Tombstone Tuesday: Leah Pickering Barton Spikes, 1835-1903

photo courtesy of Bob Taylor via FindAGrave.com

This is the grave of one of my maternal third great-grandmothers, Leah Pickering (or Pickens) Barton Spikes (1835-1903).  She's one of my brick walls, as I have no idea who her parents were; only that she was born May 27, 1835, in Georgia.

Somewhere in the early 1850s, she married George Washington "G. W." Barton (1826-1864), a native of Alabama.  They moved to Winn Parish, Louisiana, and had three sons:  Benjamin Franklin Barton (1854-1934),  Thomas Jefferson Barton (1856-1930), and William Jasper Barton (1861-1946).

G.W. fought for the Confederates and died during the Civil War.  He fought in the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana, on April 8, and was wounded there. According to his great-great-grandson Tom Barton, G. W. "survived that.  His unit moved on to fight in the Battle of Yellow Bayou (near Simmesport), where he died of pneumonia. My father was able to find out that virtually all of the dead were buried in a mass grave, so there is no marker."

Leah married my third great-grandfather, Levi Lewis Spikes (1805-1881), who was 30 years her senior, in 1865, when she was 30 and he was 60 (he was married at least once before).  They had four children:  Levi Spikes (1868-1933), James W. Spikes (1869-1910),  Sara(h) Ann [Sarianne?] Spikes (1871–1935), my great-great-grandmother, and  Erastus Spikes (1874-1947).

Levi Sr. and Leah were living in Grant Parish, Lousiana, for the 1880 US Census, and that is where Levi died in 1881.   By the 1900 Census, Leah is back in Winn Parish (as are her children), where she died on June 8, 1903.  She is buried in Brown Cemetery in Sardis, Winn Parish, as are many of her descendants and kin.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Surname Saturday: SPIKES and PICKERING (or PICKENS)

Spikes and Pickering or Pickens were the maiden names of my great-great-grandmother and great-great-great grandmother, respectively, on my mother's side. I can't go very far back in either line. As is typical for many women, I know little about Leah Lucy Pickering or Pickens (1835-1903) prior to 1860. In that year, she appears on the census in Winn Parish married to G. W. (George Washington) Barton, with two sons. A third son was born before G. W. passed away in 1864. Leah then married Levi Spikes. I can trace back four generations of Spikes, from Winn and Grant Parishes, Louisiana; Jackson and Tattnall Counties, Georgia; and Perry County, Mississippi:

1. Sarianne Spikes (1871 - 1935) - married Levi Marion Shelton on December 30, 1884
2. Levi Spikes (1805 - 1881) - married Lucy Leah Pickering or Pickens in 1865
3. Elias Spikes (1765 - 1823) - married Morning Collins, born June 18, 1766
4. Josiah Spikes, born in Mississippi, died in 1800 in Darien, Georgia

The image above is of an applique square done by Leah Pickering Spikes and in the home of her granddaughter (my great-grandmother's sister), Pearl Shelton Chelette (1909-2003). © Amanda Pape - 2010