Peters Family History

Prepared for the Peters Family Reunion

15 October 2000

The Peters family reunion is being held at the Fountain City United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. The reunion brings together descendants of Grandpa and Grandma Peters - Alva Edward Peters and Sallie Jane Cole. With rare exception, everyone who attends the Peters family reunion is either descended from Alva Peters and Sallie Jane Cole or else is married to somebody who is.

Grandma and Grandpa Peters were both born in 1870. Both of them died in 1942. They are buried at the Mt. Vernon Cemetery in Anderson County.

I have generally heard Alva and Sallie Jane's children referred to as "the brothers and sisters", and their grandchildren referred to as "the cousins". The brothers and sisters were Lester, Elzie, Ella, Birchel, Jonnie, Bob, and Arthur. Jonnie died as an infant, and he was a twin of Birchel.

Some of us knew Grandma and Grandpa Peters and remember them well. Many of us knew the brothers and sisters and remember them well. None of the brothers and sisters are still living. Our two oldest family members at the reunion are Aunt Jo who is Birchel Peters' widow and Aunt Mary who is Bob Peters' widow. The reunion is now primarily a reunion of the cousins and their children and grandchildren.

Our Peters family is from Anderson County, Tennessee. Alva Peters was from Anderson County. His parents were married in 1865 in Anderson County, and Alva was raised in Anderson County. Sallie Jane Cole was from Anderson County. Her parents were married in 1865 in Anderson County, and Sallie was mostly raised in Anderson County. However, I think she was born in Knox County and lived there for a short while before moving back to Anderson County.

The children of Alva Peters and Sallie Jane Peters all lived in East Tennessee. Several of them ended up in Knox County, but they all started out in Anderson County. Most of the cousins stayed in East Tennessee, although a few of the cousins moved elsewhere. With each succeeding generation after that, there were more and more of the family members who spread out throughout the country, but there is a very strong contingent of this Peters family who are still in East Tennessee.

This is the second reunion for which I have produced a Peters family history. As before, much of the information comes from a family history which was compiled by Irene Tarver (Virginia Irene Peters). In turn, Irene found much of the information in the Peters family bible. As was true last year, the location of the bible is not known. If anyone knows where it is, please let me know. I would love to make copies of the family history pages from the bible.

Since last year, I have been able to supplement Irene's data with information from a number of other sources such as census data, court house records, and tombstone inscriptions. So this year's family history has many changes and additions.

Please let me know if there are any errors or omissions in this history, and I will make the corrections. I know we do not have all the younger generations listed for all the families. Where we do have people listed, we often have a birth date but not a birth place, or we have a date of death but not a location where someone is buried. Any such information would be a valuable addition to the data base.

Jerry Bryan

Our Peters Pedigree

I am going to include some narrative about the ancestors of Grandma and Grandpa Peters. But as they say, you can't tell the players without a program. So here's a little pedigree chart to make the narrative a little easier to follow.

As you can see, we have three different Peters lines. Grandpa Peters had two grandparents who were Peters. Grandma Peters had one grandparent who was a Peters. William Cole is what genealogists call a brick wall. I have not been able to find his parents.

I have not been able to find out for sure if our three Peters lines are related. They probably are. For example, I think that Zipporah Peters and Jane Peters were sisters, but I can't prove it yet. If they were, then Grandma and Grandpa Peters were second cousins.

The first two Peters into Anderson County were Tobias Peters, Sr. and Henry Peters, Sr. who moved from Greenbrier County, Virginia to Anderson County, Tennessee in 1797. Strictly speaking, they moved to Knox County because Anderson County was not created until 1801. But they moved to the part of Knox County that became Anderson County when Anderson County was created. Tobias Peters and Henry Peters both show up on the taxpayer list for the first Anderson County tax in 1802.

Just to complicate things further, the part of Greenbrier County where the Peters lived in Virginia later became Monroe County, and Greenbrier County and Monroe County became part of West Virginia during the Civil War. So if you want to find the Rehoboth Church where Tobias Peters was married (it is still standing - it is the oldest church west of the Alleghenies), you have to go to Monroe County, West Virginia. Monroe County, West Virginia is in a very rural and very mountainous part of West Virginia, up against the Virginia-West Virginia border.

Most researchers believe that Tobias and Henry were brothers, but nobody has been able to prove it so far. Tobias was married to Elizabeth Rachel Scarborough and Henry was married to Mary Wiatt. The Peters moved to Tennessee along with the Scarbrough family, and the community where they settled became known as the Scarbrough community. The name is spelled variously as Scarbrough, Scarborough, Scarbro, and Scarboro, but it's always pronounced as Scarbro. There were many, many Peters-Scarbrough marriages, and I have had to spend just about as much time researching the Scarbroughs as researching the Peters in order to sort out who is whom.

The Scarbroughs were Quakers back in Virginia. I don't really know for sure what they were in Tennessee. I don't know what the Peters were in Virginia, but they were nearly all Methodists in Tennessee. The Rehoboth Church in Virginia where Tobias Peters married Elizabeth Rachel Scarborough was founded by the Methodist circuit rider, Bishop Francis Asbury.

Tobias was a Methodist exhorter, and many of his sons and grandsons were Methodist ministers in the Holston Conference. Tobias and Henry were trustees when the Methodists bought some Anderson County land for the Bethel Meeting House in 1821.

Remember from the pedigree chart that Grandpa Peters was the grandson of John W. Peters and also of Zipporah Peters. Also remember that Grandma Peters was the granddaughter of Jane Peters. These three people, John W. Peters, Zipporah Peters, and Jane Peters, were all of an age to be grandchildren either of Tobias Peters or of Henry Peters. If so, they were all brothers and sisters or cousins. I think they were, but the only one I have been able to prove so far is Zipporah.

Zipporah was the granddaughter of Henry Peters. Here is Zipporah Peters' pedigree. She was named for her Grandma England who was Vesta Zipporah Choate. Vesta Zipporah Choate was known by her middle name of Zipporah. Using middle names is a very old tradition in our family. So I suspect that Zipporah Peters' name was really Vesta Zipporah Peters, but I have not been able to prove it.

If Jane Peters who married John England was Zipporah's sister, then Jane's pedigree would look just like Zipporah's. If this should turn out to be true, then it would be the case that Jane named her daughter Vesta Clay England after Jane's Grandma England who was Vesta Zipporah Choate. And if this is true, then Vesta named her daughter Sallie Jane Cole after Vesta's Grandma Peters who was Sarah B. England, and after Vesta's mother who was Jane Peters.

Family of Grandma Peters (Sallie Jane Cole)

Sallie Jane Cole was one of four sisters. They were Ida, Cordie, Sallie, and Mollie. Ida and Cordie were twins.

Ida Cole married Phillip Wells. Some of you all remember Ida as Ida Wells or as Aunt Ida. Children of Phillip Wells and Ida Cole were Dicy Clay Wells, William H. (Bill) Wells, Bessie M. Wells, George Edgar Wells, Ernest Clifton Wells, and Robert C. Wells. The only one of these children for whom I have any information is Bill Wells. Bill married Ann Burton, and they had daughters Wilma Wells and Irma Wells. I don't have any more generations for this family. Ida and Phillip Wells are buried at the New Grey Cemetery in Knoxville.

Cordie Cole married Ross Scarbrough. Some of you all remember Cordie as Cordie Scarbrough or as Aunt Cordie. Children of Ross Scarbrough and Cordie Cole were Flossie N. Scarbrough who married Vick Foster, Cassie Scarbrough who married a Stratton, and Roy Earl Scarbrough who married Julie. I don't have any other generations for this family. Cordie and Ross Scarbrough are buried at the Scarbrough Cemetery in Anderson County.

Mollie Cole married Robert A. Peters. Some of you all remember Mollie as Mollie Peters or as Aunt Mollie. Children of Robert A. Peters and Mollie Cole were Elmer Peters who married Audrey, Genette (Nettie) Peters who married Lester Lane, and Reese Peters who married Guy Jones. Lester Lane and Nettie Peters had a son named Elmer Lane. I don't have any other generations for this family.

Robert A. Peters was a younger brother of Alva Peters. So the children of Robert Peters and Mollie Cole were double first cousins of the children of Alva Peters and Sallie Cole. I suspect that our Bob Peters was named for his Uncle Robert. Robert Peters is buried at the Scarbrough Cemetery in Anderson County, but I have not yet found where Mollie is buried.

I know that these lists of names can be about as interesting as reading a phone book sometimes. But a couple of Ida's children have names that are very interesting. One name that is particularly interesting is Dicy Clay Wells. The mother of the four Cole sisters was Vesta Clay England. Dicy's middle name came from her grandmother Vesta Clay England, and Vesta was the daughter of John England and Jane Peters. There were a lot of Peters-Clay marriages back in Virginia before our Peters family moved to Anderson County, and I am convinced that we are descended from the Clay family. But I have not yet been able to find our Clay connection.

One of the things you normally do in researching your family is to find them in the census. As some of you all may know, the censuses before 1850 contain data that is only of limited value to genealogists. But from 1850 and afterwards, the census data is very valuable. The difference is that before 1850, the census recorded only the name of the head of household. But starting with 1850, the census recorded the name of everyone living in the household.

Sallie Jane Cole was born in 1870. So I reckoned that I could just look in the 1870 and 1880 censuses for Anderson County to find her. But I cannot find her or her parents in any 1870 census, neither in Anderson County nor in any other county. She was born in June, and she might have been born after the 1870 census was taken. But at least I should be able to find her parents in 1870, but I cannot.

When I first started looking at the 1880 census, I didn't have much luck there, either. I looked up all the Cole families in Anderson County, and also in surrounding counties such as Knox County, Roane County, Loudon County, etc. The closest I could come was the following family from Anderson County.

Shannon     Preston     59
            Susan       51
Oliver      Douglas     19  stepson
Scarbrough  Polena      18  servant
Cole        Sarah       10  servant

So there was a Sarah Cole, age 10 living as a servant with the Preston Shannon and his wife Susan. Age 10 in the 1880 census is the correct age for someone born in 1870.

To start with, I didn't think this was Grandma Peters. For one thing, I had never heard of Grandma Peters being called Sarah instead of Sallie. But in the 1870 to 1880 time frame, Sallie was a very common nickname for Sarah. I think what happened was that the census taker knocked on the door and asked who was living there. When he was told that Sallie Cole was living there, he just assumed that her name was really Sarah, the same way you might assume that somebody's name was really Robert if you were told that their name was Bob. So he wrote down Sarah instead of Sallie.

For another thing, I had never heard of Grandma Peters having been separated from her family and living with another family as a servant when she was a little girl. But apparently she was, because I now know that this Sarah Cole who was living with the Shannon family in 1880 really was Grandma Peters.

At the same time I found Grandma Peters in the 1880 census, I found her sister Ida also living in Anderson County.

Scarbrough  John      54
            Mary      55
            Charles   27 (crippled)
            Arminte   18
Peters      Sarah     92 mother-in-law
Cole        Ida       11 servant

Ida was separated from her family and living with another family as a servant the same way that Sallie was. But Ida was living with the Scarbroughs and Sallie was living with the Shannons. Notice that Mary Scarbrough was Mary Peters before she was married. I am getting ahead of my story, but I think that Mary Peters Scarbrough was Ida's grandaunt.

Finally, I found the following in the 1880 Knox County census.

Cole     Vesta C.  37  widow
         Cordie R. 11
         Mary I.    7 (this is Mollie)

(Mollie was a nickname for Mary back in 1880, the same way Sallie was a nickname for Sarah.)

Vesta was the mother of the four sisters, and she was widowed by 1880. The girls' father was William Cole. I know very little about him. William Cole and Vesta Clay England were married in 1865 in Anderson County, Ida and Cordie were born in 1868 in Knox County, Sallie was born in 1870, Mollie was born in 1873, and by 1880 William Cole had died. Apparently, Vesta was not able to keep her little family together. Cordie and Mollie were living with their mother in Knox County, and Ida and Sallie had been farmed out to families in Anderson Count.

To tell you the truth, I doubt that Ida and Sallie were living as servants in the same sense that we think of servants today. Vesta must have needed some help, and her family must have helped her.

I already pointed out that John Scarbrough's wife was Mary Peters, and they were taking care of Ida Cole. I didn't point it out yet, but Preston Shannon's wife was Susan Peters, and they were taking care of Sallie Cole. Mary Peters and Susan Peters were sisters. Finally, I already pointed out that Vesta's mother was Jane Peters. I can't prove it yet, but I think that Jane Peters was a sister of Mary Peters and Susan Peters. So it looks as if the Peters sisters pitched in to take care of Jane's four granddaughters when Jane's son-in-law died.

To complete the story on Jane Peters, John England and Jane Peters were married in 1839 in Anderson County. Vesta Clay England was born in 1840, the first of twelve children. Jane Peters England died in 1881. John remarried in 1882, had a two more children with his second wife, and died in 1902 in Roane County.

If we jump ahead about twenty years, we have the 1900 census entry for Alva Peters and Sallie Cole.

Peters  Alva E.               Oct 1870     29  TN
        Sallie J.  wife       Jun 1870     29  TN
        Earnest L. son        Feb 1895      5  TN
        Elsie C.   daughter   Dec 1898      1  TN
        Hulda A.   mother     Dec 1845     54  TN
        John W.    brother    Mar 1877     23  TN
        Martha E.  sister     Jan 1888     12  TN
        Henry H.   brother    Mar 1890     10  TN

Earnest L. Peters is Lester Peters (the census taker misspelled his first name) and Elsie C. Peters is Elzie Peters. Alva is the head of household in a house where his mother and three of his brothers and sisters still lived. I am getting ahead of my story again, but Alva's parents were John Henry Peters and Hulda Asberine Cross. John Henry Peters had died before the 1900 census, but Hulda was still living and was living with her son and daughter-in-law whom we knew as Grandma and Grandpa Peters.

In the very next house, we have the following.

Wells      Phillip H.   m. 9 years
           Ida R.       m. 9 years  4 children 4 living
           Arthur C.               Jun 1887     13
           Luther B.               Aug 1889     10
           Lucy C.                 Sep 1892      7
           William H.              Mar 1895      5
           Bussie M.               Aug 1897      2
           George E.               Dec 1899     5/12
Scarbrough Vesty mother-in-law         1840 widow 5 children 4 living

This is Sallie Cole's sister Ida and Ida's husband Phillip Wells. It was very common back then for family members to live next door to each other in this fashion. Vesty Scarbrough was Ida's mother. So Grandma and Grandpa Peters were living right next door to Grandma's mother Vestie and to Grandma's sister Ida. The two oldest Wells children were Phillip's children from a previous marriage.

Sometime between 1880 and 1900, Vesta had remarried, and this time to a Mr. Scarbrough. Vesta was a widow again in the 1900 census, so her Mr. Scarbrough died before 1900. The 1890 census was destroyed in a fire, so it is of no help in figuring out when Vesta remarried nor when Mr. Scarbrough died. I have not been able to find any record of Vesta's marriage to Mr. Scarbrough at the court house, so I don't know when the marriage occurred nor what Mr. Scarbrough's first name was.

Some of you all remember Vestie. In talking to you, you have told me that she was known as Aunt Vestie or as Grandma Vestie or as Grandma Scarbrough. You have also told me that she looked just like Grandma Peters, which sort of makes sense because she was Grandma's mother. Both of them were short, both of them always wore an apron, and both of them wore their hair up in a bun.

Here is a census entry from the 1910 Anderson County census.

Peters      Mollie  head f 36 widow
            Elmer   son  m 16 farm labor
            Genette dau  f 13 
            Reese   dau  f  9 
Scarborough Vesta mother f 70 widow

This census entry is for another of the Cole sisters, Mollie Cole. She was a widow by 1910 because Robert A. Peters died very young in 1905. Genette was known as Nettie, but she was listed as Genette in the census. But notice that Vesta was living with yet another of her daughters in 1910.

I cannot find Vesta Clay England Cole Scarbrough in the 1920 census. But I have discovered that she is buried in the New Grey Cemetery in Knoxville (along with Ida and Phillip Wells), and that her tombstone says that she died in 1924.

Ancestors of Alva Edward Peters

We know from the Peters family bible that Alva was the son of John Henry Peters and Hulda Asberine Cross. Alva was one of 14 children. Most of the children died young. Some died as infants, some as young children, some as teenagers, and some as young adults.

The only ones who married were Alva who married Sallie Cole, Robert who married Mollie Cole, and Will who married Delia Weaver.

Even though he married and had children, Robert died fairly young himself. He was only 33 years old when he died in 1905, and none of you would remember him.

William Daily Peters died in 1937, and some of you all remember him as Uncle Will. He and his wife Delia Weaver are buried in the New Grey Cemetery in Knoxville.

Some of you may remember a brother of Alva named Hutzel. Henry Hutzel Peters never married, but he was 30 years old when he died in 1920 of typhoid fever. It is said that Lester looked just like his Uncle Hutzel, and that they could have passed as twins. Hutzel had a fiddle that was passed down to Lester, and Lester played it at dances. Hutzel is buried at the Scarbrough Cemetery in Anderson County.

John Henry Peters was a Civil War Soldier who fought in the 5^th Tennessee Infantry on the Union side. There was also a 5^th Tennessee Infantry unit on the Confederate side, but many East Tennessee men fought on the Union side. He was described in his Civil War pension application as: height, 5 feet 8 inches; complexion, dark; hair, auburn; eyes, gray.

John Henry Peters and Hulda Asberine Cross were married in 1865, just after the war was over. There were many 1865 marriages where Civil War soldiers came home from the war and got married. In fact, I have wondered if William Cole was a Civil War soldier since he and Vesta Clay England were married in 1865. But I have found no record of William Cole's Civil War service.

There was a post-war baby boom after the Civil War just as there was a post-war baby boom after the soldiers came home from WWII. Grandma Peters and Grandpa Peters were both Civil War baby boomers.

John Henry Peters died in 1890 at the age of 46, and Hulda received a widow's pension in 1891 for John's war service. After John's death, Hulda lived with Alva and Sallie until her own death in 1916. John and Hulda Peters are buried in the Scarbrough Cemetery in Anderson County.

John's early death was due to his war service. He contracted disease of the spine from exposure and hard marching near Wilmington, North Carolina. At Marietta, Georgia, August 1864 he contracted fever and ague from exposure. He was partially disabled thereafter, and was not always able to work.

I am not yet 100% sure about the parents of John Henry Peters, but I am about 99% sure that they were John W. Peters and Ruby Smith. John W. Peters and Ruby Smith did have a son named John H. Peters who was born in 1843, which is the same year that our John Henry Peters was born. But I have not yet been able to eliminate the possibility that there were two different boys born in 1843 who were both named John H. Peters.

Hulda Asberine Cross was the daughter of Alfred Carter Cross and Zipporah Peters. From the point of view of Alva Peters, he had a Grandpa Peters who was probably John W. Peters and he had a Grandma Cross who was Zipporah Peters. As in the case of Sallie Cole's grandmother Jane Peters, I have not been able to prove whether Alva's two Peters grandparents were related or not. But they surely were.

If John W. Peters and Zipporah Peters were brother and sister, then John Henry Peters and Hulda Asberine Cross were first cousins who married. I have seen such things several times in my research. If John W. Peters and Zipporah Peters were first cousins, then John Henry Peters and Hulda Asberine Cross were second cousins.

I want to finish this narrative with yet one more census entry, this one from Anderson County in 1880.

Peters    John        35
          Hulda       34
          William     14
          Alva        9
          Robin       7 (m) (this is Robert)
          Alza        5 (f)
          John        3
          Samuel      2
          Elizabeth   1/12 (b. April)
Keith     Joseph      4  (nephew)
          Albert      3  (nephew)

Alva Peters was 9 years old in the 1880 census, and Sallie Cole was 10 years old. Really, they were both born in 1870 and she was from June to October older than he was. But the census was taken in June, so he was not yet 10 years old when the census was taken.

You can't tell just from looking at the census entry above, but John and Hulda Peters were living next door to Preston and Susan Shannon in 1880. Alva Peters was the son of John and Hulda, and Sallie Cole was living with Preston and Susan Shannon. So Grandma and Grandpa Peters lived next door to each other as children.

The nephews Joseph and Albert Keith illustrate how families took care of each other back then. Hulda's sister Annie Cross married Calvin Keith in 1874, and these nephews are the children of Calvin and Annie. Annie died about 1879, so Hulda is keeping Annie's children in 1880. Calvin Keith married M.E. Scarbrough in 1881, so he took his sons back at that time. Because of the missing 1890 census, by the next time we see Alva in a census in 1900, he was married and had two children.