Jennie Ivey's Civil War

 

Speed Museum Collection

Detail of stuffed quilting attributed to Jennie Ivey (Virginia Mason Ivey 1828-1904)

"Statue of Henry Clay"

After Clay's death statues honoring him were raised around the country. Perhaps Ivey's inspiration was this one in New Orleans by Joel T. Hart, originally erected in 1860 at St. Charles and Canal Streets. Virginia may have seen the monument when visiting her brother James Asbury Ivy in Louisiana. The statue is now in Lafayette Square.

Virginia Mason Ivey about 1850

From the Smithsonian's collection

When the Civil War began in 1861 Virginia Mason Ivey, called Jennie, was in her thirties, living with her parents Mourning Joy Mason and David Ivey, brother Joseph and sisters Carrie and Harriet Ellen in Logan County, southern Kentucky just a few miles from the Tennessee line. Ellen (1837-1920) married that census year to minister James Andrew Lewis (1830-1911) .

Her three brothers in their 20s & 30s were at prime age for enlistment. Kentucky never seceded; Logan Countians held split loyalties. While about 500 Logan County men fought on the Union side twice that number joined the Confederates. Eldest brother John Joseph Ivey (1827-1913) was a Union partisan.

The county's commercial center was Russellville with a population of about 1,000 in 1860, plus many slaves not listed in the census.

It appears there were two varieties of Iveys in the family---people who enjoyed horse racing and ministers who did not. Jennie & John were two of the horse lovers.

Brother James Asbury Ivy (1829-1914) was a minister in New Orleans after
the Civil War. He left the E out of Ivey.

The other minister was youngest sister's husband Reverend James Andrew Lewis

( 1858-1911)

1911

Harriet Ellen Ivey Lewis and James, who remained in Kentucky,  had several children.

Russellville News Democrat

Lillian Lewis (about 1876-1952) who taught for many years in Bowling Green inherited the whitework quilt, which fellow Kentuckian Eliza Calvert Hall noted in a 1913 article on Kentucky quilts for McCall's magazine. 

Lillian Virginia Lewis donated it to the Smithsonian in 1949 .

Sister Ida B Lewis was interviewed

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History owns

this all white quilt attributed to Jennie by her family with capital

letters spelling out in the center circle:

"1856 A REPRESENTATION OF THE FAIR GROUND NEAR RUSSELLVILLE KENTUCKY."

We assume the date 1856 records her working on or finishing the quilt but she may have made this quilt years later, recalling an event when she was in her late twenties. For the hundredth anniversary of that 1856 fair the local paper published a history of Russellville fairs noting

Russellville News-Democrat

1856 Fair location

In 1956 the mithsonian's textile curator Grace L. Rodgers wrote local historian Margaret Barnes Stratton wondering when the quilt was made, commemoration, completion ...or "just what.".

Note from Grace Rodgers about the donor Lewis's family story

the fair horses

From a late-life biography of John Ivey.

John may have been the only Ivey on the Union side.

He had married a woman named Columbia House in 1856

1862

Sister Harriet Ellen Ivey Lewis

After the war John knew he could no longer live in Logan County. As he'd met many Union soldiers from Warren County in western Illinois he decided to move there where he remained the rest of his life.

On his farm 1-1/2 miles south of Little York, about 12 miles from the county seat Monmouth he prospered at raising and selling mules. In 1880s he added thoroughbred horses to his stables at the Iveydor Stud Farm.

John and Columbia invited their single sisters to live with them

at Iveydor after their parents died. Carrie and Jennie  

.

when harreit marry the rev

21st Century Little York, Illinois

Virginia Mason Ivey was born on October 26, 1828 in Tennessee, daughter of Mourning Mason and Captain David Ivey (1789-1869), a farmer and soldier in the War of 1812. According to family information her father named her after his native state. When Virginia was young the family moved to Keysburg, a small town in Logan County, Kentucky, just a few miles north of the Tennessee state line. 

When David Anderson Ivey was born about 1789, in Sussex, Virginia, United States, his father, Jesse Ivey, was 41 and his mother, Sarah Anderson, was 40. He had at least 4 sons and 3 daughters with Mourning Joy Mason. He died on 14 March 1869, in Logan, Kentucky, United States, at the age of 81.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/11/virginia-iveys-quilt-honoring-henry-clay.html

Logan County Archives and Genealogical Society

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/11/virginia-iveys-quilt-honoring-henry-clay.html

Virginia Mason Ivey was born on October 26, 1828 in Tennessee. She was the daughter of Mourning Mason and Captain David Ivey, a farmer and soldier in the War of 1812. According to family information her father named her after his native state. When Virginia was a young child the family moved to Keysburg, a small town in Logan County, Kentucky.

We find a little more about her in an 1886 biography of her brother John J. Ivey who moved to  Warren County, Illinois after the Civil War.

"[John Ivey] a descendant of parents who were born respectively in Virginia and Northern Tennessee. His father, David A. Ivey, was a native of Sussex Co., Va. He was old enough to take a part in the war of 1812, when that struggle broke out, and afterward married a lady named Mourning Mason. She was the daughter of a "hard-shell" Baptist preacher, and her parents were natives of North Carolina. The marriage took place in Robertson Co., Tenn., where they lived about four years.

They then went to Logan Co., Ky., where the father purchased a tract of timber three miles from the State line. He lived to clear a farm upon which he died in 1867, his wife following him in 1870. All their lives were passed in the practice of the principles of Christianity, and they were consistent members of the Methodist Church. They left a record which still exerts an influence on those to whom their careers of uprightness and integrity were well known. 

Six of their children grew to maturity. Carrie, the oldest, remained with her parents until their respective deaths. She now resides with her brother in Sumner Township [Illinois]. Virginia is also a member of the household of her brother. James A. [James Asbury Ivey] is a preacher in the Methodist Church, and is now stationed at New Orleans. Joseph died on the homestead in Kentucky. Ellen is the wife of the Rev. James A. Lewis, of Kentucky."

Apparently unmarried sisters Virginia and Carrie also moved to a farm near Little York, Illinois, to live with John and his wife after their parents died in Kentucky