NOTE

Hampton, Melissa

Smith, Melissa H.

The Family Bible information only states that Melissa Hampton was the daughter of Dempsey W. Hampton and his wife Mary.

This tombstone was erected in the late 1980's by her grandson, Marvin Simpson, and her great-grandson, Benjamine O. Bateman Jr.  At the time, we thought the information was accurate. 

At the Courthouse in Currituck County, N.C., my uncle found in Book A Record of Marriages, page 11, that Dempsey Hampton married Mary Walker on September 17, 1854.  When he questioned someone in the register of deeds office that his grandmother was born in 1834 but the marriage record for her father stated 1854, he was informed that a fire had destroyed the records.  In order for the records to be replaced, people were requested to remarry.  It was assumed that this was the case with Dempsey Hampton.  However, with the current digitized copies of the census records, a recent search shows that Mary Walker was a widow before she married Dempsey Hampton in 1854.  In addition when the 1880 census was taken, Mary Walker Hampton was in the household of Tom & Eliz Poiner and listed as step-mother.  Elizabeth was the daughter of Dempsey Hampton and the sister of Melissa.  In Book B Marriage Register, Thomas Poyner, son of Benj. & Nancy Poyner, married Elizabeth Hampton, daughter of Demps & Mary Hampton, on 21 June 1874 in Currituck by V.L. Pitts, J.P.  With these facts, we still do not know the maiden name of Dempsey Hampton's first wife and the mother of his children.  With the exception of Mary Walker being listed as the mother of Melissa Hampton, all other information on the tombstone is accurate.

In 2008 the great-grandson, Benjamine O. Bateman, Jr., had a new tombstone erected to reflect the correct information as stated in the family bibles.