Typical road in Brevard County, Florida. 1885
[Updated 9 September 2020 – Thanks, Ken & Joe]
My theme this week is “oldest”; the Sams direct descendant that lived the longest. Martha “Mattie” Sophia Hallonquist LaRoche lived to celebrate her 101st birthday. There are several distinctive aspects of Mattie’s life. She was born near Charleston, S.C on Wadmalaw Island, was married at age 16, to a man 23 years her senior, and raised a family in Merritt Island, Florida area – long before air-conditioning. You can get a sense of their new “neighborhood” in the photo above. I suspect the image below is of Mattie in her wedding dress.
Martha “Mattie” Sophia Hallonquist LaRoche (1874 – 1975)
Mattie was born in October 1874 to Laurent Hallonquist and his second wife, Adelaide Arianna Sams, on Wadmalaw Island, SC. Mattie was the youngest of five or six children born to Adelaide. Like her daughter, Adelaide was one of Dr. Berners Barnwell Sams’ youngest children, born to his second wife, Martha Fripp Edwards. Mattie never knew her paternal (i.e., Sams) grandparents; they both died about twenty years before she was born.
It appears Mattie may have been the subject of an arranged marriage. Her future husband, Richard “Dick” Jenkins LaRoche, was one of the band of four men who walked from Wadmalaw to the Indian River area of Florida in 1873 to start new lives [Roney]. This was a year before his future wife, Mattie Hallonquist is born.
When they were married in 1890, Mattie was just 16 years old; not unusual in those days. He was 23 years older than her. We know some of the Florida pioneers went back north in the late 1880s due to challenging times caused by freezes two years in a row in Florida. The pioneers were farmers (oranges, sugar cane, etc.), and this destroyed their livelihood. Whether Mattie and Dick met when he went north, or when her family moved south, I don’t know. In any case, they married, ended up in Florida, and started a family. What a harsh environment it was.
Mattie Sams LaRoche (1867 – 1943)
A recent book published by the Pine Island Preservation Society of Merritt Island, Florida, contains a first-person account of Florida pioneers in the Merritt Island / Indian River region. The author, Mattie Sams LaRoche, was a first cousin to Mattie Hallonquist LaRoche; their mothers were sisters (and daughters of Dr. BB Sams).
Diarist Mattie has some great stories in the new book (compiled by her descendants; she died in 1943) about wildlife in FL, encounters with Seminole Indians, playing on the beach, and other events. She married Benjamin “Ben” Bailey LaRoche (1855 – 1946) in 1883. Centenarian Mattie lived through all of the trials and tribulations of Courtenay, FL also. The map below highlights their neighborhood. For scale, I’ve drawn a one-mile line showing the distance from Saint Lukes Episcopal Church to John Hanahan Sams’ house. Both landmarks are still standing and beautifully preserved today. The blue circles highlight Mattie & Dick’s house (on left/south) and Mattie & Ben’s house (on right/north). Everyone on this map certainly knew each other and looked out for each other.
Diarist Mattie’s father, John Hanahan Sams (grandson of BB Sams’ brother John), had an exciting episode with nature in the Spring of 1881. I’ll let her tell the story; it’s a doozy!
“… And about 3 we heard the cart drive up and Uncle Seabrook called out, “I’ve brought Brother John home.” He kicked an alligator while wading across the creek. The gator had bitten his leg, as it started to roll over, father fired the gun down its throat. It turned over- and let him go.
He got out of the creek somehow, and crept about two miles, then could go no further, called for help. Uncle Seabrook heard him first, then he and the four LaRoche brothers ran, and when they found him, he was unconscious. They brought him home, sailed off to get the Doctor, and after ten hours the wound was attended to. Mother and Sister had washed it and put turpentine on it. Three weeks in bed, then to work again.”
The story made The Florida Star newspaper out of Titusville, FL on Wednesday, April 6, 1881. John lived into his 85th year; the alligator did not.
Centenarian Mattie’s Lifetime
Mattie and Dick LaRoche had four children in Courtenay, FL, but only two lived into adulthood. Mattie outlived her husband and all of her children. Here are just a few significant events that she lived to see.
- U.S. Presidents from Ulysses S. Grant to Gerald Ford and the other 19 in between.
- Most of the American Indian Wars, both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
- The U.S. expand from 35 to all 50 states, and our population grow from 31 million to 216 million people. Brevard County, Florida’s population grow from 1,000 to 250,000 in her 100 years.
- Inventions galore: bicycle, American football, phonograph, photographic film, electric lamp, automobiles, airplanes, and who could forget the golf cart in 1932.
- Soft serve ice cream, Tupperware, deodorant, digital computers (but not personal computers, yet), e-mail, and digital cameras (1975).
Sources
Holden, Joel and Riski, Bill – The Sams Family Tree, Ancestry.com, accessed 23 August 2020.
LaRoche, Mattie Sams – Mattie Sams Diary: Recollections of a Florida Pioneer Life, Pine Island Preservation Society, Merritt Island, FL, 2020
Roney, Joe – The Sams of Florida, Dataw Historic Foundation, June 2019.
St. Luke’s Cemetery – Founding Fathers, Family, and Friends, published by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Merritt Island, FL, December 21, 2016
#52Sams Week 36 – Mattie Hallonquist LaRoche
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