The End of the Story: Mary Elizabeth Champion

by Rebecca Blackwell Drake

Mary Elizabeth Champion was the first child born to Sid and Matilda Champion of Champion Hill. She was born in 1855 and was followed by three brothers in the ensuing years: Wallace Montgomery, William Balfour; and Sid Champion Jr. Mary was only six years old when her father enlisted with the 28th Mississippi Cavalry and left for Vicksburg where his regiment was assigned to protect the river city.

The war took an enormous toll on the Champion family. They lost most of their possessions, including their home and most of their slaves. In July of 1863, after the family home was burned, Matilda took the children to a rural site in Rankin County where she and the children lived until the end of the war. Matilda referred to the temporary home as her refuge home.

After Sid was mustered out of the army in 1865, he gathered Matilda and the children from the refuge home and returned to Champion Hill and built a modest home adjacent to the railroad. In spite of high expectations, their lives would never be the same - their wealth was gone and their possessions had been lost or damaged. Even with Sid home, Matilda continued to do what she had done for the past three years - she worked from daylight to dark in order to make ends meet.

In 1867, the family met with tragedy when their son, William Balfour, age eight, died of an upper respiratory tract infection. He was the first to be buried in the family cemetery. A year later, Sid died of a malignant malarial fever, leaving Matilda a widow with three young children. He was buried in the grove next to his son Balfour. During the day, Matilda and the children worked the fields and at night she schooled them in reading, writing and arithmetic. Life was difficult but she refused to lose her land to the carpetbaggers.


Matilda Champion at age 77 years

In 1876, Mary Elizabeth, their only daughter, age twenty-one, left home then seemingly disappeared from the pages of family history. Her brothers continued to work the land while pursuing other careers - Wallace graduated from the Cincinnati Medical School and Sid Jr. served as a member of the Mississippi State Legislature during the 1880s. In 1897, tragedy struck the family once again when Sid Jr. contracted yellow fever and died, leaving his wife, Olivia Montgomery Champion, pregnant with their first child. Wallace met with success as a local doctor but fell into alcoholism and died in 1901 at the age of 45. With all of her sons deceased and Mary Elizabeth no longer in the family picture, Matilda was left 'home alone' for the first time. Her only descendant was her young grandson, Sid Champion III, who inherited all of Champion Hill at the age of ten.

For over a century, historians sought to discover the fate of the daughter, Mary Elizabeth Champion, but it was as if she never existed. A serious 'fact search' began as early as 2009 and continued until 2012 when details of her short life began to fall into place. The Hinds County Marriage Records (1876) revealed that Mary Elizabeth had married a neighbor, Harry Kibbe Austin, a widower twice Mary Elizabeth’s age. Further research revealed that Harry was a Vermont native who had enlisted with the 71st Regiment, New York Infantry. In short Harry was a "Yankee." Perhaps Matilda disapproved of the marriage?

After the war, Harry Austin and his first wife moved to Hinds County to purchase cheap land. The land that he purchased was mostly along the Southern Railroad in a settlement known as Midway Station – later known as Champion Hill. When the creditors began advertising Harry’s massive debts, the stress was too much for his first wife and she soon passed away. Harry bore the stigma of not only being a Yankee veteran but also a failed businessman who had fallen on hard times. To erase his massive debt, Harry was forced to sell most of his land. The land sale notice ran front and center in the Hinds County Gazette.

Presumably without Matilda’s blessing, Mary Elizabeth and Harry Kibbe Austin were wed on June 7th, 1876, and immediately began a family, giving birth to two girls; a daughter named Lillian (1877) and a daughter named Mary (1879). Mary was only eleven months old when, in 1880, Mary Elizabeth, age twenty-five, died while giving birth to her third child. She and the baby were buried in an unmarked grave in the Edwards Cemetery. Today the grave sites remain unknown.

The fate of Lillian and Mary Austin are also unknown but it would appear since they were not in the 1890 Census that they too died during early childhood. After Mary Elizabeth’s death, Harry married for the third time to Agnes Coker, a neighbor. Harry continued to live in Edwards until his death in December of 1922. His burial site cannot be located but most likely he is buried in the Edwards Cemetery, near his wives and the children that he lost.

After the death of Matilda Champion in 1907, the keeper of the hallowed grounds of Champion Hill fell to Sid Champion III, the young son of Sid Champion Jr. The one subject that was never mentioned in the Champion House was the fate of Mary Elizabeth Champion, the first born of Sid and Matilda Champion.

Mary Elizabeth’s life was tragically brief and her death undoubtedly left her husband and children sick with grief: When sorrow floods the troubled heart and clouds the mind with tears; affliction presses from the soul the bitter flow of tears; God’s weeping children raise the prayer: "Almighty God, how long till tears shall cease and silence break and grief be turned to song?"
 

Sources: Article researched by Rebecca Drake, Raymond, and Sue B. Moore, Longview, Texas. Sources: Hinds County Marriage Records, 1876; a January edition of the Hinds County Gazette; My Dear Wife: The Letters of Sid and Matilda Champion edited by Rebecca Drake and Margie R. Bearss and When Sorrow Floods the Troubled Heart, lyrics by Rebecca Turner and Paul. Simpson Duke.


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