I'll take liberty to break into the story here to explain that the 1870 Census shows Wayne and Cornelia living in Clarke County, Mississippi, Post Office DeSoto. Desoto, an unincorporated area, consisting of a few side streets off of Hwy 45 S on today's map of Clarke County, is a few miles from Shubuta. Shubuta isn't much larger with a population of around 600, the majority African American. The railroad runs through both towns. It probably hasn't changed a lot since the Gowins resided there.
Wayne was a 31 year old farmer in 1870 with an estate worth $500. Cornelia F., his wife, was a 22 year old homemaker and mother. They had a 6 month old son, Charles, born in December of 1869. Living with them as well was a young black woman, Mary J. Gowan, 23 years old, and her two baby daughters 1 and 2 years old. I've checked the former slave roles of both the Gowins (spelling varies) and the Agees. This Mary J. Gowan may have come from either of their family's former slave holdings. She may have grown up with Cornelia and chose to live with her, or was hired by them after the War as domestic help. Also there was a 13 yr old Mulatto slave in the Gowin family in 1860, so this may be Mary J. Gowan found here 10 years later. The census does not tell us the answers to these questions. I have read that the former slaves did not necessarily take the surnames of their former owners, but I find a number of blacks named Agee living near Hercules Agee in 1870 after the Civil War. They all seem to fall in the age categories of his slaves of before the War. The same is true of blacks named Gowin/Gowan in that community. My conclusion is that at least immediately following the War they used these family names.
Here's the rest of the article, containing the errors mentioned earlier:
Wayne Gowin died January 2, 1873 at age 32. The second son died shortly afterward while Cornelia was living with her parents, Hurcules Joseph Agee and Elizabeth Kate McRae Agee. They were from Montgomery County, South Carolina. Cornelia and Charlie continued with her father when he removed to Arkansas about 1875 seeking to escape the carpetbaggers who had bankrupted his lumber business. The move was made by steamboat up the Arkansas River to Little Rock and then by wagontrain to Logan County where they bought land. Later Cornelia and Charlie removed with family members to Haskell, Texas where she died in 1887. Charlie V. Gowin went on to marry and father 10 children. His surviving children now live in the Texas towns of Kyle, Sealy, Shamrock and Andrews. Thanks to Edna Gowin of Kyle, daughter of Charlie V. Gowin, for preserving the love letters and giving them to a fourth-generation descendant of Wayne Gowin, patriot and star-crossed lover.
"Star-crossed" or "star-crossed lovers" is a phrase describing a pair of lovers whose relationship is said to be doomed from the start. It is a reference to astrology, and the phrase was first coined by William Shakespeare in his play Romeo and Juliet.
In regards to the mention of Cornelia's death, I thought at first I was simply barking up the wrong tree when I read this, however this was Col. Michael O. Beck’s best information in 1998 when he wrote the article. I have subsequently been in touch with him. He tells me that now he has information addressing some of these issues, such as that the Gowin family did know of Cornelia’s daughter (our grandmother!) and that she had married a second time in TX to a Patton. He also gave me her death date of 13 May 1892. So, as you can see, it’s simply the nature of genealogy, to report what is known at any given time, only to learn new information later. There’s a great deal of “best guess” work until facts come to light!
One fact is that we have a record for the marriage of "Mrs. C. F. Gowin and Sam Patton" from Bosque County, Texas, for 5 July 1888. So, she couldn't have died in 1887, obviously. None of these records stand alone because there is always the possibility of reporting error, by the family member giving the information, or by the record taker, or by the reader of the record!
How do I know it's the same C. F. Gowin, you ask? I searched the census both before and after. I searched for the locations of all the siblings, Gowins and Agees and Pattons and looked for further corroborating evidence such as marriage or cemetery records. In order to do this I had to research the Gowan/Gowen/Gowins, who were living in the same area of Mississippi in 1870 and follow their movements. I looked for any other C. F. Gowins, of course. But, we are skipping ahead. I will explain as we go.
Lets follow with our snapshot of the census year 1880. As you read in Col. Beck’s article, Civil War veteran, Wayne Gowin, died an early and untimely death. We don't know how he died or of what cause, but as can be imagined from his long service in the war, he was probably somewhat broken in health, as so many Civil War veterans were. Perhaps it was an accident. There are so many possibilities. Regardless of how and why he died, Cornelia was a very young widow.
Hercules Agee, 58 and leading a much simpler life it would seem, unencumbered by slaves and business interests, had moved yet again, to Short Mountain, Logan County, Arkansas, as you read in the article. He was listed as a farmer, but we don’t really know the extent of his farm in AR. Perhaps it was simply a family farm, but he had been a farmer on a much larger scale in the past, so it’s hard to know, and as the article points out, he also had a lumber business previously. No farm laborers show on this census with his household however, and of course, he no longer owned slaves. But, he might have hired work done by neighboring laborers. Short Mountain is a township near Paris, AR.
Though the 1880 census adds information about the mother's and father's birth places for each person, it does not always tell us the estate value. In this case, it does not. But, we do learn that Hercules' father was born in Virginia. Another clue to the Huguenot heritage. And his mother's birth place is confirmed as North Carolinia. Whether the Agees always lived in or near Richmond or Anson Counties is a mystery. As I mentioned before, there is no Agee listed in Anson County in 1840, but a lot of County lines were in flux at that time too. No possibilities arise in the SC records either though, so the SC reference for the Agees seems unlikely. The McRaes did live in Montgomery County, North Carolina, so perhaps this is where the Montgomery County reference came from, and it is certainly possible that Agees lived in that area too, between census, or were missed on one. Regardless of unanswered questions, it is delightful to have the rest of the story of Cornelia and her first husband, the unfortunate Wayne!