Reuben A Lindsey was the son of Larkin A Lindsey & Rachel McConnell Stiles Lindsey, he was born on Cowee Mountain in northern Macon County, NC, the 3rd child of at least 12 children. His parents settled the area in the land sale after the Cherokee War ended in 1828 when the new county of Macon was created and land was opened up for sale by the gov about 1830 for $2-5 an acre.
The Lindsey family attended Cowee Baptist Church, there are numerous records of their baptisms, excommunications and the participation of his father Larkin in the church meetings in his later life. Near the end of his life, Larkin was appointed to preach.
Reuben was a tall slender man of over 6 feet with black hair, dark brown eyes & a handlebar mustache that he evidently had all his life as it is in all of his photo's.
On 25 March 1862, Reuben joined the Confederate Army, he enlisted in Macon County and is also listed on the same day in Franklin Co, TN. The next month on 5 April 1862 in Macon Co, Reuben took out a license and married Sarah E Beasley, daughter of neighbors Reuben Beasley & Jane (Jenny) Hibbard Beasley; Sarah was said to be much shorter than her tall husband. Reuben evidently went off to the Army after the marriage but he went AWOL in Nov 1862 and returned after the winter in March 1863 to the military, their first child was born in Sept 1863.
Reuben was listed as injured and hospitalized 13 April 1864.
In July 1866 they had a set of twins, Jim and Mary. In Sept 1868 they had daughter Josie.
In 1870 they are listed in Cowee TWP living next to her parents. Reuben did not own any land but he had $100 worth of stated personal property. At some time in the 1870's to 1882, he & his wife moved onto the Cherokee Reservation & he worked as the manager of the general store, his daughter Mary told her children that she had lived there when young & played with Cherokee children and learned native herbs and dances there. Sarah's grandmother, Jane's mother Jahaley Hibbard, may have been part Cherokee, Jahaley sounds like an Anglicization of a Cherokee name Jahaliah. Reuben may have also had Cherokee ancestry, his mother Rachel was possibly a great-granddaughter of Halijon, a Cherokee Nation woman who married Charles Stiles Sr in the 1750's.
From the early 1800's, Sarah's grandmother Jahaley Styles - Hibbard had lived on Cowee Mtn with her family, she settled there when it was still Haywood County. I suspect that the land Reuben Beasley & her daughter Jane/Jenny lived on was originally her land because Jahaley (or Ja-ha-li-ah) lived in the area on top of the mountain from at least 1820 on, before Reuben Beasley arrived and before the land was taken from the Cherokee in war, and she was living with her daughter Jane/Jenny on every census from 1840 to the end of her life & was 102 years old on the 1880 census. I am told by a local woman in the 1970's that she remembered her parents talking about a notice printed of Jahaley's advanced age in a local newspaper around the time of the census in 1880 but I have not been able to find it in existing newspapers.
Reuben at one time was a Baptist. In October 1878, Reuben was baptized at Liberty Baptist Church in Cowee. Liberty was co-founded on Cowee Mountain by his wife's parents as a breakaway church from Cowee Baptist where both families had been members for decades, it was farther up the mountain from the main road where Cowee Baptist is located & was probably several miles nearer to where the Lindsey's & Beasley's lived. (His wife Sarah was baptized there in February 1878, eight months before her husband.)
Reuben was literate & known as a "singing schoolteacher", his family are known for having deep baritone voices and he taught music classes, he "lined" music for the congregation, meaning he stood up in front of the church & sang out a line of the hymn, then the rest of the illiterate congregation would copy him. His grandson Rob Russell said Reuben was also a very good artist, that he sketched horses particularly well.
In August of 1880 a year and a half after Reuben was baptized into the church, Reuben was excommunicated from Liberty; the cause was not given. (Sometimes the church minutes listed the cause, sometimes not. Some causes included: cussing on the Sabbath, fornication, getting into arguments, public drunkenness, etc. Unlike most baptist churches today, baptist churches in the 1800's imposed strict behavior standards on their members; excommunications were common, so were reinstatements after a public admission of guilt & repentance. Reuben's father Larkin was excommunicated more than once & always returned, then voluntarily left the Cowee Baptist church near the end of his life because of some unstated disagreement with the other members, his wife Rachel returned both their "letters" of membership after his death & stated that he had died before he joined another church.)
In 1882, according to oral family history, Reuben & Sarah were living on a farm at the headwaters of Hannah's Spring in Madison Co., NC sharecropping when Sarah had what was possibly a heat stroke while working in a hot field & died suddenly; she was only 43. Her burial place is evidently unmarked & unknown by anyone living today.
They had at least 6 children together:
Harriet Elizabeth "Hattie" Lindsey - Russell 1863 – 1942
James Albert "Jim" Lindsey 1866 – 1937
Mary Etta "Minetta" Lindsey - Rinehart 1866 – 1936
Isabella Josephine "Josie" Lindsey 1868 – 1951
William E Lindsey 1871 – unknown (he reputedly died in the 1890's)
Nancy Clementine Lindsey 1878 – unknown
(Clementine moved to Virginia & was still alive in 1903 at Big Stone Gap, VA where she was seen by her nephew Rob Russell, she had a young daughter with her. Big Stone Gap, VA was where local men went to work in the coal mines.)
Oral history by his nephew Rob Russell through cousin Richard Gosnell says that after his wife died suddenly, Reuben is said to have told his children he didn't care what happened to them, something to the effect of "You can drop dead, or you can leave, I don't care which." The children then walked back to their relatives in Cowee in Macon County on foot. Reuben stayed in Madison County.
Three years later Reuben married his 2nd wife Elender "Sade" Shelton - Gillespie - (Levster?) - (Rogers) of Shelton Laurel, Madison County on 7 November 1885 in Madison County, where they continued to live. They had 2-3 children, one of whom was born in the same year his 1st wife died & was later listed as his son:
James William "Doggett" Lindsey 1882 – 1961
Robert Larkin Rubin Lindsey 1885 – 1934
George Coleman Greenberry Lindsey 1892 – 1967
At one point I was told that Reuben went to the Spanish-American War in 1898, but I have not been able to find proof of this, and he would've been about 55 yrs old, a bit old to be a soldier again.
On the 1900 census, he & his wife Sade were living at Meadowfork in Spring Creek TWP with their 3 sons. I cannot find him on the census in 1910 but J Richard Gosnell said he was told by family that Reuben may have been visiting relatives in Spartanburg, SC at this time, he had a son Jim & 2 or 3 daughters, Harriet, Mary & possibly Josie, all living in the Spartanburg, SC area and working in the textile mills. His wife Sade was listed in the Spring Creek TWP near her daughter Lavada Jane Rinehart, their 2 youngest sons were living with her & all were "laborers" working "out". (In the early 1900's, Reuben's family often traveled between Meadowfork and Spartanburg on the railroad, working in the textile mills of Spartanburg/Union counties & returning to visit family & attend religious association meetings in Madison County, NC. Many of the mill families were from Madison County where opportunities for making money were limited.)
Reuben was living in Hot Springs in June 1911 when I was told by former Sheriff & cousin Dewey Foster that he died in the house known as the Winding Stairs (it was very distinctive on a tall hill next to the main road with a long set of zigzagging wooden stairs to the top). Reuben does not have a stone but according to J Richard Gosnell he is said by multiple people to be buried in Meadow Fork Baptist Church Cemetery on the left side near his children & grandchildren from his 1st marriage. His step-granddaughter Lura Plemmons, daughter of Lavada, told Richard Gosnell that she sat up all night with his body as was customary & attended the funeral the next day. Sade stayed in Meadowfork after Reuben died and later died in Beaverdam in Haywood County where two of her last three sons were living.
--Jeni Updated 7-30-2020
The Lindsey family attended Cowee Baptist Church, there are numerous records of their baptisms, excommunications and the participation of his father Larkin in the church meetings in his later life. Near the end of his life, Larkin was appointed to preach.
Reuben was a tall slender man of over 6 feet with black hair, dark brown eyes & a handlebar mustache that he evidently had all his life as it is in all of his photo's.
On 25 March 1862, Reuben joined the Confederate Army, he enlisted in Macon County and is also listed on the same day in Franklin Co, TN. The next month on 5 April 1862 in Macon Co, Reuben took out a license and married Sarah E Beasley, daughter of neighbors Reuben Beasley & Jane (Jenny) Hibbard Beasley; Sarah was said to be much shorter than her tall husband. Reuben evidently went off to the Army after the marriage but he went AWOL in Nov 1862 and returned after the winter in March 1863 to the military, their first child was born in Sept 1863.
Reuben was listed as injured and hospitalized 13 April 1864.
In July 1866 they had a set of twins, Jim and Mary. In Sept 1868 they had daughter Josie.
In 1870 they are listed in Cowee TWP living next to her parents. Reuben did not own any land but he had $100 worth of stated personal property. At some time in the 1870's to 1882, he & his wife moved onto the Cherokee Reservation & he worked as the manager of the general store, his daughter Mary told her children that she had lived there when young & played with Cherokee children and learned native herbs and dances there. Sarah's grandmother, Jane's mother Jahaley Hibbard, may have been part Cherokee, Jahaley sounds like an Anglicization of a Cherokee name Jahaliah. Reuben may have also had Cherokee ancestry, his mother Rachel was possibly a great-granddaughter of Halijon, a Cherokee Nation woman who married Charles Stiles Sr in the 1750's.
From the early 1800's, Sarah's grandmother Jahaley Styles - Hibbard had lived on Cowee Mtn with her family, she settled there when it was still Haywood County. I suspect that the land Reuben Beasley & her daughter Jane/Jenny lived on was originally her land because Jahaley (or Ja-ha-li-ah) lived in the area on top of the mountain from at least 1820 on, before Reuben Beasley arrived and before the land was taken from the Cherokee in war, and she was living with her daughter Jane/Jenny on every census from 1840 to the end of her life & was 102 years old on the 1880 census. I am told by a local woman in the 1970's that she remembered her parents talking about a notice printed of Jahaley's advanced age in a local newspaper around the time of the census in 1880 but I have not been able to find it in existing newspapers.
Reuben at one time was a Baptist. In October 1878, Reuben was baptized at Liberty Baptist Church in Cowee. Liberty was co-founded on Cowee Mountain by his wife's parents as a breakaway church from Cowee Baptist where both families had been members for decades, it was farther up the mountain from the main road where Cowee Baptist is located & was probably several miles nearer to where the Lindsey's & Beasley's lived. (His wife Sarah was baptized there in February 1878, eight months before her husband.)
Reuben was literate & known as a "singing schoolteacher", his family are known for having deep baritone voices and he taught music classes, he "lined" music for the congregation, meaning he stood up in front of the church & sang out a line of the hymn, then the rest of the illiterate congregation would copy him. His grandson Rob Russell said Reuben was also a very good artist, that he sketched horses particularly well.
In August of 1880 a year and a half after Reuben was baptized into the church, Reuben was excommunicated from Liberty; the cause was not given. (Sometimes the church minutes listed the cause, sometimes not. Some causes included: cussing on the Sabbath, fornication, getting into arguments, public drunkenness, etc. Unlike most baptist churches today, baptist churches in the 1800's imposed strict behavior standards on their members; excommunications were common, so were reinstatements after a public admission of guilt & repentance. Reuben's father Larkin was excommunicated more than once & always returned, then voluntarily left the Cowee Baptist church near the end of his life because of some unstated disagreement with the other members, his wife Rachel returned both their "letters" of membership after his death & stated that he had died before he joined another church.)
In 1882, according to oral family history, Reuben & Sarah were living on a farm at the headwaters of Hannah's Spring in Madison Co., NC sharecropping when Sarah had what was possibly a heat stroke while working in a hot field & died suddenly; she was only 43. Her burial place is evidently unmarked & unknown by anyone living today.
They had at least 6 children together:
Harriet Elizabeth "Hattie" Lindsey - Russell 1863 – 1942
James Albert "Jim" Lindsey 1866 – 1937
Mary Etta "Minetta" Lindsey - Rinehart 1866 – 1936
Isabella Josephine "Josie" Lindsey 1868 – 1951
William E Lindsey 1871 – unknown (he reputedly died in the 1890's)
Nancy Clementine Lindsey 1878 – unknown
(Clementine moved to Virginia & was still alive in 1903 at Big Stone Gap, VA where she was seen by her nephew Rob Russell, she had a young daughter with her. Big Stone Gap, VA was where local men went to work in the coal mines.)
Oral history by his nephew Rob Russell through cousin Richard Gosnell says that after his wife died suddenly, Reuben is said to have told his children he didn't care what happened to them, something to the effect of "You can drop dead, or you can leave, I don't care which." The children then walked back to their relatives in Cowee in Macon County on foot. Reuben stayed in Madison County.
Three years later Reuben married his 2nd wife Elender "Sade" Shelton - Gillespie - (Levster?) - (Rogers) of Shelton Laurel, Madison County on 7 November 1885 in Madison County, where they continued to live. They had 2-3 children, one of whom was born in the same year his 1st wife died & was later listed as his son:
James William "Doggett" Lindsey 1882 – 1961
Robert Larkin Rubin Lindsey 1885 – 1934
George Coleman Greenberry Lindsey 1892 – 1967
At one point I was told that Reuben went to the Spanish-American War in 1898, but I have not been able to find proof of this, and he would've been about 55 yrs old, a bit old to be a soldier again.
On the 1900 census, he & his wife Sade were living at Meadowfork in Spring Creek TWP with their 3 sons. I cannot find him on the census in 1910 but J Richard Gosnell said he was told by family that Reuben may have been visiting relatives in Spartanburg, SC at this time, he had a son Jim & 2 or 3 daughters, Harriet, Mary & possibly Josie, all living in the Spartanburg, SC area and working in the textile mills. His wife Sade was listed in the Spring Creek TWP near her daughter Lavada Jane Rinehart, their 2 youngest sons were living with her & all were "laborers" working "out". (In the early 1900's, Reuben's family often traveled between Meadowfork and Spartanburg on the railroad, working in the textile mills of Spartanburg/Union counties & returning to visit family & attend religious association meetings in Madison County, NC. Many of the mill families were from Madison County where opportunities for making money were limited.)
Reuben was living in Hot Springs in June 1911 when I was told by former Sheriff & cousin Dewey Foster that he died in the house known as the Winding Stairs (it was very distinctive on a tall hill next to the main road with a long set of zigzagging wooden stairs to the top). Reuben does not have a stone but according to J Richard Gosnell he is said by multiple people to be buried in Meadow Fork Baptist Church Cemetery on the left side near his children & grandchildren from his 1st marriage. His step-granddaughter Lura Plemmons, daughter of Lavada, told Richard Gosnell that she sat up all night with his body as was customary & attended the funeral the next day. Sade stayed in Meadowfork after Reuben died and later died in Beaverdam in Haywood County where two of her last three sons were living.
--Jeni Updated 7-30-2020
Reuben A Lindsey was the son of Larkin A Lindsey & Rachel McConnell Stiles Lindsey, he was born on Cowee Mountain in northern Macon County, NC, the 3rd child of at least 12 children. His parents settled the area in the land sale after the Cherokee War ended in 1828 when the new county of Macon was created and land was opened up for sale by the gov about 1830 for $2-5 an acre.
The Lindsey family attended Cowee Baptist Church, there are numerous records of their baptisms, excommunications and the participation of his father Larkin in the church meetings in his later life. Near the end of his life, Larkin was appointed to preach.
Reuben was a tall slender man of over 6 feet with black hair, dark brown eyes & a handlebar mustache that he evidently had all his life as it is in all of his photo's.
On 25 March 1862, Reuben joined the Confederate Army, he enlisted in Macon County and is also listed on the same day in Franklin Co, TN. The next month on 5 April 1862 in Macon Co, Reuben took out a license and married Sarah E Beasley, daughter of neighbors Reuben Beasley & Jane (Jenny) Hibbard Beasley; Sarah was said to be much shorter than her tall husband. Reuben evidently went off to the Army after the marriage but he went AWOL in Nov 1862 and returned after the winter in March 1863 to the military, their first child was born in Sept 1863.
Reuben was listed as injured and hospitalized 13 April 1864.
In July 1866 they had a set of twins, Jim and Mary. In Sept 1868 they had daughter Josie.
In 1870 they are listed in Cowee TWP living next to her parents. Reuben did not own any land but he had $100 worth of stated personal property. At some time in the 1870's to 1882, he & his wife moved onto the Cherokee Reservation & he worked as the manager of the general store, his daughter Mary told her children that she had lived there when young & played with Cherokee children and learned native herbs and dances there. Sarah's grandmother, Jane's mother Jahaley Hibbard, may have been part Cherokee, Jahaley sounds like an Anglicization of a Cherokee name Jahaliah. Reuben may have also had Cherokee ancestry, his mother Rachel was possibly a great-granddaughter of Halijon, a Cherokee Nation woman who married Charles Stiles Sr in the 1750's.
From the early 1800's, Sarah's grandmother Jahaley Styles - Hibbard had lived on Cowee Mtn with her family, she settled there when it was still Haywood County. I suspect that the land Reuben Beasley & her daughter Jane/Jenny lived on was originally her land because Jahaley (or Ja-ha-li-ah) lived in the area on top of the mountain from at least 1820 on, before Reuben Beasley arrived and before the land was taken from the Cherokee in war, and she was living with her daughter Jane/Jenny on every census from 1840 to the end of her life & was 102 years old on the 1880 census. I am told by a local woman in the 1970's that she remembered her parents talking about a notice printed of Jahaley's advanced age in a local newspaper around the time of the census in 1880 but I have not been able to find it in existing newspapers.
Reuben at one time was a Baptist. In October 1878, Reuben was baptized at Liberty Baptist Church in Cowee. Liberty was co-founded on Cowee Mountain by his wife's parents as a breakaway church from Cowee Baptist where both families had been members for decades, it was farther up the mountain from the main road where Cowee Baptist is located & was probably several miles nearer to where the Lindsey's & Beasley's lived. (His wife Sarah was baptized there in February 1878, eight months before her husband.)
Reuben was literate & known as a "singing schoolteacher", his family are known for having deep baritone voices and he taught music classes, he "lined" music for the congregation, meaning he stood up in front of the church & sang out a line of the hymn, then the rest of the illiterate congregation would copy him. His grandson Rob Russell said Reuben was also a very good artist, that he sketched horses particularly well.
In August of 1880 a year and a half after Reuben was baptized into the church, Reuben was excommunicated from Liberty; the cause was not given. (Sometimes the church minutes listed the cause, sometimes not. Some causes included: cussing on the Sabbath, fornication, getting into arguments, public drunkenness, etc. Unlike most baptist churches today, baptist churches in the 1800's imposed strict behavior standards on their members; excommunications were common, so were reinstatements after a public admission of guilt & repentance. Reuben's father Larkin was excommunicated more than once & always returned, then voluntarily left the Cowee Baptist church near the end of his life because of some unstated disagreement with the other members, his wife Rachel returned both their "letters" of membership after his death & stated that he had died before he joined another church.)
In 1882, according to oral family history, Reuben & Sarah were living on a farm at the headwaters of Hannah's Spring in Madison Co., NC sharecropping when Sarah had what was possibly a heat stroke while working in a hot field & died suddenly; she was only 43. Her burial place is evidently unmarked & unknown by anyone living today.
They had at least 6 children together:
Harriet Elizabeth "Hattie" Lindsey - Russell 1863 – 1942
James Albert "Jim" Lindsey 1866 – 1937
Mary Etta "Minetta" Lindsey - Rinehart 1866 – 1936
Isabella Josephine "Josie" Lindsey 1868 – 1951
William E Lindsey 1871 – unknown (he reputedly died in the 1890's)
Nancy Clementine Lindsey 1878 – unknown
(Clementine moved to Virginia & was still alive in 1903 at Big Stone Gap, VA where she was seen by her nephew Rob Russell, she had a young daughter with her. Big Stone Gap, VA was where local men went to work in the coal mines.)
Oral history by his nephew Rob Russell through cousin Richard Gosnell says that after his wife died suddenly, Reuben is said to have told his children he didn't care what happened to them, something to the effect of "You can drop dead, or you can leave, I don't care which." The children then walked back to their relatives in Cowee in Macon County on foot. Reuben stayed in Madison County.
Three years later Reuben married his 2nd wife Elender "Sade" Shelton - Gillespie - (Levster?) - (Rogers) of Shelton Laurel, Madison County on 7 November 1885 in Madison County, where they continued to live. They had 2-3 children, one of whom was born in the same year his 1st wife died & was later listed as his son:
James William "Doggett" Lindsey 1882 – 1961
Robert Larkin Rubin Lindsey 1885 – 1934
George Coleman Greenberry Lindsey 1892 – 1967
At one point I was told that Reuben went to the Spanish-American War in 1898, but I have not been able to find proof of this, and he would've been about 55 yrs old, a bit old to be a soldier again.
On the 1900 census, he & his wife Sade were living at Meadowfork in Spring Creek TWP with their 3 sons. I cannot find him on the census in 1910 but J Richard Gosnell said he was told by family that Reuben may have been visiting relatives in Spartanburg, SC at this time, he had a son Jim & 2 or 3 daughters, Harriet, Mary & possibly Josie, all living in the Spartanburg, SC area and working in the textile mills. His wife Sade was listed in the Spring Creek TWP near her daughter Lavada Jane Rinehart, their 2 youngest sons were living with her & all were "laborers" working "out". (In the early 1900's, Reuben's family often traveled between Meadowfork and Spartanburg on the railroad, working in the textile mills of Spartanburg/Union counties & returning to visit family & attend religious association meetings in Madison County, NC. Many of the mill families were from Madison County where opportunities for making money were limited.)
Reuben was living in Hot Springs in June 1911 when I was told by former Sheriff & cousin Dewey Foster that he died in the house known as the Winding Stairs (it was very distinctive on a tall hill next to the main road with a long set of zigzagging wooden stairs to the top). Reuben does not have a stone but according to J Richard Gosnell he is said by multiple people to be buried in Meadow Fork Baptist Church Cemetery on the left side near his children & grandchildren from his 1st marriage. His step-granddaughter Lura Plemmons, daughter of Lavada, told Richard Gosnell that she sat up all night with his body as was customary & attended the funeral the next day. Sade stayed in Meadowfork after Reuben died and later died in Beaverdam in Haywood County where two of her last three sons were living.
--Jeni Updated 7-30-2020
The Lindsey family attended Cowee Baptist Church, there are numerous records of their baptisms, excommunications and the participation of his father Larkin in the church meetings in his later life. Near the end of his life, Larkin was appointed to preach.
Reuben was a tall slender man of over 6 feet with black hair, dark brown eyes & a handlebar mustache that he evidently had all his life as it is in all of his photo's.
On 25 March 1862, Reuben joined the Confederate Army, he enlisted in Macon County and is also listed on the same day in Franklin Co, TN. The next month on 5 April 1862 in Macon Co, Reuben took out a license and married Sarah E Beasley, daughter of neighbors Reuben Beasley & Jane (Jenny) Hibbard Beasley; Sarah was said to be much shorter than her tall husband. Reuben evidently went off to the Army after the marriage but he went AWOL in Nov 1862 and returned after the winter in March 1863 to the military, their first child was born in Sept 1863.
Reuben was listed as injured and hospitalized 13 April 1864.
In July 1866 they had a set of twins, Jim and Mary. In Sept 1868 they had daughter Josie.
In 1870 they are listed in Cowee TWP living next to her parents. Reuben did not own any land but he had $100 worth of stated personal property. At some time in the 1870's to 1882, he & his wife moved onto the Cherokee Reservation & he worked as the manager of the general store, his daughter Mary told her children that she had lived there when young & played with Cherokee children and learned native herbs and dances there. Sarah's grandmother, Jane's mother Jahaley Hibbard, may have been part Cherokee, Jahaley sounds like an Anglicization of a Cherokee name Jahaliah. Reuben may have also had Cherokee ancestry, his mother Rachel was possibly a great-granddaughter of Halijon, a Cherokee Nation woman who married Charles Stiles Sr in the 1750's.
From the early 1800's, Sarah's grandmother Jahaley Styles - Hibbard had lived on Cowee Mtn with her family, she settled there when it was still Haywood County. I suspect that the land Reuben Beasley & her daughter Jane/Jenny lived on was originally her land because Jahaley (or Ja-ha-li-ah) lived in the area on top of the mountain from at least 1820 on, before Reuben Beasley arrived and before the land was taken from the Cherokee in war, and she was living with her daughter Jane/Jenny on every census from 1840 to the end of her life & was 102 years old on the 1880 census. I am told by a local woman in the 1970's that she remembered her parents talking about a notice printed of Jahaley's advanced age in a local newspaper around the time of the census in 1880 but I have not been able to find it in existing newspapers.
Reuben at one time was a Baptist. In October 1878, Reuben was baptized at Liberty Baptist Church in Cowee. Liberty was co-founded on Cowee Mountain by his wife's parents as a breakaway church from Cowee Baptist where both families had been members for decades, it was farther up the mountain from the main road where Cowee Baptist is located & was probably several miles nearer to where the Lindsey's & Beasley's lived. (His wife Sarah was baptized there in February 1878, eight months before her husband.)
Reuben was literate & known as a "singing schoolteacher", his family are known for having deep baritone voices and he taught music classes, he "lined" music for the congregation, meaning he stood up in front of the church & sang out a line of the hymn, then the rest of the illiterate congregation would copy him. His grandson Rob Russell said Reuben was also a very good artist, that he sketched horses particularly well.
In August of 1880 a year and a half after Reuben was baptized into the church, Reuben was excommunicated from Liberty; the cause was not given. (Sometimes the church minutes listed the cause, sometimes not. Some causes included: cussing on the Sabbath, fornication, getting into arguments, public drunkenness, etc. Unlike most baptist churches today, baptist churches in the 1800's imposed strict behavior standards on their members; excommunications were common, so were reinstatements after a public admission of guilt & repentance. Reuben's father Larkin was excommunicated more than once & always returned, then voluntarily left the Cowee Baptist church near the end of his life because of some unstated disagreement with the other members, his wife Rachel returned both their "letters" of membership after his death & stated that he had died before he joined another church.)
In 1882, according to oral family history, Reuben & Sarah were living on a farm at the headwaters of Hannah's Spring in Madison Co., NC sharecropping when Sarah had what was possibly a heat stroke while working in a hot field & died suddenly; she was only 43. Her burial place is evidently unmarked & unknown by anyone living today.
They had at least 6 children together:
Harriet Elizabeth "Hattie" Lindsey - Russell 1863 – 1942
James Albert "Jim" Lindsey 1866 – 1937
Mary Etta "Minetta" Lindsey - Rinehart 1866 – 1936
Isabella Josephine "Josie" Lindsey 1868 – 1951
William E Lindsey 1871 – unknown (he reputedly died in the 1890's)
Nancy Clementine Lindsey 1878 – unknown
(Clementine moved to Virginia & was still alive in 1903 at Big Stone Gap, VA where she was seen by her nephew Rob Russell, she had a young daughter with her. Big Stone Gap, VA was where local men went to work in the coal mines.)
Oral history by his nephew Rob Russell through cousin Richard Gosnell says that after his wife died suddenly, Reuben is said to have told his children he didn't care what happened to them, something to the effect of "You can drop dead, or you can leave, I don't care which." The children then walked back to their relatives in Cowee in Macon County on foot. Reuben stayed in Madison County.
Three years later Reuben married his 2nd wife Elender "Sade" Shelton - Gillespie - (Levster?) - (Rogers) of Shelton Laurel, Madison County on 7 November 1885 in Madison County, where they continued to live. They had 2-3 children, one of whom was born in the same year his 1st wife died & was later listed as his son:
James William "Doggett" Lindsey 1882 – 1961
Robert Larkin Rubin Lindsey 1885 – 1934
George Coleman Greenberry Lindsey 1892 – 1967
At one point I was told that Reuben went to the Spanish-American War in 1898, but I have not been able to find proof of this, and he would've been about 55 yrs old, a bit old to be a soldier again.
On the 1900 census, he & his wife Sade were living at Meadowfork in Spring Creek TWP with their 3 sons. I cannot find him on the census in 1910 but J Richard Gosnell said he was told by family that Reuben may have been visiting relatives in Spartanburg, SC at this time, he had a son Jim & 2 or 3 daughters, Harriet, Mary & possibly Josie, all living in the Spartanburg, SC area and working in the textile mills. His wife Sade was listed in the Spring Creek TWP near her daughter Lavada Jane Rinehart, their 2 youngest sons were living with her & all were "laborers" working "out". (In the early 1900's, Reuben's family often traveled between Meadowfork and Spartanburg on the railroad, working in the textile mills of Spartanburg/Union counties & returning to visit family & attend religious association meetings in Madison County, NC. Many of the mill families were from Madison County where opportunities for making money were limited.)
Reuben was living in Hot Springs in June 1911 when I was told by former Sheriff & cousin Dewey Foster that he died in the house known as the Winding Stairs (it was very distinctive on a tall hill next to the main road with a long set of zigzagging wooden stairs to the top). Reuben does not have a stone but according to J Richard Gosnell he is said by multiple people to be buried in Meadow Fork Baptist Church Cemetery on the left side near his children & grandchildren from his 1st marriage. His step-granddaughter Lura Plemmons, daughter of Lavada, told Richard Gosnell that she sat up all night with his body as was customary & attended the funeral the next day. Sade stayed in Meadowfork after Reuben died and later died in Beaverdam in Haywood County where two of her last three sons were living.
--Jeni Updated 7-30-2020
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