Administering Thomas Barber's Estate 1832 - 1841

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

In trying to track down any records of the administration of the estate of Thomas Barber who died in Lee County, Georgia about 1829 or 1830, I have been stymied by burned courthouses. 

The Lee County, Georgia courthouse burned in 1858 with a total record loss. Then it burned again in 1872 with a partial record loss. The Dooly County, Georgia courthouse burned in 1847 with a total record loss. Since Thomas Barber died in Lee County and his estate was administered in Dooly County, records could have been filed in either courthouse. 

These newspaper notices establish a timeline for the administration of Thomas Barber's estate and supplement the records lost in the courthouse fires. 

In 1832, James Bowen, the second husband of Thomas Barber's widow, Elizabeth, made application to administer the Barber estate. This initial application clearly states that Thomas Barber was of Lee County, Georgia.

By late 1832, John Bowen was selling Thomas Barber's personal property. An inventory with appraisal would have needed to be filed first. That would have been followed with a record of how much each item sold for and who purchased it. Notice that this time Thomas Barber is termed as being "late of said county," which would be Dooly County in this instance. This appears to be in error unless Thomas Barber moved from Lee County to Dooly County shortly before his death.

By 1833 John Bowen was trying to sell the land that Thomas Barber had acquired through the Georgia Land Lottery of 1827. I recall that in 1833, Joseph Barber, Thomas Barber's son, had appointed a lawyer to recover his inheritance from his maternal grandfather, Thomas Mashburn of Onslow County, North Carolina. At the time Joseph Barber was living in Pulaski County, Georgia. Was he trying to raise money to buy his father's land? I also recall that Joseph Barber stated that both of his parents died intestate, so he was well aware Thomas Barber died without a will to protect his heirs' interests. 

Note that I found this by searching for John "Bowin." A search for Thomas Barber neglected to turn this up because his name was misspelled as "Barlee." 

The land is described as being lot number 64 in the 17th district, but other records indicate that Thomas Barber's land was lot number 164 in the 17th district. I'm not sure what is going on with the number difference. 

In 1834, Thomas Barber's land was still for sale. This notice clarifies that the land was located in Sumter County but was formerly Lee County. The 202 1/2 acres make it clear that this is Thomas Barber's draw in the land lottery since that was the size of those lots. Again, the land is termed as being lot 64 instead of lot 164. 

Notice that this time I found the notice just by using the keywords - Thomas Barber estate. This is how I figured out that John Bowen's name was sometimes spelled Bowin, so I did another search for him with that name and found the clipping above this one. 

It was surprising to find that John Bowen was still administering Thomas Barber's estate in 1837. Of course, there were probably still minor children at this point.

The administration of John Bowen's estate in 1839 revealed that when Bowen died, he had possession of Thomas Barber's land. 

The most surprising notice was this one from 1841 when James Guinn applied to administer Thomas Barber's estate. This raises a lot of questions. Who was James Guinn? Did he have a family connection to Thomas Barber? I'm thinking he could have been married to one of Thomas Barber's unknown daughters. And the really big question: what was there left to administer? If the land was gone and the personal property was gone, what was left for the support of the heirs? And where, oh where, will I find a complete list of the heirs?!

Thomas Barber, 1832 Estate Sale

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

In searching newspapers, you have to be aware that items are not always found in a straightforward manner. For example, this reference to Thomas Barber had not come up before. That might be because I had not used Dooly County as part of my search for him. As you can see, this ominous little clipping, regarding Thomas Barber, turned up just minutes ago in a search for John Bowen in Dooly County. 

The plot thickens.

By 1832, John Bowen and Thomas Barber's widow Elizabeth would have probably been married. We know from the documents in Thomas Mashburn's estate records that they were married by 1833. 

This clipping suggests that John Bowen has taken over the administration of Thomas Barber's estate, probably from Elizabeth. Remember that in 1830, she was a single head of household with six children, which would have been a lot of mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. Note that this sale of Thomas Barber's estate is for the "benefit of the heirs and creditors."

Now, I am thinking that this is when John Bowen acquired Thomas Barber's land. If he acquired the land at this time, I'm not sure whether this purchase was meant to protect the property of Thomas Barber's heirs or to seize control of it for himself. Certainly, by the time he died a few years later, it was regarded as the property of his Bowen heirs. The Barber children would not have been his heirs. 

This clipping does state that Thomas Barber was "late of said county," meaning Dooly County. There might have been other records for Thomas Barber in Dooly County, but, of course, they burned. 

John Bowen Owned Thomas Barber's Land

 ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Often newspapers come through when county records have burned.

In searching for more information on Thomas Barber's second wife Elizabeth, who as a widow married John Bowen, I came across this newspaper notice of a sale of property from John Bowen's estate by Richard Bowen. Richard's relationship to John Bowen is unknown to me at this point, but I would guess that he is one of John Bowen's sons.

What is of most interest to me is the first notice that details the sale of Lot NO. 164, 17th District of originally Lee, now Sumter county; belonging to the Estate of John Bowen."

Lot no. 164, 17th District of Lee County, Georgia was the very lot that Thomas Barber drew in the 1827 Georgia Land Lottery. This confirms my hunch that it was the area of Lee County that later became Sumter County, Georgia.

More importantly, I now have a clue to locating more records concerning this land. There are only a couple of ways that this property went from Thomas Barber to John Bowen and that would have been through a sale. Either John Bowen purchased it directly from Thomas Barber or at his estate sale. I don't think John Bowen would have owned it as a result of his marriage to Elizabeth Barber because each of Thomas Barber's children would have had a share in it at his death. That would have involved a total of eight shares if you count Elizabeth's share as the widow. 

This also tells me that John Bowen was a near neighbor of the Barber's in Lee County. 

What I can hope for now is that some reference to this land deed was recorded in Sumter County at a later date.  

Thomas Barber and His Son Edward

     ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

If I could give beginning researchers any advice, it would be to research your ancestor's siblings and check newspapers for additional information.

I really intended for my next step in researching Thomas Barber to be a focus on Onslow County, North Carolina deeds, but I took a little newspaper break and found these gems instead. 

The first clipping was in the Savannah Morning News on 8 September 1885.

"Joseph Jackson, Thomas Cowart, Jack Cowart, and several others, came to Lee the second year it was organized. Thomas Barber was the father of Edward Barber, my correspondent, and he was said to have been the first white man buried in Lee county. His funeral took place fifty-five years ago. Jesse Jackson, the crippled son of Joseph Jackson, is, I am told, living yet."

This little tidbit confirms my theory that Edward Barber was the son of the Thomas Barber I am researching. The death of Thomas Barber fifty-five years before would fit with my theory that he had died about 1829, possibly early 1830 in Lee County. I still think this probably occurred in the portion of Lee County that became Sumter County. 

This article then went on to relate the experiences of an Uncle Mose and the night the stars fell. The way it was worded made me think there might be more information from the author's correspondent, Edward Barber. Since this article originally appeared in the Americus Recorder, I went searching for that paper. 

That search paid off in an additional newspaper column. Both of these appeared in the Americus Daily Recorder on 6 September 1885. Notice that this article is called "scraps and sketches of Sumter County History."

"Having seen an article from the RECORDER, copied in another paper, on the early history of this county, Mr. Edward Barber, of Jonesboro, writes me a few interesting facts for which he will please accept my thanks. His father came to Lee county when there were but twenty families within the wide boundaries of that vast wilderness. They had to go to old Hartford to mill, a distance of many miles over roads that were merely blazed out through the unbroken forest. Mr. Barber came as an overseer for Joseph Jackson, whose plantation was on Spring creek, near Flint river. He says that 'most of the time they ground their corn on a steel mill, people from ten miles around coming to the Barber's mill to grind their corn.' He remembers but one family, and that was Tomlinson, the same Tomlinson who was for years an honored representative of Sumter county in the legislative halls. Jared Tomlinson's name occurs very frequently in the old journals of the House and Senate. He is still enjoying a green old age, living in Albany, retired from the bustle of life, and doubtless his memory often runs backward to those early times when true worth and intrinsic merit paved the royal road to honorable preferment."

Among other things, this article tells me the vicinity of where the Barbers settled, that they had a mill. and that they came to Lee County with Joseph Jackson. Given that Thomas had a son named Jackson Barber that seems noteworthy. Joseph Jackson may have been a relative of Thomas Barber or his wife Sarah Mashburn. Since the one family Edward remembered was named Tomlinson, I want to be on the alert for any documents that include them. 

The presence of Joseph Jackson is noteworthy since my Joseph Barber's son George named one of his sons Joseph Jackson Barber. My thinking is still that the elder Joseph Barber did not have a middle name, or at least, he did not have one that can be documented. I'm now thinking that young George W. Barber heard stories of Joseph Jackson, a revered man who Joseph Barber knew in his youth, as well as stories of Joseph's brother Jackson, so he named his own son Joseph Jackson Barber. Additionally, Joseph Barber named his youngest known son Edward. I'm thinking that he named this son after his only surviving brother, Edward Barber. 

One of the most important bits of information was that Edward Barber was living in Jonesboro, Georgia in 1885. This should help me flesh out the records for him since I last found him in Dooly County in 1850. 

I am hoping that this will lead to more information about the Barbers. And, of course, there is an old mill to find. 

Thomas Barber - A Paradigm Shift

    ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

After spending a few hours searching Onslow County, North Carolina tax records for Thomas Barber, father of Joseph Barber of Pulaski County, Georgia, I came to the conclusion that something was off in my calculations. Only one Thomas Barber turned up in those records from 1804 to 1815. By at least 1810 or 1811, there should have been two Thomas Barbers paying at least a poll tax each - Thomas who was on the 1810 census and the Thomas who married Sarah Mashburn and had three surviving sons with her Onslow County before 1817. But there was only Thomas Barber, and that meant something was off in my calculation that Thomas Barber was living with his father-in-law Thomas Mashburn 1810. 

As near as I can tell, Thomas Barber first appeared on the 1804 tax list of Capt. John Dunn. He had one poll tax and 250 acres. 

By the following year, 1805, he had 325 acres. He was still in Capt. Dunn's district and was listed next to Thomas Mashborne. I am guessing this is the Thomas Barber I am searching for and this is the same Thomas Mashborne who was his father-in-law. Also in the district that year were Thomas Barber's brother-in-law Mason Kimmey along with Daniel Mashborne and James Mashborne.

In 1806, Thomas Barber was still in Capt. Dunn's district, but now he had 525 acres. Thomas and Daniel Mashborne were also still in the district.

In 1807 and 1808, everything remained constant with Thomas Barber still owning 525 acres and his in-laws still nearby.

I did not find him 1809 and 1810, but that may just indicate a record loss.

Thomas Barber reappeared on the 1811 tax list, but that year he only had one poll and no land! What happened to his land? 

From 1812 through 1815, he had one poll and 100 acres of land. The 1815 tax list described his property as "pine land." Then records are spotty until around 1821 when Thomas Barber cannot be found in the same tax district with his Mashburne in-laws. That would fit since Thomas Barber was in Georgia by then. 

These records made me go back to the 1810 census with Thomas Barber's entry.

A closer look at that census revealed why I misread it: 

I counted the dashes across instead of the actual columns. An accurate reading of Thomas Barber's entry is this:

Thomas Barber 1001 - 02021

One male 0 - 9

One male 26 - 44 = Thomas Barber

Two females 10 - 15

Two females 26 - 44

One female 45 and older

On this census, Thomas Barber is in the same column that he is in on the 1820 census. Since he did not age out of this bracket, I would say that in 1810 he was 26 to 34 years old, born between 1784 and 1776 and that in 1820 he was 34 to 44 years old, again born between 1784 and 1776. If I add to that my findings from the Onslow County, North Carolina, tax lists, I would say that at the time he first acquired land in 1804, he was at least 21 years old, which is very young, but would make his birth by at least 1783 although he could be a little older. 

The boy under ten on the 1810 census could be my Joseph Barber. His birth year alternates from 1810 to 1811 on various census years. 

The women on this census are a mystery. I would guess that Thomas Barber's wife would also be in the 26 - 44 age column. At this point, the three other females are a mystery. I would think that since Thomas Mashborne was still living in 1810 that the older woman would not be his wife. She could be Thomas Barber's mother, or she could be an aunt to either Thomas and his wife. She could even be a grandmother. 

The next thing to study would be Thomas Barber's land deeds. 

Thomas Barber, 1820 and 1810

    ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Just when I thought I'd run out of available records to search for Thomas Barber, I remembered the U.S. census. I still needed to check the 1820 and 1810 census for him. Now that I knew more about him, I thought I might be able to pinpoint him in 1820.

He turned up on the 1820 Jefferson County, Georgia census. 

This census tells me a lot about Thomas Barber. First, Thomas Barber is between the age of 26 and 44. Since he was the father of four sons, I'd place his age at closer to the 30 to 36 age range. There is a wife with him who is about ten years younger. She is in the 16 to 24-year-old range. I believe that she is Elizabeth, who married Thomas Barber in Onslow County, North Carolina, after the death of his first wife Sarah but before he removed to Georgia.

There are four boys between the ages of one and nine in the household. If Edward Barber, who was born in 1818 in Georgia, was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth, then he was two years old in 1810 and was the youngest boy. His birth in 1818 means that Thomas and Elizabeth married by 1817. Of course, they could have married in late 1817 or early 1818 and had a son in 1818. This would also be the timeframe for their move to Georgia - about 1817. 

The other three boys would be the sons of Sarah Mashburn and Thomas Barber. Because their younger brother Edward was born in 1818, I would bracket the window for their births from 1810 to 1817. With most women averaging a birth every two years that seems about right. The three sons were Joseph, Thomas Jr., and Jackson Barber, of whom only Joseph survived well into adulthood. My ancestor Joseph Barber was born in North Carolina in 1811. If he was the son of Sarah and Thomas, then he may well have been their eldest child. That would make Thomas Jr. and Jackson the two sons born between 1812 and 1817. 

I would guess that Sarah (Mashburn) Barber died roughly between 1815 and 1817. Since she would have married Thomas Barber at least a year before her first child was born, I would guess that they married sometime between 1808 and 1810. That means they could be newlyweds without children on the 1810 census, and they should be found in Onslow County, North Carolina.

A search of the 1810 census for Onslow County, North Carolina did not turn up a Thomas Barber as head of household in the right age bracket to be the Thomas Barber for whom I am searching. There is a Thomas Barber there in 1810, but he was over 45 years old. Significantly, this Thomas Barber does not have a male in his household who is the right age to be my Thomas.

That means that Thomas Barber may have still been living with a family member as an unmarried man or as a newlywed. Three households are likely candidates. If Thomas Barber was still unmarried in 1810, which I doubt, he might have been living with Absalom Barber. However, I think it is more likely that he and Sarah were newlyweds without children. The most likely possibility is that they were living with Sarah's father Thomas Mashburn. There is both a male and female in Thomas Mashburn's household who could be Thomas and Sarah Barber. There is, though, an outside chance that they were living in the household of Mitchell Barber, where there is also a male and a female the right age to be Thomas and Sarah, but I don't know what sort of connection Thomas might have to Mitchell Barber. 

There was more than one Thomas Barber in Onslow County, North Carolina during this time, so I need to sort them out to figure out where my Thomas Barber fits in. 

Then John Bowen Died, 1838

   ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Normally, the probate records of a second husband of a second wife are just another rabbit hole. Still, who passes up the chance to travel down a rabbit hole? 

John Bowen was the second husband of Elizabeth who was the second wife of the Thomas Barber I am researching. When I found the inventory, appraisement, and sale of his property, I could not pass it up. After all, Joseph Barber might have turned up for the sale and purchased something. 

The sale of John Bowen's property was held on 8 March 1838, so he and Elizabeth were not married long, given that they married after the 1830 census was taken. As you can see from this snippet, Elizabeth Bowen bought interesting things at the sale like a coffee mill and five chairs and a spinning wheel. Joseph Barber did not purchase anything at the sale. However, Edward Barber did! I would be willing to bet that he was the mystery boy in Elizabeth Barber's 1830 Dooly County household. I also think he was her son. That would make him a half-brother to the Joseph Barber I am researching. And my Joseph Barber had a son named Edward Barber. 

More importantly, Edward Barber purchased 16 acres of land at the sale. More records to search! Unfortunately, in trying to do more research in Dooly County, I discovered that I could not find records from the 1838 earlier time frame. And can you guess why? If you guessed courthouse fire, you win. The Dooly County, Georgia courthouse burned on 7 May 1847 and "suffered historic record losses." 

I did find Edward Barber on the 1850 Dooly County, Georgia, census. He was born in about 1818, so he was likely the boy aged 10 to 14 on the 1830 census of Elizabeth Barber's household. 

Looking for Thomas Barber in Sumter County, Georgia

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

My next step in pursuing my Barber clues was to try to pinpoint when Thomas Barber died and if he left a will or probate. A search for him on the 1830 Georgia census did not turn up anything. However, his widow Elizabeth Barber was in Dooly County, Georgia in 1830.

This census record reveals several interesting things. First, Elizabeth Barber is evidently widowed and has removed from Sumter County, Georgia to Dooly County, Georgia. Her household consisted of herself and six children: one male aged ten to fourteen, three females aged one to four, and two females aged five to nine. Oh, dear. That's a lot of children for a woman alone. At this time, Joseph Barber would have been 18 to 19 years old, so I don't think he is the male child. Since he is also not a head of household anywhere, he is either working and living in another household or possibly living with a Mashburn relative in Georgia.  At this point, it is hard to say where he was. The male in Elizabeth's household is also not Jackson Barber since he died the year before. If all of these children belonged to Thomas and Elizabeth, then they had a marriage of at least a ten to twelve duration by the time he died. Since there are three girls aged four and under, I would guess that he had died in the previous year or two. It is also possible that Elizabeth was a widow with children when she married Thomas and that only some of these children are Thomas's, and it is possible that Thomas had another wife after Sarah and that some of these children were Elizabeth's step-children. 

Living near Elizabeth is a John Bowen Sr. who may be the same John Bowen that she married next. He still seems to have a wife living with him. 

By 1850, Elizabeth seems to have been widowed again. Her Dooly County, Georgia household has two young Barber women living with her - Sarah aged 28 and Martha aged 23, both born in Georgia. 

Sarah would have been born in 1822, indicating that the Barbers were in Georgia by at least 1822. Martha's birth in 1827 indicates that Thomas Barber was likely still living then, which narrows the widow of his death to between 1827 and 1830. 

After I checked Joseph Barber's original deposition concerning the inheritance he was owed from his grandfather Thomas Mashburn of Onslow County, North Carolina, I noted that he stated both of his parents, Thomas and Sarah, died intestate. Now I was ready to look for a probate settlement in Sumter County, Georgia. However, their probate records don't start until 1838. Why? Because Sumter County, Georgia was formed from Lee County, Georgia in 1831. That means that when Elizabeth Bowen said that Thomas Barber was of Sumter County, she was probably referring to an area of Lee County that became Sumter County. 

Lee County, Georgia was not formed until 1826, so I was hoping to find something about Thomas there. But no, the Lee County courthouse burned in 1858 with a total record loss. Then just for good measure, it burned again in 1872. That certainly throws a wrench in my search.

Then I started thinking about what would have drawn Thomas Barber from Jefferson County, Georgia to Lee County. Land seems like the most obvious answer, but all those deeds burned. Then I thought of all those Georgia Land Lotteries, so I started hunting again. There was a land lottery for Lee County in 1827, and a Thomas Barber who was a resident of Jefferson County, living in Capt. Marshall's district, drew lot number #164 in District 17 of Lee County. 

Clearly, I needed to learn more about Georgia Land Lotteries. The registration for the 1827 lottery actually started in 1825, and a person had to register within two months of the lottery being announced, but for the 1827 lottery, people were still registering in 1827. One requirement was that a person had to be a resident of Georgia for three years prior to registering. The number of draws a person could reveal a lot if the registers were available. One source told me that there was no way to know who registered for the lottery because those records were not kept. Basically, we only know who the winning drawers were and where their lots were. 

Then I explored Jefferson County, Georgia records on Family Search, and as luck would have it, there were the registers for people who registered in Jefferson County in 1825 for the 1827 lottery.

Thomas Barber was "a man of a family" and had two draws. That means Thomas Barber would have been a married man with a wife and a son or unmarried daughter under the age of 18. He would have been a resident of Georgia since at least 1822 and a citizen of the U.S. His winning draw would have given him a lot consisting of  202 1/2 acres for which he paid a fee of $18. 

I may yet be able to find another reference to Thomas Barber's land in Sumter County. Those land records, however, are currently not viewable online through Family Search. 

At this point, I can move Thomas Barber from Onslow County, North Carolina to Jefferson County, Georgia, and then to Lee County, which shortly afterward became Sumter County. I can guess that he may have died there in 1829 and that maybe Elizabeth Bowen meant that she was married to Thomas Barber in Sumter County until 1829. 

Joseph Barber - Clues Abound

   ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Working on my husband's Brown line (John Deloss Brown) led to working on my Brown line (Toy M. Brown). Of course, as usual, that led basically nowhere. John C. Brown is not an easy person to track. That, of course, led me back to my Barber line - John C. Brown's wife was Mary Emma Barber.

Many years ago, I was able to track Mary Emma Barber's father Joseph Barber back to Sumter County, Georgia in 1840. Joseph Barber's older children were born somewhere in Georgia. In 1904, Joseph's son William A. Barber stated in a deposition for his Confederate pension that he was born in "Simpter" County, Georgia. Based on that I was able to locate Joseph Barber on the 1840 Sumter County, Georgia census. I also found a Joseph Barber on the membership roll of the Friendship Baptist Church. While no Barbers are buried in their cemetery there was a family with the distinctive name Mashburn buried there. I knew from googling "Joseph Barber" and "North Carolina," which is Joseph Barber's birthplace, and 1800..1860 that there was an abstract of a record in Onslow County, North Carolina where a Joseph Barber was named as an heir to a grandfather named Mashburn. But how to connect that information to Joseph Barber of Sumter County, Georgia? 

The place to start was back with that abstract. This time a more detailed version of the abstract turned up in Zae Gwynn's Abstracts of The Records of Onslow County North Carolina vol. 2, located in the Internet Archive, and now I have a lot more clues to follow up on.

Onslow County, North Carolina, Deek Bk 20, p. 193:

"Thomas Mashburn, Sr., of Pulaski County Georgia, late of Onslow Co., N.C., deceased, willed 50 dollars unto each of his grandchildren, the children of Thomas Barber; namely, Joseph, Thomas, and Jackson Barber, whose mother was Sarah Mashburn, daughter of said Thomas Mashburn, deceased. Both Thomas and Sarah Barber are now dead, leaving no children other then the 3 sons above named and since both Thomas Barber, Jr., and Jackson Barber are also dead without issue, Joseph is sole owner and should receive the entire bequest with interest. Joseph Barber now lives in Pulaski Co., Georgia, and appoints Lorenzo D. Moore of the same county, attorney, to recover from Thomas Mashburn, Jr., the inheritance due him; said Mashburn now lives in Onslow Co., N.C. Tests: John Hodges, Amasa Kellam, J.P., Elizabeth Boen, widow of Thomas Barber. Joseph Carruthers, Clerk of Inferior Court of Pulaski Co., Ga."

There is a lot to unpack here. First, there's no date on this record. It would need to be prior to 1850 when my Joseph Barber was no longer a resident of Georgia. I don't know if my Joseph Barber ever lived anywhere else in Georgia, but there is no reason to think that his residence was limited to Sumter County, Georgia. 

Two major clues leap out of this record. 

The first clue is that this Joseph Barber had a deceased brother named Jackson. The death certificate of my Joseph Barber's son George W. Barber states that George's father was Joseph Jackson Barber. Would it make sense that my Joseph Barber had both a middle name of Jackson and a brother named Jackson? Maybe not, but it's important to keep in mind that information pertaining to birth is a secondary source on a death certificate because you are relying on hearsay reporting for the names of parents, birthdates, and birth locations. What if George W. Barber's son G.W. Barber Jr. just got it wrong, mixing up stories of his grandfather and his grandfather's brother? I was alarmed recently to realize that my own son would not be able to accurately report his grandparents' names in the event my husband or I died, and he has known three of his grandparents well. 

The second clue is that Joseph Barber appointed Lorenzo D. Moore to act as his attorney. The other piece of information on George W. Barber's death certificate is his mother's name. That certificate states that she was either Amelia Moore or Aurelia Moore. In fact, Joseph Barber's wife was named Acenia, a name with many spelling variants, of which Amelia is not one. But could Moore be accurate? Or is Lorenzo D. Moore just a coincidence? My suspicion is that his full name was Lorenzo Dow Moore. Since the eccentric minister was fairly popular by around 1820 and earlier, this sort of pinpoints a time frame for him. Then it adds Methodists into the mix. Joseph Barber was a member of the Baptist church in Sumter County. Was his wife a Methodist?

Yet another clue is that Elizabeth Boen was the widow of Thomas Barber. Clearly, she had remarried after his death. 

The abstracts in this collection continue:

Onslow County, North Carolina, Deek Bk 20, p. 195

"Elizabeth Barber of Dooly County, Georgia, relict and widow of Thomas Barber, Sr., late of the county of Sumpter, State of Georgia, deceased, and formerly of Onslow County, North Carolina, deposes she also knew his former wife, Sarah, who was, prior to her marriage, Sarah Mashburn, daughter of Thomas Mashburn, Sr., of Onslow Co., N.C., now deceased. Thomas Barber's wife, Sarah Mashburn Barber, died in Onslow Co., N.C., before his removal to Georgia and he married said Elizabeth in Sumpter Co., Ga., in 1829, and he is now dead. Also Thomas Barber, Jr., son of Sarah and Thomas Barber died in Jefferson Co., Ga., in 1823, and Jackson Barber died in Dooly Co., Ga., in 1829, and said Elizabeth says she married the said Thomas Barber, Sr., in the State in N.C., and lived with him from the time of his removal from N.C. to the time of his death and knew his wife, Sarah, and his 3 sons named above. She is now married to John Bowen. Aug. 8, 1833. This deposition taken by Charles H. Higdon, J.P. of Dooly Co., Ga. Thomas H. Key swore to above, Aug. 12, 1833. He, Clerk of Inferior Court of Dooly Co., Ga., and John L. Shelby, a J.P. of said county."

This abstract is loaded with additional clues, but some of them contradict each other. 

It seems evident that Thomas Barber, formerly of Onslow County, North Carolina, died in Sumter County, Georgia sometime before 1833 when this document is dated. It would seem that he did not move directly from Onslow County, North Carolina to Sumter County, Georgia. Since his son Joseph Barber was only about twelve years old in 1823, it seems reasonable to think that his other sons were also minors. Therefore, when Thomas Barber Jr. died in Jefferson County, Georgia in 1823, it seems reasonable to think that he was a minor still living in his father's household. Following the sons' places of death, that means that the family either traveled to Sumter County, Georgia by way of Jefferson County and Dooly County or just by way of Jefferson County. If Thomas Barber's death preceded that of his son Jackson, then the surviving family may have removed from Sumter County to Dooly County. In any event, this gives me additional counties to search for records.

The bigger problem emerges over the contradictory information that Elizabeth Bowen provided over her marriage to Thomas Barber. Either they married in Onslow County, North Carolina before Thomas Barber removed to Georgia, which was evidently by or before 1823, or they married in Sumter County, Georgia in 1829 near the time of his death. It can't be both. My gut feeling is that they married before 1823 in Onslow County, North Carolina. Since Sarah Mashburn and Thomas Barber only had three sons before her death, and son Joseph Barber was born about 1811, my guess is that Thomas Barber had young children and needed a new wife. That wife may well have been Elizabeth. Or there could have been an unknown wife between his marriages to Sarah and Elizabeth.

Then there is one more tantalizing abstract:

Onslow County, North Carolina, Deek Bk 20, p. 197

"Pulaski County, Ga. Green W. Fountain, a J.P. of said Co. took deposition of Daniel Mashburn of said county as to facts of the above deposition of Elizabeth Bowen, late Elizabeth Barber, widow of Thomas Barber, deceased. Aug. 24, 1833. Joseph Carruthers, Clerk of Dooly Co., Ga., and John Bozeman, J.P. of Pulaski County, swear to the authenticity of above deposition of Mashburn. Registered in Onslow Co., N.C., May 30, 1834."

Daniel Mashburn?! Could this be the same Daniel Mashburn who is buried in the Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery in Sumter County, Georgia? It would be nice if his relationship to Thomas Mashburn Sr. was made clear in this document. 

Toy M Brown Returns to Mt. Pleasant

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Eeking out information on my own Brown family has been more difficult than my husband's Brown/Johnson line. 

My great-grandfather had a distinctive name: Toy Mansel Brown. However, his initials are a much more common T. M. Brown. It helps to know who his siblings were and who they married. That helped me identify this clipping as pertaining to him.

Not only did my great-grandparents live in Avery, Texas, but they had also both come from the Mt. Pleasant area in Titus county. Toy's half-sister Turie married John Monroe Stephenson. The "new" bit of information is that Toy left the Mt. Pleasant area 21 years before and had not returned since.

Twenty-one years before would have been 1899. Toy M. Brown married Henrietta Elizabeth Kelley in Titus County, Texas on 18 August 1898. In 1900, they were still living in Titus County. My grandmother was an infant then, having been born there in June 1899.

They must have left Titus County shortly after that, so it may have been 

21 years since Toy had been back, but I think that people remember events in epic rather than actual numbers.  I know that my great-grandmother was disowned for having married my great-grandfather. Those hard feelings lasted until my grandmother was six or seven years old. Then my great-great-grandfather became ill, and my great-grandmother packed her bags and went home to see her father. After that, she frequently returned for visits without my great-grandfather. He always said that he did not want to listen to all the Kelley family talk. He said their conversations always went something like "Your Pink, our Pink, their Pink," which suggests that conversation revolved around my great-great-grandfather Pink Kelley. I am guessing that maybe there were still hard feelings. 

By 1925, my great-great-grandfather Mansel Pinkney Kelley was deceased. His wife Eliza was still living with various of her children. Toy's stepfather Leroy W. Laine was deceased as was his mother Mary Emma (Barber) Brown Laine. 

My guess is that once Toy began to visit his estranged family the visits continued. However, I have not found any more clippings. 

John Deloss Brown's Letter, 1913

 ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Newspapers continue to shed light on one of my husband's Brown lines. John Deloss Brown of Weldon, Illinois, frequently wrote letters to newspaper editors over the course of his life. Almost all of those letters were political in nature. However, near the end of his life, he wrote a highly personal letter to his old hometown newspaper. Below is a transcript of the letter with commentary.

After the death of his wife, Nancy (Johnson) Brown, John D. Brown "broke up" his housekeeping in Weldon and lived with his various children who were scattered through several states, although a few remained in Illinois. By the time John wrote this letter, he had left Weldon.

JOHN D. BROWN

VISITS OLD HOME

Tells of Pleasant Time Being Spent With Brother and Other Relatives

Milton, Ill., 5-20-'13.

Editor Record,

Weldon, Ill.

Friend Coover--

I believe I am under a promise to write a line to record my wanderings since leaving Weldon.

I returned to Springfield to await the action of the Grand Jury in the Mayhew case, but as there seemed to be nothing doing I made arrangements to visit my old boyhood home in Pike county, as I have a brother, brother-in-law and nieces living here, so on

Already, this letter begins with very interesting tidbits. First, the letter is dated 20 May 1913 (a Tuesday) from Milton, Illinois in Pike County where John Deloss Brown lived as a boy. Prior to journeying to Springfield, he was living with a daughter, probably Emma C. (Brown) Manlove Lehman Egel, in Missouri. 

 The Mayhew case that John referenced concerned his granddaughter Opal (Miller) Mayhew. She was subjected to "an illegal operation," performed by a doctor with the assistance of her husband on the evening of Friday, April 11, 1913.  She became seriously ill almost immediately. By Tuesday, April  15, she had lost consciousness and would remain in that state until her death. It was not until Thursday, April 18, that her mother, Mary Ellen (Brown) Miller Walker, was notified that she was dangerously ill and actually on her deathbed. She died on Saturday, April 20. A coroner's inquest was held at her mother's insistence. The funeral was held on April 24.

On May 14, 1913, newspapers were reporting that Dr. J. O. Salyers and Harry Mayhew were being held on bond awaiting the action of the Grand Jury.

John D. Brown evidently traveled from Missouri to Springfield, specifically to attend the Grand Jury hearing. Realizing that the Grand Jury was in no hurry, John traveled to Milton on May 15. 

Tuesday, the 15th, I left Springfield for Pittsfield and from there to Milton, which is a small inland village 12 miles east of Pittsfield. It is reached only by private conveyance, except that there is a wagon used for the purpose of conveying goods to the merchants, and I found a seat in it, reaching Milton about five o'clock p.m. I found my brother on the street in his buggy ready to convey me to any place I wished to go, and as he is living alone and keeps a Bachelor's Hall, I went down to my brother-in-law's home, which, by the way, is the same from which my old father went to the army in the 99th Infantry never to return, and the same from which I followed my dear mother to her last resting place, and where lie buried my old grandmother, my brother who was supposed to be murdered, and the mystery of whose death has never been entirely cleared, and I have never had a more pleasant visit in my life, meeting old comrades of the war,

This section of the letter is loaded with family references. The brother who was keeping a Bachelor Hall should be easy to figure out, but he is not. John only had two possible brothers at the time. One brother, William M. Brown, still had a wife who was living, so he was not a bachelor. The other brother, Henry Edward Brown, would have been widowed if he was still living! It's time to start thinking that brother Henry may have lived beyond 1912, which is his death date, without sources, on Family Search. 

The bother-in-law that John stayed with would have been Eli Cox Grimes, the widower of Ellen Elizabeth Brown. He also had a couple of daughters still living in his home. It's interesting that the Grimes lived on the old farm of John D. Brown's parents, Isaac S. and Catherine E. (Hay) Brown. Isaac S. Brown served with the 99th Illinois Infantry as teamster until he received a lethal wound at Vicksburg. 

John Brown's mother Catherine E. (Hay) Brown died in Milton, Illinois 18 January 1888 and was buried in the French Cemetery. In this portion, John referred to other family members also buried in French Cemetery, including his grandmother and his brother who was murdered. His murdered brother was James Albert Brown who was murdered in 1878. 

It is John's reference to his old grandmother that is the big mystery. His maternal grandmother Amy Hay probably died in Pike County where she was living with her daughter Catherine E. (Hay) Brown and son-in-law Isaac S. Brown. However, there is a tombstone for her beside her husband John Hay in Greene County, Illinois. Either she is buried in an unmarked grave in French Cemetery while a tombstone serves as a cenotaph in Greene County, or she was interred in Greene County and a different grandmother is buried in French Cemetery. That raises the possibility that John Brown's paternal grandmother is buried in French Cemetery. At this point, she is a totally unknown quantity. There is no woman of the right age named Brown in a marked grave in French Cemetery, who would have been Isaac S. Brown's mother. There was a woman who lived with the Browns who was old enough to be Isaac S. Brown's mother; she was Martha Johnson, who was born in New York. However, there also is not a Martha Johnson buried in French Cemetery. Of course, it could be that Isaac Brown's mother was someone else who remarried after the death of her Brown husband. At this time, John D. Brown's grandmother is a big question mark.

old schoolmates and friends of other years.

??????turday, I went out to the ????? where I spent my boyhood days, now occupied by a niece and her husband. As I looked over the old homestead I was reminded that there when a lad of 18 years my father sent me out in the hot month of September to plow for wheat, with a pair of three-year-old steers, which were not thoroughly broke, Arkansaw steers at that, broke with a line, and I saw the spot where these same steers coming to a thicket at one end of the field would break and run away from the flies into the thicket, and where on one occasion they changed to disturb about a candy bucket full of Yellow Jackets, and how they dragged myself and the plow over several acres of that plowed ground, I fearing to let go of the rope for fear I would never see the cattle again.

Well, I will return to Missouri next Tuesday. Hoping this will find the Record prospering and my old friends well and happy, I am,

Yours truly,

John D. Brown

John D. Brown could have easily been back in Springfield when the Grand Jury finally met on May 21. Unfortunately, they decided to postpone making a decision until June 16, so John D. Brown returned to Missouri on May 29 without knowing if his granddaughter's husband would be held responsible for her death.