Armenta (Minty) Starnes (Arminta) 
Armenta, known as Minty, was born in 1806. Minty's father was Aaron Starnes. She was an only child. She died at the age of 80 in 1886.General Notes
After her husband died, Armenta faced the difficult task of raising children without a father. There is no indication that she remarried. She had four sons and four daughters. Her second youngest child was eight years older than Erskine. After the Civil War she moved to Phillips County, Arkansas where her brothers had moved.
She was the daughter of Aaron Starnes (1761-1833) who fought in the Revolutionary War. Aaron’s father came to South Carolina from New England. This family can be traced to Shubael Stearns who was part of the first wave of Puritan migration from England to Boston. He arrived in 1630 with his son Charles Stearns (1625-1695) on the Arabella (which also carried Governor John Winthrop). Shubael died just after arriving in America and his son Charles was raised by his uncle Isaac Stearns. There are very good records on this family and many of their marriages. Charles’ grandson Shubael III and his sons were caught up in the religious movement known as the Great Awakening which began in the 1730s. They became devout Baptists about 1745 and found that their views were suspect in New England. Shubael III and his sons left for the Carolinas in 1754 initially settling in North Carolina where his son, Shubael IV, became a famous Baptist minister. Shubael III’s son John (Armenta’s grandfather) and two of his brothers moved on to South Carolina in the late 1760s. They were not ministers but they helped to organize Baptist churches everywhere they went. Some pedigrees including that of Harold Fox identify Armenta’s grandfather John as the son of Shubael III’s brother Charles, but I have not found any records to support that. I did find sources that identify a son of Shubael III as John which I believe to be the more likely connection. Either way the line goes back to the Shubael I who arrived on the Arabella. After going South the Stearns changed the spelling of their name to Starnes.
