My 2nd Great Grandfather Henry James Mosier

This post will be about old family tales. Growing up we were always told by my grandmother (as told to her by my grandfather Clyde Mosier who died in 1945) that our 2nd great grandfather Henry James Mosier was abandoned as a child by his father, James P. Moser. Henry and his brother Thomas Milburn Calvin Mosier added the i to Mosier when they grew up, and they told their families that their father had died.

Henry James Mosier

Another part of the tale is that James P. Moser asked his wife Margaret Belk Moser to leave with him to move to Georgia (or sometimes it was California) and she refused so he left with the neighbor's wife on a horse and buggy and never saw his family again. Along with this we heard he had a brother that was hanged for stealing horses.

From my research I have learned that James did indeed leave with the neighbor's wife. But the neighbor's wife was his brother's wife, his sister-in-law Mary. And seeing as his brother William disappears after the 1860 census, and has no Civil War records, I think William was the hanged horse thief. Because you see, not only James left for Georgia with Mary and her children, his father (I believe the mother died around this time) and all his siblings also left, all resettling in the upstate SC/GA area, never to be heard from again. I think the family high-tailed it out of Lancaster County, SC, because they were mortified by the hanging. And I think Margaret chose to stay because she had health issues, and didn't want to leave her extended Belk family.  Margaret died a few years later and the three children were raised by different relatives. James and Mary had several children together and lived a long life after eventually settling in Athens, GA.

From all accounts my 2nd great grandfather Henry Mosier was a good man. I recently found his death notice at one of my favorite links,  Chronicling America, listed on my homepage.