The Parents of Frances Wilson Osborne

Troubled Times
by Glenn N. Holliman

Photographed below are Caroline Greer Wilson (1828 - 1911) and her husband, Isaac Wilson (1822 - 1864), the parents of Frankie Wilson Osborne. The couple married in Ashe Co., NC in 1849.

Isaac Wilson was a successful trader and farmer, owning several hundred acres of timber, pasture and cultivated fields nestled along the Tennessee and North Carolina borders. The elevation of the farm is over 3,000 feet and surrounded by tall mountains. When the Civil War broke out in Ashe County, North Carolina, he sided with the South and became a lieutenant in the Confederate Army. At this writing we know little of his service record.

In the early 1860s law and order broke down in an Appalachian society where cousin fought cousin. Ironically, the Wilsons owned no slaves although Caroline was a fierce Confederate.

The disorder of the times resulted in a type of guerrilla warfare, neighbor against neighbor. On June 16, 1864, my great-great grandfather became a victim when several of his neighbors shot him from ambush in the back while he was plowing his corn field. He died within a few hours. A vicious circle of revenge began that produced additional widows. It was an ugly time, and many years were needed for passions to subside.

My great-grandmother, who was with her father when the shooting occurred, told the story to my mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, who shared it with me when I was growing up in the 1950s. Only in the first decade of the 21st century did I discover this story on the internet and the book, Neighbor to Neighbor by my great-great uncle William A. Wilson.

Isaac's wife, Caroline, was 36 years old and left with 8 children, all 14 or younger. With help from family and children, she harvested the corn crop that summer and many seasons thereafter. On several occasions in 1864 her home was invaded and ransacked by Union sympathizers. Once she encountered Federal cavalry who were ready to confiscate her horse, when a cousin in the Union patrol vouched for her. She escaped without injury and with her animal.

Obviously, a strong and vibrant woman, she lived until 1911, dying from complications of a broken hip. She and her husband are buried in Wilson Cemetery in Oscar Wilson Cove near Sutherland, North Carolina in Ashe County.

In 2009, my mother, my sister Rebecca Holliman Payne and nephew Sean Murphy visited the cemetery. At the entrance to the Cove is a general store kept by some distant cousins, the Boyds, descendants of the Wilsons. The younger Boyd told us of how Caroline hid the family pewter in a hole in the nearby creek to keep the valuables from the Union Army. Such is our family story....

Next posting, more tales of our Wilson/Osborne ancestors....