Digging Up Deep Run Roots

12/29/2025

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1736723077263999&id=100027789710443

Why I’m not a Baptist. Or rather, how I ended up raised as a Methodist.

My 4th great grandfather, Littleton Crankfield, born March 15, 1775 was one of the founders of 25 Mile Creek Baptist church, what would become Sandy Level Baptist Church in present day Blythewood, South Carolina. His daddy Hezekiah Lewis Crankfield, immigrated from England with a land grant from King George and ended up dying in North Carolina before he could make it to South Carolina. Littleton, his mother Permilla Randolph Crankfield and her new husband Lewis Perry (yes another Lewis) continued on and made it to South Carolina in time to be registered on the first Fairfield County census in 1790. Littleton received the land grant in his mother‘s dowry and he would claim it. I own some of this property now. It has not left our family.

Littleton would marry Lucy Wilson, the girl next door, from the neighboring farm. I believe the Wilson family still owns it. They would raise nine children and run a farm together until their deaths in 1846 and 1847.

Back then some people think the area was referred to as Doko based on a Indian reference. But I’m not sure there was any real name for the Crankfield’s and Wilson’s farms. The area was considered the “backwoods.” What it was was about 20 miles south of Winnsboro, connected by an ox cart traveled path. This was rough living.

Winnsboro was the hub of the business transactions in the area. They have the clock from France and the courthouse designed by Robert Mills, reminiscent of a time when the economy was booming based on the sale of cotton and the enslaved people used to process it. They were a big deal economically speaking. Fairfield county had one of the most lucrative economies in the state in its heyday.

The Blythewood area used to be in Fairfield county. It was annexed into Richland County in 1913. The Fairfield County courthouse is a treasure trove of South Carolina historical documents. They are still there in the original fancy cursive script written in quill and ink.

In and amongst those documents filed by family members and attorneys is the story of how Littleton got in a fight with the Baptist Church because of the way he chose to handle settling the estate of his father-in-law, James Wilson. James (1752-1836) was my 4 time great grandmother Lucy’s daddy. Littleton was the primary executor of the estate.

 It seems James liked the ladies. There was drama surrounding his will and estate not only with the church but by his fourth wife and widow, Sarah. She herself had made the rounds and was on her fourth or fifth marriage as well. There had been some documented discussion regarding whether one of her husbands was actually dead before she married her next.

And when she died, she was in her 80s and her husband, Jacob Blizzard, was a young man of 18. Yes, you read that correctly. No, it’s not a typo. EIGHTEEN. The Wilson estate had something to say about a bed that she had and they wanted that back, but I believe her widower was able to keep it.

Anyway, it’s said that James Wilson was the template or the character that Simon LeGree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe was based on, essentially a womanizing, manipulative rapscalion. I can believe it. Totally sounds like my family.

How in the world would Harriet B. Stowe know about your fifth great grandfather Wilson, Ann Marie? Cmon….

Because the Crankfields owned and ran a drover station. The wagon road came through Winnsboro to Blythewood. And the drovers that used these roads between Ohio and Kentucky and direct routes to Charleston stayed at the stations. I’ve heard talk of a brothel nearby, but I haven’t seen anything in writing.

The youngest Crankfield daughter, Elizabeth, married one of those drovers by the name of George Bush. George stayed frequently enough to fall in love with the baby daughter, and was friends with the Crankfields and the Wilsons. They were closely knit. He married Eliza, took her to Kentucky, and she never returned. Except maybe once. She might’ve come home with her first and oldest child to visit .

And the craziness that was going on around there was memorable enough to take back and talk about. The stories were related and Ms. Stowe heard them.

Life sure is funny like that.

Back to my point…

The church wasn’t happy about how the estate was divided because they felt like they should be getting more money from the Wilson estate for whatever reason. I don’t know all the ins and outs yet. But Littleton would not be convicted and felt the church was overstepping its boundaries. He quit going to church, I believe. There weren’t any other options really, unless you switched denominations.

At some point after that, Zion (pronounced “Zine” in the local vernacular) United Methodist Church which was founded in the late 1700’s to early 1800’s became our family’s home church. Littleton, Lucy and their children that didn’t move away were buried in the family cemetery back in the woods. Everyone after that is buried at Zion. 

There was even a little bit of drama about that. Somebody supposedly is buried in the family cemetery back in the woods by his first wife Mary Anne Crankfield. But his second wife is buried at Zion and her family feels certain that she would not have stood for him to be buried by his first wife back in the woods. I’m inclined to believe them. But nonetheless, the man has two headstones, one in the Crankfield Lawhorn family cemetery and one in Zion UMC cemetery.

And that’s the story of how I came to be raised a Methodist and not a Baptist.

(Photo of Zion United Methodist Church, taken approximately 1914, by my great aunt Bessie Alma Allen Abney.)

08/25/2025

This cemetery is near Furman University in Greenville SC. The county authorized it to be cleaned up using bulldozers. It was a known historic cemetery. Entire family plots were destroyed. 😭🤬

https://www.foxcarolina.com/2025/08/23/greenville-county-clears-debris-historic-black-cemetery-leaving-residents-distressed-over-damage/

08/08/2025

The Great Wagon Road

For countless early American families of Scots-Irish, German, and English descent, the Great Wagon Road was more than a route—it was a lifeline to opportunity.

Stretching over 700 miles from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, down into the backcountry of the Carolinas, and ending in Augusta, Georgia, it was one of the most traveled routes of colonial America.

This early highway helped shape the frontier, as thousands of immigrants moved southward in search of fertile land and a fresh start. Along the way, communities sprang up, and new settlements were born.

But the journey was anything but easy. Travelers navigated rugged terrain, unpredictable weather, and the ever-present threat of danger—whether from theft, illness, or conflict with those who had long called the land home.

Despite the hardships, the Great Wagon Road played a critical role in shaping the cultural and geographic landscape of the American South and beyond. Its legacy still echoes in the towns, family names, and traditions found all along its path.

07/18/2025

Your agent drives you around
looking for the perfect place
with a tree out front
I wonder if someone ever hung from it.

07/17/2025

03/16/2025

I was able to find Mary Ann Crankfield Laughan’s marker that had fallen and broken as well as either her foot stone or Samuel Laughan‘s marker where he was to potentially be buried. You may or may not remember that he remarried and is instead buried next to his wife Sara at Zion United Methodist. 

I was surprised to discover some old silk poinsettias or maybe spring flowers someone placed in front of Littleton and Lucy’s graves.

03/16/2025

These are pictures of some of the larger grave markers. Some of the shapes are interesting to me and I wonder if there is a significance.

03/16/2025

I made another trip to the cemetery. My visit followed another family member visit. She let me know she had done some raking and identified some more graves on the Lawhorn side of the cemetery. All I can say is wow! You’ll have to watch the video.

Her discovery work made me think about the Crankfield side. From childhood, I only considered that the folks that my family knew about from our history are buried there: Littleton, Lucy, Julia Ho**er, Mary Ann and Permilla. Those are the tombstones that stand up right with their names on them.

But there are other markers on the Crankfield side. Prior to this last visit it had not even occurred to me that those were people buried there. I assumed they were place holders for future burials.

Now I’m not sure I think that’s the case. Once I moved the leaves, I could see the areas between head and the feet markers are also sunken in. Are these the graves of the enslaved people that lived with the Crankfields? Other potential folks I could think of being buried with the Crankfields are Temperance Crankfield Miller, Permilla Randolph Crankfield Perry and Lewis Perry. In the video you’ll see I counted nine. Who were the others? 

07/20/2024

05/19/2024

Pictured are Mary Ann Crankfield and her husband Samuel E Laughan. They had no children. After Mary Ann’s death in 1876, Samuel remarried. He is not buried next to Mary Ann in the Crankfield/Lawhorn cemetery, but is beside his second wife Sarah Brown Laughan at Zion. John Lawhon/Lawhorn, born 1835 and his family consistently lived next door to or near Samuel for many years per the 1870 and 1880 census. Samuel purchased an enslaved man named John from the estate of his deceased father James Wilson Laughan for $1350.00. Samuel later deeded the land for the cemetery to John and his family and stipulated that no other family members would attempt to take it away from them.

05/11/2024

This past Easter my boys and I made the trip home specifically to visit the cemetery. We parked on the edge of Miss Pearl‘s yard. Her great grandson Jordan met us there to see who had driven up. I imagine we caught him off guard. It was Easter Sunday and he didn’t know we were coming. But we told him who we were and why we were there and he gave us his best directions to where the gravesites were and into the woods we went. We wore our thickest boots and brought a shovel if we found anything other than a black snake.

In the south particularly, there are a lot of family graves that are back in the woods behind people’s houses. If you let them know why you are there, most will allow you access without trouble.

When I was about 15, my father and I went graveyard hunting for his people across the state of Georgia. We drove up to people’s trailer homes and houses and knocked on their doors and said the very same thing….”we’re here to see the cemetery.” They would point us in the direction and off we would go through the briars and the trees behind perfect stranger’s homes. I don’t recommend doing this alone.

This day, my boys and I tromped through the woods stumbling over wisteria vines and roots, sinking into old tree stumps and looking out for snakes. We first found a creepy old trailer. It’s only resident, a vulture flew out of it. I guess he was startled to see us, but we were not startled to see him. Growing up in the south, you become accustomed to buzzards living old trailers in the woods. This was just another adventure. 

We walked in circles for about 30 minutes. We were hot and tired of stepping in holes and getting caught on vines. I cannot bush whack like I used to. I had decided to quit and come back another day. On our way back towards the car, I caught a glimpse of the orange/red tapes that Mr. Bubba had put on those trees 20 or 30 years ago, marking the way for us back then. We followed them and they led us right to the cemetary. Mr. Bubba‘s own funeral was just the day before. I cannot help but feel he was looking out for us and leading the way again.

I was hit with the same sense of awe and reverence that I remembered from the last time I was there. I had found myself unexpectedly in the place while out riding my horse. I had gotten turned around in the woods and lost my sense of direction. I had again, unexpectedly found myself there and I was overcome with the exact same sense when I saw the gravestones.

I knew immediately where I was. The stones stand between the trees, as if they shouldn’t be there. You feel as if you have stumbled into a magical secret. I cannot explain the feeling, but it makes you suck your breath in quickly, in almost a gasp.

I had the pleasure of having a conversation several months ago with Mr. Bubba‘s great grandson, John Lawhorn. The largest stone in the cemetery marks the grave of his 3x great grandfather John Lawhorn 1835-1917. Years after I explored those woods on my horse, he and his brothers and cousins would hunt in them. He described to me the same experience and sense of awe of unexpectedly stumbling in to the cemetery.

I remember my mother Ann Joye, leading 8 year old me in an almost ceremonial walk into those woods. I remember her showing me those graves and saying almost sternly to impress upon me “Ann Marie, these are your people. This is where you come from.”

My mother believed that John Lawhorn b.1835 was her extended cousin from her 3x great grandfather Littleton Crankfield. So when she said “these are your people” she wasn’t talking about just the white side. I was raised knowing the Lawhorns were family but because of the unspoken rules of the rural south, we didn’t openly talk about it.

Nobody wanted to cause trouble on either side of the equation. I don’t know everything my mother knew about the specific topic of John’s death and burial. When she was asked about it later in life, she said “leave it alone.”

We are left scratching our heads trying to figure out who John Lawhorn belongs to and why my mother didn’t want to discuss it. What was the significance? Was it more than just her 3x grandfather having a biracial family? Whose apple cart was she trying not to upset?

Several months ago, I submitted a DNA sample to a commonly used ancestry website and it was compared to samples from others who are known direct descendants of John Lawhorn, b.1835. As of now, theirs have not matched with mine or my known relatives. I have been unable to find a common DNA link through any of his descendants to the Crankfield/Wilson line. However, the same descendants of John do have solid direct DNA links to the Lawhorn/Wilson branch of the family. This still does not tell us who his father was. There are several potential options that we know of so that question remains unanswered for now.

I did not expect to feel the weight of the legacy of my mother. I was struck with it as I said to my children “these are your people, and this is where you come from.” I carry that feeling with me as I look for a different John Lawhorn b 1840 and his sister Epsy b 1835. I believe them to be the descendants of my 4x grandfather Littleton Crankfield and an enslaved woman. Who was she? Most likely, it was not Rosetta. What happened to them? Where are they buried? Where are their descendants? How do they relate if at all, to the story of our cemetery and the ambiguity of its history?

……………

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women who have shaped us to be who we are today. We are a product of their struggles and strengths. May our lives be a reflection back to honor them.