52 Ancestors: #2 - Elvis, No Not That One

Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small has issued a challenge:  write one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor.  It can be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem – anything that focuses on one ancestor.

Amy is a funny girl.  Her Week 2 theme is “King” to coincide with the birthdays of Elvis “The King” Presley and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Her more serious side also offers the option of writing about an ancestor who fled from an oppressive king or about our own connection to royalty.  *Snort.  

No royal distinctions in this family (although quite a few have been a royal pain in the AHEM!).  Surprisingly I found in my database three males name Elvis.  All three died young, one at birth.

Polly Jane Frazier and Elvis Sturdivant Shiflett
photo courtesy "cmagha" on Ancestry

One was given a most grand name:  Elvis Sturdivant SHIFLETT.  He was the son of Calvin and Elizabeth Herrin Shiflett.   Born in 1860 in Albemarle County, Virginia, Elvis was just a young boy when his father, a Confederate deserter, was captured and executed just a few days before the end of the war.  According to family lore, the soldiers had deserted because they lacked food and horses.  It is not clear whether they were captured by Union soldiers or the Confederate Home Guard charged with rounding up deserters.

The prisoners were held in the basement of a house in Boonesville, and Elvis’s mother regularly took food to the prisoners.  One day as Elizabeth was heading there with food for her prisoner husband and his comrades, she heard the gunshots.  Apparently some of the soldiers had escaped; Calvin and one other were executed in retaliation.

One of the prisoners who managed to escape was Tom Frazier, my first cousin four times removed.  After Calvin died, his widow Elizabeth took up with Tom.  So what does this have to do with Elvis?  Tom had a half-sister named Columbia Frazier.  She and Elvis married in April of 1881 in Greene County, Virginia.  That means Elvis’s mother was also his sister-in-law.  But sadly, Columbia died just three years later.

Elvis was one of many Shifletts who intermarried with the Fraziers.  A year after Columbia died, on the 7^th of June 1885 Elvis married his wife’s cousin Polly Jane Frazier, also my first cousin four times removed.  Elvis and Polly Jane had seven children.  Most of them managed to marry Fraziers too, some of them more than one.

Elvis died before 1900, not even 40 years old.  Whether it’s poor spelling, poor transcribing, or hiding from the census taker, it looks as if Elvis managed to stay out of the census records after 1860. 

FAMILY of Elvis Sturdivant Shiflett

Elvis Sturdivant SHIFLETT (1860 Albemarle Co, VA – Before 1900 ) Son of Calvin SHIFLETT and Elizabeth HERRIN

M1) A. Columbia FRAZIER (1857 Greene Co, VA – 1884 Greene Co, VA )   07 Apr 1881 Greene Co, VA

M2) Polly Jane FRAZIER (1852 Greene Co, VA – 09 Apr 1936 Greene Co, VA )  07 Jun 1885 Greene Co, VA

1. Virgie Catherine SHIFLETT ( Mar 1886 Greene Co, VA –  28 Apr 1962 Virginia) & m1) John L. SHIFLETT 13 Jun 1902 Greene Co, VA ; & m2) Ryland G. FRAZIER  22 Sep 1907 Greene Co, VA
2. Robert Harrison SHIFLETT  (07 Nov 1887 Greene Co, VA – 02 Jun 1970 Albemarle Co, VA ) & Sarah Jane FRAZIER LAWSON (0 6 Feb 1886 –  06 Sep 1969 Staunton, VA )  15 Feb 1917 Greene Co, VA
3. Charlie G. SHIFLETT (Jun 1889 Greene Co, VA – )
4. Bertha Lee SHIFLETT (May 1892 Greene Co, VA – 29 Jun 1950 Monongalia, WV) & Edgar A. FRAZIER ( 06 Jun 1880 Greene Co, VA –  23 May 1954 Rockingham Co, VA )  24 Jun 1906 Greene Co, VA
5. Thomas L. SHIFLETT (Jan 1894 Greene Co, VA – 19 Oct 1965 Dundalk, MD )
6. James Albert “Spriggins” SHIFLETT (Jan 1895 Greene Co, VA – Mar 1937 Charlottesville, VA ) & Mary Sally TRIPLET (03 Jul 1909 Albemarle Co, VA – 28 Oct 1979 Alexandria, VA)   10 Oct 1938
7. Selena Gertrude SHIFLETT (28 Sep 1897 Greene Co, VA – 06 Nov 1972 Stafford, VA ) & m1) Andrew Allen FRAZIER  (20 Apr 1892 – 17 Jul 1968 Albemarle Co, VA )  03 Jan 1912 Greene Co, VA ; & m2) Henry Luther FRAZIER (27 Apr 1904 Albemarle Co, VA – 25 Jun 1968 Stafford, VA )

Source:

Addington, Norm. "The House in Boonesville." Shifflett Family Genealogy. Bob Klein, 7 Jan. 2015. Web. 07 Jan. 2015. <http://www.shiflett-klein.com/shifletfamily/Gallery/calvhsgall.html>.

 © 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.