The Leavel Family

I have a cemetery record for my ggggrandparents in Glenwood Cemetery. They are buried in Section 12, Lot 125. The names are Rev. Dr. Haden Leavel and his wife Emily Sarah Carson Leavel. Also her mother, Elizabeth Richards Carson McMurrough who died in 1844 is buried in the same Section and Lot along with her 2nd husband John William McMurrough. Haden Leavel was born in Madison County, KY in 1811 and was a MD graduate of University of Pennsylvania in 1833. He moved to Yazoo County MS in 1834 and married Emily Sarah Carson of Yazoo City in 1835. He is known to have acquired about 600 acres of land in Yazoo and Holmes Counties by U. S. Patent between 1840 and 1842. He was licensed to preach by the Mississippi conference of the Episcopal Methodist Church in 1842 and became an ordained Elder in 1846. He fell ill with Yellow Fever following a 2-week revivial meeting in Vicksburg and died on September 12, 1847. His wife did not remarry and she with her children, one daughter and three sons, continued to live in the Yazoo County area until about late 1863. Emily Sarah Carson Leavel managed the farms with the business advise of long-time family friend Dr. Burton Yandell who was married to her half-sister Melvina McMurrough. Emily died of Yellow Fever about the time that Vicksburg fell in July 1863. The one daughter, Matilda Leavel, after her mother's death traveled from Yazoo City with the protection of some of the freed farm's workers to Eufaula MS to marry Col. Edward Nathaniel Badger of the 4th Florida Infantry Regiment behind Confederate lines. This group then travelled by carriage and wagon to Marion County, FL where Col. Badger's family lived and settled there for the duration of the war. Col Badger completed his duty with the Confederate Army in Georgia and Carolinas. Matilda's three brother's survivied the war and also located to Marion County for a period of time. Her middle brother, George Carson Leavel (born 1842) was my gggrandfather, and he lived in Florida the rest of his life.

L. Kelley