Julia Emrette Bigham and Her Ancestors

After a long delay to accommodate some extensive work travel, I'm continuing a series of posts about my second great-grandfather, Walter Samuel Smith, and his wife, Julia Emrette Bigham. In my last post about this family, I wrote about Walter's siblings. In researching Julia's siblings, I went down the rabbit hole a bit and decided to sketch an outline of her entire Bigham ancestry. I'll come back to this family in more depth later, but wanted to get the basics recorded.

Julia Emrette Bigham Smith

Julia Bigham and Her Siblings

Julia was born April 20, 1869 in Perry County, Illinois, the daughter of William John Bigham and Angeline Campbell. She was the eldest of four children born to William and Angeline. Her siblings were as follows:

Levi Leo Bigham (b. 1872; d. 1949; m. Grace Hodges)
Emma Jane Bigham (b. 1874; d. 1917; m. Robert Reider)
Viva Louella Bigham (b. 1877; d. 1974)

The Bigham family lived in Perry County, where Julia's father William was a farmer. Unfortunately, in December 1876, when Julia was just seven, her father died at the age of 42. Her mother, Angeline was six months pregnant at the time of her husband's death. Not long afterward, Angeline moved the family to Rome Township, in nearby Jefferson County. Her brother, Francis Campbell, was a farmer there, and she must have wanted to be closer to her family. Angeline was only 25 years old when she lost her husband. She did not remarry.

All three of Angeline and William's daughters moved to Los Angeles as young women. Julia, the eldest, appears to have been the first to make the journey. She was living there by 1890, when, at age 20, she married Walter Samuel Smith. 

Emma seems to have been the next to join her sister in Los Angeles. In 1899, Emma married Robert Reider, son of Israel Reider and Harriet Leonard, in California. They had two daughters, Katharyn Reider and Ruth Reider. Emma died in Los Angeles in 1914 at the age of 42. 

Viva also left Illinois for California, and was living there by at least 1910, when she is found in the census living with her sister Julia and brother-in-law Walter Smith. Viva worked in a chocolate factory for many years. She never married.

Levi Bigham stayed in Illinois, where he married Grace Hodges, daughter of Isham Hodges and Frances Hays, in 1896. They settled in Marion County, where Levi worked as a farmer. Levi and Grace did not have any children.

The location of Chester County in South Carolina

William John Bigham

Julia’s father, William John Bigham, was born May 25, 1834 in Chester County, South Carolina. William was the son of Elijah Bigham and Elizabeth Isabelle Gaston. Elijah was a farmer, a popular profession in Chester County. Census reports show most of the Bigham family's neighbors were involved in farming. Elijah and Elizabeth had ten sons, so William grew up in a bustling household full of siblings.

In the mid-1850s, the Bigham family moved from South Carolina to Perry County, Illinois. William, the third eldest of the children, would have been in his mid-teens at the time of the move. The Bighams appear to have moved as an extended family unit. In addition to his parents and siblings, at least one set of William's grandparents traveled with him to Illinois. His paternal grandparents, Isaac Bigham and Rachel Weir, are buried in Hopewell Cemetery in Pickneyville, Perry County.

William's eldest brother, Jefferson Bigham, set up his own farm in Perry County. In 1860, both William and his older brother Ebenzer Bigham are listed in the U.S. Census as farm hands on their brother Jefferson's farm. However, the brothers are also listed in that same census in the household of their mother, Elizabeth, on her nearby property. Ebenzer had bought his own 80-acre parcel of land to farm in 1857, so it is odd that he isn't recorded as living there in 1860. While it's not clear where exactly William was residing in 1860, it's clear that he was in close proximity to his mother and siblings, and involved in farming.

On November 24, 1866, William married Angeline Campbell, the daughter of Andrew Ross Campbell and Cindrilla Evaline Greene. Angeline was born October 7, 1851 in Perry County and was just 15 when she married William, who was 32, more than twice her age. While this may have been an instance of true love, the marriage might also have resulted from a shortage of young men in the years following the Civil War. Angeline may not have had a lot of options when it came to marriage.

Angeline’s father, Andrew Ross Campbell, had also come to Perry County from Chester, South Carolina. There, he married Cindrilla Greene, the daughter of Levi Greene and Elizabeth Elen Short. Levi and Elizabeth had arrived in Perry County from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, respectively.

The Thresherman's Association in Pickneyville, Perry County, hosts an annual Fall Festival that includes demonstrations of farming techniques and an antique tractor pull, in celebration of the area's farming history. Our Bigham ancestors were farmers in Perry County.
[photo source: City of Pickneyville]

Elijah Bigham

Elijah Bigham, father of William John Bigham, was born about 1800 in Chester, South Carolina. He married Elizabeth Isabelle Gaston, the daughter of William Gaston and Jennet (or Janet) MacMillan. These families were both Scots-Irish, people of Scottish ancestry who had come from what is now Northern Ireland to South Carolina in the mid-1700s. They were part of a large wave of Scots-Irish immigration to the American south.

Elijah Bigham and Elizabeth Gaston had ten sons:

George W. Bigham (b. 1828; d. 1864 in the Civil War; m. Mary Ann Campbell)
Isaac Jefferson Bigham "Jefferson" (b. 1829; d. 1874; m. Sarah Jane Campbell)
Robert Bigham (b. 1830; d. 1871; m. Cindrilla Greene)
Ebenezer Bigham (b. abt 1831; d. 1878; m. (1) Martha Campbell (2) Dorothy Wood)
William John Bigham (b. 1834; d. 1876; m. Angeline Campbell)
Josiah Bigham (b. abt 1836; d. 1874; m. (1) Harriet Logan (2) Octavia Willis)
Middleton Bigham (b. 1837; d. 1913; m. Mary Elizabeth Fones)
Samuel Thomas Bigham (b. 1845; d. 1918; m. (1) Permelia Gibson (2) Nancy Boyd)
Leroy Bigham (b. 1846; d. 1900; m. (1) Barbara Beck (2) Clarinda Willis (3) Malanda Justice
Alexander Bigham (b. 1848; d. 1899; m. Josephine Foreman)

There are two common trends that become apparent when looking at the lives of the Bigham brothers. Many of the brothers died fairly young, in their 30s or 40s. Also, four of the brothers married Campbell women. The eldest brothers, George and Jefferson, appear to have married sisters. Mary Ann and Sarah Jane Campbell were likely both the daughters of Andrew Campbell (b. abt. 1799). Ebenezer's wife, Martha Campbell, was the daughter of John M. Campbell and Nancy Ayres, and almost certainly a cousin of Mary Ann and Sarah Jane, although I haven't worked out all the details of the extended Campbell relationships yet. William, my ancestors, married Angeline Campbell, who is likely connected to the other Campbell girls. There were a lot of Bighams and Campbells living in Chester County, and the families had a close relationship.

One other thing to note is that the third Bigham brother, Robert, married Cindrilla Greene. This is the same Cindrilla Greene who is my fourth great-grandmother, via her first marriage to Andrew Ross Campbell.

Isaac Bigham

Isaac, father of Elijah Bigham, was born, rather incredibly, on July 4, 1776, in Chester, South Carolina. He married Rachel Weir, daughter of George and Mary Weir, who, like Isaac’s parents, were Scots-Irish immigrants from Northern Ireland. He died in October 1862 in Pickneyville, Perry County, Illinois.

James Bigham

James C. Bigham is our earliest known Bigham ancestor. He was born in County Antrim, Ireland, and likely emigrated to America with his parents as a teenager or young man. He married Nancy J. McFadden. He died in South Carolina in 1801, just a year after the death of his son, Elijah.