Not something I had envisioned or planned, but for once I am focusing on a single individual. Why? That needs to unfold as I tell the tale.
Let me set the scene.
Winter has been having its way with the area. Cold. Windy. Raining. Utterly nasty. Coupled with our being cooped up together day in and day out without respite for months on end and you have a recipe for homicide. Clearly I am the more likely of the two to end up a corpse (and according to all outside opinions with absolute justification), so when the weather has turned nice (sunny, warmish, almost Spring-like) and TW blatantly states that she wants to get out of the house I take it as a direct threat to my continued health and well being.
We set out to visit a couple of specific cemeteries. One having a distant cousin to me and the other possibly having relations, but mainly just interesting (those are tales for another time). Having time and daylight remaining we opted to search out some small cemeteries more or less on the way home (less more than more - i.e. we detoured and took a longer way home).
The first attempt was to locate a possible marker. The cemetery in Find A Grave has only one named memorial and no photographs. The coordinates are in the middle of a dense bamboo thicker. I push my way through and reach the spot the coordinates indicate knowing well that these can be off by several yards. Bamboo aside, the area is covered with a mat of leaves and detritus several inches thick. I search in a circle several yards in all directions looking for anything that resembles a grave. Alas, I could not find anything. But with the dense ground covering there could have been a flat stone under my foot and I would not have noticed it.
From there we continue down the gravel (more mud than gravel) road and are shocked when it suddenly shifts back asphalt paving. Up to this point we had been in the middle of thousands of acres of timberland. Mostly acres of pine trees destined to be turned into pulp. In fact, about half the area had clearly been harvested in the past year or two. If you have never seen hundreds of acres clear-cut by a pulp-wood operation then you cannot fathom the devastation. It is eerily similar to No Man's Land in World War I. So you an appreciate the visual shock when the vista changed from logging operations to housing immediately as the road changed from dirt to pavement.
Our next destination was mapped to be about 300 yards past the Line Of Demarcation. Approaching the spot we looked into the trees and brush trying to spy any signs of a graveyard. I thought I spotted it about 50 yards back in dense brush. We looked at each other and decided in unison that we were too tuckered out to push that far back into unkempt lands just to check out a cemetery without any relations in it. I keep driving and notice that there appears to be a path cut back towards the cemetery location.
Well, damn! The cemetery is anything BUT grown over and forgotten. There is a space cleared out that is close to half an acre in the front with the graves being in the back. Several graves have flowers and it is obvious that someone visits semi-regularly. Only a few of the graves have formal stone markers. The rest have only the temporary metal markers provided by the funeral homes to mark the grave until a proper headstone is installed. These have been in place for years. Even decades. This is a practice we have commonly seen followed in predominately Black cemeteries. Names and other practices convince me this is indeed a Black cemetery.
But there is something more going on. The cemetery is clearly divided into what I deem the 'New' and 'Old' sections. The Old section is demarked by a wall of brush, stretches back into the wooded area, consists almost totally of unmarked graves (the sunken graves are clearly obvious, even under the mat of leaves), and is not given the same regular maintenance as the New section. The transition between the sections is the tree line in the rear of the above photo.
There are only 2 actual headstones in the Old section. One marks a death in 1930. The other a death in 1910. This second marker is the one that attracts my attention.
This is a large, expensive monument for the time. Even more so for the area. And more so yet to be in a Black cemetery. That alone warrants a closer look.
The design and style are somewhat common. We jokingly refer to such common pattern monuments by "Sears & Roebuck Number 25" as an inside reference to when headstones could be really be mail-ordered from Sears and other outlets. If you spend any amount of time in older cemeteries you will doubtless notice recurring patterns of markers, especially in family plots where duplicate pattern stones are in place for several graves. Mass production brought down prices making nicer markers more affordable to lower income families.
This marker has the classic Closed Book and Gates of Heaven motif.
Born Jan 15 1833
Died Feb 3 1910
For Many Years A
Faithful Servant Of
The Barrow Family
A Black man, born in Georgia in 1833 and "a faithful servant"? Could this be a man born into slavery who lived to see Emancipation? My curiosity is piqued! More research is needed!
Once we were home I started seeing what I could dig up on J. M. Pope. All I had to go on are initials, a surname, birth and death dates, and a location of the grave. If I am correct and he is Black, that means I face a real uphill slough. Records are sparse at best even into the 20th Century. Before that they get downright impossible to find.
What I found not only asks some interesting questions, it tells one helluva tale!
Up front, I did find his name. James Monroe Pope. I can only assume that the name comes from President James Monroe. Many people ended up with the name of a President over the centuries. But there is nothing I can find that tells how he ended up with the name. President Monroe was dead at least a couple of years by the time our James was born (records have him born closer to 1840 than 1833 as noted on his tombstone, and even the records do not agree - shocking to any who has done any amount of genealogy research, I know). And he left office six years earlier in 1825. Was our James named for the President? Or did the person who named him have a different relationship with President Monroe? Service in the military perhaps? Alas, we are left with only speculation.
Hardly a surprise, but I can locate little about our James prior to adulthood. Records of Black people - free or slave - are damned rare in the 19th century. Especially in the early to mid-years. One of the first items I can locate is the 1870 United States Census where he appears age 31 , a Mulatto (this would have him born in 1839 and factors into my speculations later) married to Elizabeth (Black, age 30) and the father of a 7 year old son, "Little M".
That entry alone is interesting. The son later turns out to be named James Monroe Pope, Jr. But on the first census where all Blacks (at least those who responded or were not deliberately excluded) were enumerated as people instead of chattel the kid is listed by a nickname.
Beautiful. That is a real snapshot into this family. It brings people to life in a way few other things could. Surprising what little unexpected facts you can glean from these records.
I pause here to define a term and place it in context as it factors in the data analysis. Mulatto. In most precise terms this is a person with one White and one Black parent, though it was also used more generally to denote mixed race. There were other terms used at the time to denote even more specific percentage of Black ancestry. Someone with one Black grandparent was a Quadroon, and one Black Great-Grandparent was an Octaroon. While common at the time these terms are long relegated to history and at best deemed passé. At worst they are deeply offensive racist slurs. Whatever your feelings on the words are, they are what was recorded and need to be acknowledged for the data they reveal.
In this case this reveals to an almost certitude that James had a Black mother and White father, or less probable, a White grandfather. Given the dates, locations, races, and other matters involved, the most probable case was that he was born to a slave woman impregnated by a white slave owner with probable details that would have involved. This, too, factors into my analysis later.
As an additional bit of 'interesting' data; on the 1870 Census James appears 5 households after one of my 3rd Great-Grandfathers and 8 households away from one of my 2nd Great-Grandfathers (the Son-in-Law of that 3rd Great-Grandfather) meaning it is highly probable that my ancestors knew if - if not knew specifically - James. The respective farms were only a few miles apart. Practically neighbors for the time.
But! That is not the earliest record I find. The earliest entry is James appearing in the Reconstruction Registration Oath Book in 1867.
For those not familiar with this bit of history, in order to "Exercise The Franchise" - that is vote - for delegates to the State Constitutional Convention in 1867 were required to sign an oath that eligible to vote (basically the individual swore that he was not a felon and had not participated in rebellion or insurrection against the United States Government - this prevented Confederates from voting until their rights were later restored). This is the first time I have encountered these records.
I know I have the right James Monroe Pope when I see the designation "Col" after his name (James is the entry on the bottom of the page).
It may seem odd and unnecessary to have a Black man in Georgia immediately post slavery take an oath that he did not fight for the Confederacy. But bear in mind that Felons were also barred from voting. Felon status - whether due to a conviction as a slave or free man - would also preclude being able to vote. Still, it does look like a damned fool requirement all things considered until all the facts are considered.
Whether James actually voted or not I have not been able to learn. At least we know he tried to some extent. Pretty gutsy.
I find additional Census entries for James and family in 1880 and 1900 (recall that the 1890 Census was destroyed in a fire in the 1930s) where two additional children appear; William (born 1872) and Lizzie (probably Elizabeth though all records give her name only as Lizzie, born 1875).
Focusing on the 1880 Census for a moment, it shows James under the name Monroe born about 1840, and Elizabeth as "Betsy" and born in 1835! More interesting is the appearance of a Black female named Cain Barrow, age 80 (making her born about 1800). On most Census records there is what some people call a "Bug" - a check mark, an 'X', or some other doodle to indicate which person in the household provided the data. This is helpful in cases like this in determining the relationship listed. Specifically, whose mother this is, James' or Elizabeth's. Unfortunately there is no Bug on the family's entry. Damn.
Assuming that she is James' mother lacking anything to the contrary (such as being listed as Mother-in-Law as was often done), and that she was a former slave, we have a titillating clue to consider. Slaves had no surnames. With Emancipation they had to select one. Many took the name of their former owner. Cain was almost certainly a former slave. Did she choose the name of her former master? Barrow? That was a family of note in the area (indeed, there is a nearby County bearing the name!). With the inscription on James' marker added to the mix it seems very probable that she did. And this is not the last time the Barrow name comes up.
That Barrow name again. A pattern is emerging.
We can only wonder what that missing 1890 Census might have revealed.
The 1900 Census brings more questions than answers, I am afraid. James is listed under the name Monroe again along with wife Lizzie, but this time with two grandsons, Arthur R and Charlie Davenport ages 4 and 1 respectively. James is now Black as the Mulatto designation is no longer used.
It is here where the questions start up.
Lizzie and James are shown to be married 41 years. 1900 minus 41 places the marriage in 1859. Was this a pseudo-marriage of slaves? Was it a legally acknowledged marriage between Free People? Was there ever anything more than a Common Law marriage? Unless documentation of a registered marriage miraculously appears we will never know. If their marriage started only as a declaration between slaves then the fact they managed to remain together during and after slaver then it is all the more remarkable they were together so long.
Lizzie is recorded as having born 2 children with none surviving. Huh? We have already seen James and wife having three children. And if they were together 41 years then this could not possibly be a second wife. More on this paradox later. Stay tuned!
With only one known daughter, and unless there is a real hoo-ha with one of the sons having illegitimate children, these two had to be the children of daughter Lizzie by some man named Davenport. Is Lizzie deceased at this point? She was born about 1875 so she was about 20 when Arthur R was born in 1895 and 23 when Charlie was born in 1898 (these birth years are noted on the 1900 Census). If she is alive, why are her sons living with their grandfather?
These questions goaded me into researching and building a family tree for James and Elizabeth. More on where that led later.
One last note on the 1900 Census: The household immediately after James' is that of a widow, Nettie Edwards, and her seven children. Remember that name.
James was taxed throughout the last half of the 19th Century on about 251 acres of land along with livestock and other property. Under any circumstances this is damned impressive. A Black man in the 1800s owning property was in and of itself no small feat. And if he was a recently freed slave then it is not only impressive, it is nearly a miracle! How? Where did the money come from? Or, perhaps, was this something done to protect the land from confiscation? Could it have been transferred to him by his White father/former owner?
Detailed land records are not immediately available to me (damned pandemic!) so I cannot determine the ownership history of the land James ultimately held. Maddeningly there are Pope and Barrow landholders - several of them - making it possible that either or both families could be involved in his coming to own the property.
Or he could have free and worked to earn and amass the wealth.
James died in January 1910 so he did not live long enough to participate in the 1910 Census. But he left a will!
After the pro forma statement that his just debts be paid he leaves Elizabeth $300 and grants her the right to dwell in their home on the farm and use the garden (bear in mind that a garden would have been next to the house and been intended for food as opposed to the for-profit crops grown on the farm itself) until her death or remarriage,
Next he leaves the farm and all the ancillary goods to one Net Edwards and her 7 children. Remember the Nettie Edwards living next to James on the 1900 Census? The name I told you to remember? Yup. She gets all the property! Specifically she and her children as once the youngest is of age they all divide the property and get one eighth share each. All this subject, of course, to the provisions granted to Elizabeth.
Nice for them!
Next he speaks to his two sons, James Monroe, Jr. and William.
Wait. What? According to the 1900 Census there are no surviving children. Maybe what he leaves the boys will explain that.
"To my sons J. Monroe Pope, Jr and William Pope I give one dollar each. I have already given them advances equal to full share of my estate.
As Net Edwards and her children by their labor assisted me in paying for the farm, I think this will is just."
Ouch! That is a serious rebuke! And one could easily see the 'no living children' count from the 1900 Census as being a statement that his sons were dead to him.
And Lizzie was not referenced at all!.
Lastly he names his Executor. James Barrow. Barrow! Again with that name! How tempting it is to weave a tale whereby James has a White father named Barrow who effectively acknowledges James as his son, gives him a position of trust in the family, transfers land to him post war, and there being a sufficient relationship of trust with the Barrows that James names one to be his executor. A half-brother? Nephew?
The imagination reels!
All these revelations and questions led to building out that Family Tree to see if it would provide any more answers.
The answer is Yes. And No.
James, Jr. married a woman named Alice. He died in 1923. They had seven children, four sons and three daughters. I haven't traced all those lines yet. Two of the sons, Walter and Jonah served overseas in World War I. Several vanish from the records in the 1910s. Only two lived to adulthood for certain, Maggie and Jonah.
William last appears on the 1910 Census then vanishes.
Lizzie, on the other hand, married Jessie Davenport. They had eight children - six sons and two daughters. Lizzie disappears after the 1910 Census when she would have been 35 or so. A victim of the Spanish Flu, perhaps? Their children scattered to the Four Winds, ending up in any number of far flung states.
What happened in this family that James would so deliberately snub his children so? For him to have amassed a decent estate only to give it all to someone else? Who can tell?
But my imagination and my analytic nature joins forces here. I see someone born to and of the worst circumstances who ended up thriving and prospering. And that is a life worth remembering.
