Today we’re honoring the life of Lucretia HUTCHISON MITCHELL HARTMAN.
Lucretia is my paternal 4th great grandmother. Her first husband was Mordica Elias MITCHELL, my 4th great grandfather. Lucretia was born in 1813 in Polk County, Tennessee. She married Mordica in Monroe County, Tennessee. Sometime between 1840 and 1850 the family moved to Missouri. Together Lucretia and Mordica had 8 known children. Lucretia outlived Mordica by 35 years. About 7 years after his death Lucretia married a second time to William HARTMAN. They each brought children from previous marriages into their own marriage. They were married for 14 years until William’s death. Lucretia outlived William by another 14 years. I don’t know if she married a third time or not.
I believe that about 1879, Lucretia moved out to California where some of her children lived. Some researchers say Lucretia did not move to California and died in McDonald County, Missouri. I believe it to be more likely that she died in California while living with some of her children out there. However, I can’t prove either theory. Lucretia’s children moved out to California in the late 1850’s. That was too late for the 1849 California Gold Rush but it was about the time of Pony Express and the installation of the railroad so it’s possible they went to California for those reasons.
Lucretia outlived not only two husbands but most of her children as well. Three are known to have survived her. The three known to have survived her are James Harrison MITCHELL, Mary Louisa MITCHELL POTTER THOMAS, and Hester Ann Eglentine MITCHELL DRAKE. James and Mary both went to California. Hester stayed in Missouri.
I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about the family. What I have found includes this death certificate for her son James MITCHELL:

Cause of death was “old age” and subsequent “gradual breaking down of all the organs”
I also do have one photo of her daughter (and my 3rd great grandmother) Hester MITCHELL DRAKE:

In researching her children I discovered that a couple of the daughters married into the POTTER family. I also discovered one very interesting connection that I had not previously made. Please note that this is someone else’s research and I haven’t had decent internet to double check the information. But if it checks out it will be the biggest breakthrough I’ve made on this family in a long time. According to what I found, Hester had a sister-in-law, Elizabeth J. BECK MITCHELL. When Hester’s brother (Elizabeth’s husband) died, Elizabeth remarried to Hester’s father-in-law, Ervin Alonzo DRAKE (Poppy’s grandfather, not Poppy Lonzo). Ervin had lost his first wife. He was quite a bit older than Elizabeth (20 years older) but they stayed together until Ervin’s death in 1900 (24 years of marriage). So Hester’s sister-in-law became her step-mother-in-law in 1876. And William’s sister-in-law by marriage became his stepmother. Very…awkward. But I guess it worked out for them. At least, I hope it did. Again, I still have to verify all this but I wanted to share with you in case any of you have time to check it out and share with the family.
I wish I had more to offer you about Lucretia’s life. Given the difficulty of this line, I feel pretty good about the discovery of Elizabeth BECK’s maiden name (or maybe it’s a previous married name? I don’t know.). That in itself is a new discovery as is (at least for me) the fact that she had two separate relationships to William and Hester MITCHELL DRAKE. So that’s better than finding nothing at all. I hope you’ll join with me in lighting a candle today to celebrate the life of Lucretia and it’s trickle-down effects on our lives today. If you make any discoveries about her, I hope you’ll share them here. In the meantime be sure to head on over to Down in the Root Cellar where Becky has written a blog post (“Trapped”) about my maternal grandma, Jessie. It’s a great read!

Until tomorrow,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives