MY RIVERSIDE CEMETERY TOMBSTONE
INSCRIPTIONS SCRAPBOOK PART III
By Jonathan K. T. Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1992

(Page 10)

CARTMELL FAMILY

The following is an elaboration of the Cartmell data in part one of MY RIVERSIDE CEMETERY TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTIONS SCRAPBOOK, page 24:

A HISTORY OF TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS, by Will T. Hale and Dixon L. Merritt (Chicago, 1913), volume 8, pages 2493-2496.

CARTMELL FAMILY The oldest living representative of the Cartmell family in Tennessee is Robert H. Cartmell, of Jackson. The Cartmells were old settlers in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and Mr. Cartmell has supplied some of the material for this article from an old history of the lower Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and also from a publication under the authorship of T. K. Cartmell, who for more than thirty years was clerk of the county and circuit courts in Frederic(k) county, Virginia. . . . The family had its origin in the ancient shire of Northumberland, England. . . .  (page 2494) Martin (Cartmell) was born near Winchester, Virginia, November 2, 1797. His mother married again in two or three years to James Leech. The boys as they grew up did not take kindly to a stepfather. He moved to Tennessee, locating in Wilson County with mother and four sons, leaving the daughter to be educated in Virginia. She was married in Virginia to Stephen Pritchard, a prosperous farmer near Kernstown, Virginia. The family were living there when the battle of Kernstown was fought. Martin Cartmell married a daughter of Gilbert Neill of Wilson county, Tennessee. They moved to Madison county about 1820, before Jackson was located. He settled in Jackson as soon as the town was laid out. There his wife died in 1825 or 1826, leaving two daughters, Sarah Dean and Ann Jane. The latter married John Tyson and left no children. The former died when eighteen, unmarried. In 1828 Martin Cartmell again married, his wife being Miss Jemima Alexander Sharp. Her father moved to Rutherford county, Tennessee, at an early date, settling at Old Jefferson on Stone's river. The family came from Mecklenburg county, North Carolina. Her grandmother was a sister of the Alexanders who took so active a part in the Mecklenburg convention of 1775. Five children were born this second marriage of Martin Cartmell, as follows: Robert H. Cartmell, Sr.; Mary E., aged eighty-four and now living in Jackson with her daughter, Anna Snider, her husband. John D. Bond, having been dead many years; a daughter who died when twelve years of age; James Martin, who was run down and killed by an automobile at the age of seventy-four; and William Edward, who was killed at the age of twenty in the battle of Perryville, Kentucky. The son James M. was severely wounded at Shiloh and was unfitted for further service. He is survived by two sons and two daughters. . . . Martin Cartmell, the father of these children, when eighteen years old, was with General Jackson in his last military venture, the Seminole campaign, when he invaded Florida. . . . The Cartmell brothers, Nathan and Nathaniel, were in the War of 1812. The youngest brother, Henry R. Cartmell, was active in Texas' struggle for independence. . . . At his picturesque and rural home one mile from the courthouse in Jackson, lives Robert H. Cartmell, the oldest of Martin Cartmell's children by the second marriage. Destiny has given Mr. Cartmell eighty-six years of life. . . . Born in Jackson, Tennessee, July 27, 1828, only a few months before the election of Andrew Jackson to his first term in the presidency, Robert H. Cartmell made the best of his early opportunities and secured an education that was considered more than ordinary. . . . However, he did not adopt any profession and in 1849 settled on the farm he now owns. This place is situated one mile east of the courthouse in Jackson. During the decade before the war, he carried on his father's planting and farming with slave labor and in those days made upwards of one hundred bales of cotton each season. When the war broke out he enlisted for service in Company L. of the Sixth Tennessee Infantry but at the end of eight months was discharged on account of (page 2496) disability. He then returned home. Before the war came on he had on his farm a good set of buildings, including his mansion house and quarters for the slaves and barn for stock, had a large number of horses, mules and cattle and farm implements and many bondsmen. His slaves were freed, the buildings burned, the crops destroyed and the stock given away and he returned to find the place almost as barren as it had been before ever occupied by white men. He had the energy, however and the ambition to recuperate his losses and in the succeeding years erected a comfortable frame house in which he now lives. This house is set back from the road in the midst of an oak grove and inside and out it is a very attractive home. There he lives like the patriarchs of old, surrounded by his descendants and when not employed in superintending the work of his farm, is always busy with his books and papers…. For sixty years he has kept a diary and in this has recorded not only intimate family and personal affairs but also a chronicle of the more important events of the time and their impressions upon himself. On March 27, 1850, Robert H. Cartmell married Mary Jane Baldwin. She was born in Richmond county, North Carolina. . . . a daughter of Moses Baldwin. She died May 31,1865 and of her children the following grew up: Lizzie, Gaston, Robert H. and Harry. Lizzie died unmarried. Robert H. is a physician and married Mollie Meares and has four children. . . . Harry married Ada P. Warlick and has reared three children. . . .

 

The Cartmell diaries mentioned in the article above are now in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, in Nashville, having been donated to the same by Robert H. Cartmell's descendant, Cartmell Townes of Jackson, Tennessee. Cartmell began his diaries in 1849 and he continued as a diarist until some three days before his death. "There is a break in the diaries from May 1867 to January 1879." There are thirty-three (33) ACTUAL diaries in this collection.

To the right is a picture of the bronze monument for R. H. Cartmell and Wife — made by the Monumental Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

 

The Robert Henry Cartmell (July 27, 1828-September 10, 1915), Family Bible Record, now owned by Ms. Jane Baldwin Cartmell, his lineal descendant, who graciously gave permission for the writer to quote it. The Bible was published By J. B. Lippinott & Co., Philadelphia, Pa., 1850. "Presented to Ro. H. Cartmell by Jno. C. Bond, D. C. Hall, Jas. G. Perry, Jackson, March 27th 1850". THE IMMEDIATE FAMILY RECORD OF R. H. CARTMELL:

FAMILY RECORD, BIRTHS
Martin was born the 3d day of February in the year of our Lord 1851
William Baldwin was born the 15th day of July in the year of our Lord 1852
Elizabeth was born the 27th day of September in the year of our Lord 1853
Gaston was born the 28th day of October in the year of our Lord 1856
Robert was born the 18th day of November in the year of our Lord 1858
Mary Ann was born the 11th of April in the year of our Lord 1861
Henry Martin born 16th July 1862
Joseph born 9th May 1865

FAMILY RECORD, DEATHS
Martin departed this life the 16th August in the year of our Lord 1851
William Baldwin departed this life the 3d day of November in the year of our Lord 1852
Mary Ann died 7th of June 1861
Joseph died 10th July 1865
Elizabeth departed this life 27th September 1899, Age 46.
Mary Jane, wife of R. H. Cartmell, died 31st of May 1865 [Her Riverside Cemetery tombstone states that Mary Jane Baldwin Cartmell (Robert Cartmell's beloved Mollie), was born September 21, 1831.]

FAMILY RECORD, MARRIAGES
Robert H. Cartmell and Mary Jane Baldwin were married on the 27th of March 1850

(All these entries were in the known handwriting of R. H. Cartmell. His own death date was Sept. 30, 1915.)

 

NOTE
Robert Cartmell, born in 1858, died March 27, 1923 and is buried directly across from his father's burial plot in Riverside Cem. Gaston Cartmell died May 1, 1930, never married; was buried near his brother, Robert.

Henry Martin (Harry) Cartmell died April 6, 1945; the grandfather of Robert Cartmell Townes (1907-1971), who was among the leadership in establishing the Madison County Historical Society and instrumental in its support for the publication of Miss Emma Inman William's outstanding HISTORIC MADISON, published first in 1946.

Elizabeth Cartmell, born in 1853, was never married. By 1992, the only direct descendants of Robert H. Cartmell, were his great-grand-daughter, Ms. Jane Baldwin Cartmell, born 1941 and her children.

 

A picture identified as Robert H. Cartmell (1828-1915), formerly among the memorabilia of the late Cartmell Townes of Jackson, the original picture now owned by Jane Baldwin Cartmell of St. Augustine, Fla.

In Robert H. Cartmell's Confederate Compiled Military Service Record, he was described as a man of 5'8" height, dark hair and dark eyes. (He was in military service only a few months, March-July 1862, and received a medical discharge.)

 

Return to Contents