The Joseph Hale Talbot Story
1775 - February 15, 1858

By

Ann Talbot Brandon Womack
and
Farris Wade Womack
December 2001

The Joseph Hale Talbot Story begins with many more questions than answers.  The limited data that we have been able to find, admittedly more folklore than factual records, invariably asserts that Joseph Hale Talbot was the oldest child of Matthew (III) Talbot and his first wife, Lucy Bailey.  But here the questions begin.  Most stories assert that Matthew (III) married Lucy Bailey in Talbotton, Morgan County, Georgia in 1777.  While the date may be accurate, the place of the marriage clearly is not.  Morgan County was not formed until December 1807 and Talbotton is a city not in Morgan County but rather in Talbot County, formed in 1827.  It is possible that Matthew (III) married Lucy in 1777 and perhaps in Georgia but not at the places listed.

The place of birth for Joseph Hale Talbot is likewise perplexing.  Most records show the place as Georgia but he reported on the 1850 Census, when he was then 75 years of age, that he had been born in Virginia.  Census records sometimes do contain errors but the fact that it was self reported causes us to think that the correct place of birth may, in fact, be Virginia.  If we accept that fact, then it places Matthew (III) in Virginia with the other members of the family of Matthew (II) and would explain how the entire Matthew (II) family might have migrated to the Watauga area of then North Carolina/Virginia, now Tennessee,  in the 1778 (?) time period.

It appears that Joseph Hale Talbot came to Georgia with his father, grandfather, and several uncles soon after 1785.  He would have been quite young, not yet a teenager, when he arrived.  Nevertheless, he had clearly found a home.  It was here that he would be married, raise his children, live a long and fruitful life.  He died in Wilkes in 1858 and was buried in the Callaway Cemetery.

Although we have worked very hard to find a record that would provide irrefutable evidence to show the progeny of Matthew (III) and Lucy Bailey, our efforts have turned up nothing more than the current folklore.  The records show that Matthew (III) and Lucy were parents to at least seven children but the evidence linking these children to them is scant at best.  Indeed, with the exception of the subject of this piece and a presumed sister, Nancy Talbot who married Robert Middlebrooks, there is virtually no record of the family.  But paradoxically, the records about Joseph Hale Talbot are quite numerous for the time period and quite a lot is known about his sister, Nancy Talbot Middlebrooks.  The names of the other children seem to have been confused with the names of the children of Matthew (III)'s brother, William, a gentleman about whom much has been written and whose wife, coincidentally, was also a Bailey, named Mary.

Lucy Bailey, died about 1792 and Matthew (III) was remarried to Jane Quarles in 1792 in Campbell County, Virginia.  Within a year, Matthew (III) had moved his new bride to Davidson County, Tennessee.  He and Jane Quarles reared six children and there , in Davidson County, Matthew (III) died in 1804.  His will included a reference to his children with Jane, to wit "...It is my will and desire that my Estate both Real and personal be Equally Divided between my wife Jane and my six children (to wit) John Talbot  Matilda Talbot  Sarah Talbot  Christianah Talbot  Permelia Talbot and  Leticia Talbot...".  There was no reference to any other children.   With this bombshell,  the plot thickens once again.  Joseph Hale Talbot would have been a teenager, perhaps seventeen,  when his mother died but, if the folklore is to be believed, he did not accompany his father to Virginia and Tennessee.  But Matthew (III) had children much younger than Joseph.  What happened to them?  Is it possible, that the records are so convoluted so as to be completely unreliable when referring to the marriage and children of Matthew (III) and Lucy Bailey?  Is Joseph Hale Talbot the son of Matthew (III) and Lucy Bailey?  We think so but we admit to having no verifiable proof.

With these significant qualifications, we proceeded  under the assumptions that: (1) Joseph Hale Talbot was the first child of Matthew (III) Talbot and Lucy Bailey Talbot, (2) he was born in Virginia, as he reported in the 1850 Census, (3) he moved from Virginia to Tennessee when he was just an infant and then moved  to Wilkes County, Georgia about 1785 when he was a lad of no more than ten, and (4) he married Bethany Callaway in Wilkes County, Georgia before 1800.   The records available from 1800 forward, while not extensive, are sufficient to establish certain facts.  They show that he spent the remainder of his life in Wilkes County and it is to those data that we address the remained of this piece.

Joseph married Bethany Callaway, daughter of John Callaway and Bethany Arnold, in 1797 in Wilkes County, Georgia.  Before 1805, Georgia did not require marriages to be recorded and the actual marriage record of Joseph and Bethany is not available.  Bethany reported in the 1850 Census that she had been born in Georgia in 1780.and if that is accurate, the Callaways would have been among the very early settlers.  Wilkes, formed in 1777, was one of the original counties.  While we have no direct evidence, John Callaway probably spent a considerable amount of time in Virginia and probably moved to Georgia in the late 1770's.  There are many records in Bedford County, Virginia which reference a John Callaway including several involving the purchase or sale of land.  At any rate, the marriage of Joseph and Bethany brought together two families who were among the very earliest settlers in the Wilkes County and, indeed, in all of eastern Georgia. 

The Georgia that Joseph and Bethany experienced was quite different from the romanticized views that grew out of Civil War history.  In 1800, John Adams was in his last year as the second President of the United States and the number of States stood at 15.  Jefferson had been elected in November 1800 and during the next eight years, he would acquire the Louisiana Territory and with that act, the size of the young country would be more than doubled.  In fact, Alabama, just to the west, was not a state and would not become one until 1819.  Indians still roamed the countryside.  Mail was infrequent and required long periods of time for delivery.  Roads were non-existent and life on the frontier was one of constant danger with a never ending need for vigilance.  

Joseph and Bethany began their life together as dirt farmers in the area near Washington, Georgia in Wilkes County.  Farming then was almost exclusively manual labor with the men, horses, mules, and oxen providing the energy.  The principal cash crop was cotton although some tobacco was raised not only for personal consumption but also because of its wide acceptance as a medium of exchange.  Corn and other vegetables were grown and a few cattle and hogs were kept.  Each farmer expected to grow sufficient foodstuffs to be self-sustaining.  Farms were generally small although a few were quite large.  Land was readily available and relatively cheap.  A resourceful couple could expect to produce enough to sustain them and sell the excess to produce the small amount of currency necessary for items that required purchase.  It was a simple life with few distractions and very few pressures.  The work was hard and there was plenty of it.  Social life was limited not only by opportunity but constrained further by limited means of travel.  Journeys of more than a few miles required a day to complete.  

But it was into this pastoral setting that Joseph and Bethany began their life and family and it was this same scene with relatively few changes that would mark their life together as a couple.  We have not been able to determine the precise acreage that they held but we believe that they probably lived on the same place or very near it until Joseph's death in 1858.  So for a period of perhaps 60 years, they farmed the red clay soil of eastern Georgia.  While many of their contemporaries and probably some of their friends decided over that six decade period to seek their fortunes elsewhere in the west, they remained.  The answers as to why they stayed when others left are probably quite complex but they may be as simple as that they liked the life they were living and saw no reason to change.  They surely were not driven by the need to acquire great wealth.

Their first child, Martha, was born in 1798 and Elizabeth followed in 1801.  These two were joined by Bernetta, John R., Nancy, Lydia, Bethany, Pheriby, and Rueben, born in 1803, 1806, 1810, 1811, 1814, 1816, and 1818, respectively.  Unfortunately,  the 1810 Census for Georgia has been lost and the wealth of information that it would have provided can now only be speculated.  When the War of 1812 was fought over the three years beginning in 1812 and ending with the battle of New Orleans in 1815, Joseph would have been 37 years of age.  We have been unable to find a record of his service although it seems likely that he would have had some military duty to perform even if that duty consisted of militia duty in the area.  We know that other Talbots in Wilkes and Morgan County were engaged in the War and he probably was as well even though we don't have the actual proof.

When the 1820 Census for Wilkes was taken, the Joseph Hale Talbot family consisted of ten members, three males and seven females.  Although the Census provided the name for the head of the household only, identifying the other members by age category can be useful.

The three males reported in the Census were Joseph and his sons, John R. and Rueben.  Joseph would have been about 45 years of age while John R. and Rueben would have been 14 and 2, respectively.  The six daughters reported were Elizabeth, Bernetta, Nancy, Lydia, Bethany, and Pheriby whose ages should have been 19, 17,  10, 9, 6, and 4, respectively.  Bethany was 40.  The oldest daughter, Martha, had married John Jarrell in 1816.  We have been unable to find her family on the Census although the data we have suggests that she was living nearby, probably residing in Wilkes County.   Further research has shown that Martha and John Jarrell left Wilkes County about 1838, settled for a short time in western Georgia and by 1840 had moved to the area near the county line for Tallapoosa and Chambers County in Alabama.  Joseph and Bethany, now having been a family for more than twenty years were well established in the community and they had the joy of growing and healthy children. 

The two younger children, Adah and Isaiah, were  born in 1820 and 1822, respectively, and their birth brought the family to its full complement, a total of eleven children, three males and eight females.  The remarkable longevity of the children is only one of the many interesting facts, albeit an astonishing one, concerning this family.  All would reach adulthood and we know that at least 10 of them, perhaps all of them,  had families and children of their own.  

When the Census taker arrived in 1830, the Joseph Hale Talbot family was different in some small but important ways from 10 years earlier.  Although the Census record does not provide given names, it appears that the two males at home were Rueben and Isiah.  Bernetta had married Martin Andrews in 1822, Nancy had married Spain Colley in 1827, John Talbot had married Lucy W. Jackson in 1828,   and Martha who had married John Jarrell before the 1820 Census, were absent from the family but, as the table below shows, they were not far away.  Elizabeth had married Hardin Reynolds but he must have died and she had been remarried to Nathan Brazell.  Lydia married Van Allen Echols in 1830 and it is not clear whether or not she was listed in his household at the time of the Census or in the household of her father.  

          (Total column includes slaves.  All the children lived within a few houses of their parents.  The Census pages were 296, 296, 308, 298, 297, and 298, respectively.)

But these data clearly show that the children who had married and started families of their own were not far from the residence of their father and mother.  Joseph and Bethany, while still enjoying the children they had at home, were further blessed by having more than 20 grandchildren living either next door or not far away.  Indeed, that would be the case for most of the children for as long as Joseph was alive.  

The decade from 1830 to 1840 would bring about more changes and for the first time, two of the children would leave Wilkes County for opportunities elsewhere.  Sometime before 1840, Hardin Reynolds, the first husband of Elizabeth had died and she had been remarried to Nathan Brazell.  Elizabeth and Nathan Brazell left Wilkes County and they were listed on the 1840 Census for Troup County, Georgia, one of the counties along the western border of Georgia and a county through which many eastern Georgians passed on their way toward the west.  They were joined in their wanderlust by Martin Andrews and Bernetta who were living in Meriwether County by 1840, a neighboring county although the travel time between the two was likely quite large.  All the other married children were living very close to their parents.  The families were growing and they appeared to be following the same farming interests that almost all residents pursued in Wilkes County.

        (Brazell was living in Troup County, Andrews was living in Meriwether County, and all the others were living in Wilkes            County.  All the children in Wilkes County lived either next door or quire nearby.)

Isaiah, Pheriby, and Adah were still at home in 1840.  Joseph was now 65 and Bethany was 60.  They now had more than 35 grandchildren all of whom were nearby, except for the Brazell and Andrews children who were far away in western Georgia.  Indeed, they had enjoyed seeing all of the grandchildren from birth and the satisfaction that would have produced could only be understood by those who have had the pleasure of seeing their children and their children's children grow up.  Having grandchildren around all the time probably had some drawbacks but they surely provided great pleasure to Joseph and Bethany..  

Joseph and Bethany Talbot's family had so many of the trappings of the idyllic American family of that period. Community institutions such as schools, public safety, and the like did not exist and it fell to the family to provide those services.  Each of the families followed the same line of work, their days and weeks were similar if not identical, their holidays and special occasions were spent together, and they no doubt functioned more nearly as a single large unit rather than as individual ones.  Siblings or siblings-in-law were always available to lend a hand.  Each member drew strength and support from the cocoon of family in a sense that few in 21st century America could understand and probably still fewer could tolerate.  

The 1850 Census provided a further view of the family life of Joseph Hale Talbot and Bethany.  Elizabeth and Bernetta were still living in western Georgia although Elizabeth had moved to Meriwether County from Troup to join here sister. The matrix at the end of this piece shows the place of residence at the time of each decennial census for each of the family members.  Pheriby was still single at age 32 and Martha A. Jackson was living in the Joseph Talbot household.    We do not know her relationship to the family but we do know that John R. had married Lucy W. Jackson although the possible relationship to her is unknown.  In this Census, Joseph reported that he had been born in Virginia and Bethany reported that she was a native of Georgia.  Joseph's report of his age while subject to some margin for error suggests that his birth date may have been earlier than many previous records show but ages on the Census are often incorrect.  Bethany's reported age is at odds with the age she reported in 1870 when she said she was 90 but consistent with the age she reported in 1860 when she said she was 75.  

        (Martha A. Jackson's origin is unknown.  She continued to live with Bethany after Joseph's death in 1858.)

Joseph Hale Talbot died in 1858 and was buried in the Callaway Cemetery in Wilkes County, Georgia.  His eighty plus years had spanned the creation, adolescence, and maturation of the United States but what was to follow within three years was likely beyond his wildest imagination.  Surely, he knew before his death that the conflict that would erupt in 1861 was inevitable although he might not have believed that it would ever reach the levels of butchery that it did.  Many southerners thought that a peaceful separation could be accomplished.  And because Joseph Hale Talbot was a reasonable man, he surely fell in that group who wished and longed for a peaceful solution. But that was not to be.  Nevertheless, all of his sons survived the war and lived for many years following it although they all suffered the economic, social, and political upheavals that accompanied the war and its aftermath.

And thus ended the long and useful life of Joseph Hale Talbot, born in the crucible that produced the American experiment, matured by a hard and difficult youth that included the deaths of both of his parents while he was quite young, he was in every respect a stunning representative of his time.  His marriage to Bethany had spanned six decades and produced 11 children and many more grandchildren.  He could not have known the details of the lives that his descendants would lead but surely he must have known that he had laid the foundation for their success.

Within a very short time after Joseph Hale Talbot's death, perhaps within days or weeks,  the three Talbot sons, John R., Reuben, and Isaiah, and their mother, Bethany, left Wilkes County and relocated in Chambers County, Alabama.  Adah and her husband, Anderson Littleton, moved even further west to Attala County, Mississippi. 

We have been unable to discover the motivation for this relocation and especially the relocation to Chambers County, Alabama.  Why there, and what could have attracted them?  The land was only marginally better.  We have learned that Martha, the oldest child and her husband, John Jarrell, were living there and had been for more than 15 years.  The coincidences and speculations about reasons for the move are endless.  A relative, Green Berry Talbot, had moved to Chambers in 1834/35, had been active in the settlement of the County and had established a church near the Tallapoosa County border but he had moved further west many years before this band of Talbots showed up.  Martha Talbot Phillips Fitzpatrick, another cousin and the sister of the aforementioned Green Berry Talbot,  was living in Chambers but whether or not she had any effect on the relocation of this band of Talbots cannot be determined.  We do know that John R. and Reuben located very near the plantation of Martha but that may very well have been a coincidence.  Perhaps a more astonishing fact is that after their relocation to Chambers, they put down roots and lived in Chambers the remainder of their days.  All of the three brothers, their mother and their wives, were buried in the County Line Baptist Church Cemetery.  Many of their children are likewise buried in that Cemetery and many of the descendants of these Talbots still live in the general area.

       (Martha A. Jackson is surely a relative or very close but the exact relationship is unknown.)

Bethany reported that her age was 75, a report that is inconsistent among the three Census records available.  Isaiah, the youngest child, not only had his mother in the household but also the same Martha A. Jackson who had been living with Joseph and Bethany in 1850.  Isaiah and Mary Jane had one child of their own, Fannie K., and they also had an additional resident, Manoah, who probably was a relative of Mary Jane.  

Three of the children remained in Wilkes County.  It appears that Nancy Talbot Colley, Lydia Talbot Echols, and Bethany Talbot Maxwell lived in Wilkes County all of their lives.  Their farms were near each other and their children grew up together.  We call the readers attention to the matrix at the end of this piece which discloses the known location of the children.

The decade between 1860 and 1870 was a difficult one for every southerner and the Talbots in Chambers County were no different.  We do not know whether or not the Talbot brothers were engaged in the great Civil War that consumed the first part of the decade but we do know that they were profoundly affected by it.  Isaiah saw his net worth plummet as did his older brothers but they suffered no worse proportionately than thousands of others.  But by 1870, their families were intact and Bethany was still living at the age of 90.

        (The Census reference to Isaiah as "Jack" is the first and only such reference that we have seen.  It's origin is unknown and leads us to wonder if it was in common use or a "special" name used only by close friends.)

The long life of Bethany Callaway Talbot came to an end in 1871.  She was 91.  The County Line Baptist Church Cemetery, located near the town of Dudleyville near the Chambers and Tallapoosa County line,  was her final resting place as it would become the final resting place of so many of her descendants.  She had been witness to such a long and exciting drama involving family life and its constant change.  But in the most important ways, her life had been remarkably peaceful with plenty of opportunities to enjoy the robustness of the large family she had produced.

The descendants of Joseph Hale and Bethany Talbot, through their known grandchildren,  are shown below.  Their marriage in 1798 had produced eleven children and many more grand children.  Their descendants now number into the thousands.  Their influence now spans eight generations.  It is a remarkable legacy.  We have chosen to end the story here but there remains much to be told.  Each of the children of Joseph and Bethany could be the subject of a piece just as fascinating as this one.  One of the descendants of John R. Talbot, Claude Denson Pepper, was born at Dudleyville and eventually became a member of Congress and a Senator of the United States.  There are surely many other stories to be told that will warm the hearts of Talbots everywhere.

Descendants of Joseph Hale Talbot