Monday Is for Mothers: Elizabeth Jordan (About 1787 - 1865)

When Elizabeth Jordan became the second wife of Josiah Freeman in 1814,* she was marrying a man nearly twice her age and half of his children by his first wife were already adults. In their ten years of marriage she would give him six more children, including my paternal great great grandfather Henry Hill Freeman (1815-1887).

[The State of Georgia, Carey's General Atlas, Improved And Enlarged; Being A Collection Of Maps Of The World And Quarters, Their Principal Empires, Kingdoms, &c. ... Philadelphia: Published By M. Carey. 1814. David Rumsey Collection]

When Josiah came to write his will in August of 1824 in Jasper County, Georgia, his first thought was to provide for "the children of my last wife" so he bequeathed the "Land & Plantation, whereon I now live, with Two Negroes viz, a Negro man, named Hard & a negro Girl, named Matilda, the above property to be kept together, for the Support of the Children & my wife during her widowhood." To that end Josiah gave an extensive list of the livestock (by name) and farm and household goods to be included in his bequest.**

[Ancestry.com. Georgia, Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: 

Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Georgia County, District and Probate Courts.]

Elizabeth never remarried as we can see from succeeding U.S. Census records from Jasper County.

In 1830 she was named as Executrix of Josiah Freeman dec'd.

[1830; Census Place: Regiment 38 and 30, Jasper, Georgia; Series: M19; Roll: 18; Page: 386; Family History Library Film: 0007038. Ancestry.com]

By 1840 Elizabeth was Head of Household in her own right.

[Year: 1840; Census Place: Davidson's District 290, Jasper, Georgia; Roll: 44; Page: 78; Image: 162;

Family History Library Film: 0007045; Ancestry.com]

The 1850 U.S. Census is the first one that asked where the person was born, and her answer was Georgia. Her name was the last one on the page but the following page shows that her youngest son Isaac, a farmer aged 24, and 19-year old Jefferson Hunt, also a farmer, are living with her, along with the ten enslaved persons listed on the Slave Schedule.

[Ancestry.com. 1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1850. M432, 1,009 rolls.]

The final record we have for Elizabeth is in the 1860 U.S. Census. The $5,000 listed as her personal estate is almost certainly her human property, but I didn't find her name in the Slave Schedules for that census.***

[Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

We have so few records for this paternal great great great grandmother, related to me through my father's lineage. The names of her parents are uncertain, although her father may have been a William Jordan from Albermarle County, Virginia, (1747-1803) and that there may be a connection with the Hill family is suggested by my ancestor Henry Hill Freeman.There's a date of June 4, 1865 for her death, but that is unsupported by any evidence. We don't know where she's buried.


*Probably in Clarke County, Georgia.
**The second page of his will makes provision for his children by his first wife.
***Perhaps she had rented them out, a common practice.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.