Isaac Sanders was born on June 20, 1817 in Randolph County, North Carolina. He was my great grandfather and I first heard of him in stories told to me by my father when I was a child. Evidence from several sources suggest that Isaac was a son of Benjamin Sanders (1766-1849) and a grandson of another Isaac Saunders (1737-1825), one of the four brothers who moved from Virginia to Anson County, North Carolina in the 1770s.
The first documentary record of my great grandfather Isaac is a land warrant dated May 9, 1832 by which Joshua Craven sold seventy-five acres to Immer Bean in Randolph County. The land was located on the Little River, adjoining the county line with Montgomery County. Isaac and William Cornelison were the chain carriers. Immer Bean was married to Sarah Sanders, one of Isaac's sisters. "Uncle Billy Cornelison" was married to another of Isaac's sisters, Rebecca, who was called "Aunt Becky."
In 1833, according to Isaac's brother John, Isaac's parents, Benjamin and Mary Sanders, moved to Jackson County, Alabama. On September 18, 1836 Isaac married Elizabeth King (born May 22, 1817). Her parents are not known but she may have been a sister to Isham J. King (1810-1884). Isham married Annie Sanders about 1832 in Randolph County, and Annie appears to have been one of Isaac's sisters. Isham King was the bondsman when George W. Sanders, a brother of Isaac, married Anna Johnson in 1833 in Randolph County, North Carolina.
On October 26, 1837, Isaac volunteered for the Seminole Indian War, as did many young men from Jackson County. For the most part, they saw little fighting. Isaac was honorably discharged at Fort Mitchell April 9, 1838. In the 1840 Jackson County census Isaac Sanders is listed with an age range of 20-30, one female in the household age 20-30 (his wife Elizabeth), and one male child, age 0-5 (his son Aaron, born 1837). Isaac is enumerated next door to or near his father, Benjamin Sanders, age 70-80.
Isaac Sanders moved his family to Old Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1841 and he is listed on the 1844/45 Mississippi state census for Tishomingo County which shows four males in the household and one female.
On April 1, 1851 Isaac Sanders applied for federal bounty land warrant in Montgomery County, Arkansas, based on his service in the Seminole Indian War. The move to Arkansas may explain why Isaac and his family have not been found on the 1850 census in any state. In 1855 Isaac filed for another bounty land warrant in Montgomery County. The 1860 Montgomery County, Arkansas census shows Isaac Sanders living near Mt. Ida in the Sulphur Springs Township.Isaac's brother George W. Sanders and his family were living nearby, having moved to Montgomery in the 1840s. In the 1850s, Isaac's half-brother William Sanders and his family moved to Montgomery County.
During the Civil War, Sanders from Montgomery County served in the "Montgomery County Hunters," a unit of the Confederate Army that was merged with Company F of the 4th Arkansas infantry. They were mustered in at Mt. Ida on July 17, 1861, though formal enlistment didn't occur until October. The roll included Isaac and three of his sons.
From a letter written by Louie Richard Davis of Weatherford, Texas on July 24, 1974 to friends in Scottsboro, Jackson county, Alabama:
"There is another story told about two of the Sanders. I don't know the exact relationship to Phoebe but they were close kin. The story goes that the two brothers were fighting during the War Between the States. One had enlisted with the Union Army and the other was serving with the Confederates. They were mounted and fighting and charging with sword and sabre. It was night and dark and they did not recognize each other, or who they were fighting against. One of them said 'Get Ert Aunt Becky,' and the other said 'Is that you, John?' and they then recognized each other as being brothers and stopped fighting. They had an aunt called Aunt Becky who had a 'By-Word' of Get Ert. I have a note of a John Sanders serving with Co. B. 3rd Ohio Regiment (Union Army). I don't remember where I got it but wonder if they might be the one in the story."
Don Schaefer, editor of the magazine "Sanders Siftings" had this to say about this story:
"If this story is true, or even part of it is true, these are brothers John and Isaac Sanders. Isaac did fight for the South. Their sister, Rebecca, was known as Aunt Becky to most everyone and I think they would have called her that, too. The Phoebe mentioned in the letter is an ancestor of Louie Davis and is also a sister of Isaac and John."
This story probably refers to John and Isaac, but it is unlikely that the two brothers were in the same battle because Isaac's service in the Confederacy was brief. He was on furlough for much of the winter of 1861-62 and returned to duty with penumonia. In April, 1862, he was released from duty. His discharge paper states that " the within named Isaac Sanders, a private of Captain John M. Simpson's company of the 4th Arkansas Regiment of Arkansas Volunteers, born in Randolph County in the state of North Carolina, age 44 years, five feet nine inches high, fair complexion, blue eyes, sandy hair, and by profession a farmer, was enlisted by Major G. W. Clark at Fort Smith, Ark. On the 21st day of October 1861 to serve one year and is now entitled to a discharge by reason of chronic pneumonia."
In the fall and winter of 1863-64 most of the Sanders family in the Montgomery County area appeared to have switched sides from the Confederacy to the Union forces. Isaac's cousin William Patrick Sanders and two of William's sons joined the 4th U.S. cavalry in November of 1863. They were accompanied by some of the related Biddy and Lamb families and a son of Isaac's half-brother, William Sanders. Isaac's son Jesse joined the 4th U.S. cavalry, Company D, in February 1864 and Isaac himself enlisted at Dardanelle in Yell County in March, 1864. The Arkansas natives who joined the federal forces this late in the war apparently did not participate in major battles but spent most of their time in units assigned to to suppress the Confederate guerillas and irregulars in the area.
At some point between September 1867 and 1869, Isaac's family moved back to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, for they appear on the 1870 and 1880 Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi, census. Prentiss was formed in 1870 from a part of the old Tishomingo County.
In January of 2013 and November 2016 additional information about Isaac's family was given to me by Cathy Eshmont (now Cathy Latrelli), a descendant of Calvin Newton Sanders (1874-1957), a son of Aaron Sanders, and grandson of Isaac. Cathy had access to a book that was compiled in the 1980s by a relative, Barbara Radcliffe Rogers, who had married a great grandson of Aaron Sanders. Barbara found material that was copied by Alma Sanders Owen, a granddaughter of Aaron Sanders, in the 1960s or 1970s from a family Bible that had belonged to either Isaac Sanders or to his son Aaron. It is from this source that we know the exact birth dates of Isaac Sanders and Elizabeth King and their children.
Children of ISAAC SANDERS and ELIZABETH KING are:
AARON SANDERS b. July 24 1837, Jackson County, Alabama; d. November 28, 1902, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. (1) DEBORAH ANN SWAIM, April 07, 1859, Montgomery County, Arkansas; b. Abt. 1841, Jackson County, Alabama; d. May 3, 1860 1860, Montgomery County, Arkansas; m. (2) HESTER ANN CHAMPION, September 02, 1872, Prentiss County, Mississippi; b. February 27, 1854, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 04, 1920, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi.
MARY SANDERS, b. October 15, 1839, Jackson County, Alabama; d. March 1840, Jackson County, Alabama
ISAAC SANDERS, b. December 8, 1840, Jackson County, Alabama; d. January 10, 1862, Arkansas, in Civil War.
BENJAMIN SANDERS b. February 20, 1842, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. March 02, 1900, Sebastian County, Arkansas; m. SARAH SALLIE LAMB, February 08, 1874, Sebastian County, Arkansas; b. April 12, 1834, North Carolina; d. May 24, 1919, Sebastian County, Arkansas.
JESSE SANDERS b. June 30, 1845, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. December 12, 1903, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas; m. MARY AMANDA PICKERING, October 31, 1871, Erath County, Texas; b. March 13, 1854, Henderson County, Texas; d. July 22, 1898, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas.
CALVIN SANDERS, b. July 21, 1847, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. June 6, 1877, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. MARY UNKNOWN (Clark?), Abt. 1868, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; b. Abt. 1849, Mississippi; d. August 6, 1899, Indian Territory
WILLIAM SANDERS, b. May 18, 1849, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 20, 1850.
AMANDA SANDERS, b. November 21, 1850, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. September 1867 in Arkansas or Mississippi.
ELIZABETH SANDERS, b. January 10, 1853, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. August 26, 1855.
UNNAMED SON SANDERS, b. January 5, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. January 9, 1855.
SARAH SANDERS, b. December 24, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
REBECCA SANDERS, b. March 21, 1858, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
The 1880 census is the last documentation I have been able to find for Isaac and Elizabeth. The census taker recorded that Elizabeth was bedridden with "dyspepsia," or what we would call an upset stomach today, but which in those days often indicated a far more serious illness. We do not know the exact year of the death of either Isaac or Elizabeth, but they almost certainly died between 1880 and 1900.
Isaac and Elizabeth are probably buried in an unmarked grave at the Prospect Cemetery where their son and several other family members are buried. There are several reasons for this belief. Cathy L'Altrelli, a descendant of Isaac's son Aaron, has researched the history of the Prospect Cemetery. She learned in 2020 from the minister of the Baptist church adjacent to the site of the Prospect Cemetery that, years ago, a Methodist church existed at the same location and that the Methodist church was destroyed in a storm. The Baptists later built a church on the same location, but the Baptists had no role in creating or maintaining the cemetery. She was unable to determine in what year this happened but thinks it was probably in the "Tupelo Tornado" of 1936.
She also checked with the Archivist at Millsaps College where the Mississippi archives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (the pre-1939 name of the present United Methodist Church) are maintained, but they had no records of the Prospect Methodist Church in Prentiss County; nor did any other present Methodist churches in the area. This would not be unusual, however, if the records were destroyed in the storm or lost by other means.
There was a close association of the descendants and other relatives of Isaac and Elizabeth with Methodism. Their son Jesse was also buried in a Methodist cemetery, and their grandson Calvin Newton and his family were Methodists. Isaac's first cousin, Levi Lindsey Sanders of Texas, after whom Isaac's son Aaron would name one of his children, was also a member of the church. Methodism, of course, was particularly strong in the Randolph County area of North Carolina where Isaac and Elizabeth were born in 1817.
Even though no records have yet been located, we have good reason to think that several other members of the Sanders family were buried in the Prospect Cemetery near the two Sanders who do have tombstones, Aaron Sanders (Isaac's son) and Iley Sanders (Aaron's grandchild). As Cathy L'Altelli stated, " When we recently updated Aaron Sanders' marker, you might recall we had to stay within the boundaries of where his original marker was because nothing is known of who owned what and how many plots any family owned. We can surmise since Iley is very near Aaron that there was a Sanders plot and other family members are likely near those two. Likewise, we can surmise that Mrs. Newt's father [Thomas Jefferson Azbell, died 1915], who is buried there per his death certificate, is somewhere near his several grandchildren in the Azbell plot – but we don't know for sure."
We do know, however, that Isaac and Elizabeth lived in the Wheeler, Mississippi area, for years, near the church, and it would seem likely that upon their deaths, they would have been buried in the cemetery adjacent to that was associated with some of their family members.
Isaac and Elizabeth were probably not even the first members of their family to be buried in Prospect Cemetery. Their son Calvin, who died in 1877 may have been the first family member to have been buried in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the early markers were probably made of wood or other perishable material.
--Gary B. Sanders
The first documentary record of my great grandfather Isaac is a land warrant dated May 9, 1832 by which Joshua Craven sold seventy-five acres to Immer Bean in Randolph County. The land was located on the Little River, adjoining the county line with Montgomery County. Isaac and William Cornelison were the chain carriers. Immer Bean was married to Sarah Sanders, one of Isaac's sisters. "Uncle Billy Cornelison" was married to another of Isaac's sisters, Rebecca, who was called "Aunt Becky."
In 1833, according to Isaac's brother John, Isaac's parents, Benjamin and Mary Sanders, moved to Jackson County, Alabama. On September 18, 1836 Isaac married Elizabeth King (born May 22, 1817). Her parents are not known but she may have been a sister to Isham J. King (1810-1884). Isham married Annie Sanders about 1832 in Randolph County, and Annie appears to have been one of Isaac's sisters. Isham King was the bondsman when George W. Sanders, a brother of Isaac, married Anna Johnson in 1833 in Randolph County, North Carolina.
On October 26, 1837, Isaac volunteered for the Seminole Indian War, as did many young men from Jackson County. For the most part, they saw little fighting. Isaac was honorably discharged at Fort Mitchell April 9, 1838. In the 1840 Jackson County census Isaac Sanders is listed with an age range of 20-30, one female in the household age 20-30 (his wife Elizabeth), and one male child, age 0-5 (his son Aaron, born 1837). Isaac is enumerated next door to or near his father, Benjamin Sanders, age 70-80.
Isaac Sanders moved his family to Old Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1841 and he is listed on the 1844/45 Mississippi state census for Tishomingo County which shows four males in the household and one female.
On April 1, 1851 Isaac Sanders applied for federal bounty land warrant in Montgomery County, Arkansas, based on his service in the Seminole Indian War. The move to Arkansas may explain why Isaac and his family have not been found on the 1850 census in any state. In 1855 Isaac filed for another bounty land warrant in Montgomery County. The 1860 Montgomery County, Arkansas census shows Isaac Sanders living near Mt. Ida in the Sulphur Springs Township.Isaac's brother George W. Sanders and his family were living nearby, having moved to Montgomery in the 1840s. In the 1850s, Isaac's half-brother William Sanders and his family moved to Montgomery County.
During the Civil War, Sanders from Montgomery County served in the "Montgomery County Hunters," a unit of the Confederate Army that was merged with Company F of the 4th Arkansas infantry. They were mustered in at Mt. Ida on July 17, 1861, though formal enlistment didn't occur until October. The roll included Isaac and three of his sons.
From a letter written by Louie Richard Davis of Weatherford, Texas on July 24, 1974 to friends in Scottsboro, Jackson county, Alabama:
"There is another story told about two of the Sanders. I don't know the exact relationship to Phoebe but they were close kin. The story goes that the two brothers were fighting during the War Between the States. One had enlisted with the Union Army and the other was serving with the Confederates. They were mounted and fighting and charging with sword and sabre. It was night and dark and they did not recognize each other, or who they were fighting against. One of them said 'Get Ert Aunt Becky,' and the other said 'Is that you, John?' and they then recognized each other as being brothers and stopped fighting. They had an aunt called Aunt Becky who had a 'By-Word' of Get Ert. I have a note of a John Sanders serving with Co. B. 3rd Ohio Regiment (Union Army). I don't remember where I got it but wonder if they might be the one in the story."
Don Schaefer, editor of the magazine "Sanders Siftings" had this to say about this story:
"If this story is true, or even part of it is true, these are brothers John and Isaac Sanders. Isaac did fight for the South. Their sister, Rebecca, was known as Aunt Becky to most everyone and I think they would have called her that, too. The Phoebe mentioned in the letter is an ancestor of Louie Davis and is also a sister of Isaac and John."
This story probably refers to John and Isaac, but it is unlikely that the two brothers were in the same battle because Isaac's service in the Confederacy was brief. He was on furlough for much of the winter of 1861-62 and returned to duty with penumonia. In April, 1862, he was released from duty. His discharge paper states that " the within named Isaac Sanders, a private of Captain John M. Simpson's company of the 4th Arkansas Regiment of Arkansas Volunteers, born in Randolph County in the state of North Carolina, age 44 years, five feet nine inches high, fair complexion, blue eyes, sandy hair, and by profession a farmer, was enlisted by Major G. W. Clark at Fort Smith, Ark. On the 21st day of October 1861 to serve one year and is now entitled to a discharge by reason of chronic pneumonia."
In the fall and winter of 1863-64 most of the Sanders family in the Montgomery County area appeared to have switched sides from the Confederacy to the Union forces. Isaac's cousin William Patrick Sanders and two of William's sons joined the 4th U.S. cavalry in November of 1863. They were accompanied by some of the related Biddy and Lamb families and a son of Isaac's half-brother, William Sanders. Isaac's son Jesse joined the 4th U.S. cavalry, Company D, in February 1864 and Isaac himself enlisted at Dardanelle in Yell County in March, 1864. The Arkansas natives who joined the federal forces this late in the war apparently did not participate in major battles but spent most of their time in units assigned to to suppress the Confederate guerillas and irregulars in the area.
At some point between September 1867 and 1869, Isaac's family moved back to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, for they appear on the 1870 and 1880 Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi, census. Prentiss was formed in 1870 from a part of the old Tishomingo County.
In January of 2013 and November 2016 additional information about Isaac's family was given to me by Cathy Eshmont (now Cathy Latrelli), a descendant of Calvin Newton Sanders (1874-1957), a son of Aaron Sanders, and grandson of Isaac. Cathy had access to a book that was compiled in the 1980s by a relative, Barbara Radcliffe Rogers, who had married a great grandson of Aaron Sanders. Barbara found material that was copied by Alma Sanders Owen, a granddaughter of Aaron Sanders, in the 1960s or 1970s from a family Bible that had belonged to either Isaac Sanders or to his son Aaron. It is from this source that we know the exact birth dates of Isaac Sanders and Elizabeth King and their children.
Children of ISAAC SANDERS and ELIZABETH KING are:
AARON SANDERS b. July 24 1837, Jackson County, Alabama; d. November 28, 1902, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. (1) DEBORAH ANN SWAIM, April 07, 1859, Montgomery County, Arkansas; b. Abt. 1841, Jackson County, Alabama; d. May 3, 1860 1860, Montgomery County, Arkansas; m. (2) HESTER ANN CHAMPION, September 02, 1872, Prentiss County, Mississippi; b. February 27, 1854, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 04, 1920, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi.
MARY SANDERS, b. October 15, 1839, Jackson County, Alabama; d. March 1840, Jackson County, Alabama
ISAAC SANDERS, b. December 8, 1840, Jackson County, Alabama; d. January 10, 1862, Arkansas, in Civil War.
BENJAMIN SANDERS b. February 20, 1842, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. March 02, 1900, Sebastian County, Arkansas; m. SARAH SALLIE LAMB, February 08, 1874, Sebastian County, Arkansas; b. April 12, 1834, North Carolina; d. May 24, 1919, Sebastian County, Arkansas.
JESSE SANDERS b. June 30, 1845, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. December 12, 1903, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas; m. MARY AMANDA PICKERING, October 31, 1871, Erath County, Texas; b. March 13, 1854, Henderson County, Texas; d. July 22, 1898, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas.
CALVIN SANDERS, b. July 21, 1847, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. June 6, 1877, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. MARY UNKNOWN (Clark?), Abt. 1868, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; b. Abt. 1849, Mississippi; d. August 6, 1899, Indian Territory
WILLIAM SANDERS, b. May 18, 1849, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 20, 1850.
AMANDA SANDERS, b. November 21, 1850, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. September 1867 in Arkansas or Mississippi.
ELIZABETH SANDERS, b. January 10, 1853, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. August 26, 1855.
UNNAMED SON SANDERS, b. January 5, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. January 9, 1855.
SARAH SANDERS, b. December 24, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
REBECCA SANDERS, b. March 21, 1858, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
The 1880 census is the last documentation I have been able to find for Isaac and Elizabeth. The census taker recorded that Elizabeth was bedridden with "dyspepsia," or what we would call an upset stomach today, but which in those days often indicated a far more serious illness. We do not know the exact year of the death of either Isaac or Elizabeth, but they almost certainly died between 1880 and 1900.
Isaac and Elizabeth are probably buried in an unmarked grave at the Prospect Cemetery where their son and several other family members are buried. There are several reasons for this belief. Cathy L'Altrelli, a descendant of Isaac's son Aaron, has researched the history of the Prospect Cemetery. She learned in 2020 from the minister of the Baptist church adjacent to the site of the Prospect Cemetery that, years ago, a Methodist church existed at the same location and that the Methodist church was destroyed in a storm. The Baptists later built a church on the same location, but the Baptists had no role in creating or maintaining the cemetery. She was unable to determine in what year this happened but thinks it was probably in the "Tupelo Tornado" of 1936.
She also checked with the Archivist at Millsaps College where the Mississippi archives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (the pre-1939 name of the present United Methodist Church) are maintained, but they had no records of the Prospect Methodist Church in Prentiss County; nor did any other present Methodist churches in the area. This would not be unusual, however, if the records were destroyed in the storm or lost by other means.
There was a close association of the descendants and other relatives of Isaac and Elizabeth with Methodism. Their son Jesse was also buried in a Methodist cemetery, and their grandson Calvin Newton and his family were Methodists. Isaac's first cousin, Levi Lindsey Sanders of Texas, after whom Isaac's son Aaron would name one of his children, was also a member of the church. Methodism, of course, was particularly strong in the Randolph County area of North Carolina where Isaac and Elizabeth were born in 1817.
Even though no records have yet been located, we have good reason to think that several other members of the Sanders family were buried in the Prospect Cemetery near the two Sanders who do have tombstones, Aaron Sanders (Isaac's son) and Iley Sanders (Aaron's grandchild). As Cathy L'Altelli stated, " When we recently updated Aaron Sanders' marker, you might recall we had to stay within the boundaries of where his original marker was because nothing is known of who owned what and how many plots any family owned. We can surmise since Iley is very near Aaron that there was a Sanders plot and other family members are likely near those two. Likewise, we can surmise that Mrs. Newt's father [Thomas Jefferson Azbell, died 1915], who is buried there per his death certificate, is somewhere near his several grandchildren in the Azbell plot – but we don't know for sure."
We do know, however, that Isaac and Elizabeth lived in the Wheeler, Mississippi area, for years, near the church, and it would seem likely that upon their deaths, they would have been buried in the cemetery adjacent to that was associated with some of their family members.
Isaac and Elizabeth were probably not even the first members of their family to be buried in Prospect Cemetery. Their son Calvin, who died in 1877 may have been the first family member to have been buried in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the early markers were probably made of wood or other perishable material.
--Gary B. Sanders
Isaac Sanders was born on June 20, 1817 in Randolph County, North Carolina. He was my great grandfather and I first heard of him in stories told to me by my father when I was a child. Evidence from several sources suggest that Isaac was a son of Benjamin Sanders (1766-1849) and a grandson of another Isaac Saunders (1737-1825), one of the four brothers who moved from Virginia to Anson County, North Carolina in the 1770s.
The first documentary record of my great grandfather Isaac is a land warrant dated May 9, 1832 by which Joshua Craven sold seventy-five acres to Immer Bean in Randolph County. The land was located on the Little River, adjoining the county line with Montgomery County. Isaac and William Cornelison were the chain carriers. Immer Bean was married to Sarah Sanders, one of Isaac's sisters. "Uncle Billy Cornelison" was married to another of Isaac's sisters, Rebecca, who was called "Aunt Becky."
In 1833, according to Isaac's brother John, Isaac's parents, Benjamin and Mary Sanders, moved to Jackson County, Alabama. On September 18, 1836 Isaac married Elizabeth King (born May 22, 1817). Her parents are not known but she may have been a sister to Isham J. King (1810-1884). Isham married Annie Sanders about 1832 in Randolph County, and Annie appears to have been one of Isaac's sisters. Isham King was the bondsman when George W. Sanders, a brother of Isaac, married Anna Johnson in 1833 in Randolph County, North Carolina.
On October 26, 1837, Isaac volunteered for the Seminole Indian War, as did many young men from Jackson County. For the most part, they saw little fighting. Isaac was honorably discharged at Fort Mitchell April 9, 1838. In the 1840 Jackson County census Isaac Sanders is listed with an age range of 20-30, one female in the household age 20-30 (his wife Elizabeth), and one male child, age 0-5 (his son Aaron, born 1837). Isaac is enumerated next door to or near his father, Benjamin Sanders, age 70-80.
Isaac Sanders moved his family to Old Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1841 and he is listed on the 1844/45 Mississippi state census for Tishomingo County which shows four males in the household and one female.
On April 1, 1851 Isaac Sanders applied for federal bounty land warrant in Montgomery County, Arkansas, based on his service in the Seminole Indian War. The move to Arkansas may explain why Isaac and his family have not been found on the 1850 census in any state. In 1855 Isaac filed for another bounty land warrant in Montgomery County. The 1860 Montgomery County, Arkansas census shows Isaac Sanders living near Mt. Ida in the Sulphur Springs Township.Isaac's brother George W. Sanders and his family were living nearby, having moved to Montgomery in the 1840s. In the 1850s, Isaac's half-brother William Sanders and his family moved to Montgomery County.
During the Civil War, Sanders from Montgomery County served in the "Montgomery County Hunters," a unit of the Confederate Army that was merged with Company F of the 4th Arkansas infantry. They were mustered in at Mt. Ida on July 17, 1861, though formal enlistment didn't occur until October. The roll included Isaac and three of his sons.
From a letter written by Louie Richard Davis of Weatherford, Texas on July 24, 1974 to friends in Scottsboro, Jackson county, Alabama:
"There is another story told about two of the Sanders. I don't know the exact relationship to Phoebe but they were close kin. The story goes that the two brothers were fighting during the War Between the States. One had enlisted with the Union Army and the other was serving with the Confederates. They were mounted and fighting and charging with sword and sabre. It was night and dark and they did not recognize each other, or who they were fighting against. One of them said 'Get Ert Aunt Becky,' and the other said 'Is that you, John?' and they then recognized each other as being brothers and stopped fighting. They had an aunt called Aunt Becky who had a 'By-Word' of Get Ert. I have a note of a John Sanders serving with Co. B. 3rd Ohio Regiment (Union Army). I don't remember where I got it but wonder if they might be the one in the story."
Don Schaefer, editor of the magazine "Sanders Siftings" had this to say about this story:
"If this story is true, or even part of it is true, these are brothers John and Isaac Sanders. Isaac did fight for the South. Their sister, Rebecca, was known as Aunt Becky to most everyone and I think they would have called her that, too. The Phoebe mentioned in the letter is an ancestor of Louie Davis and is also a sister of Isaac and John."
This story probably refers to John and Isaac, but it is unlikely that the two brothers were in the same battle because Isaac's service in the Confederacy was brief. He was on furlough for much of the winter of 1861-62 and returned to duty with penumonia. In April, 1862, he was released from duty. His discharge paper states that " the within named Isaac Sanders, a private of Captain John M. Simpson's company of the 4th Arkansas Regiment of Arkansas Volunteers, born in Randolph County in the state of North Carolina, age 44 years, five feet nine inches high, fair complexion, blue eyes, sandy hair, and by profession a farmer, was enlisted by Major G. W. Clark at Fort Smith, Ark. On the 21st day of October 1861 to serve one year and is now entitled to a discharge by reason of chronic pneumonia."
In the fall and winter of 1863-64 most of the Sanders family in the Montgomery County area appeared to have switched sides from the Confederacy to the Union forces. Isaac's cousin William Patrick Sanders and two of William's sons joined the 4th U.S. cavalry in November of 1863. They were accompanied by some of the related Biddy and Lamb families and a son of Isaac's half-brother, William Sanders. Isaac's son Jesse joined the 4th U.S. cavalry, Company D, in February 1864 and Isaac himself enlisted at Dardanelle in Yell County in March, 1864. The Arkansas natives who joined the federal forces this late in the war apparently did not participate in major battles but spent most of their time in units assigned to to suppress the Confederate guerillas and irregulars in the area.
At some point between September 1867 and 1869, Isaac's family moved back to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, for they appear on the 1870 and 1880 Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi, census. Prentiss was formed in 1870 from a part of the old Tishomingo County.
In January of 2013 and November 2016 additional information about Isaac's family was given to me by Cathy Eshmont (now Cathy Latrelli), a descendant of Calvin Newton Sanders (1874-1957), a son of Aaron Sanders, and grandson of Isaac. Cathy had access to a book that was compiled in the 1980s by a relative, Barbara Radcliffe Rogers, who had married a great grandson of Aaron Sanders. Barbara found material that was copied by Alma Sanders Owen, a granddaughter of Aaron Sanders, in the 1960s or 1970s from a family Bible that had belonged to either Isaac Sanders or to his son Aaron. It is from this source that we know the exact birth dates of Isaac Sanders and Elizabeth King and their children.
Children of ISAAC SANDERS and ELIZABETH KING are:
AARON SANDERS b. July 24 1837, Jackson County, Alabama; d. November 28, 1902, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. (1) DEBORAH ANN SWAIM, April 07, 1859, Montgomery County, Arkansas; b. Abt. 1841, Jackson County, Alabama; d. May 3, 1860 1860, Montgomery County, Arkansas; m. (2) HESTER ANN CHAMPION, September 02, 1872, Prentiss County, Mississippi; b. February 27, 1854, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 04, 1920, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi.
MARY SANDERS, b. October 15, 1839, Jackson County, Alabama; d. March 1840, Jackson County, Alabama
ISAAC SANDERS, b. December 8, 1840, Jackson County, Alabama; d. January 10, 1862, Arkansas, in Civil War.
BENJAMIN SANDERS b. February 20, 1842, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. March 02, 1900, Sebastian County, Arkansas; m. SARAH SALLIE LAMB, February 08, 1874, Sebastian County, Arkansas; b. April 12, 1834, North Carolina; d. May 24, 1919, Sebastian County, Arkansas.
JESSE SANDERS b. June 30, 1845, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. December 12, 1903, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas; m. MARY AMANDA PICKERING, October 31, 1871, Erath County, Texas; b. March 13, 1854, Henderson County, Texas; d. July 22, 1898, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas.
CALVIN SANDERS, b. July 21, 1847, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. June 6, 1877, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. MARY UNKNOWN (Clark?), Abt. 1868, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; b. Abt. 1849, Mississippi; d. August 6, 1899, Indian Territory
WILLIAM SANDERS, b. May 18, 1849, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 20, 1850.
AMANDA SANDERS, b. November 21, 1850, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. September 1867 in Arkansas or Mississippi.
ELIZABETH SANDERS, b. January 10, 1853, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. August 26, 1855.
UNNAMED SON SANDERS, b. January 5, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. January 9, 1855.
SARAH SANDERS, b. December 24, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
REBECCA SANDERS, b. March 21, 1858, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
The 1880 census is the last documentation I have been able to find for Isaac and Elizabeth. The census taker recorded that Elizabeth was bedridden with "dyspepsia," or what we would call an upset stomach today, but which in those days often indicated a far more serious illness. We do not know the exact year of the death of either Isaac or Elizabeth, but they almost certainly died between 1880 and 1900.
Isaac and Elizabeth are probably buried in an unmarked grave at the Prospect Cemetery where their son and several other family members are buried. There are several reasons for this belief. Cathy L'Altrelli, a descendant of Isaac's son Aaron, has researched the history of the Prospect Cemetery. She learned in 2020 from the minister of the Baptist church adjacent to the site of the Prospect Cemetery that, years ago, a Methodist church existed at the same location and that the Methodist church was destroyed in a storm. The Baptists later built a church on the same location, but the Baptists had no role in creating or maintaining the cemetery. She was unable to determine in what year this happened but thinks it was probably in the "Tupelo Tornado" of 1936.
She also checked with the Archivist at Millsaps College where the Mississippi archives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (the pre-1939 name of the present United Methodist Church) are maintained, but they had no records of the Prospect Methodist Church in Prentiss County; nor did any other present Methodist churches in the area. This would not be unusual, however, if the records were destroyed in the storm or lost by other means.
There was a close association of the descendants and other relatives of Isaac and Elizabeth with Methodism. Their son Jesse was also buried in a Methodist cemetery, and their grandson Calvin Newton and his family were Methodists. Isaac's first cousin, Levi Lindsey Sanders of Texas, after whom Isaac's son Aaron would name one of his children, was also a member of the church. Methodism, of course, was particularly strong in the Randolph County area of North Carolina where Isaac and Elizabeth were born in 1817.
Even though no records have yet been located, we have good reason to think that several other members of the Sanders family were buried in the Prospect Cemetery near the two Sanders who do have tombstones, Aaron Sanders (Isaac's son) and Iley Sanders (Aaron's grandchild). As Cathy L'Altelli stated, " When we recently updated Aaron Sanders' marker, you might recall we had to stay within the boundaries of where his original marker was because nothing is known of who owned what and how many plots any family owned. We can surmise since Iley is very near Aaron that there was a Sanders plot and other family members are likely near those two. Likewise, we can surmise that Mrs. Newt's father [Thomas Jefferson Azbell, died 1915], who is buried there per his death certificate, is somewhere near his several grandchildren in the Azbell plot – but we don't know for sure."
We do know, however, that Isaac and Elizabeth lived in the Wheeler, Mississippi area, for years, near the church, and it would seem likely that upon their deaths, they would have been buried in the cemetery adjacent to that was associated with some of their family members.
Isaac and Elizabeth were probably not even the first members of their family to be buried in Prospect Cemetery. Their son Calvin, who died in 1877 may have been the first family member to have been buried in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the early markers were probably made of wood or other perishable material.
--Gary B. Sanders
The first documentary record of my great grandfather Isaac is a land warrant dated May 9, 1832 by which Joshua Craven sold seventy-five acres to Immer Bean in Randolph County. The land was located on the Little River, adjoining the county line with Montgomery County. Isaac and William Cornelison were the chain carriers. Immer Bean was married to Sarah Sanders, one of Isaac's sisters. "Uncle Billy Cornelison" was married to another of Isaac's sisters, Rebecca, who was called "Aunt Becky."
In 1833, according to Isaac's brother John, Isaac's parents, Benjamin and Mary Sanders, moved to Jackson County, Alabama. On September 18, 1836 Isaac married Elizabeth King (born May 22, 1817). Her parents are not known but she may have been a sister to Isham J. King (1810-1884). Isham married Annie Sanders about 1832 in Randolph County, and Annie appears to have been one of Isaac's sisters. Isham King was the bondsman when George W. Sanders, a brother of Isaac, married Anna Johnson in 1833 in Randolph County, North Carolina.
On October 26, 1837, Isaac volunteered for the Seminole Indian War, as did many young men from Jackson County. For the most part, they saw little fighting. Isaac was honorably discharged at Fort Mitchell April 9, 1838. In the 1840 Jackson County census Isaac Sanders is listed with an age range of 20-30, one female in the household age 20-30 (his wife Elizabeth), and one male child, age 0-5 (his son Aaron, born 1837). Isaac is enumerated next door to or near his father, Benjamin Sanders, age 70-80.
Isaac Sanders moved his family to Old Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1841 and he is listed on the 1844/45 Mississippi state census for Tishomingo County which shows four males in the household and one female.
On April 1, 1851 Isaac Sanders applied for federal bounty land warrant in Montgomery County, Arkansas, based on his service in the Seminole Indian War. The move to Arkansas may explain why Isaac and his family have not been found on the 1850 census in any state. In 1855 Isaac filed for another bounty land warrant in Montgomery County. The 1860 Montgomery County, Arkansas census shows Isaac Sanders living near Mt. Ida in the Sulphur Springs Township.Isaac's brother George W. Sanders and his family were living nearby, having moved to Montgomery in the 1840s. In the 1850s, Isaac's half-brother William Sanders and his family moved to Montgomery County.
During the Civil War, Sanders from Montgomery County served in the "Montgomery County Hunters," a unit of the Confederate Army that was merged with Company F of the 4th Arkansas infantry. They were mustered in at Mt. Ida on July 17, 1861, though formal enlistment didn't occur until October. The roll included Isaac and three of his sons.
From a letter written by Louie Richard Davis of Weatherford, Texas on July 24, 1974 to friends in Scottsboro, Jackson county, Alabama:
"There is another story told about two of the Sanders. I don't know the exact relationship to Phoebe but they were close kin. The story goes that the two brothers were fighting during the War Between the States. One had enlisted with the Union Army and the other was serving with the Confederates. They were mounted and fighting and charging with sword and sabre. It was night and dark and they did not recognize each other, or who they were fighting against. One of them said 'Get Ert Aunt Becky,' and the other said 'Is that you, John?' and they then recognized each other as being brothers and stopped fighting. They had an aunt called Aunt Becky who had a 'By-Word' of Get Ert. I have a note of a John Sanders serving with Co. B. 3rd Ohio Regiment (Union Army). I don't remember where I got it but wonder if they might be the one in the story."
Don Schaefer, editor of the magazine "Sanders Siftings" had this to say about this story:
"If this story is true, or even part of it is true, these are brothers John and Isaac Sanders. Isaac did fight for the South. Their sister, Rebecca, was known as Aunt Becky to most everyone and I think they would have called her that, too. The Phoebe mentioned in the letter is an ancestor of Louie Davis and is also a sister of Isaac and John."
This story probably refers to John and Isaac, but it is unlikely that the two brothers were in the same battle because Isaac's service in the Confederacy was brief. He was on furlough for much of the winter of 1861-62 and returned to duty with penumonia. In April, 1862, he was released from duty. His discharge paper states that " the within named Isaac Sanders, a private of Captain John M. Simpson's company of the 4th Arkansas Regiment of Arkansas Volunteers, born in Randolph County in the state of North Carolina, age 44 years, five feet nine inches high, fair complexion, blue eyes, sandy hair, and by profession a farmer, was enlisted by Major G. W. Clark at Fort Smith, Ark. On the 21st day of October 1861 to serve one year and is now entitled to a discharge by reason of chronic pneumonia."
In the fall and winter of 1863-64 most of the Sanders family in the Montgomery County area appeared to have switched sides from the Confederacy to the Union forces. Isaac's cousin William Patrick Sanders and two of William's sons joined the 4th U.S. cavalry in November of 1863. They were accompanied by some of the related Biddy and Lamb families and a son of Isaac's half-brother, William Sanders. Isaac's son Jesse joined the 4th U.S. cavalry, Company D, in February 1864 and Isaac himself enlisted at Dardanelle in Yell County in March, 1864. The Arkansas natives who joined the federal forces this late in the war apparently did not participate in major battles but spent most of their time in units assigned to to suppress the Confederate guerillas and irregulars in the area.
At some point between September 1867 and 1869, Isaac's family moved back to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, for they appear on the 1870 and 1880 Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi, census. Prentiss was formed in 1870 from a part of the old Tishomingo County.
In January of 2013 and November 2016 additional information about Isaac's family was given to me by Cathy Eshmont (now Cathy Latrelli), a descendant of Calvin Newton Sanders (1874-1957), a son of Aaron Sanders, and grandson of Isaac. Cathy had access to a book that was compiled in the 1980s by a relative, Barbara Radcliffe Rogers, who had married a great grandson of Aaron Sanders. Barbara found material that was copied by Alma Sanders Owen, a granddaughter of Aaron Sanders, in the 1960s or 1970s from a family Bible that had belonged to either Isaac Sanders or to his son Aaron. It is from this source that we know the exact birth dates of Isaac Sanders and Elizabeth King and their children.
Children of ISAAC SANDERS and ELIZABETH KING are:
AARON SANDERS b. July 24 1837, Jackson County, Alabama; d. November 28, 1902, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. (1) DEBORAH ANN SWAIM, April 07, 1859, Montgomery County, Arkansas; b. Abt. 1841, Jackson County, Alabama; d. May 3, 1860 1860, Montgomery County, Arkansas; m. (2) HESTER ANN CHAMPION, September 02, 1872, Prentiss County, Mississippi; b. February 27, 1854, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 04, 1920, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi.
MARY SANDERS, b. October 15, 1839, Jackson County, Alabama; d. March 1840, Jackson County, Alabama
ISAAC SANDERS, b. December 8, 1840, Jackson County, Alabama; d. January 10, 1862, Arkansas, in Civil War.
BENJAMIN SANDERS b. February 20, 1842, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. March 02, 1900, Sebastian County, Arkansas; m. SARAH SALLIE LAMB, February 08, 1874, Sebastian County, Arkansas; b. April 12, 1834, North Carolina; d. May 24, 1919, Sebastian County, Arkansas.
JESSE SANDERS b. June 30, 1845, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. December 12, 1903, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas; m. MARY AMANDA PICKERING, October 31, 1871, Erath County, Texas; b. March 13, 1854, Henderson County, Texas; d. July 22, 1898, Murchison, Henderson County, Texas.
CALVIN SANDERS, b. July 21, 1847, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. June 6, 1877, Booneville, Prentiss County, Mississippi; m. MARY UNKNOWN (Clark?), Abt. 1868, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; b. Abt. 1849, Mississippi; d. August 6, 1899, Indian Territory
WILLIAM SANDERS, b. May 18, 1849, Tishomingo County, Mississippi; d. January 20, 1850.
AMANDA SANDERS, b. November 21, 1850, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. September 1867 in Arkansas or Mississippi.
ELIZABETH SANDERS, b. January 10, 1853, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. August 26, 1855.
UNNAMED SON SANDERS, b. January 5, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. January 9, 1855.
SARAH SANDERS, b. December 24, 1855, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
REBECCA SANDERS, b. March 21, 1858, Montgomery County, Arkansas; d. Aft. 1880, Prentiss County, Mississippi (probably).
The 1880 census is the last documentation I have been able to find for Isaac and Elizabeth. The census taker recorded that Elizabeth was bedridden with "dyspepsia," or what we would call an upset stomach today, but which in those days often indicated a far more serious illness. We do not know the exact year of the death of either Isaac or Elizabeth, but they almost certainly died between 1880 and 1900.
Isaac and Elizabeth are probably buried in an unmarked grave at the Prospect Cemetery where their son and several other family members are buried. There are several reasons for this belief. Cathy L'Altrelli, a descendant of Isaac's son Aaron, has researched the history of the Prospect Cemetery. She learned in 2020 from the minister of the Baptist church adjacent to the site of the Prospect Cemetery that, years ago, a Methodist church existed at the same location and that the Methodist church was destroyed in a storm. The Baptists later built a church on the same location, but the Baptists had no role in creating or maintaining the cemetery. She was unable to determine in what year this happened but thinks it was probably in the "Tupelo Tornado" of 1936.
She also checked with the Archivist at Millsaps College where the Mississippi archives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (the pre-1939 name of the present United Methodist Church) are maintained, but they had no records of the Prospect Methodist Church in Prentiss County; nor did any other present Methodist churches in the area. This would not be unusual, however, if the records were destroyed in the storm or lost by other means.
There was a close association of the descendants and other relatives of Isaac and Elizabeth with Methodism. Their son Jesse was also buried in a Methodist cemetery, and their grandson Calvin Newton and his family were Methodists. Isaac's first cousin, Levi Lindsey Sanders of Texas, after whom Isaac's son Aaron would name one of his children, was also a member of the church. Methodism, of course, was particularly strong in the Randolph County area of North Carolina where Isaac and Elizabeth were born in 1817.
Even though no records have yet been located, we have good reason to think that several other members of the Sanders family were buried in the Prospect Cemetery near the two Sanders who do have tombstones, Aaron Sanders (Isaac's son) and Iley Sanders (Aaron's grandchild). As Cathy L'Altelli stated, " When we recently updated Aaron Sanders' marker, you might recall we had to stay within the boundaries of where his original marker was because nothing is known of who owned what and how many plots any family owned. We can surmise since Iley is very near Aaron that there was a Sanders plot and other family members are likely near those two. Likewise, we can surmise that Mrs. Newt's father [Thomas Jefferson Azbell, died 1915], who is buried there per his death certificate, is somewhere near his several grandchildren in the Azbell plot – but we don't know for sure."
We do know, however, that Isaac and Elizabeth lived in the Wheeler, Mississippi area, for years, near the church, and it would seem likely that upon their deaths, they would have been buried in the cemetery adjacent to that was associated with some of their family members.
Isaac and Elizabeth were probably not even the first members of their family to be buried in Prospect Cemetery. Their son Calvin, who died in 1877 may have been the first family member to have been buried in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the early markers were probably made of wood or other perishable material.
--Gary B. Sanders
Gravesite Details
unmarked grave at Prospect Cemetery
Family Members
Siblings
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