UPSON COUNTY, GA - BIOS Caroline C.S. Weaver

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
Mary B. Williams

Printed in May 2001 Upson Historical Society Newsletter

CAROLINE WEAVER

Caroline Weaver (my great-great-grandmother) was born in Surrey
County, Virginia, and moved with her family to Clinton, Jones
County, Geor-gia. She met T.A.D. Weaver in Clinton and they
married there in 1829. They moved to Thomaston with their two
little girls in the early 1930s, about 10 years after this
territory was opened for settlement by whites. T.A.D. acquired
land six miles south of Thomaston, cleared the land (with the help
of slaves) and began to farm it. These were pioneer times in the
area, and both food and clothing would have been home produced for
the most part. In such circumstances the plantation mistress would
have been responsible for the kitchen garden, the production of
meals, canning and preserving for later use, making clothes for
the entire household (family and slaves), etc.; as the number of
slaves increased her job would have been more in management than
in actual production, though the white women of the household seem
to have done a lot of the sewing. Think-ing of this in terms of
the managerial ability required, we need to realize that though
slavery solved some manage-ment problems (e.g., the workers could-
n't quit), it created other management problems (e.g., the workers
were likely to be resentful and less than likely to do their best
- indeed the workers might very well sabotage the owner's
interests in various subtle ways). The system of slavery probably
required more managerial ability from the plantation mistress than
from the plantation master: firstly because the tasks of field
slaves (plowing fields, picking cotton, etc.) stressed quantity
more than quality, while the tasks of household slaves (cooking,
cleaning, sewing, etc), required quality as well as quantity, and
hence required willing cooperation;

and secondly because the plantation mistress spent her life in
close contact with the household slaves, so that she was more
likely to feel the direct effects of resentment caused by her
management style. Just how onerous this man-agement task could be
is indicated by a statement made by Caroline's daughter-in-law:
"When Lincoln freed the slaves he freed the Southern woman." (This
statement was relayed to me by my mother, who told me that she had
heard her grandmother say it frequently.


Three decades after I heard this I found almost the same
statement, from the diary of a North Carolina woman, in a recently
published history book.) In the light of existing records, and of
family tradition (both among the descendants of T.A.D. and among
the descendants of a family of his slaves) it seems that T.A.D.
had a pretty good relationship with his slaves, so Caroline's task
may not have been as onerous as that of the average plantation
mistress.

By 1839 the plantation was sufficiently successful that T.A.D.
bought land two blocks from the town square and transformed the 3
room house then on the land into the house that still exists at
205 S. Bethel Street. Thereafter the family lived in the house on
Bethel Street, allowing T.A.D. to combine activities such as
surveying and being a Justice of the Inferior Court with his
continued work on the plantation. Living in town would have given
Caroline relief from the loneliness that was the fate of most
plantation mistresses, though she was still actively involved in
the food and clothing tasks of the plantation — one of the largest
rooms in the house was the sewing room, where clothing, bedding,
etc. for all in the house or on the plantation was made. And the
fact that a new smokehouse was built on the Bethel Street property
to add to the space available in the existing smokehouse on the
property shows that smoking for both plantation and family was
done where it would be convenient for Caroline to supervise it.
Caroline and T.A.D. completed their family with two sons soon
after moving to Bethel Street; so in addition to her plantation
duties she was raising children; her son Alvah reported in his
memoir that she had taught him to "read, write, and spell,"

Moving from a discussion of Caroline's work to a discussion of a
feature of daily life unrelated to work, I want to give a glimpse
of the very different relationship with death that characterized
that period. Death was not a stranger to anyone of her time.
Consider the fol-lowing, from an Oct. 8, 1861 letter to her son
Alvah (G. A. Weaver, Sr.):

This day I have felt under renewed obligations to God for sparing
your life in your last sickness, for it seems that the Angel of
Death was turned loose about that time to gather choose or pluck
at his own will or pleasure. Every week since you left we have
been summoned by the solemn tolls of the bell to see one after
another deposited in the narrow confines of the grave and it still
goes on. This week the heavy hand of death has come with more
rapidity.   

Monday evening Mrs. Shuptrine was removed from this world of
sorrow to a higher nobler station. That same evening a few hours
later a little Miss Ingram left the world in triumph bid-ding
adieu to parents & friends saying that she was going home to be
with a little brother that was buried a few days ago.   It was a
solemn scene to see so many little girls with crape on their arms
in the procession. Her corpse was laid on the table in the Baptist
church, her funeral was preached, the text was, "Prepare to meet
thy God, 0 Israel."  The discourse was solemn. Relatives and
friends looked on her innocent frame the last time. The bursts of
heart rendings from the heart of the mother was enough to draw
tears from anyone that has a soul.   Sister Shuptrine was deprived
of her sight & hearing the night before she died. There was a
number of friends to see her die. She was speechless nearly all
day as such there was no triumph in death but all through her
sickness she was calm & resigned and there is no doubt but what
her lamp was "trimmed and oil in her vessel. She was buried
yesterday even ing and a little Negro also. Mrs. Cara-way and
Bettie are both expected to die. Essa [?] came home to nurse them
both & she is taken sick. Mrs. Thomp-son is still very sick. Ponie
is mend-ing.    Mrs. Choamon [?] has been thought dying several
times. Several Negroes have died, and others sick."

The deaths mentioned in this letter were not related to the war,
and Caroline was exceptionally fortunate that both of her sons,
who served in the Confederate Army, came back alive. She did
however suffer the war-related deaths of her oldest daughter and 5
of her 6 grandchildren, who died in a diphtheria epidemic in 1865
while tak-ing refuge in Buena Vista from Sherman's army.
Caroline's own death, in 1868, was described by her son Alvah
(G.A. Weaver, Sr.):

"...her sufferings were great and prolonged.  My sister [Anna] was
a most devoted and faithful daughter and nurse, and did all that
she possibly could to help bring relief and mitigate pain, and
contribute io her comfort,

As she wished, she was clothe in fee right mind through life, and
just before the closing scene, she had a seraphic smile, a
heavenly glow on her face, and exclaimed with seeming rap ture: "
My mother, oh! My brother!' and in a short time had passed from
the scenes of life to be with her mother."