Julia Anna Camp was the 2nd child & daughter of Saul Abisha Camp & Harriet Caroline Surratt Camp of Limestone district in Spartanburg County (which later became part of Cherokee County), one of 8 surviving children of Saul & Harriet. Her father Saul was said to have been a genial, well-respected & wealthy merchant who family lore says was a wagoner who regularly traveled north on unpaved roads to bring back goods for sale here in the south, he is said to have been a Mason & had many wealthy & influential friends, one of whom was a congressmen from the district. Saul, always being an unselfconscious friend, was north on one of his business trips when he recognized his congressman friend on the steps of the Capital & disembarked from his wagon still dressed in his dusty work attire & entered the Capital building to greet him. Saul was honored to be chosen by the Masons to transport the South Carolina stone for the Washington Monument to the new capital city of Washington, DC.

Julia grew up in an influential household with parents who were part of the ruling class of the antebellum south, wealthier than the average, she would have lacked for nothing; (Julia was said to have been a traditional Scarlett O'Hara-type southern belle of her day: beautiful, emotional and headstrong.) Which is why her parents were hesitant to find that a Spartanburg city businessman named Miles Gentry, who was the outgoing Sheriff of the district, was interested in courting her in 1857 when she was only 15 yrs old & he was 31 yrs old. They at first refused their permission for Miles to court Julia, not only given that he was so old but that she was so immature. According to family folklore, Julia was known as "the belle of the county" for her beauty; she was black-haired & white-skinned with beautiful blue eyes & a voluptuous figure, and as the daughter of a wealthy man she would've been quite a catch someday. Her parents, perhaps hoping for a better marriage, told Miles Gentry that she was too young & not yet mature enough for marriage because she had not yet been entrusted with the keys to the cupboard. This was a time of slavery when black servants were not allowed full access to the foods & valuables of the white household, they were locked up to prevent pilfering, so by saying they had not yet entrusted Julia with the keys, they were implying that she was still too immature to be the mistress of her own household.

Miles Gentry did not stop thinking of Julia however, he kept returning, and eventually her parents relented & gave their consent for courtship and also marriage, and Julia was married when she was 16 in a wedding that was the event of the season. Miles soon bought a big two-story house in one of the best neighborhoods on the outskirts of Spartanburg close to Wofford College and near the Cleveland's & the Bivings's on Church St (now North Church Street) for his new bride, it contained several hundred acres.

Miles was an enterprising businessman, his name is on many land transactions of the 1800's in Spartanburg County, he evidently bought & sold land as an investment. As Sheriff, he would've had access to insider information as to who was in trouble financially. His holdings in 1880 on the census included a $5000 farm & a prosperous brickmaking enterprise. Before he died he also owned many rental properties; his wife and children would have wanted for little.

Julia was a beautiful young wife and mother, her photos show a black-haired woman with impeccable white skin and expensive clothes. She was said by her family to have been a very loving mother to her children, very warm & generous with her time & affection, and a very considerate & generous hostess to all.

There is a defining story concerning Julia's state of mind at the end of the Civil War, it was told to me by their granddaughter as an example of Julia & Miles's personal differences & temperaments. Miles was said to have been downtown & sent word home by a Negro manservant that his wife should send his "dancing shoes" into town because there had been arranged on the spur of the moment an honorary ball to be given that night for a representative from the North who was there to secretly negotiate terms of surrender with the local business leaders; this was not long before the end of the war & Sherman's devastating march through the South which would break the back of the southern resistance, it is also said to be one reason why Sherman did not have to venture into the northern area of the state on his march of destruction.

When Julia got her husband's message, for her own reasons she did not send her husband's shoes, she brought them herself, perhaps wanting to meet one of these despised northerners who were devastating her economy & way of life. Miles was at the hotel where the ball would take place, and so was the northern representative, who, when he saw Julia in the lobby, was struck by her raven-haired beauty. Julia had a young son in tow, and as a gesture of admiration, the man reached down & pressed a coin in the young boy's palm. But Julia, a fervent southerner, would have none of his admiration, she opened her son's palm & with one finger flipped the coin out onto the floor, took her son's hand, and, head high, turned her back on the northerner & walked away. Miles, when he later came face-to-face with his wife, asked her if she realized what she had done, he said "You could've gotten me killed." Her reply, handed down through the family, was said to be "I don't care." This story was told to me by a great-aunt as an example of not only their differences but also of Julia's personality and mind, and perhaps as a cautionary tale against unreasonable emotionalism. (As far as I know, no harm ever came to Miles because of his wife's behavior at this encounter.)

Miles Gentry was appointed Sheriff a 2nd term in 1880, his family seems to have developed a distaste of him by this time, perhaps because he was drinking too much, something that seems to be common among policemen & those who see too much of the seamier side of life. Those who knew Miles well did not talk much about him, but they registered their disapproval by their refusal to say anything good about him; when J. B. O. Landrum wrote his acclaimed "History of Spartanburg County" published in 1900, he only mentioned Miles Gentry in passing while discussing other people & institutions in great detail. Landrum's passing over Sheriff Miles Gentry in his detailed biographies of the dignitaries and prominent families of the county says volumes about how he felt about him. (Landrum also left out one or two other prominent businessmen in the area, focusing only on those families he constantly emphasized were morally upright Christians. I wonder what he would've said if he had spoken of Miles Gentry. Landrum seems to have been of the old-school way of thought that if you can't say something good about someone, you shouldn't say anything.)

My great-aunt said her mother Hattie turned against her father Miles after he hired a drunken doctor to attend her mother Julia at her last childbearing, the child died and Julia died while being operated on by this doctor due to complications from the childbirth. After Julia's death, multiple broken liquor bottles were found just outside the kitchen window where the doctor had thrown them while operating on Julia on the kitchen table in what was obviously an emergency operation. My great-grandmother Hattie never forgot her loving mother, and it took her many years to forgive her father for hiring this alcoholic doctor, but I suspect she did, she tended Miles in his final years of life after his 2nd wife died. Miles died in her home, where Hattie emphasized the evils of "the demon rum" & taught her children self-discipline and abstinence.

Julia left behind 7 living children, the youngest 5 & the oldest 20, an affectionate & loving mother deeply missed by her children.

--Jeni
10/2017