Susan Jane Avery Eddins of Papinsville Submitted by Kathy Gibson
Susan Jane Avery was born in Tebo Township, Henry County, Missouri October 6, 1832, on her parents� farm. They had recently traveled by wagon from Morgan County, Missouri, arriving before her birth. Three of the eight children born to Henry and Elizabeth Green Avery were born there on the farm.
In 1849, at the age of 17, she married Franklin Harvey Eddins, born 1822, a prosperous young merchant of Virginia descent, and settled in Bates County [1851] at the county seat, a town called Papinville, which was a little over thirty miles from Clinton, back when it was in Vernon County. Papinville was situated on the Marais des Cygnes and the farthest head of steamboat navigation in Missouri. The river was a pivotal stop for travelers heading west to Kansas and beyond. Outfitters, gold miners, farmers, and families stopped there to gather supplies. Mr. Eddins was involved in varied and successful businesses before the Civil War broke out. He and his partner, Franklin Eddy, had an outfitting store, warehouses, and the first mill in the town. Their first daughter Regina was born in 1851. Before the Civil War, when Kansas Territory was considering statehood and the question of slavery arose, skirmishes across the border into Missouri began. Mr. Eddins watched the political atmosphere closely, wondering what the outcome might be if slavery became more than just fighting among the Kansas folks, if they would be a free or slave state. Later, when there was so much stealing and looting, Missouri farmers who owned slaves were mercilessly killed by the Kansas jayhawkers, bands of anti-slavery, pro-Union guerrillas, he considered their safety paramount. The little family moved as quickly as they could in the early summer of 1860. Regina was nine, Clora was five, and Mary was two years old. Susan was thirty two and with three little daughters, she needed to be away from the violence which had been coming closer as time went on. They stopped for awhile at the old homestead of Susan�s parents, deceased by then, where her brother William Lane Avery had stayed to keep the farm running. Little Mary Emma died that fall; she was only two and half, and Franklin felt it would do his family good to be with Susan�s sister, Nancy Avery Fewel, who lived near Lewis in Johnson County, north of Clinton. The family moved up to the Fewel home for Christmas. In January, 1861, his brother-in-law became ill, and in hurrying for the doctor Frank Eddins ruptured a blood vessel and died with hemorrhage before the last little daughter, Frankie Elizabeth Eddins, was born. And then the war began in earnest in Missouri. The Avery family had brought slaves from Tennessee and they were well-treated, provided for with homes and never separated from their children or families. Susan�s brother Robinson provided for at least 28 slaves, from a 75 year old woman whom everybody loved, to a new 9 month old girl. All the Avery children had grown up together with these folks on the Avery farm. After James H. Lane, a prominent abolitionist politician, on the 22nd day of September 1861, in command of the United States troops, destroyed the town of Osceola; their order was to destroy certain supplies of the enemy, the Missourians. The entire town was set afire, and all but three buildings were destroyed. Lane�s troops returned to Kansas through Papinsville, and wreaked havoc on the town, destroying the Mission church. Masked men robbed the store and shot Susan�s husband's partner, Francis Frink Eddy, in cold blood as he stood one evening in the door of the store. The store itself, with all the warehouses and buildings and the mill owned by the firm, as well as everything the buildings contained, were burned. After his death Mr. Eddy�s wife and children moved from Papinville, but several of their children are buried in the cemetery there. (I am not entirely sure Eddy died in the first raid of 1861, or the burning raid of 1863). For Susan Jane, all was swept away. Those were troublesome days for the young widow without business experience. After Mr. Eddins� death she received an invoice for $50,000 (other records show $30,000) for her husband's share in the store. This was the amount owed to the store by their friends and others. He also owned a mill and valuable coal lands. In her blinding sorrow, the young widow, thinking to blot out memories, burned the letters. As they curled in the fire, she realized they were legal papers - her deeds. But with the deeds at the court house burned, there was no way to reclaim what had been left behind, most of which had been destroyed. But the land held value still. On June 26, 1867, Mrs. Eddins was married again to Mr. William Henry Roberts, a carpenter and photographer from Ohio. Regina Eddins Avery moved to Durango, Colorado in 1882, and in 1888 Susan and William and their two daughters, Hattie Estelle Roberts, and Minnie Pearl Roberts, joined her there. Susan Jane Avery Eddins Roberts died in Animas City, Colorado October 10, 1910. These five members are buried in Durango, Colorado, along with Susan Jane's grandchildren and great-granddaughter. The remaining daughter, Frankie Elizabeth Eddins Smith, stayed in Clinton and was the editor of the Clinton Eye for many years. After she and her husband died, one of her daughters became the editor. |
