John Edward PHELPS

Notes:

At the end of the civil war, brothers, John Michael Phelps and William Thompson Phelps, who were union soldiers and had been held in a confederate prison, but were freed and were returning home on the steamship Sultana when a boiler expolded and the ship sank. John Michael survived the incident but his brother William Thompson died. John Michael reported that the last thing he heard his brother say to people hanging on to him was "get off, you are going to drowned me" His body was never found.

Notes:

Henry Felps is first seen in the 1830 Claiborne County US Census. He is married and with one female child.

By 1840 Henry Phelps with his wife and six children had moved to Blount County, Tennessee. The name on the U.S. Census for 1840 was misspelled as "Philips". Ten years later on the 1850 Census, he is listed as "Phelps". Henry and Rhoda had eleven children and lived in the Middlesettlements Community of Blount County.

Henry Phelps died sometime before 1860. Family records show that during a smallpox epidemic in the community, Henry dug graves for the victims. It is believed that as one of the few able bodied men in the community, he kept an empty grave dug in preparation for the next death. When he became ill and died of the disease, he was buried in a grave that he had dug himself.

Rhoda Phelps died in 1880. It is thought that Rhoda and Henry Phelps are buried in the cemetery at Middlesettlements Methodist Church in Blount County, Tennessee where there are several older unmarked graves.

Henry married Rhoda LEBOW in 1828 in Claiborne County, Tennessee. Rhoda was born on 18 Apr 1815 in Illinois; died in Apr 1880 in Blount Co, Tennessee. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Valentin married Wife UNKNOWN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]