Margaret Poage Rankin 1818-1884
Margaret P. Rankin (1818
– 1884)
Composed and copyrighted by Linda
Sparks Starr, August 2011
Margaret P. Rankin was born April 18, 1818 in Anderson County,
South Carolina. She was the sixth of ten children and third daughter of
George
and Mary (Rankin). Although only the initial “P”
is found in family and court records, Poage is thought her middle
name. It is the surname of her great-grandmother. But more
importantly, current researchers think George and Mary named three
daughters after George’s three sisters and one of them was
Margaret (Rankin) Poage.
Little is known about the four unmarried daughters of George and Mary.
Even less is known about Margaret than the other three. Although women
were the glue that bound ante-bellum society, those women who
didn’t marry and have children left few footprints. Lack of
records with Margaret’s name might indicate she was the one who
managed the farm land the five women shared. Or perhaps she was
the neighborhood nurse, routinely called to the bedsides of the ill or
dying. We’ll never know unless family letters are found and
shared. The only surviving records of Margaret, other than her
tombstone and name listed as a child within this family, are a few
Anderson County
deeds and Margaret’s own probate packet that
includes her will.
Margaret outlived all but one of her siblings who remained in South
Carolina. The death date of her brother James, who moved to
Mississippi, is not known at this time. Margaret died
October 5, 1884 and is buried in the old Rankin Cemetery with other
members of her family.
SOURCES
File #3689 from 1864-1871 L (C or E) 870 Estate of Margaret
P. Rankin dec’d located
South Carolina Department Archives & History: Anderson County
Estate Papers,
Home: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lksstarr/
Linda Sparks Starr copyright (c) 2011