Elizabeth Melle Burrow (1792-1848)

My Maternal 4th Great Grandmother, married James Wilbourne Kelley

Elizabeth Melle Burrow, the daughter of Philip Burrow and Leah Jones, was born on February 2, 1792, in North Carolina.   Her sister Nancy Ann Burrow was born in Georgia four years later, followed by nine more siblings.  Not only did Elizabeth prove to be nearly as fertile as her mother had been but her children created an astounding number of additions to the gene pool all over the south. 

Elizabeth married the Reverend James Wilbourne Kelley in Georgia.  She gave birth at age 18 to their first child, Nancy Mary, on February 20, 1810.  The name was a logical choice since both her husband’s sister and Elizabeth’s sister were named Nancy.  Nancy Mary Kelley is my ancestor.  Her story is told in a separate post.

[Image: Stork delivering a baby]

Elizabeth’s second child, Martha was born a year later in 1811.  Martha married a farmer, Woody K. Knight, in 1827, gave birth to five children, moved to Lafayette County Mississippi (population 6,500) in 1842 and gave birth to four more.   In the 1850 census they owned four enslaved persons. Martha’s husband died three years after their last child was born in 1854. The date of Martha’s death is not known.

Child #3, William Harrison Kelley, was born in 1812.  William was a farmer, served in the Civil War and married three times (first to Nancy Fretwell in 1834 who died in 1855, second to Caroline Stamps in 1858 who died in 1881, and third to Rosa Pilkinton in 1882) and fathered an astonishing 16 children, the youngest of whom was born when William was 67 years old.   One of his sons, Charles Harrison Kelley (born 1859) escaped farm life and arrived penniless in Atlanta in 1885 and two years later opened the doors of a grocery business. Thirty years later his enterprise was grossing 1.25 million dollars annually.   William Harrison died in 1886 at 74 years of age.

[Image: AI generated image of grocery store in 1890s]

Child #4, John Wilbourne, was born in 1813. He married Mary E.M. Field in Alabama in September of 1836, fathered a daughter 10 months later and moved his family back to Georgia.  Between the years 1839 and 1852 he fathered seven more children (three of whom were named after US Presidents (William Henry Harrison, James Polk and Jefferson). In the 1850 census John was a farmer, and his wife and 18 year old daughter were listed as “domestics.”  At the age of 51 he fought as a private in the Georgia infantry during the Civil War. Six months after the death of his first wife in January of 1865, he married Martha Elizabeth Dunn and fathered yet another child.  John died at age 67 in 1880.

[Photo: John Wilbourne Kelly’s wife Mary EM Field as a young girl]

Child #5, Greene Wesley, farmer and Reverend, was born in 1816.  He married Louisana born Mary Elizabeth Higginbottom in Yalobusha County (oddly a Native American word meaning tadpole), Mississippi in 1845. and fathered seven children. After the birth of their last child, Lena Rogers, in 1868 the family moved to Texas. His oldest daughter Emily eventually settled in California. His oldest son, James Willis, followed in his father and grandfather’s footsteps and became a Reverend.  His second son John was murdered, killed by a bullet wound to the head, allegedly over a fight over money October 14, 1792 at the age of twenty-four. Less than a year later the remorseful murderer Emanual Wilkerson took his own life. His daughter Rebecca married and settled in New Mexico. His daughter Nannie married and stayed in Texas. His daughter Mary Belle and his daughter Lena married and moved to California. His wife, Mary Elizabeth died of consumption at age 60 in 1886 in Waco Texas. Her gravestone said, “M.E. wife of Rev. G.W. Kelley.” Her husband Greene died of dysentery seven years later at the age of 88 in 1893. His body was buried without a casket and the Waco newspaper reported rather tersely: “The remains of Rev. G.W. Kelley, formerly off Waco, who died yesterday at Mayfield were buried today at Oakwood.”

[Image: Rev. Greene Wesley’s daughter Mary Belle (Waggoner) and granddaughter Lena Lillian Waggoner (Dunne]

Child #6, Elizabeth Jane, was born in 1819.  She married James Skeen in Georgia in June of 1837 and gave birth to their son James Jr. The marriage was brief due to the death of her husband. She married a second time to James M. Gardner, a farmer in Mississippi. Together they had seven children three of whom who born in Mississippi and the other four in Texas.  Elizabeth died, not surprisingly of “childbed fever” shortly after the birth of her last child in 1859 in Aley Texas. Her tombstone read, “As a wife devoted, as a mother affectionate, as a friend ever and true.”

[Image: Headstone of Elizabeth Jane Kelley (Skeen) (Gardner)]

Child #7, Mary M., was born in 1822. She married Marion Wallace Menefee, a miller. Together they had eight children, the last of whom was born in Texas. In the 1850 slave census in Lafayette there is a M. W. Menefee who owned one enslaved person.  Listed under his name on the slave schedule is a G.W. Kelley who owned 14 slaves, one of whom was 60 years old and blind. Although it doesn’t seem very reverend-like, this is probably his brother in law the Reverend Greene Wesley Kelley.  Mary’s husband died in 1860. After his death Mary was taken in my various family members. In the 1870 census she was living with her son James, in the 1880 census with her son Samuel, and in the 1900 census at the age of 78 with her son, Rueben.  Mary died in 1903 and was buried in “Blackjack Cemetery” in Texas with her son Elijah.  Mary certainly made the rounds.

[Image: Blackjack Cemetery in Rusk, Texas]

Child #8, Adeline E., was born in 1826.  She married Zachariah Duke, a farmer, in 1843 at the age of 17 in Yalobusha (home of the tadpoles!), Mississippi and together they produced nine children. Her husband died in 1861 the year their last child was born.  In the 1870 census Adeline was listed as a widow and was living with her youngest child, John; in the 1900 census with her son William; and in the 1910 census with her daughter, Margaret. Like her sister Mary, Adeline also made the rounds. She died n 1910 shortly after the census was taken.

[Image: A scene from Yalobusha County in the early 1900s Mississippi]

Elizabeth died at age 56 on May 2, 1848, followed by her husband, James Wilbourne Kelley, who died of cholera in November of 1849. They are buried together in Seaton Cemetery in Lafayette, Mississippi.  Elizabeth’s father died in 1853 and her inheritance consisted of a $187 in cash and a “negro girl” named Ann valued at $900. Since Elizabeth predeceased her father, the inheritance went to one of her children.

[Image: Elizabeth Melle Burrow Kelley headstone in Lafaette, Mississippi]