When Susan Fowler, daughter of Jasper, signed her name to a simple, legal document in 1849, I do not think that she could have ever imagined the sheer joy I would feel when my eyes fell upon that document one hundred and sixty seven years later. Yet, she is part of my journey into the…

The Union County, SC Fowler families, as many families do, had a tradition of naming their offspring after themselves and their relatives.  Although it is a respectable and common practice, it leaves us with many of the same names to sort out decades later.  Ellis, Thomas, William, John, James, Gillman, Joseph, Henry, Lemuel........ these were…

I like Ephraim Fowler.  I like his name and I like the fact that he left a well detailed will.  Was he the oldest son of Henry Ellis Fowler?  Before I attempt to answer that, we need to clear up a misconception about Ephraim. Many family trees have his date of birth as 1784.  I…

KELLY CEMETERY UNION COUNTY SC Somewhere, in the deeply wooded forest that surrounds the Joseph Kelly Cemetery, lie the bones of the Fowler Patriarch of Union County, South Carolina, Henry Ellis Fowler.  His grave is among the many marked by only a field stone, and the few remembered with an engraved headstone. Today, his countless descendants…