COLUMBUS SYKES FAMILY
EMMA PAULINE MOORE
An excerpt from the book "The Sykes of Columbus and Aberdeen and Their Descendants", to be released in the first half of 2010, written by Tom Mayfield and Lanier Bogen
Columbus Sykes was the eldest child of George Augustus Sykes and Martha Ann Sykes. He was born in Greenville County, Virginia on July 23, 1832. He was a lawyer and an accomplished soldier. The family left Virginia in 1834 and moved to Decatur, Alabama by covered wagon. They built a home on their plantation in Decatur and then moved to Carroll County, Mississippi where they built another home. After a short stay in Mississippi, the family moved back to Decatur, Alabama where they stayed for a few years before moving again to Aberdeen, Mississippi. That is where they would live the remainder of their lives.
In 1852 they built a home, “The Homestead”, which still stands today on Commerce and Long Street in Aberdeen. Aberdeen is where Columbus would spend his younger years and where he would marry Miss Emma Pauline Moore on November 24th, 1857 at the “Homestead” when Emma was twenty-five years of age. Emma’s father was Joseph Ivy Moore and her mother was Elizabeth W. Gregory. The newly married couple lived their early- married life in Aberdeen and in Columbus as Columbus started his law practice. The Sykes soon had two children. The first-born was George Augustus Sykes who was born in 1860 and later Eliza Sykes who was born in 1863.
When the Civil War started Columbus said goodbye to his wife, children and family and left for war. Columbus joined The 43rd Mississippi Volunteer Infantry, which was made up in part of men from Columbus and Aberdeen. From the start of the war the Sykes exchanged letters back and forth from the battlefield to home and from home to the battlefield. These letters helped the young couple keep in touch during these very hard times for all. On May 21, Lt. Col. Sykes wrote to his wife from his regiment’s position on the south side of the Etowah River. “ All the people of wealth above us have left their homes, keeping in the rear of our army. Many hundreds of people left thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars of property, which was destroyed. Magnificent wheat and clover fields had been decimated, fences burned, etc.
Previously, the Railroad Bridge, the dirt road bridge and two pontoon bridges across the river here were burned. Such immense destruction was painful to witness. The Civil War was very hard on the Sykes of Aberdeen and Columbus. Dr. William Edmunds Sykes, brother of Columbus Sykes, along with his brother and other Sykes fought in the battle for Atlanta. He was killed in battle near Decatur, Alabama, on October 26, 1864. A month later with a heavy heart, Columbus Sykes sat near a tree in Aberdeen, Mississippi and composed a letter to his niece and nephew. “ You are yet young he wrote, “one just emerged from his mother’s arms, the other an infant whose age is numbered only by months”.
He then told the children about “ their devoted father” and “ his noble brother” who had joined the Confederate army. In just over two months after his brother had died in battle, Columbus Sykes died on Jan 7, 1865 in Mississippi. His death occurred while he was sleeping under a tree when a branch of the dead tree fell on Columbus and several other soldiers who were with him that night. (Please read below the complete story of the death of Columbus and his brother William by Eugene Lanier Sykes written in 1922.) After the death of Columbus Sykes, his widow Emma and children lived in Columbus.
Then after several years she married Pollock Barbour, a prominent Louisville citizen who served as State Senator during James B. McCray’s first term as governor of Kentucky. Mr. Barbour died several years before his wife. Mrs. Barbour was a devout member of the Methodist church and was a refined, Christian woman, loved by all who knew her. Mrs. Barbour had four children from her two marriages, those being from her marriage to Columbus Sykes, Eliza Sykes, who married a Mr. Lewis and died as a young woman and George Augustus Sykes who was born in 1859 and later attended and graduated from Washington and Lee University in Virginia where his picture still hangs in the Hall of Fame where it is said that he was the first person to throw a curveball pitch in a college game.
George later moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he earned his law degree. He then moved to Marietta, Georgia and lived the rest of his life there living with his half sister and brother in-law, Mr. Strafford Hewitt and Mrs. Carolyn Dudley Hewitt and their children. George died there in September of 1934 and his body was taken back to Aberdeen, Mississippi with his funeral taking place at the family home “The Homestead” with burial in Aberdeen.
One of the two children from Emma’s marriage to Mr. Barbour was Margaret Barbour who married Mr. James H. Williams of Hartford, Kentucky on November 16, 1898. Mr. Williams was a pharmacist for many years and had also served as the city’s mayor. The William’s had four children, two daughters and two sons. The daughters were Misses Pauline Moore Williams and Ewell Williams both of Hendersonville, North Carolina. The sisters never married and lived the remainder of their lives in Hendersonville.
Their two sons were J. Barbour Williams of Pontiac, Michigan and George Dudley Williams of Detroit Michigan Mrs. Barbour’s second daughter was Carolyn Barbour who married Mr. Strafford Hewitt and moved with her husband to Cobb County, Georgia in 1909. The Hewitt’s made the city of Marietta in Cobb County their home for the rest of their lives. The Hewitt’s had four daughters and one son. They also had Mrs. Hewitt’s half-brother, George Augustus Sykes, living with them until he died in 1934. Their children were Miss Reaves Hewitt of Marietta, Georgia who never married, Mrs. John Wight Fulton of Memphis, Tenn. and Mrs. Lucas Neas of Pratt Field, Kansas along with Mrs. Carolyn Hewitt Hitchcock of Reno, Nevada and one son John P. B. Hewitt of Bath, New York. Strafford Hewitt died in Marietta on August 12, 1940 and his wife Carolyn died in October 1944 in Marietta.
The above is the short story of the descendents of one Civil War soldier who gave his life for a cause in which he believed. Col. Columbus Sykes was born 1832 and died in 1865.
