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- It is said that "Old Betts," as Elizabeth was called, was the ruler of the roost and a hellcat on wheels. It is believed that she was married to a McKissick and he was killed in the Indian Wars about 1812. She was expecting their child, Alexander, at the time. Alexander was eleven or twelve years old when she married John Stinnett.
She's found in the 1850 census in Sevier County, TN, living next door to her son Alexander: STINETT, Elizabeth (56); William (25); Benjamin (21); Margaret (19). Elizabeth was born in South Carolina; all the children were born in TN.
From the minutes of the New Salem Baptist Church, on the fourth Sunday in April, 1863: The New Salem Baptist Church of Jones Cove met in Business session and brought a charge of fornication against Elizabeth Stinnett, and cited her to the next business meeting to defend herself against the charge. At the next business meeting, she showed up with a witness who testified for her. There was a vote of the body present and she was cleared of all charges and restored to full membership. The record does not indicate who her witness was, but it was probably Thomas Stinnett, a son of John by a previous marriage. He showed up in the 1860 Census as living in the Stinnett household, but does not show in any other Census. There is a Thomas Stinnett bured in the No. 1 Henry Cemetery in Old Henry Town.
Elizabeth is not listed in the 1870 Census of Sevier County, but she showed up at the County Court Clerk's Office in 1874 and gave a sworn deposition that she had made and signed a deed for 50 acres of land to her son, Alexander Stinnett, in 1866. She is next found when she was 90 years old, in her daughter's household (Margaret and Thomas Wilkerson) in Wears Valley, District No. 6, Sevier County, Tennessee. It is not known when she died or where she is buried.
Alexander was her favorite child and she transferred the farm that belonged to her and John to him. This later caused trouble with the other children, because there was a court action over this.
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