The Hitts of Mississippi and related families

[Written by Lucile Hitt Hollingsworth around 1972, with minor editing by Leo Richard Hitt.]

Henry Hitt was a Baptist minister. He was ordained in 1801 and pastored the Bethabara Paptist Church in Laurens County, SC until his death in 1830. He was the only son of Lazarus Hitt who remained i n South Carolina. He left his estate to his wife "during her natural life or widowhood consisting of Negroes, horses and other stock, household and kitchen furniture and plantation tools, land on which he lived, 390 acres, on north side of creek (Cain Creek) for her support if she does not marry until Benjamin becom es 21.'' (Sons Benjamin, Henry and Martin were under 21 when Henry wrote his will in 1828.) Elizabeth didn't marry again, and when she died followed Henry's instructions to the letter. I have trans cript of their wills - 12 pages including sale bill. The Negroes sold brought nearly $15,000. Most of them were bought by Henry's sons. As I have said before, it was customary to sell all the persona l property by public auction, giving the members of the family of the deceased preference in the bidding. Real property was allotted by will.

Descendants of Henry Hitt still live on the original farms in Laurens County, Miss Juanita Hitt (daughter of Jesse, son of Ranier, son of Benjamin) has written that she has in her keeping a little cha ir that her great grandfather Benjamin held onto and pushed along to learn to walk - and so did her grandfather, her father and she. Her father told her an old, odd story of Ben Hitt. He was an exten sive slave owner during that period and at a sale of slaves he bought quite a robust Negro girl. It is said that he told her that after she had given birth to 20 Negro slaves he would set her free. Sh e gave birth to the 20 (in fact 21), but this 20th child was called "Free Jack." Free Jack later became the blacksmith for the community. The signs of this blacksmith shop are still in the front yar d of the home of H.E. Hitt (son of Henry Lewis, son of Benjamin). H.E. Hitt's widow , Bessie Hollingsworth Hitt, wrote Joel Reuben Hitt in 1937 that the old Hitt home was a simple log and frame struct ure and still standing in a field near her home near Cross Hill, S.C.