Other Side of Eden: Who Raised Henry Baxley Sr.?
Who raised Henry Baxley, Sr.? By Tom Davenport
During the making of this film, Henry Baxley, Jr., never spoke much about his grandfather Leroy Baxley, but in this interview we learn the white community’s stories about the many wives of “Cousin Roy.” His first three died young in unclear circumstances, and Leroy committed his last wife to what in those days was called an "insane asylum." His first wife was Emilie Hirst, from a prominent Philadelphia family. She had met Roy when she and her sister came to Markham to escape the summer heat in the city. Her money built Edenhurst (note that the "Hirst" spelling changed to "Hurst" in the Markham community). Emilie Hirst Baxley died in 1901 when her son Henry, Sr., was two years old. Her husband LeRoy Baxley did not marry his second wife until six years later. Those six years, from two to eight, are important in any child's development. They call for consideration of an important question: "Who raised Henry Baxley, Sr.?"
In the Virginia landowner class in the early 20th Century, a black female servant would have raised Henry, Sr. This woman would have been the source of love and stability during his formative childhood years. We believe that this intimate relationship certainly bears on Henry, Sr.’s reputation in the black community as "a good person." It also may suggest why he later, soon after his own marriage to Mamie Maxwell Yates, might have desired a relationship with the black woman Mattie Wilkins, the Baxley’s cook. With her Henry, Sr., had a “light-colored” daughter before the birth of his son Henry, Jr..
Mattie named the girl “Mamie Maxwell” after Henry, Sr.’s wife, and the girl grew up across the road from The Cove, to which Henry and Mamie moved after Shedrick’s attack.
Filmmaker Tom Davenport asked Bridget Settles, the granddaughter of this light colored girl, about why Mattie Wilkins would have named her daughter after her employer’s wife. Bridget messaged Davenport: “Based on speculation our family thinks it could have been two reasons: 1) that Mattie and Mamie Baxley really liked each other. During that time you wouldn’t just have ANYONE cook & clean for you. 2) I don't think Mattie wanted her daughter Mamie to be forgotten.”
Davenport asked if there could have been affection between Henry Sr. and Mattie Wilkins. Bridget Settles wrote: “I don’t think she disliked him but I will say that most black women at that time had no say in the matter, especially if they wanted to keep their job.
Davenport responded by citing the video clip of Rev. Lindsay Green talking about the unequal sexual relationships between white men of the gentry class and their black employees, to which Settles responded “Touche!”
Davenport finally asked if her family thought the Baxleys had anything to do with moving the little girl Mamie to Aunt Jenny's house across from their house at the Cove. “Were they trying to look after her in their way?
Bridget: “We definitely think so!”
Shedrick Thompson, the Black man who abducted Mamie Baxley, would have known of Henry's relationship with Mattie Wilkins and of their child. Shedrick’s wife Ruth replaced Mattie Wilkins as the Baxleys’ cook early in Henry, Sr.’s marriage before the birth of Henry, Jr.
Shedrick Thompson and Ruth reportedly had a rocky marriage that grew worst over time. Could Shedrick’s knowledge of the earlier relationship have bred suspicions that Ruth encouraged in order to get back at him for beating her? Could Shadrick’s rage at Mamie Baxley be because she had personally reprimanded him about beating Ruth when her own husband Henry was allowed to philander? The one clue we have for an answer to these questions is that during his attack the only valuables Shadrick took were the wedding rings of Mamie, the wife of Henry Baxley, Sr.
