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Family Sheet

HUSBAND
Name: Lawson M. Summit Note Born: 1806 at Lincoln County, , , NC Married: 1 Feb 1845 at South Carolina, , , Died: 3 Jun 1898 at Kings Mountain, , Cleveland County, NC Father: Jacob Summit Mother: Mary "polly" Cloninger
WIFE
Name: Margaret Eliza Speer Note Born: 8 Dec 1825 at Cherokee Heights, Monterey, Abbeville County, SC Died: 30 Sep 1894 at Kings Mountain, , Cleveland County, NC Other Spouses: Andrew A. Mccord Father: William Speer Jr. Mother: Mary Slaughter Gill
CHILDREN
Name: Mary Eleanor Summit Born: 22 Feb 1847 at NC, , , Died: 27 Dec 1922 at Cleveland County, , , NC Husband: John R. Jarrett
NOTES
1). Tombstone reads Lawson M. Summit, 97 years, Jun 3, 1898 This source lists his date of birth as 1806, Rutherford Co, NC. Source Sellers McLaughen papers by Patrick C. Smith, 1971, rev. 1984
2).  Tombstone reads   Margaret E. Summit, 67 y, 9 m, 22 d, Sep 30, 1893 w o LM  The letter quoted below was written by Mrs. Mary Sue Giles Speer, wife of George Washington Speer, to Lula Alice McLaughen Sellers, evidently in response to a request for information on family history.  Alice Sellers   mother had died only five months earlier, which probably prompted the inquiry.  George Washington Speer was a brother of Margaret Eliza Speer, who married Lawson Summit.  The letter gives some interesting facts about Lawson and Margaret Eliza, as well as on other of the Speer family.  The letter is addressed to  Mrs. Alice Sellers, 412 Coffee St., Greenville, S.C. .  318 Calhoun St. Anderson, S.C. May 10th, 1923  Dear Alice,  I have no further information that I can give you that is not contained in the record I have already sent you.  Your letters both received yesterday, the one directed to Williamston was forwarded to Belton and from there to Anderson and received the sameday as your reply to the on I wrote you for Henrietta.  I have no record of Sis Margaret  s birth, marriage or death.  I know she was born at Cherokee Heights, this being the name of the P O kept at your grandfathers   house for many years.  I know she ran away and was married by Magistrate John Caldwell who lived in Lowndesville, but she married in the overseer  s house on your grandfather  s place.  Guess you have heard that this Mag. Caldwell was an elder in Rocky River Church, and his performing the ceremony so infuriated your grandfather he withdrew from thePresbyterian Church and went into the Methodist Church.  I have no date of this.  All this information I received was told me by your grandmother Speer.  Your grandfather became ill and sent for Sis Margaret and Mr. Summit, forgave them, and Mary  your Mama  was born at the same place your grandmother was.  You ought to be able to find a record of their births and marriages among your Mama  s papers, also a printed copy of the family record which was sent to Gummier, and the same copied and sent you Mother later.  Wade Speer had some copies and sent to all members of the Speer connection.  I am very sorry I cannot give you the dates.  I have in my home at Monterey an old church record that tells of the withdrawing from the Presbyterian Church of William and Mary Speer, his in not good and regular standing, an injury your grandmother told me. She did not want to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church but was forced to do so to please her husband, and her letter was given in good standing, but his being withdrawn in a fit of temper was cause of his being given as it was.  I never heard if he ever forgave Mag. Caldwell.  But he admitted to me he did wrong in leaving the church of his belief and his ancestors   for generations.  Your grandmother told me he regretted it but was too proud to admit it or go back, and his children came into the Methodist Church.  His and your grandmother  s funerals were preached in Rocky River Presbyterian Church and both lie in the cemetery nearby, where his father and mother are buried, and Mr. Speer, Mason and Carrie are also buried.  My mother and father, grandfather and grandmother  s, great grandfather, and great grandmother, and many other relatives are buried there.  It has been my pleasure to collect funds and see that the cemetery is cleaned off and enclosed for the past 40 years.  We have a very substantial wire fence with stone posts enclosing the cemetery, this being the second and perhaps the last fence I have been instrumental in helping to have erected around the old cemetery.  Your Great great grandmother Speer was the second person buried there.  Now, Alice, I tell my children all this family history having procured it from Mr. Speer, his father and mother, and if you all don  t keep it in memory it will be lost, for I am now an old woman past my 70th milestone.  I have been real sick since I wroteyou last week, a severe cold with bilious attack from which I have not fully recovered.  I am extremely nervous as you can see from my writing.  Have the record copied and return to me in Dr. Pennel  s care at Belton  not Williamston .  Everything and everybody is in a stir, today being Memorial Day and Shriners too.  Henrietta has gone with a committee from the Palmetto Chapter to decorate the graves of Confederate Veterans.  WE have been making evergreen wreaths all morning for that purpose.  I will send this in Virgil  s care.  I would like to see you and could talk so much better than I can write.  With love,  Aunt Sue  No doubt the reaction of Margaret Eliza  s father, William Speer, Jr. to her marriage to Lawson Summit was due, in part at least, to Lawson being 45 years of age at the time, while she was only 19.  Note that the letter says   and Mary  your Mama  was born at the same place your grandmother was .  This would be Mary Eleanor Summit McLaughen  Moore, Jarrett , daughter of Lawson and Margaret Eliza, and who was born about 1848.  Lawson and Margaret Eliza must therefore have lived in the Cherokee Heights and Monterey community of Abbeville County, SC, at least three years after their marriage, before moving to Kings Mountain, NC.  Most of the married life of Lawson and Margaret Eliza Speer Summit appears to have been spent in Kings Mountain.  It is not known whether this was the original home of Lawson, or whether they were primarily moving away from the Abbeville County area.  Source   Sellers McLaughen Papers of Patrick C. Smith, May 1971, revised 1984

						

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