March 2024 – My Maryland-Louisiana Roots

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will say that I am a genealogy enthusiast at best or that I am a genealogy nut at worst. My son once said that I could find a way to swerve any conversation into the genealogy lane. A significant part of my obsession with genealogy research includes the who begat who stuff. I want to trace my lineage as far back as possible. I want to know, if possible, where we got or chose the surnames on the family tree: Guy, Jenkins, Smith, Gibson, Riggs, Morgan, Hill, Alexander. I want to know how my Maryland, Virginia and Carolina ancestors came to be in Louisiana. I understand how the lure of wealth in the industries of sugar cane, cotton, rice, etc. led to the movement of slaves to the south and west. I’ve read many slave narratives that detailed how people were trafficked by way of steamships equipped with sails through New Orleans from Richmond, VA, Charleston, SC, or Savannah, GA or shipped down rivers on flatboats and paddleboats or conveyed overland in coffles traveling through Alexandria, Winchester and Abingdon, VA, through Atlanta, GA, Montgomery, and Mobile, Ala to Louisiana. After reading these stories, I wanted to know my ancestors’ stories–who brought them, how they travelled, who they left behind, or if there is DNA evidence to link me to those left behind. I want to know how they lived, what they did for work and pleasure and anything that might help inform me on how we, I, came to be the people, person that now live. In essence, I wanted to walk in their footsteps.

During my initial years of genealogy research, I sometimes felt that I was being led or otherwise drawn to pursue certain research paths or to focus on certain people. My initial research focused on my husband’s family because they had been slaves in Texas counties within driving distance to where we lived. The lives and stories of three women on his family, Iris Temple and her daughter Easter Temple Rivers Hadden as well as Iris’ great granddaughter Cassie Martinez continually beckoned me to keep digging out their stories. I drove to El Maton and Wilson’s Creek in Matagorda County. I’d read that Wilson’s Creek had been used to move goods to and from Palacious Bay. When I saw it 2001, it was a mere gully. Along its banks was the Moore/Deadrick Family Cemetery. The St. Mary Baptist Church that the family once attended had been relocated to a nearby lot. I walked the land where Iris once lived and along Wilson’s Creek where Easter was recounted to love to fish in the evenings. Cassie was born there and attended school there through the age of sixteen. The surrounding area was quiet and peaceful, filled with the sounds of birds chirping and squawking and of cows mooing. The Temple, Moore and Rivers men had been mostly cattlemen and not primarily farmers. The family has a photo of a young Cassie sitting on a coral fence. I could feel a connection to the place and to the people who once lived and walked that land.

As I research my Louisiana ancestors, I’ve been attempting to walk where they’ve walked. The homes that both my grandparents built still stand. I have memories of using washboards and wringer washing machines and of hanging out the wash on clotheslines. I can almost see my grandmother Josephine standing at the kitchen door looking out and smiling her little crooked smile. I can smell the honeysuckle that grew in the lot between their home and the Pentecostal church on the corner. When I close my eyes, I can see yellow day lilies and liriope grass with its purple flower stalks that lined my paternal grandparent’s front walkway or the crepe myrtle and Rose of Sharon trees beside the carport. I can see the laugh-lines that creased my maternal grandfather’s face and hear faintly my grandmother Sarah saying, ‘Oh, Preston!’ When I think of those houses, smells and sounds come to mind. I can almost smell Pine-o-Pine and cedar, Sub Rosa deodorant, Tide washing powder, frying fish or chicken and Stein syrup. The smell of chopped onions, bell peppers and garlic come to mind as do the smells of fig, pear, corn and watermelon rind preserves being cooked. I can almost hear the radio announcer call baseball games with my grandfather talking in the background about how he played as a young man. Sometimes I can hear my grandfather Preston calling out Elijah’s name in his sleep. I can almost hear the whine of my grandmother Sarah’s sewing machine and see her holding the fabric close to her face because of her poor eyesight.

I have memories of my grandparents, but realize I know almost nothing about them. I realized that I don’t know who planted the flowers or trees or under whose direction they were planted or cared for. Both grandfathers built their own homes—how did they know how to do that, who taught them? Sarah was an excellent seamstress and Josephine a phenomenal cook—who taught them? I have walked where my grandparents walked and still have quite clear memories of them. I am still walking in their footsteps and holding on to words and beliefs that they spoke. My grandparents often said the words, “God willing…”

So, I will continue my journey to see what I can find about in whose footsteps my grandparents walked and plan to take a walk myself either intellectually or physically in those footsteps. I know that something I discover will entice or beckon me to keep digging out their stories.

Best,

I began genealogy research in 2000 starting with my husband’s ancestral roots in Matagorda and Wharton County, Texas. I quickly found that the Rivers branch of his family tree included a man born about 1840 by the name of Juan Rios. Juan and freed slave Eliza Moore had several children, who were born in either Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas or Matamoras, Mexico and were recorded on the 1860 U.S. Census living in Brownsville. Charlie Rivers and his siblings, Emily, Archie, Ben, Victor, John and Angela were listed on the 1870 Cameron County, U.S. Census with their mother Eliza Moore. Juan was not included in their household and or any 1870 U.S. Census record.

I wondered what had become of Juan. Charles Rivers was reported to have always told stories about his father being a Spanish soldier. So, I kept looking for Juan. I found him listed on the 1880 Cameron County, Texas census. He was listed as a ‘laborer’ on both the 1860 and 1880 U.S. Censuses. I have not yet found Juan on any census listing for 1900 but he was counted again on the 1910 Census in Brownsville. He was listed as a 76-year-old laborer and widower who worked odd jobs. I obtained Juan Rios’ death certificate. His son, Leonides Rios, was the informant for the death certificate information. He provided the names of Juan’s parents as Pedro Rios and Angela Lasas. He also reported Juan’s occupation as “retired soldier”. Juan’s military service appears to have been a highlight in his life. So much so that both sons, Leonides and Charlie, recounted his service when asked about him.

I obtained Juan’s Civil War pension application and discovered that there was a big controversy in substantiating Juan’s military service. Two men, both named Juan Rios, filed pension applications. Both men claimed to have enlisted while living in Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas. One of the men reported that he had been shipped to Franklin, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana where he fought in a couple of skirmishes. This was quite interesting because my ancestral roots are in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. I joked with my then husband that maybe our ancestors had crossed paths way back then!! This Juan was later determined to have perhaps been an imposter whose actual name was Nabor Rios. Nabor’s family contested his story and said that he had never served in the military. The other man was deemed the true Juan Rios. His testimony was that he’d served as a scout for the Union troops in the Brownsville area and that he had never left Texas while in the Army. So, it seemed that my husband’s and my Louisiana family’s paths had not crossed.

I continued researching my husband’s family tree for the next fifteen years. In 2015 I began to focus on my own Louisiana familial roots. I joked that my husband’s Texas family and my Louisiana family might turn out to be related in some way or another through some distant shared kin. I still had the story about Nabor Rios on my mind.

I’ve recounted in my blog, how I stumbled on my Morgan-Gibson-Riggs roots on John Palfrey’s 1843 St Martin Parish, Louisiana probate and my Guy-Jenkins roots on David Weeks’ 1835 and 1846 St Mary Parish succession records. Research revealed that my Sam and Mima Riggs branches included grandchildren: Moses, William, Charles, Caroline and Sarah Woodlin. Sam, his son Sam and daughter Anna and her children were freed upon Palfrey’s death by his John Gorham Palfrey. Sam Riggs, Sr. elected to remain in Louisiana, but his newly freed grandchildren were shipped to Boston. I found them on the 1850 U.S. Census, living in Ontario County, New York. Additional research revealed that William P. and his brother Moses Woodlin both served in the Union Army during the Civil War. I received William P. Woodlin’s pension application and learned that although he enlisted in Pennsylvania’s 8^th Regiment, Co. G, his actual service was in Brownsville, Texas. He recounted in his pension application that he and fellow soldiers marched from Brazos-de-Santiago to Brownsville, Texas. So, I’d found a Louisiana ancestor, who by way of New York and Pennsylvania had found his way to Texas and may have crossed paths with Juan, Eliza or their children.

My niece Latrice and I visited Calvert County, Maryland in August 2023. While there we did the usual genealogy research stuff—looked up deed and marriage records and visited cemeteries and churches. We also received several research leads from Maryland natives: Beverly Foote and her sister Yvonne, David Buck and Michael Kent. One of those leads helped uncover William “Peter” Kent’s Civil War story. I am not directly related to Peter, but he was the grand-father-in-law of my 3rd great aunt Charity Gross. Charity was my 4^th great grandmother Charlotte Phillips’ daughter who she was forced to leave behind in Calvert County, MD. Seventeen-year-old Charlotte was shipped to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1851 aboard the Baroque Virginian.

I requested and received Peter’s Civil War pension file. The 100-page document was a very interesting and ‘entertaining’ read. Peter served in the US Colored Troops, 7^th Regiment that was present in several battles: Chaffin Farm, New Market Heights, the fall of Petersburg, Va and the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. The 7^th was later shipped to Indianola, Texas. Indianola is in Calhoun County, a neighboring county to Matagorda County which is where my former husband’s family lived. Peter eventually travelled to Matagorda County where he met and later married Rhoda Woodkins. Albert Gantt testified for Peter’s pension application that he’d known Peter since boyhood and that his cousin Basil Kell had served in the 7^th Regiment with Peter and had witnessed Peter’s marriage to Rhoda in October 1865. Gantt recounted Basil Kell’s story of how both he Basil, and Peter both dated Rhoda and how Basil fell in love with her only to learn that she preferred Peter. Basil reportedly held a gun on Peter to ensure that he carried through with his marriage to Rhoda. Yes, a truly entertaining story!

In any case, Peter and Rhoda were married in St John’s Methodist Church in Matagorda County. The church is located in the town of Matagorda on a little peninsula in Palacios Bay. When I read that I thought, ‘hey I visited that church back in 2003’! My husband’ s 2nd great uncle Anthony Moore’s mother Hester had attended that church and sat in the ‘Colored’ section while a slave. His 3^rd great grandmother Missouri Hayes had lived within blocks of that church until 1889 or so. I don’t know if she or any of her children attended the church back in the 1860s, but they were definitely in the vicinity. I also don’t know if Peter was ever on the mainland of Matagorda, but he was in the vicinity.

Peter Kent and Missouri or her children: Isham, Sherman, Emily or Minnie Hayes may have crossed paths with Peter. Did they know one another, did they speak to each other or simply nod as they passed one another on the streets of Matagorda? Who knows?

I don’t know why I continue to be surprised as I find instances where family members paths have crossed throughout time. I would love to know if conversations or friendships, however brief, accompanied those path crossing encounters! I most likely will never know, but hopefully I’ll makeup a story and write it all out one day! Who knows?

Best,

P.S.

I obtained 75 more pages of Peter Kent’s military pension file and learned more information on his life before and after slavery. And out of the blue, just because, I got a message from an almost DNA cousin, Shelby Evans. I say almost cousins because she and my mother don’t share any DNA, but they match people who match each other. Shelby had obtained the pension file for her Calvert County ancestor who served in the Civil War and found Peter Kent’s name mentioned. I reviewed Peter’s pension file and noticed that her ancestor was a reference for Peter. So, she and I swapped pension files and didn’t have to pay the fee and then wait for 4 months. And while I thought the original story about Peter and Rhoda was crazy, the details in what Shelby provided were ‘chock-full-of-wows’. Who knew reading pension files could be so interesting??

Genealogy research uncovers so much unknown history. I learned that many Maryland slaves escaped and/or were taken aboard British ships during the War of 1812. Some were shipped to Caribbean Islands, some to Canada and others to Liberia. Who knew?

I learned that approximately 60 other Maryland enslaved men were freed and shipped to Texas during the Civil War. Peter Kent, Thomas Torney, Samuel Key and John Ross were all freed by Basil S. Dixon to serve in the Civil War. Dixon received a bounty of $300 for each man that enlisted. Each man received a ‘premium’ of $2. See Michael Kent’s book, Mulatto: The Black History of Calvert County.

Month: March 2024

Walking in Their Footsteps

Have We Met Before? Unknown Kinship Crossings!