Chapter 1: Born of Loss – A Childhood on Georgia Soil

But when Susannah was just two years old, her father died unexpectedly. In the autumn of 1793, Joel Thomas’s estate was listed in probate, and Mary Jessie was left alone to raise their daughter amid the raw edges of the Georgia frontier.

Susannah’s earliest memories would have been shaped not by her father’s voice, but by his legacy. She grew up in a household led by a widow who knew hardship and survival. Mary Jessie taught her to be self-reliant, frugal, and resilient. They lived on land Joel had cleared—100 acres by the Savannah River—and likely relied on neighbors, kin, and the rhythm of the land to get by.

As she grew, Susannah would have heard stories of her father’s bravery—how he fought for independence, how he staked a claim in new territory. And she would have seen her mother’s daily quiet strength, anchoring a home with no husband, no wealth, and no legal power.

Chapter 2: A New Name – Marriage and Womanhood in Franklin County

In 1807, at about sixteen years old, Susannah Thomas married Isaac Alexander in Franklin County, Georgia. He, too, likely descended from families rooted in post-Revolution Georgia. Their union brought together two legacies: one of frontier endurance, the other of expansion westward.

Married young, Susannah stepped into her role as wife and homemaker early. Life for young couples in Georgia at the time was anything but simple. She would have helped Isaac clear land, plant crops, raise livestock, and, before long, bear children. But she was prepared. She had watched her mother survive in silence and raise her alone—lessons in perseverance that would serve her well.

Georgia was changing. Native lands were being seized and redistributed, and settlers like the Alexanders moved constantly west in search of richer soil and better chances. By the late 1810s or early 1820s, Susannah and Isaac joined this movement.

Chapter 3: Westward to Mississippi – A Pioneer Mother’s Journey

By the 1820s, Susannah and Isaac had made the long trek to Mississippi, part of the early waves of Southern settlers heading westward. They settled in Simpson County, where the forest had barely been cleared and the land was rich but raw.

In 1828, Susannah gave birth to her son, Andrew J. Alexander—the only known child recorded in historical documents. As a mother on the Mississippi frontier, her days were marked by unrelenting labor: tending the homestead, preserving food, sewing by lamplight, and raising her son in a world still being carved from wilderness. With no formal institutions nearby, worship likely took place in simple, makeshift churches or in the quiet reverence of her own home. Her life, though largely unrecorded, was one of steady devotion—anchored by faith, family, and the enduring legacy she carried from her parents before her.

Her home may have been little more than a log cabin, but she carried the lineage of Virginia and Georgia settlers with her. She had the hands of a pioneer, the mind of a matriarch, and the spirit of someone who had inherited strength through hardship.

She was, after all, the daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier and a frontier widow. She knew how to rebuild when the structure collapsed.

Chapter 4: Faith, Family, and the Final Years

Susannah’s later life was lived far from the place she was born. Simpson County became her home, a place where her children would grow up and raise families of their own. Through them, her name and blood would pass into the next generations.

There is no record of Susannah’s thoughts, no surviving letters. But her story is preserved through the land she helped tame, the children she raised, and the roots she planted in Mississippi soil.

She died sometime before 1850. By then, her legacy was already growing. She had raised the second generation of her line in freedom, on land not yet scarred by the Civil War that loomed ahead.

Legacy: A Quiet Bridge Between Eras

Susannah Thomas Alexander stands as a bridge between worlds—between the Revolutionary generation and the age of migration, between colonial Georgia and the deep South of Mississippi. Born of loss, raised in resilience, and buried in silence, her story is one of survival, strength, and the quiet shaping of family legacy.

Her father gave her a name tied to liberty. Her mother gave her the strength to endure. Susannah gave those gifts to every generation that followed.