Mary Jane 1820 1871
Mary Jane Rankin (1820
– 1871/2)
Composed and copyrighted July 2010 by
Linda Sparks Starr
Mary Jane was the seventh of ten children born to Col. George Rankin and Mary
(Rankin). She was born Thursday, 24 March 1820 and
died 14 July 1872* apparently after a lingering illness. The lingering
comment is based on her mother’s statement in her 1873 will: [to]
“my said three daughters having
taken care of their Sister during her last illness and death ...” Presumably
Mary Jane lived in the same house all or most of her life.
Although we easily conjure images of her as a reclusive old maid, we
really know nothing about the life she and her sisters led. She
lived with her parents, and then after the death of her father, the
four single girls and their mother continued in the same home. Mary
Jane paid taxes each year and signed deeds, along with her siblings,
when dividing their father’s real property. Sadly, her estate
papers tell us more about others than about the deceased.
[Anderson Co. Probate #2912]
George W. Rankin, brother of Mary Jane, petitioned
the Probate Judge for Letters of Administration on her estate 28
January 1873. As that time he gave her death date as 14 July 1872
and said she left a small personal estate. The hearing date for
those with issues regarding George as the administrator was set for
Thursday, 13 February. Apparently no one protested; George W. was
given Letters of
Administration on that date. He and S. E. Moore and Joseph B. Moore
signed the two-hundred dollar surety bond for George’s good
administration.
Getting an appraisal of Mary Jane’s personal property was the
next agenda item. The judge assigned the task to five good men
who lived nearby, letting them decide which of three or four among them
would actually do the task. The chosen five were: John O. Davis,
James Orr, Tolbert Bryant, Harrison Jones and James Robinson, with
Bryant, Robinson and Jones agreeing to inventory her property. The
amount of her personal property was indeed small:
George’s petition to set apart Mary Jane’s land from that
of her sisters gives a different death date for Mary Jane: July
1871.** In
February 1873 George petitioned the court for permission to sell
the small personal property of Mary Jane Rankin, deceased. He
specifically requested the 12th day of March, which was likely the next
official court-ordered sales day. Another undated document, but
probably written the same time, requested permission to sell her
one-fifth interest in an undivided four hundred and ten acres.
She was joint owner along with her mother, now deceased, and three
surviving sisters. This list is a real find for genealogists. It
includes a listing of all Mary Jane’s heirs -- her surviving
siblings; the children of those siblings who predeceased her; and names
of the spouses of the married females. Another detailed petition,
filed 10 July 1873, gives other details about the heirs. Two heirs
lived out of state necessitating an extra legal step referred to on the
back of the document as “Order for
Publication against absent Parties”. The final
settlement of Mary Jane’s estate was in sight.
The death of the older Mary Rankin slowed the settlement of the younger
Mary Jane’s probate. But the death of George W. Rankin in
September brought Mary Jane’s probate to a complete halt.
Obviously George’s widow, Louisa Jane, had more pressing things
to do than proceed with the sale of Mary Jane’s property.
To her credit, Louisa J. saw the need to finish this probate and all
the family must have agreed she was in the better position to do so.
Early 1873 she signed a petition for granting her Letters of
Administration de bonis non on Mary Jane’s estate. All
things considered, Louisa can be forgiven for giving the wrong death date
for Mary Jane: 15 June 1870. There was a slight delay
between the granting of the Letters of Administration and the signing
of the surety bond. As a widow in days when women were thought
financially incompetent, Louisa may have had trouble raising the bond
money to cover her administration on a second estate. On the other
hand, bad weather or illness of her children may have prevented her
from attending one of the intervening court sessions. It was May
when Louisa J. Rankin and her co-signers, J. Munro Smith and Martha A.
Rankin, set their names to the $125 surety bond.
In October L. J. Rankin and J. M. Smith signed another surety bond,
this time the bond was set for $257. No reason is
given why Martha Rankin was removed and why the amount of the bond
doubled.
One of the first things on the agenda for the new administrator was
appointing a guardian for the minor heirs of George W. Rankin. His
children were now in line to receive whatever would normally have come
to him from this estate. Louisa asked the judge to appoint her guardian
over her children, pointing out that all were under fourteen years of
age. More legal steps were then needed to add their
names to the "friendly lawsuit" she, as administrator de bonis non [to settle what
remained in the estate], brought against the heirs. The lawsuit served
to partition, that is carve out, Mary Jane’s interest in the
land from those of her sisters in order to sell it. By the summer
of 1874 the probate of Mary Jane’s estate was coming to an
end. J. M. Smith and J. R. Gambrell swore under oath Mary
Jane’s lot couldn’t practicably be physically sliced from
the whole parcel; thus selling the lot and then dividing the money was the only recourse.
The judge ordered the land be sold and set the time for the first
Monday in September 1874. Margaret P. and Eliza B. Rankin
were the highest bidders at three hundred dollars. Although it
appears the second page was not microfilmed, this was the last
document in Mary Jane’s probate packet.
* This death date is closest to the event.
** This year (date varies) is the one given by most descendants.
SOURCES
Anderson County probate records, South Carolina Department of Archives
and History, Columbia. Probate #2912 Real Estate of
Miss Mary Jane Rankin.
Home: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lksstarr/
Linda Sparks Starr copyright (c) 2010
