Sandy Austin, who had been enslaved on Joseph LeConte’s Syphax Plantation in Liberty County, Georgia, all his life until Emancipation, filed his Southern Claims Commission petition in 1873, asking for $396 in compensation for two horses, hogs, poultry and bees that were stolen from him by U.S. troops in December 1864. Following testimony by witnesses Sterling Jones, Fortune James, Aberdeen LeCounte, and W.A. Golding, he ultimately was allowed $162.
See Mr. Austin’s fully transcribed Southern Claims petition at: https://theyhadnames.net/2020/05/13/sandy-austin-southern-claims-commission/.
According to other published sources, Sandy Austin was born between 1810-1820 on the Syphax Plantation in Liberty County, owned at the time by Louis LeConte. It and Sandy were inherited by LeConte’s son Joseph LeConte, a prominent scientist and educator, after LeConte’s death in 1838. In 1846, Sandy was a member of the North Newport Baptist Church, which was attended at the time by both white and African-American members; it later became the First African Baptist Church, the oldest African-American church in Liberty County. After Emancipation, Sandy took the surname Austin, and by 1870 was married to Nanny and had three children, Phillis, Fannie, and Sandy Jr. In the 1880 census, Austin’s parents were listed as having been born in Georgia. Both Sandy and Nanny apparently died prior to the 1900 census.