Crypts of the four Fripp children. Their mother and father are buried to the left of these crypts in unmarked graves, confirmed by a ground-penetrating radar survey. Sams Family Cemetery, Dataw Island, SC.
[updated July 18, 2023]
Disaster is relative and can mean many different things to many people. And, of course, the period of conflict between the states is rife with disaster stories. The SAMS family had several members die in that conflict. But there is a different focus this week. I will concentrate on just one Sams family: James Edings Lawrence Fripp (1816 – 1864) and his wife Evelina Edings Sams (1822 – 1861), who lost so many, so young.
Evelina Edings Sams (1822 – 1861)
Evelina Edings Sams was the oldest daughter of Berners Barnwell Sams, M.D. (1787 – 1855), and his first wife, Elizabeth Hann Fripp (1795 – 1831). They had another daughter born four years before Evelina, but Ariana Adeline Sams died before her first birthday. Evelina was only nine years old when her mother died. Amidst the sadness, a familial connection brought solace.
Mrs. Elizabeth (Fripp) Sams had a brother, William Edings Fripp, who was Evelina’s uncle. And Uncle W. Edings Fripp (he went by his middle name) was married to Aunt Martha F. Edwards. From birth, Evelina had an Uncle Edings & Aunt Martha. Since the Fripp family had many holdings nearby on St. Helena Island, the Sams probably knew them well.
When Evelina’s mother dies, BB Sams marries Aunt Martha. Uncle W. Edings Fripp had died five years earlier.
At this point, you can see that from Evelina’s perspective, while she’s lost a mother, much is right with the world cause she’s known her Father’s new wife all her life as Aunt Martha.
Evelina Sams marries Lawrence Fripp in 1838
In September 1838, Evelina Sams married James Edings Lawrence Fripp (he preferred Lawrence.) I believe Lawrence was the son of James Fripp & Ann Pope.
There were so many Fripps in those days that the family tree gets pretty gnarly. Some evidence supports that his parents were William Edings Fripp & Martha Fripp Edwards. But the middle names of two of Evelina and Lawrence’s young children imply otherwise. They named one son James HANN Fripp, honoring his maternal grandmother, and another son Joseph POPE Fripp, honoring the paternal grandmother. [Sources Sams Family Tree maintained by DHF and Rosengarten’s book TOMBEE: Portrait of a Cotton Planter.]
Evelina married in 1838, soon after Lawrence graduated from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina). He was one of only 43 graduates in 1837. I found obituaries for Lawrence and Evelina, hoping to learn more about their lives together. Their obits didn’t help; too hard to separate fact from fiction. My experience from researching this antebellum era is that many reporters wrote obituaries about people they never knew. The consequence of this lack of personal knowledge was obituaries tended to be inaccurate, only mentioned public achievements, missed family connections, and were woefully short on describing a person’s character or legacy.
For instance, one obituary says. “..[Lawrence graduated] in the year 1837, and was a very creditable classical and general scholar.” I don’t know what that means. And it gives this glowing comment on his next phase of life “..he selected the quiet and secluded pursuit of conducting his patrimonial estate.” This is another way of saying he was a plantation owner. Rosengarten identifies his plantation on St. Helena Island [pages 324-325.]
I don’t know exactly where they lived once married, but it was in the Beaufort area until the Civil War started. In 1840, 1850, and 1860 Federal Census, they are in the St Helena Parish, District of Beaufort records. According to Rosengarten’s map of plantations on St Helena Island, we can assume they lived part of the year on his plantation. This classic book about Thomas B. Chaplin mentions Lawrence Fripp often. He was a modestly successful planter and responsible businessman.
However, Evelina and Lawrence lived in an unfortunate time. Given they married in 1838 and the Battle of Port Royal occurred 23 years later, you might expect they had sons about to be thrown into war and a family into exile.
It’s worse than that. Their sorrow began much earlier.
The Hardship Begins in 1843
Evelina and Lawrence’s first child is son Berners Edings Fripp, born about 1840 (Census records are a bit cloudy on his age, give or take two years). He served in the Civil War, survived, married, and died in 1883 in Chester County, South Carolina, at age 43.
Two years after Berners was born, in the winter of 1842, Evelina and Lawrence had twin boys. Neither made it to their second birthday. William died at the age of 19 months. James died at the age of 17 months. William Oliver and James Hann are buried in the Sams Family Cemetery on Dataw Island. Each crypt has a beautiful inscription, revealing deep sorrow. The words on the James Hann crypt read,
In the morning of life, this infant soul
To the bosom of Jesus, did speed
Ere sorrow was known, or life’s dark surge
Had roll’d over his spirit pure.
But dead tho’ he be, in Jesus he’ll rest
And living with him he’ll ever be blest.
Their fourth son Melvin James Fripp was born in 1843. He served in the war, survived, married, and died in 1915 at the age of 72 in Colleton County, South Carolina. Their next son Julius came along in 1847, and I believe he served in the war also (according to Lawrence Fripp’s obituary), though I don’t know when he died. He disappears from the records after the 1860 Federal Census. I suspect he died in, or soon after, the war.
The Hardship Continues in 1854
I’ve mentioned the death of the two infant sons (William and James) and that three others who survived into adulthood went into the war (Berners Edings, Melvin, and Julius.) However, more sorrow struck this family.
Before the war came, some modicum of happiness may have returned to the family with the birth of two daughters. Eveline Edings Fripp was born in 1849, and Anna R Fripp in 1852. But Lawrence Fripp’s obituary from 1864 mentions only one daughter, so it appears one died young. Two more sons came along, Lawrence in 1854 and Joseph Pope in 1855. Neither survives more than a few months. They are also buried on Datha Island, next to the twins buried about ten years earlier. I wonder if the daughter, that appears to have died young, is also buried on Datha Island. Maybe in an unmarked grave during the war years.
During their 23-year marriage in the mid-1800s, Evelina and Lawrence experienced immense sorrow in their family. They had a total of nine children, but tragically, at least four of them passed away before Evelina. Despite her husband Lawrence outliving her by only three years, he had to endure the heartbreak of witnessing the death of at least one more child.
President Abraham Lincoln Arrives – Evelina Sams Fripp Departs this Life
The Spring of 1861 was a tense time for our nation. Abraham Lincoln had been elected President the previous November. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the United States of America. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President. The outbreak of the war is marked by events five weeks later. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter.
The same day President Lincoln was sworn in, Evelina Edings Sams FRIPP passed away. Her obituary tells us almost nothing about her. It’s long, flowing, and without any mention of names or events in her life. Sad. Her only good fortune at the end is that family and friends surround her, and she does not live to see the outbreak of the Civil War, though she likely knew her three sons might soon go off to war.
It appears her husband, as a result of the evacuation of Beaufort after the Battle of Port Royal in November of 1861, left with the family to Barnwell Court House, since that is where he died in 1864. We have evidence that several prominent Beaufort plantation families left for Barnwell C.H.
Close to the Sams in Life and Death
We have records that say Lawrence Fripp and his wife Evelina are both buried next to their four infant children on Dataw Island. The parents have no headstones, probably due to the war. A ground-penetrating radar survey of the cemetery was done in 2005 (see source below dated February 2006). It did indeed find two graves next to the small crypts of the four children. And I can’t help but wonder if one of the several mystery graves also discovered back then belong to the daughter who died young. Evelina’s parents are also buried in the Sams Family Cemetery on Dataw Island, as well as her step-mother. In the course of 25 years, nine members of a family of eleven have died. Surely a disaster by anyone’s measure.
From Evelina’s obituary (1861)
They are now enjoying the blissful communion in that “Better Land” where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
From Lawrence’s obituary (1864)
Our friend goes to the tomb where not many years ago he conveyed his amiable wife. He was weary, and he is at rest – at rest with her.
Sources
Find-A-Grave, accessed Mar 1, 2020
Family Tree for Sams of Dataw, maintained by Bill Riski and Joel Holden, accessed Mar 1, 2020.
Poplin, Eric C., Burns, Gwendolyn, and Agha, Andrew – Recent Archaeological Investigations on Dataw Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina, February 2006
Rosengarten, Theodore –Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter, 1986
#52Sams – Week 9 – Disaster