Eulogy for Lindsey Hamilton Scoggin and Julia Ann Lawrence Scoggin
Lindsey was born April 9, 1823 in Newton County, Georgia and died September 25, 1907 in Grayson County, Texas. No one here today ever met him or shook his hand. None of us have ever seen a photograph of him. Yet we know that he was a man of courage and vision with a deep Christian faith, a sense of duty and history, and a love of family.
His parents were William Dulaney and Mary Cleckler Scoggin. The records tell us that from the beginning the Scoggin family members stuck together. They lived close to each other and moved together westward across Georgia. By 1830 the large family was in Troup County, Georgia. The 1832 Land Lottery opened new land to the north and in 1835 William moved his wife and four children to Chattooga County.
Then tragedy struck. Lindsey’s mother died when he was fifteen, and he lost his younger brother and sister. Facing the future with courage and faith, Lindsey’s father William married again, this time to Elizabeth Sewell, and began rebuilding his family. It must have been a time of great celebration when once again the Scoggin household on the farm at the foot of Little Sand Mountain had a mother and a growing number of little brothers and sisters. There were no schools. All of William’s children were taught at home to read, write and perform calculations. They were expected to work in the fields and to attend church with the family. In 1843 Pleasant Grove Baptist Church was built near William’s farm. Lindsey’s grandmother Winnie Watson Scoggin was a charter member there. The Scoggin family had their own pews as did another family, the Lawrences. It was probably at that very church that Lindsey met Julia Ann Lawrence, the daughter of Malachi Lawrence and Isabelle Grimsley, and they were married on September 8, 1845 in Chattooga County, Georgia.
Living in Dirt Town Valley among their many relatives, Julia Ann Lawrence and Lindsey Hamilton Scoggin began farming and started their family. By 1860 Lindsey and Julia had eight children.
Then tragedy struck again. It must have been the most difficult decision of his life when Lindsey, then thirty-eight years old, answered the call to duty. Leaving his wife and eight children, he joined Company I of the 35thRegiment of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry and marched away to Virginia in September 1861. Almost immediately Lindsey was assigned to hospital duty where he was exposed to every illness that beset the men of the Confederate army; measles, mumps, chicken pox, small pox, typhoid fever and pneumonia. He was a hospital patient himself by April of 1862. Finally, his health in ruins, he was sent home to his farm for a sixty day furlough. He arrived at his farm to find his wife grieving for her brother who had been killed in the Civil War. Within three months she lost her brother, her father and her mother. Lindsey’s health did not return, and he was separated from the army in February 1863. Basic supplies like sugar and salt became scarce and very expensive if they could be found. Then the war came to Georgia. They could hear the cannons from the Chickamauga battlefield just miles from their farm. In September 1863 the Union army swept through the valley taking everything including farm animals, food, horses and wagons. Again it must have been family support that saw them through this difficult time.
The years following the war brought five more children. Like his father, Lindsey wanted an opportunity to start over with his family on a new farm. For the first time in his life, Lindsey left the comfort of the Scoggin and Lawrence families leaving behind the valley where they had lived for forty years. Lindsey, Julia and their thirteen children loaded into eight wagons and arrived here in Grayson County November 1875. They settled on a one hundred acre farm touching White’s Creek near Elmont. The family attended the Elmont Baptist Church where Elder T. B. McComb had served as the minister since 1869. Grayson County marriage records show that T.B. McComb married two of Lindsey and Julia’s children.
In 1889, Lindsey allowed his biography to be published in a book called ABiographical Souvenir of Texas, and in doing so, he provided the only written documentation of the genealogy of the Scoggin family. He must have had a sense of history that told him how important this document would be to his descendents. Julia died the following year in October of 1890. Lindsey, his daughter Margaret, his son Gilbert Lawrence and his grandchildren continued to live on the farm until 1907 when Lindsey passed away on July 25. He was laid to rest beside his beloved Julia in Van Alstyne Cemetery. He was a Baptist, a Mason, a farmer, a son, a husband, a father, a grandfather and a soldier.
As I thought about this event and these two ancestors, the following poem came to mind.
A Confederate soldier lies buried here
Beside his beloved wife Julia so dear,
More than a hundred years have passed
Since their family gathered last.
To honor them we come today,
With great respect we want to say,
“Your memory lives while here you dwell.
Thank you both for lives lived well.”
Nelda Scoggin Reynolds
Eulogy given at the tombstone dedication ceremony for
Lindsey and Julia Scoggin by:
Nelda Scoggin Reynolds
(Great, great granddaughter)
October 30, 2010
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