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From the Valdo James Smith Research document, The Sudburys of Virginia and Tennessee.
NANCY ELIZABETH SUDBURY (1847-1923) and her husband, JOSEPH J.
YATES (1840-1907) were remarkable individuals. They were true pioneers, who
faced great hardships and suffered personal tragedies in their quest for a better life
for themselves and their family, and who, with hard work, ultimately achieved their
goal.
Nancy was born on November 16, 1847, in Williamson County, Tennessee, to
parents who were only 22 years of age. In 1848, while Nancy was still an infant,
her parents joined her grandfather, Shadrack Sudbury, in relocating to Dyer
County, Tennessee. There Nancy spent her childhood and adolescence.
On November 14, 1867, two days short of her twentieth birthday, Nancy married
Joseph J. Yates ("J.J."). The ceremony, which took place in Dyer County, was
performed by the Reverend Thomas D. Harwell. J.J. and Nancy were an attractive
couple. Tintypes in the possession of the Smith family show him to have been tall
and lanky, with a long, thin face, but ruggedly handsome. She, on the other hand,
was pretty and petite.
J.J. had begun life in Wake County, North Carolina on September 7, 1840. (The
family Bible kept by Valdo Yates Smith lists the year of birth as 1841, but 1840 is
the year given by J.J.'s obituary and is more consistent with census and military
records.) At age 10, according to the 1850 census index, he was living with his
parents, WILLIAM B. and ELIZABETH YATES, in Madison County,
Tennessee.
By 1860, he had apparently left home and was living on his own. The 1860 census
index locates him (age 20) in either Sumner or Sullivan County. One wonders what
prompted him to venture out on his own at a relatively young age, when his older
brother William was still living at home. Military records indicate that J.J. "joined
for duty and enrolled" for state service with the Tennessee Infantry on July 22,
1861, at Trenton, Tennessee, in Gibson County, just east of Dyer County where his
mother was then living.
After enrollment (by C.H. Williams, for an initial period of twelve months), he
reported to Camp Brown, where he was listed on a muster roll dated August 10,
1861. He was a 3rd Corporal assigned to Captain William A. Dawson's Company,
22nd Regiment, Tennessee Infantry. About his company and regiment, the muster
roll gives the following information:
This company was known at various times as Captain Dawson's Company,
Company D and Company I [the "Bell Grays"], 22d Regiment Tennessee
Infantry. The 22d (also known as Freeman's) Regiment Tennessee Infantry
was organized for State service July 24, 1861, with nine companies, A to I,
transferred to the service of the Confederate States August 9 and 10, 1861,
and reorganized in May 1862. * * * [The regiment, with the exception of
Companies F and K,] was consolidated with the 12th Regiment Tennessee
Infantry June 16, 1862, and formed the 12th Regiment Tennessee Infantry
(Consolidated).
J.J. most certainly was with the 22nd Regiment when it was engaged at the Battle
of Belmont on November 7, 1861. He also fought with the Regiment and the Army
of Mississippi at the Battle' of Shiloh, April 6th and 7th, 1862. The 22nd suffered
heavy casualties in both of these engagements.
On June 16, 1862, J.J. became part of the 12th Regiment as a 2nd Sergeant. By
September 1, 1862, he had been promoted to 1st Sergeant. He participated in the
Kentucky Campaign with the 12th, now a part of the Army of Tennessee, under the
command of Edmund Kirby Smith. While there, during the autumn of 1862, he
was captured by Federal forces. His name appears on a list of prisoners of war sent
from Lexington, Kentucky, to Louisville, Kentucky, by Colonel Casement, on
October 23, 1862.
Although the circumstances of his capture are unknown, it does not appear likely
from the record of Kirby Smith's maneuvers in Kentucky that J.J. would have been
taken prisoner during battle. A footnote on page 274 of Thomas Lawrence
Connelly's book, Army of the Heartland, may hold a clue to this puzzle. Refer
-ring to the casualties suffered by the Army of Tennessee at Munfordville,
Richmond, and Perryville, Kentucky, Connelly notes that "Bragg's casualties also
included some two thousand sick, part of whom were captured at Harrodsburg".
By January 1863, J.J. had been released as part of a prisoner exchange, but how
and when this was accomplished is not entirely clear, because his name appears on
two prisoner exchange records near that time, which may or may not be mutually
exclusive. The earlier of these two records is a receipt given on November 15,
1862, for prisoners of war received on board the Steamer Maria Denning near
Vicksburg, Mississippi. Receipt was given for the Confederate soldiers by Major
F.W. Hoadley, C.S.A., Acting Agent for Exchange, to Captain E. Morgan Wood,
Agent for the U.S.
The other record is a list, undated, of paroled Confederate prisoners, captured and
paroled by the U.S. forces in Kentucky in September, October, and November,
1862, who reported to General Bragg and were placed in camp at Chattanooga,
Tennessee. According to this record, the prisoners were declared exchanged by
Colonel Robert Ould by telegram to Major Fairbanks, A.A.I.G., January 11, 1863.
Given this last date, it is unlikely that J.J. was with his regiment at the Battle of
Murfreesboro, although it is possible that he had returned prior to the date of the
telegram. The 12th Tennessee had casualties of 56 percent at Murfreesboro.
On the Company Muster Roll for January and February 1863, J.J. is listed again as
a 2nd Sergeant, and remained at this rank at least through February of 1864. His
record again indicates that he fought with his regiment at Chickamauga in
September 1863, and possibly at Missionary Ridge in November. During the
period from November 1863 through February 1864, he was listed as being in the
"Pioneer Corps." for the Division.
The 12th Regiment fought throughout the retreat to Atlanta, the return to
Tennessee, the Battles of Franklin and Nashville in 1864, and the final battle at
Bentonville, North Carolina, on March 19, 1865. Unfortunately, J.J. 's military
records after February 1864 are incomplete, making it difficult to confirm his
participation in the major battles near the end of the war. He may have fought in
some or all of them.
The last record on which J.J. 's name appears is a Muster Roll of officers and men
paroled in accordance with the terms of a Military Convention entered into on April
26, 1865, between General Joseph E. Johnston, Commanding Confederate Army,
and Major General W.T. Sherman, Commanding United States Army in North
Carolina. The Roll is dated near High Point, North Carolina, April 28, 1865, and
the soldiers were paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina on May 1, 1865.
At the time of his parole, J.J. was a member of Company D, Second Consolidated
Regiment, Tennessee Infantry. The Second Consolidated Regiment had been
formed about April 9, 1865, from what was left of the 11th, 12th, 13th, 29th, 47th,
50th, 51st, 52nd, and 154th Regiments. At the date of the surrender, only 50
officers and men remained from the original 12th, 22nd, and 47th Tennessee
regiments. Sergeant J.J. Yates was one of those men.
Not much is known about J.J. and Nancy's first twenty-five years of marriage other
than that they remained in Dyer County and engendered nine children, three of
whom died in relative infancy. The only family document which dates from this
period is a five-year policy of tornado insurance issued to J.J. on September 21,
1891, by the Continental Insurance Company. The policy indicates that J.J. and
Nancy owned their own home on 114 acres situated two miles west of Friendship,
Tennessee, on Dyersburg and Jackson Roads.
According to oral tradition passed down to Valdo Yates Smith, J.J. and Nancy later
moved westward and settled somewhere in Texas, where they homesteaded land and
tried to make a living as farmers. Probably they left Tennessee sometime in 1893
or 1894.
Life in Texas was hard for the Yates family. The area in which they lived was a
relative wilderness, and Valdo Yates Smith remembered his mother, Hattie Belle,
telling him that they would occasionally hear "the Comanche squall". From the
location of the routes of the Comanche Indians at that time, we can speculate that
they were living in the western part of the state, possibly in or near the Choctaw
Nation. It was in Texas in 1895 that J.J. and Nancy lost their remaining sons,
James and John, probably to typhoid fever. At the time of their deaths, the two
boys were 25 and 21, respectively.
Sometime between 1895 (when their sons died) and 1900, J.J. and Nancy gave up
on their pioneer efforts in Texas. Valdo Yates Smith remembers being told that
they had been "burned out". From Texas they migrated northward by covered
wagon with at least two of their four remaining daughters, Hattie Belle and
Mildred, to settle in what was then Indian Territory, and is now Oklahoma. For a
couple of years, they farmed in an area known as "Bald Hill", on land leased from
the Indians. Here there was nothing but prairie grass, and no laws or law
enforcement. The nearest marshal was located in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
The Yates family left the farm in 1900 (according to J.J. 's obituary) and moved to
Okmulgee, a small town of a few hundred residents. In Okmulgee, they established
the Yates Hotel, which became a well known and respected hostelry. About the
hotel, Nancy's obituary gives the following information:
To the new blood which has settled in Okmulgee since the first oil boom, the
Yates hotel means nothing, but to a few pioneer citizens who are left to write
the history of the one-time Indian trading post, this one-time famous hostelry
brings back memories of a few log cabins, general store, and perhaps three or
four hundred settlers. The old Yates hotel was located at Sixth street and
Grand avenue. It was a one-story frame structure, but was looked upon with
pride by the citizenship of a thriving hamlet of 400 inhabitants. It was the
nicest hotel west of Muskogee. * * * Later the old wooden structure was
torn down and the Severs building which now graces the spot was built.
J.J. and Nancy operated the hotel "for many years", probably from about 1900 to
1907, when J.J. died. He fell victim to typhoid fever on March 28, 1907, at 1:30
a.m., after an illness of several weeks. He was 66 years of age. Funeral services
were held the same afternoon at his residence, and were conducted by the Masons,
with Reverend Rippey preaching the sermon. His obituary recites that "[h]e was a
man of upright character, a member of the Methodist church and of the Masonic
order." He is buried in the Morton Street Cemetery in south Okmulgee.
Unfortunately the locations of all gravesites at this cemetery have been lost.
Some time after M.'s death, Nancy went to live at the home of her daughter,
Hattie Belle, where she resided for the rest of her life. Valdo Yates Smith
remembered her as being fastidious in her personal habits; she never came out of
her room in the morning until she was impeccably dressed, with every hair in
place. Nancy died on September 26, 1923, at age 77, after having been in failing
health for some time. Funeral services were held at the Trawick home, with the
Reverend New Harris, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church, officiating.
According to Nancy's obituary, she had been an active member of the "Methodist
Episcopal church, South" until the time she was bedridden. She is buried in the
main Okmulgee Cemetery, operated by the Okmulgee Cemetery Association, on
Highway 75 South.
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1847 - 1923 (75 years)
