History
The Sweeney-Conner cabin or Conner-Sweeney cabin was originally built for Jennings W. Connor and his bride Missouri Sweeney in 1860 to 1865. The National Park Service identifies it as structure number 55 and as the Sweeney-Conner cabin, while many references refer to it as the Conner-Sweeney cabin or Connor-Sweeney cabin. Sometimes Conner is spelled Connor in references.
Connor enlisted as a private in the 46th Virginia Infantry on June 18, 1861. He was captured during the Appomattox Campaign at the Battle of Sailor's Creek on April 6, 1865. Missouri was a younger sister to Joel Sweeney, eighteen years his junior. Joel is the earliest documented white banjo player and is the one who popularized the five-string banjo. When Jennings Connor and Missouri Sweeney (last of the Sweeney musical siblings), took their marriage vows on October 3, 1860, she lied about her age. She was only thirteen years old. Jennings was born July 1839, while Missouri was born sometime in 1847 in St Louis, Missouri. There was almost a decade between their ages.
The Sweeney and the Conner clans were very poor people and their cabins were smaller than many of the slave cabins. They lived about two miles from the center of the village on the Richmond-Lynchburg stagecoach road. At the time Appomattox Station was called Nebraska, Virginia, where they received their mail. United States Census records for Appomattox County and Clover Hill District for 1900 show that Jennings by this time had remarried in 1886 and they were living in this cabin with three of their children.
Read more about this topic: Sweeney-Conner Cabin
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