Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878) and Mary Ann Harrison — Daughter Emma C. Lindsey (Cone) (Wester)

Tombstone of Emma C. Lindsey Wester, Provencal cemetery, Provencal, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana; photo by William Foley is from her Find a Grave memorial page

Or, Subtitled: Mysteries and Incongruities Piled Atop Each Other

Emma C. Lindsey was the fourth child of Mark Jefferson Lindsey and Mary Ann Harrison, and their only daughter — though, as the last posting notes, a grandson of Mark and Mary Ann, Aaron Bloomer Lindsey, stated in an August 1959 interview in the Coushatta Citizen newspaper that his grandparents had twelve children, and all accounts I have seen of their children include only nine children.[1] If A.B. Lindsey’s information is correct, Mark and Mary Ann may have had three children who died as infants, whose names no one among their descendants seems to have recorded, and those three children might well have included another daughter.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878) and Mary Ann Harrison — Sons Michael, Thomas, and Jeremiah

Engraving entitled “Destruction of the Queen of the West by Union Gun-Boats,” Harper’s Weekly 7,335 (30 May 1863), p. 340, uploaded to Wikipedia by Son of the South website

Or, Subtitled: Captured Gunboats and Floating Cotton Bales

Mark Jefferson Lindsey and Mary Ann Harrison had the following children (all surname Lindsey): Michael Dorsey; Thomas Madison; Jeremiah J.J.; Emma C.; Benjamin Dennis; Carry Samuel; Alexander Cobb; Charles Henry; and Mark Jefferson.[1] In what follows, I’ll discuss the first three of these children, sons Michael, Thomas, and Jeremiah. In subsequent postings, I’ll discuss the other children of Mark and Mary Ann in “batches,” setting Alexander Cobb, my great-grandfather, and Benjamin Dennis aside for discussion in separate postings, since I have more information about those two children of Mark and Mary Ann than the others.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878) — The Louisiana Years

Mark Jefferson Lindsey in 1870s; photo is reproduced in Henry C. Lindsey, The Mark Lindsey Heritage (Brownwood, Texas, 1982), p. 46; original in possession of John Ewan Kellogg, Coushatta, Louisiana, in 1980s

Or, Subtitled: The Lure of the New Cotton Frontier in Northwest Louisiana Prior to the War

In my last posting, I told you of a letter my uncle Henry C. Lindsey (Carlton to his family, but Henry professionally) sent me on 18 November 1980, in which he recounted what several elderly relatives he had just visited in Coushatta, Louisiana, told him about the move of Mark Jefferson Lindsey and wife Mary Ann Harrison to Louisiana in 1849 or 1850. These relatives told my uncle versions of stories I myself heard a number of times at the annual family reunion of descendants of Mark and Mary Ann in October each year in Red River Parish.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878)

Pen-and-ink drawing of Mark Jefferson Lindsey from “an old family bible,” reproduced in Henry C. Lindsey, The Mark Lindsey Heritage (Brownwood, Texas, 1982), p. 3

Or, Subtitled: Migration of Alabama Families to Northwest Louisiana, Late 1840s and Early 1850s

Establishing Mark’s Birthdate

In the bible of his sister Frances Rebecca Kellogg, Mark Jefferson Lindsey recorded his birthdate, stating that he was born “in the year 1820 Oct the 9,” son of D. and Jane Lindsey. Above the diary entry, Mark has written the date on which he made this record: “December the 4 1853.” We’re able to know that Mark himself wrote this entry since his handwriting matches that of other documents he wrote. In the signatures of Mark below, note the stylized J, for instance, with the loop running back through the top of it, and the stylized capital M. The first is from a 15 September 1838 deed of trust between Jacob H. Huffaker and John M. Davis in Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama, for a debt Huffaker owed Davis, with Mark signing as trustee.[1] The second is Mark’s signature as he gave bond on 19 October 1839 for his marriage to Mary Ann Harrison in Lawrence County.[2] The birth record for Mark in his sister Frances Rebecca’s bible is, it’s easy to ascertain, written in the same hand — by Mark himself.