Historical Society Long Beach Cemetery Tour 2018 – Zadie Cannon as Amanda Cleag Photo by Kayte Deioma
In August last year, I received a comment on this blog from Roxanne Padmore of the Historical Society of Long Beach offering me information about the death of Abraham Cleage. Of course I was! We began several months of sharing information and gathering more about Abraham and Amananda who had relocated from Athens, TN to Austin, TX to Los Angeles, CA and finally (for Abraham) Long Beach, CA.
The Historical Society puts on a graveside reenactment at the end of October in Long Beach Municipal Cemetery, where Abraham is buried. Abraham was highlighted in the past but in 2018 they wanted to tell the story from Amanda’s point of view.
After sharing newspaper articles and information from records and speculating, we ordered Abram’s and Amanda’s Civil War Pension files. The information we found there changed the narrative significantly and prompted me to order the pension files for other men who served with Abram Cleage and their widows in Company I, 1st Regiment, United States Colored Heavy Artillery, during the Civil War.
Amanda Cleag received her widow’s pension, commencing May 11, 1908 she received $12 a month. When her pension stopped on her death, August 8, 1921, it was $30 a month.
During her testimony Amanda Cleag was questioned about the signature on her deposition because she could not write. She explained that her granddaughter Avalon signed for her. In this depositon, the notary who took the deposition explains how Avalon came to sign the document.
Deposition E Edmund D. Shooner 25th day of May, 1909 Long Beach, Los Angeles, California
I am 65 years of age. My post office address is No 134 East 2nd St., Long Beach Calif – Occupation, Real Estate and notary public.
I have been a resident of this city for the past six years, and I have been acquainted with this claimant, Amanda Cleag since a short time after the death of her husband, the soldier, Abram Cleag, whom I had known a year or so before his death.
I remember well and distinctly that just about a year ago this claimant came into my office with her niece, Avalon Pierce, and A. J. Orelli and had me execute an application for pension for her and her niece, Avalon Pierce, and A. J. Orelli signed her said pension application as identifying witnesses and her niece, or rather her granddaughter, Avalon pierce, signed claimant’s name to the said pension application; as claimant was unable to write her own name. I personally know that claimant Amanda Cleag, authorized her granddaughter, Avalon Pierce to sign her, Amanda Cleag’s name to that pension application, which I now identify, since you have exhibited that said pension application to me. That entire pension application is in my own handwriting, except the signature of the claimant made by the identifying witnesses, one of whom being the said granddaughter.
I remember well and distinctly that claimant, authorized Avalon Pierce to sign her, claimant’s name to that pension application and if such authorization had not been given to said Avalon Pierce by Amanda Cleage, I would not have officially executed said pension application.
Yes, sir, that is my signature, as notary public to that pension application now before me, sworn to by the claimant at the time, and it is legally correct as far as my knowledge extents in these pension matters; yes claimant acknowledged under oath the contents of her pension application, and authorized her signature to be attached to it by her granddaughter, Avalon pierce and I personally saw the said Avalon Pierce sign the name Amanda Cleag to the said application, and saw her sign her own name as an identifying witness and saw Mr. A. L. Orellie sign his name as an identifying witness, that date May 6, 1908.
From information recently obtained for me from claimant, her granddaughter, Avalon Pierce is dead.
Am not interested The words “since” “not” and “by” interlined before signing.
This has been read to me, I have understood questions and my answers are correctly recorded
Edmund D. Spooner Notary Public Desponent Sworn to and subscribed before me this 25th day of May, 1909
Deposition A Case of Amanda Cleage by Jerry Cleage
I am about 75 years
old, I reckon. I live in Athens, Tennessee.
In slavery I belonged
to David Cleage and Amanda belonged to Alec, David’s brother. I knew Amanda. In
the time of the war she was married to Lou Deadrick and she got a divorce from
him after the war. I knew Lou well; he went from here to Chattanooga several
years ago.
After her separation from Lou Amanda did not marry again here; she soon afterward went away with a white family named Tucker, and I have never seen her since.
With the Tucker family
also went a colored man named Abe Cleage, who had been a soldier – his name was
Abram Cleage.
Abraham had no wife here; he had had no wife here – I knew him and his brothers well. All of his brothers are dead. Abe never came back home and I haven’t known whether he is alive or not of late.
Amanda and Abram were not married when they left here; I don’t know whether they married afterword or not. I think I hear they did. Amanda’s mother lived here and I use to hear about Amanda sometimes through her.
I have lived in this
county all my life. Amanda had only one husband up to the time that she left here.
I have no interest in
this claim for pension. I understood the foregoing as it was read and my
statements are correctly recorded.
On July 22, 1921, Amanda broke her leg, receiving a compound, open, fracture. She was taken to Collins Chapel Hospital in Memphis where she died on August 8, 1921. Her sister Lydia and her husband Charles lived in Memphis. Amanda may have been visiting or may have moved to Memphis to be closer to her sister. Two weeks later her kidneys failed and she was dead at 84 years. Lydia was the informant on the death certificate. Amanda Cleage was buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery on August 9, 1921.
Abram Cleag was 67 years and was born Tennessee. He lived at the current residence in Long Beach four years. In California 30 years. Name of father Jim Hiasse (Hurst), born in Tennessee. Mother name unknown, also born in Tennessee. Note: His mother’s name was Hulda Hurst. I got this information from his sister, Katie Cleage’s Pension file. He died April 14, 1908 at 6:30 AM of acute indigestion and heart failure and was buried at Signal Hill on April 16, 1908.
The informant was his wife, Amanda Cleag Long Beach California
From my drafts. A letter stating that no marriage record was found for Abram and Amanda Cleag.
Click to enlarge. There was no information on page 2.
Department of the Interior Bureau of Pensions
Washington, D.C. Atlanta, GA., July 2, 1909
Sir:
With this report are returned the papers in claim No. 893, 806, of Amanda Cleag, as widow of Abram Cleag, Co. 1, 1st U.C. Colored Heavy Artillery, referred to this division to determine whether the declaration filed May 11, 1898 was legally excuted and whether the claimant is the legal widow of the soldier. The case was received in this district, with right to notice waived, for testimony “as to lawful widow”.
The surname of the soldier is written Cleage in McMinn County, Tennessee.
The claimant was divorced from one Lon Deaderick in December 1867. See exhibit A and on Deaderick apparently was her only husband up to the time that she permanently left McMinn County. I searched the entries in the marriage records of McMinn County for December 186 and for the years 1868 and 1869 and I failed to find the claimants name as Armstrong, Cleage or Deaderick. I failed to find the soldiers name in the said records for the period from the year 1865 to the year 1870. And it appears that this soldier had no wife before he left McMinn County with the claimant.
I searched the indexes of the marriage records on file in the office of the County Clerk of Hamilton County, Tennessee, covering the period from the year 1865 to the year 1870 and I failed to find evidence of the marriage of the claimant to the soldier. Lon Deaderick (deposition D) has testified that he knows that the claimant was not married to the soldier as they passed through Chattanooga on their way to Texas, as the train on which they traveled did not make a longer stop than 10 minutes in Chattanooga.
Sarah Morrison (deposition B) has testified that she is about 102 years old. She is strong physically and mentally and her memory apparently is very good.
The several persons whose testimony I have taken in this case, with the exception of Lon Deaderick, are mulattoes; they are very fairly intelligent are of good reputation. Deaderick, I think, may be rated fair.
From my unpublished drafts. Abram Cleag’s doctor describes his condition.
Click to enlarge
Physician’s Affidavit Los Angeles, California 7 October 1893
I first became acquainted with claimant in summer of 1892 when called to see professionally a member of his family, sometimes in fall of same year. I was called upon to treat claimant, who was suffering from a severe attack of lumbago and was wholly unable to labor and without help unable to turn himself as bed.
In addition he has laryngitis and bronchitis. I should think of long standing.
Ever since I have known him I have never considered him a man able to perform hard manual labor, but necessity compels him to labor when he can.
In my opinion I should think that he is ½ incapacitated.
Another from the drafts folder. More testimony for Amanda Cleag’s Widow’s Pension hearing. His wife testified here Rented Land.
Los Angeles County in 1888
“Pomona, South Pasadena and Compton are incorporated as cities. Long Beach is also incorporated for the first time, but is disincorporated years later in 1897 (but then reincorporated before the end of that year). Heavy floods occur. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce is established at a meeting of the city’s principal boosters. Los Angeles Times publisher, Harrison Gray Otis, makes the motion. A small African American community forms in Los Angeles, initially centered around First and Los Angeles Streets. Occidental College is founded in Eagle Rock.” Click on map to go to page.
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Deposition C in Amanda Cleag’s Widow’s Pension Claim
Mason Davis I am 57 My address is: 1239 Birch Street, Los Angeles California Occupation: Express man
I have been living in Los Angeles for about 21 years and I
lived in and around Austin, Texas, for 20 years before coming here to reside.
I first became acquainted with Abram Cleag and his wife
Amanda Cleag when they first came to Dr. Phillip’s plantation, near Austin,
Texas, all of forty years ago, and I knew them in and around Austin, Texas for
all of 20 years, and I knew them as long here in California. They came here a
little ahead of me and my wife, from Austin, Texas.
When they first came to Dr. Phillips plantation, they were a
young looking married couple, and said they had come from San Marcos, Texas, where
they had gone from Athens, Tenn. with the Tucker family, and that the Tucker
family had gone into the state of Virginia to live.
No, I do not know how long Abram Cleag and Amanda Cleag had
been married before they came to Dr. Phillip’s plantation, and I don’t
recollect that they ever told me where they had gotten married, but Abram Cleag
told me that he had been in the army during the civil war, and after he came
here he got a pension for his army service.
I know personally, however that Abram Cleag and Amanda Cleag
always lived together as man and wife all the time I was associated with them
in Texas for 20 years, and that they lived as man and wife all the time here in
California up to the time of Abram Cleag’s death in Long Beach, Calif., about a
year ago. Yes, sir, I attended his funeral in Long Beach, and saw him dead. My
wife and I used to visit the Cleags in Long Beach, and have styed at his home
for a week at the time.
I personally know that Amanda Cleag, this claimant for
pension has not remarried since the death of her husband, Abram Cleag, and that
she has had to work to support herself.
Yes, I know of my own knowledge that Abram Cleag and Amanda
Cleag always lived together as man and wife, never being separated or divorced,
during all the 40 or more years I knew them up to the time of Abram Cleag’s
death, and that they were known and recognized as man and wife by all who know
them both in Texas and California. I also know that the Cleags had two children
born to them, but none of them are alive. She had a granddaughter, Avalon
Price, with whom she lived in Long Beach, after the death of her husband Abram,
but that granddaughter died recently and Amanda is now alone in the world. She has no relations alive that I know of,
and I don’t know that Abram Cleag has any living relatives.
Question: Had Abram Cleag been married before his marriage
to Amanda Cleage, this claimant for pension, as you may have heard?
Answer: I never heard that he had been married before his
marriage to Amanda, and he never told me that he had been.
Question: Had Amanda, the claimant been married before her
marriage to Abram Cleag, the soldier?
Answer: Not that I know of. I never heard it said by either
of them that Amanda had been married before her marriage to Abram Cleag. If
either one of them had ever been previously married, I never heard of it.
It is my understanding that they had grown up in Tennessee,
but I never met anyone who knew them there.
No, I never heard that Amanda Cleag had been married to a
Lou Dedrick, from whom she was divorced before her marriage to Abram Cleag. I
can’t hardly believe that, as she was a young woman when I got to know her in
Texas.
I know for sure, however, that they always lived together as
man and wife all the years I knew them, and that they were never separated or
divorced.
Yes, that is my signature to that joint affidavit shown me.
No, I can’t fix the date any better that I have done to you, when I first got to know the Cleags.
Am not interested nor related. This has been read to me and
I have understood questions, and my answers are correct.
