Bowden Joyce, Founding Mothers

CHAPTER FOUR Louisa Jane (Clinkscales) Merriman Founder, Greenwood Methodist Church Greenwood, South Carolina 21 May 2022

I. Who Louisa Jane Was and What She Did

According to a family historian of President Jimmy Carter and an eminent genealogist of American presidents, Louisa Jane’s aunt Elizabeth and sister Sarah were President Jimmy Carter’s Clinkscales ancestors. Elizabeth married James Kay; Sarah married John Cowan. Their lines merged and produced Nina (Pratt) Carter, President Carter’s grandmother. 1 Photo: Louisa Jane (Clinkscales) Merriman’s grandniece and first cousin twice removed, Nina (Pratt) Carter Courtesy: Jeff Carter Louisa Jane’s grandfather Francis Clinkscales was born in C HARLES C OUNTY , M ARYLAND 2 and migrated to South Carolina after the American Revolution. The earliest surviving South Carolina land record of Francis probably was the Thomas Davies 1792 plat with Francis Clinkscales abutter that showed his land on Little Creek in present-day Anderson County. Francis’s land was located on the southwest side of the creek, right about where U.S. highway 76 crosses it southwest of Princeton. 3 The U.S. census showed Louisa Jane’s father Francis B. Clinkscales in 1820 in Abbeville District. It enumerated Louisa Jane’s mother Eleanor Brownlee by gender and age range. Her parents had four children, three boys and a girl. A younger brother of either may have lived with them. Her father owned 1 Jeff Carter, Ancestors of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter (2012; reprint, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2017), 72-74, 79, 82-85. Also, Gary Boyd Roberts, compiler, Ancestors of American Presidents (2009; reprint, Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012), 165-167. Also, Ancestry, Find A Grave , database with images (http://www.findagrave.com : 20 June 2020), memorial 61407865, James E. Pratt, Ebenezer Methodist Church Cemetery, Abbeville, Abbeville County, South Carolina; family information by Connie Schwindt Rumold. 2 Carter, Jimmy Carter , 78. Also, Roberts, American Presidents , 169. 3 State Plats, Series S213212, Plan Book 1, p. 252, item 3, Thomas Davies (13 February 1792); South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia. Also, DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer: South Carolina , 4 th ed. (Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme, 2010), 24.

49

Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator