My great-grandfather, Anderson Payne, was not the first Payne in Claiborne County, but he was the patriarch of our Payne Family in Lone Mountain. His path to Lone Mountain was filled with adventure and drama, love and loss.
Anderson was born in Scott County, Virginia, in 1848, to Hiram Payne and his wife, Polly Anderson. He is known as the oldest of their six Payne sons, but he may, actually, have been second, with an older brother dying either at birth or early infancy. In quick succession – a baby almost every year – Polly Payne had six more children by 1855: Enoch, Mary, Jacob, James, Elias, and William. To all of them, Anderson was the “big brother.”
It was a terrible loss to Anderson and his family in 1858 when his only sister Mary died of flux. Soon thereafter, Hiram and Polly left Virginia and made the long journey to Christian County, Missouri, along with Anderson’s maternal grandmother, Sarah Lawson Anderson Roller, her second husband, Jacob Roller, Jr., and their children who were Anderson’s aunts and uncles.
Anderson would have been ten years old, and being part of a “wagon train” crossing rivers and traversing the most rudimentary trails through the wilderness would have been a lot of work, but an adventure as well. I think of the six Payne brothers on that trek, and having raised sons myself, can imagine how exciting the experience would have been for them.
These were very much the years of westward migration. Families who were prospering where they were, tended to stay in those places, but those who wanted to do better headed west. For farmers like the Paynes, “doing better” almost always meant better and cheaper land. During these years leading up the the Civil War, however, there was another motivation: avoiding a war that seemed sure to come.
The 1860 census for Christian County shows Anderson’s whole family living together with his grandparents, Jacob and Sarah – thirteen people in all, including newborn, Sarah Payne, who was born just before the census was taken. Anderson would welcome another sister, Mary Ann, in 1861.
There is no way to know if Anderson’s parents planned to stay in Missouri permanently or only temporarily. They were there long enough to have two daughters, but never built a house of their own. Whatever the case, when Anderson’s paternal grandfather, Enoch Payne, died in 1863 back in Scott County, Anderson’s father, Hiram, gathered his newly enlarged family and headed back to Virginia. An inheritance awaited him, including land in Scott County.
On the way to get that inheritance, however, Hiram lost something far more precious. He lost his wife, Polly. And fourteen year-old Anderson, along with his seven young brothers and sisters, lost their mother.
Family lore, which is usually more true than not, holds that Polly died in childbirth while crossing the Mississippi River. For a woman of thirty-nine, who had a history of having a baby every 1-2 years, in a time when most women bore children well into their forties, Polly could very well have been expecting another baby. And, certainly, river-crossings were very dangerous and the Mississippi River lay directly in their path. It is hard for me to believe, though, that they would have attempted a river crossing while she was in labor. I can believe she died in childbirth. I can believe she drowned crossing the Mississippi. But unless Polly went into labor while crossing the Mississippi, it is hard to believe the family story. But, stranger things have happened, and the exact circumstances of her death will probably remain unknown.
The one known fact, however, is that Polly was dead.
As was the practice in those days, neither widows nor widowers – especially those with children – remained unmarried for long. Before the end of the year, Hiram married Kiziah Bloomer, the twenty-nine year old daughter of a Scott County neighbor.
The last months of the Civil War and the first months after it ended in April of 1865, were particularly dangerous and lawless ones in the southern states. In August, while Anderson’s stepmother, Kiziah, was expecting her first child several of Hiram’s horses were stolen. Hiram set out with seventeen-year-old, Anderson, as well as Hiram’s namesake and first-cousin, Hiram England, to track down and recover his horses.
The three set out down the North Fork of the Clinch River, finally crossing it into a place called Blackwater in neighboring Lee County, Virginia. Unfortunately, the theiving bushwackers were lying in wait for them. In the ensuing ambush, Hiram Payne was killed, and young Anderson was shot in at least one knee. Some maintain that he was shot in both. Hiram England escaped unharmed and went for help. During the hours that Hiram was gone I imagine young Anderson, painfully injured and in shock, dragging himself over to his father, and then propping himself up against the closest tree – probably tearing a piece of his clothing to make tourniquets, and then waiting and waiting as the reality of the situation set in, and grief for his father overcame him.
Kiziah Payne returned to her parents home to wait for the birth of her child – a son named Hiram P. Payne.
Anderson and all his siblings were scattered among the homes of aunts and uncles.
As chance would have it, an older couple who lived in neighboring Russell County, Virginia, took Anderson’s brother, Enoch, into their home as a farmhand. Henry and Betsy Burdine had lost both of their sons – and their only children – in the Civil War. Living with them was Elizabeth Burdine, widow of their son, Samuel Burdine, and granddaughters, Martha Jane and Ellon Burdine. Also with her grandparents were Eliza Burdine, the orphaned daughter of their other son, John.
Perhaps the Burdines already knew Anderson and Enoch Payne and the tragedy that befell their family. Or perhaps neighbors knew of their mutual situations. Whatever the case, sixteen-year-old Enoch Payne, needed work and the Burdines needed a farmhand.
As Anderson spent the last months of 1865 convalescing from his knee injuries and coming to grips with the fact that he was probably crippled for life, he met the young widow Burdine. Marriage prospects for both of them less than ideal – Anderson was a crippled farmer and Elizabeth was just one of many, many young widows at a time when there was a dearth of marriageable men.
Still, in September of the following year, Anderson and Elizabeth would marry in Russell County. He was eighteen and she was twenty-eight.
There is no question that it was the tragedies they both had suffered that brought them together.