Mollie(Mary) Schell Scrapbook
(Mollie) Mary Schell
(1815-1883)
Mary (Mollie) Robertson Schell was born in Pennsylvania around 1815. She married Samuel F (Shill), a watch maker and jeweler on the 14th of February 1828, at the first Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. The spelling of their name is different on census and marriage records spelt; Schill, Shell, and then Schell. They moved to Tennessee around 1836. According to the 1850 census Mary was 40 years old, and lived with her husband in District 5, Sumner, Tennessee; with their five children; Henry, Josephine, Abraham, Mary, and William. In 1860, Mary still lived in Gallatain, Tennessee with her husband and four of their children. In 1870 Mary was 55 years old, and lived in District 15, in Gallatin, Tennessee, with her husband and one of their sons. In 1880 at the age of 74, she still resided in Gallatin, now widowed and with two of her children, and two grandchildren living with her; her daughter Mary, her son Willian and his children Edna and Julius. Mary passed away three years later in July of 1883 at the age of 77. Her son William died two months later in September at the age of 34.
On the inside cover of her scrapbook, she writes about how she created this scrapbook, after being sentenced to eight months imprisonment in her home by General Paine, for not taking an oath of allegiance.
Mary’s son Abraham fought for the confederacy, at the age of 23 in the 2nd Regiment Tennessee Infantry, Company I, as a Third Lieutenant and then as a First Lieutenant.
Sources:
- "20 Million Members Have Connected To a Deeper Family Story." Ancestry. Accessed May 8, 2019. https://www.ancestry.com/
General Eleazar Paine
General Eleazar Arthur Paine was the commander of the Union railroad guard from November 1862, to April 1864. In 1863 he tightened his control over the Gallatian area, where Mary Schell and her family lived. He became known around the area for "executing suspected rebel spies without a trial"[1]. He was referred to by another town’s woman Alice Williamson as; "his lordship, old hurricane, and Thunderstorm".[2] Local leaders often accused General Paine of “committing what would today be considered war crimes. According to local leaders, Paine often released suspected spies for questioning, only to have Union troops on fresh mounts hunt them down and kill them as they attempted to make their way home”[3], as well as other terrible abuses of power, and Eventually investigated by a military commission. Who found the general “had conducted several activities which were violations of military and civilian law; including extortion, the illegal imposition of taxes, the resale for personal profit of stolen goods, and corruption.”[4] Tried under a general court martial, he was found not guilty on all charges, except having cursed at a superior officer, and was sentenced to receive a reprimand directly from the president, however the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton did not forward it to President Lincoln and no action was taken. Paine resigned in 1865 and returned to Illinois to continue his pre-war career as a lawyer.
[1] Alice Williamson Diary - Eleazar Arthur Paine. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/williamson/annotations/paine.html.
[2] Alice Williamson Diary - Eleazar Arthur Paine. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/williamson/annotations/paine.html.
[3]"10 of the Most Heinous Forgotten War Crimes of the American Civil War." HistoryCollection.co. December 07, 2017. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://historycollection.co/10-forgotten-heinous-war-crimes-american-civil-war/5/.
[4] "10 of the Most Heinous Forgotten War Crimes of the American Civil War." HistoryCollection.co. December 07, 2017. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://historycollection.co/10-forgotten-heinous-war-crimes-american-civil-war/5/.
Sources:
- "10 of the Most Heinous Forgotten War Crimes of the American Civil War." HistoryCollection.co. December 07, 2017. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://historycollection.co/10-forgotten-heinous-war-crimes-american-civil-war/5/.
- Alice Williamson Diary - Eleazar Arthur Paine. Accessed May 4, 2019. https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/williamson/annotations/paine.html.