The Three Last Confederates in Santarem, Pará, Brazil 1940

 

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Photo taken in front of the Baptist Church

City of Santarém, State of Pará, in Brazil.

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In 1940, a writer was able to locate only three of the original Hasting's immigrants and partially document their story.  The two ladies pictured are Sarah ‘Sallie’ Vaughan (Left) and her sister Martha “Mattie” Amelia Vaughan, (Right) both were daughters of James H. Vaughan and Elizabeth Britt.  The Pitts, Jennings and Vaughan families were all connected through intermarriages in Wilson County of Tennessee.  The Vaughan family arrived September 17th in 1867.

 

​The gentleman in the middle is David Riker.  David was born in Charleston, South Carolina.  The Riker family arrived with the second group of colonists in early 1868.

 

Sarah married Fountain Elliott Pitts, the son of Dr. Josiah Pitts and Martha E. Britt.  Fountain was also the grandson of Reverend Fountain Elliot Pitts.  His Cousin, the first born son of Elizabeth Britt (Jennings – Wilson – Vaughan) was also named Fountain Elliot Pitts Jennings.  

 

Elizabeth was the mother of multiple children from three marriages. ​

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The Jennings - Vaughan family were part of the self-exiled colony of former Confederates recruited by Lansford W. Hastings.  Hastings was one of several agents who procured land for colonies in Brazil.  His assigned site was sixty leagues of land near the town of Santarém. The land was conditionally granted by the government of the State of Pará. 

 

Not long afterward, on July 12th of 1867 a total of 109 individual colonists boarded the steamer Red Gauntlet sailing out of Mobile in Alabama.  They were bound for Brazil.  However, upon arrival at their first port of call in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, several major problems emerged.  The ship’s captain did not have sufficient money to pay the crew, and the ship was also in need of essential repairs.  According to one newspaper article, the United States consul in St. Thomas refused to allow Red Gauntlet to continue its journey because it was unsafe.  The U.S. Government seized the vessel and sold it in order to pay crew’s wages.  As a result of that action, the colonists were stranded until Hastings made alternative arrangements with the Brazilian government for transportation to the colony site at Santarém. 

 

Hastings died during a subsequent voyage to bring additional colonists to the settlement.  This left them without a leader and numerous issues developed with local authorities.  Despite their hardships, many of the enterprising American settlers eventually prospered.  Initially their new life was condemned by some as being very harsh, while the more adaptable and enterprising persevered.  It was difficult for the first few years.  Nearly half of the colonists either succumbed to tropical diseases or returned to the U.S. because they were simply not suited for the frontier like conditions. 

 

When the Hastings group of colonists first arrived in Santarém, promised accommodations were not prepared.  And, since Hastings failed to recruit the required number of Colonists for his first trip, he had to return to the U.S. to organize a second group, which arrived in 1868.  During the return trip, Hastings died of yellow fever in St. Thomas while the ship was re-provisioning.  But those colonists still made the rest of the journey and joined the others building a new life in Brazil.   

 

 

 

This story was also more broadly explored and documented in Norma Guilhon’s book Confederados Em Santarém, which has been translated from Portuguese and is currently being updated for republication in English in the near future.  Significant additions have been made, especially to the family histories. 

If you are interested in receiving notice of publication, please contact the Editor: Lee Pendergraft at lop8308@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Jennings Family

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The family matriarch was Elizabeth Britt.  She married three times.  Her first husband was Clement Anderson Jennings was born January 11th of 1821 in Wilson County Tennessee.  He married Elizabeth Britt there on November 11th in 1843.  Tragically, Clement Anderson Jennings died in 1852 by drowning during an attempt to save a cow that had become trapped by a flood.  He was only thirty-one years old at the time. 

 

During their nine years of marriage, Clement and Elizabeth had four sons.  The eldest son was named after his great uncle and remained in Tennessee after the family migrated to Brazil.  The boys names sometimes appear in published books and genealogy websites translated into Portuguese.  That information is provided below.

 

Elizabeth Britt (Jennings) remarried a few years later.  Her second husband was John R. Wilson whose farm was also located in the same community, not far from Mt. Juliet in Wilson County, Tennessee.  Mr. Wilson was a widower who had seven children.  He also died only a few years after the marriage with Elizabeth.  This union produced no additional children.

 

Elizabeth’s third marriage was to Johnson H. Vaughan.  The newly combined family only remained in Tennessee for a few years before they immigrated to Brazil.  Elizabeth’s oldest son Fountain E. P. Jennings had already married.  He and all of the Wilson siblings and several of the older Vaughan siblings also remained in Tennessee.  The children from Elizabeth’s first marriage to Clement Anderson Jennings were:  

 

1. Fountain E. (Elliot) Pitts Jennings -Remained in Tennessee

2. Guilherme (William)) Jennings - Went to Brazil

3. Jorge (George) Clement Jennings - Went to Brazil

4. Diogo (James) Baird Jennings - Went to Brazil

 

Photo credit: This photo was taken at C.C. Giers National Portrait Gallery of Nashville Tennessee.

 

1st Child of George Clement Jennings & Elizabeth Britt  

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Fountain Edward Pitts (Alfonso) Jennings (Rev. F.E.P Jennings) was born in Wilson County of Tennessee on May 10th in 1846.  He died about 1900 in Eureka Springs, Carroll County, Arkansas.  On December 21st of 1865 in Wilson County he married Mary Susan (Aunt Tup) Ellis, born March 18th of 1848 in Wilson County and died November 23d of 1928 in Evanston, Cook County, Illinois 

 

Fountain and Mary left Tennessee for Hill County Texas shortly after their marriage.  Their first son, Samuel Clement Jennings was born there on January 28, 1867, just six months prior to the extended Jennings - Vaughn family leaving for Brazil. They went to Hill County in Texas where there was a hotbed of emigration sentiment as a large group of former Confederate military officers were organizing a contingent looking to start the colony of "New Texas" in the Southern part of Brazil near Sao Paulo.  F.E.P. was a religious man.  Being a circuit preacher, he visited the contingent of former Confederates who were attempting to assemble a group led by Frank McMullen. McMullen had already sent a group of colonists out of Galveston through Rio de Janerio in the fall of 1866. 

 

While it may be conjecture, this coincidence of the Fountain E. P. Jennings presence with the McMullen group certainly may have born significant influence upon the Jennings – Vaughan and Pitts families decisions to depart for Brazil. The marriage of F.E.P. Jennings and Mary Ellis produced nine children: 

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Rev. Fountain Elliot Pitts Jennings

Photo 2

(As a younger gent.)

 

Photo credit: C.C. Giers National Portrait Gallery in Nashville Tennessee.

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1)    Samuel Clement Jennings

​2)   James Elliot Jennings

​3)  Ada Elizabeth

​4)  William B. Jennings

​5)  Jesse Jerome Jennings 

​6)  John Wesley Jennings 

​7)  Fountain Richard Jennings 

​8)  Marvin E. Jennings

​9)  Benjamin Jennings 

 

 

​2nd child of Clement Anderson Jennings & Elizabeth Britt  

 

Guilherme (William) Anderson Jennings was the second son of Mrs. ‘Eliza’.  He was born in April of 1848 in Wilson County of Tennessee.  Although he too wanted to remain in Tennessee, his mother offered him a cash incentive to follow the rest of the family to Brazil.  Ultimately, it was the correct decision for him to go.  He was highly industrious and became a very wealthy man.    

 

William married the daughter of a Portuguese businessman from Manaus.  His wife, Maria Lima was nicknamed Mariquinha – little Maria.   They lived close to the shores of the Amazon River.  His mother, step father (Johnson H. Vaughan), and his youngest siblings would occasionally visit.  On one such occasion, they experienced their first of several tragedies while on board a river boat.  For some reason the vessel sank.  The family lost all of their documents and personal possessions.  Fortunately, a canoe with several black slaves appeared just in time and they were saved from drowning.

 

Re-investing profits from raising sugar cane and producing of Cachaça (a strong version of Brazilian Rum), William formed a business partnership with Richard Henington.  Together, they built a shop for constructing wagons, steam powered river boats and barges, plus distillation equipment such as vats and barrels.  The shop was situated across from the waterfront, in the location where the Municipal Market of Santarém existed until about 1990.  Remains of the original boat launch can still be seen at the base of the sea wall. 

 

William was one of the first pioneers to use steam power.  Locally, he also operated three steam powered river boats: the Perereca, the Columbine, and the Colony which regularly transited the Tapajós and lower Amazon Rivers. William prospered, accumulating a small fortune due to the rubber boom in the Amazon.   

 

About 1902, shortly before he returned to the U.S. as a permanent resident in Brooklyn, N.Y., William and his eldest son Euclides went to England where he purchased a large ocean going steam driven freighter.  Euclides oldest daughter Virginia Jennings Heart claimed this vessel cost over $1,000,000 when he purchased it.  The ship was christened the William.  Yet, nothing more is known about its fate.  Oddly, family members also continued to travel by commercial steam ship lines, including William, up to about 1910. 

 

William was recognized as a prominent businessman and an esteemed member in the community of Santarém.  In 1895, during the festivities celebrating the Proclamation of the Republic, the American Colony was honored by his presence.  Mr. Jennings responded to the honor bestowed upon him with a speech about the "liberty that he found in this new land and the one that he knew from his homeland, the violence and persecutions that brought pain in his soul, for in truth, he was one of its victims” . . . .

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Eventually, Guilherme (William) moved back to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York.  He abandoned his interests in shipping and built a factory for making razors that became known worldwide as Williams Blue Razors.  After his death, William’s widow, Maria Lima, returned to Santarém. Their three children, Euclides, Zulmira, and Arlindo, stayed in the United States with their families.  Children of William and Maria:

 

1)  Euclides

2)  Zulmira

3) Arlindo

 

1. Euclides ‘Euclid’ Jennings

 

​Euclides Jennings was born in Santarém, Para, Brazil about 1878 and died on April 20th of 1934 in Brooklyn, Kings County in New York.   At the age of eighteen he sailed to New York aboard the Grangense from Manáus in Brazil with his parents and two younger siblings.  They were also accompanied by their cousin Armindo Chaves.  Euclides frequently traveled on freighters and mail packet ships as a crew member.  He was most likely accompanying shipments of latex (raw rubber) and hardwood lumber.  Occasionally his family would also travel back and forth between New York and Brazil on Ocean Liners like the Lusitania.   They arrived on October 15th in 1894 after a stopover in Barbados.    Apparently Euclides traveled back and forth to Brazil multiple times both before and after he married Bernadina Amorim in Brazil.  In 1906 we find him and his wife sailing to New York aboard the Terrence along with their three year old son Arlindo.

 

Euclides and Bernadina Amorim also took in the children of his deceased younger sister Zulmira Jennings Chaves, whose husband had abandoned his family after she died suddenly.  A few years later, Euclides sued in court for board and lodging in the amount of $2,120.  He died from Pneumonia in Brooklyn on April 20th of 1934.  He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in a common grave shared with his father William, who died on the 27th of January in 1917.  Zulmira is also buried there. 

 

By fall of 1961 Bernadina had been placed in the care of Carmelite Nuns at a Catholic Sanatorium in Agnew in California.  Her mental health had seriously deteriorated and her daughter Virginia Jennings Heart could no longer ensure her safety.  Bernadina died on the 6th of June in 1962.  She is buried in the Catholic Cemetery on the grounds nearby.  Euclides and Bernadina had five children:

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1. Arlinio was born in Santarém about 1902.  There is a vague family story that in 1906, he succumbed to some kind of poisoning caused by the medication given to him by a local physician to treat a tropical fever.      

2. Albert Francis Jennings was born on the island of Madera in Funchal on the XX of XXX of 1903.  His mother was accompanying Euclides   while they were in transit, sailing the new cargo vessel the William from England to Brazil.  They also stopped over to visit his father - William A. Jennings was there for nearly two years convalescing from liver issues and the aftermath of a tropical fever.  William’s wife, Maria Lima remained in Santarem during most of that time.
    

3. Virginia Jennings was born in Santarém on November 18th of 1906 and she died on March 27th of 1998 in Asheville, North Carolina.  She was married to Waldo W. Hart.  They had one son – William Waldo Heart.  Virginia and Waldo were divorced prior to 1940.  She retired from Civil Service at the Naval Supply Center in Bayonne, New Jersey as an accounting clerk with over twenty years of service in 1984.  Shortly afterwards, Virginia moved to Cape Canaveral in Florida where she lived only about one mile from her younger sister Helen.  Due to failing health she relocated again to Ashville in North Carolina during the summer of 1997 to be near her son Bill.  Like her younger sister, she required nursing care during the last few months of her life.  Virginia is buried in Brevard Memorial Park in Cocoa, Florida.  There was only one child, a son:

 

1. William Waldo Hart who married Pearl (         ).  William “Bill” and Pearl had two children:  Daniel and Denise

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4)  Roberto (nicknamed Bobby) Jennings was born in Santarém about 1909.  He died there from accidental drowning during the sinking of one of his father’s steam powered cargo boats when he was only three years old.  The full story will be included in the forthcoming book with the full story about the families of the Confederate Exiles of Santarém.

 

5) Helen Mary Jennings was born August 28th of 1914 in Brooklyn, New York.  She was the only child born in the U.S.  At the age of nineteen she left home and took up with John Deegan.  John was nearly forty years old at the time. He came from a prominent family in New York but earned his living as an iron worker, mostly in construction of sky scrapers, dams and bridges.  Numerous public facilities in the New York City area are named after his famous father who was the principal engineer that built the Panama Canal.  Helen and John never married, but they had two girls.  When the girls were only five and seven years old, Helen left John Deegan and went to Brazil where she and her daughters resided with Helen’s mother in Copa Cabana during WWII. 

 

      Joan Helen Deegan and Dorothy Marie Deegan followed Helen to Montgomery Alabama in 1948 after Helen married Delbert Marion Pendergraft.  The girls retained their father’s last name.  Helen met Delbert at the joint Brazilian and American Naval Air Station in Niteroi where she worked as the secretary to the Base Commander.  They married at the Copa Cabana Palace Hotel in a civil ceremony on October 18th of 1947 in Rio de Janerio. Throughout her career, Helen continued to support several Airforce Generals for more than two decades.  In the latter half of her career, she worked at the U.S.A.F. Space Command at Patrick Airforce Base south of Cocoa Beach Florida.  After her retirement from Civil Service, Helen transitioned into private industry supporting the team of engineers who designed the lunar lander.  

 

Delbert was born in Hollis, Oklahoma in 1920.  He was the son of pioneer settlers in Oklahoma.  Born to Jessie Lee and Cora Viola Tucker Pendergraft in August of 1920, he grew up in the one-horse county town of Hollis. During his early years, he was part farm hand and part cowboy and an amateur welter weight boxer.  

 

Delbert retired as a Senior Master Sargent and Crew Chief after twenty one years in the U.S. Air Force.  He served in both World War II and Korea.  After his retirement, the family moved to Cape Canaveral in Florida, only six months before his death.  Delbert died as a consequence from a fall from the top of a fourteen foot ladder.  The fall was caused by a heart attack. He was only forty-three years old.   His death occurred on December 18th in 1962.  Delbert is buried at Florida Memorial Gardens south of Cocoa in Florida.  Delbert and Helen had two children:

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1)Lee Owen Pendergraft was born in Montgomery, Alabama on the 19th of   January in 1951.  Lee currently resides in Houston, Texas.  Lee retired in 2009 from a distinguished international professional in Microfilm and Digital Imaging and Document Management Systems Technology.  Lee was one of the first Certified Records and Information Management Consultants.  He was twice recognized by Who’s Who in the South East, a frequent speaker at international conferences.  Some of his published technical articles were also translated into Spanish and Japanese. 

 

2)Patricia ‘Patsy’ Lynn Pendergraft was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana on the 21st of March in 1953.  Patricia died in a motorcycle accident during the spring of 1992.  She left behind a seven year old son, Jessie Lee Thomas, who returned to his estranged father in California a few months after his mother’s tragic death. 

 

 

Patricia Lynn and Lee Owen Pendergraft (Left)

Bernadina Amorim Jennings (Center)

Virginia Jennings Heart (Right)

Oakland, California - 1960

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Nearly thirteen years after Delbert’s death, Helen would marry for the third time.  Her civil wedding to Orin Knorr Goulding occurred at her daughter Dorothy Deegan Kelly’s home in Columbia Maryland.  Orin was a widower, having lost his wife Eva Y. Pinette on October 5th in 1967.  Eva died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland and is buried at the (Confederate Memorial) Arlington National Cemetery in Florence, South Carolina.  Orin died in 2008 and is buried next to his first wife.  Well past child bearing age when they married in 1975, Helen and Orin had no additional children. 

 

Helen died on February 11th in 1998 in nursing care at a facility on Merritt Island, Florida only a few miles from her home in Cape Canaveral.  She suffered a decade of deteriorating health due to complications from Alzheimer’s.  She is also buried at Florida Memorial Gardens, but not next to her first husband. Delbert is interred at the opposite end of the same cemetery.  

 

 

3.Zulmira Jennings Chaves was born on October 19, 1880 in Santarém, Brazil.  She died at age 39 on July 3, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York.  She was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery located in Brooklyn.  

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An Ellis Island passenger list shows that Zulmira and her four children sailed aboard the USS Grangense from Brazil with a stopover in Barbados.  They arrived in New York on The 26th of August and apparently first moved in with her father. The 1910 Census records Zulmira as living with her William A. Jennings and her four children in Brooklyn.  She was listed in the census as married and her last name is recorded as Chaves.  Her children were listed as born in Brazil with the father being of Portuguese nationality.  However, there is no mention of Elpidio in the census.  Her mother is not listed in the census either.  It is possible that Maria Lima Jennings was still in Brazil preparing to come to Brooklyn and Elpidio was still there too.  Zulmira was also known to have been engaged in the export trade; most likely hardwoods though connections with her mother’s family.  

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Zulmira had a total of five children by Elpidio Chaves.   It appears Elpidio deserted the family after Zulmira's unexpected death from a second heart attack.  He children were raised by their uncle Euclides and aunt Bernadina.  A lawsuit was filed against Elpidio Chaves for child support in 1922.  The first four children were born in Brazil, probably in Manaus.  The last child, Lucy was born in New York on August 13th in 1907.  Children of Elpidio and Zulmira Jennings Chaves were:

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Submitting his subscription renewal to the Confederate Veteran [Magazine] - Vol. 28 in 1920, proud of his father's Service Record — John W. Jennings, of Chicago, Ill.,.  John writes:

 

This photo credit also seems out of place without the relationship to a story.  

 

1)  Zulmirina Chaves De Noronha was born in Brazil on the 3d of November in 1898.  She died December on the 31st XX of 1918 in Brooklyn, Kings County of New York.  She had married Pedro Paulo De Noronha on January 10th of 1918 in Manhattan but was deceased by the end of the same year.  Pedro was born in Portugal Mar 17th of 1894 and continued to live with his in-laws after his wife's death.

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2) Almir Chaves was born in Brazil on September 4th of 1900.  On February 1st of 1921, he married Giovanna ‘Jennie’ Bongiorno, the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Bongiorno from Flatbush. Jennie’s parents were Italian immigrants.  She was born on November 22nd of 1900 in New York.  The best man at their wedding was Almir's sixteen year old cousin, Arlindo Jennings. Jennie died young at age thirty-five on October 13th of 1935 in Brooklyn and Almir died on July 7th of 1976 also in Brooklyn.  Almir died on July 12th of 1976 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.  Almir and Jennie had three sons:

 

1. Richard Chaves was born in 1922

2. ​   Phillip Chaves

3.   Paul Chaves​

  3) Lurlina Maria Chaves was born in Brazil on April 10th of 1904.  On July 1st of 1943 she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.  She died on March 7th of 1989.  

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4)  Lila Chaves was born in Brazil

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5)  Lucy Chaves was born in New York

 

1. Arlindo [possibly Arlinio] Jennings was born about 1883 in Santarém Brazil.   Not much is known about him other than he a few times that traveled back and forth between Brazil and New York on commercial business.  He also attended the wedding of his cousin in Brooklyn when he was sixteen.  William wrote about him in a letter sent to his half-brother Dee Johnson Vaughn in Tennessee early in 1904.  Although his name was not mentioned, William lamented that his youngest son. Only nineteen years old, had died just before he returned to Santarém from Funchal.  There was no mention as to the cause of the boy’s death.      

 

 

3d Child of George Clement Jennings & Elizabeth Britt  

 

Jorge - George Clement Jennings was born August 15th of 1851 in Silver Springs, Wilson County in Tennessee and died in Santarém, Para in Brazil.

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He married one of the sisters of his sister-in-law (his older brother William's wife), Adriana Lima in 1879.  They had two children; a daughter Almerinda and a son Adriano (Adrian).  Jorge - George Clement became a widower when Adriana died from complications during the birth of her second child.  Not long after, he married Antonia Lima, his first wife’s younger sister.  They had four additional children: Raimundo (Raymond), Alvina, Hilario (Hilario means a big Hilario, this name is like Hillary but it is a man's name), and Consuelo (a girl). ​

 

George Clement owned two steam boats.  One was actually a barge named Chata, which can mean either flat or a boring woman that drags one down, and the other was the Sereia, which means a mermaid.  He was also doing well financially, so he purchased a larger more comfortable vessel built the US.  However, the name of this cargo vessel remains unknown.  However, family oral history contends that during its first voyage, while transporting a shipment of rubber (latex), the boat ran aground and sank.  Fortunately, no one drowned, but the valuable shipment and vessel were a total loss.

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George also inherited some farm land from his mother-in-law. The family’s main residence was located on Benjamin Constant Street in Santarem.

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Even though they were raised by their mothers to be Catholics, all of George Clement’s children converted to the protestant religion after becoming adults.​

Children by Adriana Lima were:

1.  Almerinda Jennings

2.  Adriano (Adrian) Jennings [ALSO FIX THIS SPELLING IN THE PHOTO CAPTION]

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Children by Antonia Lima were:

1.  Raimundo (Raymond) Jennings

2. Alvina Jennings

3. Hilario Jennings

4. Consuelo Jennings

 

4th child of George Clement Jennings & Elizabeth Britt

 

Diogo - James Baird Jennings was born in November of 1849 in Wilson County, Tennessee and died in a ship accident.  James married a Brazilian woman (name unknown) from Santarém and they had one son which they named James. 

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     1.  Diogo - James Jennings

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PART TWO – VAUGHAN FAMILY

 

I Recommend this part be separated onto a separate tab (New Page)

 

I have material to write a short history of the Vaughans as the initial page.

 

Then I recommend the story of the Jennings – Vaughan Family goes on an separate tab with a tab on the Jennings Family page to link to it as well.