HISTORY OF THE AYDELOTTE FAMILY (revised July 2020)
Subsequent to Alberta's account which was recorded in 1976, the original history has been amended to reflect ongoing research and recollections by other family members. This history will continue to be amended and updated to reflect additional research.
Amanda Aydelotte was born in 1834 (approximate) in Virginia to a slave mother and white father who were also born in Virginia. She called herself Amanda Jay Gould or Amanda Lucy Melvinne Fitzsally Aydelotte1. When asked why or how she got her name, said she didn't know, but that for some reason she liked it. She was affectionately known as "Gram" by her family.
Amanda said when she found herself it was at the tender age of ten or less. Sometime during the early 1840's she and her mother were slave servants in a prominent home in Hopkinsville, Kentucky or maybe Hodgensville, KY. She remembered that on one occasion, the family she was a servant to, entertained a president of the United States, Zachary Taylor2. According to custom, she passed the cup with the golden chain to the company. She would often brag that she had served a president of the United States.
Amanda and her mother were passed on to another slave-owner who was a doctor in St. Louis, Missouri. The doctor became very heavy in debt and had to sell them. Amanda recalled hearing her mother ask the doctor "Master Why?" and that he made it plain to her he had to because of his indebtedness. Amanda, her mother and reportedly an arm baby were put on a boat on the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri and shipped down to Memphis, Tennessee. There, they were placed on an auction block and Amanda was sold for $1,000 to a slave-owner named Sugars McLemore3 in approximately 1845. He had traveled from Brownsville, Tennessee on a log wagon. Amanda asked McLemore to buy her mother, he told her he brought only $1,000 with him and could not purchase her mother. Her mother was then placed on a boat and the last Amanda saw of her; she was headed on down the Mississippi River. This made her very unhappy and she remembers crying all the way to her new home in Brownsville. Finally, McLemore told her to stop crying, he would be good to her.
Amanda finished growing up as a house servant in the home of Sugars McLemore until 1856. She was given to one of his daughters, Nancy "Nannie" Dabney McLemore4 as a personal servant. Amanda came up weaving cloth and making dresses of fine laces and silks for her young mistress. When the mistress discarded the clothes, they became Amanda's. Amanda and another slave girl (personal servant to Nannie's sister) would ride in the surrey with their mistresses to attend the McLemore sisters, as was the custom of that day. Amanda and the other slave girl were of like situations, having been born of slave mothers and white fathers. There also was a male slave who drove the surrey. Amanda said it was talked among the people that the servant girls were prettier and looked better than their mistresses (especially wearing the fine clothes passed back to them).
Amanda's mistress married Thomas "Theo" Cole on May 10, 1856. On December 10, 1856 Frank Aydelotte was gifted by Sugars McLemore to his daughter Nannie McLemore Cole. Sugars McLemore stipulated in his deed that Frank would be owned solely by his daughter Nannie and her heirs.
Nannie moved from Brownsville, TN to Madison County, Tennessee. Amanda and her children went with her to Jackson, TN. Frank Aydelotte was a slave on Sugars McLemore’s plantation. He had formerly come from Virginia to Frankfort, Kentucky, then to Madison County, Tennessee under different slave-owners. When the roll was called, he would wait until they called him “Frank Aydelotte”. This is the first name he had been aware of and thus did not suffer another name change. Frank and Amanda were married in 1855. Their children called him Pap. Pap passed away in 1901 and was buried in the Epperson Cemetery. His tombstone bears the inscription “Asleep in Jesus”. It stands strong today and mark his final resting place.
Amanda was the mother of seventeen children5. Jennie, Josie, Ida, Ellen, and Narcissis were born slaves6. Lula, Dinah and John Samuel ‘aka Buddy’ were born after emancipation, however they all were mulattos. Eliza and Dora were born free.
Gram was a very clever person coming up through slavery. She was gifted with many talents; she was great with the needle which was extended through her family. Many of her daughters could sew. She was a servant, not only to her master and mistress, but was a practical nurse, plus a midwife throughout the neighborhood of Black and white. With doctors and on her own, this too was learned by her children.
She was a soul that loved music. She could sing all of the old spirituals of that day. She had a very high soprano voice that grew higher as the years passed. The grandchildren would often smile at some of her high notes. Her son Buddy bought her a zither7 from an agent passing through the countryside. Amanda would pick out tunes she knew to sing, which afforded her much pleasure.
Her son Buddy, a very kind and loving person, kept a home for his mother. When necessary his sisters, many nieces and nephews lived with he and Gram, many family members married out of that home.
Gram was confined to the bed for the last seven years of her life. Often her grandchildren would watch her while their parents were away. Amanda never lost her kind and lovable ways and was a nice person with a good disposition and liked by everyone that knew her. Amanda passed away in May of l924, Madison County, Tennessee and was laid to rest in the Henry Cole Cemetery (old St. John Church Cemetery).
NOTES
1Some of her grandchildren were named Amanda, Lucy and Melvinne.
2Zachary Taylor lived from 1784‑1850 and was the 12th President of the United States from 1849‑1850. He lived in Lexington, KY which is near Hodgenville, KY. Historians in Hopkinsville, KY can find no record of Zachary Taylor ever visiting Hopkinsville.
3Sugars McLemore was born in 1795 in Franklin County, North Carolina. The McLemore family immigrated to the U.S. from Argyleshire, Scotland around 1720. After the treaty with the Indians of West Tennessee was signed (early 1820's) by Andrew Jackson, Sugars was sent to West Tennessee by the University of North Carolina to survey the land. He surveyed Haywood, Madison and Crockett counties and was given 1/6 of the land as compensation, thus making him a very large landowner. He settled in Brownsville, Tennessee, was married three times and died in 1867. He was buried on the family farm in Bells, Tennessee in the Bottom.
4Nancy Dabney McLemore Cole was Sugars McLemore eighth child. She was born in 1836.
5We could only account for eleven of her children. The other six (possibly born between 1847 and 1854) were either sold or stillborn.
6Amanda named seven of her children after McLemore family members. They were Dora, Lula, John Samuel "Buddy", Narcissis, Eliza, Nanny, and Jennie.
7zither ‑ stringed musical instrument similar to a guitar.
REFERENCES / SOURCES
l. Alberta Jackson Barnett, of Cincinnati, OH and one of Amanda's granddaughters provided the original historical account in 1976 for the first reunion.
2. United States Federal Census:
1820 ‑ Jefferson County, Kentucky 1860 – Hickman County, Kentucky
1820 ‑ Williamson County, Tennessee 1860 – Madison County, Tennessee
1830 ‑ Gibson County, Tennessee 1880 – Madison County, Tennessee
1830 ‑ Madison County, Tennessee 1900, 1910, 1920 – Madison County, Tennessee
1830, 1840 and 1850 ‑ Haywood County, Tennessee
3. McLemore Family Research Files
Jackson/Madison County Library - Jackson, Tennessee
4. Civil War Journal of Rebecca McLemore Welborn, 1864
5. 1877 Land Ownership Record, Madison County, Tennessee, District #9.
6. The McLemore Search, Fairy Bell McLemore Edwards - Canyon Lake, Texas
7. Personal Recollections: Some of Amanda’s Grandchildren and Great‑Grandchildren (notably, Ora Cole McLemore, Iona Huddleston Cole and Hayward Hobson).
8. Deed of Gift, Sugars McLemore to Nannie McLemore Cole. December, 1856 Deed Book, Jackson, TN, Jackson Madison Library.
Revised: 7-14-2020