A Niece of American Revolutionary War General & Founder of Lenoir, NC William Lenoir

During the American Revolutionary War, she had served as a messenger girl for General Francis "Swampfox" Marion

In 1777, when she was five years old at the time, she was both a witness & flower girl in a Kingstree, SC parade that hosted French General Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. Then in August of 1780, she was a witness to British General Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings.

In 1798, she had lost her first husband James Dickey in a farming accident; he was cutting down an oak tree in order to use its bark to make baskets out of when it fell & crushed him. He was buried at the modern-day Sardinia-Gable Cemetery nearby; his headstone is missing as of 2022.

When her second husband Robert McFaddin passed away in 1829, she became the matriarch of the Cedar Grove Plantation, which included slaves; she was a former slaveowner. "Old Miss", as she was nicknamed by slaves from both her own & other plantations, adored her dearly primarily because she would illegally marry enslaved couples by inviting them to her home in the evenings, bringing out the family Bible (which was later lost in a fire) & helping them "jump the broom". There is only one slave that she had owned was recorded, & that was a female servant that went by the name of Millie.

Up until the 1840s, when she was in her 70s, she would often be seen in the daytime riding her white horse "Old John" throughout the countryside. From April of 1861 until her passing, she was a financial supporter of the Confederate Army.

At the time of her passing, she was not only the last-surviving person within the Cemetery to have lived before South Carolina was ratified into the Union in 1788, but she was the last-surviving person within the Cemetery to have lived in Colonial America.