By 1847 the second oldest of John Mixson’s sons, Archibald Kirkland was well established in Barnwell District and had five children with his wife Elizabeth Calhoun, Mary Elizabeth#732, John M. #733, Harriett Hasseltine#734, James Joyce#735, and Sarah E. #736  Here you may start to see a pattern of the naming of sons  with James Joyce named after Archibald’s younger brother of the same name.  

Tragedy hit Archibald’s family when his wife Elizabeth suddenly died in 1845. His oldest son John took the death of his mother quite hard and volunteered to go fight in the war with Mexico while the three youngest children Harriett, James and Sarah remained at home. Then, at the age of forty-nine, Archibald married the much younger Rachel Ann Calhoun.  At the time women, or girls you might say, married young and at age of twenty-three perhaps thought she may never be married and when Archibald came a courting, she was won over. For Archibald’s daughter Mary, her new “mother” was only four years older seemed more like an older sister.

Archibald and Rachael had their first child together, William Gilmore Mixson#737 in September of 1846. Life was looking brighter for Archibald when in early 1847 he received a letter from his son John who was in New Orleans.  Writing back to his son he wrote:

*Simulated letter but actual text of letter.

John M. Mixson served in the U.S. – Mexican War as a private in the Palmetto Regiment of the South Carolina Volunteers in 1846 and 1847. It is not known what John’s situation was that caused his father such pain, likely wounded in battle. Josiah E. Brown who Archibald sent his son to was Archibald’s brother-in-law who married his sister, Susan Mixson#710.

The “Ivanhoe” was a steamship built in Charleston in 1839 which regularly traveled along the east coast, around the tip of Florida to New Orleans and up the Mississippi all the way to Pittsburg[1] transporting people and goods. Augusta Georgia resides on the border of South Carolina about forty miles north-west of the city of Barnwell. The Barnwell District which is bounded on the north by the Edistro River and on the south by the Savannah River which is also the border with Georgia. Steamboats such as the Ivanhoe would travel on the Savannah River from the port of Savannah on the Atlantic to Augusta. A train ran from Augusta to Charleston passing through Barnwell.

[1] My father, Morris Mixson, would make the journey the opposite way, from Pittsburg to New Orleans, when he joined the Navy during World War II in 1945.

Updated: 12-16-2025

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