Richard Caswell Stokes, known as “RC,”is my great grandfather (my mother’s grandfather). He was born on July 17, 1845, in Chatham County’s Bear Creek area, one of seven children born to Jerman (sometimes Jarman or German) and Sarah (Sallie) Hilliard Stokes.
I haven’t been able to learn much about RC’s childhood. Jerman Stokes doesn’t appear in Chatham County records until 1850 census when Richard was five years old. Interestingly, the census lists him as either “Jarmen” or “James.” In the 1860 census, it is “Richard,” but the age may be incorrect. Historians say inconsistencies are common in the census records of this era. Census takers would go door to door, and record what they heard from whomever they asked. All of the other household names are the same in both, and from other records that those are his siblings, so most likely it was a census taker error. We do know with certainty this was a small farm household.
RC was a teenager during The Civil War years. In 1864, a new Confederate states law required males as young as 17 to join the army. The teenage units were known as the Junior Reserves. RC was in the 1st Regiment Junior Reserves comprising young men between the ages of fifteen and eighteen from the counties of Warren, Franklin, Nash, Granville, Wake, Randolph, Chatham, Martin, Northampton, and Chowan. Records show this unit in skirmishes in the Roanoke River and Kinston areas and at the Battle of Bentonville on March 18-21, 1865. (Map)
A month later, on April 26, General Joseph Johnston’s surrendered his army of 90,000 to General William T. Sherman at Bennett’s Farm near Durham, sparing North Carolina the destruction seen in Sherman’s march through Georgia and South Carolina. The final terms allowed the Johnston’s men to keep their personal property and use the army’s wagons and horses to return home. The Junior Reserves, camped near Red Cross in Randolph County, were dismissed to go home.
It’s unclear if RC was at any of these battles. His CSA pension application states he was injured from a fall from a bridge. One Confederate veterans reference lists him as being sent to a hospital in December 1864 and “absent” in January-February 1865.
He married Sophia Dixon Purvis, a widow, in 1871. They had two children, Minerva (1873) and Mary (1874), before her death in 1883. Sophia had five children with her first husband, Andrew Purvis. (In the 1860 Chatham census, RC lived only a few households from Sophia and Andrew. Andrew was also in the Confederate army.)
RC then married Emma Dora Phillips in 1890 and they had nine children together: Sarah (1891), Arthur (1894, died after 12 days), Orron (1895), Alma (1899, my maternal grandmother), Richard (1901), Rufus (1903), Ocia (1906), Causey (1908), and Thelma (1911). Rufus drowned in 1922 while fishing on Deep River.
Causey also died young with Tuberculosis at age 24. He had worked at Ramseur Furniture Company since his teens.
Dora was only 17 when she married RC. He was almost 45. They married at the office of the Justice of the Peace in Chatham County, and no family was present. This certainly speaks to the poverty Dora came from, and to be explored further with her bio.
RC and Dora initially lived in Bear Creek, presumably in the home where RC and his deceased first wife lived, and his occupation was recorded as farming. By 1910, they had sold the farm and moved to Coleridge where RC worked as a cotton mill, most likely at Enterprise Mfg. Company. The census reports the family as renters of a house.
He joined the Junior Order United American Mechanics, a “patriotic fraternal organization” that frankly sounds a little like today’s MAGA type racists.
The Stokes family were members of the Deep River Baptist Church in Coleridge where RC served as Church Clerk, Sunday School Superintendent, and delegate to the Baptist Association. When RC relocated to Ramseur, the family joined the First Christian Church.
From 1920 until his death, RC and Dora lived in Ramseur on Church Street just steps away from the Ramseur First Christian Church.
He died at the age of 79 on October 25, 1924, and is buried in Ramseur, North Carolina.
Sources of note:
Forebears and Kinfolks 