C. Hall and that it had been given years ago to his brother Coy because they believed he was named after him. On a visit to Michigan, I visited Uncle Coy and he had the picture of William C. Hall in his Civil War uniform. Guess what? – when I took William C. Hall’s picture out of its gold-plated frame, there was another tintype of Mollie. What a find! I recognized her immediately from the picture my grandfather had. The picture of William C. is on the Backstory Bloodhound website with me holding it and the caption “Connect With Your Roots.”

Anyway, my grandfather said his grandmother (Sarah Ellen Hall) often spoke of her mother and how difficult it was for her during the war. She would take her young children down to Sugar Creek in Pope County and draw water and carry it on top of her head (as in the style of Indian women) back to their house. They picked up sticks in the woods to keep from freezing to death while her husband was away at war. I had to know more! Well, here is a synopsis of what I learned in my research about Mollie.  

William C. Hall crossed the river at Shawneetown, coming into Illinois on the date that Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Tensions had risen to a level in the United States that a civil war seemed to loom and he knew he had to get away from it. By August 1862, however, he would join Company A, 120^th Illinois Infantry formed in Pope and surrounding counties on the Union side.

William C. Hall’s old trunk is in the possession of a descendant. A Family Bible and other papers are found within. the Bible states that Mollie was born on 21 January 1835. Other papers within the trunk listed her father as “Billy DUVALL” and her mother as “Patsy.” It provided a second wife’s name for “Billy” as “Hannah” and a third wife as “Martha.” It also listed names of some siblings and half-siblings of Mollie’s.

My research found that Mollie was the first child of her parents to be born in Tennessee, they having recently emigrated there from Newberry County, South Carolina. She was the daughter of William D. DUVALL and Mary Ann OWENS who married about 1829 and who had had two older daughters. Mollie died of tuberculosis on 7 February 1880 in Pope County at the age of 45.

In my quest for Mollie’s backstory, I found Bonnie Jaco Johnson. Bonnie’s grandmother Tennessee, with whom she lived as a child at times, told her a lot of stories about her family which she relayed to me. Bonnie indicated that William (“Billy”) Duvall has been the one about whom some in the family told fanciful tales and indeed he was a colorful character. Stories in the family indicate that Mollie was actually an Indian baby brought home with her Indian mother on one of Billy’s excursions. This story appears to have originated with Josephine Cooper Turner, a granddaughter of Mollie’s. She told it to cousins on the Fisher/Helm side and the story has been passed down. They said Mollie’s grandfather was a Cherokee Indian chief named Orjil Bowl. It was also told that he came to Tennessee and lived with the family right up until the time of Mollie’s marriage Indeed, a descendant named Edna Adams once showed me a letter written by Josephine Cooper Turner in which the name Orjil Bowl appears. However, actually, in the letter, it would appear that Orjil Bowl was merely listed as an Indian agent. No record has been located of this Indian grandfather living with the DUVALL family.  

However, Smith County, Tennessee chancery court records do indicate William DUVALL filed for divorce from his wife Mary Ann in 1841, stating that about seven years earlier, she had abandoned her three little daughters “of very tender age, the oldest being about 4 and the youngest about 9 months.” From the list found in the HALL family trunk and other sources, I can identify the three daughters as Sarah, Mary, and Mollie. The record is off about a year for an 1835 birthdate for Mollie, however, it could be that she was either born in 1834 or DUVALL’s recollections of when Mary Ann left was off by a year. This type of conflicting evidence is common in genealogical research.  

I have often pondered why a mother in the 1830s would just abandon her three young daughters. My conclusion is that she perhaps was treated poorly and perhaps Billy indeed did bring home an Indian woman. 

So was Mollie the Indian baby or not? 

Fortunately, we live in an era in which DNA tests can prove or disprove ancestral lines. A mitochrondrial DNA test can prove whether two females are descended from the same female ancestor in a recent genealogical time frame. The test only measures a straight female line all the way back (in other words, no intervening males in the line).

Another descendant and I commissioned a DNA test of his mother (who descends in a straight female line back to Mollie) to compare the results with a proven female descendant of Sarah (“Sally”) Duvall Skelton, William Duvall’s eldest daughter who was born in 1830 in South Carolina. The results indicate the two women definitively shared a common female ancestor and furthermore were of European ancestry (not native American). This is proof that Mary Ann was indeed the mother of Mollie Y. Duvall Hall and that the Indian baby story was not correct. It still seems possible that “Billy” brought home an Indian baby and Mary Ann either left on her own without her children (seems unlikely) or “Billy” ran off his wife (more probable). What a sad story for Mollie’s mother whom I later found back in Newberry County, South Carolina in 1843. Her life must have been very miserable indeed. Further research in South Carolina has proven Mary Ann was an Owens.

Mollie grew to adulthood mostly in Smith County, Tennessee where her father had located by 1841. Family stories relate that Mollie fondly remembered her childhood days to her younger children, recalling a leisurely childhood spent with a kindly stepmother (whom I identified as Martha Reasonover) and trips to a local spa. This would be in sharp contrast to the poverty and hard times she would be hit with during and after the Civil War. 

In about 1856, Mollie married William Carroll Hall. Where they met is unknown but family tradition indicates that Mollie’s father ran a still in Smith County and taught her future husband to drink. William Carroll Hall may have indeed worked for “Billy” Duvall as a farmhand at one time. The date and place of their marriage is unknown. In 1857, “Billy” Duvall left for Arkansas with a “sock full of gold” and was never hear from again. (I subsequently found him in Nevada County, Arkansas where he died in October 1875).   

Mollie lived with her husband on his grandfather Claiborne Hall’s land in District 1 of Smith County, near Tanglewood in Smith County, Tennessee. They are there in the 1860 census. William C. and Mollie had two children born in Tennessee before they migrated to Pope County, Illinois. Family stories hold they crossed the Ohio River on Election Day 1860. Tensions had risen to a level where a civil war seemed inevitable and they wanted to get away from it. It is likely William and Mollie came with other families to Pope County where William C.’s brother, an aunt Mary Ann COX, and several cousins, were already living. When William C. enlisted in Co. A, 120^th Illinois Infantry, times became hard for Mollie. She was left with small children and no real means of support. Winters were especially difficult. 

In all, Mollie had eight children, one dying in infancy and one in early childhood. She developed tuberculosis for which there was no known cure at that time. Her condition worsened until it caused her death on 7 February 1880. She was buried in Mount Olive Cemetery in Webster Precinct, Pope County, Illinois.  Her death record indicates an age of 45 years. She is listed in the 1880 mortality schedule as Mollie Y. Hall, age 42. (This is the only place I have found her listed with the middle initial and it would be interesting to know what it stood for!). The mortality schedule indicates Mollie had lived in Illinois for 19 years and died of consumption.

This author believes (with no proof other than the fact she was buried there) that Mollie attended and may have been a member of the Mount Olive Church which was located at the cemetery in which she was buried. The church was also called the Campbellite Church and I believe it was likely affiliated with the Disciples of Christ who were also called Campbellites. I have been unable to learn more about this church, though it is not for lack of trying! My grandfather remembered it as a small child and said it was full of hay and not used as a church any longer when it burned in the 1920s. One of the few references I have found to it in any record to date is a mention of Mollie’s daughter Minnie Bell’s funeral being held them in 1921. As some of Mollie’s children later attended the Christian Church in Dixon Springs, it is possible this church may have been split off or in some way connection with the church at Mount Olive earlier.   

Mount Olive Church was located in Section 32, Township 13 South, Range 5 East in Pope County on land that appears to have been owned by Joshua Slankard who was buried in the cemetery there. Slankard owned a mill in the area at his death in 1868. The cemetery at Mount Olive is one of the most beautiful spots in southern Illinois and indeed one can see for miles in either direction on top of that hill. 

In an old trunk which belonged to William C. HALL and is in the possession of a descendant today, I found a letter addressed to Mollie from her husband during the Civil War. Here is just a little of it:

                          I want to See you Very much and talk a while with you. It would Satisfie

                          me Much better than Writing and I shall hope Soon to be With you as

                          you tne the children is the chiefe of my Study.

                          Molley, you don’t know how bad I miss you when I am sick. It is anough

                          to be absent while in good health but much worse in Sickness and now

                          that I am nearly Well again I hop to remain so til I return to you and the

                          children.

William and Mollie must have loved each other immensely. The February 1863 muster roll of his unit indicates he was a deserter but the March/April 1863 roll indicates he was “last mustered as deserter in error. Captured by guerillas Feb. 19, 1863.” As his daughter Sarah Ellen was born exactly nine months later (November 1863), it is not difficult to imagine where he was – William had deserted and come home for a while to Mollie. This was not that uncommon during the Civil War. On 10 June 1864, William is captured at the Battle of Guntown, Mississippi and sent to Andersonville Prison though later paroled.

Within the trunk, I also found a quilt piece which indicated it was made by Mollie, in addition to the Bible pages and other family heirlooms. William C. HALL survived Mollie by 27 years, passing away in 1907, having never remarried.  

Mollie’s grandfather was Caesar DUVALL who came with LAFAYETTE to America from France to fight in the American Revolutionary War. He returned to France after the war but later immigrated back to the United States, settling in Newberry County, South Carolina in 1796.

Mollie’s family history is rich and full and, as is common in genealogy, I am still learning new things.

And so that is how my now 40+ years of genealogical experience began in high school with a desire to know about the girl in the tintype. It is the backstory!

Do you have an ancestor who piques your curiosity? Would you like to know more about that person? Our ancestors are so much more than names and dates on a chart! Consider letting Backstory Bloodhound, LLC help you discover your own backstory!