Mr. Sutton believes that John Caleb's first wife, Lisha, was the daughter of William Andrews, had several brothers and died around 1830. However, the marriage record for John Sutton and Lisha Andrews was found in Craven County, not Robeson. Whether that's where the Andrews family was living at the time or the marriage record is for someone other than my John (Caleb) Sutton is unclear.
In a search of the public trees at ancestry.com (sadly rife with errors which are then perpetuated ad nauseum), I found information stating that John Caleb's second wife was a Marinda Boyette from Duplin County, North Carolina. Whether this is accurate, I couldn't say. We know her given name was Marinda, and the 1850 census shows that she was born in Duplin County, so it's a possibility worth exploring. There is a John Boyette family in 1820 Duplin County with three daughters in the right age range. I was unable to find a marriage record for Caleb and Marinda in either Robeson or Duplin Counties, or in other available North Carolina marriage records; this is not surprising as these books and online databases are far from inclusive of all the early marriages that took place in that state.
Jesse Sutton was the only Sutton in 1790 and 1800 Robeson County. In the first census, he was by himself. By 1800, he had acquired a wife (16-25), 2 sons under 10 and a daughter under 10; Jesse was between the ages of 26 and 44. It's believed he died about 1805 since no further record is found of him.
Looking at the available records, I've come to some different conclusions about Caleb's early family than those reached by Johnny Sutton based on his own and predecessors' exhaustive research. He surmises that Jesse Sutton and his unknown wife had the following children: Jessie Grant Sutton (b. ca 1793), who relocated soon after Jesse's death to Pulaski County, Georgia, and eventually lived and died in Barbour County, Alabama; an unknown son born about 1795; Nancy Sutton (b. ca 1797), who married William Lee in Robeson in 1822; John Caleb Sutton, the subject of this bio, b. 1801; and Susan Sutton (b. ca 1803), who married John Lee in Robeson in 1826.
I suspect rather that Caleb was born before or in 1800, and was one of the two males under 10 in Jesse's household that year. I've seen nothing to tie the Barbour County, Alabama, Jessie Grant Sutton to the Robeson County Suttons, and the fact that there were no other Sutton males hanging around Robeson County (or mentioned in any records I've seen for that area) at least suggests the possibility that this second male son didn't survive. The female who is under 10 in 1800 is a little harder to account for: there's no Sutton bride listed in Robeson County marriages earlier than 1822, but the 1820 census shows no females in Caleb Sutton's household other than his mother (45 and over). I don't believe that Nancy or Susan Sutton were Caleb's sisters; they married in 1822 and 1826, respectively, so they would still have been in the home in 1820 if they were part of this family. Some of the mystery might have been cleared up by what the intervening census showed; unfortunately, I could find no Suttons in the 1810 Robeson census, despite paging through the census images. Probably the family was simply missed that year, not too unusual especially in rural communities.
As far as Nancy and Susan Sutton are concerned, it may be they are in fact Caleb's sisters and just happened to be off visiting somewhere when the census was taken in 1820. But it's equally possible that they were Sutton cousins who formed attachments to William and John Lee during visits to Robeson County. If Caleb married Lisha Andrews in the relatively distant Craven County, there may have been something that took him there in the first place, like Sutton relatives. There is one Sutton household in Craven in 1820, but the daughters are too young to be Nancy and Susan. However, in 1830, there are two Sutton families, who might have settled there any time after 1820; John Sutton (30-40) could easily have fathered a daughter who was of marriageable age in 1826, and Isaac Sutton, Sr. (40-50) could have fathered either or both girls. This is all pure conjecture, but it's one possible scenario to account for two Sutton females marrying in Robeson who can't be more definitively tied to the only Sutton family known to live in the area.
In 1830, Caleb heads a household that includes his wife, a son and daughter under age 5, and an older woman who may be his mother or mother-in-law. In 1820, his mother was shown as 45 or older; in both 1830 and 1840 the older female in the home is shown as 40-50. In 1850, the Suttons live next door to the Elias Barnes family, future in-laws of Caleb's oldest son (and my ancestor), James Thomas.
- James Thomas Sutton, b. Dec 1827; m. Elizabeth Barnes, Elizabeth C. Britt
Children with Marinda:
- Malcolm Henderson Sutton, b. 1834; m. Susan Lamb
- William Boyd Sutton, b. 24 Mar 1836; m. Emily Pittman Britt
- Wade Hampton Sutton, b. 1840, d. 27 Feb 1863
- Benjamin L. Sutton, b. 1842; m. Nancy Ellen Parker (sister of Elizabeth)
- John Caleb Sutton, Jr., b. 1845; d. 16 Apr 1865
- Mary Caroline Sutton, b. 1847; m. Hardy J. Stone
- Henry Frank Sutton, b. 1849, d. 1850-1860
From The Suttons: "[John Caleb] owned no slaves nor is there any record of any member of this family owning slaves. Yet when war broke out between the North and South, he and all six sons went to Lumberton and joined the Confederate Armed Forces. On 18 May 1861, he and four sons, James Thomas, Malcolm Henderson, William B. and Benjamin L., joined Company 'D', 18th Regiment, North Carolina Troops (Infantry). Wade Hampton joined Company 'D', 12th Regiment, later transferring to Company 'A', 46th Regiment (Infantry) as a sergeant. John Caleb, Jr. joined the Confederate States Navy, later transferring to the 3rd Company, 36th Regiment Fort Stevens, SC... According to records of the 18th Regiment, Fort Stevens 'was on Huguenin's Farm, midway between Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA.' They were guarding the lagoons of the coast below the Cossahatchie. I am unable to locate Fort Stevens."
John Caleb (the elder) died on 10 Feb 1862 of "disease" at Fort Stevens, SC. His son, Malcolm was hospitalized at Fredericksburg after Antietam and died on 25 Sep 1862 of "dropsy" (edema). James and William were captured at Spotsylvania Court House, VA, on 12 May 1864; they were sent to the Union prison at Elmira, NY, but were part of a prisoner exchange in Dec 1864. Wade Hampton died of typhoid fever in a hospital at Goldsboro, NC, on 27 Feb 1863. John Caleb, Jr., was captured at Fort Fisher on 1 Jan 1865, and died of pneumonia on 16 Apr 1865 at the same Union prison in Elmira, NY, where his two older brothers had been held the year before (see below for his death record). Benjamin was discharged from service on 25 Jul 1863 after losing a limb.
On the home front, John Caleb's wife, Marinda, is presumed to have died either during or shortly after the war as no further record was found of her. James Thomas's wife, Elizabeth, died around 1864 though the precise date and circumstances are unknown.
William Boyd Sutton died 22 Mar 1914 in Wishart, Robeson, North Carolina. According to his death certificate, his parents were Caleb Sutton and "Miranda" Boyd. She appeared on census records as Marinda, which is probably the correct spelling of her given name. Though other family researchers have suggested her maiden name was Boyette, William's middle name is sufficiently unusual for the time and place and family that it seems plausible it was his mother's maiden name.
