Jane Conner Graham
Jane Conner Graham
Patriot Pioneer
Woman of Horry County
1799-1862
Dark war clouds came south with a mighty roar. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. Civil War between the north and the south was a bloody battle field sometimes brother fought against brother. Jane wrote a letter to her daughter Sarah in Texas rehashing how she could hear the bombardment from Sherman’s Army in Charles Town South Carolina over two hours away!
Graham roared, “I have ten (10) sons to this Southern war! Only wish I had ten (10) more sons to give to the Confederate Army!”
Sitting beneath an enormous live oak tree dangling with Spanish moss Jane took paper and pen in hand writing a letter to her daughter Sarah Rebecca in Texas expressing her deepest feelings concerning the War Between the States. Soon after the letter was dispatched to Texas in mid 1862 Conner-Graham died peacefully in her sleep. She was found dead in her own bed thought to have been a heart attack at the age of sixty two years and nine months. Several months pyre to this time Jane had a preminission. She held high regards for Stephen Joe trusting him with instructions at such time requesting a celebration affaire requesting that her slaves sing and rejoice because she was going home. Following the wake Conner-Graham’s body was buried beside the love of her life William Bellamy Graham and their daughter. Dorcas Louisa died in 1853 while she was engaged to her first cousin, the young Doctor McQueen at seventeen years of age from diphtheria fever. Dorcas died in his loving arms.
Stephen Joe wouldn’t hear tell of anyone other than him digging Miss Jane’s grave. He drove a wagon pulled by a team of enormous white horses that carried her corpse to the family burial grounds. During her memorial service Jane’s slaves sang and hummed spirited songs she so loved. The individuals celebrated her coming home dancing and clapping their hands, walking barefoot behind the funeral wagon following the family procession they wept with family and friends. Many were wondering what would happen to them now since Miss Jane has crossed over. She was a kindly lady but also a very strong woman who knew how to keep things together. This was not the first time heartbreak came to Mitchell Swamp nor would it be the last. It was a tragic day for all who knew and loves the Patriot Pioneer Woman of Horry County, Jane Conner Graham. Battle war cries were leaving blood baths behind in its path. Soon after her funeral the Gallant Old Graham plantations was burned to the grounds and destroyed by good-for-nothing scalawags!
[Photo courtesy: Carolyn H. Buckley]
The magnificent old homestead where Jane gave birth to seventeen children was pilferage and plundered by ‘scum’ then burned to the ground by some of Sherman’s bummers or Union soldiers not even sparing the slave quarters that resemble a town unto itself.
When Sarah Rebecca learned from her Horry County siblings and faithful cousins about the devastating news it swept her off her feet weeping for months on end becoming ill. Her southern family wrote letters informing Sarah that her antebellum home and plantation she loved so dearly was burned to the ground and destroyed by scum. Poor Sarah never came back home again to Mitchell Swamp as she long to do. She died brokenhearted in her mid thirties in Texas far away from her homelands leaving a brood of children to an alcoholic father.
William Bellamy and Jane Conner Graham’s seeds are as the ‘sands’ too many to count. They are sped all over the globe with many descendants still living in Horry County South Carolina.
Before our country was even formed these Scottish-Irish-French ancestors were here in mid 1700’s making history. Reminders left behind in Horry County of that history rests here in the ‘oldest documented’ cemetery nestled in a lightly wooded area on the original gallant Old Graham Plantation belonging to William Bellamy and Jane Conner Graham.
Photo: Courtesy of Carolyn H. Buckley]
Old Graham Cemetery
Loris South Carolina
Loris, S. C. Horry County
Take Loris Business Hwy # 9 west about 6 miles. Go through Finklea Crossroads until you come to Hwy. # 792. Turn right on 792 continue for about (1) mile. Take a left off old farm dirt road (a small house). Glance left from farm road walking a short distance until you see a patch of scattered woods. The William Bellamy Graham family sacred grounds lie on the immediate left. It was dubbed Mitchell Swamp’s “Old Graham Cemetery.”
Conner Graham was the wife of William Bellamy Graham and mother of their (17) children including Hosea Aldeton Graham Sr. born on Mitchell Swamp, Loris, S.C., migrated to Leon County in 1859 in (2) covered wagons with his little family and a slave family given to him by his mother. Conner-Graham was the great grandmother of Bessie Graham Allbritton of Buffalo, Texas.