I’ve been going through the loose papers in the Estate Files of the Liberty County Court of Ordinary (online at FamilySearch and Ancestry) looking for more information about the multiple slaveowner Simon Frasers of Liberty County. I had documented three such men, and have now found a fourth. It’s been a good lesson in not ignoring anomalous data. There is a headstone at the Midway Church cemetery for a Simon Fraser bearing the death year 1836, which fits none of the three Simon Frasers. The age range for the Simon Fraser in the 1830 Liberty County census also does not fit any of these three. So tempting to assume mistakes…but there he was in 1835 applying for U.S. citizenship and swearing he had been living in the United States since before 1802. So there was a 4th (or 5th?) Simon Fraser. Now to find out more about him and determine whether he was actually a slaveowner.
In the process of looking through those loose records, I found that one of the Simon Fraser’s had hired Peter and Clarissa out to the Savannah Albany & Gulf Rail Road in 1858. One had also used Grace, Archy, and Mary as collateral on apromissory note in 1822, and in 1826, Cuffy was seized from Simon A. Fraser to settle a debt and may have been sold at auction, the usual practice in such cases. I had not seen any of these records previously. You can now find them on the TheyHadNames.net website under “Recent Additions.” #TheyHadNames
Research Snippets
In the Freedmen’s Bureau records, I found an 1869 bounty application by Toney Anderson of Liberty County, who said he was 45 years old, living in “Baker Place” in Liberty County, and that he had been an undercook in Company C in the 22d Indiana Volunteer Infanty Regiment, mustered out in Louisville, Kentucky, on July 24, 1865. He was applying for $100 as a 1st installment under the Act of July 4, 1864.
I was curious how he came to be in an Indiana regiment. This regiment did fight all through Georgia, including with Sherman’s March to the Sea, so it seems likely that Toney Anderson joined them somewhere during that service.
What was the Act of July 4, 1864? I found this: “The Conscription Act of July 4, 1864, contained a provision whereby Northern States might escape draft by adding to their volunteers through recruiting efforts in Confederate territory. Any State governor could send recruiting agents into States still in rebellion and credit all recruits secured to any quotas within their States to which they chose to assign them.”
This appears to explain how Toney Anderson came to join an Indiana unit and apply for a recruitment bounty. He is listed in the Indiana Archives and Records Administration’s Civil War Soldier Database Index, which says he enrolled on December 15, 1864, which was exactly when Sherman’s Army was raiding Liberty County.
Toney would have been born around 1824, based on his own statement. No Toney Anderson of the right age was found in either the 1870 Liberty County or Chatham County (where the petition was filed) census records. No Toney Anderson was found in the 1867 Voter Registration rolls in Liberty County. An interesting puzzle that needs further examination.
[Shannon, F.A., “The Federal Government and the Negro Soldier, 1861-1865,” Journal of Negro History, 1926, p. 576, quoting U.S. Statues at Large, Vol. XIII, p. 379.]
What I’ve Been Reading
A big thanks to Mallard Benton, who recommended one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time: “Bitter Freedom: William Stone’s Record of Service in the Freedmen’s Bureau.” William Stone was a young, white, abolitionist Union soldier who was assigned as the Freedmen’s Bureau agent in various locations of South Carolina, including Edgefield County. His contemporaneous account of his experiences, which remained in his family’s possession until the 2008 publication of this book, is frank about his opinion of the Southern whites he came into contact with, the freedmen – for whom he had high hopes – and the cultural and economic environment of the time. He had been a farmer, so was well situated to judge, and he thought that Southern whites had completely wasted the opportunities Nature had given them.
A quote: “…I have yet to meet an officer of the Freedmen’s Bureau who has not found ample proof of the severest charges brought against slavery. Many an old man have I seen whose wife and children were long ago sold from him to go further south to the cotton fields of Mississippi and Louisiana, Many an old woman has received food from the Bureau who years ago was brought from “Virginny” and separated from all that was dear to her. Many a child is there who has never known either parent and of whose existence no one but his owner cared.” [page 22]
An utterly fascinating book for anyone interested in the aftermath of the Civil War for the freedmen. [Published by The University of South Carolina Press but available used on Amazon for a reasonable cost.]
How many other such accounts remain hidden in family hands?