Grains of Truth

In 2013 I confirmed an oral legend I had recently learned about my paternal great great grandfather. Up until 2009 my family had never heard about our ancestor John Alexander being in the civil war. I was skeptical even after I found a John Alexander on the roster of U.S. Colored Troops out of Mississippi. After all, John Alexander was a common name. I found dozens of them serving in the war. For that reason, I did not send for the pension papers. It was a lot of money to spend to find out it was the wrong man. I decided to go in person. I justified the expenditure as a trip for business and for fun.

It turned out that the pension papers were for my relatives and it gave me more details about John's life. However, it did not give me the name of his slave holder. That was left blank. I had to deduce who it might be from other evidence. I concluded that the slave holder had been a Huffman. This was also the man my aunt always thought was the slave holder.

Since 2013 I haven't done much more research on John Alexander but I think the ancestors have been nudging me this week. Yesterday I decided to look into John Huffman born in 1801 in Alexandria, Virginia and died in 1882 in Lincoln County, Mississippi.  In 1870, Huffman lived in the same neighborhood as John Alexander. This is one of the clues I have been told to look for when trying to find the slave holder. I looked at Huffman's family tree. Huffman was married to Mary Glass. Her parents were Frederick Mason Glass and Elizabeth Strother. When I saw this I got very excited. You see, according to another oral legend, John Alexander lived on a plantation in Virginia called Strouder. Some of my cousins have told me that "Strawder" was his nickname. Am I on the right trail?

I was still skeptical. Glass and Strother married and lived in Georgia. Georgia was never part of any oral history for Alexander. However,  I was able to find a family tree on ancestry.com for the Glass family. It gave me Mary's ancestry. Her grandfather was William Strouther, born in 1755 and died in 1833 in Virginia. He was living in Fauquier County when he died. Fauquier is adjacent to Rappahannock County, where John Alexander claimed he was born!

I definitely think I'm on the right trail now. It also makes me curious as to whether all the oral legends I have heard have a grain of truth. My to-do list has just gotten longer.

Sleuthing out the slave owner

I spent half of yesterday following the trail of names found on the civil war pension applications. I couldn't find the name of the last slave owner of John and Catherine Alexander but there were plenty of clues. Being a little gun shy, I don't want to say equivocally who it is yet but I'm pretty sure I'm close.

My aunt Hortense believed that the name of the last slave owner was Huffman. I had no reason not to believe her until I was told two other contradicting stories. However, I am inclined to believe that John Huffman was his last slave owner. Here is the evidence:

1. John was buried in Huffman graveyard according to the pension application for his widow.

2. Sylvester Ames, a comrade in arms, who also enlisted on the same day and location, stated that his slave owner was G.D. and J.W. Huffman. I believe that John and Sylvester came from the same locale and possibly the same farm.

3. Two of John's witness that stated they knew him most of his life were J.S. and Julia Felder. Julia was the daughter of John Huffman, the same Huffman that lives in the same area as John on the 1880 census.

This is my circumstantial evidence. However when I look at the slave schedules for Mississippi, I find corresponding ages for John, Catherine, and Sylvester but not for the young children of John and Catherine that were born in 1858 and 1860. And the schedule is for Amite County not Pike County. So I am not 100 percent sure. Yet.

What I Learned from the Civil War Pension Applications

Great-great grandfather John Alexander and Great Uncle Sylvester Ames on the plaque at the Civil War Memorial

I'm back from my quick weekend trip to the nation's capital. I couldn't wait any longer to find out about my suppositions. I will have to go back later for a more extended research trip. This one answered some questions and generated more.

I now have proof that my great great grandfather John Alexander was in the Civil War. He filed for an invalid pension. Although he did not fight in any battle, he was injured by a wagon while in the infantry. He was unloading vessels at Ship Island, Mississippi. The injury caused him to limp for the rest of his life.

I was not able to find the original pension application where it asks who was his slave owner. It was stated on his widow's pension that they were slaves but not the owner's name. This was the main thing I wanted to learn. But it did list that he was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia. He didn't know when he was born but it was between 1830 and 1834. He was a short, dark man, around 5' 5" and weighed 140 lbs. in his later life. It was so interesting to see the names of some of his witnesses were in-laws and relatives of my grandmother.

African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

 He died November 2, 1913 and was buried in Huffman Graveyard. His widow Catherine died September 23, 1915.

This is just scratching the surface of what I'm learning. The names and places listed will now have to be checked. A genealogist's work is never done.

Oral Legends - Got to check them

It started with me just editing my revised book so I can upload it to the internet. I was checking for dates for my family tree. I googled "Florence Octavia Alexander," a great aunt. On the census she is listed only as Octavia. I was trying to make sure she was one and the same as Florence. One of the hits I got was for a Nkechi Florence Octavia Alexander Townsend. She was listed in a book about prominent black psychologists. I read her biography. She did turn out to be a cousin. What got my attention, however, was her story about her great grandfather.

This is her story. "My grandfather, John was born in Liberia and captured and brought to this country when he was twelve years old. He was a slave on the Lambright plantation in Virginia. He was sold to the Huffman plantation in Alabama. He married another slave named Catherine (originally from India) on the Huffman plantation. During the Civil War he ran away and worked for the union forces. After the war he returned home and took his wife and children to Mississippi. Because a union officer named “Alexander” had impressed him he changed the family’s name to that of Alexander. He and Cahterine had twelve children, nine sons and three daughters."

I got so excited. This was more information than I had ever known about my great great grandparents John and Catherine. I called up my aunt Hortense to see if she knew of this lady. She didn't. I googled Townsend and located her nearby. I plan to call tomorrow.

Then I looked at the story again. I should have known there were holes in her story. She misspoke about her great grandfather calling him just her grandfather. Next, I remembered that Liberia was a country in Africa founded by freed American slaves. So John being captured from Liberia sounds off. Catherine came from India? Really? I am searching for more information on Lambright plantation and the Huffman plantation. The funny thing is that there is a Lambright farm in Copiah County, MS and there is a John Huffman lving close to Columbus Alexander, my great grandfather, on the 1880 Mississippi census. I checked the 1860 census and old John Huffman had a male slave that is the right age for John Alexander. There was a female slave living there too and an infant. However, there should be two infants. I need to check that out more.

One thing that may be accurate from her biography is John's service during the Civil War. That's the next thing I am going to check. There is a gap between 1860 and 1865 in the births of John's and Catherine's children. After 1865, they started churning out children every year. So there's a good chance he wasn't around during that gap.

It just goes to show you. You have to corroborate. It is so tempting to believe the stories but that's all they are until you have proof.