This is my tenth A to Z Challenge. My first was in 2013, but I missed 2021. This April I am going through the alphabet using snippets about my family through the generations.
Eliza Allen 1840-1917
My 2X great grandmother Eliza Williams Allen was born into slavery on the plantation of Col. Edmund Harrison and his wife Jane Starke Irvin Harrison. Her mother was Ann Williams, a seamstress on the plantation. Who her father was is not known. When the youngest daughter of the Harrison’s, Martha James, married Milton Saffold in 1851, Eliza went with her as a wedding gift. Martha was 18 when she married. Eliza was about 12.
Martha gave birth to three sons before she died in 1856. At 16, Eliza gave birth to Saffold’s daughter in 1856. In 1857, Saffold married Georgia Whiting. Eliza was 17 when Saffold freed her and Mary. In 1860 I found them living, free, on a small farm with Nancy Wiggins and her daughters. I haven’t found a connection between Nancy and Eliza.
Later that year she met Dock Allen when he hid in the barn while escaping from a master known for cruelty and keeping vicious dogs to hunt escapees. Dock and Eliza married. They had 13 children. Eight lived to adulthood. After Freedom, Eliza’s mother, Annie Williams lived with the family until she died in 1898.
Centennial Hill Marker. Click for more information.
Eliza was a seamstress and Dock was a carpenter. Although neither of them were literate, they sent all of the children to school, the oldest through elementary school and the youngest completed two years of college. The family owned their own home in Montgomery’sCentennial Hill Community.
Eliza died on June 22, 1917 at 77 years of age and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery.
Burial place of Dock and Eliza Allen. Oakwood Cemetery, Montgomery, Alabama.
Dock Allen. This photo was in my grandparent’ dining room.
Before the War
Dock Allen was my 2X great grandfather. He was my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather. He was born into slavery about 1839 in Georgia to 19 year old enslaved Matilda Brewster. Eventually he was taken to Alabama. I do not know what happened to his mother.
It had been a wet spring, that 1860 in Dallas County, Alabama. Dock Allen was 21 years old and already a good carpenter. He was a white man’s son, but the man who then held him in slavery was not his father. His owner was known as a cruel man who kept vicious dogs to instill fear in his slaves. He wanted them to be afraid to run. When Dock made up his mind to escape, he had a plan to throw the dogs off of his track. There was a swampy area where wild ramps grew. He rubbed himself with them, poured the water on himself and rolled around in the field so the strong onion odor would hide his own human smell.
He had been running and running. He was bone tired. He could hear the dogs tracking him in the distance when he came to a small farm near Carlowville. He couldn’t go any further. He climbed up into the hay loft, covered himself with hay and lay there barely breathing. The dogs came into the hay room. He could feel their breath as they walked over him, but they didn’t smell him because of the ramps. Eventually they left.
Eliza Williams Allen
This was the same place where Eliza and her small daughter Mary, lived. Eliza had been freed several years before. She lived on the farm of Nancy Morgan. Did Eliza hear the dogs and see Dock stumble into the yard? Did she silently direct him to hide in the hay?
For unknown reasons Dock decided to give himself up. Nancy sent a message to his master. It wasn’t long before he came to the house. He said that no one had ever out smarted his dogs and that any man who was smart enough to do that deserved to be free and he freed Dock. Dock stayed on that place and he and Eliza married. They stayed together until he died in 1909 at age70.
Reconstruction and After
Dock Allen registered to vote in Montgomery, Alabama in 1867. In 1870 the family appears in the same household with a wealthy white cotton broker and his family. I cannot find the house in the Sanborn Fire Maps so I don’t know if there were two houses on the lot. In 1875 he was again among the voters. Unfortunately Reconstruction came to an end in 1877 when the Union soldiers left the South and black people were once again without a vote for a hundred years.
Dock and Eliza Allen and children.
The Montgomery City Directory starts with 1880, so I am not sure when the family moved into their own house, but from 1880 – 1904 Dock Allen and his growing family owned the house on the corner of Clay and Holt. Dock and Eliza raised nine of the thirteen children born to them to adulthood. There were six girls and three boys. All of them attended State Normal school through the elementary grades and were literate. The youngest daughter completed high school and two additional years there.
I highlighted the house in orange. Daughter Mary and family live next door on Clay in the two story house.
In 1882 the oldest boy Henry drowned in the Alabama River, which was about a block from their home. The third son, Dock Allen Jr. drowned in August 1891 trying to walk the moonlit path from a boat.
After her husband was killed at a barbecue in June 1891, my great grandmother Jennie Virginia moved back to her parent’s house with her two young daughters. My grandmother Jennie was four years old and her younger sister Daisy was two.
His daughter Abbie married a river boat gambler and had two sons. Earl was born in 1896 and Alphonso was born two years later. I don’t know if she ever left home.
1900 Census, she and her two young sons were living in her parents home. Beulah, the youngest child, was still at home. In 1900 there were the four grandchildren (ages 11, 7, 5 & 3), three daughters, Eliza and Dock living in the house at 237 Clay Street. The women were all seamstresses and Doc was a carpenter. Oldest daughter Mary lived next door with her husband and five children. Daughter Anna had moved to Chicago where she was passing for white.
My mother Doris Graham Cleage wrote the following about her mother’s growing up years:
… I know very little about their childhood except that they spent most of it in their Grandfather Allen’s house (which was in Montgomery) because their father died when Mother was about four and Jennie T. had to work to support them. It was a big house, Mother said, with a big porch around two sides and pecan trees in the big backyard. She never used the words “happy” or “unhappy” to describe her childhood and I have the feeling that it was happy on the whole. She told several incidents:
Their Grandfather took care of them while Jennie T. worked and when they were bad, he told Jennie T., who would sometimes spank them. Mother said she told Daisy to cry loudly when Jennie T. spanked them and so make the spanking short and not too hard. She said this worked! (This always surprised me because I never thought of Mother as a person who ever consciously manipulated people. Whenever she told this…and she didn’t mention it until she was in her eighties…she looked very pleased with herself.)
Everyday her Grandfather swept the backyard “smooth as silk” (it was dirt) and told Mother and Daisy not to set foot on it. (I hope this was just part of the yard and they had some space left for play, but I don’t know.) They got spanked with the flat of his saw if they made footprints on it. Mother said they would play on it when he dozed off, not realizing their footprints would give them away.
On Sundays they could do absolutely no work at all. Dinner had to be cooked the day before and could be warmed up. They couldn’t even sew a button on. They all went to the Congregational Church (black, of course) every Sunday morning. In the afternoons, Mother had to read the Bible to her Grandfather who would often doze off during the reading. Mother would get up and play and watch and run back if he seemed to be waking up. I don’t know if he still did carpenter work at this time. Mother said he was a good cabinetmaker and would make furniture for people. I don’t know if this is all he did or if he also built houses or what. But I do know he made cabinets, tables, chairs, beds and whatever.
Changes in 1904
The Montgomery Advertiser, March 28, 1904
James Edward McCall is the oldest son of Ed McCall, for twenty-three years a cook at the Montgomery police station and one of the best known and most respected negroes (sic) in Montgmery. Ed McCall was owned by W.T. McCall of Lowndes County. His aged master is still living on the old plantation and he has no truer friend or more devoted servant than Ed McCall. The mother of the young poet was Mary Allen, daughter of Doc Allen, for many years a well to do negro (sic) carpenter of Montgomery. She was owned before the war by the late colonel Edmund Harrison of this county.”
Beulah married in 1901. In 1904 Dock Allen and the family moved to 444 S. Ripley street. Jennie married the following year. She lived several blocks from the house on Ripley street.
Dock lived there for five years before he died on March 29, 1909 of “inflammatory bowels” after an illness of several weeks. His mother is listed as Matilda Brewster on his death certificate. No father is listed. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery.
I would like to find information about a runaway matching his description in the Dallas/Lowndes county area around 1860.
I found this information in records on Ancestry and elsewhere, newspaper articles in the Montgomery Advertiser, Sanborn Maps and oral history from family members.
My grandfather Mershell C. Graham was born in Coosada Station, Elmore County around 1886. He was not given a middle name. He picked “Cunningham” as an adult. His father farmed. He had a sister and several brothers. At some point the brothers all left for the city, leaving their sister Annie, who stayed in Elmore County for her entire life.
The two older brothers, William and Crawford disappeared into the unknown after the 1880 Census. My grandfather left for nearby Montgomery and from there to Detroit. Jacob died young. Abraham moved first to Nashville, Tennessee and then to Cleveland Ohio, where he died in 1948 of tuberculosis.
The 1910 Unitd States Census is the first census that my grandfather Mershell (Shell) Graham appears in. Twenty-two year old Shell worked at a railroad repair shop in Waycross Georgia. He was boarding with Irwin and Mary Warren and their three daughters. The Warrens owned their home free of mortgage. Irwin Warren worked as a car inspector for the railroad. Mary Warren did not work outside the home. She had birthed four children and three were living. The daughters, ages 18,15 and 7, attended school. Everyone in the household was literate and identified as black. Below is the household with Mershell Graham at the bottom as a border.
1910 Census form. Click to enlarge.
“Waycross began as a crossroads for southeastern travel. We were first a hub for stagecoach traffic, and then became a center for the railroad when it laid its tracks in the mid 1800’s. As the Plant System Railroad started to grow, so did the town surrounding it.” Waycross Facts
Mershell was close friends with Clifton John Graham, who was not a blood relative. He lived with the family for five or six years before migrating to Detroit. My grandmother referred to Mary Graham, Cliff’s mother as her mother-in-law. Cliff came to Detroit at around the same time as my grandfather
Joseph Graham. Born Dec. 25, 1850. Died Dec 9, 1909. He is not dead but sleepeth.
Death of friend Cliff’s father Joseph L Graham(1853–1910) December 28 1909. Montgomery, Alabama, USA
Cliff’s father Joseph Graham, his mother Mary, sister Mattie, Cliff. 715 S. Union Street, Montgomery.
Age 24 — In 1912 Mershell Graham lived at 715 Union Street. This was his close friend, John Clifton Graham’s family’s home. My grandfather was a waiter and Cliff was a bartender. Also living in the house were Cliff’s widowed mother Mary and his sister Mattie.
The asterisk in front of a name meant that they were black. The dots were added by me. (m) means married. (wid) means widow. The letter “h” before the address means “house”. The letter “b” before the address means boards. The Grahams that are not marked, are not in the household with my grandfather Mershell.
1912 Montgomery City Directory
My grandfather Shell’s brother Jacob was three years younger. Jacob died from TB at age 21, on June 30, 1913 in Montgomery County at the Fresh Air Camp. The Fresh Air Camp was set up to try and give health to those with TB.
Death Certificate for Jacob Graham
224 Tuscaloosa Street. Mershell on the railing, Mary in the rocking chair and Clifton seated on the steps.
In 1914 my grandfather was 26. The Graham’s had moved from Union street to 224 Tuscalousa. Mary Grham was working as a cook. Clifton and Mershell were both bartending. Mattie was a teacher.
1914 Montgomery City Directory
Clifton GrahamMattie GrahamThe Graham’s with chickens & friend
Age 27 – Residence 1915 • Montgomery, 224 Tuscaloosa bartender
1915 Montgomery City Directory
In 1916 my grandfather was living with the Grahams at 224 Tuscalousa. His employment is listed as “Farmer.” Clifton is now a funeral dirrector, Mary is a widow and Mattie is no longer in the home, she was studying nursing in Kansas City.
Mattie Graham in her nurses outfit in Kansas City.1916 Montgomery City Directory
By late 1916, early 1917 my grandfather had made the move to Detroit. He received a letter dated February 16, 1917 from Seligman & Marx at 293 Catherine Street. Catherine Street was located in Detroit’s Black Bottom.
Other posts about Mershell C Graham going to Detroit
Witherspoon Presbyterian Church Congregation, Indianapolis, Indiana about 1909. My paternal grandparents are in the backrow, 3rd and 4th from right. Also included are my grandfather’s brothers (next to him) and his brother in law 5th from the left.
“It’s as if somehow a groundwork has already been laid and is continually being laid, and all that we have to do is share information with one another and then the connexions would be revealed.” Paul Lee June 8, 2009
I have found this to be so true while building my family history. Three of the photographs below were from my collection. The rest are from cousins in various branches of my extended family. I met them through sharing information on my Ancestry tree; my DNA; Facebook and this blog. Along with photos, I also received information that helped build the family story.
Joe Jackson, Mershell nephewMy grandfather Mershell GrahamAnnie Graham, Mershell’s sisterEliza Allen, Fannie’s grandmotherGrandmother Fannie Mae Turner Mary Allen McCall, Fannie’s auntSarah Jane Ray Primus, Pearl’s auntGrandmother Pearl Reed CleageLouise Reed Shoemaker, Pearl’s sister
Left to right: Albert, Josephine, Edward. Back L Henry, back R JacobGrandfather Albert Buford CleageJosephine Cleage – Albert’s sister
For more information about the people in the photographs, follow these links
I recently received some family information from one of my granddaughters. I’ve been using the information to see what I can find out. I have not done any research in New Orleans, LA before.
“My great grandmother was born on 2/26/24. Her mother whose first name was Agnes passed away at 18 or 19 due to Tuberculosis. At the time her mother passed, my great grandmother was only four months old. Her fathers name was Joseph Robinson and he passed away when she was twelve or thirteen. She had an older sister whose name was Irene who was approximately thirteen months older. Their mother, Agnes and their father, Joseph married when Agnes was 16 and Joseph was 21.”
I found two marriage records for Grace Robinson. In both, her parent’s were given as father, Joseph Robinson and mother, Agnes McGee. Grace’s birthdate was given as about 1922 in one and about 1924 in the other.
Next, I looked for a marriage license for Agnes McGee and Joseph Robinson. I found their marriage license on Family Search. The actual document was available for viewing and that was great because there is information on it that wasn’t available in the index on Ancestry.
In addition to finding that Joseph Robinson married Agnes on Dec. 11, 1922 in New Orleans, I also found that Agnes maiden name was McGhee and that she was born in New Orleans. Joseph Robinson was born in Jefferson, LA. His occupation was mail service. Was he working as a postman or a delivery man? Both sets of parent’s names were listed, taking the known information back a generation. All of the parents were dead by this date and guardians give permission for their marriage. Agnes’ guardian was Walter Prentiss, her mother’s brother and Agnes’ uncle. I have not found a relationship for Charles J. Sylvester.
Avalon Pierce was the granddaughter of Abram and Amanda Cleag. Her mother was their daughter, Sarah Idena Cleag Pierce. After her parents troubled marriage ended in divorce, Avalon was raised by her grandparents. She attended school and was literate. She signed her grandmother’s pension application because Amanda could not write.
Six months after her grandfather’s death, Avalon died of Pulmonary tuberculosis, on a Tuesday morning at home. She was about fifteen years old.
Avalon is buried next to her grandfather Abram.
In 2019 the Historical Society of Long Beach, CA, Avalon Pierce, granddaughter of Abram and Amanda Cleag, was brought to life by Tori-Ann Hampton. Above she tells her story as found in various records, newspaper articles and speculations.
Amanda’s sister Liddie helped her during her injury, hospitalization and handled the burial details. She wrote to the government to be reimbursed for the money she had spent. She did receive it.
Click to enlargeClick to enlarge
Application for Reimbursement
State of Tennessee County of Shelby
On this 18 day of Oct 1921
Liddie Glass, age 67 years, a resident of Memphis county of
Shelby, state of Tennessee, who, being duly sworn according to law, makes the
following declaration in order to obtain reimbursement from the accrued pension
for expenses paid (or obligation incurred) in the last sickness and burial of
Amanda Cleag, who was a pensioner of the United States by certificate No.
686390 on account of the service of Abram Cleag private in Co. I 1 Reg U. S. Col
vol H. A.
That pension was last paid to May 4, 1921 Was in hospital on August, 4 not at home and couldn’t return it.
1. What was the full name of deceased pensioner? Amanda
Cleag
2. In what capacity was deceased pension? Widow
3 If deceasent was pensioned as an invalid soldier or sailor
– No
a. Was s/he ever married? yes b. How many times and to whom? Abram Cleag. Once. c. If married, did his wife survive him? Yes
4. Was there insurance? No
14. Did the deceased
pensioner leave any money, real estate or personal property? No.
18. Did pensioner leave an unendorsed pension check? No
19. What was your relation to the deceased pensioner? Sister
20. Are you married? Yes
21 What was the cause of pensioner’s death? Fracture of left
leg.
22. When did the pensioner’s last sickness begin? 7/22 – 1921
26. Where did the pensioner live during last sickness?
Collins Chapel Hospital
27. Where did the pensioner die? At the hospital
28. When did the pensioner die? August the 9, 1921
29. Where was the pensioner buried? Mount Zion Cemetery
30. Has there been paid, or will application be made for
payment to you or any other person, any part of the expenses of the pensioner’s
las sickness and burial by any State, County, or municipal corporation? No
31. State below expenses
W.S. Martin physician – not paid $112.50 Medicine none Nursing care none McCoy & Joyner Undertaker – not paid $74.00 Livery none Cemetery $12.00 Other expenses none
Total $198. 50
32. Is the above a complete list of all the expenses of the
last sickness and burial of the deceased pensioner? Yes
Sallie Bradd Fannie Scruggs Liddie (her X mark) Glass Statement of doctor Reimbursement Claimant Liddie Glass Pensioner Amanda Cleag Widow Rate $30. Last paid to June 4, 1921 at $30 Last illness commenced July 22, 1921 Date of death August 9, 1921 Accrued pension $66 Physicians bill $112.50 Undertakers bill $74.00 Total $186.00
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
