Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Working on Wednesday: Coleman Warren in Alabama, 1870 & 1880

Of the seven individuals my 3X great uncle Jeremiah Warren hoped to have freed some day, the person with the most uncommon name was Coleman so I decided to search for a Coleman Warren in the 1870 federal census. There turned out to be only one in the whole country. A resident of Lawrence County, Alabama, he was born in about 1804 and like Mary Warren* in Texas, he was born in Virginia. From Alabama marriage records we know that Coleman and Lottie (Wright) were newlyweds, having married on January 11th.

[Year: 1870; Census Place: Township 7 Range 7, Lawrence, Alabama; Roll: M593_22; Page: 89B; Image: 150538; Family History Library Film: 545521. Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

I don't know what connection to Coleman there was, if any, of the next household headed by Lucy Warren who was 45 and born in Alabama. There was an enslaved woman with that name in Jeremiah's estate who was described as "aged" in the 1837 appraisal of Jeremiah's slaves** so this Lucy can't be that person.

That same year Coleman Warren's name (#5 below) appeared in the Federal Census Non-Population Schedule for Agriculture so we know a bit more about what his 20-acre tenant farm was like. 

[Census Year: 1870; Census Place: Township 7, Lawrence, Alabama; Archive Collection Number: M279; Roll: 27; Page: 3; Line: 1; Schedule Type: Agriculture. Ancestry.com. U.S., Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

As of June 1, 1870, five years after emancipation, the personal estate of $10 (also listed on the census) represented the value of his farm equipment and he owned a horse, a mule, two milk cows and two "other cattle" as well as six pigs all of which were valued at $140.***

[Detail of above]


Ten years later Coleman and Lottie's were still in Lawrence County, Alabama, and their household had expanded to include a 4-year-old daughter Jane, George who was 5, and a 10-year-old adopted daughter G.A. Chenault.

["United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YB6-96RP?cc=1417683&wc=QZ2W-DMM%3A1589394746%2C1589394779%2C1589394776%2C1589396018 : 24 December 2015), Alabama > Lawrence > Moulton > image 15 of 27; citing NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.:
National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).]


The agricultural schedule in 1880 was much more detailed, giving us a clearer view of what Coleman's farm was like and even get an idea of what the family's diet was like.**








Fifteen years after Emancipation Coleman Warren was modestly successful as a hard-working tenant farmer, able to support his wife and their child along with a grandson and an adopted daughter. And he was a free man.

But the question remains--do these records refer to Jeremiah Warren's slave Coleman whom in 1832 he hoped would be freed some day? Sadly I don't think so.

It would be a great story but there's a serious problem. There happened to be a wealthy, slave-owning Warren family living in Lawrence County headed by Thomas Jackson Warren (1831-1906) who has no known connection to my Warren ancestors in Georgia and I think it's far more likely that this Coleman had formerly been his human property.

[Year: 1860; Census Place: Southern Division, Lawrence, Alabama; Roll: M653_12; Page: 914; Image: 272; Family History Library Film: 803012. 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.]


Coleman Warren died sometime between 1880 and 1900 when his widow Hattie was residing in the Lawrence County household of her daughter Lottie Jane and her husband Henry Gibson. She died in 1933.


*The identification of this Mary Warren as one of those seven people was made by her descendant Marco who had traced her back to John Graybill, one of Jeremiah;s executors, and shared his discovery with us.
**That Lucy formed part of Jeremiah's sister Mary (Polly) Warren.
***There's a problem with the second page of this schedule. When the enumerator turned the page to enter the rest of the information he got his lines mixed up and Coleman is clearly not the farmer referred to on line 10. Forty bales of cotton on 20 acres of land? No. But I can't be sure if Coleman was left out completely or if his totals are on line 4.

[ Ancestry.com. U.S., Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:
Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

****All the 1880 images are from Ancestry.com U.S., Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880 [database on-line]. I've enlarged only those sections of the schedule that relate to Coleman's farm.






© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

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