There was recently a question about John Catlett of Anderson County,
South Carolina who originally was from Sevier County, Tennessee. I posted a
response that suggested that he was one of two people.
One possibility was John Catlett b. about 1828 son of Samuel Catlett
and Hannah, and grandson of Reuben Catlett. The other possibility was John
P. Catlett b. about 1830 son of John Catlett and Mary, and also grandson of
Reuben Catlett. There is evidence on both sides of the question, but I
suggested that the weight of the evidence was on the side of John Catlett b.
about 1828 son of Samuel Catlett and Hannah.
I think I can now settle the issue. I believe that John Catlett
of Anderson County, South Carolina was indeed the son of Samuel Catlett and
Hannah. I found the required evidence in the CATLETT-L archives (it was
already there in 1999!), and confirmed the evidence with a tombstone lookup.
On 13 Dec 1999, Linda Roberts Neal posted the line John Catlett and
Mary, parents of John P. Catlett. Here is the data she gave for John P.
Catlett.
JOHN P. CATLETT, b. 1830, Sevier Co., Tn; d. March 28, 185, Sevier
Co., Tn/Providence Cemetery.
The death date of 185 is not some weird typo. Here is the
tombstone transcription for John P. Catlett from "In the Shadow the Shadow
of the Smokies", p.88.
Alderbranch Cemetery
CATLETT
John P., 20 Jan 183_, 28 Mar 185_
(Note: it was the devil to find this entry in the book. I kept
looking in the Providence Cemetery. There are a lot of Catletts buried in
the Providence Cemetery, but John P. Catlett is not one of them. He is
listed on the Alderbranch page in the book.)
I haven't been to see the stone, but apparently it was not fully
legible. The rightmost digit of the birth year nor the death year could be
ascertained. I think we can safely assume that he was born in 1830 based on
census data. But genealogy programs generally will not accept a date of
185_, hence the 185. I have compromised by entering the date into my data
base as "before 28 Mar 1859", and I have included a note about what the
tombstone transcription says.
I doubt that we can figure out his exact year of death from tax
records or other similar records because of the 1856 court house fire in
Sevier County.
In any case, neither John Catlett nor John P. Catlett was enumerated
in Sevier County in 1860, and given that John P. Catlett died in 1859 or
before, I think we can safely conclude that John Catlett of Anderson County,
South Carolina was the son of Samuel Catlett and Hannah.
Jerry Bryan
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