Sarah Elizabeth "Lizzie" Clopton of Georgia

Sarah Elizabeth "Lizzie" Clopton was the eldest daughter of (Dr.) Thomas B. Clopton and his second wife, Harriet B. Claiborne Clopton. She was born in Putnam County (Eatonton) Georgia on September 5, 1837. She is a direct descendant of the first William Clopton, Gentleman, and his wife, Ann (Booth) Dennett Clopton. On November 6, 1856, she was married to (Dr.) John R. Godkin by the Rev. William Arnold. She died in 1924 and is buried in the cemetery of Concord United Methodist Church in Putnam County. Her husband's date of death and burial place is unknown. There were no children.

There is little doubt Miss Lizzie was a heart-breaker. A gentleman from Sparta, Georgia wrote her restrained, painfully polite, elegant little letters, but she gave her hand to another. No other heart was so inflamed than that which beat in the breast of John Godkin. He wooed and pursued her in a series of impassioned letters

Belleville
Sept 12th 1856

Dear Miss Lizzie,

No doubt you will think strange of my writing when I have so frequently visited you but I assure you that nothing but the purest motives have prompted me. My feelings are truly unenviable. In vain have I breathed to you the feelings of my heart. Alas, they have not awakened the least responsive emotions, I fear, in your heart. You have taken your letters and I know not what to think, since you have retained mine, but that your intention was to coquette me, I have imagined, since the Putnam campmeeting when you solicited your letters to see. I cannot imagine what has become of the last letter I wrote you when you were in Montgomery, if it did not arrive at its destination. I cannot under such circumstances consider myself engaged for the indefinite time of next fall, twelve months is too far into the future for me to calculate and I do not believe in such long engagements. I have been honest and honorable with you, I think, since our acquaintance and yet I think you have doubted my confidence. Delays are dangerous, and doubtless you have seen the evils of long engagements. Will you marry me between this and the 12th of October is the questions which I wish you to answer either by letter or verbally when I see you. I have deliberated long, therefore you cannot think me impulsive. If your intentions have been serious and if you have considered my situation, position in life, I am sure that you will readily see that much depends on your answer. I cannot imagine why you have reversed my proposal, but if you think that you would have to make the least sacrifice or that I cannot afford you the pleasure and happiness in life which you so much deserve, I will be content to know it, for my life would to me be miserable were I to know it, when too late to remedy.

Although I have hastily written this epistle, yet I have contemplated a great while on its import. I hope that you will consider this seriously and give me an unalterable answer. It is not the least pleasure to live in such a state as this when deprived of all hope and happiness. But "if thou wilt design this heart to bless, life far from thee were wretchedness."

Yours affectionately
Jon. R. Godkin

Miss Lizzie succumbed to his ardent plea and they were married November 6, 1856. It was a happy marriage, though there were no children, and Dr. Godkin was known at times to drink too much. They ran the Oconee Springs Hotel for many years. It was an important source of entertainment and leisure for several generations. There is no record of Dr. Godkin's formal medical training, however, it is known he served as an orderly during the Civil War. It was not unusual for individuals with little training to set themselves up as physicians with little or no training.

Every Southern family worth it's salt claims at least one personal encounter with General Sherman as he marched across Georgia. One must wonder how he managed to oversee so much damage while conducting so many conversations with individual civilians. The Cloptons, too, have several, the most interesting involving Miss Lizzie and the General. Whether there is a grain of truth in it doesn't bother us one bit. Cloptons have never let facts stand in the way of a good story. One version goes something like this:

Waves of soldiers had come through Putnam and had taken off all the livestock and food they could find. Miss Lizzie went out looking for some greens and herbs growing wild along the road when she chanced upon a chicken which had somehow escaped the marauding Yankees. Delighted, she scooped it up and started back.

While still some miles from the house, she heard horses coming down the road, and she quickly stuck the chicken up her dress among her many petticoats. Some men were riding in a buggy, and when they saw the pretty Miss Lizzie, they stopped. One man introduced himself as General Sherman and insisted the reluctant Miss Lizzie join him and he would take her to her door.

Miss Lizzie climbed aboard with as much grace and dignity as a woman with a live chicken struggling in the folds of her undergarments could. The drive seemed endless. Miss Lizzie dazzled the General with her beautiful eyes which became wider by the mile. Finally they made it home, Miss Lizzie grasping the now thoroughly annoyed bird through her skirts, managed to thank the General for his consideration and ran into the house without her secret cargo being discovered.

She and Dr. Godkin were now living in her father's house, her father having moved to Americus, Georgia. Another version of the story goes on to say that General Sherman spared the house from the Yankee's torches because her father was a fellow Mason. That may be true, but I'm confident Miss Lizzie's wide eyed beauty had something to do with it.

When widowed and elderly, Aunt Lizzie made her home with her nephew, William Thomas "Boo" Clopton. Grand nephews, Cuyler, Frank, and Rufus, remembered her well. They say she always ate her meals with a set of pearl handled eating utensils that she kept in a case in her room. As a child, Betty Clopton Feaster spent summers with her Georgia relatives. She remembers Aunt Lizzie wearing on occasion a lovely garment that she called her "centennial skirt." She had purchased it in Philadelphia where she and Dr. Godkin went in 1876 to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of our country's birth.

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Contributed by :

Suellen Clopton Blanton, bblanton@fast.net
Thad L. Aycock,
Ida Brake Crane,
Isabel Lancaster (Clopton) Steiner,
and Pat Clopton Wheeler