Surnames included in my work are Anderson, Ballard, Bozeman, Brack, Brooks, Carter, Crigler, Doty, Fenn, Handley, Hood, Little, McClain, Roby, Sellers, Stephens, Thornton, White, Wright and Weatherford and Young.
http://www.hometown.aol.com/alabamafamilies/Beginning.html
Most of my family research links are posted at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kc90853
http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~brooksgenealogy
Frank Delbert Cochran married Luella Coonfield and had Frankie Lavern Cochran
http://carter.rootschat.net/FrankAndLuellaCochran.html
and the one below.
http://kathycochran.tribalpages.com/
http://www.hometown.aol.com/kathycochran2/Family.html
http://www.hometown.aol.com/cochrangenealogy/Genealogy.html
Jacob married Clora Miller in Iowa and moved to Kansas. and their son Frank married Luella Coonfield in Arkansas.
http://www.angelfire.com/blog/cochran/
http://www.hometown.aol.com/kc90853/Jacob.html
Links http://kathy.rootschat.net/index.html
http://kc90853.tribalpages.com/
married in Kentucky
Hiram Lucius Little and Catherine G Wright had John Wright Little who married Catherine Crigler
married in Charlotte Virginia 1811 according to the Virginia State Records and their daughters married sons of Jonas Little in Kentucky
Photos and Documents and Other family Research
The Cochran and Coonfield lineage of the midwest. Alexander Cochran raised his family in Pennsylvania and soon settled into Ohio, possibly Quakers, with several sons joining the Civil War and even living in California during the Gold Rush. Later these young men moved to Iowa to farm the new land, and after several years, Jacob Benjamin Cochran moved to Kansas with second wife Clora Jane Miller, a daughter of Mary Clara Parker. Family lore is that Mary shared medicine with the indians and research shows that her ancestors were in the 1600s and 1700s New York Indian Country as well as Mass and Rhode Island, with one cousin, Joshua Tefft was killed by King Phillip. One Mr Sweete was banned from England as a Catholic Priest and lived in exile in France.
As far as documenting the Cochran lineage, I have none beyond Jacob to prove the names of his parents or grandparents. Locating a census record or a will or more would help to prove this lineage. Perhaps Jacob told his children about his parents but reading the census records, I can safely say there were dozens of Williams, Alexanders, and Jacob Cochrans in Pennsylvania and Ohio and even those who migrated to Iowa Territory. Apparently William Cochran married Martha Henderson in Ohio and had Jacob.
Fortunately for many other lineages, those before us have done a lot of research that I can go back and verify for myself leaving reason to believe most of what I can see.
Isaac and Barsheba Clark Coonfield spent many years in early Kentucky and then moved to Indiana with their grown children. She was found widowed on the 1830 census. Her son Isaac Benjamin Coonfield moved his family to Arkansas. This family is mentioned in the book of the Early History of Morgan County Indiana. Benjamin Wallace Coonfield married Lattie Cedonia Little and they had Amy, Ruth and Luella Coonfield. Amy married Joe Gray and I had corresponded with their daughter Verna, who forwarded copies of her late sister's research ( Dorline Gray ) who was trying to connect this lineage to Chief Powhatan.
Dorline had also been corresponding with our cousin Martha in Arizona, who also shared a great amount of research with me regarding L P Little. L P Little had a great way of leaving a trail of his elders by giving each child a middle name of one of his ancestors and I am honoring him and his work by writing about him on the Kentucky webpage.
Arkansas land records indicate that Isaac Coonfield bought land in 1856.
Hiram Lucius Little, son of Betsy Douglas and Jonas Little, had lost his wife, Catherine Wright, in Kentucky and moved to Texas. His son John Little served in the Civil War as a blacksmith, married, had several children, lost his wife and then moved his family into Arkansas. Our grandma Betsy was found widowed and living with her daughter Betsy Roberts on the 1850 census.
Hiram Little married Rebecca Isabella Adams in Bosque County Texas and had more children including a Hiram jr. Most are buried at the Meridian Cemetery. Hiram's headstone refers to him as a doctor and a mason.
Apparently some of the brothers of grandpa Jonas had already removed to Texas by 1800 and our Hiram had joined them. Our Texas migration needs further study.
Betsy Douglass Little had another son named Douglass Little who married Martha Ann Wright, his sister in law. Martha named her first son, Powhatan and he was a lawyer, and a judge, who was a great writer and did a lot of research on his lineage; as did his daughter, Laura Simmons Little. They traced Mary Handley to parents Martha Mason and George Handley of Ireland, noting that Mary was born asea, on the trip over. Mary's brother was Captain John Handley. Their notes also chart a Thomas Jones settling in the 1600s on James River in Bermuda Hundred, Henrico County, Virginia and wrote about a Polly Jones who may have been the wife or companion of Charles Weatherford.
Mother of the Wright sisters was Catherine Weatherford, a daughter of Charles Weatherford in Charlotte VA. Alabama land records indicate land sold to Charles in 1841 if this is his grandson by Red Eagle. So far records only indicate one Charles Weatherford born in this time period and it is quite possible that he had more than one wife than history would like for us to believe and if he was indian trader, he probably had many children that have not been noted. History also indicates that the father of Red Eagle was from Scotland, and a his grandson on the creek indian mailing list says that Charles fathered many children with many women and then went back to Scotland but we may never know the facts. Some family trees indicate that Charles was the son of Martin Weatherford and an indian woman called Mary in Charlotte Virginia who migrated to Georgia and I did find documentation in the Georgia Archives onlne that show Martin was a wealthy planter and it mentions nothing at all about Scotland. Martin was a loyalist, very outspoken and the state of Ga banned him so he moved his family to the Bahamas and more documentation is found to prove that.
Laura Little joined the DAR and had a monument dedicated to her great grandfather, Captain George Little in Kentucky. Laura's granddaughter, Martha, in Arizona has assisted with this research. Laura had studied the Weatherfords, Wrights and Chief Powhatan. Laura had joined the American Genealogical First Families. leaving a fantastic paper trail for her descendants to follow.
Parents of Betsy were Mary Handley and Alexander Douglass who were married in PA. MMary's brother Captain John Handley became a surveyor like Daniel Boone and on one trip to the new land in Kentucky, before 1800, his brother in law, Alexander Douglass went with him and never returned. Alexander was murdered by indians on his way back home. His wife took her girls and moved into a scottish settlement in South Carolina, where her daughter married Jonas little. Later the father of Jonas, George Little, married his son's mother in law. Both had become widowed but they had no children together that we know of.
Ironically there was an older Jonas Little in South Carolina, who's descendants moved southward and into Alabama and we can only suspect there may be some connection to George. The 1790 census of Newberry, Union, South Carolina shows George with a housefull of children but it also shows others around his home named Jonas, Joseph, William and John who could also be his Scottish siblings. Some of those came through Alabama and Texas but it is hard to configure.
Hiram Little's son was John Wright Little who married a Mary Catherine Crigler. John lived with her family before the marriage, with her parents Catherine Roby and Abraham Crigler.
Abraham's parents were Lydia Carpenter and Owen Crigler. Catherine's parents were Kitty Simmons and Reason Roby. These families left Virginia to settle in the new land of Kentucky about 1800 among friendly indians who were also migrating westward.
John and Mary were beautiful, dark complected, had black eyes and black hair and they had Cherokee blood.
The Battle of Alamo lists a soldier named Hiram Little and there is a possible connection to our lineage as some of the decendants are found in Texas census records. and one receiving a land grant in Texas.
Much of my research is being added to usgenweb.com
Descendant of all of these was Frankie Lavern Cochran born 1927.and Kathy Cochran who was born in Broken Arrow, Tulsa, Oklahoma later moved to Montgomery Alabama after spendng a few years in Arizona. Frankie had dark hair and blue eyes like his father and his younger pictures resemble his father, but as Frankie aged, he resembled his grandpa Coonfield very much. Pictures of Catherine Crigler and then those of the Coonfield women show us they all had long dark hair in braids and dark eyes. Luella Coonfield and her mother in law Clora Jane both smoked pipes. The pipes are in the possession of cousin Stanley.
Aunt Irma talked of granny Clora Jane Miller Cochran being a sweet old lady who stayed with them for a while when grandpa Jacob died. Clora stayed with each of her children, taking turns, as she had no place to go. She taught them about corn and how to pop it. She mysteriously read the ashes of her pipe. Aunt Irma was the child born with a veil over her face. The doctor removed the veil twice as it seemed to grow back and on the third veil, her mother Luella took it and placed it in the Bible where it still exists to this day.
Frankie's sisters have assisted with this research. There are many documents, pictures, census records, letters marriage licenses, death certificates, land records, wills, and our other research
.
Annie Carter as a baby being held by her Uncle Walton McClain shows us how very dark the McClain boys were just like their father with black eyes and black hair so it is
quite possible that the McClain lineage was of indian blood. Annie 's school picture shows that she had long straight black hair and black eyes, even though she had it curled up in this photo of her in 1953 pregnant with Kathy in Tulsa OK.
Looking at Annie's grandmother, Lorena Bozeman's lineage, I wondered repeatedly about her father's name, John Thomas Bozeman, and how it may have originated. His great grandfather Peter married a widow, Sarah Brown and she named her first son Meade so that may have been her maiden name; then a son was named William Henry and that could have been her father's name; so looking back at the 1790 census of South Carolina, I do find a William Meade and a Thomas Meade so this may be another clue in our mystery of names. We know that William Henry Bozeman might have been the first to name a son John Thomas Bozeman and wonder where the name Thomas came into play.
Digging through mom's letters and cards, I found an article from the newspaper of 1956 that listed Lorena McClain having surgery at Maxwell AFB hospital and later found that grandpa McClain had served in WWI. The article also listed Anne Cochran and family were relocating to Mesa Arizona and it listed her cousin James Duncan was going to San Antonio. These were found in Anne's old blue diaper bag that she used in Mesa AZ and brought back with her to Montgomery Alabama.
Arizana is a small memory in my mind. We had a lot of burritos and enchildas that mom cooked, took pictures in the desert and grand canyon, went swimming in the Verde River, Coonsbluff, and drove thru well lighted mountain tunnels. Most of our friends and neighbors were indian or mexican and we spoke a little spanish that I have long since forgotten. My cousin Frankie Haraughty was a daily playmate since his mom Eunice Cochran lived nearby. We played with, horned toads , strange bugs and creatures of the land and watched the daily irrigation of the fields when our front ditches filled with water every afternoon at 4. Frankie's brother Frances was called Chigger by my dad. Chigger was the one making home movies of us back then.
One of Lorena Bozeman 's distant cousins married a Jordan which is a line leading directly to Pocahontas and some of the Jordans settled in Elmore County. Lorena's uncle Peter Bozeman married a Dillard and that line also connects to Pocahontas.
Cousin Elizabeth helped with the Bozeman lineage as her grandmother Ethel was the sister of my great granny Lorena. Ruby Gibson told me that Charles McClain and Jason Gibson were cousins and we connected their mothers as Broadway children of Abner Broadway and I verified through census records. One of the Gibsons had marched in Governor Wallace's inaugural parade. Ruby also told me that my grandfather Cecil Carter was still in the military when he married my granny Alice McClain but I have not been able to verify.
We do not know if there were any suvivors benefits for Cecil's children as Lorena Bozeman McClain raised them but do know the McClains left Ramer and lived on Highland Avenue for a while. Cecil's adoption records have not been found, but his children knew of his Fenn family and I have contacted some of the Fenn relatives.
Cousin Martha Fenn had only a few blurred pictures of Cecils' siblings and told me where Uncle Frank and Uncle Robert were buried in Coosada, Elmore County, AL.
Her brother, my cousin Bob Fenn, talked about his family on the farm there is Coosada.
I found another cousin, Nancy Fenn, in Montgomery, who connects to the Mathew Fenn who owned the plantation in Eufaula.
Our great grandfather William Frank Fenn had married Anna Lou Stone and his great grandfather Michael Stone came to Alabama from Maryland. There is a Banister Stone in my McClain / Moon family of South Carolina but I have not made any connection; then my husband's lineage in Tennessee has a Catherine Stone of the Carolinas who married John Baptist Bond.
Michael Stone had married Polly Wells in Putnam, Georgia and they are found on a census living in a Captain John Stone's District. Their son Benjamin Wilburne Stone married Sarah Davies and had Augustus Marvin Stone. Augustus married Mary Ann Hendrick, a daughter of Mary Ann Winters and John Hendrick. The 1850 census of Macon County Alabama shows us Michael living next to son William and son Benjamin with their children's names listed.
Anna's brother was Arthur Augustus Stone and his son was William Arthur Stone, known as Tige to the St Louis Cardinals of 1923.
The obituary of grandpa Cecil lists a Walter Stone as a pallbearer. His death certificate is signed by his brother Emmett Fenn. Cecil is buried at Memorial Cemetery in Montgomery and Emmett is buried at Greenwood by their father. Their father's brother Madison is buried by them without a headstone. Madison was known as Uncle Mat. Uncle Mat had married and moved to Texas and never had any children, but came back to Montgomery after his wife died. Mat's brother Thomas had
also gone to Texas.
After taking pictures of their headstones at Greenwood, getting close to the exit I discovered the Bozeman family plot, with Nancy Jane Anderson Bozeman buried by her sons Robert and Meady and their families.
My husband's great grandparents Annie Clark Ballard and John Brooks of Tennessee are also buried at Greenwood by Susie Mae Cooper brooks. I would love to learn more about those TN families who had migrated from the Carolinas, during a time of indian removal . Indian Wars also caused many friendly indians to move westward..Annie Ballard was a beautiful dark featured lady who only had one child. Mary Josephine Hereford was from Virginina and her family all moved into Alabama and she wa also another beautiful dark featured lady.
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http://www.archives.state.al.us/teacher/settle.html
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After the Revolutionary War, the U.S. Government established laws to survey and sell land gained from Britain. The area that became Alabama was originally part of the Mississippi Territory from 1798 to 1817. Many settlers arrived in the area before government lands had been surveyed. Unable to buy, they simply picked a location, built a cabin, cleared fields, and put in crops. Such families were called squatters. Land laws were passed to provide legal title to land for settlers who already lived on the land. Some settlers claimed land by British or Spanish land grants, and others were squatters who claimed land by right of pre-emption.
Starting in 1804, U. S. Land Offices were established to sell land in the area which would become Alabama. By law federal land was sold to the highest bidders at public auctions. Alabama sales attracted men from all over the nation, many of them speculators. Groups of speculators bought large tracts, sometimes for as little as $10 an acre, then resold at $20 to $100 an acre. When an auction ended, poorer migrants could buy less desirable land for as little as $2 an acre. The smallest amount one person could buy was 160 acres. Under the Land Law of 1800 a purchaser could put one-fourth down and pay the rest off over three years. But when the price of cotton fell to eighteen cents a pound, few could meet payments on land bought at inflated prices. By 1820, Alabama owed the federal government $11 million--more than half of the national land debt. In 1820 and 1821 Congress passed new laws to deal with this problem. The Land Law of 1820 required future buyers to pay the entire amount in cash but lowered the minimums to $1.25 an acre and 80 acres. Those already in debt were aided by the Relief Act of 1821 which permitted them to keep part of their land and return the rest to the government or buy it all on the installment plan at reduced rates
Introduction to the Settlement Unit:
The defeat of the Creek Indians opened the heartland of Alabama to white settlement and caused Alabama fever to sweep the nation. Pioneers by the thousands left Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia seeking fertile land for growing cotton. Mississippi territorial law was in place, but when Mississippi became a state, Congress created the Alabama Territory in 1817. Congress designated St. Stephens as capital of the Alabama Territory and approved a legislature of Alabama delegates already elected to the old Mississippi territorial legislature. William Wyatt Bibb, a Georgia physician who had served in the United States Congress and had powerful friends in Washington, was named Territorial governor. He was also elected as the first governor when Alabama became a state December 14, 1819. He helped establish the government, pass laws and administer justice. The following documents deal with cost of government, land speculation, cotton, and law as settlers poured in the area during the early settlement of Alabama.
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At the start of the 19th century, Indians still held most of present-day Alabama. War broke out in 1813 between American settlers and a Creek faction known as the Red Sticks, who were determined to resist white encroachment. After General Andrew Jackson and his Tennessee militia crushed the Red Sticks in 1814 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in central Alabama, he forced the Creek to sign a treaty ceding some 40,000 sq mi (103,600 sq km) of land to the US, thereby opening about three-fourths of the present state to white settlement.
From 1814 onward, pioneers, caught up by what was called "Alabama fever," poured out of the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky into what Andrew Jackson called "the best unsettled country in America." Wealthy migrants came in covered wagons, bringing their slaves, cattle, and hogs. But the great majority of pioneers were ambitious farmers who moved to the newly opened area in hopes of acquiring fertile land on which to grow cotton. Cotton's profitability had increased enormously with the invention of the cotton gin. In 1817, Alabama became a territory; on 2 August 1819, a state constitution was adopted; and on the following 14 December, Alabama was admitted to statehood. Alabama, then as now, was sparsely populated. In 1819, its residents comprised 1.3% of the US population. That percentage had grown to only 2% in 1980.
During the antebellum era, 95% of white Alabamians lived and worked in rural areas, primarily as farmers. Although "Cotton was king" in 19th-century Alabama, farmers also grew corn, sorghum, oats, and vegetables, as well as razorback hogs and cattle. By 1860, 80% of Alabama farmers owned the land they tilled. Only about 33% of all white Alabamians were slaveowners. Whereas in 1820 there were 85,451 whites and 41,879 slaves, by 1860 the number of slaves had increased to 435,080, constituting 45% of the state population. Large planters (owners of 50 slaves or more) made up less than 1% of Alabama's white population in 1860. However, they owned 28% of the state's total wealth and occupied 25% of the seats in the legislature. Although the preponderance of the wealth and the population in Alabama was located in the north, the success of Black Belt plantation owners at forging coalitions with industrialists enabled planters to dominate state politics both before and after the Civil War. The planters led the secessionist movement, and most other farmers, fearing the consequences of an end to slavery, eventually followed suit. However, 2,500 white Alabamians served in the Union Army, and an estimated 8,000?10,000 others acted as Union scouts, deserted Confederate units, or hid from conscription agents.
Alabama seceded from the Union in January 1861 and shortly thereafter joined the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy was organized in Alabama's senate chamber in Montgomery, and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president on the steps of the capitol. Montgomery served as capital of the Confederacy until May, when the seat of government was moved to Richmond, VA.
Remote from major theaters of war, Alabama experienced only occasional Union raids during the first three years of the conflict. In the summer of 1864, however, Confederate and Union ships fought a major naval engagement in Mobile Bay, which ended in surrender by the outnumbered southern forces. During the Confederacy's dying days in the spring of 1865, federal troops swept through Tuscaloosa, Selma, and Montgomery. Their major goal, Selma, one of the Confederacy's main industrial centers, was left almost as heavily devastated as Richmond or Atlanta. Estimates of the number of Alabamians killed in the Civil War range from 25,000 upward.
During Reconstruction, Alabama was under military rule until it was readmitted to the Union in 1868. For the next six years, Republicans held most top political positions in the state. With the help of the Ku Klux Klan, Democrats regained political control of the state in November 1874.
Cotton remained the foundation of the Alabama economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, with the abolition of slavery it was now raised by sharecroppers?white and black landless farmers who paid for the land they rented from planters with the cotton they harvested. Alabama also attempted to create a "New South" in which agriculture would be balanced by industry. In the 1880s and 1890s, at least 20 Alabama towns were touted as ironworking centers. Birmingham, founded in 1871, became the New South's leading industrial center. Its promoters invested in pig iron furnaces, coal mines, steel plants, and real estate. Small companies merged with bigger ones, which were taken over, in turn, by giant corporations. In 1907, Birmingham's Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Co. was purchased by the nation's largest steelmaker, US Steel.
Another major Alabama enterprise was cotton milling. By 1900, 9,000 men, women, and children were employed in Alabama mills; most of these white workers were farm folk who had lost their land after the Civil War because of mounting debts and low cotton prices. Wages in mills were so low that entire families had to work hours as long as those they had endured as farmers.
1. Indian Territory until:
2. 1798 - Mississippi Territory
3. 1817 - became Alabama Territory
4. 1819: State of Alabama
4. 1819: State of Alabama. |
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