Amanda Margaret Stewart

From the "House of Clark":

Margaret Amanda Stewart was the oldest child of Katharine Hitch and Clark Berry Stewart, founders of the House of Clark. Amanda, as she was called, was born in 1845 at the old Hitch homeplace in the Sandy Springs community in lower Laurens County.

Amanda was six years old when her parents moved to upper Laurens County near the present town of Fountain Inn, SC. When she was nine years old she entered a private academy in Laurens - probably the old Laurensville Female Academy taught by her father’s friend J.B. Hillhouse. She stayed with the Hillhouse family for a time.

As a young woman Amanda married James Lewis Stoddard. Lewis was the son of Elizabeth Owings and William Stoddard, charter members of New Harmony Presbyterian Church near Fountain Inn (and also grandparents of Rebecca Stoddard, wife of 31 Squire Bill Stewart of the Durbin community near Fountain Inn).

Before marrying Amanda, Lewis served in the Civil War as a private in “The Laurens Briars” Company G, 3rd Regiment, SC Infantry (Kershaw’s Brigade). During the war he wrote long letters home to his parents, some of which still survive in the family records. In one letter Lewis mentions a surprise meeting with his future father-in-law “Reverant Mr. Stewart” near the front lines in Virginia. Lewis was wounded in action near Richmond, Virginia, and after some recovery was transferred to the medical corps. He spent the remainder of the war serving in army hospitals and with medical units, where he was in a position to relay first-hand news of the wounded and dead to anxious families in his home community.

Amanda married James Lewis Stoddard, son of William Stoddard and Elizabeth Owings, on 23 Oct 1866.¹