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?!