PRATHER FAMILY STORIES
Contributed by: Jo Carolyn Beebe
December 25, 1997
Francinah (Townsend?) Prather is buried at Pleasant Ridge Cemetery in
Union County. She was born in South Carolina on 20 November 1780. She
married Josiah Hyatt Prather who died in February, 1824, in South Carolina
leaving six minor children and four children of age. These children were:
John Thedford, Sarah, King, Martha, Margaret, William, Mary, Priscilla,
Josiah, and Bassell.
Family oral history: When one of Francinah's sons was about 16, he
ran away with one of the family slave boys. Francinah had a nine week old
infant at the time. She hid the family money in a pea barrel, got on a
horse with her baby and rode off to find the runaway boys. She found them
"up North" picking apples. She was gone from home about a year. I heard
this story from my grandmother, Lillian Prather Anderson, who was
Francinah's great-granddaughter.
In the early 1840s Francinah moved to Tippah County with several of
her adult children. Her son, Bassell, who never married, lived with her.
She died on 5 November 1851. Francinah's son, Josiah, was born in
Laurens County, SC, on 5 November 1818. He married Lydia Wesson in
South Carolina. When they left South Carolina, they lived in Alabama for
a few years. Their sons Hollaway and Cicero were born in that state.
After they settled in Tippah County, Feddie Fee, Mal Siree, Sirennia, and
Tofie Rone were born.
Lydia Wesson Prather was born in South Carolina around 1819.
During the Civil War she hauled cotton from Mississippi to New Orleans
in an oxen-drawn wagon and returned with needed groceries. She brought
home with her some sugar cane syrup. Her son, Tofie Rone, enjoyed that
particular brand of syrup as long as he lived.
Josiah and Lydia's son, Holloway, became ill during the war. Josiah
went to Memphis from their north Mississippi home for medicine. On the
way he was detained by the Yankees for several days. Holloway died in
1864 at the age of eighteen. Lydia died around 1868. Left with a family
of small children, Josiah soon married Mary Lucinda. Their children were
Frances R., Reslobules, Mary Adeline, Bethena, Amoline L., and Jim Ed.
Josiah died on 12 November 1900. He is buried at the Mt. Zion
Cemetery in Union County.