Albert Elvie Hankins and Isabella Jane Goodloe married on 24 October 1855 in Hopkins County, Kentucky, where they were both born and raised. Baptist minister Rev. P. S. Loving officiated at the ceremony held at Janie’s father’s home.
Albert was born about 1838 to Houston G. Hankins and Mary Weeks. He was the second of their ten children. Albert’s siblings were Mary, Angelina, Josephine, Madison, Eliza, Martha, Linn Boyd, Ella, and James.
Three of Albert’s four great-grandfathers were Revolutionary War veterans who settled in western Kentucky. Houston’s grandfathers, John Hankins and Titus Fox become early settlers in Hopkins County after leaving North Carolina. Mary’s paternal grandfather, Job Weeks, settled in Livingston County, Kentucky, after serving from New Jersey and migrating to Ohio County, Virginia, following the war.
Janie was born on 27 January 1838 to John Emerson Goodloe and Eliza Ann Dobyns. She was the first of their four children. Her full siblings were Elizabeth, Mary W., and Thomas H.
The Goodloe family lived in the Grapevine area of Hopkins County. Janie’s grandparents, Henry Lewis and Elizabeth Berry Goodloe and Edward and Sarah Mott Dobyns, were also early settlers of Hopkins County along with her great-grandfather John Berry.
By the time Janie turned eleven years old, her mother had died and her father had married Elizabeth Pettus. Janie gained two half-siblings, Emsley O. and Virginia, from her father’s second marriage. Elizabeth and Janie apparently had a close relationship. Blurbs from the Earlington newspaper, The Bee, in 1903 and 1904, refer to Elizabeth visiting her daughter or Janie visiting her mother in reporting visits between the two.
Albert and Isabella Jane had four children, all born in Hopkins County. John Houston was born in 1856, Thomas Leander “Lee” in 1858, James W. in 1860, and Mary Madore “Mollie” in 1863.
Albert first appeared on the Hopkins County tax list in 1856. He was not over twenty-one years old and owned no land. His only property was a horse valued at $50. Albert is not on the tax list for 1857 or 1859, but he appears in 1858 and consecutively from 1860 through 1864 (excluding the missing 1863 tax book). According to those tax lists and deed records, he never owned land in Hopkins County. In 1858, Albert owned one horse valued at $50 and was still under twenty-one. Albert, Janie, John, and Lee lived next to Albert’s parents in 1860. Albert’s occupation was day laborer and his age was twenty-two. The 1860 tax list shows he was over twenty-one and owned one horse (worth $50), four cattle, 200 bushels of corn, and twelve bushels of wheat. In 1861, he had one horse (worth $25), one mule (worth $25), three cattle, and 125 bushels of corn and was enrolled in the militia. In 1862, Albert had one horse ($20), three cattle, and four hogs. He was enrolled in the militia and had one child between six and eighteen. Albert’s last tax list entry, 1864, shows he had two horses ($50), two cattle, 400 pounds of tobacco, and fifteen bushels of corn. He militia enrollment was active and he still had one child between six and eighteen.
Albert enlisted in the 8th Kentucky Confederate Infantry in October 1861. His muster roll on 1 August 1862 lists him as a 4th Sgt. with Company I, showing him “absent at home in Kentucky without leave.” Albert’s granddaughter Aggie Hankins Haley passed down a family story that Albert was with a friend in the company of Confederate deserters, accused of desertion and shot. Elizabeth McCauley Carver (Albert’s great-granddaughter) remembered hearing “he got into some trouble and was shot,” which goes along with the other story.
The exact date and cause of Albert’s death is unknown, but he died by 1869 when Janie first appeared on the Hopkins County tax list. That was five years after Albert’s last entry in 1864. But since he was missing on two other earlier tax lists when he was alive, it is not possible to determine if he was missing in 1865 through 1868 because he was deceased. If the family stories are true, he likely died closer to 1865 than 1868.
Regardless of when or how Albert died, Janie was left alone with four children to raise. She and the children moved near her father, likely on his property, since they were listed next to him in the 1870 census. Janie married Thomas G. Yates on 3 January 1874, and he died on 5 December 1878. She then married Thomas K. Devault on 23 November 1879.
Devault was born on 18 June 1831 in Wilson County, Tennessee, to Henry Devault and Sallie Jackson. He married Nancy Garrett Morris on 17 October 1864 in Wilson County, and they had one son, Albert Ross. Thomas and Nancy lived in Logan County, Kentucky, in 1870, but divorced before Thomas married Janie in 1879. By 1880, Nancy and Albert had returned to Wilson County to live with a son from her first marriage.
Janie’s four children were adults by the time she and Thomas adopted Bessie Walker about 1887. Bessie and her twin sister, Jessie, were born on 15 March 1884, the children of John Lewis Walker and Nancy E. Price. Nancy died of childbirth complications a few days after the twins’ birth, and John died three years later. Janie’s half-sister, Virginia, and her husband, William Henry Moore, adopted Jessie.
In February 1892, Janie’s father divided up his property in the Grapevine area of Hopkins County between his four living children. Each transaction was for “love and affection” plus $5. John kept a lifetime estate in each property for him and his wife. Janie received twenty-seven and a half acres, which her children sold to her brother Thomas for $1100 after her death. Thomas had also received twenty-seven and a half acres from their father. Half siblings Virginia and Emsley received seventy acres and forty acres, respectively.
In 1900, Janie and Thomas lived on Robinson Street in Earlington. That census record shows Thomas owned the property, signified as a farm. However, only two deeds convey property on Robinson Street to Thomas or Janie. Both were made on 20 March 1905 and neither were for a farm. Thomas paid St. Bernard Mining Company $75 for lot number eight in block forty-one on Robinson Street. The lot fronted fifty feet on Robinson Street and ran back one hundred ninety feet making a rectangular plot 50 feet x 190 feet. This deed was filed on 27 July 1905. Janie paid St. Bernard Mining Company $150 for lot number twelve in block forty-three on Robinson Street. This lot also fronted fifty feet and ran back one hundred ninety feet. This deed was not recorded until 23 April 1907 when her heirs sold the property.
Janie was sixty-seven years old when she died of malaria on 23 July 1905 in Earlington. She was buried the next day in Grapevine Cemetery, where her father, paternal grandparents, and many other relatives were buried.
After Janie’s death, Thomas went to live with his son, Albert, in Benton County, Tennessee. He died there of congestion and heart palpitations on 6 September 1918. He was probably buried by Janie in Grapevine Cemetery. They have a joint headstone, which includes his name (T. K. Devault) and birthdate, but not his death date. His death certificate gives his place of burial as Earlington, Kentucky, but no specific cemetery. Grapevine Cemetery is about four miles from Earlington.
