The theme this week is ‘gone too soon.’ I’ve been keeping track each week of which Sams are featured or mentioned in my articles. As I close in on the end of the year, I’m becoming more aware of those I’ve not mentioned. Through Week 43-Spooky, I’ve told you about 188 ancestors or descendants of William Sams and Elizabeth Hext. Nearly all are in their direct lineage, though there are a few distant cousins in the mix. [See “Week 34 – 19th Amendment” and “Week 31 – Independence”, for example.] I’ve told you about all seven sons of William & Elizabeth, but not all their families. Three sons never married (Robert, William, Jr., and Francis), and I have not told you much about the families of John and Edward Hext. Maybe I will someday, but I just have not had time to do the research necessary to ‘bring them to life.’ However, several children of our Sams brothers, Lewis Reeve and Berners Barnwell, I’ve not mentioned either. This week I’ll speak of the children that left us too early.
Our plantation families were fortunate that they could afford to send some sons away for medical training. Berners Barnwell, for instance, was a medical doctor, as was Lewis Reeve’s oldest son, Lewis Reeve, Jr. There were others. [See Week 41 – Education]
1813 to 1819 – A Sorrowful Time
1813 to 1819 was a sorrowful time for our two local brothers and their wives. William Sams died back in 1798. His wife Elizabeth Hext passed away in 1813. Fortunately for Elizabeth, she lived long enough to have six grandchildren come into her life; three by son John Sams and his wife Catherine DeVeaux up on Wadmalaw, and three by son Lewis Reeve Sams and his wife, Sarah Fripp on Datha. At Elizabeth’s death, in November of 1813, all six grandchildren were still alive. However, 1817 brought on more sorrow. Both Berners Barnwell (i.e., BB) and Lewis Reeve lost sons. BB’s & Elizabeth’s son William died in August 1817, Lewis Reeve & Sarah’s son Robert died five weeks later. They were only three months old. Early in 1818, Lewis Reeve & Sarah’s first daughter Angerona died days before her fifth birthday. In the fall of 1819, BB & Elizabeth’s first daughter Ariana died at age nine months.
Between August of 1817 and October of 1819, both Datha Plantation owners, BB and Lewis Reeve, have lost a son and daughter. The losses are particularly poignant since their wives Elizabeth and Sarah are sisters. Four little angels are gone within 27 months.
I searched for causes of their children’s deaths but could find nothing. Our most comprehensive first-person account of the times comes from James Julius Sams, but he’s not born until 1826. His memoir mentions nothing about these older siblings and cousins who he never knew.
From 1813 to 1819, there were no severe hurricanes recorded in the area. I assume they died from one of the diseases prevalent at the time. “From 1800 to about 1870, the major causes of death in children were tuberculosis, diarrhea of infancy, bacillary dysentery, typhoid fever, and the highly contagious diseases of childhood, especially scarlet fever, diphtheria, and lobar pneumonia.” [Shulman]
All four of these children are buried in the Sams Family Cemetery on Dataw Island in South Carolina.
Family Groups in the Sams Family Cemetery
Many of you have been to the Sams Family Cemetery. The map below is the same one you see on the sign in the cemetery. [See featured image in Week 9 – Disaster] However, many of you may not realize the family groupings associated with where the deceased are buried within the cemetery. I’ve overlaid colors on the map to illustrate this.
Blue identifies the grave locations of William Sams and Elizabeth Hext and their sons, Francis and BB.
Orange identifies the family members of Lewis Reeve Sams; he is buried near his second wife in the Beaufort Baptist Cemetery in town. On Dataw, you see his first wife Sarah Fripp and their two children who died young, Robert and Angerona. I’ve also included Caroline Sams because of her burial proximity to the others. This is an interesting story.
Caroline Sams was the second child of Dr. Lewis Reeve Sams, M.D., and his wife, Sarah Graham. She is the granddaughter of Lewis Reeve Sams and his wife, Sarah. Caroline was only six weeks old when she died in December of 1836. Her parents would have nine more children while living in Beaufort District, all of whom survived into adulthood (though son Joseph was killed in the Civil War at age 16.) At the time of her death, her family consisted of her parents and an older sister, Sarah Jane Graham Sams. Sarah (Fripp) Sams, her grandmother, had died ten years earlier and was buried next to her own children, mentioned above. [See Week 21 – Tombstone] Caroline joined them in the Sams Family Cemetery. However, there is more to the story.
Caroline’s family is the one I told you about in Week 5 – So Far Away. After the war, Dr. Lewis Reeve Sams, Jr. and wife Sarah Graham (Caroline’s mother and father) moved to Texas with most of their family. Their oldest daughter Sarah J Graham Sams was already married to her husband, Dr. Robert Randolph Sams, DDS. [See Week 29 – Trailblazer] So thirty years after Caroline’s death, the family she never knew had all moved 900 miles away – except her older sister. A lonely thought, for both of them. We don’t know if Sarah (Mrs. RR Sams) ever visited the Sams Family Cemetery after the war, but I believe she did. First, she and Randolph are one of the very few Sams to return to Beaufort after the war and stay. Sarah would have visited to pay her respects to her mother, Sarah Fripp Sams, and sister Caroline. Second, we know her husband, Dr. RR Sams, was a dentist in Beaufort and a planter on Datha for many years [Rowland]. I very much doubt if Sarah Sams (Mrs. Robert Randolph Sams) ever saw any of her Texas family again.
To continue with the cemetery family groupings, green identifies the family of Dr. BB Sams. He is buried here along with both his first and second wives and the two children lost in infancy.
Yellow identifies the family of Evelina Eddings Sams, her husband JEL Fripp, and their four children. [See Week 9 – Disaster]
The graves in our Sams Family Cemetery are in four groups. William & Elizabeth & sons, Lewis Reeve Sams first family, Dr. BB Sams family, and Evelina Sams Fripp and her family. Evelina’s husband, JEL Fripp, holds the distinction of being the last burial in the cemetery in 1864. His grave is unmarked.
The Sams Family Cemetery contains the graves of nine children, gone too early in life.
Sources
Holden, Joel and Riski, Bill – The Sams Family Tree – Sams of Dataw Island, Ancestry dot com, accessed October 31, 2020.
Rowland, Lawrence S., et al. – The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 2, 1861 – 1893, 2015, pages 564
Shulman, S. – The History of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
#52Sams Week 44 – Gone Too Soon
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