In 1860, Frances was enumerated on the federal census in Natchitoches Parish in the household of her husband Claiborne Martin Oliver, whom she married 12 January 1854 in DeSoto Parish, and this census shows Frances as aged 24 and born in Alabama.[3] The census lists C.M. Oliver as a planter aged 31, born in Alabama, with a real worth of $1,760 and personal worth of $1,200. In the household are daughters Cornelia S., 5, Lucy A., 2, and Mary H., 1. Three houses prior to this household is the family of Claiborne Martin Oliver’s widowed stepmother Lucy Holloway Oliver.
As indicated above, on 12 January 1854 in DeSoto Parish, Frances Birdwell married Claiborne Martin Oliver, son of Theodorick Oliver and Elizabeth Martin.[4] As the previous posting indicates, at some point between her listing on the federal census on 1 September 1860 and 27 June 1870, when her daughters Lillia and Lue were enumerated on the federal census in the household of their aunt Sophronia Birdwell Turner, Frances had died.[5] Lillia and Lue were Cornelia and Lucy of the 1860 census.
Claiborne Martin Oliver was born in 1830 in Dallas County, Alabama. His age – thirty-two – and place of birth are stated in his enlistment papers when he enlisted on 6 May 1862 at Natchitoches, Louisiana, in Co. B (Captain J.D. Shelley’s company) of the 11th Battalion of Louisiana Infantry, CSA.[6] Claiborne was the son of Theodorick Oliver (1799 – abt. 1854) and Elizabeth Martin, who married in Dallas County, Alabama, on 24 February 1820.[7] His Civil War enlistment papers state that he had blue eyes and light complexion and was 5′ 9″ tall.
As a previous posting notes, on 16 August 1856, Claiborne Martin Oliver witnessed a conveyance of land by Hardin and Hannah Birdwell Harville in DeSoto Parish to Sarah A. Warren, wife of John J. Greening.[8] Claiborne also appears in the Natchitoches Parish succession records of Hardin Harville giving oath on 16 August 1860 to be under-tutor for the minor heirs of Hardin Harville.[9]
On 2 April 1860 at the federal land office in Natchitoches, Claiborne bought 321 acres of federal land in Natchitoches Parish in township 13, range 9 west.[10]
On 21 January 1861, Natchitoches Parish court appointed C.M. Oliver to be one of those comprising the family meeting to discuss the tutorship of the children of Simeon Lawrence Harris after Simeon’s brother-in-law William A. Holland filed for tutorship.[11] Simeon is one of my ancestors. His granddaughter Vallie Snead, my grandmother, married Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, my grandfather, whose grandmother was Camilla Birdwell, sister to Claiborne Martin Oliver’s wife Frances. Samuel B. Harris, Simeon’s brother, served in in Co. B of the 11th Battalion of Louisiana Infantry along with Claiborne Martin Oliver, as did two uncles of Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, Michael Dorsey Lindsey and Thomas Madison Lindsey. Also serving in this same military unit was Lewis Livingston Turner, who married Frances Birdwell’s sister Sophronia, and whose sister Virginia married Frances and Sophronia’s brother Thomas Birdwell.
The Civil War service papers of Claiborne Martin Oliver state that he died 10 March 1863 at Marksville, Louisiana, having served continuously to that date from his enlistment at Natchitoches on 6 May 1862 in the 11th Battalion of Louisiana Infantry. The service papers do not state a cause of death. I’m not aware of any military action that took place at Marksville in March 1863.
So between 1860 and 1870, the two daughters of Frances Birdwell and husband Claiborne Martin Oliver who remained alive in 1870, Cornelia and Lucy, had lost their parents and had been taken into the household of their recently widowed aunt Sophronia Birdwell Turner.
8. Sophronia Birdwell, the eighth child of James G. Birdwell and Aletha Leonard, was born in September 1841 in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, and died 5 April 1902 at Belton, Bell County, Texas. The September 1841 birthdate is stated on the 1900 federal census, in which she is enumerated at Belton in the household of her daughter Lettie and husband Benjamin J. Jacobs.[12] The census gives Sophronia’s name as S. Turner and states that she was born in Louisiana in September 1841 and was a widow, mother of five children of whom two were living. The census shows this family living at 199 Wall Street in Belton. As the previous posting notes, in 1900, Sophronia’s brother Thomas Birdwell was living at 181 Wall Street.
Sophronia Birdwell Turner’s tombstone in North Belton cemetery gives her name as Saphronia Turner and says that she died 5 April 1902, aged 60.[13] This tombstone information corroborates the September 1841 date of birth on the 1900 census.
As was noted in a previous posting, on the 1850 federal census and above, Sophronia and her sister Frances were enumerated in the household of their sister Hannah and husband Hardin Harville in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, their father James Birdwell having died in December 1849 and Hardin Harville being named their tutor at a family meeting on 8 June 1850.[14]
On 8 August 1856 in DeSoto Parish, Sophronia married Lewis Livingston Turner, son of Ezekiah Hampton Turner and Elizabeth Ann Jones.[15] Both Livingston Turner and Sophronia Birdwell signed the marriage contract with James L. Wright, a minister of the gospel, performing the ceremony, and Samuel Clark, John Basy, and Benjamin S. Lee or Lot witnessing.
As noted above and previously, Livingston Turner was a brother of Virginia Turner who married Sophronia’s brother Thomas Birdwell. For a discussion of Ezekiah H. Turner, who appears as Elias Hampton Turner in some records, and who was a well-to-do planter on the Red River in DeSoto Parish, see this previous posting.
The 1860 federal census shows Livingston Turner and his family living in Natchitoches Parish.[16] Livingston is 22, a planter born in Louisiana, with $2,500 personal worth. Wife Saphrona is 19 and also Louisiana-born. In the household are Livingston and Sophronia’s daughters Elizabeth A., 2, and Frances V., 10 months, along with Sophronia’s younger sister Mary Ann Birdwell, aged 15 and born in Louisiana. The 1860 federal census also enumerates Livingston Turner in his father’s household in DeSoto Parish, stating that he’s 22 years old and born in Mississippi and “attending to farm.”[17] The dual census entries suggest to me that Livingston Turner was working, as a married man, on his father’s plantation; the fact that’s listed in Natchitoches Parish with personal worth and no real worth suggests that he was farming his father’s land. The $2,500 personal property Livingston Turner held in 1860 was undoubtedly the two enslaved persons, a female aged 19 and male aged 13, enumerated as belonging to him on the 1860 federal slave schedule for Natchitoches Parish.[18] The 1860 federal slave schedule for DeSoto Parish shows Livingston Turner’s father E.H. Turner owning twenty-six enslaved persons in that parish.[19]
As stated above, Livingston Turner served in the same military unit in which his brother-in-law Claiborne Martin Oliver served during the Civil War — Co. B, 11th Battalion Louisiana Infantry, CSA.[20] His service papers show him enlisting at Natchitoches on 30 July 1862 and being discharged due to disability at Camp Edwards at Delhi, Louisiana, on 11 October 1862. His discharge papers contain a statement signed by surgeon Charles A. Ashlin on 12 October stating that Livingston Turner was suffering from rheumatism and chronic diarrhea and would not be capable of being a soldier due to these afflictions. The discharge certificate states that Livingston was twenty-four years old, born in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, and was 5’8¾” tall with blue eyes, dark complexion, and dark hair.
Livingston Turner was living on 15 January 1869 when he witnessed the sale of his sister Virginia Turner Birdwell’s interest in her share of the succession of their sister deceased sister Julia in DeSoto Parish.[21] But by 27 June 1870, when his wife Sophronia appears as head of their household in DeSoto Parish, he had died. As was noted previously and also above, the 1870 federal census shows Sophronia Turner in the 6th ward of DeSoto Parish at Mansfield post office heading her household, aged 30 and born in Louisiana, with a personal worth of $1,000, and with a household in which are found her children Fanny, 8, William, 6, and Lettie, 4 and her nieces Lillia and Lue Oliver, 13 and 12.[22]
As previous postings note (here and here), in 1872 several of the Harville sons of Sophronia’s sister Hannah moved from Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, to Belton in Bell County, Texas, and it appears that at that time or shortly afterwards, Hannah followed those sons to Belton, as did her brother Thomas Birdwell with his family. I think that Sophronia Birdwell Turner also joined her siblings Hannah and Thomas in moving to Belton at this time. She appears on the 1880 federal census in Belton aged 37, a widow and housewife born in Louisiana, with children Fanny, 18, a seamstress, Lettie, 15, also a seamstress, and Willie, 12, all born in Louisiana.[23] Note that William was older than Lettie on the 1870 census.
An article published in the Galveston Daily News on 10 February 1892 states that while going to church in Belton the previous Sunday (7 February), Mrs. Sophronia Turner had fallen on the sidewalk and dislocated her arm.[24] On 4 May, the Galveston paper reported that Mrs. Sophronia Turner had filed suit on the 2nd against the city of Belton, alleging that her fall and broken arm were caused by a defective sidewalk.[25] She was seeking $5,000 in damages. On 12 January 1893, Galveston Daily News reported that the case had been heard and a jury had awarded Mrs. Sophronia Turner $500 damages of the $2,000 for which she had actually filed suit (see the digital image at the head of the posting).[26]
As stated above, Sophronia is enumerated on the 1900 federal census in the household of her daughter Lettie and son-in-law Benjamin J. Jacobs at Belton.[27] She then died in Belton on 5 April 1902 and was buried in North Belton cemetery, in which her siblings Hannah and Thomas also rest.
9. Mary Ann Birdwell, the ninth child of James G. Birdwell and Aletha Leonard, was born in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, about 1845. As a previous posting notes, records pointing to Mary Ann’s year of birth vary: the 1850 federal census, which shows her living with her siblings Camilla and Clinton in Pointe Coupee Parish with their sister Elvira and Elvira’s husband Samuel Kerr Green gives her age as 5, suggesting a birth year of 1845.[28] As noted above, the 1860 federal census, listing her in the household of her sister Sophronia and husband Livingston Turner in Natchitoches Parish, gives her age as 15, corroborating the birth year of the 1850 census.[29] But as we’ll see in a moment, the 1870 and 1880 federal censuses show her as 22 and then 32, indicating a birth year of around 1848. I’m inclined to trust the testimony of the earlier censuses about the 1845 birth year, and as I note in the posting I’ve linked above, I wonder if her mother Aletha Leonard Birdwell died in or around 1845 giving birth to Mary Ann, though I have no evidence to show this.
As the posting linked in the previous paragraph states, if Mary Ann was, as seems likely, the last child of James and Aletha Leonard Birdwell, it appears strange that it was her older sisters Frances and Sophronia who were listed as the minor heirs of James and Aletha in their combined succession records.[30] Mary Ann is listed in Hardin Harville’s appeal to administer the succession with the children of James and Aletha who were initially named as minors, but whose names were crossed out, leaving Frances and Sophronia the two minor heirs.
Between 1860 and 1870, Mary Ann married George Adolphus Friend, son of Edwin Thomas Friend and Martha Ferriby Row of Natchitoches Parish. I have not been able to find a record of the marriage. The couple’s first child, a son named James Edwin, was born 14 March 1869, so it appears likely that George and Mary Ann married by 1867.
George, who was born 10 August 1839 in Natchitoches Parish, enlisted on 4 June 1861 at Monroe, Louisiana, in Company B (Captain John McEnery’s Ouachita Blues), 4th Louisiana Infantry Battalion (CSA).[31] His service papers state that he was residing in Natchitoches Parish at his enlistment. George was a corporal of his company. When his company surrendered at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on 4 May 1865, he was paroled at Meridian, Mississippi, on 10 May 1865.
George Adolphus Friend and wife Mary Ann Birdwell are enumerated on the 1870 federal census in Natchitoches Parish at Coushatta Chute, with their young son Edwin in the household.[32] George’s name is given as Adolph Friend; the census reports that he’s aged 31 and born in Louisiana. Mary Ann is aged 22 and also born in Louisiana. In the household is son Edwin, born in April. The preceding household is that of George’s parents, with his father Edwin being enumerated as a farmer aged 57 born in Georgia with real worth of $1,500 and personal worth of $500. George was working as a young married man on the farm of his father. According to Ricky Lee Sherrod and Annette Pierce Sherrod, Edwin Thomas Friend had a farm of 440 acres near Coushatta Chute, land that fell into Red River Parish at its formation in 1871.[33]
As a previous posting notes, when Mary Ann Birdwell’s sister Hannah married her second husband Ezekiel Samuel Green in Natchitoches Parish on 11 December 1867, Edwin Thomas Friend and his son Henry Row Friend were witnesses of the marriage contract.[34] And on 20 September 1873, when John W. Watts and wife Selah Latham Watts conveyed 80 acres in Red River Parish to Lorenzo Wingo with a lot for the Methodist Episcopal church excepted from the conveyance, Edwin Thomas Friend witnessed the conveyance along with Mark Jefferson Lindsey, whose son Alexander Cobb Lindsey married Mary Ann Green, a daughter of Ezekiel S. Green by his first wife Camilla Birdwell.
By 1874, Edwin Thomas Friend and his son George had moved their families from Red River Parish, Louisiana, to Bell County, Texas. Ricky Lee Sherrod and Annette Pierce Sherrod write,
Two other important Red River parish migrants also sojourned in Bell County, namely Edwin Friend (Raleigh [Williams]’s step-father-in-law and Natchitoches Parish notary public during Reconstruction years) and his son, George Adolphus (who served on Red River Parish’s first grand jury alongside G.W. Sherrod and Joseph Dixon). Edwin is found there no later than December 1874. By then, Friend’s principal Louisiana acreage had passed through credit deed to Isaac Murrell, and Edwin had relocated in the cotton country of Bell County.
In making this move, the Friends joined Mary Ann Birdwell’s siblings Hannah, Thomas, and Sophronia in Bell County, though the Friends moved on to Comanche County in the case of Edwin and Coryell County in the case of George and Mary Ann. Coryell joins Bell County on the northwest, and Comanche is to the northwest of Coryell, with Hamilton County separating those two counties.
The 1880 federal census shows the family of George A. Friend enumerated in Coryell County.[35] George is listed as 39, a farmer born in Louisiana. Mary Ann is 32, born in Louisiana. In the household are children James E., 10, Martha, 8, Benjamin, 6, Floyd, 4, and Herman, 1. All children except Floyd and Herman were born in Louisiana, with the last two born in Texas.
According to Carter Watkins Friend, Mary Ann Birdwell Friend died about 1885.[36] On 30 May 1905, George filed for a pension for his Confederate service in Montgomery County, Texas, stating that he had moved to that county in 1887 and that his wife had died (by 1905).[37] If Mary Ann died in or around 1885, then it seems likely she died in Coryell County and George then relocated to Montgomery, where he appears on the 1900 federal census as a widower.[38] George was farming and owned his farm, with his sons James and Herman living with him and working on his farm.
George Adolphus friend died in 1913 in Cherokee County and is buried in Providence cemetery at Dialville there, with a tombstone giving his years of birth and death, 1839 and 1913.[39] As I’ve just noted, I don’t have documented information about either precisely when or where Mary Ann died, and I don’t know where she’s buried. If, as I think likely, she died in Coryell County, then it’s also likely she’s buried there.
[1] 1850 federal census, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, western district, p. 176A (dwelling 225/family 214; 3 September 1850).
[2] DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, succession file no. 159; and DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Succession Bk. D, pp. 643-650.
[3] 1860 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 457 (dwelling/family 239; 1 September).
[4] FamilySearch, Louisiana Parish Marriages, 1837-1957, indexing and transcribing the marriage record in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Marriage Bk. A. The marriage record gives Claiborne’s name as C.J.M. Oliver.
[5] 1870 federal census, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, 6th ward, Mansfield post office, p. 534 (dwelling/family 238; 27 June).
[6] NARA, Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Confederate Organizations, compiled 1903 – 1927, documenting the period 1861-1865, RG 109, file of Claiborn M. Oliver, available digitally at Fold3. See also Andrew B. Booth, comp., Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands (New Orleans, 1920), vol. 3, book 2, p. 26.
[7] Dallas County, Alabama, Marriage Bk. D, p. 22. On Claiborne Martin Oliver as Theodorick’s son, see Theodorick’s Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, succession file no. 836. The 1850 federal census shows Claiborne in Theodorick Oliver’s household in Natchitoches Parish, aged 21 and with his name given as Claibourn. Theodorick is listed as J. Oliver: 1850 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 48 (dwelling/family 409; 7 November). The 19 July 1851 Perry County, Alabama, will of Elizabeth Martin Oliver’s father Claiborne Martin shows Elizabeth as Claiborne Martin’s daughter and as deceased by 19 July 1851: see Perry County, Alabama, Will Bk. A, pp. 302-303. See also Robin Willis, “Martin & Buckley, Part 1: Oglethorpe/Elbert GA, & Perry AL,” at her excellent Digging Up Dead Relatives blog.
[8] This conveyance is abstracted in notes of Sadie Greening Sparks posted at the DeSoto Parish GenWeb site, with no information about the conveyance book in which the record appears.
[9] Loose-papers succession file of Hardin Harville, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, file no. 1153. And see Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Succession Bk. 32, pp. 25-8.
[10] Bk. 690, p. 101, certificate no. 13501.
[11] Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Succession Records Bk. 32, pp. 104-8; Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, succession files no. 1176.
[12] 1900 federal census, Bell County, Texas, Belton, precinct 1, p. 63A (ED 17; dwelling/family 199; 8 June). Benjamin J. Jacobs’ name is given as J.B. Jacobs and his wife Lettie is L.L. Jacobs. J.B. Jacobs’ occupation is gambler. He’s one of 17 men listed with the profession of gambler in Belton on this census.
[13] See Find a Grave memorial page of Saphronia Birdwell Turner, North Belton cemetery, Belton, Bell County, Texas, created by PFC Frank Irons Sr. Retired US Army 1977, maintained by Deana Hickman, with a tombstone photo by PFC Frank Irons Sr. Retired US Army 1977.
[14] See supra, n. 2.
[15] DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Marriage Bk. A, pp. 215-6.
[16] 1860 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 152 (dwelling/family fam. 1311; 1 October).
[17] 1860 federal census, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Mansfield post office, p. 86 (dwelling 629/family 651; 2 September).
[18] 1860 federal slave schedule, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 196.
[19] Ibid., DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, p. 172.
[20] NARA, Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Confederate Organizations, compiled 1903 – 1927, documenting the period 1861-1865, RG 109, file of Livingstone Turner, available digitally at Fold3. See also Andrew B. Booth, comp., Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands (New Orleans, 1920), vol. 3, book 2, p. 899.
[21] De Soto Parish, Louisiana, Succession Bk. L, p. 578.
[22] 1870 federal census, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Mansfield post office, p. 534 (dwelling/family 238; 27 June).
[23] 1880 federal census, Bell County, Texas, Belton, p. 266 (ED 1; dwelling 206/family 226; 5 June).
[24] Galveston Daily News (10 February 1892), p. 3, col. 3.
[25] Ibid., (4 May 1892), p. 6, col. 8.
[26] “Damage Judgment Against Belton,” Galveston Daily News (12 January 1893), p. 6, col. 2.
[27] See supra, n. 12.
[28] 1850 federal census, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, p. 37 (dwelling/family 644, 5 September).
[29] See supra, n. 16.
[30] See supra, n. 2.
[31] NARA, Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Confederate Organizations, compiled 1903 – 1927, documenting the period 1861-1865, RG 109, file of G.A. Friend, available digitally at Fold3. See also Andrew B. Booth, comp., Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands (New Orleans, 1920), vol. 1, p. 933. George’s date of birth is stated in Carter Watkins Friend, The Descendants of Captain Thomas Friend, 1700-1760, Chesterfield County, Virginia (Alexandria, Virginia, 1961), pp. 27-9. This source appears to be citing a bible in which the birthdates of the children of Edwin Thomas Friend are recorded.
[32] 1870 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, ward 1, Coushatta Chute post office, p. 305B (dwelling 72/family 69; 16 June).
[33] Ricky Lee Sherrod and Annette Pierce Sherrod, Plain Folk, Planters, and the Complexities of Southern Society (Nacogdoches: Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2014), pp. 285-6.
[34] Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Marriage Bk. 5, p. 76.
[35] 1880 federal census, Coryell County, Texas, district 23, p. 392A (ED 23; dwelling/family 10; 1 June).
[36] Friend, The Descendants of Captain Thomas Friend, 1700-1760, p. 28.
[37] Texas State Library and Archives, Confederate Pension Applications, 1899-1975, file 12071, Montgomery County, available digitally at Ancestry.
[38] 1900 federal census, Montgomery County, Texas, justice precinct 7, p. 29B (ED 112; dwelling 603/family 609; 26 June).
[39] See Find a Grave memorial page of George Addolphus [sic] Friend, Providence cemetery, Dialville, Cherokee County, Texas, created by Cindy Bobbitt, with a tombstone photo by Cindy Bobbitt.
BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS 