Virginia Susanne Clopton of Tennessee and Mississippi

Born in Davidson County, Tennessee on October 30, 1817, Virginia Susanne Clopton was the eighth child of Anthony Clopton and Rhoda Hoggatt. She married The Honorable Francis Asbury Lane on May 17, 1843 at the Marshall County, Mississippi home of her brother John Hoggatt Clopton. The Reverend Frank A. Owens performed the ceremony. Reverend Owens, a Methodist minister, was the second husband of her sister, Elizabeth Hoggatt Clopton Harding Owens.

Francis was born May 25, 1813 in Franklin County Georgia. He was the son of The Reverend Sampson Lane of Virginia and Tennessee and Mary Thomas Allen, his first cousin, who he married in Elbert County, Georgia. The Rev. Lane was a well-educated Methodist Minister. He owned many slaves and owned land in Elbert County, Georgia; Franklin County Alabama; Desoto County, Mississippi and western Tennessee. The Lanes were an old Virginia family. Thomas Lane, Francis’ great-grandfather, resided with his wife Ann in Hanover, Spottsylvania and Louisa Counties.

Susanne and Francis had two children, Anthony Clopton Lane and Virginia Schylleene Lane. While returning to Mississippi following a trip to the British West Indies where he had gone seeking restoration of his health, he died July 5, 1851. They had been visiting relatives in Tennessee at that time and he died at "Clover Bottom Farm," the home of Susanne’s uncle, Dr. James W. Hoggatt. He was buried there with Masonic rites.

Susanne died February 4, 1854, when her children were aged 10 and 8. She was buried at "Mayfair Place," Desoto County Mississippi. Fortunately for the children, their father had requested in his will, dated December 28, 1850, a little over six months before his death, that Susanne’s widowed sister, Agnes Watkins Morgan Clopton Moncrief "in case of extreme misfortune that my beloved wife Virginia Susanne Lane nor myself should ever return" (my sister-in-law) "shall have the bringing up and educating my children." Agnes, the mother of three sons and the guardian of her sister’s two children, married Dr. Samuel Roseborough in 1855. Sadly, when Virginia Schylleene was 16, she died and was buried beside her mother at "Mayfair Place."

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Contributed by :

Suellen Clopton Blanton bblanton@fast.net

Based on:

Clopton, Gene Carlton, The Ancestors and Descendants of William Clopton of York County, Virginia. Privately Printed - Limited Edition, Phoenix Printing, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, 1984.