During 1884-1886, there were 90+ land sales in Liberty County involving African Americans as buyers, sellers or neighbors. These sales can tell you where your ancestor lived and when. The descriptions of the land are quite detailed, but normally are in terms of who the neighbors were so figuring out where they were is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
Here is an example both of a typical description and one of the reasons why a sale might be recorded years after the fact. This was recorded in Liberty County Superior Court in 1886.
“Whereas said John S. Andrews on or about A.D. 1873 did sell to said Henry Stevens a certain tract of land herein after described and whereas the said Henry Stevens paid for said tract of land the full price thereof agreed upon between the said parties to wit: the sum of about fifty dollars and the said John S. Andrews either neglected to make to said Henry Stevens a deed to said land or if made the said deed has been lost; therefore the said John S. Andrews for and in consideration of the said sum of about fifty dollars, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, hath bargained and sold, and by these presents doth remise, release and forever quit-claim to said Henry Stevens his heirs and assigns, all the right, title, interest, claim or demand the said John S. Andrews has or may have in and to said tract of land herein before referred to, situate lying and being in said State and County, containing twenty three acres, more or less, and bounded North by lands of Gabriel Andrews and family known as lot no. 2 containing forty six acres, east by road separating this tract of land herein conveyed from lands of Rev. Joseph Williams, south by lands of said Henry Stevens, known as lot no. 1, containing ninety two and one half acres, and west by lands of Cornelius Ryals…”
John S. Andrews was a White planter whose plantation was divided up into lots and sold off. There was more than one formerly enslaved man known as Henry Stevens, but the most likely to have been this Henry Stevens was a foreman on Thomas Mallard’s plantation when the Civil War broke out, then moved around the middle of the next December to Charles Colcock Jones’ Arcadia plantation, where he continued to labor as a foreman for Mallard. After the War, he purchased land that he called “Good Hopes.” In 1878 he successfully applied to the U.S. Southern Claims Commission for restitution for property the U.S. Army had taken from him when General Sherman’s troops came raiding in Liberty County after they arrived in Savannah in 1864. He had applied for $570.75 in compensation, and was awarded $210.75. In their summary of his claim, the Commissioners noted that he had “acquired and paid for some 95 acres of land.” They added that he had proven that he “was allowed to own and did own property” while enslaved.
Summaries of all 90+ land deeds are now on the They Had Names website: https://theyhadnames.net/land-sales-1884-1886/. If you’re looking for a particular name, scroll down to the end where you’ll find an index. Although the “page numbers” don’t fit the online version, you’ll be able to tell whether the person you’re looking for is in one of the deeds. Then you can search for the name using Ctrl-f (on a Windows machine). These summaries are from Liberty County Superior Court Deed Books U and V.
I’ve also finished 350+ records of promissory notes and liens from the same time period, in which Liberty County farmers, both Black and White, mortgaged property, often land, that was described in the same way. I’ll be posting those sometime this coming week.
I’m also finding Sheriff’s sales. When people defaulted on these promissory notes, the lender got a court judgment authorizing the Sheriff to seize the mortgaged property and sell it at auction in order to repay the note. Tax defaults also resulted in Sheriff’s sales. In 1881, Toney Hammond was unable to pay a tax bill of $1.10. After the court added 50 cents for paperwork, 35 cents as the cost of seizing the property, $3.35 for advertising the Sheriff’s sale, and 65 cents in commissions, he owed a total of $5.95. For that, the Sheriff seized “a lot of land lying and being in said County and State and bounded by the lands of Walthour, Lyons and others and lying on the village of Walthourville, said lot containing twenty acres more or less…lying in Fifteenth Dist[rict]…” and sold it to Robert B. Middleton for $13. Toney Hammond was a 42-year-old Black farmer at the time, and the 20 acres was all he had. He was married, to Grace, and had six children, ranging in ages from 3 to 18.
I’m working now on similar recorsd in a deed book covering 1882-1884.