My great-grandmother is Elsie Lucile Corbett, daughter of William Bennett Corbett and Ruby Gertrude Elliot. William Bennett Corbett’s father was Mustoe Hamilton Corbett, son of Rebecca Corbett. I wrote previously about Mustoe and his brothers, William and Charles.
Rebecca has been a “brick wall” in my research for some time. The earliest mention I have of her is the 1850 U.S. Census, where she is enumerated as “Rebecca Carbet”, age 38 in Highland County, Virginia. She is listed as a seamstress, and the head of the household with five children: William (age 11), Musto (age 9), Jane (age 6), Charles (age 3), and Isabella (age 1). Rebecca and her three eldest children are listed as having been born in Bath County, with the two youngest being born in Highland County. Highland County was formed in 1847 by combining pieces of Bath and Pendleton County, so it is not obvious yet whether the family had moved or whether the county lines had simply shifted around them.
The 1840 Census Challenge
The 1850 census was the first to list every member of the household. In 1840 and prior years, only the name of the head of household was recorded along with the number of people in each of several age groups. The trouble is that there are only two Corbett (Corbet) households in Bath County in 1840, and neither has a male child under five years of age (Rebecca’s son William would be approximately one year old in 1840), so I have a bit more work to do on this front.
Neighboring Families and Name Connections
Still, the 1850 census gives me some clues. Living next-door to Rebecca Corbett was John McLaughlin, his wife Sally, and their children. This piqued my interest because several of their children (the oldest four) have the Hamilton surname. It turns out that Sally’s first husband (and, presumably, the father of her first four children) was Mustoe Hamilton. It seems likely that Mustoe Hamilton Corbett is named after Sally’s first husband (who died more than a year before M.H. Corbett was born), but the relationship between Rebecca Corbett and either the Hamilton family or Wiley family (Wiley is Sally’s maiden name) is not clear.
This mystery is muddied a bit by the fact that Mustoe Corbett is later named in the will of Hugh McLaughlin as Hugh’s nephew. This turned into a real Gordian knot when I realized that Sally Wiley’s mother, Nancy Gwin, was married twice: first to a Hugh McLaughlin and second to James Wiley. The two aforementioned Hugh McLaughlins are not, as best I can tell, the same person. To make it worse, Mustoe Corbett enlisted and served with Hugh P. McLaughlin in the Confederate Army.
Not helping clarify things at all is the fact that James Wiley had two sons by a first marriage (before Nancy Gwin McLaughlin): John and Robert. James Wiley owned joint interest in a tract of land on Allegheny Mountain with William Corbit, an interest which John and Robert inherited when James died in 1838.
The 1860 Census and Family Dispersal
Confused yet? It gets better. In the 1860 census, Rebecca Corbett’s household has been splintered. I have not found William, Jane, or Isabella yet. But I found Rebecca, Mustoe, and Charles.
Rebecca is living in the household of James and Susan Terry. This is interesting because James Terry is not Susan’s first husband. She was first married to Robert Wiley.
Mustoe is living in the household of Hugh McLaughlin, age 62. This is presumably the one who named him a nephew in his will a few years later. Hugh P. McLaughlin is living there also.
Charles is living in the household of Andrew Dilly. This is somewhat interesting since there is also a Margaret Dilly in the household of Hugh McLaughlin.
Well, that’s what I’ve got at the moment: an awful lot of questions and a few answers. This is a fascinating puzzle that I hope I have the time and resources to solve someday.
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