Bio of Isaac J. Phillips (Greenville Co., SC; Hart Co., GA)

This biography of Isaac J. Phillips (son of Elizabeth Thackston and James Isaac Phillips, grandson of Nathaniel Dacus Thackston, great-grandson of John Thackston and Mary Stokes, great-great-grandson of William Thackston of Greenville Co., South Carolina) has interesting information about Elizabeth’s trevails after her husband’s death in the Civil War.

A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians, Lucian L. Knight (Lewis Publishing Co., 1917), Vol. V, pp. 2549-50: 

ISAAC J. PHILLIPS.  In his evolution from a struggle-filled boyhood to an independent middle age, Isaac J. Phillips, of Hartwell, has passed through many experiences and has overcome many obstacles.  His success in life has been gained only after unceasing and laborious efforts, but through it all he has retained a kindly feeling toward his fellow-men that now finds expression in various philanthropic activities.  He has fairly gained a position which entitles him to be numbered among Hartwell’s most substantial business men, but he has also attained a no less proud place in the possession of the esteem and respect of his fellow-men.

Mr. Phillips was born on a farm in Forsyth County, Georgia, during the trying period of the Civil war, October 12, 1864, one of the two children of Isaac and Elizabeth (Thackston) Phillips.  His parents, natives of South Carolina, came as a young married couple to Georgia and settled on a farm in Forsyth County, which was their sole possession.  When the great conflict between the South and the North came on, Isaac Phillips left his wife and child and enlisted in the Confederate army, joining Captain Julian’s company in a Georgia regiment, which was subsequently attached to Hood’s Brigade.  He was with Wingo’s Band and campaigned until the rigors and hardships of army life undermined his health and he was honorably discharged from the service on account of disability.  He was carefully nursed, but was not able to overcome the effects of his disease, and died in 1864 when only forty-three years of age, Isaac J. being then but six months old.  Mrs. Phillips sold the farm, receiving in payment therefor Confederate currency, and when this proved worthless when the Lost Cause went down to defeat she was left destitute.  However, she still had a home with her parents, in Laurens County, South Carolina, and there reared her three children as best she could with the means which she possessed, these being very meagre, as her parents were poor people.

From the time he was able to walk up to his seventh year, Isaac J. Phillips did not even possess a pair of shoes, and as he started to work on a neighboring farm when he was ten years old his education was sadly neglected.  He dutifully helped to support his mother from the time he began to receive wages, and continued to work as a farm hand until he was seventeen years of age, when he went to Piedmont City and became an apprentice to the machinist’s trade, which he mastered.  He had no liking for this vocation, however, and having saved some money went to Anderson County and purchased a small tract of land which he transformed into a farm.  This he continued to conduct for a period of five years and then rented to another party and returned to the city, securing a position as clerk in a general store.  There, during the next year aud six months, he secured a knowledge of business methods which formed the nucleus for his success in commercial lines in after life.  Finally, with the proceeds of his labors and his savings, he opened a small store of his own in Anderson County, and this he conducted for eight years, a period in which his business grew and developed to such an extent that he was encouraged to seek a broader and more prolific field for his labors and accordingly removed to the City of Greenville, South Carolina, where he remained in business for five years longer.

In the meantime, having acquired a knowledge of the grocery business and of the selling end in particular, he decided to try his fortune in the wholesale trade, exclusively, and in 1904 brought his family to Hartwell where he incorporated the Hartwell Grocery Company, wholesale grocers, with a capital stock of $25,000, of which he is the majority stockholder.  This business, like all his other ventures, has proved a decided success, and is now having average sales of $200,000 annually.  In addition to this business, Mr. Phillips is connected in some capacity with nearly every important enterprise of Hartwell, including the Hartwell Cotton Mills and the Hartwell Oil Company, in both of which he is a stockholder and director, the Hartwell Bank and the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Hartwell, and many other business concerns.  He was also one of the organizers of the Hart County Fair Association, and at the present time is one of its directors.

While Mr. Phillips is known as one of the leading business men of Hartwell, he has never lost his interest in farming, a vocation to which he feels he owes in large part his success in life.  In fact, he would rather be known as an agriculturist than as a business man, and his farm, located 1 1/2 miles south of Hartwell, gives evidence of attentions which it could have received only from one who loved his labors.  Here Mr. Phillips has erected a modern residence, large barns and substantial outbuildings, and has installed improvements and equipment that make this not only a model country place but one of the finest and most valuable farms in Hart County.

Few men have taken a more active part in the work of the Baptist Church than has Mr. Phillips.  As moderator of the Hebron Baptist Association, he is also a member of the Executive and Laymen’s committees, and no movement in this association is complete that does not have his whole-souled and zealous support. Fraternally he is a Master Mason and a member of the Fraternal Union of America.  Mr. Phillips is a democrat, but has confined his political activities to the casting of his vote, and his public participation in affairs to the performance of the duties of good citizenship.  A man of generous impulse and large heart, he is a liberal supporter of charitable movements, and, having succeeded himself, is ready to assist others to achieve success.

On February 23, 1883, Mr. Phillips was married to Miss Marguerite Elizabeth Rike, who died March 27, 1914, a daughter of Alfred and Minnie Rike, of Banks County, North Carolina, both also deceased.  Nine children were born to this union : DeWitt and Lou, who are deceased : Miss Grace, born in Anderson County, South Carolina, a young woman of much business ability, who is associated with her father as secretary of the Hartwell Grocery Company; Miss Alice, born in Anderson County, and now living with her father; Mrs. Zelpha Hall, born in Anderson County, the wife of a banker of Hartwell; Miss Guy Nell, born in Anderson County, who is a teacher in the public schools of South Carolina; Hoyt S., born in Anderson County, who is now a university student in South Carolina; Miss Margie, born in Anderson County, who is now attending Shorter College, at Rome, Georgia; Isaac J., Jr., born in Anderson County, and now a student at Hartwell High School; Miss Bonte, born at Greenville, South Carolina, and also a high school student at Hartwell; and Georgia, born at Hartwell, who is attending the graded schools here.

Obituary of W. W. H. Thackston (1820-1899 Prince Edward co., VA)

An obituary of Dr. William Winthrop Hackett Thackston (son of Charles W. Thackston and Mary Lee Dabbs, grandson of Benjamin Thackston and Betty Ann Chambers, great-grandson of James Thackston and Mary Wimbish), from the Transactions of the National Dental Association at the Fourth Annual Session, Held at Old Point Comfort, Va., Commencing July 10, 2000, the S. S. White Dental Mfg Co., 1901, pp. 209-210:  

DR. W. W. H. THACKSTON.

The subject of this notice died at his home, in Farmville, Va., December 8, 1899, of heart failure, in his eightieth year.

He was born in Charlotte county, W. Va., February 9, 1820.  He moved to Farmville in 1833, where he resided till his death.  He graduated in 1842 from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.  He was a member of the second graduating class of the oldest dental college, and at the time of his death was the oldest graduate of dentistry in the world.

Dr. Thackston was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, and of commanding presence.

He was a man of strong intellectual ability.  His loyalty to his profession was of a high order, and in a marked manner he left his impress upon his profession.

He was often called to the position of presiding officer in his profession as well as elsewhere, and this because of his eminent fitness for such work.  While he was very devoted to his profession, and did much for the maintenance of its honor and elevation, yet he was active in other spheres of life.  He was closely identified with the interest, material and moral, of the community in which he lived, and as a result of this he held positions of honor and trust for a large share of the years of his active life.  He was a warm and ardent friend; one whose friendship was ever an inspiration.  What he did for his profession and in other departments of life-work was done from a pure, unselfish motive.  The influence of that which he did does not pass away with him, but will run on through time, and will endure as long as the profession with which he was so intimately connected remain.

His death is a great loss to the profession with which he was so long identified.  It can ill afford to spare such as he.

The whole profession would do well to emulate his example.

He was married July 16, 1848, to Miss Mary E. Fowks, of Amelia county, Va., who died about sixteen years ago.  Three children, two sons and a daughter, survive him.

Resolved, That a copy of this statement, properly prepared, be sent to his family, and placed upon the records of this Association.

J. TAFT, EDWARD S. GAYLORD, WALDO E. BOARDMAN, Committee.  On motion, the Association adjourned.  A. H. PECK, Recording Secretary.

Bio of Benjamin F. Hawkins and Sarah Elizabeth Thackston (1912 Mason Co., KY)

A biography of Benjamin F. Hawkins, who married Sarah Elizabeth Thackston (daughter of John H. Thackston and Minerva McCready, granddaughter of Nathaniel Thackston and Sarah Foster, great-granddaughter of James Thackston and Mary Wimbish of Prince Edward Co., Virginia).  The bio also includes information about Sarah’s parents and siblings.

A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians, E. Polk Johnson, Lewis Publishing Co., 1912, Vol. III, pp. 1462-63:

BENJAMIN F. HAWKINS. — Many of the ablest men in America are ardent devotees of the great basic industry of agriculture and it is well that this is so because the various learned professions are rapidly becoming so crowded with inefficient practitioners that in a few years it will be practically impossible for any but the exceptionally talented man to make good or even to gain a competent living therein. The independent farmer, who, in addition to tilling the soil, cultivates his mind and retains his health, is a man much to be envied in these days of strenuous bustle and nervous energy.  He lives his life as he chooses and is always safe from financial ravages and other troubles of the so-called “cliff dweller.”  An able and representative agriculturist and stock-grower, who has done much to advance progress and conserve prosperity in Mason county, Kentucky, is Benjamin F. Hawkins, who owns and operates a finely improved farm on the Mays Lick and Sardis turnpike, in Mays Lick precinct.

Born within two and a half miles of Mays Lick, in Mason county, Kentucky, on the 8th of May, 1854, Benjamin F. Hawkins is a son of Harbin F. and Elizabeth (Clift) Hawkins and he is a brother of H. C. Hawkins, a sketch of whose career appears on other pages of this work. The father was born in Orange county, Virginia, in the close vicinity of Orange Courthouse, and he was summoned to the life eternal on the 10th of August, 1890, at the venerable age of seventy years.  He came to Owen county, Kentucky, when he was a child of but five years of age and he was reared to maturity and educated in that county, where he resided until he had reached the age of twenty-six years, at which time he established his home at Mays Lick, Mason county.  In the latter place he conducted an hotel for a period of two years, at the expiration of which he removed to a farm in Mason county, where he resided during the remainder of his life.  He had absolutely no capital with which to engage in business as a young man but he turned his persistency and determination to succeed to good account and at the time of his demise he was conceded to be in comfortable circumstances.  In politics he was a stanch advocate of the cause of the Democratic party and his religious faith was in harmony with the tenets of the Christian church.  Fraternally he was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Mays Lick.  He was the first in order of birth in a family of six children, concerning whom the following brief data are here incorporated. -Harbin F., father of our subject; Benjamin F. died in Owen county, Kentucky; Betsy Ann became the wife of William Peed and she passed into the great beyond in Mason county, Kentucky; Alexander died in Henry county, Indiana, in 1904; James was called to eternal rest in Washington county, Indiana, in 1891 ; and William Henderson died at Plattsburg, Missouri, in 1910.  Harbin F. Hawkins married Miss Elizabeth Clift and they became the parents of six children, namely, — H. C. is mentioned elsewhere in this work; Benjamin F. is the immediate subject of this review; Annie Elizabeth is the wife of G. H. Collins, of Mason county; Margaret Ellen maintains her home at Clinton county, Missouri; W. B. died in Fleming county, Kentucky, in the fall of 1906; and Jacob D. resides in Clinton county, Missouri.

Benjamin F. Hawkins passed his boyhood and youth on the old homestead farm in Mason county and he early became associated with his father in the work and management thereof. He has resided in Mason county during the major portion of his life, but for twenty-five months he lived in Bracken county.  He has always devoted his time and attention to farming operations and at the present time he is successfully engaged in farming and the raising of high-grade stock, his splendid estate of sixty-eight acres being eligibly located on Mays Lick and Sardis turnpike in Mays Lick precinct.  In politics he is a stanch advocate of the cause of the Democratic party and while he has never manifested aught of ambition for the emoluments or honors of public office of any description he is ever on the alert and enthusiastically in sympathy with all measures and enterprises projected for the advancement of the general welfare.

In a fraternal way he is affiliated with Charity Lodge, No. 279; Free & Accepted Masons; Germantown Lodge, No. 69, Knights of Pythias; and with Ewing Lodge, of the Order of the Eastern Star.  He and his family are devout members of the Baptist church in their religious faith and they are active and zealous church workers.  He has been a deacon of his church for twenty-five years.  In popular confidence and esteem they hold a high place and their spacious and attractive home is a recognized center of most refined and gracious hospitality.

Near Mays Lick, in the year 1878 Mr. Hawkins was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Thackston, who was born near Germantown, in Mason county, Kentucky, in the year 1852.  She is a daughter of Jack and Minerva (McCready) Thackston, the former of whom died at Germantown, in 1861, at the age of sixty-one years, and the latter of whom passed away in 1854, at about 55 years of age.  The McCready and Thackston families were from Virginia, whence they immigrated to Kentucky at an early day.  Mrs. Hawkins was one in a family of five children, concerning whom the following record is here entered, — Alfred is now living in Robertson county, Kentucky; Alexander died in Mason county on the 26th of July, 1900, at the age of fifty-four years; and John and Anthony were residents of Kansas City, Missouri, when last heard of, over thirty years ago.  To Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins have been born three children, — Hensley C., whose birth occurred on
the 5th of August, 1879, is now engaged in business at Austin, Texas; he married Miss Mary Arnold and they have one child, Virginia A., born on the 7th of May, 1909; Minnie Lee, whose natal day is the 10th of May, 1881. is the wife of Charles Talley, a farmer near Mays Lick; they have a daughter, Garnett, born on the 19th of April, 1907; and Tillie A., the youngest child, was born on the 15th of July, 1892, and is now at home attending school.