Caroline, the oldest child of James and Sarah Barnard Dillard was born August 17, 1817, in Buncombe County, North Carolina.1 Caroline and her sister Marinda, born 1819, are listed as being born in North Carolina, while the next child, Arzelia, is listed as being born in Georgia.2 Caroline probably was little more than a toddler when her parents, sister, and grandfather, John Dillard, moved into Rabun County, Georgia.
Almost nothing has been found about Caroline's early childhood in Rabun County. It can only be surmised that as the oldest child she helped with household chores and the caring of her seven younger siblings. Caroline would have been almost twenty years old when the last child of James and Sarah Dillard was born in 1836 3, a year before she married.
Caroline was married in Rabun County by her uncle, (Justice of the Peace, O.T. Dickerson), to William Lambert on March 2, 1837.4 How did she meet William? He was a tailor in Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina, and census records indicate the Lambert family was in Macon County in 1830.5 Were the Dillards and Lamberts known to each other prior to the Dillards moving into Georgia?
It is known that when Orville Barnard died years later (1865), William M.D. Lambert was named administrator of the property owned by Barnard in Habersham County, Georgia.6 Then in 1868 when Andrew Barnard died, William M.D. Lambert was again named administrator of the property owned by Andrew Barnard. Both Barnards have been listed as brothers to Sarah Barnard Dillard.7 There is strong evidence that William's mother was born in South Carolina8, and his father's family lived in York County, South Carolina.9 Sarah Barnard Dillard birthplace has been listed as South Carolina.10 Were the Barnards and Lamberts known to each other in South Carolina?
William M. D. Lambert and an age appropriate female for his spouse are enumerated on the 1840 census of Macon County, North Carolina. One male aged ten to fifteen years is also listed.11 It is not known who this boy is, perhaps a relative or worker. James R. Lambert, born December 21, 1842,12 was the only known child of Caroline and William Lambert. This child would have been born over five years after their marriage. Were there other children who died young? Caroline knew this child only briefly, as she died nine days after he was born. The obituary for Caroline states:
In Franklin, Macon County, on the 30th ult., Mrs. Caroline, wife of Mr. Wm. Lambert, aged about 25 years. She was an acceptable member of the Methodist E. Church, and left an assurance to her bereaved friends and relations that their loss is her gain; and that she has gone to those mansions which Christ has in reserve for the finally faithful."13 It is not known where she is buried.
Few family stories sifted down from James R. Lambert. The writer remembers her father and an elderly aunt relating that when their father was two weeks old, his grandmother rode forty miles on a mule to bring young James R. Lambert to her home.14 Which grandmother was not known, and it would be almost one hundred fifty years after Caroline's death before it was discovered that it was Sarah Dillard who brought him to her home in Rabun Gap. (Twenty miles to Franklin and twenty miles back!) For whatever can be derived or read into the following, it states that on January 5, 1843 (about two weeks after young James was born), James Dillard sold a young negro boy, Isom, aged 10, to William M.D. Lambert for three hundred dollars.15 This Bill of Sale was filed some ten years later in Habersham County, Georgia, where William had remarried in 1846 and was living there.16 Why was this filed years later? Does it really mean anything? Answers to these questions probably will never be known.
Oddly, James R. Lambert appears on the 1850 census twice! Once in the home of William M.D. Lambert in Habersham County, and also in the home of James Dillard in Rabun County.17 The writer's brother recalls a family story of a mean step-mother. This story and the 1850 census is the only evidence that James R. might have lived a short while with his father. On the 1860 census of Rabun County, James R. Lambert is the only person listed with James and Sarah Dillard.19
James R. Lambert, who never knew his mother, did not name any of his daughters Caroline. However, his youngest son, the writer's father, was named Jesse Dillard Lambert. So far as it is known, my father, who was always addressed as "Dillard," never knew for whom he was named. The name Caroline has not been found in the ancestry among earlier Dillards, Lamberts, Barnards, or McDowells. Though among Caroline's descendants there are several Carolines, with one born as recently as 1992. One other oddity relating to names concerns the second family of William M.D. Lambert. The youngest child of this family born in 1858 in Habersham County was named John Dillard Lambert!20
The writer is indebted to James Dillard for naming James R. Lambert in his 1861 will "...my grandson James R. Lambert son of my daughter Caroline Lambert wife of William M.D. Lambert..."21 This is the only civil record found that anchors James R. Lambert with his Dillard grandparents. The 1850 and 1860 census records do not list his relationship. Thus, because Caroline died very young, little information has been found concerning this oldest child of James and Sarah Barnard Dillard. It is only from researching those about her
1Family history sheets in possession of Malcolm Dillard, Dillard, Georgia.
2Family group sheets in possession of Anne Dickerson, Dillard, Georgia.
3Ibid.
4Marriage Book A, Record of Marriage Licenses, 1820-1849 Rabun County Courthouse, Clayton, Georgia.
51830 Census Record, Macon County, North Carolina.
6Deed Book T, pages 143-144 (1865), Habersham County Courthouse, Clarkesville, Georgia.
7Deed Book U, pages 254-255, Habersham County Courthouse, Clarkesville, Georgia.
8Research by Frances Hebert, Mission Viejo, California and by Kay Cunningham, Plattsmouth, Nebraska.
91850 Census Record, Macon County, North Carolina.
101800 Census Record, York County, South Carolina. Estate settlement of Samuel Lambert, York County, South Carolina. Estate Papers.
111840 Census Record, Macon County, North Carolina.
12Family Bible in possession of Cheever Harold Lambert, Galveston, Texas and family history sheets in possession of Malcolm Dillard, Dillard, Georgia.
13The Highland Messenger (Asheville, North Carolina) 13 January 1843.
14Jesse Dillard Lambert, (1897-1966), father. Lillie Belle Lambert Johnson (1884-1965), aunt.
15Deed Book RR (1848-1871), Habersham County Courthouse, Clarkesville, Georgia.
16Ibid.
171850 Census Records, Rabun County, Georgia and 1850 Census Records, Habersham County, Georgia.
18J.D. Lambert, Lafayette, Louisiana, brother.
191860 Census Records, Rabun County, Georgia.
20Tri-County Advertiser, Clarkesville, Georgia, Thursday, March 1, 1934, page 1. "...John Dillard Lambert, death occurred Friday afternoon, February 23, 1934..."
21Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Book, Volume 84, page 33.