Doddy Brown

In Doddy Brown’s 1877 testimony, he said he was 53, which would put his birth year around 1824. The 1870 census had his birth year as 1830, and the 1880 census as about 1825, so it appears likely he was born in 1824 or 1825.

In the 1870 U.S. census, he was listed as a farmer, and in the household were his wife Rose (40), and children Cato (15), Chloe (15), Posy Ann (11), Hester (9), Diana (7), and Polly (3). They were living near white farmers William and Mary Feaster and William R. and Sarah Shave, and black family James and Hetty Elliot, with 70-year-old Fatinier [or Fatimer] Ashmore in the household. Based on the researcher’s knowledge of these families, it appears they were living in the vicinity of north of Midway Church, between highway 17 and Isle of Wight.

In 1880, Doddy’s family continued intact, with Rose (55) still listed as his wife, and children Hester (19), Diannah (14), Polly (11), and now Howard (7), Margaret (3), and Eliza (1). However, sometime after 1880, Rose either died or they divorced, because by 1893, he was married to Amanda (born about 1855).

By at least 1883, Doddy Brown had bought land, as on March 27, 1883 he mortgaged 35 acres to one J.C. Thompson in return for $20 worth of groceries. He was to repay the amount in 6 months, at 8 per cent interest, or forfeit the land, his entire year’s crop of cotton, rice, and corn, and one red ox with white specks. Thompson made him go to Savannah to sign the mortgage. The land was described as being bounded north by land of Stephney Golding, south by land of Jim Elliot, east by land of Stephney Golding, west by land of Prime Wilson, all formerly enslaved people. Given that he was living next to Jim Elliot in the 1870 and 1880 censuses, it appears that it was the same land he had been living on for some time. He must have paid off the 1883 loan, because in 1884, he made the same deal, this time for $30 worth of groceries. [NOTE: Based on other such transactions, it appears “groceries” may have mean supplies needed to produce crops.]

Brown also sold land. On June 3, 1893, Dody Brown and his wife Amanda Brown sold to F.R. Sims for $13.50 a 1.5-acre tract of land known as part of lot #5, “part of the Toney Golding tract,” bounded north by the Midway public road, south by land owned by Dody Brown also in lot #5, east by land owned by Harry Porter, and west by land owned by Paul Maxwell in lot #6.

On July 7, 1896, Dody Brown sold to F.R. Sims for $12 a 1-acre tract of land that was part of lot #5 of the “Toney Golding tract,” as surveyed by S.L. Fleming on August 23, 1888, bounded north by land owned by F.R. Sims, east by land owned by Dody Brown, south by land “now owned” by Dody Brown and west by land owned by Paul Maxwell, “16 rods north, 16 south, 10 rods east and 10 west, running from point of beginning.”

Amanda Brown also bought land in her own name. On November 24, 1894, Reverend Floyd Snelson sold to Amanda Brown for $5 a one-quarter acre plot of land that Snelson had previously lived on and sold to the American Missionary Association in 1889. [NOTE: As recorded in the deed. Not clear how Snelson sold Amanda Brown land he had previously sold to the AMA, unless he was acting in the AMA’s name.] The deed said the land was part of the Arcadia Plantation, bounded north and east by land owned by the American Missionary Association, south by land of John Wilson, and west by land of R.L. Page. Deed witnessed by Dawson B. Snelson and F.C. Daniels. Recorded in Liberty County Superior Court on March 13, 1896, by George M. Mills, Court Clerk.

Doddy Brown died on February 26, 1900, according to Amanda’s April 1900 petition to the Liberty County Court of Ordinary for widow’s support. Traditionally, a group of appraisers would be assigned to inventory the deceased’s estate and set aside enough for the widow to live on for 12 months while the estate was being resolved. In this case, the appraisers — Rev. S.F. Fraser, W.J. James, D.D. James, Benjamin Dix and Isaac Morrison — found that Doddy Brown had owned only “2 1/2 acres of land and one house in Liberty County, Georgia, bounded by lands of Rev. Sims on the north, on the east by Jane McFadden, south by land Est. Mallard, and west by est. Paul Maxwell,” valued at $20, plus a red ox valued at $8, so this entire property was given to Amanda Brown.

Slavery

Both Doddy Brown and Edward J. Delegal had testified that Delegal was Brown’s owner at the time of the Civil War. Because Delegal lived until after the Civil War, there were no probate records showing Doddy. In this case, to trace Doddy’s life back further and possibly find his parents, it is usual to look at the slaveowner’s parents’ probate records to see if there are any clues. In this case, Delegal’s mother, Elizabeth Thompson, died in 1828, and his father, David Delegal, died before 1835. There was a joint estate inventory for the two parents in 1835, and Edward J. Delegal did inherit enslaved people from it, but there was no one with a name similar to Doddy, who would have been born by that time.

Delegal’s wife, Mary W. Thomson, also could have brought Doddy into the marriage. Her mother, Susan Jane Goulding Thomson, died in 1861, and her estate was inventoried in 1862, but again there is no one with a name similar to Doddy.

Probate records do not always hold the answers, because so much depends on when the slaveowner died, and in this case no easy answers were found. Often answers lie in the surname chosen by the formerly enslaved person, because in Liberty County people often chose a surname associated with an early slaveowner of their family. It would be worth investigating the white Brown family of early Liberty County, who intermarried with the Jurdines and the Broughtons, to see if there might be a connection there.