The
Trivettes of Western North Carolina
This website is copyrighted 2004
||||| Introduction |||||
The Earliest
Trivettes ||||| North
Carolina Political Boundaries ||||| Whose Child Is Whose?
|||||
||||| How Do You Spell
Trivette? ||||| Sorting Out
the William Trivettes ||||| Trivettes in the Civil War |||||
||||| Descendants of John and Richard Trivette ||||| What Was It Like
As An Early Trivette? |||||
What Happened To Nathaniel C. Tribet?
This article is about the short life of Nathaniel C. Tribet,
who died at age 25 as a Private in the Kentucky
39th Infantry of the Union Army in the Civil War, and what happened
to him after his death. Fortunately he
produced two sons before his death, one of whom was my great grandfather.
Probably all of the Trivettes in Pike County, Kentucky
today descend from Nathaniel or his younger brother, William. Over the last 150 years their occupations
have included judge, mayor, tax collector, riverboat captain, revenue agent,
farmer, chief of police, justice of the peace, physician, mayor, school
teacher, high school principal, basketball coach, state legislator, and
entrepreneur in broadcasting and coal mining.
All handwritten documents mentioning Nathaniel’s name spell
his surname Tribet, so that is what is used here. All of his descendents I have encountered use
the “v” spelling.
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Nathaniel C. Tribet was born in Ashe County, North Carolina
in 1837 as the third child and third son of Owen and Dicy Trivette (41). The 1850 Ashe County
census shows him living at home with his parents. He married Hannah Greer, the first cousin of
his mother, on April 1, 1858 in Ashe County, and soon after they moved to Pike County, Kentucky.
The exact reasons for relocating to Kentucky are not known but immediate and extended
family influences undoubtedly played a part.
The family trees of the Trivette, Wilcox, and Greer families intersect
at multiple points, and they appeared to be one big virtual family in North Carolina. The Wilcox family was related by marriage to
the family of Daniel Boone and they were familiar with his exploits in Kentucky in the
mid-1700s. The family of Nathaniel’s
mother, Dicy Wilcox Trivette, actually moved to Kentucky in the 1820s, and one of their
children, Samuel, was born there. But
the constant threat of Indian attacks forced their move back to North Carolina. Samuel would subsequently move for good to Pike County, Kentucky
in 1850 (63).
Nathaniel and Hannah probably were not alone in their
relocation to eastern Kentucky. Nathaniel’s older brother, Isaiah, and his
wife, Susan, either accompanied them or came soon before or after. In the 1860 Pike County
census, Nathaniel’s household is flanked by Isaiah and Susan on one side, and
the home of Samuel Wilcox, Nathaniel and Isaiah’s maternal uncle, on the
other. Isaiah’s children were born in North Carolina in 1854 and 1857, and he received a land
grant in Pike County in 1858.
Nathaniel had established himself as a school teacher and
farmer when Levi, his first child, arrived on April 6, 1860 in Pike County. Then their second child, John Freeman, was
born March 15, 1862. But the Civil War
had begun and no part of the region would be left unaffected. Eastern Kentucky
was mostly pro-Union and experienced unofficial roaming conscription parties,
as did other parts of the North and South.
There is a Trivette family story that these groups took a
you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us approach to potential enlistees and implied
serious consequences if you rejected them.
The first time such a group came through the area, Nathaniel
successfully hid. But they took him by
surprise the second time, so he soon became a Private in Company E of the Kentucky 39th
Infantry. He would not be the only
Trivette to serve in the war; four of his brothers mustered into the
Confederate Army in North Carolina,
although two of them would later cross over to join the Union Army. Twelve North Carolina Trivette first cousins
also participated, 11 for the Confederate Army.
The other crossed the state line into Tennessee and joined the Union forces
(19,20,21,30).
Records show Nathaniel mustered into service on November 18,
1862 at Peach Orchard, Lawrence County,
Kentucky (26). He was shown as present until he was admitted
into the “U.S. General Hospital,” a Union Army facility, in Ashland, Kentucky
on April 2, 1863 (64). It had been the
Aldine Hotel prior to the war and was located on the southwest corner of 15th
and Front Streets in Ashland on the south bank of the Ohio River (Note:
Although the Ohio River generally flows from East to West, due to its
meandering nature the river at Ashland flows about North Northwest. So locals designate the Ashland side of the
river as the west bank, and you travel west as you move away from the river). It opened in 1854 but was turned over to the
U.S. Government in 1861. After the war
it reopened as a hotel and operated until 1900.
It apparently could not compete with the newer Ventura Hotel, which
opened in 1894. The Ventura offered amenities that the Aldine did
not, such as running water. The Aldine
Hotel building was demolished in1903 (73).
Nathaniel remained in the hospital until his death on May
22, 1863 at age 25. The officially
stated cause of death was bronchitis (64).
One of Nathaniel’s living descendants recalls that she was told years
ago his wife, Hannah had traveled to Ashland
to visit Nathaniel while he was in the hospital.
Captain Lewis Sowards was the commanding officer of Company
E. When Nathaniel’s widow applied for a
widow’s pension in 1867 she enlisted written testimony from him to verify that
Nathaniel appeared in good health upon joining his company. She apparently had to show his death was
caused by his military service and not from a preexisting condition. Captain Sowards did verify this, saying that
he couldn’t be sure of what Nathaniel’s specific illness was, but many of his
men had it. He felt it is was due to the
fact they had few tents and blankets during the winter of 1862 – 1863 (64).
Burials of soldiers from Civil War hospitals were probably
done quickly and took place in nearby locations such as public cemeteries or
plots acquired for that purpose.
Official records do not state the specific resting place of those who
died in the U.S. General
Hospital. Other records,
however, mention “vicinity Ashland
Kentucky” as the only known
nearby place where such burials occurred (74).
Long time Ashland area residents who have
an interest in the subject say these soldiers were buried in the Bethesda Cemetery
on Pollard Road
near U.S. 60 in Ashland, which existed near the
currently active Calvary
Cemetery. The Bethesda Church
was built about 1819 at this location, and it developed a cemetery on its
grounds, as was typical for the period (75).
The term “vicinity” implies outside of the city of Ashland, but the Bethesda Cemetery
location is well within the city limits today.
This discrepancy is explained by the fact that in 1850, the southern
city limits of Ashland ran approximately through
Hilton Avenue,
thus placing Bethesda
about a mile outside of town (75). This
is probably where Nathaniel Tribet was initially buried.
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So what happened to Nathaniel and the other deceased
soldiers in the Bethesda
Cemetery? A similar story is shared by hundreds of
thousands of other Union soldiers. It
has its beginning in the war with Mexico
in 1846 – 1848 which resulted in Mexico
ceding what are now California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Colorado
and New Mexico to the United States. But as in all wars there was death, and the
remains of most American soldiers who died on Mexican soil were never recovered
and returned to the United
States.
To this day, there is a gravesite in Mexico City, Mexico
containing the remains of 750 unidentified American soldiers who died in that
conflict. Having learned from that
experience the United States Congress in 1862 authorized President Lincoln to
acquire property for cemeteries that would fittingly honor those who made the
ultimate sacrifice for America. Twelve facilities were initially established,
including Arlington National Cemetery
in Arlington, Virginia (74).
But the proper disposition of war dead presented additional
problems. First, the number of deaths
brought about by the Civil War was enormous, greater than any other war fought
by the United States. The counts depend on the source, but 364,000
Union deaths and 163,000 Confederate deaths, for a total of 527,000, are the
figures provided by the U.S. Defense Department (76). This total reflects deaths from all
causes. The numbers are even more
striking when taken as a percentage of the 1860 U.S. population of 31.4 million –
1.68%. That percentage of today’s 300
million population would be over five million people. Less than one-third of the Union soldiers who
died did so from combat; various diseases such as typhoid, dysentery, small
pox, and infections were the biggest killers.
In the 39th’s three year existence there were only 21 deaths
attributed to combat, but there were 173 who succumbed due to various diseases
or problems relating to injuries. A
total of 1358 men served in that Regiment (26).
Second, locating all these remains would be difficult. When a soldier died in combat he was buried
near where he fell. Sometimes they were
interred in mass graves. Identification
of such a soldier sometimes consisted of a name written in pencil on a wood
marker. Those who died at various
medical facilities away from the front were usually easier to find. This would include Nathaniel Tribet in Bethesda Cemetery. The remains of hundreds of thousands of
people then had to be exhumed and transported for reburial. After the end of the Civil War the U.S. Army
Quartermaster Corp received that responsibility.
The Quartermaster Corp or its contractors spread out across
the country looking for buried soldiers near battlegrounds, in public
cemeteries, or on private land. The Big
Sandy Valley was a part of this search, and the remains found were transported
to the New Albany National Cemetery in New Albany, Indiana, one of the first 12
such facilities established by the 1862 act.
New Albany is a town on the Ohio River
across from Louisville, Kentucky.
Of the approximately 2800 graves there, 962 were “gathered from the
mountain regions of West Virginia, west of the
Kanawha River,
and from eastern Kentucky, on the Ohio, and up the Big
Sand River;
from West Point, Calhoun, Smithland, and other points on the Salt, Green, and
lower Cumberland Rivers.”
This operation included the disinterment of 171 graves from “vicinity Ashland Kentucky,”
probably Bethesda
Cemetery. All this was done in the short period of time
from March through August, 1868 (74).
Nathaniel was most likely among them.
Some corroborating evidence exists to confirm Nathaniel was
buried at Bethesda
and was subsequently disinterred. A few
years ago a personal journal written about 1890 by Francis Marion Wilcox,
Nathaniel’s second cousin, on his family’s history was discovered. It was written retrospectively about events
beginning just before the Civil War, and contains important information on
Trivette history going back to Owen Trivette, Nathaniel’s father. The diary does contain some incorrect
information, but given the amount of detail and the fact it was written 30
years after the events took place, it is amazingly accurate.
Regarding Nathaniel, Marion
states that “After the war he was exhumed and reburied in the state capitol in
the national lot or cemetery.” The
reburial is correct but the location is not since there is no national cemetery
in Frankfort
(63).
A review of the individual graves at New
Albany Cemetery, as
detailed in the Honor Roll, shows only 156 as originating from “vicinity Ashland Kentucky.” What happened to the other 15 is
unknown. Twenty-nine were known to be
from the 39th Infantry. Of
the 156, 31 were identified whites; 27 were identified coloreds; 8 unknown
colored; and two known “miscellaneous.” (74).
There were 88 unknowns, and Nathaniel is probably among them.