This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/GeB.2ACI/906 Message Board Post: I am searching for information about my great great grandfather, Benjamin Mitchell Andrews. We know only a few details of his life: he was born around 1818 in South Carolina and married Elizabeth Jane Hemminger on June 1, 1847. They had one son, Thomas Benjamin Andrews in 1848. Benjamin was an expert shoe and harness maker, he traveled west around 1856 to establish a business or look for work. He may have known the Abbeville relatives of the Burson and King families in Jackson County Georgia since he went there to work for John King in King's Tan Yard. King's wife Frances Burson King, had a younger sister, Jerusha George Burson, who was 35 years old. According to a handwritten autobiography of Jerusha and Benjamin's son (Mitchell Shaw Benjamin Andrews), Benjamin's relatives in Abbeville wrote to him and told him his wife Elizabeth had died from typhoid fever. He then married Jerusha. After their wedding in the fall of 1857, Benjamin and Jerusha moved on to Opelika, Alabama where Benjamin worked for Charley Tate. Benjamin’s first wife, Elizabeth, apparently learning of the mistaken report of her death to her husband, traced him through the post office. Upon learning that Benjamin had a living wife, Jerusha sent him back to her even though she was then five months pregnant. Benjamin never again contacted Jerusha. She died in 1876. We know that Benjamin returned to Abbeville County and later fought in the Civil War on the side of the Confederate army, serving in the Second South Carolina Infantry “Palmetto Regiment” as a private. We know little of Benjamin’s life after his return to Abbeville, other than his Civil War service. He is listed on the 1880 census with Elizabeth in the “Calhoun Mills” district of Abbeville; he was aged 62, she was 52. Benjamin’s occupation is shown as “farmer” and Elizabeth’s as ‘keeping house.” Below their names on the census are listed several black farm workers, May and Eulalia Simpson, ages 23 and 18, and their six month old baby. The next family shown below Benjamin and Elizabeth is probably Benjamin’s son Thomas Benjamin Andrews, although his name is shown as “T.A. Andrews.” He was 32 years old, suggesting he was born around 1848. His wife is listed as “E.G.” Andrews, along with six children ages 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, and 4 months. The proximity of the listing suggests they lived in adjoining housing. The “Calhoun Mills” area probably the plantation known as “Millwood” along the Savannah River near the town known today as “Calhoun Falls”. Millwood was owned by John C. Calhoun’s relative James Edward Calhoun. The area of Millwood is apparently now submerged under Lake Russell, created in the early 1900s by damming the Savannah River. According to Mitchell S.B. Andrews, he went to Abbeville and found Benjamin when he was 34 years old (around 1892) . In addition, after Benjamin died, Elizabeth came to live with Mitchell. He pasted a picture of Elizabeth in his ledger book, identifying her as “E. J. Andrews, step-mother to M. S. B. Andrews.” It’s not an accurate description, but perhaps it is the only one that avoids a long explanation. Elizabeth died in 1910 and is buried at Centralhatchee along with Mitchell and his wife Lula. Mitchell's book also has a picture of his half brother Thomas B. Andrews and his family. Mitchell later married Nancy Talula ("Lula") Hearn and lived mostly in Heard County Georgia until his retirement to La Grange (Troup County). The had 10 children; Benjamin, William ("Sink"), Gordon, Judson, Rufus Archibald, Joseph Leonidus, Lola and Ida Lou (and two babies who died young-- Ruby and Sammie). Lula burned to death in 1927 and Mitchell died in 1948. Any information about Benjamin or Elizabeth would be truly appreciated.