Bad Girls of Stanly County: Laura Jane Simpson

When it came to my category of research that I dubbed "The Bad Girls of Stanly County", very few ladies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries could hold a candle to Laura Jane Simpson of Tyson Township for the title of 'Baddest'. She broke nearly every rule of law or polite society that there was to break without resorting to hard felonies like robbery or murder. She was no Bonnie Parker.

Looking back at Laura's early life, one could see how easily she could have fallen into the seedy side of society. This post will examine her early years and her family.

As with her cousin Tirzah Simpson, who was the subject of my last post, Laura Simpsons story actually started with the death of her grandfather, Nathaniel Simpson, in 1848. The death of the patriarch left his widow, Sarah, with several children still at home, most of them girls. Her sons were the oldest in the family, and all but Green Wesley seem to have went their way and left their mother and sisters to their own devices for survival. 

Nathaniel and Sarah Simpson had 6 daughters: Margaret, Nancy, Delilah, Judith, Sarah and Winny. Three daughters married into the Poplin family: Margaret married Davidson "David" Poplin, Sarah married Thomas Poplin and Wincy, or Winnie, married Enoch Poplin. The other 3 daughters did not marry, however, they did have children and showed up in court because of that. Those 3 were Delilah "Lilla" or "Lilly" Simpson, Judith aka "Judy" Simpson and Nancy Ann, who was the mother of Laura Simpson.

The 1960 census was the first for Laura to show up in. Although her tombstone states she was born in 1857, she shows up in the 1860 census as 8 years old. I believe her age had been fudged for several years, so her children, in particular, her son Bud, who bought her stone, believed her some years younger than she actually was. 

The household is headed by her grandmother, Sarah aka Sallie Simpson. Sallie's daughters, Nancy, 28, Judy 25 and Delilah 23, are still at home and their were 4 little children; Laura J, 8, Nathan A. 6, Susan 2 and James, 3 months old. These were the children of Nancy Ann Simpson. They are living near the families of Henry Carter, Sarah Mauldin, Jesse Whitley and Andrew Blalock.

By 1870, Nancy is in her own household. Recall what has happened between the last census. Stanly County had lost a large number of its strongest and healthiest young men. Farms had been abandoned and rewilded, and widows and orphans abounded. The economy was destroyed, the wealthy had been  bankrupted, those barely getting by had became impoverished and those who already were had starved. Many who could went west, seeking a better life, some men leaving their families behind as if they never existed. And then there were women like Nancy, half-orphaned, whose morals had already been  compromised. 

Laura was now 18, and a grown woman in those days.  Nancy, with the help of her older chidren, was making it on the farm. And she might have had more than a little help. Laura and Nathan were teenagers, and Sarah Ann almost, but little James had passed away. In his stead, was a new baby, Thomas J. Simpson. One might think he was just as likely Laura's child as Nancy, but a bastardy bond involving this child exists in the court records of Stanly County.  He belonged to Nancy.

Thomas's father was a man named George Andrews, and this is not the last time you will hear his name.

George Washington Andrews was from Montgomery County, North Carolina, just across the river. A descendant of old Seth Andrews, he was born in 1850, so 18 years Nancy's junior. In 1873 when Tom was born, George would have been about 23 and Nancy 40. It was not love. George was not yet married and most likely had sought out a 'bespoiled' woman in which to sow his wild oats before settling down, but it didn't stop at that.

In 1860, as a boy, George had been living at Swift Island, in Montgomery County, just across the river from Stanly County, where the Simpson family lived. By 1870, he was 16 years old, and wandering, now in neighboring Randolph County, working as a farm laborer.

Three years later, he became the father of Thomas C. Simpson in 1873. Another three years later, in 1876, he made himself respectable by marrying, and starting a family with Martha "Pattie" Scarboro, in Montgomery County. By 1880, he had moved his young family to a place called "Hickory" in Chatham County, but he was still making trips back to Stanly County. Hickory Mountain Township lies between Siler City and Pittsboro. Not that far from where he liked to roam around Randolph and Montgomery.

Two years after that, George Andrews, now a married man with several children by his wife, was back in court in Stanly County with the Simpsons. This time, not involving Nancy, but with her daughter, Laura. I've not looked to see if George Andrews had any similar situations with the law in Montgomery, Randolph or Chatham Counties. Maybe he behaved there. Whatever the case, Daisy Lee Simpson was born on January 23, 1882, to Laura Simpson and George Andrews was named as her father. That made Thomas and Daisy half-siblings, as well as Uncle and Niece.

In  1900, George Andrews, ever the rolling stone, was back in the Pee Dee Community of Montgomery County, where he started. His wife, Pattie, died in 1906 and two year later, in 1908 at the age of 57, he went to Buncombe County, in the Mountains, to marry Beulah Burns, but brought her back home to Pee Dee, where they are found, starting another family, in 1910. He spent his 70's and 80's, in the 1920 and 1930's, in Steeles Township, Richmond County. There he raised 10 children with Beulah, more than the 7 he had with Pattie.

Not one to remain still, George Andrews met his demise in Stanly County, where he died on January 12, 1934, at the age of 83. He was buried at Zion, where many of the people I have blogged about recently, lived, died or were buried. 

But lets back up a little bit. Daisy was not Laura's first child and her court appearance with George was not her first either. Laura's oldest child was her daughter, Mamie, born on June 12, 1877. Not all out of wedlock births ended up in court, and if they did, there are several gaps in the records where entire years of a span of years were missing, but Mamie's birth was reported in a bastardy bond and her father was name. He was Richmond  Blalock.

In the 1880 census, Laura is living with her mother, Nancy, her brother, Thomas and her two-year-old daughter, Mamie.

This post is part of a series, so I want to take the opportunity here to break away from Laura, who will be the focus of the series, and examine what happed to the rest of Nancy's children. To take you back, Nancy was born in 1832, and was 16 years old when she lost her father. The oldest daughter, Margaret, and the youngest two, Sarah and Wincy, all married Poplins, but it seems the three girls between Maragaret and Sarah, Nancy, Judy and Delilah, all become 'bespoiled' and unfit for marriage. Judith had one child out of wedlock, Tirzah, by J. P. Lisk. Delilah, aka Lilly, had 3 boys, all out of wedlock. The first, George Filmore Simpson, was by James Allen Upchurch, and was born in 1862, the second William, by father unknown, was born in 1867, and an unknown son was born in 1877 by Josiah Pinkney Talbert, as there was a bastardy bond involving the boy, he was not named and neither he, nor Delilah, show up in the 1880 census.

This is the 1870 census with Sallie, the widow of Nathaniel Simpson, with Lilly (Delilah), and her sons George and William; and Judith and her daughter Tirzy, seen incorrectly transcribed as 'Terry'. Nancy had moved out on her own with her children.

In 1880, Sarah is alone with Delilah's youngest son, William Simpson. He's listed as son, and she may have adopted him, to help her run her farm, but he was her grandson.

In the meantime, Nancy was the mother of  5 children. Her oldest was son, Nathan A.Simpson, obviously named for her father, Nathaniel. Born Dec 31, 1847, Nathan is shown living with his mother in both the 1860 and 1870 censuses, as shown above, with Laura. There were numerous Nathans, cousins all. I believe this is the one who died in Union County in 1918.

Younger sister, Sarah Alice Simpson, at age 20, gave birth to her only child, Lillie Fairallen Simpson with William Andrew Jackson Green in 1881. Jackson was working as a farm laborer just two houses away from where several of the Simpsons lived in a family group, including Grandma Sarah and Anna and Lucy, the widows of Nelson and Isaac Simpson, in 1880. Sarah 

Alice is living with her daughter, Lillie and Lillie's husband, Henry Floyd Aldridge, in 1900. Lilly had married at the tender age of 15. The family would later remove to Cabarrus County, where Sarah Alice would meet and marry Filas Crone Kiser in 1903. Sarah Alice would have no more children, as she was 41 when marrying Filas. They would live happily in Cabarrus County, before moving near Boone's Cave in Davidson County. She passed away in 1937 in Cabarrus County, at the age of 75.

Nancy had a son named James, who appears to have died as a child some time between 1860 and 1870.

Her last child, however, and Laura's youngest brother was Thomas C J Simpson, sometimes seen as 'Tom', other times as "T. C." or even "C. T".  Tom would marry his first cousin-once-removed, Emma Simpson, a granddaughter of Nancy's brother, Green Wesley Simpson.

They married in Richmond County, but spent the early years of their marriage in Center Township, where Tom had grown up. Later they would move to Steeles, in Richmond County, then to Mount Gilead in Montgomery County, staying east. Tom died in 1933 at the age of 60. Emma lived until age 89 in 1963. The couple is buried in Candor. 

They had 7 known children: James Thomas, John Nathan, Anna ruth, Marvin Bishop, Carl and Esther, were the 6 who grew up. A little boy, known only as J. B., died of tonsilitis just before his second birthday. There may have been another little boy named Charlie.

As far as Laura, after 1880, her life got very complicated. In 1880, we saw her with her oldest daughter, Mamie 2, in her mother's home. She would have 4 children in all; Daisy with George Andrews in 1882

Odum Asbury "Bud" Simpson in 1884 with William R. Krider and lastly, the most controversial, Jenny or Ginny, with fellow retailer, Doc Lee, in 1900.

Each has their own interwoven tale, so we will end this recap here. In Summary, Laura Simpson was born in an unfortunate situation, an illegitimate child, female, born to an 'orphan' whose family held a lot of out-of-wedlock births. She had nothing and was born into nothing and it was up to her to make her own way. And that she did.