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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.
Most of my family research links are posted at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kc90853
http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~brooksgenealogy
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 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.
Arizona is but 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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
====
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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Must See Webpages
FAMILY TREE
Just a pretty family tree page; Researching Cochran, Brooks,
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My Family
photos of downtown Montgomery Alabama
Great Grandpa Jacob Benjamin Cochran