Mahala C. Ward Tarlton of Wayne County Missouri

For Our Courageous Grandmother, Mahala

If you had asked me who Mahala Ward Tarlton was 20 years ago, I would have had no idea.  Once, when we had a family reunion in the Old Greenville, Missouri historic park, I remember my brother and I walking through the old cemetery by the St. Francis River and one of my aunts mentioning we had some Carltons or something similar in our family tree, and that we might find one of their headstones as we strolled through the repository of remains of Wayne County's early citizenry.  It was not to be, of course.

My mother had told me, several times, the story of one of one of my grandfathers being murdered during the Civil War.  The story and the details of the cowardly act upon my ancestor remained vivid throughout all the years of my adolescence  but a busy career and a family that included three sons kept the name in obscurity until well into my late 40's when my fascination began with with my ancestry in earnest.. But, the events and the story were recalled in memory frequently.

Like all good research for a family tree, my first projects undertaken were those of entering all I knew about my mother, Iva Delores "Dee" Wilson Ragan of Wayne County, and  my father Robert Nathaniel Ragan of Hardeman County, Tennessee.  I entered all the records and detail that I could and began scanning my family collection of photos into the ancestry site.  More photos were to follow as contributions to my research came from my Aunt Mary Wilson Bazzell. I came across one that captivated my interest, and inquiry and research led to the discovery that  it was a photograph of my mother as a toddler in the arms of a grandmother.  She looked so content, I thought, well snuggled into this old lady's lap. That grandmother, research revealed was her great grandmother (my great-great grandmother), Mahala Ward Tarlton.  That began a 20 year fascination with discovering all I could about her, and of course included extensive research on the Civil War in the county and the events leading up to the death of my great-great grandfather,Alexander Craig Tarlton.  

This is some of her story.

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The Life of Mahala Ward Tarlton

Mahala Ward Tarlton-Photo colorized by the author.

Mahala C. Ward was born to Meshack Ward and Elizabeth Wilson of Orange County, North Carolina, Clay and Henry Counties in Tennessee, and Stoddard and Wayne County, Missouri.  She entered this world on April 13, 1834 near Paris, Henry County, Tennessee not far from the Kentucky line.

Her father, Meshack, taught school in the early days, farmed, and transitioned into practicing law. The family had relocated from West Tennessee by 1840, when Mahala was only 5 or 6 years old, to Stoddard County in Southeastern Missouri.  They were located near an American Fur Trading Post thriving on procurement of buffalo, beaver, and fox pelts.  But, it is almost certain that this economy, while benefiting the community and populace in general, was not an endeavor practiced by her father, Meshack.  Educated men were in high demand in the pioneer communities of the frontier, and it can be reasonably surmised that Mahala's father was gainfully employed as a teacher or lawyer, and  he maintained a family farm as well.

During Mahala's teen years and by 1850 she and family were located on several tracts of land close to Lowndes in Wayne County. But, by 1855 they had relocated to Old Greenville and her family was elevated to esteemed status when her father became the Circuit Court Judge for Wayne County for several years.  Their household thrived for the place and time, and it is remembered in a family memoir that they always had plenty of pumpkins and squash, sheep, cattle, hogs, and chickens. Mahala was the daughter of a respected and well-to-do family. There would have been plenty of suitors for the hand of the judge's daughter.

At age 21, in the latter part of 1855, Mahala found the man she wanted to spend her life with; raise a family with; grow old with.  His name was Alexander Craig Tarlton, a man of slight build but dashing persona from an old and distinguished Wayne County family.  Alexander was a widower, having lost his first wife, Ursula Phillips in childbirth on the family plantation near Wappappello.  He brought one surviving son into the marriage with Mahala, George Washington Tarlton, who was to become one of Eastern Missouri's most prominent physicians in Cape Girardeau in ensuing years.

Life was good for Mahala and Alexander as he was a planter and farmer of some reputation and they acquired several tracts of land, first believed in the old Ojibway/Moore Community, and later across the St. Francis River near Lost Creek and even a few years later, near the old plantation carved out of the wilderness by his grandfather, General Azion Tarlton, near Wappappello and the Great Mingo Swamp.

Mahala and Alexander were blessed with 3 sons, Francis Marion, John Meshack, and Andrew Jackson Tarlton and 3 daughters, Elizabeth Jane, Susan Ann (my great grandmother) and Marion "Mary" Tarlton.  Stepson George was around 6-7 years old at the time of the marriage, and as the children of Mahala and Alexander came along, there is no doubt George's assistance with the chores and helping with the children would have been invaluable.

In 1861, only 6 years after the family was beginning to grow , three sons and an infant daughter to care for, Mahala and Alexander were introduced to the great American Civil War.  Guerrilla warfare was the order of the day.  Poverty and famine eluded the family, but erupted over the general populace.  It was a terrifying time, beyond our comprehension to fathom.  No homestead, no farm was safe.

In 1866 at the war's conclusion, the Wayne County courthouse was vandalized and military records stolen to protect the vanquished foes from retribution.  So, no record is in the Missouri archives for Alexander, but the family is indeed in possession of his enrollment, on September 29, 1862 in the Missouri Militia of the Union Army. At some point during his service Mahala experienced relief that Alexander was discharged, or more likely exempted. That relief was short-lived, for on April 30, 1864 the Office of Commissary of Exemptions for Wayne County, Missouri certified that Alexander had been duly enrolled again as a militia man and assigned to Company K, 68th Regiment of Enrolled Missouri Militia.  That document, in my possession, directed Alexander to report for duty within 10 days.  By this time Mahala's household included 6 children, mostly toddlers and infants, the oldest only 7 years of age, plus George, now 15.  How was she to manage with a husband in active service?  And the countryside full of armed Southern guerrillas raiding homesteads for supplies, burning, looting....and even worse---much worse?

Could life be more difficult?  It could.  And was to become so..

In mid-December Alexander had endured exposure to the point he contracted pneumonia.  Late December found him recovering at home.  It was one week before Christmas, Sunday, December 24, 1864.  You have to imagine a fire in the fireplace, children playing on the floor, Alexander in a rocking chair covered by a warm blanket, Mahala busy preparing breakfast of eggs, gravy, and biscuits.

On that fateful day, Mahala would lose a husband and Alexander would lose all he had and ever would have. Three masked men, Southern Guerrillas from the David Reed gang would burst through the door, pistols drawn, and before Mahala's disbelieving eyes, murder Alexander in his chair.  Blood pouring from Alexander as Mahala tried to tend him, children screaming and crying, smoke from the black powder pistols hanging thick in the cabin, the men mounted and rode away into the December mists.

And so Mahala became a widow with 6 small children in the middle of some of the most incomprehensible violence in this country's history.  George, being of an age to enroll soon and a target himself, was sent away by Mahala to live with an uncle in Cape Girardeau.  Mahala moved herself and the children into her parents home, with Meshack and Elizabeth, fearful of their safety.

In 1868 at 9 years of age, Mahala's son Andrew contracted typhoid fever and died.  Mahala's hardships seemed to intensify when in 1870, youngest child and daughter Mary was discovered in bed dead one morning.  She was 6 years old.

As a very young girl, Mahala's daughter Susan, my great grandmother, while playing as little girls do, swinging on her grandfather Meshack's front gate, slipped and fell.  The trauma caused virtual blindness for the balance of her life, she only able to make out the dimmest of shadows and shapes, and those without much discernable form.  Of Mahala's surviving four children, one was now declared an invalid.

In 1875, now 41 years of age, Mahala joined her remaining children, her parents, and brother Francis Marion Ward of Civil war fame, earned as a scout on the great Bloomfield Raid, on a perilous journey west to the Indian Territories to visit estranged family in a covered wagon.  At some point west, while probably in the Oklahoma and Kansas territories, Indian troubles intensified with the plains tribes, in full rebellion to protect their lands and retain their cultural heritage.  In 1876 , they are enumerated on the Texas County, Missouri census as they made their way back to Wayne County, no doubt hastened by the Indian troubles throughout the west.  Custer's 7th Cavalry was massacred in 1876, and it was the news and talk of the day.

Mahala's oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was quite the beauty.and at age 15 had gained the eye and attentions of a suitor while on the journey home. It is told in Elizabeth's memoirs contributed by her descendant, Gary Peterson, that he was so smitten he refused to leave her side and followed them on horseback half way home, trying his best to win her heart and hand. Elizabeth, in turn, was somewhat infatuated with the lad, but the thought of leaving the side and affections of her mother were too much to bear, and ultimately gave him the answer he hoped would never come.  Rejected and forlorn, he pointed his horse back towards Kansas, and a life without the Wayne County beauty.  This story is testament to the love of Mahala's children for their mother, and the place she held in all their hearts.

Mahala and her children continued living with Meshack and Elizabeth until her parents passing, and until such time as the children's lives began their individual journeys.  The 1900 census has her still in the home of her deceased parents, and living with her brother Francis Ward, to whom the properties were deeded by Meshack. Living with them was Mahala's and Alexander's son John and family.  It is believed that Francis Marion Ward passed away during this period of time, but Mahala lived on at the home until 1906, when at age 72 she located back across the river into the Ojibway/Moore Community into the home of daughter Susan and her husband Dan Moore.

It is from this Moore homestead that Mahala, about 1923, took my mother into her lap on the home's front porch and made the memory that made this old researcher curious about her life.

L-R sitting:  My great-great grandmothers doing what grandmothers do.  Mahala Ward Tarlton(L) and Missouri Johnson Toller Williams(R).  Missouri's grave in Rucker is only a few yards from that of Mahala. The children are, L-R: my mother,  Delores "Dee" Wilson (Ragan) in the arms of Mahala, Marie Wilson (Maloney), Francis Marion "Hank" Wilson.  All were children of Bessie Moore Wilson and Clarence Madison Wilson.  Photo circa 1923.

When I think of all my great-great grandmother endured in her life, burying a murdered husband and two small children, raising and nurturing four surviving children courageously in the most difficult of times, the constitution and endurance required to make the journey west in a covered wagon, it makes me extremely proud to know I share my DNA with such a remarkable lady.

Mahala died on January 5, 1926 of complications from old age at age 91 at the home of daughter Susan and her son-in-law, Dan Moore.  She was interred in the Rucker Cemetery.  Close by are the graves of her father and mother, her daughter Susan, and granddaughter Bessie Moore Wilson.

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The Mahala Ward Tarlton Headstone Project

Upon visiting Mahala's grave during the annual Rucker Graveyard Cleaning Day in 2009, I took another photo of her headstone and the raised lettering was still legible.  I took another photo in 2012 and the lettering could be made out with a chalk rubbing.  When my brother Ken Ragan and I visited the grave during the 2015 cleaning day at Rucker, the headstone information had virtually disappeared, time and the elements had taken their toll.  Ken and I decided to undertake a new addition to our great-great grandmother's monument so all her future grandchildren would know her place of repose.

Mahala Headstone April 2012.  Image of inscription still legible with a chalk rub.

 

Mahala Headstone 01 Sep 2016 prior to the update with new plaque insert.  Detail now virtually obscure.  The small inscription at the bottom of her original  information, was "Gone but not Forgotten."  Ironically, that is exactly what would have happened without the new insert. 

Ken took the measurements to insert a new engraving, and undertook contracting a local monument company in Paducah, KY to do the work.  His initiative was fundamental to the project becoming a reality. We collaborated on the detail, and decided to add a new line at the bottom of the stone. This honors not only her memory, but makes the project inclusive for all generations of her grandchildren.

The New Marker.

Our first attempt at restoration proved a futile trip for Ken and I, much to our dismay because our Uncle Clarence Madison Wilson, JR, and cousin Ron Wilson had driven from St. Louis for the event.

Rain was the order of the day.  And we discovered more of the new stone needed to be trimmed for the final insertion.  Ken again handled this with the monument company and we finally got a day with the needed sunshine to make the trip again to Rucker in Wayne County, Missouri.  On September 1, 2016 we packed up all of the tools and the new engraving on the 40th anniversary of our Mother's passing, September, 1, 1976. and I know she was with us as we undertook the project to honor our maternal ancestor.  Perhaps they watched, together again, with Grandmother Bessie, and our Great Grandmother Susan.

I hope all family will find the time to visit Mahala's final place of rest, and remember her story, our "Beloved Grandmother."

FOR MAHALA

A Poem by Great-Great Grandson Ken Ragan

She left this world before we came

To see that time had erased her name

From the stone that marked her rest

Upon an ancient wooded crest.

Unrequired was graven stone

To make her earthly presence known.

Her strength of spirit long endured

Though the name had been obscured.

Relentless time is unforgiving:

It only burdens us, the living.

We scribe her name in stone once more

"For a loved one gone before."

Keith Wayne Ragan

Top photo is of Mahala's great-great grandson Ken Ragan, my brother and project partner,  setting the marker.  Middle photo is of the project under construction.  Mahala's finished marker/monument is the bottom photo.

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The story and photographs in this narrative are copyrighted by the author, Keith Wayne Ragan, and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the author.  This narrative is intended for family use, and may be used as desired for family history collections of the descendants of  Mahala Ward Tarlton.  They may not be reproduced commercially in newspaper, magazine, or  other commercial outlets.