The Search for Sam Billings' Family

Ralph Barnes

This is the sad tale of a man who served in both the Union and Rebel armies during the Civil War and vanished during that bloody conflict without a trace. This tragic soul was one of many people whose recorded existence disappeared during the chaos created by the Civil War. Even though he has hundreds of progeny, none of his modern descendants were aware of his existence.

For the members of the Billings family of Powell and Estill Counties, their paternal ancestry began and ended with James Samuel Billings who was born around 1858. Sam was a well-known businessman in the Furnace area of Estill County. He had worked in the old iron furnaces and, after their demise, operated a grocery and an apple orchard at Furnace. He married Ardennia Hendrix, born in 1856, of Powell County and they produced a large family. Sam died shortly after the turn of the century and all the people who knew him personally were dead by the time the search for his family began. Although none of the family knew who Sam's parents were there had been hints that he may not have been born a Billings. Sam's oldest child, Ada, had heard that her ancestors might have been named Robbins. Other members of the family were just as sure that they had heard the name Reffitt mentioned as possible ancestors. With almost no written or oral data available the long tedious search for the ancestors of James Samuel Billings began in earnest in 1993.

Working with the three family names mentioned by the various members of the family, an attempt was made to tie the family names of Billings, Robbins and Reffitt together in one family. Using those criteria, dozens of families in several counties were painstakingly researched and eventually eliminated as possible ancestors of Sam Billings. The riddle was eventually resolved with the help of a decades old letter discovered in the archives of Kentucky Historical Society, an even older letter written by a Civil War officer found in the military archives at Frankfort, a One hundred and twenty-five year old Kentucky State Prison record and an elderly lady living in Pittsburgh.

The most promising prospect eventually found was one Thomas Reffitt listed on the 1860 Montgomery County census. Thomas, born around 1836 was listed with his wife Malinda Jane, born circa 1838, and a son, Samuel, whose year of birth matched that of Sam Billings. Since the names and ages matched exactly, Malinda Jane was; most likely, the Malinda Jane Robins listed on the 1850 Montgomery County census. If Thomas and Malinda Jane were in fact Sam's parents, how did William Billings get into the picture? If a marriage certificate or other court document could be found that would tie the Riffett family of Montgomery County to the Billings family on the 1870 Powell county census then the Sam Billings mystery could be solved. Because of the Montgomery county courthouse fire in 1864 nearly all of the records prior to that date were destroyed and the chances of finding a document that would connect the families was not very likely. After a great deal of searching and a little luck, a marriage certificate was found that confirmed the wedding of Malinda Jane Reffitt to William Billings. But, what had happened to Thomas Reffitt? The three possibilities were death, divorce or abandonment. The author spent many fruitless hours reviewing the surviving court records and newspaper accounts of the period but found nothing.

During one search of the archives an old letter turned up from a Veronica Roach in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania seeking information on her grandmother whose maiden name had been Sarah Elizabeth Riffet. Since that was the same name as Sam's oldest sister a letter was sent to the return address to determine if Mrs. Roach's grandmother and Sam's sister were one and the same. The letter had been in the files for many years and the chances of contacting the author were slim at best. After several months passed with no response, all hope was given up on finding Mrs. Roach. Then one day in March of 1995 a letter arrived out of the blue from Veronica Roach that confirmed the rela-tionship between Sam and her grandmother. She explained that the earlier letter had arrived when she was ill and had been misplaced and not found for several months. In her letter Sam's great, great niece said that her grandmother, who was only a child at the time, remembered that her father was in the army during the Civil War and had been killed while sneaking through enemy lines to visit the family. According to the story Thomas Riffett was found dead on the front porch on Christmas morning. Mrs. Roach said that her grandmother was a strong woman and the only time in her life when she cried was when she spoke of the death of her father. Although the story seemed unlikely there was a good deal of conflict in Montgomery County between the Northern and Southern sympathizers and that tended to add credibility to the tale. So a search of the military records was undertaken to find if Thomas was indeed in the army during the Civil War. It did not take long to find out that he had enlisted in the Union army at Louisville, Kentucky on December 8, 1862 and was still on the muster rolls in June of 1865 after the war had ended. But there was a troubling note in the remarks section that indicated that he had been in the hands of the civil authorities since January 1, 1863. A more complete record of his military service was requested from the Department of Military Affairs. The archive files contained a letter from a Major Stivers of the Thirty-Fourth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry stationed near Mt. Sterling. According to the Letter, Thomas Riffett was with a group of rebels that had killed a union man named Patterson Pointer in Montgomery County during September of 1862 and had been arrested by the army and turned over to the civil authorities. That bit of information raised a host of questions. Why, if he was a rebel, was he in the Northern army? Had he also served in the Confederate army? What happened to him? Was he a prisoner? A search of the Confederate military records was undertaken to determine if Thomas Reffitt had ever been a member of the Rebel army. And sure enough Thomas did indeed serve in 5th Kentucky mounted Rifles of the Confederate Army. Sam’s father was one of those rare cases where he is listed as a veteran of opposing armies. If he was Confederate soldier, why was he charged with murder for killing the enemy since that is what soldiers are supposed to do? The date and place of the alleged murder was known and it should have been a simple matter to find the trial documents and get the full story on what happened to Sam's father. But there had been a second fire at the Montgomery County courthouse in 1868 and no record of the case has yet been found. Having no luck finding the court records, a search was made of the archived records from the old Kentucky State Prison that once was located in Frankfort. Sure enough, Thomas Riffet was listed as prisoner #38 on the prison roll in 1863. According to the records he had been sentenced by the Montgomery County court to a three year term for murder beginning June 18, 1863 and terminating June 18, 1866. The records also indicated that he was more than six feet tall (his army records indicated that he was six feet, two inches), was married, had a fair complexion with light brown hair and gray eyes, He was of a temperate personality, had a common education and was married. His occupation was listed as a shoemaker and he had scars on both knees and two scars on his left shin. The final note in the prison records simply states that he died in 1864 with no explanation as to the circum-stances of his death.

Although records for the period are skimpy and there is no way to deter-mine with absolute certainty what happened, the following deductions are highly probable. Thomas, along with thousands of other Kentuckians, sympathized with the Confed-erate cause and was among a group of rebel soldiers who somehow got involved in an al-tercation where Patterson Pointer, a northern sympathizer, was killed in Montgomery County. Since Kentucky was occupied by Union troops and under martial law, Thomas and the other rebels had to flee for their lives after the skirmish. In order to elude his pursuers he enlisted in the Northern army at Louisville on December 8, 1862 where his true identity was soon discovered. The army arrested him on January 1, 1863 and re-turned him to Montgomery County where a jury (probably picked from Northern sympathizers) convicted him of murder and sent him to prison on June 18, 1863. He either died or was killed while in the prison or perhaps during or after escaping. The body was returned to Montgomery County and dumped on the family's porch during the night of Christmas Eve 1864; an act of cruelty almost beyond comprehension. Emotions were at a high pitch in Kentucky during this period while the outcome of the war was still very much in doubt. The possibility that Thomas Reffitt was killed shortly after escaping from prison is heightened by an account in the Frankfort newspaper at the time of his death. According to the report a band of rebels were captured in Nicholas County and one unnamed rebel was killed. The probability that the slain soldier was Thomas is high, since not that many rebels would have been killed on a given day, especially on Christmas Eve. During much of the War, Rebel soldiers and saboteurs roamed Kentucky, almost at will, committing acts of sabotage. Several courthouses, including Montgomery's, were burned, railroads were destroyed and private property was confiscated. The Northern controlled newspapers inflamed the citizenry against the Rebels and encouraged acts of violence against anyone caught aiding the Southern cause. The Northern loyalists were in a vengeful mood against supporters of the Confederacy and Thomas Riffett became a victim of their wrath.

The horror of finding their dead father on the front porch when they awoke Christmas morning would certainly have traumatized Sam and his little sisters. In order to shelter them from the terrible truth they were told that their Daddy had been killed by the enemy while trying to come home to see them for Christmas. The fear of reprisals may have been why the children changed their names to Billings

After Thomas Riffetts death, Mrs. Malinda Jane Robbins Riffett subsequently married William Billings in 1868. Malinda Jane and her three orphaned children moved to Powell County and became the William Billings family. Thus James Samuel Riffett became the J. Samuel Billings, patriarch the Billings clan in Estill and Powell Counties.